Content Area and Reading

Teaching reading in the content area classrooms can be different and not something we often take into account when planning our lessons. I would never have thought of having to teach reading when I first began this class. But now I see that reading is essential in all content areas and that it is still part of my job as a teacher to work with my students, especially ELLs, in their reading skills in my content area. Planning these lessons require considering multiple factors, including my attitudes and beliefs on the plans that I make and what I am teaching (Jetton and Lee).

Plans for teaching math should not just be about teaching students how to perform math, but also how to read math problems correctly and how to work through problems. These all require reading skills that have been developed in their reading classes but need to be further explored in the math content area.

These plans require an understanding of the components of the reading process, focusing on comprehension, vocabulary, and fluency. In math, word problems can often be tricky for any student to decode, and especially difficult for ELLs. The way that the words are defined in math may be different than how it is defined in their English class, thus creating polysemous words. Working on math vocabulary can thus be useful in order to ensure that students know the math definition of words. Fluency can also be difficult, given that word problems can be made tricky by how the words are ordered. The syntax of the question may lead to confusion, by working on fluency and breaking down the question into parts students can understand the question in a better fashion. And finally comprehension of math texts and problems require the use of vocabulary and of fluency for the students to be able to comprehend the questions. (ELLs and Mathematics)