Literacy can be a huge obstacle for students, especially disciplinary literacy, and impact students' identity. Students who see their literacy as a strength, may be more active participants in the classroom, while students who see their literacy as a weakness may be more reserved in their classroom participation. However, as educators, it's our job to tap into our students' strengths to build up their literacy skills, no matter what level they're at. This can be making connections to their interests and communities. So, while the literacy skills of students is important, it is also important to remember that students are more than their literacy skills.

Strategies

• Whip Around

• Parking Lot

• Gallery Walk

• Digital Portfolio

• Quick Write

Skilled reading takes time to develop. To become skilled readers, students need to have a strong language comprehension, such as background knowledge and vocabulary, as well as strong word recognition, such as phonological awareness and decoding. While language comprehension becomes increasingly strategic over time, word recognition becomes increasingly automatic over time. Combined, the mastery of these skills provide students with the ability to be skilled readers. This development of literacy skills will especially help students when they're in different disciplines.

Strategies

• Four A’s Protocol

• Save the Last Word for ME Protocol

• Jigsaw

One of the trickiest things about literacy is when one goes beyond the basic literacy one encounters in their everyday life and into disciplinary literacy that requires highly-specialized skills needed to read, interpret, synthesize, etc. within each discipline. Each discipline has a habit of mind, or a way of thinking that is necessary to succeed. Thus, students need to learn how they can read like a scientist, historian, mathematician, etc. To do so, students need special supports that can help them overcome difficulties in disciplinary literacy.

Strategies

• Text Rendering Protocol

• Adlit.org

• Chalk Talk

• Save the Last Word for ME Protocol

Vocabulary is an incredibly important aspect of disciplinary literacy. While there is overlap of some words that all the disciplines use, such as analyze and explain, other words are content-area specific. So, it's likely that students haven't had any contact with these vocabulary words prior to class. Thus, we have to be aware of which terms students will most likely be unfamiliar with and be strategic with how we teach them. Students need to learn how they should approach vocabulary so that they can use these skills in other situations, but also so that they can become skilled readers.

Strategies

• Socratic Seminar

• Word Generation

• Vocabulary Cartoons

• Create a Creature/Character/Object with Latin and Greek Affixes

• Word Questioning

• Vocabulary Wanted Posters

Typically in classrooms, students absorb knowledge from the teacher and complete whatever assessment assigned. While this can give an insight into student understanding, a more enhanced way for students to display their thinking is through discussions. Through discussions, students can share their thinking with their peers and construct new knowledge based on the conversation. However, students need assistance to make these fruitful discussions happen. Students need plenty of prep-time, discussion norms, and comfortability to engage in quality discussions. Educators also need to facilitate opportunities for students to construct knowledge and share their thinking. One way that these opportunities can be created is by establishing accountability in classroom discussions. Part of this accountability is having students contribute knowledge that is accurate and relevant to the issue under discussion. Additionally, this accountability includes using evidence appropriate to the discipline (e.g., mathematical theories) and follows established norms of good reasoning. With this accountability, rigor will be maintained in the classroom and elicit student thinking.

Strategies

• Make an Appointment with Peers

• Discussion Roles

• Talk Moves

• Classroom Deliberation

• Questions

• Small Group Work

• Stop and Talk (Think Pair Share)

• Carousel Brainstorm

• Student Presentation

• Fishbowl

In disciplinary literacy, there are multiple forms of texts that can develop student literacy beyond the textbook. In the case of math, students can explore different ways of solving for problems depending on which source they're observing. This can also be beneficial when it comes to math literacy.

Strategies

• Multiple Text Sets

• Additive Writing

• Graphic Display

• Summarizing the Other Side

Another important aspect of literacy is writing. Since writing is also something that changes depending on the discipline, it can be a skill that is very daunting to students. However, it is also a skill that allows students to share their thinking. Thus, students need various strategies to help them build these writing skills as well as aid them in their learning.

Strategies

• Dialectical Journal

• DO/WHAT chart

• Harris Moves

• T-Chart of Criteria

• Power Writing

• Kernel Essays

• Infographics

• Color Coding