Reaching Students With Reading In The Geography Classroom

Literacy plays a significant role in the Geography classroom. It helps students access the curriculum, increase their understanding of concepts and communicate their knowledge effectively. Furthermore, literacy skills can also have a positive impact on students’ confidence and help them to become independent learners (Geographical Association N.D.). Consequently, it is the role of Geography teachers to help students further develop their literacy skills within the classroom.

Reading is one of the four key aspects of literacy, alongside writing, speaking and listening, and it plays a significant role in students’ progress and attainment. In education more broadly, reading has a direct influence on students’ success in both school and their subsequent careers (Kim, Lee and Zuilkowski 2020). Additionally, reading intervention has the potential to create half a year’s additional progress for students (Education Endowment Foundation N.D.), and as such plays an important role in students’ progress through their education.

In Geography, the effect of intervention is likely to be even greater, with the correlation between students’ reading ability and attainment in examinations being second only to that in English Language at GCSE (GL Assessments 2020). As a subject, Geography requires students to understand a wide range of vocabulary and concepts, both within lessons and in examination papers, as well as being able to communicate their understanding clearly in their written work. Consequently, reading plays an important role in enabling students to develop these skills and knowledge and therefore has a direct influence on attainment in the subject.

Through reading, students are also exposed to a range of different points of view and interpretations, enabling them to develop a critical view of sources of information and analyse the purpose of different texts. This is important to prevent students from approaching topics as a single story and help them see these concepts from different points of view. Furthermore, through reading, students can further develop their understanding of a topic or place, transporting them to this environment or exposing them to detailed accounts of events. This therefore serves to broaden their horizons and to gain deeper insights into concepts or places than they would otherwise have.

Using a range of texts in the Geography classroom

There is a wide range of different texts that can be used within Geography lessons to benefit students. Using a variety of different texts provides students with an insight into different styles of writing and aids students in identifying the different purposes and audiences of texts. Furthermore, due to these differences between texts, students are exposed to a greater range of words, enabling them to further develop their vocabulary (Chandler 2024). 

Geography is always changing and evolving. Many of the topics that we cover are frequently in the news and new information or examples appear regularly. As a result, news articles can be a valuable resource to use within Geography lessons, enabling students to see Geography in action and the role that it has in our lives.

News articles can be particularly useful for topics that are continually evolving, such as global warming. For these topics, news stories can provide students with current knowledge on the topic, developing a greater insight into the impact that Geography has in different areas of the world. Through this, students can also see the role of geographers on this topic – for example, through news reports following climate conferences, or quotes from experts in the field. Additionally, case studies already form an important part of Geography education, providing in-depth examples of events and places, such as earthquakes or volcanic eruptions.

News articles can consequently also be a valuable resource to support the teaching of case studies. They are often effective at providing current data on the impacts of and responses to these events, both from the perspective of the country impacted and others. When using news articles in class, there is also a possibility to use these to breach a conversation about the validity and reliability of information and to encourage critical thinking when using different sources of information.

Books are also a valuable resource for Geography teaching, capable of inspiring students and engaging them in curriculum topics. They can enable students to experience new places and become immersed in different environments without leaving the classroom, as well as provide insights into the experiences and thoughts of other people.

In lessons, extracts of books can be used to illustrate a particular aspect of a topic or to give a greater understanding of a concept, or even to form the basis for a whole unit of learning, with students engaging with the whole book over a series of lessons.

There is a great variety of books that can be used to support geographical learning across a range of topics and age groups. The table below shows some examples:

Book	Themes/Topics	Age Group
‘The Last Bear’ by Hannah Gold	Arctic Climate Change	Key Stage 2/3
‘Happy City’ by Charles Montgomery	Urban Environments Sustainability	Key Stage 4/5
‘The Rhine’ by Ben Coates	Rivers	Key Stage 3/4/5
‘The Blue Zones of Happiness’ by Dan Buettner	Sustainability	Key Stage 5 (extracts could be used in Key Stage 3 and 4)
‘Prisoners of Geography’ by Tim Marshall	Superpowers Geopolitics	Key Stage 3/4/5
‘Africa is not a Country’ by Dipo Faloyin	Africa	Key Stage 3
‘Disaster by Choice’ by Ilan Kelman	Disasters	Key Stage 4/5 (extracts could be used at Key Stage 3)
‘Fashionopolis’ by Dana Thomas	Fast Fashion	Key Stage 3
‘The Almighty Dollar’ by Dharshini David	Globalisation	Key Stage 3/4/5

