Literacy standards (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers in Common core state standards: English language arts standards, 2010) and best practices from Institute of Education Sciences practice guides (e.g., Baker et al. in Teaching academic content and literacy to English learners in…

Literacy standards (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010) and best practices from Institute of Education Sciences practice guides (e.g., Baker et al., 2014; Kamil et al., 2008) encourage content-area teachers to use text reading to improve vocabulary and comprehension for…

Access to core subject-area curriculum for students from immigrant backgrounds who are learning the dominant language of instruction has long been a barrier to equitable education around the world, especially in secondary schools. This article explores the promise of Complex Instruction (CI) to address barriers to access for such multilingual…

As school districts adopted Common Core State Standards (CCSS), content area teachers were expected to incorporate disciplinary literacy skills into their lessons. The problem for this study was that secondary school science and social studies teachers struggle to teach students how to read and understand informational text. The purpose of this…

This study examined the preparedness of middle school teachers to teach literacy strategies to middle school students. The study also examined the significance between teacher licensure pathways and their self-efficacy level as it relates to using literacy strategies in content areas. This was a mixed methods study using quantitative data…

This paper describes how a three-day summer workshop on using primary sources helped teachers increase the emphasis placed on disciplinary literacy when teaching social studies and history. Two specific issues in teacher education and practice are addressed. First, increasing teachers' content knowledge of history topics can help them plan lessons…

The literacy practices of high school social studies teachers in the Jefferson School District were examined. Common Core State Standards highlight a focus on literacy skills in the content areas while also emphasizing the importance of developing critical thinking. Despite the identified links between social studies and literacy, reading and…

This study aims to augment the current understanding of how practicing teachers perceive and implement disciplinary literacy and in what ways they collaborate with researchers in a disciplinary literacy project. To do this, we collected and analyzed transcripts of the meetings from a disciplinary literacy project that was a university-school…

This study represents the practices of a middle school social studies teacher as she focuses on integrating questioning, reading, and writing in her content area. This teacher uses literacy strategies to engage students in practices of reading multiple texts and writing to showcase learning. She creates opportunities for students to make…

The present study examined middle school teachers' perceptions of literacy demands in their disciplines and specific literacy strategies they used to teach their disciplines. The eight participants in this multiple case study included 2 middle school teachers from each of 4 disciplines (i.e., English/language arts, science, social studies, and…

Educators across the nation have been responding to the push for content-area literacy instruction in their systems. While the press for higher academic standards has sharpened national focus on the reading of complex, discipline-specific informational texts, educators have been grappling with how to help science, social studies, and vocational…

In each edition of their book "Doing History: Investigating with Children in Elementary and Middle Schools", Levstik and Barton (2011) encourage us to take a mental journey to imagine classrooms where students regularly "do history" (xi). The social studies experiences that many educators envision for elementary classrooms…

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) have increased expectations for stakeholders (students, teachers, teacher educators) to gain knowledge, skills, and dispositions related to discipline-specific ways of reading and writing. Despite the increased rigor, implementation of disciplinary literacy practices varies widely by content, grade level, and…

Each disciplinary community has its own criteria for determining what counts as evidence of knowledge in their academic field. The criteria influence the ways that a community's knowledge is created, communicated, and evaluated. Situating reading, writing, and language instruction within the content areas enables teachers to explicitly…

Kentucky has been a leader in the movement to more rigorous college and career ready standards to support their students' success in the 21st century. Kentucky was the first state to adopt new college and career ready standards (CCRS)--termed the Kentucky Core Academic Standards. Many of Kentucky's districts have moved proactively and…