Peer Review, Leadership in Reading and Metacognition: Reading Apprenticeship in Action Northern Essex Community College Professional Day Reading Across the Curriculum March 27, 2009 Assistant Professor Patricia Schade Northern Essex Community College Developmental Studies/Reading http://www.wested.org/StrategicLiteracy 1 Page

WestEd’s Strategic Literacy Initiative (SLI) A professional development and research organization focusing on improving academic literacy in diverse populations of adolescents and post-secondary students using Reading Apprenticeship, a research-based instructional framework. 2 Page

Reading Apprenticeship A partnership of expertise between the teacher and students, drawing on what content area teachers know and do as skilled discipline-based readers and on learners’ unique and often underestimated strengths 3 Page

Dimensions of Reading Apprenticeship 4 WestEd Page

What does a Reading Apprenticeship Classroom Look Like? A focus on comprehension and metacognitive conversation A climate of collaboration An emphasis on student independence 5 Page

Where is Reading Apprenticeship Implemented? In developmental education courses that help students develop the self-awareness, habits, and tools they need to become more engaged and effective readers In transfer level academic courses and career and technical education, helping students develop habits of mind and strategies for understanding content area texts and discourse 6 Page

Reading Apprenticeship in Community Colleges RA is being implemented in. . . 20 California Community Colleges and 9 community colleges in Arkansas, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Texas and Washington. 7 Page

Student Outcomes More reading Increased engagement and confidence as readers Development of a range of strategies to support comprehension Higher levels of interaction between and among teachers and students Increased retention 8 Page

What students have said about this approach to reading “At first when I use to read, reading was hard for me. I don’t mean hard like I couldn’t read, but like I couldn’t understand what the author was putting out. Reading was very difficult because when I’m tested on a question about it, I couldn’t answer. Because I never read and visualized things until now. When I read, I’ll do one sentence at a time and try to summarize it, or sometimes I would picture myself in the description of that sentence. I visualize a lot now. I realize that I am using a method metacognition and since then I’ve been an improved reader whenever I visualize as I read.” –Rashad “I have learned that metacognition is when you think about what you read. Metacognition has changed the things that go on in my head because now I think about what I read more clearly. I predict, picture, question, make connections, identify and problems and check back if I don’t understand something the first time I read it. When I used to read before, I just read to get it over with and be done, but now I really get into books and try to predict and make connections to help me summarize what I read.” –Tiffany “I have learned to slow down, think and understand. Before I was never able to do this because I just wanted to read and just get it over with. In this class I learned something new called ‘metacognition’—a big word with a small meaning—slow down and think.” --Fabian 9 Page

More student reflections on Reading Apprenticeship “It just helps to understand what you’re reading easier. I’ve learned about how I read which is I visualize a lot more than anything. What I’ve changed in my reading habits is to actually think about what I’m reading and to summarize the paragraphs so I understand better.” –Tasha  “When metacognition was first introduced to me, I really didn’t know what to think about it. I felt a little uncomfortable talking about what I am seeing and thinking about in my mind. Especially with classmates. But it wasn’t that bad. In fact I feel metacognition has helped me with my reading. Before when I read, I would not really visualize much because I felt like I was just trying to get through the reading. But now I find myself taking my time reading, visualizing everything I can.” –Jeremy  “Before learning about metacognition I used to read text and by the next page I would have forgotten what I read. Now I can read something like a whole chapter and remember what I read vividly because of this technique. I think that it enhanced my reading abilities greatly because I put myself in the actual text and imagine myself being there or I will think of how I would react if something ever happened to me like that.” –Kristina 10 Page

Increased Engagement and Understanding of Text “The level of engagement with the class reading and the depth and quality of the critical thinking achieved by many of the students far surpasses anything that I saw before starting to implement RA. . . There has been a remarkable shift in classroom culture, from one in which the general idea was to just get through the course. . . to one in which critical inquiry is the general idea. . .”   -Anne Agard, ESL, Laney College Year 1 Research Report on Reading Apprenticeship 11 Page

Impact of Metacognitive Conversation on Students’ Comprehension “ (By the end of the semester) I noticed an increase in ‘higher order’ comments in (student samples) of Talking to the Text; more students. . . were writing summary comments, labeling passages by their function, writing evaluative comments. . . making inferences, drawing conclusions, making connections, and asking more interesting questions.”   -Cindy Hicks, English, Chabot College Year 1 Research Report on Reading Apprenticeship 12 Page

Teacher Outcomes New ways of looking at student thinking and reading difficulties Wider repertoire of resources and tools for addressing student reading difficulty Increased sense of responsibility for addressing reading and literacy in subject area classes Growth in teacher leadership 13 Page

Campus-wide Outcomes Increased student-focused interactions among faculty Campus-wide emphasis on literacy improvement Agreements about a common language and strategic approaches to reading Professional learning communities: inquiry and use of protocols for looking at classroom practices, student work Interactions with other RA practitioners becomes a source of information sharing, learning and support Growth of campus leaders in literacy 14 Page