Embedding Apprenticeship Strategies in Subject Area Classrooms

According to Schoenbach (1999) the Reading Apprenticeship approach has been successful when, "In the process of integrating new approaches to teaching reading, these teachers came to understand that helping students become more independent, critical readers of subject area texts is not a diversion from real teaching. Rather it is essential to students' understanding of curriculum content. 

History teachers should not only ask their students, "What did you find out in your reading?" but also "How did you figure that out?" "How did you get that idea?" and "How did you reach that conclusion?" (Schoenbach, 1999, p. 118).  The history teacher mentioned in this book..."introduced the process of being metacognitive about reading by putting a text up on the overhead projector and then 'thinking on paper' as she read, making her own reading process visible to her students.  Thereafter, she had students think on paper as they read these back-ground materials-writing notes in the margins about what they were thinking, questioning, or not understanding. Afterward, students usually met in groups of four to share their reading processes and to clarify vocabulary, ideas, and responses to the text. In full class discussion the teacher then continued the think-aloud by having students question her about the reading" (p. 118). 

Helping students find reasons to read is extremely important.  Without a legitimate reason to read many students will fail to see the importance of reading and fail to learn to read and will struggle with reading to learn.  Many teachers have attempted literature circles and the teacher either likes them or doesn't.  This book recommends literature circles as a method of teaching reading and a clear example of how to set this up so that it doesn't drive the teacher crazy.

Making the reading process safe and visible is very important in guiding the understanding of students.  Most of the reading process is invisible so some students get lost because they need to see the process. According to Schoenbach (1999), " Many network participants working to develop reading apprenticeships with their students have found that teacher think-alouds serve two important purposes.  In addition to making teachers' formerly invisible reading processes visible to students, the think-alouds make it safe for students to take risks in the classroom community.  After all if the teacher - the master reader - is willing to reveal his or her own confusion about a text, a student who feels confused won't feel so alone.  More important, students will begin to see confusion is a natural state of being for all readers at various points in their reading experience" (p. 123).

In my classroom I never pretend to know everything.  I was fortunate to have a mentor teacher who taught me that I am only human, and there is no possible way for me to know it all, so with that said I learned to demonstrate the processes of thinking or figuring out what I don't know to my students.  The answer is never simply "I don't know.", but it is always "I don't know, lets figure it out."

Building Context, Text, and Disciplinary Knowledge

Every teacher knows that prior knowledge is essential in order for students to connect to the new information they are learning.  I learned a strategy in my ESL training called Realia.  This is an attempt for teachers to build background knowledge when it doesn't exist in order to give students a greater chance to succeed.  For example during my ESL summer institute my co teachers and I created an thematic unit about desserts.  We live in the dessert so some students have a pretty good idea about what a dessert is however, it gets cold here and we have mountains.  It is not the typical desert you think of when talking about deserts.  In order to bring Realia into the classroom you bring in all 5 senses.   The students need to see, hear, taste, touch and smell.  We created 3D models that looked like a desert, they had animals that would live in a desert as well as plants, and dirt.  Students ate cooked cactus, and looked at pictures and small models  or real life things that would be in a desert.  In the book they explored prior knowledge and the importance of it.  They even went as far as discussing what prior knowledge was expected in certain text.  This made them the reader more aware of what they were reading and who the audience was intended for.  If they didn't have prior knowledge about a topic the discussions with the classroom helped.

Not only is content knowledge important, the knowledge about the way text is set up is even more important so that the reader can easily follow what is being read.  Schoenbach used several strategies with her students in order to help them understand the importance of prior knowledge.  One strategy she used was Ambiguous headlines.  The model is as follows: (Schoenbach, 1999, p.101)

Materials

Newspaper headlines that can be interpreted in more than one way (for example: "Police Begin Campaign to Run Down Jaywalkers," "Safety Experts Say School Bus Passengers Should be Belted," "Two Sisters Reunited After 18 Years in Checkout Counter," "Kids Make Nutritious Snacks," "New Vaccine may Contain Rabies," "Killer Sentenced to Die for Second Time in 10 Years," and "Miners Refuse to Work After Death").

Procedure

-Have students copy down an ambiguous headline.

-Ask them to write what they believe to be an improbable but plausible explanation based on a literal reading of the words. 

-Ask them to write what they believe to be the correct explanation of what it means.

-Ask them to write an explanation of the schema necessary to understand the correct meaning.

