Final Thoughts

As I reflect on my learning and my work the past 2 years, I have seen positive impacts on my professional growth and students' learning. I have become more motivated to better myself as an educator through taking on leadership roles and participating in professional development opportunities. I have been able to provide and model for students multiple evidence-based reading strategies and have seen considerable growth as a result. I attribute much of these positive impacts to the knowledge I have gained throughout my experience in the NLGL program. 

I chose to pose my compelling question because I felt literacy integration within content areas is lacking in many schools across our nation. With a substantial amount of pressure being placed on schools to produce exceptional test scores, knowledge building has been designated by many as less important. Many teachers are instructed to only teach the tested subjects and the skills the students need to pass a test. They are only to teach other subjects if time allows. This is concerning as many students are being taught how to take a test and not how to successfully make meaning and form opinions from a text.

In conclusion, this study highlights the positive effects that integrating literacy in the content areas has on students' reading comprehension of informational texts. I look forward to continuing my growth in literacy integration and advocating for teaching literacy in all subjects!