Spotlight
on Literacy by Rebecca McKay Director, Literacy and Professional Development
What are the seven strategies? The strategies are:
For all you research “junkies” the text and picture insets illuminate the strategies in more detail with original research citations.
What are the challenges to strategy instruction? The enormity of the task in learning instructional strategies for teaching reading comprehension has been demonstrated in research (Almasi, 2003). In most cases it takes years for teachers to absorb and integrate the techniques of meta-cognitive strategy work. In the research of Pressley and colleagues (1992), three years' time was what it took to learn the process of transactional strategy instruction. This process includes readers’ coordination of several strategies at once. The concentrated reflection and instructional development required of teachers in the quest to become strategies teachers has been dubbed as painful by Almasi (2003). The need to study explicit meta-cognitive strategy instruction and its impact on young struggling readers is pressing (Duffy, 2002 a). Agreement among reading scholars is strong that metacognition plays an important part in reading comprehension (Baker & Brown, 1984; Garner, 1987; Gourgey, 1998; Hacker, 1998; Mastropieri & Scruggs, 1997; Mayer, 1998; Paris, Wasik, & Turner, 1991; Schraw, 1998). Two national committees concluded that metacognition and comprehension monitoring should be promoted in comprehension training (National Reading Panel, 2000; Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998). Snow, Burns, and Griffin (1998) surmised that children need opportunities to develop and enhance their language and meta-cognitive skills. To make appropriate reading progress, reading work must extend beyond the surface structure of reading into reader control over the monitoring of comprehension and the use of strategies to repair reading when comprehension goes awry. A further conclusion is that training in meta-cognitive skills is effective for improving reading comprehension and that comprehension monitoring skills can improve with training. Knowing this information, meta-cognitive strategy instruction can help close the gap for many children and increase their chances of becoming a reader at the highest and most rigorous level. The technique of strategy instruction is difficult to learn as a teacher and this difficulty is compounded by the level of proficiency to be attained by students. The minimum standard has climbed to a higher more intricate form of comprehension. As reading teachers strive to raise the level of comprehension attainment to the proficient level as identified by NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress), they must teach idea extension through inference, use of schema to connect with text, as well as scrutinizing literary devices used by an author (Mullis, Campbell, & Farstrup, 1993).The advanced level on the NAEP assessment requires readers to synthesize what they read across and within texts. Through text interactions students are required to evaluate, summarize, and analyze their reading. Students performing on the advanced level show proficiency in the use of literature for creative, critical, higher order thinking going beyond basic comprehension. In other words, these students must control text with the attitude of a problem solver while actively controlling and manipulating written material.
How do exemplary teachers teach strategies? In an extraordinary essay the co-creator of the Cornerstone Framework and co-author of Mosaic of Thought, Ellin Oliver Keene describes good comprehension instruction and how it can become memorable instruction. These suggestions come from Keene’s interviews and observations of seventeen teachers known to her for many years as exemplary teachers of reading comprehension. In her informal research, Keene found traits of teachers who moved their instruction from what she calls “good to memorable” (Collins-Block, Gambrell, & Pressley, 2002). The traits include teachers as researchers of
their own reading and meta-cognitive habits based on adult selections
of literature and discussion of their processes in professional
development sessions. This is a part of Cornerstone’s Continuous
Professional Development Model and a practice common in other professions
and disciplines. However, teachers’ analyzing their own reading selections as a means
to enhance teaching is rarely utilized in their reading instruction
and planning (Keene & Zimmerman, 1997; Pressley & El-Dinary,
