Theme 3: Is comprehension instruction in the content area different?

So far, we've discussed what it means for reading comprehension and why text selection is crucial for comprehension. Comprehension itself relies heavily on interest level of the student; therefore, text selection is critical. Likewise, comprehension is demonstrated through different content areas as well. 

When I read through the readings for theme 3, my take away was that it isn't necessarily that reading comprehension is different in content areas, but the instruction taking place must be matched appropriately to the content itself. For example, in Ch. 12 Content Literacy: Reading for Understanding in Social Studies and Science by Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis, they provide a look into the reading strategies for a history and social studies lesson on page 209. It says to "ask/investigate authentic questions, read/understand variety of sources, understand multiple perspectives/interpretations, do active reading, writing, and discussions, merge thoughts with ideas to glimpse "way of thinking," and speak, write, and advocate opinions." Harvey and Goudvis also goes to mention that students and adults practice two forms of reading: real-world reading and focused content reading. Real-world reading is the reading we do outside of school (i.e. newspapers, magazines, nonfiction, historical fiction) and focused content reading is the reading we do in school directly related to the content areas. 

As comprehension strategies may vary depending on the content area, scaffolding and monitoring our thinking are two things that always occur no matter what type of reading we engage in. In Ch. 3 Mindful Reading by Ellin Oliver Keene and Susan Zimmermann, they explain that monitoring should occur metacognitively. Listening to your inner voice is crucial because "proficient readers listen to their inner voices as they read." An important factor to remember is that readers of all kind will struggle at some point and reading in itself is not an easy task. Keene and Zimmermann provide an analogy for proficient readers with surgeons. Proficient readers are described three ways: flexible, adaptive, and independent. They have, like surgeons, "a tray of instruments (revision strategies) they can use to operate on comprehension problems. Surgeons use their tools flexibly and interchangeably." I really liked this analogy because it provided me a nice visual of how a proficient reader should look like when engaged with the text and it just so happens I've been watching Grey's Anatomy so that was a super plus!

With various content areas, the type of comprehension instruction may vary. In the article Scaffolded Reading Instruction of Content-Area Texts by Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey, they provide examples of different comprehension instructions such as close reading, scaffolded reading, small-group scaffolded reading, etc. I read this article to tie up all my readings for theme 3 and my last take away was that content area does not mean to teach comprehension skills differently; what it means is to allow our students to choose the appropriate reading strategies in that particular content area text and continue thinking about the text. Like surgeons, we are not limiting the students to which tools they should use for their reading strategies but rather, which strategies will better assist them in their reading at hand.