Teaching content area literacy to diverse learners

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Chapter 7

Study Skills and Strategies

Building Literacy in Secondary Content Area Classrooms Gunning

Reading to Remember

“Students’ ability to manage their own studying is one of the more

important skills that students need to learn, with consequences that will be felt throughout their lives” (Pashler, Bain, Bottge, Graesser, Koedinger, McDaniel, and Metcalfe, 2007, p. 1).

Building Literacy in Secondary Content Area Classrooms Gunning

How We Remember

• Clear Encoding
• Encoding Specificity- encode information the way it is to be remembered
• Rehearsal- take steps to remember information

Building Literacy in Secondary Content Area Classrooms Gunning

Conditions that Foster Remembering

• Meaningfulness
• Organization
• Imagery
• Associations

Building Literacy in Secondary Content Area Classrooms Gunning

Associations-Mnemonics

• Reconstructive Elaboration-modifying and elaborating a concept to to make it

more memorable

Create a reconstructed word that sound like word to be learned: decide for deciduous

Create interactive illustration to link reconstructed word and target word: tree labeled as deciduous saying, “It’s fall, so I have decided to let my leaves fall.”

Building Literacy in Secondary Content Area Classrooms Gunning

Mnemonics (Continued)

• Acronyms-word composed of the first letters of a series of words to be memorized
• Rhymes
• Acrostics-sentence or rhyme in which the first letter of each word stands for the first letter in a series of words to be memorized.
• Narrative Stories- includes items in the order in which they are to be memorized

Building Literacy in Secondary Content Area Classrooms Gunning

Questions to Aid Retention

• 1. How does this relate to what I already know?
• 2. What does it remind me of?
• 3. What can I associate it with?
• 4. Can I picture it in my mind?
• 5. What can I link this picture to?
• 6. How does it relate to the topic as a whole?
• 7. What crazy things pop into my mind when I think of it?
• 8. How can I use crazy associations to help me remember?
• 9. How does this relate to what I learned before?
• 10. How does it relate to my life outside this class? (Devine, 1987, p. 302)

Building Literacy in Secondary Content Area Classrooms Gunning

Quizzes to Foster Retention

• Items should foster retrieval: fill-in-the-blanks or essay better than multiple choice
• Act of recalling information to answer a question helps to establish it in memory
• Can be game-like activity. Need not be actual test.

Building Literacy in Secondary Content Area Classrooms Gunning

SQ3R

• Survey- get quick overview
• Question- turn each heading into a question
• Read- to answer the questions that you posed
• Recite- stop at end of the section and test yourself. Go back to text if you can’t recite.
• Review- at end of assignment

Building Literacy in Secondary Content Area Classrooms Gunning

Judicious Review

• For initial learning, need three or four varied presentations or experiences within two days of each other.
• Interval between learning described above and added review should be approximately 5 to 10 percent of the time that the information has to be retained.
• For formation to be retained for 60 days,reviews should not be scheduled for at least three to six days (5% X 60 days or 10% x 60 days).

Building Literacy in Secondary Content Area Classrooms Gunning

Four Main Notetaking Skills

• Selectivity-choosing most important information

• Organization-showing how ideas are related

• Consolidation- condensing information

• Fluency- using telegraphic style & abbreviations to take notes quickly

Building Literacy in Secondary Content Area Classrooms Gunning

Scaffolding Notetaking

• Structured Notetaking- set up topics or heading beforehand, create partial notes for students to complete
• Assisted Notetaking-provide brief practice sessions with scaffolds, such as cueing main topics

Building Literacy in Secondary Content Area Classrooms Gunning

Cornell Notetaking System

Step 1: Record- write notes in second column

Step 2: Reduce or question- reduce each major idea to key words & write in first column

Step 3: Recite- quiz oneself on the material

Step 4: Reflect- relate information in notes to other sources

Step 5: Recapitulation- summarize notes

Step 6: Review- periodically review notes

Building Literacy in Secondary Content Area Classrooms Gunning

Power Thinking

• Simplified outlining
• Main ideas are preceded by a 1
• Second-level or supporting ideas by a 2
• Third level details by a 3

Power thinking is outlining without the emphasis on formatting.

Building Literacy in Secondary Content Area Classrooms Gunning

Power Thinking

• Simplified outlining
• Main ideas are preceded by a 1
• Second-level or supporting ideas by a 2
• Third level details by a 3

Power thinking is outlining without the emphasis on formatting.

Building Literacy in Secondary Content Area Classrooms Gunning

Importance of Practice

• Enables students to reach a certain level of competence
• Fosters extended development of a skill
• Makes skills automatic
• Aids retention

Building Literacy in Secondary Content Area Classrooms Gunning

Effective Practice

• Intentionality- want to improve and take steps to do so.
• Feedback from a knowledgeable source
• Distributed practice generally results in longer retention- better for rote learning
• Massed practice more effective when task has a wholeness– reading an essay, writing a report
• Overlearning–entails continuing to study after information can be recited- aids retention

Building Literacy in Secondary Content Area Classrooms Gunning

Other Factors in Studying

• Metacognition: Estimating how much is known and how well
• Motivation
• Study habits
• Time management
• Discipline

Building Literacy in Secondary Content Area Classrooms Gunning

Reading Rate

Building Literacy in Secondary Content Area Classrooms Gunning

Test-Taking Strategies

• PLAE: Preplanning,Listing, Activity, and Evaluating
• PORPE: Predict, Organize, Rehearse, Practice, and Evaluate
• Test Preparation for High-Stakes Tests
• Incorporate skills assessed on high-stakes tests into the curriculum
• Model the process of taking a test
• Probe test-taking processes with a think-aloud & give suggestions for more effective test taking