Preparing to Implement Evidence-Based Literacy Practices in the Co-taught Classroom

Abstract

It is essential that middle school content-area and special education co-teachers adopt evidence-based literacy practices that they can integrate into their content-area instruction to address the needs of all of the students in their classes. This article provides co-teachers with four planning tips to improve implementation of the practices they adopt. The planning tips are organized using the acronym FIRST: (a) monitor Fidelity of implementation of the adopted practices, (b) Integrate the practices into daily content-area instruction and across the year, (c) determine the Roles of each co-teacher when planning for and implementing instruction in the adopted practices, and (d) consider specific guidelines to Select Texts for each literacy-focused lesson. The planning tips are illustrated using examples related to the content-area literacy instruction (CALI) instructional framework, which is a set of evidence-based literacy practices and procedures designed to improve the literacy instruction middle school coteachers implement in their content-area classes.

Literacy Intervention in Secondary Schools Exploring Educators’ Beliefs and Practices about Supporting Adolescents’ Literacy Learning

“…Other research on the integration of literacy within social studies classrooms also indicates positive outcomes (Capin & Vaughn, 2017). And, still other research has explored how special education co-teachers can support disciplinary teaching and learning alongside content-area teachers as part of a broader instructional approach (Wexler et al, 2021). Following our conceptual framework, in this type of support, the distinction between intervention and instruction is blurred because adjustments to content-area instruction are part of literacy intervention.…”

Supporting Main Idea Identification and Text Summarization in Middle School Co-Taught Classes

“…The selected text should be written at students’ average instructional level, so that students have multiple opportunities to practice identifying main ideas with instructional support. For a detailed description of how to select appropriate texts, see article one in this special issue (Wexler et al, 2021). Next, co-teachers divide the text into sections using natural breaks already in the text (e.g., sections divided by subheadings) or by manually marking sections (e.g., between paragraphs) if the text does not include natural section breaks.…”

Individualizing Literacy Instruction in Co-Taught Classrooms Through a Station Teaching Model

“…Student support is designed to take place within 1 or 2 days of the whole-class CALI associate gist lesson (see Shelton et al, 2021 for a description of the peer-mediated main idea strategy known as associate gist). The activities at each station align with different CALI instructional framework components (e.g., word knowledge or getting the gist), and students in the three groups (i.e., review, practice, extend) complete different activities based on literacy need, as measured by how well they were able to identify the main idea of each section of the text used in the previous whole-class CALI lesson, and whether they need continued support to comprehend it or are ready for a more challenging text (see Wexler et al, 2021 for guidance on selecting text). The reading comprehension activities emphasize repeated opportunities to practice and to generalize skills and strategies (Klingner et al, 2015; The National Joint Committee on Learning Disabilities [NJCLD], 2008).…”

“…Extend group students work together as a comprehension team to read a more complex text which is thematically related to the original whole-class text and at the average instructional level for students in this group. This might include a focus on texts that are more discipline-specific (e.g., primary sources in social studies; see Wexler et al, 2021 for more information on selecting texts and for helpful resources in doing so):…”