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Connecting Content with Literacy for Improved Comprehension

While many teachers in grades 6-12 understand that literacy is a complex issue, they nevertheless still struggle to incorporate these best practices into their content-area classes. Why? Because literacy builds upon the foundational skills that are introduced and developed in elementary school. During this time, students engage in a variety of social skills (e.g., sharing, playing, taking turns, etc.), language/literacy skills (e.g., learning the alphabet, sounding out words, building vocabulary, writing words, etc.), and executive function skills (e.g., organizing, focusing, initiating tasks, etc.) throughout each and every day of school. In addition to learning these new skills, elementary school provides students with the opportunity to develop independence, confidence, and motivation. Consequently, this motivation and excitement for learning bolsters students’ ability to engage, participate, and acquire a multitude of skills at a young age. These foundational skills and mindsets are meant to carry students throughout the rest of their educational journeys as well. Unfortunately, this is not always the case, and by the time students get to middle and high school, the assumption is that these skills have already been mastered in previous grades, making the push for literacy education in a math, science, history, and even the reading/ELA classroom not as strong. Unfortunately, if these skills are not practiced daily throughout middle and high school, many students are sadly likely to be left behind.

Don’t all students know how to read by the time they reach middle school?

In education, one of the most important aspects of literacy is reading comprehension. Unfortunately, although most children grow up learning how to read, 25% of them do not. That is a big percentage. If you think about a class of thirty students, it is possible for seven of them to grow up without having the ability to read. This is especially true for students with special needs.

Now, let’s consider the 75% of individuals who grew up decoding, practicing, and building reading skills. Is that enough to make them successful in the higher grades? Unfortunately, it does not. As students enter middle school and high school, the difficulty of reading only increases. The skills learned in elementary school are a good platform upon which to build, but they are not enough. As vocabulary increases, text structure becomes more complex, assignments become lengthier, and expectations increase (for both students and teachers).

A focus on building reading comprehension skills using the principles of the science of reading within each lesson — regardless of the content area — not only has the potential to improve students’ overall reading comprehension, but it can also result in content-specific success in the classroom. Reading comprehension skills help students make sense of the words on the page. By giving students the skills necessary to do so, reading comprehension, as well as content knowledge, can increase.

What are some reading comprehension strategies that can easily be incorporated into the content areas?

The following are some general reading comprehension strategies that can be used in any classroom to help students increase their reading comprehension skills, no matter what content area is being taught.

1. Setting a Focus. Setting a focus is an easy strategy that requires minimal planning. It allows students to target the main ideas and hooks them into the reading prior to beginning the lesson. Setting a focus can be informal or formal; it all depends on the teacher’s preference. Teachers can show a quick video clip or visual to provide context or complete a class discussion on the lesson’s main idea before beginning the assignment. A simple way to set the focus is by posing a social question related to the reading. In addition, aligning the reading assignment to students’ interests and making it relevant to their lives helps students visualize and relate to the information.

2. Anticipation Guides. Like setting a focus, anticipation guides provide a focal point of what to look out for before reading. This is very beneficial to struggling learners because it helps them identify the key terms and main ideas during the reading portion of the assignment.

   An anticipation guide challenges students to complete a “before reading” set of questions. Before creating the anticipation guide, teachers should think of roughly five main ideas they want their students to learn by the end of the reading. They can then transform these ideas into either true/false questions or I agree/I disagree statements, much like the anticipation guide shown below for Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare.

   
   
   

   After completing the anticipation guide, teachers should elicit some responses from the class. As an added benefit, the use of a simple anticipation guide also serves to increase the level of student engagement. This is because the “upfront” thinking that is involved tends to make students feel more connected to the material, and thus more prepared.

3. Jigsaw. Jigsaw is a great cooperative learning strategy, especially for larger reading assignments. Jigsaw involves a few easy steps. Once a reading assignment has been found, the teacher creates several groups of four students, although the groups can be more or less, depending on the teacher’s preference and the lesson’s objectives. Then, divide the assignment into four sections. In each group, assign one member to a specific section, allowing him/her to individually read and become an “expert” on that particular section. After a few minutes, have “experts” of the same sections create a group together. Here, they can discuss their thoughts, findings, questions, interesting facts, and main ideas as they pertain to the reading.

   Once the “experts” have all had a chance to share and learn from each other, they should return to their original group to share what was learned. This is a great time for the teacher to circulate, listen, provide feedback, and answer clarifying questions. Once each “expert” has summarized his/her section, the teacher can then provide a formal assessment of the reading to analyze and assess how much was learned.

4. Close Reading. A close reading approach involves a very in-depth reading experience. This is a great way to increase comprehension because this strategy requires students to specifically read the text multiple times. This strategy lends itself particularly well to the differentiation process because it is extremely easy to modify the reading expectations each time.

   The Harvard College Writing Center describes a close reading in a series of three steps. First, students must read and annotate the text. BUCK! is a great annotating strategy that can be used during this important first step of a close reading. It requires the reader to box the main idea or problem, underline important and/or supportive information, circle words that are unfamiliar, kick out information or details that are unneeded, and “!” any interesting information.

   
   
   

   The second step of a close reading involves digging a little deeper by trying to find patterns, tone, and author’s purpose or message. The last step in a close reading is where the reading is all brought together by analyzing, making connections, and inferencing. The great thing about a close reading and BUCK! is that you can make them your own.

5. Questioning Techniques. When giving students reading comprehension questions, there are a few simple strategies which can be used. For example, place the question number next to the sentence or paragraph in the reading where the answer can be found. This is a great strategy for struggling readers because it does not provide the answer, but it narrows down the amount of information within the text. For struggling readers, information overload tends to be a big problem, as it distracts them from the text.

   Students can also be given a reading assignment with leveled questions at the end as an assessment.

   • Level One questions are “who, what, where, when, why, and how” questions related to the lower levels of Bloom’s taxonomy.
   • Level Two questions require students to explain, compare, infer, and sequence.
   • Level Three questions encourage the reader to relate text to real-word applications, evaluate, analyze, and create.

   You might first ask students to complete just a Level One question to see if they are able to recall the basic information before asking them to move onto a Level Two or Three task.

Take a moment to reflect on the strategies shared in this article. What can you do to make them your own? The most important thing about teaching reading comprehension (no matter the content) is having the proper mindset. In other words, never lose sight of the fact that teaching reading comprehension skills is just as important as teaching the content itself.

Are you curious? Want to take a deep dive on this topic?

To learn more about teaching comprehension as part of content studies, visit the Professional Development Institute (PDI) website or our Connecting Content with Literacy: Dynamic Strategies for Comprehension course.

For over 27 years, PDI has provided high-quality and affordable online professional development courses to K-12 teachers worldwide. Our online courses are designed to offer practical strategies that can be implemented in classrooms immediately. All our courses are instructor-led and conducted entirely online. Graduate-level university credit for every PDI online course for teachers is available through the University of California San Diego Division of Extended Studies. PDI offers an extensive catalog of online courses that cover the most critical topics in today's classrooms.