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"Comprehension Instruction"
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How the Reading for Understanding Initiative’s Research Complicates the Simple View of Reading Invoked in the Science of Reading
Advocates of the science of reading have invoked the simple view of reading (SVR) to justify an approach that foregrounds decoding in early reading instruction. The SVR, which describes comprehension as the product of decoding and listening comprehension, also served as the primary theoretical model underlying the Reading for Understanding (RfU) initiative. Research funded under the RfU initiative included direct examinations of the validity of the SVR and the nature of its underlying components and extended the SVR in studies of middle school and high school readers. In this article, the authors use research conducted under the RfU initiative to examine the validity and utility of the SVR, in general, and the appropriateness of its application in the “science of reading” debate. RfU research has provided not only evidence in support of the overall SVR model but also important cautions relevant to the “science of reading” debate. In particular, RfU has provided evidence regarding the significance of the listening comprehension component of the SVR, often overlooked by advocates of the science of reading. This research has documented the importance of early oral language skills, which support both decoding and listening comprehension in young readers and plays a critical role in students’success as readers as they move through school. In addition, RfU research has identified a complicated constellation of skills and knowledge that impact reading comprehension as students advance in school.
Journal Article
What Matters Most? Toward a Robust and Socially Just Science of Reading
Science of reading is a term that has been used variously, but its use within research, policy, and the press has tended to share one important commonality: an intensive focus on assessed reading proficiency as the primary goal of reading instruction. Although well intentioned, this focus directs attention toward a problematically narrow slice of reading. In this article, we propose a different framework for the science of reading, one that draws on existing literacy research in ways that could broaden and deepen instruction. The framework proposes, first, that reading education should develop textual dexterity across grade levels in the four literate roles first proposed by Freebody and Luke: code breaker (decodes text), text participant (comprehends text), text user (applies readings of text to accomplish things), and text analyst (critiques text). Second, the framework suggests that reading education should nurture important literate dispositions alongside those textual capacities, dispositions that include reading engagement, motivation, and self-efficacy. Justification is offered for the focus on textual dexterity and literate dispositions, and we include research-based suggestions about how reading educators can foster student growth in these areas. Finally, we propose that reading education should attend closely to linguistic, cultural, and individual variation, honoring and leveraging different strengths and perspectives that students bring to and take away from their learning. Reimagining a science of reading based on these principles has the potential to make it both more robust and more socially just, particularly for students from non-dominant cultures.
Journal Article
Rethinking the Role of Knowledge in the Literacy Classroom
Knowledge plays an inarguably critical role in reading comprehension. When considering the science of reading, it is important to engage with varying theoretical frameworks and empirical research that inform our collective understanding regarding the intersection of knowledge and literacy in K–12 classrooms. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to consider sociocultural and cognitivist perspectives on the role that knowledge plays throughout the reading process and to examine whose knowledge matters. Then, the authors address three tensions related to the role of knowledge in K–12 literacy instruction and offer research-based perspectives on how educators, researchers, school leaders, parents, and community leaders can rethink knowledge to support students in learning from texts. First, the authors reframe the knowledge gap and suggest ways that teachers can privilege students’ knowledge as assets during literacy instruction. Second, the authors address the importance of supporting students in activating, integrating, and revising their knowledge during text processing and suggest evidence-based instructional techniques that support students’ learning from texts. Finally, the authors contend that content knowledge is not the only type of knowledge that matters in reading and suggest how teachers can support readers in using other types of knowledge that are crucial to comprehension.
Journal Article
To What Extent and How Are Reading Comprehension Strategies Part of Language Arts Instruction? A Study of Lower Secondary Classrooms
The authors examined naturally occurring reading comprehension strategies instruction (RCSI) across four consecutive lessons in 47 Norwegian language arts classrooms at the lower secondary level via video observations (n = 178). Although numerous studies have examined the effectiveness of RCSI for improving reading outcomes, few studies have focused on descriptions of real-world classroom instruction. This study thus provides additional insights into the extent to which and how language arts teachers in lower secondary schools provide RCSI. Further, the study sheds light on additional aspects of reading comprehension instruction to obtain a broader picture of what this instruction encompasses. The authors address these issues by providing an overview of the amount of RCSI used in language arts classrooms, a characterization of provided RCSI, the frequency of salient features of reading comprehension instruction, and an examination of the possible connections between strategy instruction and students’ gains on national reading tests. The authors used the Protocol for Language Arts Teacher Observation manual to guide the first step of the analytic process, followed by qualitative content analyses of the provided RCSI and inductive coding of the reading comprehension instruction. The findings revealed limited evidence of explicit RCSI. When provided, the explicit instruction varied as either contextual or decontextual instruction. Several teachers demonstrated strategy knowledge, but in many cases, instruction seemed oriented more toward nontransferable activities than explicit strategy teaching. Mainly, the teachers focused their instruction on text-based discussions and text structure. The authors discuss various reading instructional practices, teachers’ repertoire of strategies, and different approaches to explicit strategies instruction.