This entire chapter is made up of activities that would work in the classroom in order to help build knowledge.  Some activities include: Give one, Get One, Cloze Passages, Survival Words, Trees (Graphic Organizers), and New Portfolio Project.  I wish I could type all of the strategies out so that you could use them in your classroom.  I will be using many of these strategies in my classroom.

Acquiring Cognitive Tools for Reading part 2

Two blogs ago I discussed RT.  I mentioned that I would be talking more about this.  Every teacher knows of the importance in the four components of RT.  But what is important is the way each component is taught and internalized by the students.  According to Schoenbach (1999), "RT is a process that helps students monitor their reading comprehension and practice and internalize four cognitive strategies known to be key parts of the repertoire of proficient readers: questioning, summarizing, predicting, and clarifying" (p. 79).  When it comes to reading most of what goes on is invisible, or difficult for students to see.  "RT makes the invisible visible by explicitly teachign students to carry out the critical cognitive strategies proficient readers use for problem solving", as stated by Schoenbach (1999, p. 80)

Students should practice questioning.  Questioning is the most important process in the four components of RT.  Once they are able to question they will begin to learn to summarize.  students will need lots of practice summarizing text, or putting into their own words.  They should use key words such as first, the, and finally.  Next students will predict text.  A good way to get students to understand predicting is to think of the weather.  The weather man doesn't guess at the weather, he uses information and clues in order to make a good judgment call.  so a prediction is not just a guess, it is a judgment call based on what else is happening in the text.  Next students will learn to clarify.  Clarifying text means making it more clear by using meaning making strategies to better understand the text.  All of these components of RT take practice and don't come automatically.  (Schoenbach, 1999, pp.80-94)

Students need to lead their own learning.  When they are able to think about their own learning they will be able to better understand where they are struggling or succeeding and what they need to do to improve.  One great strategy is for students to chunk.  I have heard of chunking when learning words for early education, but I had not heard of chunking for upper grades.  In this book chunking refers to breaking down the text into smaller chunks to make meaning of individual parts then putting it all together.  A good analogy that this book by Schoenbach (1999) uses to teach students to chunk is about pizza:  "Even if you're really hungry...you can't eat a whole pizza at once.  You have to eat it a little bit at a time, in slices.  Understanding text is similar to eating pizza: though you may want to read a large amount at once, you may not be able to understand it unless you take it in bits and pieces. Depending on the type of text you're reading, you may be able to understand a lot at once or only a little at once" (p. 95).  Most kids like pizza, so I think this is a great analogy.  Students can understand the importance of taking once slice of text at a time.

Acquiring Cognitive Tools for Reading

Reading should be thought of as problem solving.  It is important for students to practice summarizing in class.  According to Schoenbach (1999), "Through repeated cycles of guided individual and group practice, students gained the facility to use each new strategy with increasingly challenging texts" (p. 76).  Teaching a think aloud process when reading will help improve students thought process during reading and help them to become more focused, and more fluent. 

According to Schoenbach (1999), Teaching the think aloud process looks like the following: (pp 77-78)

Purpose

The think aloud process helps students practice the mental activities, or strategies, engaged in by good readers.  It helps them focus on comprehension, and it helps the teacher know when and how students' comprehension goes awry.

Initial Procedure

-Demonstrate the process of using the following types of think-aloud statements while reading a passage you have not seen before to the class.

Types of Think-Alouds

Predicting

I predict.....

In the next part I think......

I think this is............

Picturing

I picture...

I can see...

Making connections

This is like a .....

This reminds me of....

Identifying a problem

I got confused when....

I'm not sure of...

I didn't expect...

Using fix-ups

I think I'll have to (reread, or take some other action to help comprehension)

Maybe I'll need to (read on, or persevere in some other way)

-After a few demonstrations, ask students to use a checklist to identify your think-alouds.

Think-aloud checklist

Make a tally mark each time you hear one of the following:

Predicting

Picturing

Making Connections

Identifying problems

Using fix-ups

Other

-Go over the checklists with the class

Scaffolded Practice Procedure

-Paired reading. After students have a few opportunities to listen to your modeling of think-alouds and to identify them using the checklist, have students practice think-alouds with a partner.  Each student should read a passage, pausing to make think-aloud statements as his or her partner listens.  You may want to ask listeners to use the checklist, tallying the think-alouds for the reader.

-Thinking silently. After they have several opportunities to work with partners, ask students to practice reading independently, paying attention to their thoughts as they read and using the checklist to tally different types of thinking silently or strategies, they engage in.

