Embedding comprehension within reading acquisition processes.
Scull, Janet
Learning to read and reading to understand
Pedagogical reform initiatives and recent large-scale reviews of
reading stress the importance of both decoding and comprehension in
primary school curricula (Department of Education, Science &
Training, 2005; RAND, Reading Study Group, 2002; Snow, Burns &
Griffin, 1998). The report of the National Inquiry into Teaching
Literacy strongly recommends direct, systematic instruction in phonics,
but notes that as 'reading essentially involves two basic and
complementary processes: learning how to decipher print and
understanding what print means, an integrated approach to reading
instruction is mandatory' (Department of Education, Science and
Training, 2005, p. 34). This suggests teachers need to resist persistent
and simplistic binaries, such as learning to read/reading to learn and
learning to decode/ learning to comprehend and to respond to the
complexities of early reading instruction.
Studies of students' reading often associate weak word reading
skills with poor comprehension; however, decoding competence does not
automatically lead to better comprehension of a text (Connor, Morrison
& Petrella, 2004; Gee, 2004; Rubman & Waters, 2000; Scarborough,
2001; Snow et al., 1998). Biemiller (2003) found teaching students to
successfully identify words (to decode) is insufficient to support
reading comprehension beyond a grade two level. Likewise, Spooner,
Gathecole and Baddeley (2006) state that 10-15% of students exhibit
low-level reading comprehension despite having good decoding skills.
Paris, Carpenter, Paris and Hamilton (2005) report the spurious
relationship between early print knowledge and comprehension, noting
that while these skills may be necessary precursors to expertise that
does not make them sufficient enablers of later development (2005 p.
149).
The development of effective comprehension strategies has been the
subject of extensive research and review (Blachowicz & Ogle, 2001;
Hacker, 2004; Harrison, 2000, 2004a; Pearson & Duke, 2002; Pearson
& Fielding, 1991; Pearson & Hamm, 2005; Pressley, 2000, 2006;
Snow & Sweet, 2003; Tierney & Cunningham, 1984). There is
consensus in the research literature around a list of strategies and
principles of comprehension instruction. Central to this is the concept
of comprehension monitoring, demonstrated as students detect and resolve
errors in their reading (Hacker, 2004). Asking whether or not what they
have read makes sense to them as the 'ultimate criterion for making
sense' (Pearson & Fielding, 1991, p. 847), with this learning
highly dependent upon what readers already know of the topic and the
text genre. In addition, students' ability to recall and summarise
information--as well as to infer from texts they have read, evaluate
information and identify the important from the unimportant--is central
to this process.
Moreover, the need to avoid a prescriptive model of comprehension
skills development, where extensive lists of comprehension skills are
taught independently with exercises removed from the task of reading, is
critical to the implementation of effective strategy instruction
(Harrison, 2004a, Pressley, 2006). In contrast to a sub-skills approach,
comprehension instruction is described as best achieved through
collaborative, conversational approaches (Brown, Pressely, Van Meter
& Schuder, 1996; Duke & Pearson, 2002; Palincsar, 2003;
Pressley, 2000) that support a flexible, opportunistic use of
strategies. Central to this is teaching for self-regulation and
students' metacognitive awareness of strategies to enhance
comprehension, to ensure that they have well-articulated concepts of
what strategies are available, how they function, when they should be
applied and why they help comprehension (Paris, Wasik & Turner,
1991, p. 619).
Relevant to this discussion is Singer's description of active
readers as those engaged in 'a continuous process of asking and
searching for answers to self-posed questions' (1981, p. 303). In
their discussion of comprehension, Singer and Donlan (1989) contrast
'comprehension as product' (giving students teacher-posed
questions to answer) with 'comprehension as process' (teaching
students to formulate and read to answer their own questions). Students
developing their own questions and answers is seen as a self-generating,
cyclic process; the answers to their questions are then added to their
knowledge for generating further comprehension questions.
Despite significant attention to this area of reading instruction,
Pressley (2006) acknowledges the confusion over comprehension
instruction as reflected in haphazard, fragmented strategy instruction
and the lack of research-based evidence on how to develop teachers'
knowledge to support students' learning. More particularly,
researchers report a lack of comprehension strategy instruction in early
years classrooms (Pearson & Duke, 2002; Pressley, 2006; Tracey &
Morrow, 2002).
