Final Synthesis Blog

At the beginning of the semester, I was confused around the idea of instructing literacy in subjects besides language arts. My initial belief was that language teachers should prepare students to be capable readers so that assigned readings from other content areas would be more easily understood. However, LLED 3530 has been beneficial in changing my attitude towards reading in my primary content area, which is science. Our class has highlighted the extra leaps that I will need to take so that my students get the most out of the readings that I assign. The most important chapter to me from Subjects Matter was chapter six, How to use a textbook because the text lays out practical strategies that can be used by students to increase comprehension. I found these to be most useful for science because of the chapter's emphasis on aligning readings around what is going to be on the test where the book stresses the importance of focusing on academic vocabulary (Daniels & Zemelman, 2004, p.177). In all, this class has shown me that I will need to put forth additional effort into finding fostering literacy, whether it is in textbooks, peer-reviewed journals, videos, podcasts, or novels.

My main takeaway is the substantial role that collaboration plays for not only students but also educators. I have strengthened my perspective for science education this semester because many of our assignments were focused around scenarios in our main content area. While also getting a better understanding of supporting literacy outside of my comfort zone, which was social studies and math. My development was supported through our class blog and shared google folder. These have provided me with resources that I can look to for support as I begin my student teaching. I enjoyed the in-class assignments where everyone could actively work on the document at the same time. I have not had a teacher use technology to the level that Nick has for this class, which I found incredible because demands for technology within classrooms is only going to increase from here on out. 

Content Area Literature has provided me with experiences where I am motivated to incorporate some of the assignments we completed into my future pedagogy. In completing three of the think-aloud tasks, I grew fond of the idea because I believe the strategy would have been beneficial to see from my science educators throughout grade school. My science teacher's always seemed to take on the role of grand dispensers of knowledge. The vulnerable position They would be in through performing this strategy would have been beneficial because my classmates and I would get to see firsthand how our teacher worked to make sense when confused. I think having students do the think-aloud strategy would be useful for understanding how you could provide them with strategies for reading comprehension. The more they perform this while receiving support from the teacher, they will become better with picking apart essential information.

Additionally, the before, during, and after reading strategies are fantastic to me and, surprisingly, I did not have any teachers to show me that there was a more natural way to pick out essential information from the text until this class. Seeing myself as a competent reader, I was still able to incorporate the strategies into the two journal club assignments so that my understanding was nurtured better than if I had not used them. I was shown the wealth of information that students could be missing without the use of reading strategies because without being cognitive about the reading strategies, it was easy to glance over information. Because of this, I have realized the importance of implementing proper reading strategies to be used within each of the content areas while also realizing that I will need to be building upon resources to foster my future student's literacy.
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