Review of Carnegie study

Carnegie “Reading in the Disciplines: The Challenges of Adolescent Literacy”

Carol D. Lee and Anika Spratley, Northwestern University

Adolescents may struggle with text for a number of reasons, including problems with vocabulary knowledge, general knowledge of topics and text structures, not knowing what to do when comprehension break down, or proficiency in monitoring their own reading comprehension.

In this study we go from concern of students learning to read to students reading to learn and the special problems with reading in each of the traditional middle and high school content areas.

This study does not suggest do away with general remedial reading courses but to include specialized content areas reading instruction, which can also be a challenge to students who are otherwise good readers.

Science

Requires mathematical literacy, visual literacy, using diagrams, drawings, photographs, and maps to convey meanings. The use of scientific registers in terms of technical vocabulary and syntax must be taught to students.  Often words that have one meaning in everyday discourse have different and highly specialized meanings in science.

The technical vocabulary of science often has Latin or Greek roots which again must be taught to students.

   History/Social Science

Here the problem is largely the textbooks that are used in the schools. Reading difficulty presented by traditional textbooks is based on extensive research about how readers go about making sense of texts. As is evident in these studies, research on text processing indicates any of the common patterns found in social studies and science textbooks can make comprehension challenging (Beck, 1991).

·         Failure to make logical connections between propositions explicit

·         Use of references that are ambiguous, distant, or indirect.

·         The inclusion of information that is irrelevant to the main ideas

·         Density of ideas within individual sentences

Literature

Demonstrating what is entailed in interpreting literature, teacher try to illustrate what readers struggling and competent need to know in order to become good and hopefully life- long readers of literature.

As with other content areas prior knowledge is necessary for students to understand what they are reading.  Prior knowledge needs to include

·         Text structures

·         Prototypical human practices and internal states

·         A range interpretive problems author embed in their work

·         The ability to make inter-textual links

Mathematics

Here I would like to stop and say forget it. Nothing will help anyone understand math.  However the authors of this study would strongly disagree with me.

Again textbooks prove to more of a barrier than a help. As a result, students do not learn to become independent learners capable of acquiring mathematics outside of school when the need arises.

Key mathematics terms need to be explained and real world examples used. Examples that students and take into the real world and use when needed with the classroom teacher present.