-Ongoing assessment. give students time, especially first, to share their self-assessments.  Have a class discussion on what is hard about trying to think aloud as one reads.  Ask students how they went about trying to solve any problems they had.  Finally, ask them to reflect on how using think alouds is affecting them as readers.

Applications of Practice Procedure

Choose your applications depending on your purpose.

-Have students keep a reading folder in which they enter the tallies of their thoughts at various points in the school year.  During grading periods, students can assess their growth as readers, noting any change in the kinds of thinking they do as they read.

-Guide students in discussing the meaning of texts that they have read in pairs or independently using thinking aloud or thinking silently.  This is particularly useful with texts such as primary source documents, scientific reports, essays, and difficult literature, which give readers opportunities to make interments, scientific reports, essays, and difficult literature, which give readers opportunities to make interpretations, draw implications, and link text concepts to other classroom activates.

-Using the think-aloud procedure to demonstrate the different ways proficient readers approach different kinds of texts for different purposes.

There are so many good charts and examples in this book I wish I could put all of them in this blog.  I would recommend reading this book!  Not only will it help student to read better in your content area it will help improve test scores, I really believe this and will be putting these processes into action this year in my classroom.

Motivating Students to Take Control of their Reading

In my social studies classroom reading is extremely important.  It is important that students know how to read textbooks, read primary source documents, as well as know what websites are appropriate or not to use when doing research.  Technology has influenced the way students do research.  They no longer go to the library to check out a book, they pull information up on the web.  This can be helpful at times but it can also be a crutch.  I had one particular student last year that didn't know how to summarize.  He simply wrote what he saw on the internet as his research.  I think most of the time the websites on the internet used for research can be above students reading level.  In order to help students understand what they are reading they need to learn to "tell us what was going on in their minds when they were reading-where they got stuck, what was confusing, what seemed easy and what did not" (Schoenbach, 1999, p. 54).  According to Schoenbach (1999) students, could learn strategies, skills, and habits that would help them become more engaged, fluent, and competent readers.  Once they are more engaged, fluent, and competent readers they will be more easily able to decide what websites are appropriate, and they will be more easily able to see the different viewpoints in which the different text was written.

One of the biggest things students need to learn is that reading happens in our minds.  We need to be thinking about what we are reading while we are reading it.  This is called metacognition.  It is important students learn to ask questions about confusing parts of text and feel comfortable doing so.  According to Schoenbach (1999) some important steps in clarifying confusion while reading include: Ignore the unclear part and read on to see if it gets clearer, reread the unclear part, reread the sentence(s) before the unclear part, and try to connect the unclear par to something you already know.

Students need to learn why reading is important.  Why is it important to others and why is it important to them.  Once students have a belief that reading is important to them, and they enjoy it on some level, students are more likely to become successful at reading to learn.  They also need to have goals for themselves.  If they think school is stupid and there is no point in learning to read they are less likely going to succeed at reading and in life. 

Learning to choose books students like is very important.  According to Schoenbach (1999) students should take a few steps when choosing a book, these include: Read the back of the book to see if it is interesting, find the subject I like to read, ask a friend, look for an author you like, skim through the book-read a few pages, find a book that relates to you (p. 64).  Silent sustained reading can be a very effective tool when helping students change their habits and attitudes towards reading.  Students should be help accountable during SSR time, they should be encouraged to share good books with others, and they should not only log about their book but they should also log about the metacognitive process of reading their book.  Important things to log about are: I got confused when...., I was distracted when....., I started to think about...., I stopped because..., among many others.  When students start to log about the metacognitive process of reading their book, they start to consciously realize what they are doing as readers.  This is a great way for a reader to be able to begin to consciously change reading habits for the better.  A great way to hold them accountable after they have read an AR book is to have them do a project on the book and share it with the class (Schoenbach, 1999, pp. 63-69)

Developing Academic Literacy

The way students feel about reading and how often they read can have a huge impact on test scores.  What is important in creating academic literacy is teaching different types of mental strategies, allowing diverse readers to learn from one another, and it is important that all readers improve their reading skills not only the struggling readers. (pp 47-48)  In order to develop academic literacy there are three things that are important to implement in a classroom according to Schoenbach (1999), short text selections that would (1) portray different views of the role of reading in people's lives; (2) give students practice with a variety of disciplinary readings in, for example, science, history, and literature; and (3) be appropriately challenging, that is, not so  difficult that students could not read them at all but difficult enough so that students would be motivated to use some of the new strategies they were learning" (p. 48). 