Building on understandings of the dynamic interaction between
decoding and comprehension competencies, this study aimed to closely
examine skilled teachers' teaching conversations, during the early
stages of reading acquisition. This was intended to detail patterns and
principles of effective instructional interactions that might support
young readers to effectively engage with text meanings and develop
complementary skills and strategies to prevent disparities in
students' reading accuracy and comprehension outcomes (Chall,
Jacobs & Baldwin, 1990; Gee, 2004; Snow et al., 1998).
Methodology
This study was designed to capture a period of reading acquisition,
with the one-to-one teaching context selected as it afforded an
opportunity to closely observe teachers as they supported students'
reading development. In this, teachers' practices were explored and
students' progress examined.
The study draws primarily on mixed method traditions. From a
qualitative paradigm the observation of teacher/student dyads allowed
for the close analysis of teaching interactions to gain insight into
teachers' procedures and practices (Freebody, 2003; Patton, 2002).
The coding of teaching interactions resulted in numerical summaries that
allowed for the identification of quantifiable patterns and
relationships in the data and the drawing of inferences (Lankshear &
Knobel, 2004). The subsequent mapping of teaching interactions to
students' reading outcomes was to consider the effectiveness of
these early opportunities to learn.
Participants
Eight Reading Recovery teachers, each working with two students,
participated in this study. Of the students selected, eight were female
and eight male; their ages ranged from six years four months to seven
years eight months. All students had failed to get underway with reading
after a year of instruction and were identified as part of a high-risk
group, selected for early intervention to keep problems from becoming
debilitating and to diminish the effect of early difficulties (Pianta,
1990, p. 307). The nature of reading difficulties in young children is
extremely complex (Elkins, 2002) and hence causes for the lack of
progress for this group of students is largely unknown. However, their
selection for Reading Recovery seen as an opportunity for targeted
teaching, designed to support the students' early reading and
writing development (Clay, 2005a). At the time of the study the students
had been participating in the Reading Recovery program for ten weeks and
therefore were in the later stages of their individualised, literacy
support program.
Reading Recovery is an early literacy intervention developed by
Marie Clay (2001, 2005a). Students who participate in Reading Recovery
are typically in their second year of school and falling behind their
classmates, as they have not yet acquired effective reading and writing
processes. Reading Recovery provides supplementary, daily, one-to-one
instruction, with teaching based on detailed observations of the ways in
which the individual child responds to language as a written code. The
eight teachers in this study had all undertaken extensive professional
training to develop their understandings of reading acquisition
processes and were skilled in the design of teaching programs to support
effective reading skills and strategies.
Data collection and analysis
Observations of teaching interactions
The observational data were collected across three paired lesson
sequences during two reading segments of the Reading Recovery lesson:
(1) the introduction and reading of the new book and (2) the rereading
of the previous day's new book (Clay, 2005b). The analysis of
teacher-student interactions commenced with the coding of all lesson
observations. Lesson recordings were coded to consider the information
that teachers supported students to attend to when reading, and the
attention given to assisting students to draw on relevant knowledge and
understanding in the comprehension of concepts, ideas and relationships
within texts read. (See Appendix One for codes developed to categorise
teacher talk.)
The computer software package Studiocode (Sportstec, 2004),
specifically designed to capture and analyse video data, was used to
code teaching interactions. This software enabled second-by-second
continuous coding of the teaching. To complement this coding and
quantified accounts of the data, excerpts of teaching interactions were
transcribed. These provided illustrative accounts of teachers' and
students' dialogue and allowed for a close analysis of teaching
conversations.
Reading assessment
To consider the influence of teacher attention on student's
accuracy and comprehension skills the Prose Reading Observation,
Behaviour and Evaluation of Comprehension (PROBE) (Parkin, Parkin &
Pool, 2002) was used. The PROBE test provides passages graded from
reading age five years across 12-month age bands and comprehension
questions across six elements: literal, reorganisation, inference,
vocabulary, evaluation and reaction. For passages read with an accuracy
rate of 90% and above, students' scores for each aspect of
comprehension were determined.
