Who's Using the Language? Supporting Middle School Students With Content Area Academic Language

Morphological awareness—knowledge of roots and affixes within language and their interactions with one another to create multitudes of words—is arguably a skill requiring extended study beyond the elementary grades. With the rigors of contemporary curriculum that gradually guide students into college and career readiness—and, essentially, into literate citizenship—enhanced morphological awareness derived from specific study within a secondary curriculum is imperative for adolescents and, by extension, adult learners. This article outlines various facets of enhanced morphological awareness among adolescent learners, arguing its place as a necessary skill set to be included within a developmentally appropriate secondary curriculum. Theoretical bases for such skill development can be found in the aspects of both schema theory and psycholinguistic theory, and its development has also been justified in other related literature. These foundations manifest themselves in relevant classroom strategies that can enhance adolescents’ literacy.

Section: Review Of Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Developing Enhanced Morphological Awareness in Adolescent Learners

Hendrix¹,

Griffin²

2017

“…First, to advance prior research focused on academic vocabulary, our research began with the goal of identifying a more comprehensive set of academic language skills that would include grammatical and discourse structures prevalent in academic texts. Second, as a complement to ongoing research on discipline‐specific academic language (Bailey, ; Schleppegrell, ; Townsend, ), we made the strategic decision of identifying cross‐disciplinary language skills relevant to supporting reading comprehension across content areas. We reasoned that this high‐utility skill set would be particularly relevant as an instructional lever for improving reading comprehension.…”

Section: How Did We Identify Cals Across Content Areas?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Academic Language Across Content Areas: Lessons From an Innovative Assessment and From Students’ Reflections About Language

Uccelli¹,

Galloway²

2016

Educators are aware of the need to promote students’ academic language to support text comprehension. Yet, besides teaching academic vocabulary, many educators continue to ask, What would this instruction entail? Guided by a new framework known as core academic language skills (CALS), the authors’ research focuses on delineating core language skills that contribute to reading comprehension to make them more visible to educators and researchers. In this article, findings from two studies are integrated to argue for a mixed‐methods approach to advance academic language research and pedagogy. In study 1, the authors assessed upper elementary/middle school students’ CALS and quantitatively examined the association between CALS and reading comprehension. In study 2, the authors used qualitative methods to collect and analyze students’ oral reflections about academic language. Key findings from these studies and their implications for academic language pedagogy in today's schools are discussed.

“…However, we see a shift based on the implementation of the Common Core State Standards with an amplified focus on disciplinary literacies, including students' abilities to use academic language (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers, ). Because the Common Core emphasizes informational texts and increased text complexity, secondary educators of all disciplines become teachers of both content and language (Townsend, ). While academic language knowledge is known to be important for the success of students (Freeman & Freeman, ; Nagy & Townsend, ), attention to academic vocabulary has increased substantially in the last decade.…”

Section: Disciplinary Academic Language Instructionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…According to Nagy and Townsend (), academic language is defined as “the specialized language, both oral and written, of academic settings that facilitates communication and thinking about disciplinary content” (p. 92). Academic language is also a “vital part of content‐area instruction” (Coleman & Goldenberg, , p. 61) because it supports speaking and writing for important disciplinary objectives and standards (Townsend, ).…”

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confidence: 99%

“…This goal led to an emphasis on academic vocabulary, with a focus on students' active practice of those terms necessary for meeting disciplinary objectives. According to Townsend (), academic vocabulary plays a prominent role in reading comprehension processes, and academic texts in all content areas utilize many academic words. Given the importance of supporting teachers as they cultivate their abilities to support students' academic language capacity, we explored the following research questions relating to how teachers' knowledge, practice, and beliefs evolved throughout the year: ■ What aspects of a PL initiative most influence teacher knowledge and practice related to academic language? ■ Do teachers' beliefs about academic language change following a year of PL, and if so, how? …”

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confidence: 99%

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Secondary Teachers' Reflections From a Year of Professional Learning Related to Academic Language

Carter¹,

Crowley²,

Townsend³

et al. 2016

This article explores the changing beliefs and practices of 25 secondary teachers participating in a yearlong professional learning (PL) partnership. To demonstrate differences in teachers' approaches to and understandings resulting from that PL, the authors looked more closely at three teachers and found that their ideas about academic language instruction and their related pedagogy progressed in ways that were consistent with the stated PL objectives. However, the teachers varied in the way they situated the learning within their practice. The cases presented highlight the aspects of PL that resonated most with the teachers participating in the yearlong initiative.