According to Schoenbach (1999), It is important to help the students "become engaged, fluent, and competent readers of the various types of texts necessary for their success across disciplines in high school, in postsecondary education, in employment, and in everyday life" (p. 48).  Some important questions, as discussed by Schoenbach (1999),  the students should learn to ask themselves are: What are my characteristics as a reader?, What strategies do I use as I read?, What roles does reading serve in people's personal and public lives?, What roles will reading play in my future education and career goals?, What goals do I want to set and work toward to help myself develop as a reader?

Four units that Schoenbach and other teachers put together to teach academic literacy included Reading and Society, Reading Media, Reading History, and Reading Science and Technology.  In the Reading and Society unit students learned the importance of reading and how to choose books, which helped them to enjoy reading and to become more fluent through an AR program.  In the second unit Reading Media students learned about the different types of text available and for whom they were written,  In the third unit  reading history students learned to read textbooks and primary source documents through their own personal experiences.  The final unit reading Science and Technology students they also learn to read textbooks, use primary sources, as well as learn to understand explanations of natural disasters (Schoenbach, 1999, pp 48-52)

According to Schoenbach (1999), "Key instructional strategies employed in all four of the units are silent sustained reading, reciprocal teaching (RT) and its components (questioning, clarifying, summarizing, and predicting), and explicit instruction in self-monitoring and cognitive strategies that facilitate reading a variety of texts" (p. 52).  I will talk about RT as well as the other strategies in further detail in my next blog. 

Teaching academic literacy is important because not only are students learning to read certain types of texts they are simultaneously reading to learn.  These strategies are extremely important to students in order to help them to succeed in college or other areas of their life.  If they do not properly learn how to read they will not be easily reading to learn if at all.

Reading for Understanding

My book Reading for Understanding by Schoenbach, Greenleaf, Cziko, and Hurwitz starts off by discussing a class of students who are learning to enjoy reading because they are learning how to choose books that they like and how to make sure they are understanding what they are reading (Schoenbach, 1999, p. xv).  The use of these strategies, I believe help young readers to become literate. It is important from a young age for students to enjoy reading.  If they enjoy reading they will continue to reading throughout their life, and I believe will strive to read even the most difficult classroom textbooks.  

Something I keep reading in our class articles as well as other teacher educator books is that Explicit instruction in reading comprehension is important in teaching literacy.  What are these strategies?  According to Schoenbach (1999),  Many middle and high school students have difficultly comprehending expository text.  There is hope for teachers and students alike.  Schoenbach (1999) states, "Reading is a complex process" (p 17); what does this mean for teachers?.  In order to help less proficient readers succeed a teacher should model the reading and thinking process of  a proficient reader (Schoenbach, 1999, p. 21) According to Scheonback (1999), "Four key dimensions of classroom life that are necessary to adolescent reading development" include: Social dimension, Personal dimension, cognitive dimension, and knowledge-building dimension (p 22).  At the center of this concept is metacognition, which is the process of thinking about thinking.  The teacher must model the thinking process and then first make sure that the classroom is a safe environment for students to not only think but show frustrations about the text and ask questions in order to problem solve.  This is considered the Social Dimension (Schoenbach, 1999, pp. 22-27).  Another very important dimension that should be present in the classroom is what Schoenbach calls the Personal Dimension.  In this dimension the students should begin to know and understand what they themselves know as a reader.  They become aware of their strengths and weaknesses in reading.  They learn to think about their own process of reading in order to become more fluent.  Students should write and talk with others about their reading.  In the Cognitive Dimension the students first focus on the big picture, then they break down the big picture to further understand.  They learn to monitor their own understanding and thinking process.  They not only monitor their reading they also should be setting goals and making sure to reach those goals.  The last dimension is the Knowledge-Building Dimension.  In this dimension students share knowledge before reading a topic.  The class brainstorms and puts information together.  Class knowledge is more powerful than the knowledge of one individual.  Students also learn how text is organized, what the authors purpose is, etc in order to help with fluency (Schoenbach, 1999, pp. 28-39). 

I teach Social Studies and believe it is extremely important that I also teach tools, not just content.  These tools include reading and writing.  Students in my class should become more fluent at reading textbooks, reading maps, reading data charts, reading primary documents, etc.  Although I use many strategies from each dimension in my classroom I need to become more explicit in my instruction.  Students should be aware of what they are learning and why.