Draper et. al, Reflection on Literacy in the Content Areas

According to Draper and Siebert, “when literacy advocates have pushed for content area teachers to use reading strategies in their classes, many teachers claim they lack the time and expertise to teach reading and writing, and that such teaching should be left to the language arts teachers.” The first two chapters from Draper and Siebert were enlightening. I am the 8^th grade reading and language arts teacher, at my school, students are reading 3-5 years below grade level. My biggest frustration has been the instruction in content area courses. The content area textbooks are grade level texts, written in academic language far above the comprehension level of my students. Additionally, content area teachers are provided little data on their students reading levels. Furthermore, content area teachers receive very little training in reading strategies that would help our students comprehend the grade level text. My students reading far below grade level, struggle the most in their content area classes because they cannot comprehend the text, making it harder for them to grasp concepts. Additionally, this makes content level FCAT exams impossible for non-proficient students.

I have always advocated for the use of reading strategies in content level courses. In previous years at my school I have shared reading data with the content level teachers, explaining the correlation between reading proficiency and success in content level courses. I have even shared a few strategies that I thought would be helpful. However, after reading Draper and Siebert chapter 1 and 2 it is clear that my students need for me to do much more than just share a few reading strategies. Literacy teachers and content area teachers need to collaborate. Each discipline needs to value the strength of the other. The teachers need to create aims together and have a shared focus.  Also, content area teachers need training in how to infuse these strategies, rather than to just be given a list with no modeling or training in how to use them. Literacy teachers and content areas have the same goal, educating our students, and doing our best to produce productive successful members of society, in order to do so we must come together to figure out the best way to do so. This is essential in a school that has a large population of struggling readers.