Annotated Table of Contents: Reading in the Content Areas

Teaching English, How To.... by Raymond Stopper

Part Four: Reading

Chapter 19. Reading in the Content areas: How can teachers of subjects other than English help their students read assignments successfully? "Reading in the content areas" refers to helping students read their assignments successfully in such subjects as social studies, science, home economics and even industrial arts in which students are required to read textbooks.

Instructing students to "read chapter 33 and answer the questions at the end of the chapter" is probably the worst way to give a reading assignment. This method of assigning reading ignores motivation for reading. Such an assignment also assumes that the students do not need any help in reading. However, most students will know very little about the topic, and the topic will more than likely be unrelated to their experience. Experience and background information have a lot to do with how well people comprehend what they read. Students can also be puzzled by a heavy concentration of unfamiliar, specialized vocabulary. Finally, on a practical level, an assignment like this one leaves students wondering which parts of the chapter the teacher thinks is important and guessing about what information will be on the test. Sound familiar?

A few simple steps can make all the difference in students' reading successfully.