1997). Exemplary strategies teachers use various groupings of readers to enhance their comprehension instruction and the teachers also release the responsibility of strategy use to their students. The aforementioned traits build instructional strategies that allow teachers to model and use a gradual release of responsibility in the use of meta-cognitive strategies (Pearson & Gallagher, 1983). A great deal of teacher and student modeling is stretched over long periods of instruction on each strategy. At the same time, teachers continually ask students to show what they know about strategy use. Finally, excellent teachers understand how comprehension strategy instruction meshes with the other important parts of literacy learning (Keene, 2002). Keene’s research of comprehension strategies, of a proficient reader’s actions and exemplary strategy teachers run parallel to Janice Almasi’s (2003) rational for developing knowledge associated with comprehension strategies. Almasi’s explanation helps to clarify and deepen Keene’s explanation of the traits of exemplary strategies instruction. By pointing out that there are three kinds of knowledge readers should know and be able to explain concerning their use of strategies, Almasi aides professional developers to see the in-depth work that confronts them in their leadership of best comprehension practices. The three types of knowledge readers must have: procedural, declarative, and conditional, provide a clear direction for professional developers and reading coaches as they plan. Almasi postulates that declarative knowledge of strategy use causes readers to define the strategy itself. Procedural knowledge is learning that readers use to discern the actual steps or processes that they use as the strategy guides their reading. The third type of knowledge, conditional, allows students to explain their understanding of when a strategy is helpful. These three types of knowledge described by Almasi (2003) are intricate and require careful attention to personal understanding of reading comprehension by the adults in charge of student learning. For a fully developed explanation of Almasi’s three types of knowledge in the use of sensory images, see the online version of this article.
Realities behind the desk You
are in fifth grade in an American School. You have a brother
in third grade and a sister in first grade. You are in luck because
a group of researchers from the Center for Advanced Study of
Teaching and Learning, University of Virginia, have just blown
the whistle on your school along with 2500 other elementary school
classrooms in the United States. The researchers tell your story
and provide a report on the quality of school experiences. Painting
a picture of what your school learning is like day after boring
day, the researchers are ready to tell the world about your experiences
in Happy Elementary, USA. Your
parents will no longer wonder why you never answer their questions
about what you did in school. This report will show the world
what is like to sit behind your desk, your brother’s desk
and even your little sister’s desk. I shudder when I read the above paragraphs. The story is fabricated but the statistics are true representations of the school experiences not only for fifth-graders but third and first-graders as well! In this new research conducted by a University of Virginia team, the appalling results were drawn from elementary school classroom experiences for more than 1000 American children recruited at birth from 10 U.S. sites and enrolled in more than 2500 classrooms in more than1000 elementary schools and 400 school districts. For the full article describing this study, contact your Literacy or Leadership Fellow. “In this multi-state observational and longitudinal study of children in U.S. primary school classrooms, opportunities to learn for this sample of mostly middle-class students proved highly variable and did not appear congruent with the high performance standards expected for students or for teachers as described by most state teacher certification and licensure documents. Rather, experiences in fifth grade, although highly variable, were geared toward performance of basic reading and math skills, not problem-solving or reasoning skills or other content areas. Few opportunities were provided to learn in small groups, to improve analytical skills, or to interact extensively with teachers. This pattern of instruction appears inconsistent with aims to add depth to students’ understanding, particularly in mathematics and science. Classroom dynamics were not related to teachers’ degree status or experience. Teachers met credentialing standards, but their classrooms, even if emotionally positive, were mediocre in terms of quality of instructional support. Children who needed support were unlikely to receive it consistently. These results are consistent with arguments that a focus on standards-based reform and teacher credentialing may lead to instruction that is overly broad and thin.” (Pianta, R., Belsky, J., Houts, R., Morrison, F., 2007, p. 1796) What should we do in our network to make certain that Cornerstone students, all of our students, have excellent equitable reading instruction and school environments with curricula that are deep and wide, curricula precluding the practices described in the Pianta study? It is my great fear that many of our strugglers are fed a steady diet of reading lessons from a box as I alluded to in an earlier Spotlight on Literacy, Lesson Study vs. School in a Box.
