Help! My College Students Can't Read

This book provides simple, step-by-step ideas for introducing and embedding reading strategies within all content areas without sacrificing a lot of valuable class time. This easy-to-use resource will equip instructors to not only help their students be stronger readers in general, but to be stronger readers of content-area academic texts.

Amelia Leighton Gamel has comprehensive experience in the field of education as a reading specialist, college faculty member and administrator, educational presenter, and public school teacher. In addition to her current position as Lead Faculty for the reading program at Jackson College in Michigan, Amelia also serves as a facilitator for campus-wide reading workshops and classroom demonstrations in all content areas.

Acknowledgments Introduction 1 Active Reading Modeling Active Reading in the Classroom The Bottom Line Toolbox Putting It to Work Professional Spotlight Reading Interview Appendix 2 Determining a Purpose Getting Students to Buy In Applying Their New Skills to Reading Pre-reading Strategies to Determine Purpose Pause and Sum Up Making Predictions Being Savvy Readers More Help to Stay Engaged The Bottom Line Toolbox Putting It to Work Professional Spotlight Reading Interview Appendix 3 Determining What's Important Focused Reading Assignments Intentional Focus Read, Scan, or Skip? Annotating a Text Intentional Reading Demonstration The Bottom Line Toolbox Putting It to Work Professional Spotlight Reading Interview Appendix 4 Developing Higher-Level Questions Using Focus Quadrants to Teach Questioning Strategies Teaching Students to Apply Questioning Strategies to Reading The Bottom Line Toolbox Putting It to Work Professional Spotlight Reading Interview Appendix 5 Making Connections Using Comparisons to Aid Understanding Using Learned Information to Understand New Information Drawing Inferences Building Background Knowledge The Bottom Line Toolbox Putting It to Work Professional Spotlight Reading Interview 6 Navigating Unknown Words Typical Student Default Strategy Getting Students to Buy In Vocabulary Resources Prefixes, Root Words, and Suffixes Using Familiar Words to Understand Unfamiliar Words Swapping Words Context Clues Vocabulary Prompts Vocabulary Lists The Bottom Line Toolbox Putting It to Work Professional Spotlight Reading Interview Appendix 7 Creating Visuals to Enhance Comprehension and Recall Getting Instructors to Buy In Teaching Students to Create Visuals as They Read The Bottom Line Toolbox Putting It to Work Professional Spotlight Reading Interview Appendix 8 Keeping It Real Does Teaching Reading Strategies Really Change Anything? How Much Time Does It Really Take? Making the Most of Your Time The Bottom Line Professional Spotlight Reading Interview Appendix References