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Organization in History”
Marissa Jadrosich-Forgét
This is literature review on the article titled English Learners and Reading
Comprehension: Text Organization in History by Phyllis Goldsmith and Tuyen Tran Ph.D. This
article discussed how teachers can support English learners and struggling readers in reading
historical primary and secondary sources. I choose this article because reading is one of the
most important skills in understanding history and learning the content and being able to
comprehend both primary and secondary sources. In some cases, these texts, are difficult to
understand and if you are a struggling reader or English Language is not your primary language,
this makes learning history more difficult. This paper will review one teaching strategies that
will help support students who are struggling readers or English Learners within a history
classroom.
Today, English Learners are not segmented into their own classes, they are integrated
into the general education learning population, so because of these English learners must have
common core standards in English language are built on an EL student’s ability to understand
the content, as well as, the language. The goal of these students is to ensure that when
graduate from the program, they are proficient in academic language. One reading strategy
that the author proposes will not only support English learners in reading comprehension, but
will support any student. This strategy is called “Text Organization Instruction.” The author
states that “When students learn language structures to analyze and connect information and a
reader of history texts” (Goldsmith, 2012, pg. 57). To do this, students need to be able to
recognize word pattens by identifying signal words. This helps students identify transitions in
sentences, which means they are able to find important statements or facts within a passage.
By finding these signal words, students will be able to start and see connections in what they
are reading.
The article focuses on one strategy for teachers to support their students using this
method. First, teachers should start the lesson by framing a historical question. This will help
structure the lesson and the reading. It gives students a point of reference when trying to read
or trying to complete classroom activities. Next, teachers need to pick an appropriate text.
There are two things that teachers need to look for. Does the historical document have more
than one organizational pattern in a single passage? Does the historical document have the
correct information that students are required to learn? (Goldsmith, 2012, pg. 58). These two
things are super important in the process of having students read and comprehend the text.
“Given this, decoding the structure of a text is a critical first step towards understanding the
main ideas of a text. Secondly, teachers should select sources that support their lesson’s
content goals. . . each source’s content should significantly add to students’ understanding”
(Goldsmith, 2012, pg. 59). This means that careful selection of the text is imperative for
student success.
How can this be implemented into classrooms? The practice of annotating text works
well for helping students be able to read and comprehend the text. This is important, because
the annotations help students find the cause and effect relationships within the reading
passage and it helps give students the foundation of what the text means. Second, being able
to use graphic organizers will help students organize the text and put information into distinct
categories. Answer keys “are useful conceptual roadmaps for the activity (and the lesson) and
by completing the student work in advance, teachers can preview whether the activity has
sufficient language support, builds content knowledge, and answers the historical investigation
question” (Goldsmith, 2012, pg. 60-61). Creating a key will help teacher evaluate student
responses to see how to plan instruction to support student learning. This evaluation of
student responses is super important, because a teacher will be able to evaluate how well they
comprehended the text and what activities moving forward would best support their ability to
continue to help English language development and to support reading of historical text.
This ability to support student learning is essential for student success. Learning history
is reading intensive, and this strategy will help all readers in the classroom comprehend
historical text. Using text organization reading strategies will result in English learners and
struggling readers to be more successful in the classroom. It is important to note that this is
only one of the reading strategies that is mentioned and to get additional strategies to support
these students, the author recommends the California History-Social Science Project.
Reference
Goldsmith, P., and Tran, T. (2012). English learners and reading comprehension: text
com.nuls.idm.oclc.org/docview/1034979947/447DD2D973884270PQ/6?accountid=253
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