What must we do? What will it take to change this struggling fifth-grader’s classroom experiences? What do the premier reading researchers suggest? It has been twenty years since Duffy and Roehler (1987) reported that direct explanation of the seven meta-cognitive reading strategies results in significant achievement gains for struggling readers yet very little emphasis has been placed on the instructional techniques in the reading literature or in classrooms. It is time to make certain that all of our children have access to the strategy instruction across the disciplines to include science and math. Gerald Duffy (2002 b) addresses the issue and expounds on ideas that are imperative for addressing the problem in a standards based world. He states that we must:
Gerald Duffy (2002 b) writes that teachers’ judgment about
alternative instruction for strugglers, teachers’ perseverance in
making classroom changes to accommodate strugglers, and teachers’ instructional
risk taking for strugglers are the most important elements
to aid effective comprehension instruction. He summarizes by stating
that in 1987, it was looked upon as praiseworthy to work with struggling
readers, but in today’s world it is a requirement. Will we
heed this body of research or will we continue on the path portrayed
in the study of American schools by Pianta and colleagues(2007)?
We know what to do. We have an irrefutable base of research on strategy instruction for readers and particularly for our strugglers. I fear the inevitable if we do not view the struggling readers as our own. If we choose to ignore the research, the road will only be wide and the rain will never stop falling for struggling readers.
Attachments Almasi’s
Three Kinds of Knowledge (PDF)
References Afflerbach, P. P. & Johnson,
P. H. (1986). What do expert readers do when the main Almasi, J. (2003). Teaching Strategies Processes in Reading. New York, NY: Guilford Press. Anderson, R. C. & Hiddle, J. L. (1971). Imagery and sentence learning. Journal of Education Psychology, 62, 526-530. Anderson, R. C. & Pearson, P. D. (1984). A schema-theoretic view of basic processes in reading. In P. D. Pearson (Ed.), Handbook of Reading Research (pp. 255-291). New York, NY: Longman. Anderson, V. (1992). A teacher development project in transactional strategy instruction for teachers of severely reading-disabled adolescents. Teaching and Teacher Education, 8, 391-403. Baker, L. & Brown, A. L. (1984). Meta-cognitive skills and reading. In P. D. Pearson, M. Kamil, R. Barr, & P. Mosenthal (Eds.), Handbook of Research in Reading (pp. 353-395). New York, NY: Longman. Baker, L. (2002). Metacognition in comprehension instruction. In C. C. Block & M. Pressley (Eds.), Comprehension Instruction: Research-Based Practices (pp 77-96). New York, NY: Guilford Press. Baumann, J. F. (1986). The direct instruction of main idea comprehension ability. In J. F. Baumann, (Ed.), Teaching Main Idea Comprehension (pp.133-178) Newark, DE: International Reading Association. Brown,
A. L. & Day, J. D. (1983). Macrorules
for summarizing texts: The Brown, R., Pressley, M., Van Meter, P., & Schuder, T. (1996). A quasi-experimental validation of transactional strategies instruction with low-achieving second grade readers. Journal of Educational Psychology, 88, 18-37. Collins-Block, C., Gambrell, L.
B., & Pressley, M. (2002). Improving Collins, K. & Keene, E. (2000). Cornerstone Framework. (Retrieved May 2007 @ http://www.cornerstoneliteracy.org/literacy.html). Duffy, G. G. (2002a). The case for direct explanations of strategies. In C. C. Block & M. Pressley (Eds.), Comprehension instruction: Research-based practices. (pp. 28-42). New York, NY: Guilford. Duffy, G. G. (2002 b). Forward. In C.
