Content Area Learning Strategies (CALS)
CALS - Content Area Learning Strategies:
As educators, we are constantly searching for ways to help students to access and be able to read the texts and content of our content area classes. The development of CALS is a 4J systematic effort to increase the use of content area learning strategies in all classrooms. In essence, CALS are strategies designed to enable students to independently access text. Examples include: teaching students how to examine the text structure (i.e., headings, bolded words, captions), determining the purpose before reading a certain text, a variety of note-taking strategies, identifying the gist, creating a summary, and asking questions at a variety of thinking levels. These strategies are applicable across subject areas and are helping our students become increasingly independent readers of content-area texts.