Similarly, poems can also be a useful resource in the geography classroom. Like books, poems can increase student engagement with a topic and expose students to a variety of interpretations and views of places and topics. There are a variety of poems linked to Geography which can be used to introduce concepts or enhance student understanding. Additionally, they can provide a potential prompt for revision, acting as a trigger for recall activities. Poems can also be used to encourage discussions around different interpretations of places across a variety of media sources, enabling critical thinking and prompting discussions around the purpose of different forms of media.

Despite a wide range of reading material that is readily available, there could be occasions where there is not a text that explicitly meets the required needs for a particular lesson or is not accessible to the students. In these cases, Geography teachers might consider making their own custom texts.

One way to achieve this, whilst also saving time for teachers, could be to use the support of AI through platforms such as ChatGPT or DiffIt. Both of these platforms allow texts to be customised to include the exact information that is required whilst also ensuring it is accessible for an individual student’s reading level. Aside from creating texts, DiffIt can also be used to edit the reading level of existing texts, therefore helping to make these accessible for students with different reading levels from the original text.

Methods of engaging students with reading

After identifying texts to use in Geography lessons, the next step is to determine ways of engaging students with reading. As mentioned previously, topics can be designed around a book, with extracts being used throughout the scheme of learning. Through this approach, students follow the whole story, explore the ideas from the book in depth and become invested in the content throughout.

By reading a book together as a class, a culture of reading can be created and the reading behaviours that we want our students to learn can be modelled by the teacher. Furthermore, reading lists can be provided, pointing students towards other books that are used in lessons, or similar books they can read to further develop their interest. This encourages further reading outside of the classroom, as well as engaging students in reading during lessons.

In the classroom, a variety of strategies can be used to encourage a deeper level of engagement with a text. One method to achieve this is through the use of guided reading strategies, which encourage students to engage more deeply with a given text. Through these activities, students can be encouraged to develop their vocabulary further by highlighting and looking up the definitions of any words that they are unfamiliar with. This enables students to expand their vocabulary and helps to ensure a stronger comprehension of the text. Following this, students should be asked to give each paragraph a title, making them engage with each paragraph individually and identify their key ideas.

Finally, students may either answer questions about the text – encouraging them to pull out the key information for the purpose of the activity – or produce their own short summary of each section, prompting them to focus on identifying the key pieces of information and writing them in their own words. These activities encourage students to engage with texts on a deeper level whilst also enabling them to develop their summarisation skills, which are beneficial for their studies.

There are a variety of other summarisation activities that can be used to encourage students to engage with a text in more detail. One example is the ‘3, 2, 1’ approach (Quigley 2020). Through this strategy, students have to engage with the text and focus on pulling out the key pieces of information in a similar way to a guided reading activity.

With the ‘3, 2, 1’ approach, students first pick out three main points from the text, which encourages them to focus on identifying the most important aspects. Secondly, they write down two keywords that are present within the text and explain why they chose these words, further helping to expand their vocabulary whilst also considering the most important subjects within the text. Finally, students write a one-sentence summary or key point from the text, building up their summarisation skills by pulling out the text’s main purpose. In order to complete this task successfully, students therefore have to engage with the text in detail.

Another method of engaging students with reading in the classroom is to spark discussions around a text. Providing students with time to discuss a text with each other can enable them to delve further into the content and increase their engagement.

Discussion enables students to learn from each other and build on the ideas that other students have in order to increase their understanding further. Enabling small group discussions around a text can be particularly beneficial for students who may be less confident with their understanding of a text, allowing them to share their thoughts with a smaller number of people and increase their confidence in the text through listening to their peers.

