The Seven ProficienciesBy Peg Grafwallner, Instructional Coach and Reading Specialist In 2014, I became an Academic Coach at Ronald W. Reagan College Preparatory high school in Milwaukee. The position was relatively new to RRHS, so I had the opportunity to make it my own. My principal, however, was clear on one specific component of my position: raise ACT reading scores. I had some background in the ACT College and Career Reading, Writing and English standards as an ACT test preparation teacher for those subjects; but, to help our students in moving beyond Reagan’s current score, I knew I needed to immerse myself in the ACT skills. In the summer of 2014, we created a literacy committee tasked with determining which reading skills were most important for our students to learn. According to the University of Kansas School of Education and Human Sciences, “Literacy skills allow students to seek out information, explore subjects in-depth and gain a deeper understanding of the world around them.” To assume that teachers would teach all ACT reading skills and all ACT reading score bands was unrealistic. Therefore, we knew that focusing on specific cross-curricular literacy skills would help our students in deeply interacting with text creating valuable learning opportunities and personal connections. As a result, we focused on foundational cross-curricular literacy skills that all students needed to be successful in all of their subject areas. Besides the ACT, we also looked for standards overlap in the Common Core State Standards, specifically English Language Arts, Reading: Informational Text, Grades 9-12. As a Reading Specialist, I know the importance of cross-curricular skill-building. Focusing on content, while applying various literacy skills, encourages students to stay engaged and motivated during reading. Swan (2019, December 12) explains, “Content may be what is taught, but we also need to look at how content is being taught.” The how becomes the cornerstone of an inspirational and curious classroom, one ripe with inquiry and discussion. Applying foundational skills throughout the lesson helps to differentiate and scaffold text to make it more comprehensive and purposeful to our students. We began with the ACT Reading score band 16-19. The first heading, Key Ideas and Details included the sub-topics: Close Reading, Central Ideas, Themes, and Summaries, and Relationships. The next major heading was Craft and Structure, which focused on Word Meanings and Word Choice, Text Structure and Purpose and Point of View. The final major heading was Integration of Knowledge and Ideas. Within that heading was Arguments and Multiple Texts. Our team began to highlight skills that all students need to be successful readers: locating the main idea, finding details, drawing conclusions, understanding and analyzing words and their meanings, using and understanding inference, and making comparisons between and among texts. Next, we reviewed the Common Core Reading Standards for Informational text. Within those standards, we saw similar headings: Key Ideas and Details, Craft and Structure, and Integration of Knowledge and Ideas. In addition, we also saw comparable language: determining a central idea, providing details, writing a summary, determining the meaning of words and phrases, author’s point of view and purpose, and evaluating arguments. Utilizing the ACT reading standards and the Common Core English Language Arts, Reading: Informational Text, Grades 9-12, standards, we created our Proficiencies List. We determined that for all students to be successful in comprehending text, they needed to be able to apply these skills:
During our August 2014 back-to-school PD, we introduced our list and research-based evidence to our colleagues. We explained the value of teaching cross-curricular skills and how all classroom teachers were expected to incorporate these proficiency skills within their Learning Intention and Success Criteria, along with citing the particular ACT score band. We also explained that I would be working with departments highlighting the skills teachers were already using and how to make those skills even more explicit to students. In addition, I would also be collaborating with departments on how to incorporate the ones that weren’t so readily embedded. To reiterate, many of these skills were already being taught in classrooms (think specifically of compare/contrast and cause-effect in Science and Social Studies, or justifying an evaluation of a musical composition, or defending one’s critique of a piece of art, or writing a summary of one’s physical goals in phy ed, or using math specific language to decipher a complex word problem). In other words, we were confident that once teachers realized they were indeed teaching many of these skills, writing them as part of their Learning Intention and Success Criteria would be straightforward. We continue to celebrate the improvement in our ACT scores: our ACT composite score in 2014-2015 was 19.6. The ACT composite score that year for Wisconsin was a 20. This year 2021-2022, our ACT score was a 21.7. The ACT composite score for Wisconsin is a 19. As we continue to prepare students for the ACT, I often explain to students that while a 19 ACT composite score can get them into UW-Milwaukee, we want to help them stay there, or stay at any school they choose, by using the literacy skills they learned to achieve their highest goals possible. In the coming months, I will be writing a series of articles that focus on each skill. I will offer a before reading strategy, a during reading strategy, and an after reading strategy. Please feel free to share these skills and strategies with your colleagues to help students improve their personal literacy goals, and to make text as comprehensive and purposeful as possible.
