How can students at different reading levels read the required content-area text?
As teachers, we are constantly questioning how to manage the reality that more and more students struggle to read assigned texts. In “Fostering Comprehension in Content-Area Reading,” Jeffery Williams offers a framework for dealing with the two issues at hand: (1) students who don’t have strategies to read the texts and (2) texts that are difficult to assess and understand. No matter the reason students struggle, it is clear that simply assigning chapters and lecturing about the text is not sufficient to ensure comprehension of important content material. Here are some ideas to consider: Think-alouds. Choose a section from your content-area textbook, and use a think-aloud to model what an effective reader looks.
