Disciplinary Literacy Learning Blog #1
Cynthia Shanahan defines disciplinary literacy as the “idea that we should teach the specialized ways of reading, understanding, and thinking used in each academic discipline, such as science, history , or literature. (Shanahan,C.,& Shanahan,T.(2014)) Disciplinary literacy is used to teach students how to read specific content literature. For example, historians need to be able to read documents from the time in which they are studying and other secondary sources. On the other hand, scientists rely more on data and, observations and other experiments.
Disciplinary literacy is different than content area reading in many ways. Disciplinary literacy has the student learn the content of the field and how writing/ reading are used in the specific field. Content area reading on the other hand, focuses more on study habits that will help students to have better comprehension of the topic.
The focus of my inquiry this semester will be how can I Implement disciplinary learning in my third grade classroom. I will be specifically looking at resources, standards and strategies for readers when approaching content areas through the disciplinary approach. The text in which I plan to use throughout this learning experience is Altieri, J. (2013). Powerful content connections: Nurturing readers, writers and thinkers in Grades K-3. Newark, DE: International Literacy Association.
The students in my class currently struggle with reading. I have several students that are low level readers. On the other hand, I have several students that are advanced readers also. I am curious to see how introducing more informational text for each subject will affect the different learners in my classroom.
Check out this infographic by Kasey Dunlap, Kyle Lefier, Caleb Kuhlman, Andrew Scherer, Corey Jennett and Brandon Lamarche
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