"Teachers and Content Area Reading..." Individual Journal Club (Focal Area)

Summarize:

• This article goes into research done by content area teachers on their thoughts and beliefs of teaching reading in their specific subject areas. The main overall theme of this article is the importance of teaching reading in other content specific classes and the effect that has on students' learning and reading skills. Teachers play a vital role in their students lives and mainly their education; therefore if teachers are not taught the correct skills, then how will they be able to pass on the correct skills to their students. However, sometimes teachers' beliefs of what reading should look like in the classroom can skew what students are learning about reading and literacy skills. The article goes through benefits of teaching reading while showing research of how it is and is not being incorporated in the classroom. 

Connections: 

• The first two paragraphs seem to be summary of the basis of this class, and why the class is required for future educators, because I remember looking over my schedule last semester and there being a Language Arts based class on there and confused what that had to do with my content area. 
• When the article began to list the choices of the beliefs about teaching reading in content areas that were given during the research, I thought about when at the beginning of the semester, we were asked the exact same beliefs as in the article and picked where we felt we stood and then discussed around the room our different view points. Then we were asked the same question again towards the end of the semester to see if our views had changed. 
• I vividly remember the first time I was told that lecturing is no longer an encouraged method of teaching in my social studies class and was given alternative options, which shocked me because I was expecting to teach a lot of class material in lecture style.
• This class is the exact course they are speaking of for pre-service teachers. It is a one-semester required course that helps pre-service teachers think about teaching reading in our content areas.

Critique: 

• I think the article was flowing very smoothly until it got into the actual procedure of the research and how the study was chosen, and the flow of information became interrupted. I would have rather had those details at the end of the article because they are good to know, but not necessary to making a solid point. The data is the most important part, not the procedures. 
• It honestly makes sense that most teachers never look to themselves to blame for students' poor reading skills, but rather blame it on everyone else from parents, to co-teachers to the students themselves. Teachers honestly do not want to change their ways and I think it makes sense that they feel that way; however when it comes to reading abilities I believe it's something that just needs to change. 
• I think it was interesting that teachers in-service are more prone to wanting to learn how to teach reading within their content area over pre-service because a majority of our class seemed very interested and passionate about learning how to teach reading and the importance it has on our future students. 
• I would have followed up with the pre-service and in-service teachers on whether they truly took what they learned about reading in their content areas into their classroom. 
• Would it be possible to have pre-service and in-service teachers have the opportunity to take more than one course to help teach ways of incorporating reading into content areas? 
• Why is there not more reading course work specified for math if students are still struggling with word problems? 
• The research also does a poor job of including reading into Math specific content area. 

Explain Importance:

• When teachers decide to make decisions about how to teach reading based off past experiences, incomplete/incorrect knowledge, or even how they have seen it observed then they are no longer teaching by pedagogical or subject matter, but rather from personal beliefs. 
• It is teachers responsibility to continue helping students learn how to use necessary reading skills and apply them to expository text. 
• Teachers' beliefs ultimately drives teachers' decisions in the classroom. 
• In-service teachers' attitudes have changed and grown more positive when they are given time and support to learn how to teach reading. 
• Attitudes can be changed and teachers can learn to incorporate reading instruction into their content area and their classrooms. 

Word Count: 745