Teaching Reading and Writing in the Content Areas
By Rafael Heller, Ph.D
The role of content teachers

"Currently, few middle or high school educators ever receive more than a token amount of training in literacy instruction, and few see themselves as teachers of reading and writing at all. Instead, at the secondary level, most teachers tend to regard themselves as teachers of subject areas, such as biology, American history, or algebra. Even English teachers — who might be assumed to be responsible for reading and writing instruction — tend to define themselves first and foremost as teachers of literature.

It should come as no surprise, then, that researchers have found that precious little reading or writing goes on in most content area classes.¹ Instead of requiring students to read actual scientific papers and historical documents, and instead of assigning students to write and re-write many kinds of essays, reports, and other materials, the vast majority of teachers assign only brief readings (mainly from textbooks) and short, formulaic writing assignments.

If the nation's students are to go beyond the basics of literacy, though, then secondary school teachers must acknowledge that they are more than teachers of facts, figures, dates, and procedures. They must acknowledge that they are more even than teachers of mathematical, historical, scientific, and literary ways of thinking about and seeing the world. They also must teach their students to read and write and communicate like mathematicians, historians, scientists, literary critics, and educated members of society.

Finally, while not every teacher can be expected to do the job of a reading specialist, all teachers should be trained in certain essentials of literacy instruction, and all teachers should be expected to support students' overall literacy development.

Specifically, all teachers should learn how to provide effective vocabulary instruction in their subject areas; all teachers should learn how to provide instruction in reading comprehension strategies that can help students make sense of content-area texts; all teachers should learn how to design reading and writing assignments that are likely to motivate students who lack engagement in school activities; and all teachers should learn how to teach students to read and write in the ways that are distinct to their own content areas."

The Role of Content Teachers

After reading in our book about how important it is for every teacher, no matter what the subject, to teach their students how to read, I wanted to read a little more into that. What is the common theme between schools on this topic? Do most schools struggle with having other teachers other than the teachers of literacy teach their students how to read the subject material. This article written by Rafael Heller is very simple but hits key points. He explains that even though no every teacher is expected to be a reading specialist, every educator should be provided the resources on how to support students’ overall literacy development and provide effective vocabulary instruction in their subject area. I find this topic fascinating and look forward to doing more research behind it.

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http://www.adlit.org/adlit_101/improving_literacy_instruction_in_your_school/teaching_reading_and_writing_content_areas/