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Literacy Across Disciplines in Grades 4-12

Disciplinary literacy is based on the idea that reading and other literacy components such as vocabulary, writing and critical thinking are specialized based on the specific discipline (history, chemistry, mathematics, etc.). Each academic discipline requires unique content that is nuanced to the individual discipline. The texts used in each discipline vary significantly. Students must have in place foundational strategies that cut across content areas before they can access the discipline-specific strategies. Discipline-specific (literacy content) strategies are necessary to support students’ understanding. At its core, disciplinary literacy encompasses the discipline-specific skills needed to read, write, and think about a particular discipline.

Instructional Components for All Readers Across Disciplines (Subject Area Classrooms)

Researchers have identified specific critical instructional components necessary during instruction for adolescent readers. These include: reading fluency, vocabulary knowledge, background knowledge or prior knowledge, higher-level reasoning and thinking skills, motivation and engagement for understanding and learning from text, and active and flexible use of reading comprehension strategies to increase comprehension. Evidence-based instructional tools have been included for each of these components below. 

Teachers must explicitly teach students how to use each tool as they work through disciplinary texts. Following a simple scaffolded approach of gradual release of responsibility works well. To scaffold learning on how to use each tool, the teacher can use a basic sequence:

  • I Do: Teacher models how to use the tool.
  • We Do: Teacher guides students’ use of the tool with the teacher’s help.
  • You Do: Students utilize the tool independently.

Following this instructional sequence provides the direct and explicit instruction students need before using the tool independently.

(Source: Torgesen et al., 2007)

WestEd’s Reading Apprenticeship offers student learning goals by subject matter.

Component 1: Reading Fluency

Fluency should continue to increase and should be supported by helping students decode multisyllabic words by focusing on word analysis skills and supporting morphological knowledge.

  • Multisyllabic Word Reading Tool: One tool for teaching students to decode multisyllabic words is to explicitly teach five steps of multisyllabic word reading to students. For successful use of this tool, students must know prefixes and suffixes, understand syllable types, have some understanding of common roots, and understand basic phonics principles. The five steps are as follows:
  1. Circle the prefixes.
  1. Put a box around the suffixes.
  1. Look at what is left – underline vowels.
  1. Say the word parts slowly.
  1. Say the entire word. 

In addition, in this video Anita Archer provides an example of providing explicit instruction for teaching students how to navigate decoding multisyllabic words.

As with other tools, teachers will want to scaffold the learning of the tool. First, teachers can introduce and model the five steps. Then, they can provide students opportunities for practice with teacher guidance and support, and finally give students independent practice opportunities. It is helpful to create an anchor chart of the five steps so that students have a visual that fosters independent learning.

Literacy expert Timothy Shanahan offers the following tools/activities to support fluency development for upper elementary, middle, and high school students. 

  • Paired Reading: Pair students up. Have them take turns reading the text to each other. One student reads a page or paragraph and the other gives feedback. Then the students switch roles. During this activity, the teacher circulates throughout the room, giving feedback as needed. Link some comprehension work to this. At the end of each section of reading, have the students determine the main point(s) of that section or compose a good test question about that part of the material.
  • Repeated Reading: Students read aloud a portion of text (perhaps a 100-word chunk, or the first couple of paragraphs). The teacher or another student gives feedback, and the student tries it again. This repetition continues three times or until the student can read it with 99% accuracy, at more than 100 words per minute, and with expression that suggests successful comprehension (White, et al., 2021). This can be combined with paired reading. Repeated reading is especially valuable with content materials. Understanding such texts often requires this kind of intensive rereading anyway, so the rereading is appropriate.
  • Pause, Prompt, Praise (PPP): Not all students are great fluency partners. PPP provides some support in this area. Partners and teachers are encouraged to give students some slack if a mistake is made. Let the student read to the end of the clause or sentence and see what they do. Better readers try to fix the mistake. That’s the pause. But if a student can’t remedy the error (or doesn’t notice it), then provide a prompt. If the mistake doesn’t make sense, then give some feedback about meaning. If the word read doesn’t look or sound like the word in the book, then direct the student to look more closely. If the student can’t fix the error after one prompt, tell them what the word is. Finally, for anything done well, provide praise.
  • Recorded Readings: Students can make progress without much individual feedback. Consider having students record oral reading for homework. Have them read an assigned portion of text (no more than 5-10 min). To complete the assignment successfully, the students will likely need to practice prior to recording. Teachers can spot-check these to check on performance. Again, it is a good idea to link to some comprehension tasks.
  • Chunking: Studies suggest that chunking can be helpful with older students. In this strategy, the teacher initially provides text with phrasal boundaries marked. Students of all ability levels tend to get a boost from this material. After they have had some practice reading materials so marked, then give them unmarked texts and have them work in teams or individually to identify phrasal boundaries.

Component 2: Vocabulary Knowledge

Vocabulary knowledge is important because text demands increase across grade levels. Students must expand their vocabulary in order to understand texts they will read. Explicit instruction for key vocabulary words is critical. In addition, promoting students’ wide and varied independent reading helps to build their storehouse of vocabulary. 

  • Vocabulary Trees: Vocabulary trees can help students build understanding of root words or help them make connections within and between targeted vocabulary words. This tool can be used for specific root words, as well as targeted vocabulary words.  

Component 3: Background Knowledge

Background knowledge is critical for understanding texts, so students’ knowledge base must continue to grow. Similar to vocabulary, teachers must provide explicit instruction around content knowledge, and students must read widely to grow their own knowledge base. 

  • Anticipation Guides: Anticipation guides are useful as a pre-reading strategy to help students activate prior knowledge before reading the text.

Component 4: Higher-Level Thinking and Reasoning Skills

As texts become more complex across the grade levels, students’ ability to use high-level reasoning and thinking becomes more and more important. Students must be able to use their background knowledge and content from the text to make inferences, as well as to become more adept at drawing conclusions and think critically. 

  • Higher-Level Reasoning Graphic Organizers: Graphic organizers can help assist students’ understanding as they read different types of expository text. For example, when a text is organized around a cause-and-effect relationship, teachers can provide explicit instruction related to identifying cause and effect relationships in a text.

Graphic organizers can also help readers with making inferences. Making inferences requires students to combine clues from the text with their own background knowledge in order to make connections and understand the text they are reading.

Component 5: Motivation and Engagement

Motivation and engagement are also important for teachers to consider when supporting adolescent readers. Students who are less motivated to read are usually less engaged with the text while they are reading and can experience difficulty understanding the text. To improve motivation, teachers can provide a range of choices in reading activities and materials, ensure texts are interesting to students, and increase opportunities for collaborative reading activities. Before reading, teachers can also provide a goal or purpose for reading prior to having students engage with the text. This can be in the form of a question students are reading to find out. Students can share their own questions prior to reading. 

Component 6: Active and Flexible Use of Reading Comprehension Strategies

Finally, students need to be taught how to actively and flexibly use reading comprehension strategiesto understand and make meaning from text. Effective comprehension strategies are self-directed and good readers are taught to monitor their comprehension while reading. They may use strategies such as noticing when they are confused, and go back and re-read the text to clarify understanding. Other comprehension strategies include stopping and paraphrasing to make sense of text just read, making explicit connections from a text passage to their own prior knowledge or to other parts of the text, underlining and note taking, and visualizing relationships and events in the text. 

  • Double-Entry Journals: Double-entry journals are helpful to use as students read a text. This strategy encourages students to notice and respond to information in the text.