This interpretive case study took place in an urban middle school where content area—math, science, social studies and English language arts—teachers engaged in school-wide initiatives designed to promote students' reading development in their content area classes. Participants were twenty teachers across grade levels six, seven and eight. Teachers participated in an online survey designed to capture key variables related to their experiences, literacy beliefs and literacy practices; focus group interviews designed to investigate their perceptions related to key themes in the literature on content area reading instruction; structured one-on-one interviews to validate researcher interpretations of early data analysis and to collect individual teacher data on key themes generated in focus group interviews; and finally, an anonymous online survey designed to verify key findings. Key findings indicate that teachers in this school held content area reading support as a goal for their students but felt a tension between their responsibility to students' academic literacy learning and their own responsibility to teach content area standards. Students' vocabulary knowledge emerged as a major theme in terms of its perceived impact on student's ability to learn from content area texts and content area vocabulary strategies were the most often used and deemed most efficacious by teachers. Factors that teachers perceived as most helpful in promoting their teaching of content area reading included instructional factors (student motivation, using diverse texts, relevant/engaging reading materials, and teaching reading strategies) and infrastructural factors (school-wide focus on literacy, access to leveled text resources, support from instructional coach/media specialist, collaboration with peers, and help supporting individual students). Teacher-perceived obstacles to providing effective reading instruction included infrastructural factors (lack of sufficient instructional and planning time and pressure to "cover" content) and instructional factors (student ability, differentiating for student needs, and student motivation). Implications for schools and districts as well as possibilities for future research are discussed. / A Dissertation submitted to the School of Teacher Education in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester, 2010. / August 23, 2010. / Content Area Reading, Reading Strategies, Literacy / Includes bibliographical references. / Susan Nelson Wood, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Pamela "Sissi" Carroll, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Alysia Roehrig, University Representative; Judith Irvin, Committee Member; Shelbie Witte, Committee Member.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_181047 |
| Contributors | Nahmias, Cheryl Kopec (authoraut), Wood, Susan Nelson (professor co-directing dissertation), Carroll, Pamela "Sissi" (professor co-directing dissertation), Roehrig, Alysia (university representative), Irvin, Judith (committee member), Witte, Shelbie (committee member), School of Teacher Education (degree granting department), Florida State University (degree granting institution) |
| Publisher | Florida State University, Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, text |
| Format | 1 online resource, computer, application/pdf |
| Rights | This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). The copyright in theses and dissertations completed at Florida State University is held by the students who author them. |
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