Making a case and a place for effective content area literacy instruction in the elementary grades

After reading this article I can understand the growing concern for content area literacy being introduced earlier in schools. In our ever changing society it is only realistic that our teaching strategies and concerns change also. If introducing expository text earlier in education will lay important foundations for students to build on then I agree that teachers should incorporate these materials into the classroom. However, I also feel that in our society teachers today are being pressured to "teach to the test" rather than the entire curriculum. I disagree completely with this concept. I believe in giving children every opportunity to succeed in education that can possibly be given and not limiting education to what is on a standardized test. 

In my experience, (which is not a significant amount) most textbooks are written above grade level comprehension. I feel like this is one reason why students rebel against reading their textbooks, they do not understand what they are reading. However, informational books on things such as animals or other subjects students are interested in would be a good way to begin with lower level elementary students. As mentioned in the article, teachers could read this type of text to students and model not only fluency but different strategies to help students become familiar with processing this different style of reading. Rich exposure can begin as early as kindergarten. As students progress to higher grades they can experiment with expository text in different ways, also incorporating these new skills into their writing. Also mentioned in the article, writing is not limited to one content area. All content areas can use informative writing as exposure to factual information. The information can be broken down into many different experience for students. There are many different ways to incorporate expository text earlier in education, it is just up to the teacher to provide the resources students need to expand their text knowledge. 

Favorite quote from the article: "Literacy is an avenue for the pursuit of information and the discovery of ideas" 

Questions: 

• Are standardized tests overrated?
• How do you model reading expository text to students?
• How can students learn to "read the world" if schools do not realize the importance of expository text in early education? What can be done to change this?