WEBVTT

00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:01,280
[music plays]

00:00:01,280 --> 00:00:08,590
Secondary Reading Instruction: Teaching Vocabulary and
Comprehension in the Content Areas

00:00:08,590 --> 00:00:17,100
Ms. Chesser, a chemistry teacher at Wilton High School, is
chagrined, which is a vocabulary word meaning troubled. She's

00:00:17,100 --> 00:00:25,500
teaching a lesson on chemical reactions, but her students can't seem
to answer questions about their homework. When she asks them to open

00:00:25,500 --> 00:00:34,300
their textbooks and reread the assigned passages, her students
accede (meaning that they do as she asks them to) but still they are

00:00:34,300 --> 00:00:37,900
unable to answer the questions.

00:00:37,900 --> 00:00:44,960
Ms. Chesser begins to suspect that her students' troubles partly
come from a difficulty understanding the chemistry vocabulary words.

00:00:44,960 --> 00:00:53,000
She's discomfited--that is, she's confused--because she told her
students to look up the required vocabulary in the textbook's

00:00:53,000 --> 00:01:03,430
glossary. Somehow, though, her students are failing to use context
clues to connect that information to what they read in their textbooks.

00:01:03,430 --> 00:01:12,230
Later, in the lunch room, Ms. Chesser has a confabulation--meaning a
conversation--with some of her fellow teachers, and finds that they,

00:01:12,230 --> 00:01:19,860
too, share much of her confusion. She tells her colleagues that,
even though she feels confident in her ability to teach science

00:01:19,860 --> 00:01:29,000
content, she is not prepared to teach reading comprehension to her
students. The English teacher, Mr. Garrett, explains that he faces

00:01:29,000 --> 00:01:38,800
similar problems with time constraints and too much content to cover
as it is. Ms. Nor, the U.S. Government and Civics teacher, agrees

00:01:38,800 --> 00:01:47,390
that students need more help with reading comprehension, but hastens
to add that she does not believe this to be her job. The others,

00:01:47,390 --> 00:01:56,820
too, feel this is not their responsibility. But Ms. Chesser is
indefatigable, which is one way to describe people who do not wish

00:01:56,820 --> 00:02:08,730
to give up. If it's not their job then whose job is it? Ms. Chesser
wonders aloud, "How can we address the problem and help students to

00:02:08,730 --> 00:02:18,890
learn and perform better?" No one at the table seems to know.
Now Ms. Chesser is completely flummoxed, which is a vocabulary word

00:02:18,890 --> 00:02:23,200
indicating that she does not know what to do next.

00:02:24,460 --> 00:02:28,640
Here's your Challenge: