Ch 3 "If someone could teach these kids how to read, I could teach them science." -Melanie

In this chapter, the author starts off explaining how the content from subject to subject is different from one another. For example science teaches you to read charts, diagrams, graphs and interpreting data; social studies teaches you cause and effect; while math teaches you how to break down a word problem; and english teaches you how to decode poetry and complex stories/plays. Now relating back to the quote in the title: "If someone could teach these kids how to read, I could teach them science."-Melanie, high school science teacher, we see that each content area teaches us a different form of literacy that pertains to that subject. Therefore a student can excel in english to where they interpret Shakespearean plays with an ease but they struggle when it comes to word problems. This all has to do with different approaches that are taken between the subjects. The strategy that we use to decode a Shakespearean play is different from the strategy used to break down a word problem. Therefore it is necessary for every teacher to teach students how to better comprehend the material in their particular subject be it math or social studies.

To see how each content area teacher goes about reading/decoding a text she observed each area as they read a text within their field. What I found to be most surprising was when she talked about how the math and science teachers go about decoding their texts. The science teachers observed the tables, graphs, and diagrams, then moved on to the abstract and skips around from there. The math teacher reads through a word problem and then writes down what information they have and what information they are missing and/or trying to find. Each of these procedures is exactly what I find myself doing within the given content areas. With science I like to get a little peek of what kind of study I am looking at and I weigh a lot of my interest, towards an article, based on the graphs, tables, and diagrams. On the other hand with math, I have been tutoring this subject for about 5 years and over the years I have found this to be the best way to make a horrifyingly ugly word problem look like a piece of cake. When I was younger I remember my Dad pulling his hair out when I wasn't comprehending the word problems. I would just freak out with the site of them; I found them to be in a different language. Later on when I took Calculus in high school I met someone that taught me to slow it down and to just look for what we know and what we don't know and to go from there.

The author goes on to state that we were not always experts we all started somewhere and this is where we need to start when we are teaching our students. When we are able to relate to our students and break down the process that we use, the students will come to ease and will hopefully not blank out when they see a word problem on their next math test. Also we need to encourage them to ASK QUESTIONS to themselves when they are reading a given text and aloud in the classroom. I think by being the model in your approach to a text in your content area, and letting them know that you were not always an expert will help the students open up to you and feel free to ask questions.