Whose Job Is It Anyway? Teaching Content Area Literacy

"This is a story about four brothers named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody. There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry with that because it was Everybody’s job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn’t do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done."

-Unknown Author

                At this point in my teaching career I have a somewhat unique view on secondary school literacy. Currently I am teaching 7th and 8th grade Language Arts/Reading AND 7th and 8th grade Science. That's correct, I am a middle school Language Arts teacher AND a content area teacher.  I have seen both sides of the challenge discussed on Vanderbilt University's The IRIS Center Website (The IRIS Center, 2012).  The main challenge is that content area teachers do not think it is their job (or do not know properly how) to teach literacy skills in their given subject area AND Language Arts teachers are overwhelmed enough by the amount of content and skills they have to teach already in their own class to be bothered teaching content area literacy.  So the challenge is: whose job is it anyway?

As a middle school Language Arts teacher I can see that side of the challenge.  I am expected to teach reading comprehension skills, writing, grammar, literature etc. in five 45 minute periods per week.  I have trouble fitting all that in, never mind worrying about my students' literacy skills in their content area classes.  On the flip side, I teach Science.  I believe I have a great advantage over my content area colleagues, because of my literacy education background.  I can understand why someone whose specialty is Science education, would not be concerned with, or more likely would not be aware of, what they could do to help their students reading comprehension in Science.  As teachers it makes sense that if you specialize in a content area, it has become easy for you to read text in your area and comprehend it easily.  This can create a professional blind-spot for teachers.  Sometimes we cannot see where our students are struggling, because for us it has become second
nature.  This is why content area teachers need more training in literacy education. 

So, let's get back to our question, whose job is it to teach content area literacy?  The answer is ALL TEACHERS.  As the IRIS website states:

"Many content-area teachers believe that reading instruction is not their responsibility. They did not receive the relevant training and generally feel it is someone else’s role to teach reading skills. Although reading specialists and special educators might in fact provide instruction for students who struggle with basic reading skills such as decoding words and reading fluently, it is nevertheless important for content-area teachers to integrate literacy instruction into their classes" (The IRIS Center,2012).

All teachers need to work together to build student literacy across the board. Content area teachers need to take responsibility with Language Arts Teachers, Reading Specialists, and Special Educators.  Integrating content literacy into their instruction will help not only students' literacy but their content knowledge as well. 

Unfortunately, a lot of content area teachers have not been given the proper training to help build their students content literacy skills.  The IRIS website gives some excellent resources for content area teachers to help their students build their literacy skills.  One strategy in particular that I learned from the IRIS website is teaching vocabulary using the Frayer Model .  This is a great strategy to teach vocabulary that should be fairly easy for a teacher to implement into their instruction.  It is a much better strategy than just having students copy and memorize definitions from a glossary (which, doesn't really work according to research).

Content area teachers and Language Arts teachers need to all work together to build student literacy.  In their research on improving student literacy across content areas from elementary school through secondary school McDonald, Thornley, Staley, and Moore found that the most important thing for students is consistency: "This process has made clear that routine is a critical element of the approach and that this must extend across lessons, texts, tasks, and content areas if we are to be successful in raising achievement" (McDonald, Thornley, Staley, & Moore 2009).  Teachers need to really work together to find strategies work that work for them and their students, and make literacy skills a consistent and routine focus across the board.

References

The IRIS Center. (2012). Secondary Reading Instruction: Teaching Vocabulary and Comprehension in  the Content  Areas. Retrieved from   

            http://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/module/sec-rdng/

McDonald, T., Thornley, C., Staley, R., & Moore, D. W. (2009). The San Diego  Striving Readers' Project: Building Academic Success for Adolescent Readers.Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 52(8), 720-722.