Collins-Block, L. G. Gambrell, & M. Pressley Duffy, G. & Roehler, L. (1987). Improving classroom reading instruction through the use of responsive elaboration. Reading Teacher, 40 (6), 514-521. Duffy, G., Roehler, L., Meloth, M., Polin, R., & Vavrus, L. (1986). Conceptualizing instructional explanation. Teaching and Teacher Education, 2, 197-214. Fielding, L. G., & Pearson,
P. D. (1994). Reading comprehension: What works. Garner, R. (1987). Metacognition and reading comprehension. J. Orasanu, (Ed.). Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Gordon, C. J. & Pearson,
P. D. (1983). The effects of instruction on Gourgey, A. F. (1998). Metacognition in basic skills instruction. Instructional Science, 26, 81-96. Hacker,
D. J. (1998). Self-regulated comprehension during normal reading. In
D. J. Harvey,
S., McAuliffe, S., Benson, L., Cameron, W., Kempton, S., Lusche, P.,
Miller, Keene, E. O. & Zimmerman,
S. (1997). Mosaic
of thought: Teaching Keene,
E. (2002). From good to memorable: Characteristics of highly effective Mastropieri, M. A. & Scruggs, T. E. (1997). Best practices in promoting reading comprehension in students with learning disabilities: 1976 to 1996. Remedial and Special Education, 18, 197-213. Mayer, R. E. (1998). Cognitive, meta-cognitive, and motivational aspects of problem solving. Instructional Science, 26, 49-63. Mullis, I. V. S., Campbell, J.
R., & Farstrup, A. E. (1993). NAEP Reading Report National Reading Panel, (2000). Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction. Bethesda, MD: National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Nye, N.S. (2003). Shoulders. In (Eds.) Intrator, S., & Scribner, M. Teaching with Fire: Poetry That Sustains the Courage to Teach , p. 163. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Paris, S. G., Wasik, B. A., & Turner, J. C. (1991). The development of strategic readers. In R. Barr, M. Kamil, P. Mosenthal, & P. D. Pearson (Eds.), Handbook of Reading Research (Vol. 2, pp.609-640). White Plains, NY: Longman. Pearson, P. & Gallagher, M. C. (1983). “The
instruction of reading comprehension.” Pearson, P.D., Roehler, L.R., Dole, J.A., & Duffy, G.G. (1992). Developing expertise in reading comprehension. In S.J. Samuels & A.E. Farstrup (Eds.), What research has to say about reading instruction (2nd ed., pp. 145–199). Newark, DE: International Reading Association. Pianta, R., Belsky, J., Houts, R., Morrison, F. (2007). Opportunities to learn in America’s classrooms. Science, v. 315, p. 1795-1796. Pressley, M. & El-Dinary,
P. B. (1997). What we know about translating Pressley,
M., El-Dinary, P. B., Gaskins, I., Schuder, T., Bergman, J., Almasi,
L., & Pressley, M., Wharton-McDonald,
R., Hampston, J. M., & Echevarria, M. (1998). Rumelhart, D.E. (2004). Toward an Interactive Model of Reading. In R.B. Ruddell, & N.J. Unrau (Eds.), Theoretical Models and Processes of Reading (pp. 1149-1179). Newark, DE: International Reading Association. Schraw,
G. (1998). Promoting general meta-cognitive awareness. Instructional Snow, C. E., Burns, M. S., & Griffin, P. (Eds.). (1998) Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Tierney, R. J. & Cunningham, J. W. (1984). Research on teaching reading comprehension. In M. L. Kamil, P.B. Mosenthal, P.D. Pearson, & R. Barr, (Eds.). Handbook of Reading Research (Vol. I, pp.609-655). White Plains, NY: Longman. Williams,
J. P. (2002). Reading comprehension strategies and teacher preparation.
. In Winograd, P. N. & Bridge, C. A. (1986). The comprehension of important information in written prose. In J. F. Baumann, (Ed.). Teaching main idea comprehension (pp. 18-48). Newark, DE: International Reading Association. |
This is the last 2006-2007 Spotlight on Literacy and
the end of another successful Cornerstone school year. Thank all of
you for the work that you do every day in Cornerstone schools and for
giving me the inspiration to keep trying. I often picture your faces
as I write. But today, I am seeing the faces of struggling readers
who do not comprehend what they read. In this last newsletter, I
would like to continue the discussion of struggling readers, address
reading comprehension, and the current state of American classroom
environments. By scrutinizing the meta-cognitive strategies,
we are armed to support our children, all of them and we can ready
ourselves to begin the 2007-2008 school year with a renewed energy
for the implementation of quality instruction.
