This paper studied the ‘reading to learn’ to improve the content area literacy of the content subject, such as science, social studies. Students need to be able to read textbooks or materials in subjects to become knowledgeable. These reading skills a ...
This paper studied the ‘reading to learn’ to improve the content area literacy of the content subject, such as science, social studies. Students need to be able to read textbooks or materials in subjects to become knowledgeable. These reading skills are mainly learned in the Korean language subject. The reading skills used in learning in the content subjects is called 'reading to learn.'
If students are able to read well in order to be good at learning the contents, they have a high level of content area literacy. ‘Reading to learn’ is taught in elementary school, where the content area literacy is emphasized, and secondary school is used for ‘disciplinary reading’. The reason is that while elementary schools are centered on cross-curricula reading, at the secondary level, specific reading methods are strengthened for each subject.
This study analyzed the status of learning reading appearing in the major content subjects Science and Social Studies, and the integration between Science and Korean language subjects. It also conducted a survey of high school literature, history, science and math teachers on disciplinary reading. The main results were:
The elementary Science textbooks reflected ‘reading to learn’ strategies introduced in Korea ‘SQ3R, summarizing, process guiding, QAR(Question Answer Relationship), semantic map, previewing, contrast table’ were frequently appeared. These strategies were doing the roles related comprehension of information texts, developing independence in learning, academic vocabulary, and close reading. The perspectives of clarification, about 60% of strategies were not clearly presented.
In elementary Social studies textbooks, strategies known as ‘SQ3R, questioning, summarizing, wheel of main idea, KWL, intertextuality, concept definition map, contrast table, in to the picture’ are most frequently appeared. These strategies intended to improve the comprehension of information texts, developing independence in learning, critical thinking skills, and academic vocabulary. However most of these strategies are not clearly presented.
The integration between the elementary Korean language and Science textbooks was generally good. A few improvements were suggest. Developing the general curriculum in the future, the requirements for integration between the subjects is needed. Korean language textbooks should reinforce the multi-modal literacy required by science textbooks. In science textbooks, it is necessary to differentiate between the talking and discussion discourse. There is a need to reinvestigate 'talking' as a basic learning skills. 'Science writing' which regularly appears in science textbooks is a good writing environment that can enhance the authenticity of writing.
We surveyed high school literature, history, science, and math teachers for their perceptions of disciplinary reading also. Teachers felt that reading had an important influence on their subjects. Teachers thought that the reading was different by subject were more than the same. The reason is that the nature of the subjects and their contents are different. This means that teachers perceive the nature of disciplinary reading to be more subject specific reading than cross curricula reading. Literature teacher stress sympathetic reading, history teachers emphasize critical reading, science teachers highlight analytical reading, and mathematics teachers prefer close reading as the nature of their disciplinary reading. There were also differences in when teachers could acquire their disciplinary reading expertise as subject matter experts, and in how they did so.
Based on these results, a few policy were proposed related the development of curriculum, development of textbooks, development of pre-service and in-service teachers education curriculum to improve the school education.