Content Area Literacy Philosophy

Philosophy Essay
I was a terrible reader and writer. I stumbled my way through most of my public education honors English courses and never fully grasped how to read and write fluently. Even to this day, I fear reading long passages or writing large papers. However, life has taught me a very important lesson. That is, that life involves an impressive amount of literacy. This direct connection between the real world and literacy is the single most important aspect of this paper surrounding content area literacy.
Content area literacy can be easily defined by breaking the phrase into to parts. “Content area” meaning a subject like mathematical sciences and the content in such subjects. Literacy is simply the ability to read and write. Thus,
in a nut shell, content area literacy is the ability to read and write within a specific subject. In terms of education, the ability to read and write is often associated with English or social studies courses. If this class has taught me anything, it is that this misconception is not only false, it minimizes the undeniable importance of literacy. Every teacher, in every subject matter, can inject content that promotes literacy skill development into their curriculum. The authors of the book, Developing Readers and Writes in the Content Areas K-12, go even further by claiming that it is the teachers, in their respective fields, that are the best suited for teaching content area literacy (Moore, Moore, Cunningham, & Cunningham, 2011, p. 4). In other words, who is better to teach math literacy, than a math teacher?
As a prospective math teacher, this concept is intimidating.
My specialty is in solving math problems and manipulating numbers. Reading is the last thing I relate to math. However, just because my education portrayed these two topics as separate, that doesn’t mean they should remain so. In all actuality, there are benefits from connecting the two. An idea from the book that supports this claim is that the time a student spends on reading and writing, in relation to connected texts, increases their word knowledge, fluency and comprehension (Moore, Moore, Cunningham, & Cunningham, 2011, p. 22). In focusing on the latter from the list, comprehension is critically important in all subjects. A student can not be expected to solve a math problem when they can’t even comprehend the directions or the vocabulary. This problem is inherent in every class. The solution is to teach and develop content area literacy. In doing so, students learn how to identify and discuss difficult concepts. They can ask better questions to help them discover misconception. Finally, knowledge that is constructed from multiple sources and experiences is the most powerful and lasting way to teach (Moore, Moore, Cunningham, & Cunningham, 2011, p.
129).
I have learned many strategies that can be used to help introduce literacy into the math class.
The first strategy I am going to use in my future class is using word problems to teach literacy. This is one of the areas of math that has a direct relation to reading and interpreting. Nested within word problems are samples of the somewhat unique vocabulary that mathematicians use. Unpackaging phrases is the key to solving the problem. I believe that using this strategy, students of all learning ability can improve their math and reading skills. Working in groups is one way to differentiate this strategy for all learns as it utilizes advanced thinking strategies (Moore, Moore, Cunningham, & Cunningham, 2011, p. 181). More advanced students would have an opportunity to write their own word problems for an even great challenge and learning
opportunity.
Another strategy that supports my own personal idea of learning from a constructivist point of view, is using real world examples. Numbers are used regularly to explain the world around us. This is what has led me to incorporating real world numbers to help build students understanding of the world they live in. The best thing about this strategy is that it can be as complicated or simple as the content students are asked to look over.
Central questions are another strategy that can build literacy if students are allowed to write and discuss a response to them. A question that probably every math teacher gets asked is, when am I going to use this in my life? Though this is a disheartening question to be asked, it is a serious central question for most teens. I want to use this idea and turn it back around on the student. By asking them, where, how, when, why and what questions about math concepts, they can start to create relationships. The text relates central questions and putting students in the positions as problem solvers in an authentic situation (Moore, Moore, Cunningham, & Cunningham, 2011, p. 41). Most of the answers to these questions are subjective, which opens the door for discussion. Learners from high and low levels of learning abilities can benefit from hearing their peers explain their understanding of central questions.
The final strategy I will briefly discuss is using student projects. Technology allows for the ease of data collection and students are no strangers to technology. By making them collect data on basic routines throughout their day, they can easily create a presentation on one of many data results. Presentations are writing intensive. Mankind students research data on the internet reading can be easily integrated into the projects. For such seemingly large projects advanced students would be allowed to choose their own topics. The lower students would be given a topic and scaffolding would be provided (Moore, Moore, Cunningham, & Cunningham, 2011, p. 23). With step by step directions and constant monitoring, I believe that every student could be successful with this project.
I hope that this paper has instilled how important reading and writing is in every topic taught in school. The strategies that I presented are just a few of those that I have learned this semester. Reading is one way that humans discover facts about the world we live in. Writing helps us interpret our own knowledge gleaned from life’s experiences, including things that we read. A great quote from our text book that emphasizes this fact is, “Teaching student’s strategies for writing and learning fosters their independence fore the present as well as for the future; it promotes lifelong learning” (Moore, Moore, Cunningham, & Cunningham, 2011, p. 171). Even the book agrees with my opening statement, that life involves an impressive amount of literacy. More importantly, literacy teaches that life is long processes of learning.