Analysis of teaching interactions
Attention to word solving processes
Importantly, teachers' prompts during the first reading
supported students' attention to the semantic and graphophonic
information in text, extending their linking and searching systems to
effectively process text (Clay 2001). Quantified analysis of the talk
interactions indicate teachers were most frequently directing
students' attention to the meaning of the text at points of
difficulty in the reading. The range across the 16 dyads was from a low
of 2.9% of average lesson time allocated to the book introduction and
first reading, to a high of 15.8%. This includes time dedicated to
directing students' attention to the meaning of the text, including
events, actions and characters, independent of other cue sources. This
compares with 1.6[degrees]% -11.9% of average lesson time in which
teachers directed students' attention to the use of print, letter
sounds, letter clusters and known words parts to support word solving at
difficulty. In addition, when students experienced difficulty with text
reading teachers inserted the unknown words, either to keep the reading
progressing or after unsuccessful problem-solving efforts by the
students. This occurred frequently throughout the reading interactions,
with teachers solving difficulties for students from 0.7% to
9.1[degrees]% of lesson time.
The transcript examples below are typical of the word solving
support teachers provided for these beginning readers.
Transcripts One and Two
Late for football (Giles, 1994)
Child reading 'Mum my boots' said Tim [child pauses]
Teacher Have a look at that and have a go, what's it start
with?
Child Pl, I don't know
Teacher Have another look, what's the next word here?
Child Placed
Teacher No, that doesn't make sense what would he say to mum?
Child reading Pl, please help me do up my boots
Going to the hairdresser (Wilson, 1996)
Teacher Here's another time we could stop and think what would
make sense, is there something about that word that
you know How does it start?
Child b
Teacher It does so let's try it again and think about what mum
might say to Amber.
Child reading It is getting in her eyes. We b
Teacher Can you think of something that would make sense?
Child shakes her head
Teacher Try 'both' and see if that makes sense and sounds
right.
Child reading 'We both need a haircut,' says Mum.
Teacher Does it make sense to say both? Good girl. I could
think of something, next time you have to think of
something. Keep reading.
In many instances teachers were observed to prompt the solving of
difficult words in texts, with emphasis on ensuring the word selected
made sense in the context being read. This approach to beginning reading
encouraged word comprehension in relation to the overall meaning of the
text (Pressley, 2000). Meaning based questions from the Late for
football transcript such as 'What did Tim do?', 'What
happened?' and 'What would he say to Mum?' are typical of
those asked by teachers to support students' reading at the level
of word solving.
However, it was the integration of information from semantic,
syntactic and graphophonic sources observed that appears supportive of
students' mastery of early reading texts. Evident within the
teaching observed was teaching for parallel processing (Clay, 2001;
McKoon & Ratcliff, 1998), the simultaneous amalgamation of
information to support efficient data-driven solving (Rumelhart, 2004;
Stanovich, 2000).
Consistent throughout the data set was the teachers' support
of students' active, independent problem-solving, establishing and
reinforcing the search-and-check actions of students. The effects of
this evident in the students' self-correction behaviours. Research
findings suggest self-correction, students' independent correction
of reading errors, is a significant measure of students' developing
reading ability (Clay 2001; Kaye, 2006; McNaughton, 1988; Schwartz,
1997). At each substitution the student initiates a search for more
information, generates and evaluates a hypothesis, and makes a decision.
Attention to activating and building knowledge to support reading
The centrality of the readers' prior knowledge to the process
of the integration of new information, enabling them to disambiguate
texts, is acknowledged as having a profound impact on text comprehension
(Bransford & Johnson, 1972, Lipson 1982; Duke & Pearson, 2002;
Gaskins, 2003; Pressley, 2000; Snow & Sweet, 2003). This store of
conceptual knowledge or schema for a given topic, present in an
individual's memory, supports the ability to reconstruct
information and comprehend written text (Anderson & Pearson, 1984;
Gaskins, 2003; Pressley, 2000).
Teachers in this study built background knowledge and activated
students' prior knowledge. These aspects of teaching place emphasis
on supporting students to use domain knowledge as they extracted and
constructed meanings from text. Within the context of the lessons
observed, the development of understandings prior to text reading
occurred as teacher input, specifically as teachers developed
students' knowledge of concepts, vocabulary and made links to their
prior experiences. The teachers in this study worked to ensure students
had a detailed, comprehensive overview of the text prior to reading.
