Instructional Design Project on Content Reading
Abstract
Reading comprehension and drawing meaning of the text read is vital to the understanding of text in any given subject area whether it is math’s, art, social studies or even music. Content reading is therefore a vital element especially for learners of low academic abilities and those with that are socio-economically deprived neighborhoods. Learners who are exposed to content reading classes are able to know the objectives of reading, activate prior reading knowledge, use their knowledge of text organization, ask themselves questions while reading, evaluate the meaning of what they read, test their deductions, and they also give attention to ideas they read.
Goals for Content Reading
The main essence behind content reading is to help learners read and fully understand expository tests which are characterized by their factual information and multi-syllabic technical words. Another common feature of expository is that they are normally structured in a unique manner that may involve compare-contrast, cause/effect or sequencing. [Literacy matters, 2008]
Content reading helps learners to fully interact with the reading material (text) before, during and after the real reading, before reading learners they put into use their prior reading knowledge, set a purpose and by doing so they anticipate questions they may come across during the real reading. During reading, they make use of word recognition approaches such as structural analysis, syllabication to deduce unfamiliar multi-syllabic words and contextual clues to create a meaning of mechanical words. While in after reading, they reflect, synthesize ideas across sources, and therefore they build insightful interpretations. [Literacy matters, 2008]
Procedure of carrying out content reading (English, reading a story)
“Before reading”
Before reading the teacher should prepare some short notes on the text to be learned, the learners then are given the short noted information and allowed to make a connection to what is to be read, so that when they read they support it or even discount it. This can be done through the previewing of the text using subtitles or headings and then the learners are asked to predict what the text will be about. The teacher can also use flash cards to show the major words and ideas that are to be met in the text, or a simple flow chart to indicate and summarize the text content in a diagrammatic manner; this method can be very useful in text that includes processes. [Strategies for “before, during, and after reading”, 2008]
Further the teacher may identify the broad idea of the text and lead the learners into brainstorming group related words that support the main idea; this will help them to easily understand the text better after the reading.
“During reading”
The real reading stage may require the learners to read as individuals or even as groups or both depending on the time available, here the teacher acts as a supervisor to monitor the progress of the learners who are expected to put into use appropriate interpretation strategies that will enable them read, comprehend the text, and answer questions they had posed in the “before reading phase”, the found answers may be shared aloud for more mastery.
The learners are then taken through a comprehension stimulating activity that involves an interactive dialogue which is initiated by the teacher with the learners taking over gradually. The students are then given a chance to silently read the text and then are given a chance to say something to their partners or those seated next to them, the said thing may be a short summary, or an episode from the text. [Before, during, and after reading strategies, 2008]
“After reading”
The main essence of this phase is to reflect and respond in some way on what has been read from the text, this can be through the asking of comprehension questions or a mini-language lesson may be conducted in a reading lesson to invoke interpretation and evaluation of the text. Students may also be given a short time to list down questions on the text that cuts across all the levels of comprehension i.e. recall, analysis, compare/contrast, inference, and evaluation.
The learners are then guided in the writing of a summary that involves the deleting of unimportant information, classifying information, creating of key ideas, and synthesizing the key ideas. Synthesizing of ideas involves a multiple perspectives depending on the source of the ideas e.g. ideas got from classmates, the text, the teacher or even prior knowledge. When all the perspectives have been revisited the learners are required to synthesize them under the guidance of the teacher. [Mc Alexander & Burrell, 1996]
Audience
The main essence of content reading in content areas of a curriculum is to facilitate an insightful understanding of text read. Far many learners are faced with reading and comprehension difficulties and therefore there is a need to take them through content reading in those content areas that are challenging to them. Learners of grades one to four sometimes are faced with the difficulties of reading fluently and understanding what they have read. Low ability learners are at risk of loosing interest in learning due to rigid and technical methods of reading, learners whose socio-economic backgrounds are deprived tend to experience learning difficulties at early stages of school life. Therefore the audience to this instructional design project will be learners who belong to second to fourth grades, low ability learners, and learners whose socio-economic backgrounds are deprived.
Objectives
The main essence behind content reading is to teach learners how to read and understand what they have read, the specific objectives of the topic area should help the learner to develop skills and knowledge appropriate for the fluent reading and comprehension of the text (story). Further the objectives should also be measurable, achievable, and in level with the learners academic abilities. This topic’s area in question therefore attracts the following objectives;
By the end of the lesson the learners should be able to fluently read the text (story) observing proper grammatical rules such as punctuations, pronunciations, etc.
By the end of the lesson the learners should be able to narrate in their own words the story they have read in class.
By the end of the lesson the learners should be able to identify the story’s main characters.
By the end of the lesson the learners should be able to
Objectives Based on Bloom’s Taxonomy
According to Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives are divided into three main categories namely; cognitive domain, affective domain, psychomotor domain.
Further, he broke down the cognitive domain into six levels of intellectual behavior;
Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation
Using Bloom’s taxonomy breakdown, the following performance objectives are appropriate; the learners should be able to name main characters of a story read in class (Knowledge); should be able to describe the character traits of the story’s main characters (Comprehension); should be able to dramatize an interesting episode in the story have already read in class (Application); compare and contrast the traits of different characters in the read story (Analysis); should be able to summarize in few words the story they have read (Synthesis); should be able to write a short story using the knowledge got from the story read (Evaluation). [Bloom Benjamin S. and David R. Krathwohl, 1956]
According to Gagne’s, eight learning types are used in reading to induce insightful understanding, they are; signal learning; stimulus-response learning; chaining; verbal association; discrimination learning; concept learning’ principle learning; problem solving. The study’s objectives can be classified according to the eight learning types as put forth by Gagne in the following format; the learners should be able to respond to the stories message; respond to stories main ideas; follow the story’s flow; able to chain ideas from the story; use story’s new words to constructing sentences; distinguish between major and minor characters of the story; respond actively to a particular episode in the story; put into practical use the story moral teachings; use the knowledge from the story to solve other academic problems. [Gagne, Robert M., 1975]
Conclusion
The articles which were reviewed in this paper provide different methods on the approach to content reading in various subjects (content areas). However the core message that is indicated across all the articles is almost analogous. Content reading in music and content reading in math involves almost the same strategies and tactics, albeit with slight changes in order to fit the specific content requirements. [Reading across the curriculum, 2008]
References:
· Mc Alexander & Burrell, helping students “get it together” with synthesis journals, 1996, accessed on November 24, 2008
· Literacy matters, available at;
http://www.literacymatters.org/content/readandwrite/reading.htm, accessed on November 24, 2008
· Reading across the curriculum, available at;
http://www.pgcps.pg.k12.md.us/~elc/readingacross.html, accessed on November 24, 2008
· Before, during, and after reading strategies, available at;
www.howard.k12.md.us/langarts/Curriculum/
strategies.htm#SUBJECT%20AREA, accessed on November 24, 2008
· Strategies for “before, during, and after reading”, available at;
www.tea.state.tx.us/reading/practices/redbk4.pdf, accessed on November 24, 2008
· Bloom Benjamin S. and David R. Krathwohl. Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Classification of Educational Goal, by a committee of college and university examiners. Handbook I: Cognitive Domain. New York, Longmans, Green, 1956, ISBN 0582280109, accessed on November 24, 2008
· Gagne, Robert M., 1975, Essentials of learning for introduction. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, accessed on November 24, 2008