Journal Article
The Science of Reading
The science of reading is the latest version of the reading wars brought to national attention by the popular press. Although most of the popular press has focused on phonics and early reading, in this article, we chose to study what happened to the research on reading comprehension. By the beginning of the 21st century, there had emerged a mainstream view of reading comprehension and comprehension instruction. However, four factors distorted, impeded, and swamped the research findings. (1) Commercial publishers fit comprehension instruction into a curricular format that distorted the intent of the research. (2) The No Child Left Behind Act, with its high-stakes testing and concomitant interim assessments, moved the focus in schools from developing comprehension to passing tests. (3) The publishers’ criteria for the Common Core State Standards promoted instruction that ran contrary to research findings. (4) Problems with the educational research, publication, development, and dissemination process itself further weakened the effect of research on practice. We conclude with suggestions for researchers to better communicate their results and procedures to other educators, suggestions for how the research community can have a greater impact on the development and review of commercial reading materials and policy initiatives, and suggestions for improving the education of future researchers, administrators, and teachers.
Journal Article
Effects of a read aloud intervention on first grade student vocabulary, listening comprehension, and language proficiency
We examine the effects of a read aloud replication intervention designed to improve the vocabulary, comprehension, and expository and narrative language outcomes of first grade students. Thirty-nine first-grade classrooms from 12 schools were randomly assigned to a treatment (n = 19) or comparison condition (n = 20). Teachers in the treatment condition implemented a 19-week set of read aloud lessons during whole-class read aloud time. Read alouds included the systematic use of narrative and expository texts, before-, during-, and after-reading components, the use of teacher-facilitated text-based discourse, and explicit comprehension instruction. Results indicated main effects of treatment on vocabulary knowledge. Exploratory findings indicated a significant interaction effect of treatment and recommended features of read aloud instruction on all outcomes. Specifically, students of teachers in the treatment condition who were rated higher on adhering to recommended features of read aloud instruction had better outcomes on vocabulary, comprehension, and language outcomes on expository and narrative text than treatment teachers who closely followed intervention materials without dynamically adjusting to student responses. We discuss these findings in the context of other read aloud studies, including a previous study that used the same intervention in a different setting and with a less diverse sample of students.
Journal Article
Reading From Multiple Documents
The current information society requires people to handle information from different sources, which entails specific skills beyond those needed to comprehend and use information from a single text. Given the relevance of becoming a competent reader in functional reading scenarios, it is crucial to examine how contextual-, task-, and individual-related factors may influence multiple-documents question-answering activities, a key issue for assessment and instruction. In this study, we examined the influence of text availability and question type in students’ question-answering performance and the moderator effect of students’ reading skill. Seventy secondary school students read three expository texts about a history topic. Next, they performed a concurrent question-answering task consisting of a set of intra- and intertext questions they answered either with or without the texts available. Finally, participants performed a free-recall task after a 24-hour delay without access to the learning materials. Results showed higher performance scores in the intratext questions when the text was available than when it was not. However, the superiority of text availability disappeared in the delayed recall task. Additionally, skilled readers who had the texts available scored higher in the concurrent question-answering task and, moreover, recalled more ideas in the recall task. These findings shed light on how contextual- (i.e., text availability), task-(i.e., question type), and student-related (i.e., reading skill) factors may influence both adolescents’ question answering from multiple documents and their recall. The implications of these findings for the science of reading and the educational practice are discussed.
Journal Article
Prompting Rural Students’ Use of Background Knowledge and Experience to Support Comprehension of Unfamiliar Content
Students’ ability to comprehend what they read is greatly influenced by what they already know and have experienced. For this reason, teachers work to activate students’ background knowledge prior to reading. Regrettably, the pedagogical techniques available to teachers for activating students’ knowledge are quite limited. Further, those available techniques have not always been effective for students whose background knowledge and experiences are ill matched to the textual content. Thus, the purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to investigate the effectiveness of a traditional (mobilization) and a novel (relational reasoning) activation technique, in comparison with a control group. In this study, 149 rural middle school students were assigned to one of the two experimental conditions or a control condition. The author analyzed the data using structural equation modeling with comprehension as the outcome variable. The results indicated that relational reasoning was a significantly more effective activation technique than the mobilization and control conditions for enhancing comprehension. Qualitative analyses of semistructured interviews conducted with select low- and high-performing students revealed the utility of relational reasoning, especially for low-performing students.
Journal Article
General and special education teachers’ knowledge about reading comprehension processes and instructional practices
The study investigated teachers’ knowledge of reading comprehension processes and reading comprehension instruction. The study was carried out among teachers (N = 65) in Estonia. The content analysis classified qualitative data from semi-structured interviews as quantitative data. The results showed that teachers’ content knowledge about reading comprehension processes and pedagogical knowledge of reading comprehension instruction were considerably variable yet mostly limited. Special education teachers (n = 37) mentioned a wider range of reading strategies than classroom teachers (n = 28). When describing how to support struggling readers, significant differences emerged between the teacher groups: Special education teachers mentioned activities to support students’ reading comprehension more frequently than classroom teachers whereas classroom teachers mentioned activities for supporting reading motivation more often than special education teachers. Teachers’ lack of knowledge about reading comprehension processes and reading comprehension instruction indicate the need to improve these topics in preservice and in-service teacher training to enhance their teaching skills.
Journal Article