7/29/2024

Science of Reading Strategies Designed to Help Content-Area Teachers Succeed

Understanding that a diverse group of students will exhibit a range of learning styles and needs is fundamental. Students in grades 4–8, like all learners, benefit greatly from instructional approaches that recognize and adapt to their unique learning styles. By fostering an environment that accommodates these differences, we can support their development in essential reading and writing skills. These skills are crucial for success across all content areas, including math, science, and social studies.

Content-area educators can further enrich their teaching strategies by building upon students' literacy foundations. This approach enables students to engage with and comprehend the material in these subjects more effectively.

Recognizing that a one-size-fits-all approach may not be ideal in education, tools like Lexia Aspire® Professional Learning, grounded in the science of reading, can offer valuable support to educators. By understanding how students learn to read and applying these principles, content-area teachers can more effectively enhance their students' literacy acquisition.

Can the gap between content knowledge and strong literacy skills be bridged to unlock deeper understanding and boost engagement? The answer is yes.

Science of Reading for Adolescents

The science of reading is an evidence-based approach that provides you with decades of gold-standard research that illustrates the science behind how the human brain learns to read. By becoming familiar with the science of reading, you can equip yourself to address stunted literacy skills in adolescent students regardless of classroom subject. 

The science of reading emphasizes the importance of explicit instruction in foundational skills such as:

• Phonemic Awareness: The ability to notice, think about, and manipulate phonemes in spoken syllables 
• Phonics: Instruction that emphasizes the correspondence of letters and sounds  
• Fluency: The prosodic, effortless flow with which proficient readers read with appropriate speech and accuracy. 
• Vocabulary: A person’s mental dictionary of words.
• Comprehension: Understanding the meaning of what is read.

By providing a foundational understanding of these skills and principles, you can create an environment where every student thrives, regardless of their current reading level.

Reading is not a natural process, and students need explicit instruction to connect different parts of the brain related to language, sight, and sound. Learning to read requires building neural pathways that bridge various parts of the brain to collaborate and decode written text. 

By understanding these components, you can identify specific areas where students might struggle and tailor instruction accordingly. Our blog post, “What the Science of Reading Is Not,” debunks myths about evidence-based instruction and outlines effective reading instruction strategies to improve reading abilities. 

Strategies for Teaching Adolescent Literacy

The transition from "learning to read" to "reading to learn" can be difficult for some students, especially those who haven't developed strong foundational literacy skills. Without a strong foundation, students may struggle to navigate the increasingly complex texts they encounter in middle and high school.

To bridge the gap between decoding and comprehension, you can incorporate science of reading research-based practices into your classroom, giving students the tools they need to be successful.

Here are six approaches that will empower you with the knowledge to support your adolescent students’ literacy education:

1. Seek Professional Development Opportunities 
   Flexible professional development programs, such as Aspire, are designed specifically for grades 4–8. By learning research-backed methodologies, you will be able to create effective lesson plans that cater to the unique needs of your adolescent students and foster a deeper understanding of the course material. By improving your own knowledge base, you can ensure a smoother educational experience for your students.
2. Leverage Data in Your Instruction 
   You can accumulate student data to identify struggling students’ specific challenges such as vocabulary acquisition or reading comprehension. Once those areas have been identified, you can tailor your instruction and provide customized support to those struggling students. Developing a concrete plan, based on data, goes beyond one-size-fits-all interventions and fosters a more impactful learning experience for each student.
3. Understand How the Brain Acquires Literacy 
   It’s time to demystify the mechanics of the reading process for yourself. Learning to read is not innate; there’s a science that goes into it and directly connects to how the brain acquires literacy. Familiarize yourself with the steps and processes involved in how the brain connects written letters to sounds and then to meaning, allowing comprehension of text. By understanding these processes, you can better support your students in their literacy development.
4. Utilize Fluency to build Comprehension 
   Fluency—also known as the ability to read with speed, accuracy, and rhythm—is the cornerstone of comprehension. Practice fluency by introducing a text at the beginning of the week, followed by echo or choral reading activities throughout the week. Students can practice by working in pairs or recording themselves reading. You can use content-area texts to improve fluency and solidify subject knowledge.
5. Introduce Vocabulary Ahead of Time 
   You can introduce challenging vocabulary words within your subject so students can engage with new concepts before facing them in text. Decode words by breaking them down into syllables and explore word origins to foster literacy growth. You can also reinforce vocabulary learning by having students complete activities such as charades, word sorts, and conversation prompts.
6. Strengthen Comprehension Through Sentence Writing 
   Have students craft informative sentences that provide definitions, explanations, or reactions to consolidate learning. These sentence-writing activities will solidify content understanding, and students’ grasp of grammar and word usage.

How Aspire Can Help Your Classroom

With an alarming amount of students entering upper grades without the requisite literacy skills required to succeed across subjects, it’s time to explore professional learning opportunities that will equip you with the skills needed to support your students’ literacy development. Aspire, a flexible professional development program based in the science of reading, has been developed with you in mind. Aspire supplies flexible, self-paced professional learning backed by the science of reading that equips teachers with the literacy education skills required to help students read at grade level. 

Want to learn more? Watch our video about Aspire to learn how it can improve your classroom experience and student outcomes.