Building Reading Proficiency at the Secondary Level: A Guide to Resources

What is it? How does it work?

Background:
RP is designed to help teachers of general as well as vocational education classes engage students in effective behaviors for reading text across the content areas. Teachers develop a Teaching Outline to help them integrate the reading strategies with their instruction.

Overview:
Reading Power in the Content Areas (RP) is designed help general education and vocational education teachers improve the content reading of secondary level students through sound assessment and instructional strategies. It was developed by Roy Butz in 1972 for grades 9-12.

Through teacher professional development, RP addresses the needs of both student and teacher. The student needs addressed include: (1) the need to narrow the gap between reading ability and the reading required for accessing instructional materials and (2) the need to increase general reading comprehension skills, including vocabulary acquisition and study skills. The teacher needs addressed include the need to enrich knowledge, attitudes, and skills relating to the use of textbooks and reading-related activities used for instruction. The program has the following components:

1. Inservice training includes assessment of teacher attitudes toward reading and of the extent to which they use scaffolding to support reading assignments. Teachers learn assessment techniques, the limits of readability levels, and the usability of textbooks.

2. In the student assessment component teachers learn to assess student reading ability through multiple measures. In addition to learning how to interpret standardized reading tests, teachers learn a variety of informal tests, such as sight and content-specific vocabulary assessments, "cloze" tests, and informal reading inventories.

3. In the vocabulary development component teachers learn importance of background experience and motivation to vocabulary learning. They acquire techniques for increasing student vocabulary skills in specific content areas, such as how to select vocabulary words that will enhance the reading of the text.

4. The comprehension/thinking skills component teaches how to scaffold reading throughout the reading process, so that students can become active and independent readers.

RP also helps teachers to structure a "Teaching Outline" for classroom implementation of the strategies.