Reading within a Discipline

            

             This week's reading was very interesting as we got to learn how literacy is applied to disciplines and ways to comprehend each discipline. Each reading brought a different perspective of what every student does before reading or even approaching a text. Throughout the readings, I found myself rereading texts and underlining words that I was unfamiliar with as well as asking myself questions. According to Buehl, this is important as we are using the seven fundamental comprehension process to make sense of what we are reading. Many students in high school don't use such approach whereas they try to just finish the answer to an assignment without fully understanding what they have just read. It's sad to read and even hear that students are not fully developing their comprehension when reading a text. Buehl mentions many teachers often ask themselves "we cannot really teach students how to comprehend, can we?" (Buehl, 37). Yes, we can teach students as Buehl puts it "when students are taught to apply strategies to text, their comprehension of those texts improves" (Buehl, 37). It's just a matter of when to teach students the strategies and many see that the school's main focus is often passing certain exams. Yes, it's important for students to pass that exam but if we were to teach them the right way to comprehend then there would be an improvement in such scores. So as future teachers, we have to give the time to teach students to comprehend within a given discipline. Anywhere from teaching them the strategies to approach a text to giving them time in class to voice their own thoughts of what they read. This doesn’t have to be taught all at once, but more as putting a few reminders throughout the semester of what to do so over time students would then be able to do this on their own.

           Lee & Spratley mention that “less than 10 percent of 17-year-old, regardless of race/ethnicity or SES, are able to comprehend complex texts” (Lee & Spratley, 2). This is such a low percentage that as teachers we have to see that something is not being taught correctly in the sense that students aren’t understanding a text. This is when teaching how to comprehend comes in handy, as Lee & Spratley mention “beyond these general strategies, disciplinary literacy also requires knowledge of topics in a particular field” (Lee & Spratley, 3). So students also have to have a background knowledge about subjects they studied or else they are going to be lost in a classroom.

         One thing did catch my attention and that was the Comprehension of Mathematics text in both the readings of Buehl and Lee & Spratley. It never occurred that there was more than just using equations. As a Teaching of Mathematics major, it was a different reading both the articles about teaching students how to comprehend math text. I was finally able to fully understand the connection between Literacy and Mathematics. As Buehl, mentions “readers must read mathematics sentences differently and more intensely than they read sentences” (Buehl, 63). From my own personal experience, I often used a Math textbook as guidance in order to fully understand what I was learning in the class and as well as extra practise problems. Lee & Spratley explain that “reading a wide array of mathematics-centric and mathematics-related texts in the classroom can generate lifelong interest and support learning to reason mathematically” (Lee & Spratley, 15). So even though Mathematics is a language of its own, as a future Math Teacher, I have to encourage students to decipher math texts and ask themselves questions as they go. This is what we need in the classroom to get students into the mode of thinking about a text when they read. We have to find ways to teach comprehension in all the classroom and from their students are going to learn better and critically of their readings.