Similar in intent was the teachers' attention to prediction,
considered a key strategy in building a comprehension curriculum (Duke
& Pearson, 2002; Palincsar, 2003; Pressley, 2000). Through
prediction, teachers encouraged students to use their prior knowledge to
facilitate their understanding of new ideas encountered in text. Just
above 0.2% to 6.3% of the book introduction and first reading lesson
time was dedicated to students' text predictions, with the majority
of teachers requesting students anticipate the events in texts for 1.5%
-4.5% of average total time. By comparison, this aspect of
teacher-student talk ranks second, with the introduction of content the
only category attended to more frequently in pre-reading discussions.
Skillfully, the teacher in the transcript that follows invited the
student to co-construct the text. Her explicit use of open-ended
questions - such as 'I wonder what it might be?' and 'I
wonder how?' - to initiate the conversational exchanges and her
responses with the comments 'Do you think?' and
'Let's see, you turn the page and see if you're
right' involved the teacher and student collaboratively describing
the storyline as it unfolds. Here the student had an opportunity to
rehearse the construction of text meanings--drawing on prior
understanding, linking the new content to familiar concepts, to
effectively articulate what is known (Raban, 1999).
Transcript three
Mitch to the rescue (Smith, 1997)
Teacher Now, there is a problem for the last duck, for the
last duckling. I wonder what it might be?
Child He's too little and he's not very fast.
Teacher Well the water around the rocks actually goes very
fast, so you could be right, maybe it's taking him
away and he can't keep up. Do you think? Is that what
you were thinking?
Child Cause all the water's going that way and he's over
there, and there is the water and it's flowing.
Teacher OK what's going to happen?
Child He's trapped.
Teacher He's trapped. Now if Mitch comes to the rescue in
this story, what might Mitch do?
Child Well he'll save it.
Teacher I wonder how?
Child He hops out of the boat and pops onto the rock and
he puts his bucket and puts it in there with some
water.
Teacher Well, that's a good idea, actually it is his sun
hat. He was minding the sunhats. So he uses the
sunhats, well isn't that a good idea. Now let's see
if he gets it, quickly turn the pages. But there's
still the problem isn't there of the duckling being
way from the family. I wonder how they get the
duckling back to the family, let's stop here. What do
you think might happen?
Child They're stopping at the shore and they're taking
the duckling over to it.
Teacher So how might he get him back to the family, and he's
got him in the hat.
Child He's got to walk him.
Teacher Along the bank, this is called the bank, you're right
its another word for the shore. Let's see, you turn
the page and see if you're right. Good idea, is that a
good idea. Mitch really did come to the rescue didn't
he, that poor little duckling might have been lost
otherwise
Through this talk prior to reading, teachers were assisting
students to apply what they know to a new context and make connections
between already known information and the new concepts in texts (Raban,
1999).
After reading discussions
To further support students' understanding of texts a short
conversation after text reading was conducted, during which details of
texts were recalled and students' insights into the texts read were
gleaned. The intent here was to see what teachers focused on during
these discussions and how they engaged students in talk related to text
comprehension. The following categories were used to code teacher
interactions as texts were discussed:
* literal--comments or questions that required students to recall
text details, in particular, the order of events, characters'
actions
* inference--questions that required students to consider why
events might have happened, or to elaborate events
* reaction/evaluation--teachers' questions or comments that
required students to express an opinion about the text or events and
occurrences in the texts
* child's experiences--comments prompting discussion that
related to students' experiencing something similar to the events
in the text
* extending knowledge--comments that clarified students'
understandings or built upon their current knowledge base.
Details of teachers' interaction time particular to these
aspects of comprehension and understanding--as an average of total time
allocated to the second reading--show that teachers were most likely to
request literal details of the text from students. This activity
occurred in from 0 to 9.8% of lesson time. Time allocated to inference
and reaction/evaluation type interactions were distributed similarly
across the dyads; for 75% of students up to approximately 2% of lesson
time was dedicated to these discussions. Here teachers requested
responses to why and/or how questions, with students able to draw on
knowledge from outside the text to support their answers. Smaller
periods of time were recorded for discussion related to the
students' own experience and to extending their understanding of
concepts included in texts. The following transcript, longer than
typical, is included as the teacher calls for the details of text to be
recounted, alongside a co-construction of text-based inferences that
allowed the student to think about and respond to the events in the
text.
