Journal Club- Single

Journal Club Entry: Teachers and content area reading: Attitudes, beliefs and change

*the journal given to us in class

                In summary, this journal is a review of research into content area teachers that are either preparing to be teachers or in-service teachers. It is about the attitudes and beliefs that these teachers have about incorporating and teaching reading in their non-literacy-based content areas. The research also displays how and in what ways these can and do obtain the techniques needed to do so. At the most basic of their research, they are polling teachers and gathering information on how these teachers feel comfortable teaching reading, and if they believe that it is their job or not. This research arguably proves that teachers can change their mind about wanting to teach reading, but that they need more resources, not just positive reinforcement on the benefits of it. The data showed as far as the attitudes towards teaching reading in their classrooms, the pre-service teachers believed that either shouldn’t or could not in their content areas. Then in-service teachers stated that most do, but they were also a lot that stated they felt they should but did not know how.

                An article I read in my first journal club, focused on literacy in a social studies classroom and its importance. It showed my group, and I believe changed some of our minds, on whether we should teach reading in the classroom. Another connection I made was the activity we did in class one day. We went around the room to the area we felt like we were in. Most of us, thankfully went to the side of wanting to teach reading in our classroom. I feel like our polls would have been different in the beginning of the semester though, as I believe we have all learned an abundance from articles like these, showing us the resources we can have as in-service teachers, and the importance of getting more resources now so we can better be prepared to teach our future students literacy skills.

                This was a very professional journal, with countless references to other prestigious works and researches. I wish they included more tables and gave an easier way to understand the graphs. I had to search through the journal back and again to understand what graph was telling me. I felt that it would have been easier to say what the authors represented as well, not just the author, as I kept forgetting what each stood for. Otherwise, the journal was laid out well and provided a good amount of helpful information.

                This journal is important because it reviews the research that shows us that we have a problem. We have teachers who have this attitude that they believe it isn’t their job to help students with reading. That their past teachers were just failures and it isn’t their job to catch them up. That is where they are wrong. Helping students with literacy will only help them be more successful at everything they do. This journal informs teachers on how they can fix the problem as well. If teachers do not know how, they are ample workshops, conferences, and plethora of resources to improve our skills as teachers in implementing literacy and reading strategies into our content areas. This review of research shows us that us pre-service teachers need more than just the one literacy class, that’s where these supplemental resources that are available to us will come in handy.


Word Count: 574