Subject Area Reading for: 

My book is:  Benjamin, A. (2007).  But I’m Not a Reading Teacher:  Strategies for Literacy Instruction in the Content Areas. Larchmont, NY: Eye on Education.

Black font indicates my blogging about what the author says.

Red font indicates my comments about what she says.

Benjamin spends quite a few pages on various subject areas, talking about specific reading techniques for each one.  She discusses the fact that many people used to think that reading was reading, no matter the subject.  That the way kids learned comprehension in English class, on stories perhaps, would transfer easily to any subject, where the child would be reading what she calls, informational text.  She states, “We understand much more about the domain-specific nature of reading sills, and how they don’t so easily walk themselves over from the room in which story text is taught to the rooms in which other kinds of subjects are taught.”

For each of the subjects she discusses, math, business/computer/vocation, science, social studies, foreign language, and English, she gives examples of typical texts a kid might come across, a discussion of why it would be difficult for the kid to understand it, and techniques on how to help the kid understand.  I had naively thought that once you knew the specialized jargon for a subject area, you were golden, but that’s not the case.  There are grammatical, phrasing, and contextual differences for various subjects too.  She gives some good, but simple examples:  in the computer section, paste is a term used in computing as a verb, when in Standard English, it’s a noun.  Math is a specialized symbolic language, dominated by large phrases. 

In many subjects, including science, a textbook uses both text and graphs to explain concepts.  The reader must be proficient in reading both, and in interpreting one in relation to the other.  “It’s difficult to get students interested in straightforward facts devoid of a point of view,” she states.  This lack of interest manifests itself as a comprehension barrier, just as the vocabulary does.  

Benjamin recommends breaking this comprehension barrier by using a different types of text to augment the science textbooks.  Literary text.  By offering literary texts that can be easier to understand, and have more similarity with stories that kids are used to reading, a teacher can arouse interest in science or any subject.  She points out that she’s not referring to poetry or anything, but what she calls “nature writing.”  I have no idea what this is, but I’m going to look it up and blog about it tomorrow.  I personally can’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t be fascinated by science and soak it in like a sponge!  I’ll use any methods I can to engender some enthusiasm for science!   

She suggests using these literary texts and “nature writing” as reference materials for the classroom, and for kids to use in projects as one of several sources.  Might be a good idea – again, I’ll know more and report in the blog tomorrow.

She’s definitely getting more and more specific in her recommendations and techniques.  Yea!