Transcript four
The trouble with grandad (Cole, 1988)
Teacher This bit, tell us about it. What's happening in this
picture?
Child Grandpa's telling us that it has worms.
Teacher That's right, and we know what kind of worms were
inside it. Tell me about them, what was inside it?
Child A huge caterpillar.
Teacher It was enormous wasn't it, a very huge caterpillar. And
he ate and ate until all the tomatoes had gone. Wow,
that's unbelievable isn't it? I wonder how Grandpa is
feeling when he sees that big caterpillar.
Child Yeh.
Teacher I wonder how he's feeling.
Child Mm, pretty angry.
Teacher Do you think? Why would he be feeling angry?
Child Because.
Teacher Why would Grandpa be feeling angry when he saw that
enormous caterpillar coming out of the tomato?
Child Um because he um, like he took all the care for it,
to water it and that, and he had to all these things
to do it, and as it did that it made it the thing, the
thing grow and grow and grow.
Teacher Oh OK. Was this one of Grandad's plants or did it come
from somewhere else?
Child Um, it came from somewhere else.
Teacher Do you remember where it came from?
Child Yes
Teacher Where?
Child He came from the other ex um petition.
Teacher The exhibitors.
Child The exhibitors.
Teacher That's right, so do you think it was a good, big plant
or do you think it might have had a trick in it? Cause
you have a look, go back to that page where the
exhibitors gave Grandad the plant. To that part. What
does it say on this page?
Child reading So one of them gave him a funny looking tomato plant.
Teacher So I wonder if Grandad was suspicious about it. Do you
know what suspicious means?
Child No
Teacher Suspicious means you're not quite sure if something
is right. Do you think he might be thinking, um, this
is interesting?
Child Yes
Teacher Does it look like it's growing bigger than all the
other vegetables?
Child Yes, it looks like (pointing to picture)
Teacher Yes, it's getting very, very big isn't it? I think this
plant might have been a dangerous one right from the
beginning. Because all those animals, this caterpillar
that popped out of it. None of this happened to
Grandpa's normal plants did they? Let's have a look at
the ones he went into the vegetable show with.
The after reading conversations observed, provided critical
opportunities for students to engage with a range of text meanings with
the assistance of a more skilled co-participant. Discussion provides a
vehicle for students to reflect upon, interrogate and revise their
understandings of text meanings. However, as Wells states,
'children need to see and hear enactments of those inner mental
processes that are the essence of literate behaviour so they can
appropriate them and deploy them for themselves' (1991, p. 88).
Thus, collaborative talk apprentices the young reader to engage with
texts in ways appropriate to their different forms and purposes.
Despite teachers' individual attention to varying aspects of
comprehension, a pattern is evident from the talk interactions across
the teacher-student dyads. When talking with students about texts read,
teachers directed their attention most frequently to the literal
content. Closer analysis of this interaction type found teachers'
requests for text recall came mainly through calls for text summaries.
This allowed the students' freedom within their responses to
self-select the information they considered important to reiterate, but
with little questioning and probing by the teachers for further specific
text details. Quantified analysis of the talk interactions also
indicated that literal comprehension questions were followed by requests
for a personal response or an evaluation of texts. Students'
opinions and preferences were reliant on the readers' response to
text, with teachers encouraging a predominately aesthetic rather than
efferent stance to discussions after the reading event (Rosenblatt,
2004). The terms 'aesthetic' and 'efferent' are used
by Rosenblatt to describe the aspects of text readers bring to the
centre of attention. An efferent stance is one that centres on the
abstraction of ideas, information or directions retained after the
reading; in contrast, an aesthetic stance focuses on feeling and
intuitions gained from the reading event.
