When presenting students with any type of reading materials, it is import to understand their reading levels proficiency. If you understand you students’ reading abilities you can know what to expect from them when assigning them anything that has reading expectations.

Analyzing Academic Texts within Content Areas

• Levels of Reading Proficiency

As students are learning to read, they are constantly being evaluated to determine their level of understanding. There are typical characteristics that can be found in English speaking students depending on their level of proficiency. It would make sense that as a student is getting older, the expectations would change depending on the grade they were in. As I plan to teach at the junior high school level, I will be discussing the expectations of students’ reading abilities for that age group.

Below Basic:

At the junior high school level, students are expected to have the foundational reading skill. While students performing below basic understanding may possess a fundamental reading ability, they may not have the ability to answer simple questions or identify main ideas from a text. Simply locating some of the important information found in the text may be difficult for students performing below the basic level of understanding. These students would not have the ability to make judgments based on what they are reading. Without the ability to make judgments or understand the text, most of these students would not be able to locate evidence to support a claim when asked.  Sometimes these students may not be able to understand the basic meaning behind some of the words they may be reading. Knowledge of vocabulary may be missing as well.

Basic:

In junior high school, students who are reading at the basic level should have many of the foundational skills required to understand a text. These students should be able to identify the main idea, theme, and purpose of the text, as well as having the ability to interpret the meaning of what they are reading. Students will have the ability to identify the meaning of certain words used within the context of the material. When answering questions about the text, students should be able to evaluate, make judgments, and provide evidence to support their answers. The strength of students at this level is the ability to identify specific information found in the text.

While these students have the ability to identify a lot of the information, they may not be able to fully interpret and make solid connections across an entire text. They would not be able to completely summarize and support inferences that they may make about the text (IES – NCES, 2019).

Proficient:

Students performing at the proficient level of reading should not only be able to identify the main ideas and themes of a text but summarize them as well. These students have the ability to make inferences as well as provide evidence for those opinions about the text. Connecting parts of the text and analyzing different features of a text are skills that will be developed at this stage. This level of performance would mean that a student could clarify and back up their judgments that they make about the text with evidence from that text. These students would be able to see decisions that a character is making and be able to explain, recognize, and interpret the character’s actions and even feelings. They would be able to recognize what motivates a character’s actions within a text. While they are making stronger connections and demonstrating the ability to summarize and explain these connections, students at the proficient level may not have the ability to fully understand or interpret the author’s motivation behind the events that may occur in a text. Recognizing an author’s stance or literary devices used is the first step towards truly understanding an author’s intentions. This skill is beginning to develop at this stage of achievement (IES – NCES, 2019).

Advanced:

Advanced readers have developed all the skills previously mentioned when it comes to being able to recognize themes, ideas, and purposes of a particular text. Students reach the advanced level when they have the ability to make substantial connections within and across texts. This ability will allow the reader to more thoroughly explain casual relationships between themes, ideas, and even characters within the text. These students would be able to evaluate and justify the strength of supporting evidence. Understanding an author’s presentation and the quality of the author’s presentation. Students with advanced understanding can handle the demands of analysis, evaluation, and justification. Their skills lie in the ability to make intertextual as well as intratextual connections across a text. These students have the ability to explain and infer a variety of information about the text (IES – NCES, 2019).

• Academic Texts: Science

The materials I chose to examine for this assignment were taken directly from the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) Life Science for All curriculum. Both of these texts are used in California’s new NGSS seventh grade curriculum.

Text #1: Are Viruses Alive?

This is an article and follow up worksheet titled “Are Viruses Alive?” It is found in the seventh grade life science NGSS curriculum. This article is used at the beginning of the school year after students are taught the different characteristics of what it means to be alive. The purpose of this article is to introduce to students the idea of writing a CER (claim, evidence, and reasoning). They will be expected to use this basic set up for the rest of the year any time they are asked to evaluate a scientific principle and back up their claim with evidence and reasoning for that evidence.

The article is set up in a way that allows students to take notes and write questions in the margin as they are reading. Students are instructed in the directions to make not of any questions or important details that stand out to them as they read. The article is two pages long. It begins by describing viruses the students may have heard of. The second part of the article lists the basic requirements for something to be considered living. The third section then describes how viruses do or do not meet the requirements to be considered living things. The article ends with the author stating how this subject is a strongly debated issue in the scientific community.

After the article, there is a two page worksheet where students are asked to summarize the main purpose of the article. Next, they are asked to provide evidence to back up both the idea of viruses being alive as well as them not being living. This evidence can be found in the article provided. Lastly, the students are asked to make a claim based on the evidence that they examined and their judgment of the evidence provided. They are then asked to provide evidence from the article to back up their claim and then show their reasoning behind why they personally believe viruses are alive or not.

