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Reading Informational Texts
Author(s) -
Pennington Julie L.,
Obenchain Kathryn M.,
Brock Cynthia H.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
the reading teacher
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.642
H-Index - 50
eISSN - 1936-2714
pISSN - 0034-0561
DOI - 10.1002/trtr.1244
Subject(s) - reading (process) , social studies , literacy , psychology , mathematics education , pedagogy , primary education , transactional leadership , linguistics , social psychology , philosophy
The Common Core State Standards recommend that elementary students read a high percentage of informational texts. The past decade of high stakes testing has relegated social studies instruction to minimal or nonexistent status in many elementary classrooms. In order to expand teachers’ and students’ understandings of informational text, this paper presents the concept of civic transactional reading as a means to enhance reading instruction in the content area of social studies. Social studies conceptions of civic education and literacy notions of close reading and questioning are integrated as The Common Core Reading Standards and the recently created complementary Social Studies Standards provide a framework for reading Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Letter from a Birmingham Jail.