However, reaction/evaluation questions posed by teachers often
required students to move towards a critical, reflective stance to
assess the message of the text. While not explicitly analysed as a
subset of this data, teacher questions that asked students to comment on
the opinions and values presented in the texts requested a critical
response to the reading. For example:
Transcript five
Jonathan buys a present (Smith, 1997)
Teacher Was he clever? ... Did he make a good choice about his
present?
Thus, these instructional interactions might be interpreted as
'a site for contesting the status quo' (Siegel &
Fernandez, 2000), with students being apprenticed into critical literacy
practice (Comber, 2001; Luke & Freebody, 1997; Zammit & Downes,
2002).
After reading discussions provided distinct opportunities for
students to engage in talk interactions, to reconstruct text meanings
and to mediate understandings (Brown et al., 1996). At this early stage
of students' reading development, the importance of negotiation and
interpretation is acknowledged as impacting on comprehension processes.
Critical to positive reading outcomes were teachers' contributions
that challenged students to share and defend views presented, to make
connections between that which was known and the new information, and to
review ideas. The opportunities provided to share and communicate ideas
enabled the 'individual student to explore and create a depth of
meaning not always available to the isolated thinker' (Raban, 1999,
p. 105).
Links to reading outcomes
A summary of the discussion above indicates that teachers directed
attention to word solving process and text meanings across the first and
second book readings. When focussed on comprehension, teachers were most
likely to request literal details of the text from students. This
activity occurred from 0 to 9.8% of lesson time. Time allocated to
inference and reaction/evaluation type interactions were distributed
similarly across the dyads; for 75% of students up to approximately 2%
of lesson time was dedicated to these discussions. Smaller periods of
time were recorded for discussion related to the students' own
experience and to extending their understanding of concepts included in
texts.
The PROBE graded reading passages required students to transfer the
skills developed in Reading Recovery contexts to new, unfamiliar texts.
Students' reading accuracy for fiction texts, indicates that they
read passages across a difficulty range graded 6 to 8 years,
commensurate with their chronological ages. Table 1 shows students'
correct responses to PROBE comprehension taxonomy for all passages read
at 90% accuracy and above.
[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]
The students generally responded correctly to questions requiring a
literal recall of information, with a median value of 70% across the
student cohort. PROBE inference questions and evaluation type questions
required students to extrapolate information that is not given in the
text. Test data indicate a median score of 70% for inference questions.
Further, a median score of 75% was evident for evaluation questions.
Reorganisation questions require students to combine two or more pieces
of information contained in the text, and while these questions were
fewer in number overall, they proved somewhat challenging for students,
the median score 66% for this question type. Reaction questions asked
students to express an opinion based on information supplied in the
text. The set of data for reaction questions was small; only five
students were required to answer one question of this type and, among
these, four responded correctly.
As previously outlined teachers prioritised literal and inference
type responses. Moreover, these results indicate higher levels of
performance when students were required to insert prior knowledge or
draw on personal experiences. Analysis of inference questions from the
PROBE passages see these as linked primarily to knowledge-based
inferences (Carnine, Kameenui & Woolfson, 1982). Here students were
required to consider information that was implied but not given in the
text; similarly, the evaluation type questions also required students to
extrapolate information beyond the text (Parkin et al., 2002).
An analysis of PROBE errors reveals examples of text-based
questions answered with reliance on prior knowledge and experience
rather than generating responses for information the text. Hence,
students' self-actualising accounts for poor responding. For
example:
Do all birds fly, how do you know?
No because we watched a video some birds can't fly. (Student
1)
No some birds have a broken wing, Jason's bird... (Student 13)
Discussing a similar pattern of results Dewitz and Dewitz (2003)
consider students use of excessive elaborations as a default strategy;
unable to make the necessary inferences, and needing to say something,
students either draw upon what they already know or simply invent ideas
(2003, p. 430). However, this also reflects teachers' requests for
students' personal responses to texts in after reading discussions.
Implications for practice
This research provides solid evidence to reinforce
conceptualisations of early reading as a process of contemporaneous
comprehension and meaning extraction. Further, through rich descriptions
of teaching conversations, the study affords insights into the
'verbal accompaniment to reading' (Scull & Lo Bianco,
2008) as a critical dimension of the essential support teachers provide
to develop students' comprehension processes. The types of
questions asked and the ways that teachers supported students to engage
with text meanings, across a range of comprehension skills, details
teacher practice. The results provide clear demonstrations of how
skilled Reading Recovery teachers direct students' attention to
integrated acts of information processing and of message construction
and reconstruction.
