Instructional Strategies in Adolescent Literacy: The Process Sixth-Grade Science Teachers Use to Integrate Strategies during Instruction, and How Their Students Utilize Them

Abstract

Instructional strategies are important components for facilitating active engagement in reading text. This comparative case study sought to determine what instructional strategies three sixth-grade science teachers used, and how these teachers planned for, used, and scaffolded the instructional strategies in their classrooms to facilitate adolescent literacy. The study also examined how sixth-grade students in these three classes used instructional strategies collaboratively and independently. Participating teachers used, largely, the same instructional strategies in their classrooms. A variety of factors influenced planning decisions. Teachers used combinations of collaborative and independent reading, writing, and questioning instructional strategies during instruction to facilitate adolescent literacy. A variety of scaffolding was used to assist students in learning how to use the instructional strategies. Students mimicked their teacher’s use of the taught strategy when using one collaboratively or independently, with little deviation. Though there were differences among the three participants and their students, it is interesting that striking similarities were found among the three classrooms in how instructional strategies were used and scaffolding was provided. While the results of this study are in line with Brinkmann and Kvale’s (2015) miner and journeyman concepts, more research is warranted to determine if the similarities reported in this study are common across other elementary and secondary sixth-grade classrooms, and if these strategies used produce strong results in students’ better comprehending texts.