Introduction
Integrating reading and writing skills across discipline require teachers to focus on improving students’ general literacy competence. The Shanahan and Shanahan (n.d.a) article demonstrates that professionally, reading skills and writing abilities should be general for students in early learning stages. Generalizing reading and writing skills allows students to apply their literacy skills to understand and express their knowledge in different disciplines. For instance, if students learn to read children’s storybooks, their literacy skills in other school subjects will improve. Hence, as proposed by Shanahan and Shanahan (n.d.a), generalizing literacy skills allows students to apply learned abilities to different informational texts.
Discussion
Educators need to train students with different literary skills to effectively introduce them across disciplines. Both Shanahan and Shanahan (n.d.a) and the International Reading Association (IRA) (n.d) agree with this approach of integrating literacy skills across subjects. For example, IRA) (n.d) recommends that teachers allow students to read and write texts on various levels. These include higher, middle, and lower levels of learning to enhance their literacy skills in different disciplines. Ultimately, this approach would make students versatile and flexible when reading and writing technical, math, science, social studies, and history, among other subjects.
Training teachers on required competencies would be essential in introducing literacy skills in different subjects in early learning. IRA (n.d) shows that educators’ training improves their skills in supporting early learning students during reading and writing lessons. This would help create enabling and encouraging learning environments for students when reading and writing about complex, simple, high, and lower-level informational texts.
The Importance of Informational Texts and Related Reading Skills in Early Grades
The importance of informational texts and close reading skills in early grades is to improve attention skills among early-grade students. IRA (n.d.) suggests that close reading and informational texts allow early learning students to critically analyze and interpret the information they read. Moreover, these skills support early learning students to make logical conclusions about the meaning and tone of texts or information they read (IRA, n.d.). As a result, this helps improve students’ ability to comprehend simple and complex texts in learning classes and phases.
Importance of Integrating Reading and Writing in Social Studies
Reading and writing skills are essential in social studies since they improve students’ abilities to engage in specialized thinking and communication. As IRA (n.d) demonstrates, literacy skills help educators improve students’ ability to read, write, and share social studies facts that are different from literature, art, English, and technical subjects. In addition, literacy skills in social studies help learners improve their comprehension of specific vocabulary for this discipline (Shanahan & Shanahan, n.d.). This is because the type and content of information, text, or ideas differ between social studies and other disciplines. Therefore, literacy skills in social studies improve comprehension and communication of ideas or texts that are different from those in other disciplines, such as science and math.
Lessons Relevant to My Teaching Course and Practice
In my teaching practice, I will carry the lesson that although general literacy skills exist, students require diverse and specific reading and writing competencies for different subjects or disciplines. I have learned that educators need to implement or introduce reading and writing skills that match the vocabulary and concepts of a subject (Shanahan & Shanahan, n.d.). Therefore, the literacy skills for science subjects would differ from those of art, English, and social studies, among other disciplines.
Conclusion
In my teaching practice, I will also carry the understanding that professional collaboration is essential in effectively integrating reading and writing skills in early grades. For instance, the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) provided by IRA (n.d.) indicates that educators from art, social studies, science, and technical subjects should collaborate during literacy teaching and planning. Thus, teachers from different disciplines should partner to effectively plan and implement literacy skills for effective early learners and positive student outcomes.
References
International Reading Association (IRA). (n.d.). Literacy Implementation Guidance for the ELA. Common Core State Standards.
Shanahan, C., & Shanahan, T. (n.d.). Does Disciplinary Literacy have a Place in Elementary School. Research into Practice.
Shanahan, R. C., & Shanahan, T. (n.d.a). Disciplinary Literacy Comes to Middle School.