Notes: Strategies for Teaching Content to Adolescents with Disabilities: Reading and Language Arts

Instruction in Reading

•  phonics and phonemic awareness
• phonics is the association of sounds with letters
• phonemic awareness is understanding that spoken words are comprised of individual units of sounds called phonemes
• model phonemic awareness skills when introduction new vocabulary
• provide instruction in phonics strategies to help students articulate multi-syllabic words use direct, explicit, and systematic instruction to teach phonics and phonemic awareness
• provide extra time for phonics and phonemic awareness instruction and opportunities for students to practice using new skills when reading
• advance word study
• many students have the ability to decode single-syllable words but have difficulties with multi-syllable words
• focus on "morphology, or analysis of the meaningful parts(prefix, suffix, inflectional endings and roots), orthography, the letter and patterns and structural features that are associated with predicable speech patterns"
• vocabulary
• includes the words used in speech and writing for communication purposes
• students need to know and understand the vocabulary in order for them to understand what they're reading
• fluency
• the ability to read quickly and is related to being able to recognize most of the words in a passage without having to spend time decoding
• provide models of fluent reading
• engage students in repeated oral reading of text
• engage students in guided oral reading
• engage students in partner reading
• comprehension
• formal assessment (determines reading levels), informal interviews (personal preference), observations (observed reading skills)
• textbook requirements (reading level, vocabulary and topics, length, suitability)
• textbook selection
• motivation
• motivation is strongly associated with reading success and reading improvements
• reading materials that are interesting to students
• reading materials that are on student's reading levels
• social opportunities are inherent in reading activities
• comprehensive reading programs
• comprehensive reading intervention programs when all aspects of the component is taught and/or practice in 3 or more areas (phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension)
• Barton reading and spelling system
• phono-graphix
• reading advantage
• rewards plus
• scientific learning reading assistant
• REWARDS intermediate and REWARDS secondary
• Scott Foreman early reading intervention

Instruction in Writing

• mechanics of writing
• regardless of the medium, teachers should ensure that limited mechanics of writing do not impede student's abilities to express themselves in writing
• spelling
• in order for student to express themselves effectively they need to have mastery of basic spelling skills
• students should be taught how to use spell check technology
• written expression
• use direct, explicit and systematic instruction to teach writing
• teach students the importance of pre-writing
• provide a supportive instructional environment for students
• use rubrics to assess writing
• address the needs of diverse learners

Guiding Principles for Literacy Instruction

• focus instructional activities on areas that are critical for effective and efficient reading and writing
• use a variety of instructional strategies, including strategy instruction, skill-based instruction, and remediation
• teach students literacy as part of the content instruction
• make sure that instruction is sequenced in  away that leads to students becoming independent learners
• provide opportunities for students to practice literacy skills

Strategies to Enhance Content Literacy

• there is a variety of different factors in middle school and secondary school classrooms that impact on the student's ability to be literate in the varied content fields
• learner's prior knowledge of, attitude toward and interest in the subject
• learner's purpose for engaging in reading, writing, and discussion
• language and conceptual difficulty of the text material
• assumptions that the text writers use to organize ideas and information
• teacher's beliefs about and attitude towards the use of text in learning situations
• phonics and phonemic awareness
• word identification strategies
• DISSECT (refer to Notes: Strategy Instruction) 
• WIST (refer to Notes: Strategy Instruction) 
• vocabulary
• word wall - where teachers post words associated with lesson on charts in the room
• wordo - a game where students guess words after teachers provides clues or definitions
• morphemic analysis - students break down words into parts then analyze the parts to determine the words meaning
• weekly vocabulary list - a way to introduce and teach specific, content-related vocabulary
• Comprehension
• directed reading-thinking activity (DR-TA)
• brainstorm
• predict
• read
• discuss
• directed reading activity (DRA)
• reading preparation
• guided silent reading
• comprehension development
• skill development
• extension and follow-up activities
• request
• combination of reading materials with reciprocal questioning
• teacher reads selected passage
• students submit questions to teacher they generated during the reading
• teacher also has questions developed from reading, allowing the teacher with the "opportunity to model" appropriate question development
• list-group-label
• brainstorming before students read the content
• students make list of previously known words associated with topic
• in small groups combine list and group words together to build a background of knowledge of the specific content
• question-answer-relationship (QAR)
• textually explicit questions which are usually stated in the assigned reading
• textually implicit questions which are suggested from the material
• scriptally implicit questions which are derived from students' knowledge of the content 
• cluster strategies
• visual arrangements of terms, events, people, or ideas
• semantic map - word maps or question maps
• concept mastery maps - semantic map that includes theme or concept
• group mapping activity (GMA) - groups prepare written and visual representation of the materials they just read
• semantic feature analysis (SFA)
• used to assist students in learning vocabulary and major concepts
• context-structure-sound-reference (CSSR)
• method used to identify unknown words
• context - reading unknown word and "guessing" the word's meaning based on surrounding information
• analyze the structural features - root of the word, suffix, prefix, plurals, possessives, ending etc.
• sound - relates to a phonics review of the words
• reference materials - clarify meaning of unknown vocabulary word