Practical Practices and Programmatic Literacy
The second section of this book, “Developing Reading and Writing Strategies for Multiple Contexts,” contains eight chapters focusing upon ways to specifically implement responsive literacy instructional practices in various subject areas and classrooms. The purpose of this section is to provide the reader with an assortment of problem areas within literacy instruction and to address each of these practically and independently to display the theoretical commonalities that unite them. This section discusses instructional practices for English, mathematics, humanities, and science courses, while addressing students who are older or younger, struggling or more adept. Regardless of the content, the contributors explain that all educators are attempting to scaffold their students into the professional and academic discourses of their respective fields. Discount Merrell Shoes
In “Fostering Acquisition of Official Mathematics Language,” Condruta Temple discusses a mathematics teacher who worked to help students create language to discuss mathematical concepts more clearly. In this case study, Temple explains that the classroom teacher taught students to work with mathematical concepts such as slope through the use of line equations and then asked the students to develop definitions of these terms based upon their earlier work. After these definitions were complete, the teacher had the students apply them in various contexts, eventually formulating new equations based upon their definitions. By allowing the students to engage in the creation of the mathematical language in her classroom, this teacher not only guided them into this academic discourse, but also helped them “close the loop between the particular and the general, and in this case, the concrete and the abstract expressions of the key concept” (p. 242). Such strategies help students develop as writers and readers.
Though not all classes can develop all the strategies a reader needs to develop, Heather Sheridan-Thomas displays an approach that can be used across contexts in “Assisting Struggling Readers with Textbook Comprehension.” Sheridan-Thomas explains that it is difficult for any one content area teacher to provide enough practice opportunities for each reading strategy to allow struggling readers to become independent strategy users. However, if teachers across content ar?eas can agree to use a small set of target strategies, students can get enough cumulative practice to make the strategies stick In an environment with school-wide approaches to reading instruction, adolescents can become accustomed to using similar approaches and developing their abilities to enter into academic discourses in all of their classes.
The third section of this book, “Adolescent Literacy Program Issues,” focuses more specifically on ways to develop these schoolwide approaches. This section contains six chapters written by such esteemed contributors to the field of literacy instruction as Nancy Frey, Douglas Fisher, and David Moore and discusses programmatic problem areas such as assessment, standards, and ineffective professional development, while continuing the book’s focus on responsive literacy instruction in a wide variety of environments. The chapters focus on the needs to differentiate instruction for learners with disabilities, to individualize assessment for all students to authentically determine what areas each student requires assistance within, and to engage students with histories of failure. Though this section is directed more specifically toward an audience of school leaders -who recognize the need for schoolwide change in literacy instruction, the chapters are written to be practically valuable to classroom teachers as well. Merrell Shoes
One of the most powerful chapters contained within this book, “Program Development,” is in this third section, representing the oeuvre of Professor David Moore, who co chaired the commission for adolescent literacy for the International Reading Association (IRA) from 2000 to 2004. In this chapter, Moore begins by providing a background of intervention materials used to develop programs for academic literacy at secondary schools. Moore goes on to describe the common characteristics to be found in all of these programs, emphasizing that they are “not meant to comprise a grab-bag of rainy day activities; they are meant to serve as a principled approach toward validated instructional practices” (p. 326). After displaying the five key components of effective literacy programs: (1) direction, (2) resources, (3) professional development communities, (4) responsiveness to students, and (5) monitoring for continuous improvement, Moore speaks briefly to the value of such programs implemented on a schoolwide level, adapted to each classroom, and differentiated to each student. Finally, he discusses the fact that these programs “are characterized by schoolwide cultures that enhance the literacies of all youth” (p. 335). Though the third section of this text is arguably the richest in terms of the quality of the content, Moore’s chapter deserves central focus as one of the most lucid and comprehensive discussions of secondary literacy programs to date.
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