Furthermore, since all students are required to participate in the discussion when there are only a handful of students in each group, this can further increase engagement in the text by limiting their ability to opt out of reading and wait until the answers are provided. Increasing engagement, raising student confidence and further developing their understanding of a text are all beneficial consequences of requiring discussion around a text.

Creative tasks can also be a useful activity to increase engagement in reading, providing alternative ways for students to apply and demonstrate their knowledge of the text rather than through writing. One way to achieve this could be through asking students to draw a picture linked to what they have read.

For example, in an introductory lesson about the Arctic, an extract from Hannah Gold’s book ‘The Last Bear’ could be used where the island where the book is set gets described. To encourage students to engage with the text, students could be asked to draw a map of the island, ensuring they include the features of a good map as well as the details from the book extract. Through this task, not only are students engaging with the content of the book, but they are also further developing their geographical skills.

Similarly, during a lesson looking at sustainable design, an extract from the book ‘Happy City’ by Charles Montgomery could be used where a sustainable power plant is described. Students could be asked to apply the ideas mentioned in this book and combine them with their own knowledge of sustainability to create their own power plant design.

Aside from drawing, there are a variety of other creative tasks that could be used to increase engagement with reading, such as creative writing tasks. For example, students could be asked to write the start of the following chapter for a book based on their understanding of the chapter that has just been read, or to put themselves in the position of the main character of a book and write a diary entry. In these activities, students are required to engage with the text at a deeper level and combine this with their geographical knowledge to successfully complete the task.

The benefits of reading in Geography lessons

In conclusion, reading has a wide range of benefits for students, from supporting their academic learning and attainment to further developing their confidence. In Geography, the importance of students having strong reading comprehension is much greater than in many other subjects and reading can have a significant effect on students’ learning within the classroom.

There is a wealth of different texts that are beneficial within Geography lessons, including news articles, books and poems. However, there are also opportunities to take advantage of AI platforms that exist to create custom-made texts that explicitly meet the needs of the students in the class. Alongside the many texts that can support geographical learning, there are many strategies that can be used to increase students’ engagement with the texts, either through encouraging students to apply the knowledge, allowing discussions or supporting students to develop their summarisation skills.  

Reading comprehension has a significant effect on students’ learning in Geography by enabling them to access the content and influencing examination attainment, as well as increasing confidence. This article will explore the types of texts that can be used to support geographical learning, as well as strategies to increase student engagement with these texts.

Emily Chandler is a Geography teacher and Assistant Head of Middle School at an International school in Germany. She was the 2020 winner of the Royal Geographical Society’s Rex Walford Award and has spoken at a variety of conferences on a range of topics linked to Geography and literacy.

References

Chandler, E. (2024) ‘Using a Range of Texts in the Geography Classroom’, ChandlerGeog. Available at: https://chandlergeog.wordpress.com/2024/04/20/using-a-range-of-texts-in-the-geography-classroom/

Education Endowment Foundation (no date) ‘Reading comprehension strategies‘. Available at: https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/teaching-learning-toolkit/reading-comprehension-strategies (accessed on 14^th June 2024)

Geographical Association (No Date) ‘What has literacy got to do with geography’. Available at: https://geography.org.uk/ite/initial-teacher-education/geography-support-for-trainees-and-ects/learning-to-teach-secondary-geography/geography-subject-teaching-and-curriculum/geography-knowledge-concepts-and-skills/geographical-practice/literacy-and-numeracy/what-has-literacy-got-to-do-with-geography/ (accessed on 14^th June 2024)

GL Assessments (2020) ‘Read All About It: Why reading is key to GCSE success’. Available at: https://camdenlearning.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/GL-Assessment.pdf (accessed on 14^th June 2024)

Kim, Y.S.K., Lee, H. and Zuilkowski, S.S. (2020) ‘Impact of Literacy Interventions on Reading Skills in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Meta-Analysis’. Child Development 91(2) pp 638-660.

Quigley, A. (2020) ‘Closing the Reading Gap’. London: Routledge