Teacher guidance
Underpinning the accounts of the effective early reading practice
was teacher modelling and guidance. Noted as critical is the teaching
that involved students in activities that developed understanding of the
text they were reading, helping them attend to the task of constructing
meanings before, during and after the reading. Through talk, teachers
activated and built on students' knowledge of the concepts in texts
and modelled effective linking and prediction strategies, for
students' later independent use and adaptation (Lyons, 1999; Tharp
& Gallimore, 1988; Wood, 2003). Thus, participation in collaborative
tasks, particular to comprehension, supported students to become aware
of the how and why of specific activities, moving first from acts, to
awareness and then to talking about awareness (Clay, 1998).
Strategy instruction, designed to help readers become more
metacognitively aware in their approach to reading, is widely
acknowledged as related to improving comprehension outcomes (Brown et
al., 1996; Palincsar, 2003; Pearson & Duke, 2002; Pearson &
Fielding, 1991; Pressley, 2000). Indeed, developing an awareness of how
different strategies might be applied to text reading, self-directing
the goals and the processes for achieving these goals is linked to
increased reading competency. However, it should be noted that generally
awareness lags considerably behind success in action, with children
often knowing more than they can tell (Downing & Leong, 1982, p.
101).
Learning facilitated through interactions is consistent with
theories of assisted performance and the primacy of speech in making
tasks clear (Tharp & Gallimore, 1988). Teachers' questions in
this study modelled those asked of and by active readers to build a
repertoire for engagement with texts (Duke & Pearson, 2002; Singer,
1981; Singer & Donlan, 1989). The goal of such teaching is for
students to guide their own thinking, using self-directed questions
(Duke & Pearson, 2002) to achieve their own understandings and
subsequently to increase their ability to comprehend reading texts.
Underpinning this model of practice is teachers' awareness of their
own thinking, making explicit to students the comprehension strategies
they use as thoughtful, purposeful readers of texts. Knowing the
questions readers ask and when they ask them, requires teacher
self-reflection alongside clear understandings of comprehension
strategies, as the process for understanding texts is shared with
students.
Students as conversational partners
The results of this the study highlight the challenge of teaching
comprehension as knowing the task, knowing when to intervene and knowing
how to support student learning (Wood, 2003). Recognised is the role of
conversation, and the need for tight, focused interactions designed to
elicit engagement with text meanings as facilitative of students'
learning. This involves not only consideration of the information
teachers guide young students to attend to when teaching them to read,
but equally critical to an understanding of effective practice are the
qualities of the interactions that enhance communication. As revealed by
the data sets, supportive teaching was characterised by collaborative,
participatory processes to actively engage students in teaching and
learning interactions aimed to assist in the comprehension of texts.
Significant also was the role of the teacher in conscripting
students as partners in teaching conversations, scaffolding interactions
to support their participation. The co-construction of text meanings is
largely dependent on teachers modelling ways to articulate responses to
texts and establishing interaction patterns that promote discussion to
enhance and enrich engagement with text (Hughes & Westgate, 1998;
Palincsar, 1998). Teachers play an important role as conversational
partners, mediating the discourse by seeding the discussions with new
ideas or offering alternatives that push the students' thinking and
prepares them to engage in interactions (Palincsar, 1998, p. 365).
Salient from the transcripts reported in this research was the analysis
of conversational turns that show teachers orchestrating discussions;
requesting answers or further explanations to facilitate students'
active participation.
As an implication for practice, this sees teaching move along a
continuum that extends from transmission to interpretation (Raban,
1999). At the extreme transmission end, the teacher as the 'one who
knows' does all the talking with little room for student talk. In
contrast, as teaching moves towards interpretation models, students are
encouraged through collaborative exchanges to engage in their own
meaning making (Cazden, 1988; Fisher, 2005; Palincsar, 1998; Sinclair
& Coulthard, 1975). To support discussion that allows students to
share their knowledge and logic, elaborate, explore and reformulate
their thinking teachers need a 'pressing' strategy (Cazden,
1988; Mercer, 2000; Raban, 2001; Wolf, Crosson & Resnick, 2005).
