Putting FACES on the Data: What Great Leaders Do! by Lyn D. Sharratt & Michael Fullan

Author:Lyn D. Sharratt & Michael Fullan [Sharratt, Lyn D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781452283876
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Published: 2012-02-02T23:00:00+00:00

It is critical for teachers (especially in middle and high schools) to find time to discuss and to demonstrate to each other what cross-curricular literacy instruction looks like and then to implement teaching the language of the disciplines and the literacy skills in the content areas across all grades and subject areas. Because the integration of literacy in all subject areas is central, cross-curricular connections must be valued and utilized in support of literacy instruction at all grade levels.

According to PISA statistics (Schleicher, 2011), although 15-year-olds who read fiction are more likely to achieve high scores, it is students who read a wide variety of materials who perform particularly well in reading. To consolidate understanding and embrace metacognition, students need multiple opportunities in multiple ways to share their understanding. We know, for example, that weakness in reading or writing skills provides barriers to success in mathematical problem solving. Thus, teachers must explicitly embed at least one literacy instructional strategy in every content lesson. To do that, all teachers need to know and be able to use strategies to develop vocabulary and comprehension skills—strategies that good readers do naturally. Struggling readers, by contrast, need explicit strategies to help them negotiate texts. Some concrete examples we have seen, at district learning fairs (see Chapter 5), include the following:

Word walls to build the vocabulary of the subject area

Making text-to-text, text-to-self, and text-to-world connections using sticky notes or using highlighters to mark the main ideas

Putting concepts in students’ own words while reading the text

Reading comprehension strategies explicitly taught at all levels using the subject text to model think alouds, inferring, predicting, visualizing, and finding the main idea

Graphic organizers to organize the essential ideas in a text

Strategies to read and navigate the variety of formats used in electronic or printed texts, which can be dense or confusingly busy

Supplementary sources with easier or simplified content if students can’t read the level of the materials used (raising the key question of whether teachers are able to determine the appropriate readability of the printed or electronic resources that they use)

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