Works Cited ACT. (n.d.). Reading college and career readiness standards. Accessed on April 20, 2022 https://www.act.org/content/act/en/college-and-career-readiness/standards/reading-standards.html. Barber, S. (2016, November 16). 6 techniques for building reading skills – in any subject. Accessed on April 25, 2022 https://www.edutopia.org/article/6-techniques-building-reading-skills-susan-barber Common Core State Standards Initiative. (n.d.). Accessed on April 20, 2022 http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RI/9-10/ and http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RI/11-12/. Roslaniec, A. (2018, November 29). 7 reading strategies for primary and secondary learners. Pearson. Accessed on April 20, 2022 https://www.english.com/blog/7-reading-strategies-for-primary-and-secondary-learners/ McEwan, E. K. (n.d.) Teach the seven strategies of highly effective readers. Corwin Press. Accessed on April 20, 2022 https://www.adlit.org/topics/comprehension/teach-seven-strategies-highly-effective-readers National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance. (2008). Improving adolescent literacy: Effective classroom and intervention practices. US Department of Education. Accessed on April 20, 2022 https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/docs/practiceguide/adlit_pg_082608.pdf. National Institute of Literacy. (n.d.). What content-area teachers should know about adolescent literacy. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Accessed on April 20, 2022. https://www.nichd.nih.gov/sites/default/files/publications/pubs/documents/adolescent_literacy.pdf Swan, M. (2019, December 12). How important is teaching literacy in all content areas? ClassCraft. https://www.classcraft.com/blog/how-important-is-teaching-literacy-in-all-content-areas/ University of Kansas School of Education and Human Sciences. (n.d., June 26). Teaching literacy in your K-12 classrooms. Accessed on May 2, 2022 https://educationonline.ku.edu/community/teaching-reading-and-writing-skills#:~:text=Students%20that%20can't%20read,of%20the%20world%20around%20them.
Peg is a blogger, author, and national presenter whose topics include coaching, engagement and inclusion. Her articles have appeared in The Missouri Reader, Exceptional Parent, WSRA Journal, and Illinois Reading Journal. She has written for several websites and blogs, including Edutopia, ASCD Inservice, Education Week’s Classroom Q and A with Larry Ferlazzo KQED in the Classroom, and Literacy and NCTE. She has also appeared on numerous podcasts such as Cult of Pedagogy, BAM! Radio, and Ed: Conversations About the Teaching Life. Peg is also the author of Clearing the Path for Developing Learners: Essential Literacy Skills to Support Achievement in Every Content Area (June 2023), Learned from the Special Education Classroom: Creating Opportunities for All Students to Listen, Learn and Lead, Ready to Learn: The FRAME Model for Optimizing Student Success, and Not Yet … And That’s Ok: How Productive Struggle Fosters Student Learning. Peg has received a bachelor’s degree in English and a mentoring certification from Cardinal Stritch University, a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction and an alternative education certification from Marian College, and a reading specialist certification from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Peg can be reached at www.peggrafwallner.com |
Peg Grafwallner, M.Ed., is an instructional coach and reading specialist at Ronald W. Reagan High School, an urban International Baccalaureate school located on the south side of Milwaukee. Peg has more than twenty-five years of experience in education. Currently, she models how to create comprehensive literacy lessons meant to enhance skill-building; she coaches and assists teachers in creating these lessons.