A Text Set is a literacy resource that can enhance comprehension by targeting diverse learners. Often textbooks can be either too difficult or too easy for students. Offering different literacy resources such as magazines, articles, short stories, resource books and even picture books is a great way to get students interested in the topics being taught. Text sets can enhance background knowledge as well as allow a teacher to differentiate materials for different learners. Newspaper articles and primary sources are an easy way to incorporate text sets into the social studies curriculum. Titlewave.com and Instgrok.com are two web resources that list literacy resources for social studies classrooms. For differentiating purposes lexile.com and readability-score.com give you the ability to determine the reading level of different reading materials. Having a range of two years below through two years above your students age is a good rule of thumb while collecting text set materials. I will definitely supply my class with different text sets throughout units and encourage them to find their own as well. I will use different activities throughout the lesson so students are actively engaged in creating their own knowledge.
Millions of American students struggle to read and write adequately enough to even achieve basic academic success (Heller and Greenleaf, 2007). Social Studies offers an excellent opportunity for students to enhance their literacy skills. As a teacher I know it is my responsibility to understand each of my students abilities and support them so that they may reach their full potential. Being a teacher is more than just teaching my content area, it is about preparing the next generation for the challenges they may face. In order for students to become successful in their life they need to be able to understand texts, infer meanings, and summarize large amounts of information. This skill is important if they are going on to school or starting a job. Social studies can be used to improve students ability to process information and identify main points. As a teacher I will use a variety of texts, encourage students to analyze the writings and then reflect on the information they have just learned. Building a strong literacy foundation through the lens of social studies will improve both social studies knowledge and literacy skills for my students.
Effectively teaching students specific strategies that have been proven to show the greatest literacy improvement should be seamlessly interwoven into the classroom. The U.S. Department of Education indicates that there are practices that teachers can use to improve adolescent literacy. Instructions that use content specific vocabulary, comprehension strategies, discussions, and activities that encourage students engagement are proven successful in increasing adolescent literacy skills (Kamil, et al. 2008). I plan on implementing these strategies into my classroom to increase my students literacy ability while simultaneously increasing their social studies content comprehension. Heller, R., and Greenleaf, C. (2007). Literacy instruction in the content areas: Getting to the core of middle and high school improvement. Washington, DC: Alliance for Excellent Education. Kamil, M. L., Borman, G.D., Dole, J., Dral, C.C., Salinger, T., adn Torgensen, J. (2008). Improving adolescent literacy: Effective classroom and intervention practices: A Practice Guide (NCEE #2008-4027). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved from http:/ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc. |