Rethinking Text Sets to Support Knowledge Building and Interdisciplinary Learning

• Published in: The Reading teacher Vol. 73; no. 4; pp. 513 - 524
• Main Authors: Lupo, Sarah M., Berry, Alicia, Thacker, Emma, Sawyer, Amanda, Merritt, Joi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Newark Wiley-Blackwell 01.01.2020; Blackwell Publishing Ltd
• Subjects: 1‐Early childhood; 2‐Childhood; Comprehension; Content Area Reading; Content literacy; Depth of (higher level, literal level, etc.) < Comprehension; Difficulty Level; Domain knowledge < Content literacy; Elementary School Teachers; Information processing < Comprehension; Interdisciplinary Approach; Interdisciplinary aspects; Learner Engagement; Learning; Literacy; Literacy Education; Making inferences < Comprehension; Mathematics; Prior knowledge < Comprehension; Prior Learning; Reading Material Selection; Reading Motivation; Reading Teachers; Sciences; Selection Criteria; Social Studies; Specific subject areas (math, art, etc.) < Content literacy; Text types, text features < Content literacy; Visual Aids
• ISSN: 0034-0561; 1936-2714
• DOI: 10.1002/trtr.1869

Building content knowledge alongside the task of increasing literacy skills has become a goal for many elementary classrooms. Selecting and implementing texts for the literacy block that both increase content knowledge and develop students’ literacy skills alongside increasing motivation for reading is a daunting task. The authors share a strategic approach for selecting texts called the quad text set framework. This framework involves first selecting a target text, which is a challenging content‐related text, and then selecting easier texts, including visuals, to build background knowledge and a hook text to garner interest in the topic. The teacher then decides how to implement the texts to best support students’ content learning. The authors describe considerations for selecting and ordering texts for interdisciplinary units to maximize content learning and literacy and provide examples of how to implement quad text sets related to math, science, and social studies.