Unit 4 Assignment 4A

11/18/2014

Integrated Content Literacy

Lorand Irinyi

National University

Class: TED634-60386-1411

Instructor: Deborah Spellman Smith

Abstract
Content literacy is a vital and integral component of any successful teaching/learning process.
As McKenna and Robinson (2014) stated to make instructional decisions that turn content
literacy into an asset, a teacher must have three types of information: (1) the proficiency of
students, (2) the nature of the written materials, and (3) the literacy-related demands made by the
teacher him- or herself. A balance of the three should be an important goal (p. 50). I will
elucidate below how I will plan for Integrated Content Literacy in my classroom.

First of all, I, the teacher, must have an accurate picture of my students proficiency of
literacy, and to this end I will administer the Graded Passages reading assessment at the
beginning of each school term, not just at the beginning of the school year. My choosing the
appropriate strategies to integrate Content Literacy in my classroom will be predicated on this
reading assessment. There is not one single strategy I plan to use, but a combination of them. In
my content area, physics, academic vocabulary plays a critical role, because some of terms used
in physics context might, and quite often do, describe concepts that in the vernacular would have
different meaning. After having introduced new concepts and the concomitant vocabulary
defining and describing those new concepts, I will have to ensure that said vocabulary is
mastered, so one of my strategies will be Practicing for Reinforcement. This is important
because retention of information is vital for content transmission. To avoid the dreaded (both by
teachers and students) simple repetition associated with rote drill, I will design activities in
which the recall of information is integrated with its application at higher levels (McKenna and
Robinson, 2014, p.187), so that students would not only recall information repeatedly, needed for

retention, but would integrate the recalled information into higher-level thinking by applying it
into activities that stress relationships between and among concepts that require students to
make inferences and reach defensible critical judgment (McKenna and Robinson, 2014, p.187).
Once vocabulary has been introduced and used, the next strategy I would use is Reinforcing
Vocabulary. This would serve a dual purpose. McKenna and Robinson (2014) state that, in
designing reinforcement activities for newly introduced terms, teachers can easily incorporate
some of the terms previously studied. The interconnectedness of content the fact that new
information and ideas build on existing knowledge base facilitates this practice (p.188).
Students will use interactive notebooks/lab books into which they will write summaries at
regular intervals about the newly introduced concepts/ideas and how those concepts manifest
themselves in the physical world in their every day lives. Thus further incorporating new
vocabulary using academic language as well as vernacular. Another strategy I will use is ListGroup-Label. By listing, grouping and labeling vocabulary in their interactive lab books,
students will refine and extend their knowledge. Student will work in small groups most of the
time in my class due to the nature of the content. They will be doing cooperative lab work
whenever experiments will be conducted - which will be almost at every class so, this strategy
is very well suited for them. McKenna and Robinson state (2014) that, List-Group-Label has
several notable strengths. It stresses the interrelationships that exist among technical vocabulary
words. It provides an environment for actively engaging students with content and especially
well suited to collaborative activities. It provides a good method of linking the new with the
familiar (p. 191). List-Group-Label will be used in conjunction with Multiple-Column Charts.
Since individual new vocabulary terms will cover new complex/compound concepts, using
Multiple-Column Charts is not only logical, but almost indispensible for successful knowledge

refining and extending. Every new term will have a definition describing a physical
phenomenon, and every new phenomenon will also have a physical dimension associated with it.
Multiple-Column Charts are ideal for lab book entries of this nature. A new vocabulary would be
in the left column, students definition of this term using their own words would be in the middle
column, and the physical dimension(s) describing this new concept/term would be in the right
column. For instance:
Concept
Kinetic Energy

Definition
The energy associated with moving
objects. All moving objects have kinetic
energy. The bigger the mass, the higher
the energy; or the higher the velocity, the
higher the energy.

Dimension/Units
K.E.=1/2 mv2, where
m= mass of object
v= velocity of object

I will incorporate Extended Writing Activities to help students further master content as well as
content literacy. Students will have to enter in their lab books regularly Encyclopedia Entries,
and McKenna and Robinson (2014) state that, writing encyclopedia entries is an excellent
collaborative activity (p. 196). This makes this strategy well suited for small group lab work.
Since lab work is indispensible to the teaching/learning of physics, students will also engage in
frequent Process Descriptions. Processes are the heart and soul of physical sciences, and
studying processes allows students to summarize them step by step; this activity helps the
students crystallize their conceptualization of how the processes occur (McKenna and
Robinson, 2014, p. 196).
Using these strategies in combination is how I plan to integrate content literacy in my
classroom.

References
McKenna, Michael C., Robinson, Richard D. (2014). Teaching through Text, Reading and
Writing in the Content Areas. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson

Science Content Standards for California Public Schools Kindergarten through Grade Twelve.
Retrieved from http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/documents/sciencestnd.pdf

California Common Core State Standards English Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social
Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects. Retrieved from
http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/documents/finalelaccssstandards.pdf