Text #2: What is Your Body Made of?

This article and activity is a worksheet found in the seventh grade life science NGSS curriculum as an introduction to the human body. It is taken from Accelerate Learning Bodies and Systems. This article is used when body systems are introduced. It helps the students understand the levels of organization that occur in organisms by describing the simplest structures to most complex.

This article begins by listing the levels of organization as a hierarchy; cells, tissues, organs, organ systems, and organisms. It explains each of these levels and brief details of their make-up.  Once the article reaching the organ systems stage it begins to describe individual organ systems within the human body and their specific traits and functions that they serve. The article continues by discussing the similarities and differences found in plants and the systems that they have. The last three pages ask the students to analyze, summarize, and examine different aspects of the subject by using their ability to interpret what they have read.

• Content Academic Text Challenges

TEXT TYPES   LEVELS OF READING	ACADEMIC TEXT 1             Are Viruses Alive?	ACADEMIC TEXT 2 ___________________
BELOW BASIC LEVEL	·         These students would have trouble identifying the evidence for the two arguments. ·         Students would struggle with making the connections between the characteristics listed and the relationship to viruses. ·         These students would have a difficult time following the instructions and answering the questions at the end of the activity because they would be unable to make connections needed.	·         Students at this level would struggle to understand many of the complex vocabulary words found in this article. ·         These students would become overwhelmed with the sheer volume of information presented to them and be unable to connect one section to the next. ·         Given the many topics addressed in this article, these students would have trouble remembering the differences in the levels of organization as well as explaining the relationship of human systems to plant systems.
BASIC LEVEL	·         These students would be able to answer the basic questions of the main purpose and idea of the text. However, they would have a hard time being able to formulate the general idea of the text into their own words. ·         These students may be able to find specific evidence about viruses by notating the facts listed in the article. However, they may be unable to judge which side of the argument the facts may support. ·         These students would struggle to follow the outline set out by the worksheet to formulate their own CER at the end of the activity. This would be due to the inability to completely connect the main ideas with the claim that they are being asked to make.	·         These students would be able to grasp the main ideas and purpose of this article. They would struggle with summarizing the meaning into their own words. When asked to summarize certain systems at the end of the article, they would have trouble connecting the information. ·         These students would have trouble connecting the idea of plant systems with human systems. It would be difficult to see the relationship between the two.
PROFICIENT LEVEL	·         These students are able to understand and interpret the material that is presented to them. While the students may be able to identify and evaluate the evidence, they may have a difficult time writing the evidence in their own words.	·         These students are able to understand the material they are presented with. However, they may have a difficult time understanding the author’s intentions when it comes to breaking down and comparing plants composition to humans and animals. The last page has an activity asking students to evaluate a carrot as a root. These students would understand what was being asked but would struggle to understand the reasoning behind the activity.
ADVANCED LEVEL	·         Since these students would be able to make the most connections, they would probably struggle most with making a judgment based on the evidence provided. This would be due to their ability to evaluate and understand the confusion of the two sides presented.	·         These students would definitely have the best understanding when it comes to this article. Since they are able to make real connections with the material and draw conclusions, I could honestly see their challenge being a lack of understanding the quality of the author’s presentation of the material. With their deeper understanding of the topic, I could see these students being challenged by whether or not they find the last few pages and activities to genuinely be helpful since they have the ability to judge the quality of the material.

 

• Reflection

According to Hinchman (2014), “Students’ reading identities influence the decisions they make with texts. Students who self-identify as poor readers often limit their interactions with texts, ask fewer questions, and limit the amount of reading they do with academic texts.” For me, this was one of the most profound statements that I came across this week when beginning to read and understand how literacy can affect all content areas in a students’ academic pursuits. As I was reflecting on the challenges and successes that students face in different levels of reading, it occurred to me how greatly a child can be affected by this label that could be given to them. I need to be incredibly aware of any labels that I may use to describe a student in my classroom. Confirmation bias seems to be a concern when trying to help students improve their reading abilities.

Despite being a science teacher, my students will come across many different types of materials that present information to them within my classroom. We do not really think about the effect that a student’s reading ability may have on them in science, but most of the material is presented to them in such a way that they are going to be reading and analyzing many different types of texts. Science can be a really content heavy subject and maybe a student’s disinterest may not be simply because they do not like science. Maybe their disinterest could be due to a lack of understanding the material.