December 15, 2015

Hamtramck High School is a haven for students whose families hail from all over the world. Hamtramck’s success hinges on the dedication of their dynamic staff and principal, Terry George.
 
Recently, I had the pleasure of conducting professional learning sessions on literacy in the content area with three separate groups of teachers from every discipline. Ever since the adoption of college and career-ready academic standards in Michigan and throughout the country, more emphasis has been placed on the important role that nonfiction reading plays in all disciplines. When science, social studies and math teachers take the time to deconstruct their texts for students and help them understand how to read them – whether traditional print or online resources – all learners benefit. To this extent, content-area teachers have become teachers of reading – hence literacy in the content area. The realization on the part of teachers that they must be content-area reading teachers helps students best access course content and realize greater understanding.
 
We emphasized the Reading Apprenticeship approach to teaching reading, which helps all educators appreciate the important role they play in helping their students read and comprehend course content, whether in a traditional English class, a physics class or physical education.
 
Hamtramck is one of two small municipalities located entirely within the city of Detroit, and has a sizable number of students from Yemen and Bangladesh. Educators realize the need to make esoteric academic language comprehensible. It was clear to me that these teachers not only had a passion for helping their students learn, but a willingness to embrace the approaches of the Reading Apprenticeship model. Through an exploration of metacognitive conversation and the four dimensions of literacy – social, personal, cognitive and knowledge-building – teachers came to understand the critical role they play in the attitudes their learners acquire about reading and its role in their academic lives. The metacognitive approach, which largely centers on “making thinking visible,” enables educators to demystify their thought processes as they read and engage with a text. As a teacher explains what is going on in their head while that educator inputs text, learners are able to understand the thinking that occurs and gain easier access to course content.
 
This “demystification” of content allows learners a window into an instructor’s thinking and helps to clarify both how information is acquired and why it matters. When educators consciously engage in self-talk during a lesson, students benefit. Furthermore, these skills are very transferable, and learners realize that they can apply these newly acquired content-area reading strategies in other disciplines.
 
Teachers who engage in metacognitive strategies that make their thinking visible as they read are truly helping their students create a future where the power of reading is enshrined as a lifelong value.