This creates opportunities for introducing higher level thinking and
rigour to discussions that are intended for reading acquisition, thus
preparing the young reader to challenge the monologic concept of text
meanings and shift towards 'polysemic' readings and the
'difficult task of struggling to come to an active, personal and
individual interpretation of meaning, and to engage in a personal search
for unification' (Harrison, 2004b, p. 166).
Beyond one-to-one teaching
A primary finding of this research is the centrality of
teacher-learner interactions as the key to students' breakthrough
to independent processing and engagement with text meanings.
Consideration of the principles derived from the teaching conversations
reported in this study may contribute to effective early years reading
instruction beyond Reading Recovery. This might also be pertinent to the
teaching of students who display profiles of high reading accuracy rates
but low levels of comprehension (Chall et al., 1990; Gee, 2004; Snow et
al., 1998). However, supplementary research detailing the close
examination of classroom teaching practices is needed to isolate,
identify and refine conversational formats designed to support students
to engage with text meanings concurrent with the development of
processing strategies in these contexts.
Conclusion
This study reveals the opportunities teachers created for
comprehension instruction to be integrated into reading acquisition
processes. In addition to details of the reading task that teachers
guided students to attend to when learning to read, teacher-student
discourse was demonstrated to support comprehension processes, as expert
teachers modelled, questioned and scaffolded the young readers'
understanding of texts. The conversations reported in this study
contribute to our understandings of the social practice of reading and
comprehension instruction, providing insights into targeted talk around
specific aspects of actual reading, pre-reading and post-reading
behaviour that helps to constitute in students' minds a clearer
understanding of what reading involves, how it is tackled and what
strategies they can usefully employ (Scull & Lo Bianco, 2008).
Noticeably different from teacher-led transmission models of instruction
are the collaborative exchanges that promoted students' active role
in learning and increased participation as they engaged in the process
of constructing and interpreting meanings from text.
APPENDIX
Codes for the book introduction and the first reading of the
new book
Content Discussion pertaining to events,
characters and actions as they occur in
the text
Text structure Discussion relating to the linguistic
organisation of the text
Language features The introduction of unusual or new
phrasing, such as 'Be off with you'
Vocabulary The elaboration of word meanings
Predicting Teachers requesting students predict
text content
Personal experience Discussion related to the student's
personal experience
World knowledge Discussion linked to the student's
knowledge of the world
Other texts Discussion linked to other texts read
Child initiated Comments initiated by the student during
comments--book the book introduction
introduction
Attention to meaning Directing the student's attention to
semantic cue sources
Attention to language Directing the student's attention to
syntactic cue sources
Attention to print Directing the student's attention to
graphophonic cue sources
Processing An overarching category, applied when
teachers were seen to support active
problem-solving, such as when teachers
required students to monitor and check
reading and/or to consider multiple cue
sources successively or simultaneously
to support the reading, or to confirm
effective reading
Teacher told Teachers supplying unknown word/s for
students during text reading
Fluency and expression Attention to speed and prosodic aspects
of reading
Child comments first Comments initiated by the student during
reading the first reading
Other Comments extraneous to the text and text
reading
Codes for the second reading
Reorientation Teachers providing the title and
reminding students of text content
Told Teachers supplying unknown word/s for
students during text reading
Processing Teachers prompting students to monitor
and check reading and/or to consider
multiple cue sources successively or
simultaneously to support the reading,
or to confirm effective reading
Literal Comments or questions that required
students to recall text details, in
particular, the order of events,
characters and actions
Inference Questions that required students to
consider why events might have happened,
or to elaborate events
Reaction/evaluation Teachers' questions or comments that
required students to express and opinion
about the text or events and occurrences
in the text
Child's experiences Comments prompting discussion that
related to students' experiencing
something similar to the events in the
text
Extending knowledge Comments that clarified students'
understandings or built upon their
current knowledge base.
Fluency and expression Attention to speed and prosodic aspects
of reading
Child comments Comments initiated by the student during
the second reading and subsequent
discussion
Other Comments extraneous to the text and text
reading
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Janet Scull
UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE