Making it Real: Integrating Reading Apprenticeship

Student Success Conference 2012

Nika Hogan, Pasadena City College, SLI, 3CSN Jane Wolford, Chabot College http://ra.3csn.org

WestEds Strategic Literacy Initiative (SLI)

A professional development and research organization focusing on improving academic literacy in diverse populations of adolescents and post-secondary students using Reading Apprenticeship, a researchbased instructional framework.
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Reading Apprenticeship
A partnership of expertise between the
teacher and students, drawing on what content area teachers know and do as skilled discipline-based readers and on learners unique and often underestimated strengths

Dimensions of Reading Apprenticeship

Our Goals with Reading Apprenticeship:

Help students learn to read and think like insiders (experts) in a subject area Overcome our own expert blind spot blending subject-area knowledge with important understandings of how novices acquire the conventions, rituals, and expectations of discourse in that field

RA helps to develop more powerful readers

Engaging students in more reading for recreation, subject-area learning, and selfchallenge Making the teachers discipline-based reading processes visible to the students; Making students reading processes, motivations, strategies, knowledge, and understanding visible to the teacher and to one another;
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 Helping students gain insight into their own reading processes; and Helping them develop a repertoire of problem solving strategies for overcoming obstacles and deepening comprehension of texts from various academic disciplines
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In a Reading Apprenticeship Classroom, one will notice:

The teacher briefly modeling to make his or her thinking visible
The students engaging in guided practice of what the teacher has modeled Students talking with one another about their experiences with the reading

In Reading Apprenticeship Classrooms, Teachers

Focus on comprehension and metacognitive
conversation Create a climate of collaboration Provide appropriate support while

emphasizing student independence

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Consider Schema
World/ Personal: Schema from your lived day to day experience Text: Schema about how different text forms and genres are structured Discipline: Schema learned as a result of school; specialized knowledge Language: Schema about how words are built and fit with other words

Planning to embed literacy goals

If you have a current course text with you, get it out now. Otherwise, choose one of the texts we have provided (Biology, Chemistry, History, English, Math, Nursing). You will get to take turns being an expert and a novice in this activity.

Trade texts with a partner from another discipline

Read the unfamiliar text and capture your reading process, asking yourself as a reader:
What strategies did I use to make meaning from or negotiate the text? What schema knowledge did I bring to the text?

And asking yourself as a teacher:

What challenges might students encounter when grappling with this text?

With your partner, take a closer look at Text #1

Discuss the novice partners experience reading the text and consider with one another what challenges students might have with the text.
Make notes on the Text and Task notetaker.

Still with Text #1

Choose a key chunk of text, one that:
Contains an important concept; or Is particularly challenging; or Speaks to an instructional goal in terms of content or literacy.

Novice does a Think Aloud with the chunk of text while Expert takes notes

Articulate literacy goals for text #1

What RA routine might be most helpful for students to use when grappling with this text? What kinds of supports can you design to build on students strengths and extend their fluency, stamina, and comprehension as a reader of texts in your discipline.

Time to take a closer look at Text #2

Discuss the novice partners experience reading the text and consider with one another what challenges students might have with the text.
Make notes on the Text and Task notetaker.

Still with Text #2

Choose a key chunk of text, one that:
Contains an important concept; or Is particularly challenging; or Speaks to an instructional goal in terms of content or literacy.

Novice does a Think Aloud with the chunk of text while Expert takes notes

Articulate literacy goals for text #2

What RA routine might be most helpful for students to use when grappling with this text? What kinds of supports can you design to build on students strengths and extend their fluency, stamina, and comprehension as a reader of texts in your discipline.

Debrief Activity
Having any novice reader make their thinking visible with a text that falls within your expert blind spot is usually a very eye-opening experience! When we read with students in mind, we can plan to support literacy acquisition as we teach towards our content matter.

Lesson planning to support both content and literacy goals

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Invitation to ongoing inquiry

3CSN is supporting a statewide Community of Practice in Reading Apprenticeship, the Reading Apprenticeship Project
1-day and day follow up workshops 3-day seminar Summer Leadership training for RA facilitators Six-week online course, September 24November 2 or October 8-November 16
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We welcome your feedback!

What worked well to support your learning and instructional planning in todays workshop? What questions remain? Would you like more information about Reading Apprenticeship professional learning?
mihogan@pasadena.edu
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