Demystifying Academic Reading: A Disciplinary Literacy Approach to Reading Across Content Areas

✍ Scribed by Zhihui Fang

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2024
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 262
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This book attempts to present a state-of-the-art review of the theory, research, and practice related to academic reading in four core curriculum content areas—literature, history, science, and mathematics. It demonstrates that contrary to popular beliefs, the task of learning to read is by no means complete by the end of third grade, suggesting that even decoding-profcient students still have much to learn about how to read academic and disciplinary texts carefully, critically, purposefully, and with a healthy skepticism in content area learning. Adopting a disciplinary literacy approach—an approach that foregrounds the goals, ethos, methodologies, epistemologies, and practices of academic disciplines and emphasizes building students’ understanding of how knowledge within specifc disciplines is created, communicated, consumed, and learned, the book describes patterns of semiotic choices that content experts employ to construct texts in their discipline and the heuristics they employ to make sense of and interpret these texts in their reading practice. In so doing, the book demystifes academic reading, showing students how meaning in disciplinary texts is verbally and visually
designed and what strategies are effective for engendering text understanding; it also provides evidence-based guidelines and ploys for helping students develop inquiry skills, discursive insights, cognitive strategies, and habits of mind
that facilitate meaning making and learning across content areas.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Half Title
Title
Copyright
Contents (Brief)
Contents (Detailed)
Preface
1 Reading and Learning in Academic Content Areas
What is Reading?
Models of Reading Process
Factors Impacting Academic Reading
The Challenges of Academic Reading
Stages of Reading Development
Language, Reading, and Learning
Toward a Disciplinary Literacy Approach to Academic Reading
Conclusion
Reflection and Application
References
2 Reading Literature
Literature in English Language Arts
The Challenges of Literary Reading
How do Experts Read Literary Texts?
Developing Literary Expertise: General Principles and Approaches
Teaching Literature in ELA Classrooms: Some Examples
Conclusion
Reflection and Application
References
3 Reading History
What is History?
Reading and Historical Literacy
Types of Historical Materials
The Challenges of Historical Reading
How do Experts Read Historical Texts?
Developing Historical Literacy Through Reading
Conclusion
Reflection and Application
References
4 Reading Science
Reading and Science Literacy
The Challenges of Science Reading
How do Experts Read Science Texts?
A Blueprint for Improving Science Reading Ability
A Heuristic for Teaching Reading in Science
Conclusion
Reflection and Application
References
5 Reading Mathematics
What is Mathematics?
Reading and Mathematical Literacy
The Challenges of Mathematics Reading
How do Experts Read Mathematics Texts?
Promoting Reading in Mathematics Teaching and Learning
Conclusion
Reflection and Application
References
6 Developing Teacher Expertise for Academic Reading Instruction
Continuing Reading Instruction Beyond Elementary School
Who is Responsible for Teaching Academic Reading?
What Sorts of Expertise are Needed to Teach Academic Reading?
Preparing Teachers for Academic Reading Instruction
Conclusion
Reflection and Application
References
Index