Research in English: Comprehension Instruction in Reading

10-second review: Does comprehension instruction in basals (Core Reading Programs) follow the recommendations of researchers in reading? Not altogether.

Title: “Comprehension Strategy Instruction in Core Reading Programs.” P Dewitz, J Jones and S Leahy. Reading Research Quarterly (April/May/June 2009), 102-126.

Quote: “The results of the authors’ analysis revealed that core reading programs (basals) recommend teaching many more skills and strategies than the researchers recommend and may dilute the emphasis on critical skills and strategies. In addition, comprehension strategy instruction does not meet the guidelines of explicit instruction as recommended in a number of research studies. Rarely do the five core programs (Houghton Mifflin, Scott Foresman, Harcourt, McGraw-Hill, and Open Court) follow the gradual release-of-responsibility model nor do the programs provide the amount of practice for skills and strategies that were employed in original research studies.”

Quote: “Core reading programs can more closely reflect the research base on comprehension instruction, but schools must allow for teacher judgment and innovation in comprehension instruction, and publishers must attempt to adhere more closely to what the research says about the content and methods of reading instruction.”

Comment: My experience has been that elementary teachers using basals, once they have experienced the sequence and methods of a coherent reading program, soon complement and select what works from the basal sequence of instruction in reading. RayS.

Research in English: Basal Reading Programs Updated

10-second review: Now called “Core Reading Programs,” basals have been adapted to the era in which they were published. At the present time, they have been adapted to meet the current interests of our contemporary era of the No Child Left Behind law.

Title: “Comprehension Strategy Instruction in Core Reading Programs.” P Dewitz, J Jones and S Leahy. Reading Research Quarterly (April/May/June 2009), 102-126.

Quote: “Although the dominance of basal reading programs waxes and wanes depending on the zeitgeist of the era, basals, now called core reading programs, maintain their prominence by adapting their materials to the dominant educational trends of the moment. When skills management systems were in vogue in the 1970s, skills instruction, worksheet practice and criterion-referenced tests were at the core of the basal programs. In the 1990s, when literature-based instruction and authentic texts were driving the field, the core programs built the content of reading around selections from the children’s literature canon and built instruction around response to literature. With the passage of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act and the Reading First mandate to use scientifically based reading-research programs, core reading programs have adapted by augmenting the phoneme-awareness and phonics instruction, incorporating more work on fluency and providing auxiliary materials for intervention.”

Comment: I think only positive results can come from adapting basals or Core Programs to the latest thinking in reading instruction. I believe the main value of basals is in providing sequential instruction in reading for teachers, most of whom have had only minimal instruction in teaching reading. Once teachers have worked with basals for several years, they begin to make their own adaptations to compensate for the inadequacies of the basals. RayS.

Research in English: Achievement in Informational Reading

10-second review: A sharp increase in fourth grade of informational text in standardized tests is the cause for a corresponding decline in achievement test scores. Remarkably, the instructional use of informational text at that level is with worksheets and round-robin reading. Conversely, narrative is the genre of choice at that level.

Title: “Availability and Use of Informational Texts in Second-, Third-, and Fourth-Grade Classrooms.” J Jeong, et al. Research in the Teaching of English (May 2010), 435-456.

Comment: Need more emphasis in the early grades on informational reading and writing. The fact that teachers are using round-robin reading as a major instructional tool is astounding to me. It’s a time-waster and serves no useful purpose unless for diagnostic reasons. What can teachers do in a constructive way in using informational texts? For one, they can begin early to teach the students how to use SQ3R—with questions to establish purpose for reading. If you haven’t heard of SQ3R, write to me at raystop2@comcast.net. RayS.

Research in English: Questions about Global Revision.

10-second review: What does “global revision” mean? “Local revision” means, according to this article, revising (or editing) at the word, phrase or sentence level. Revisions involving idea clusters and paragraphs apparently are “Global revisions.” Do students understand what is meant when they make global revisions using a word processor?

Title: “Drafting and Revision Using Word Processing by Undergraduate Student Writers: Changing Conceptions and Practices” AM Dave and DR Russell. Research in the Teaching of English.(May 2010), 406-434.

Quote: “For example, what do students mean when they report doing global revisions? How do students do global revisions? To what extent and in what circumstances do they revise directly on the computer screen? To what extent do they use printouts to do global revision? Is global revision linked with students’ or teachers’ perceptions of improvement in quality? Indeed, where and to what extent is global revision a meaningful term?”

Comment: Good questions. However, beyond understanding what is meant by “global revision,” the term is superfluous. As a matter of fact, I think—again, beyond understanding the distinction for the purpose of teaching—the terms “editing” and “revision” are superfluous. The student is trying to develop a coherent piece of writing that causes readers, once they have started, to complete their reading without interruption, except to reflect on ideas. Revision and editing are intertwined and one can stimulate the other.

The distinctions are important for the purposes of teaching, but the terms are superfluous. In the act of revision, no one is going to ask, “Now did I complete a global revision? Or was I editing?” Crafting a coherent document is the goal, no matter what one calls the acts of “revising” and “editing” on the way to achieving that goal. RayS.

Research in English: Word Processing and Revision

10-second review: Analyzed how students revised when using the word processor.

Title: “Drafting and Revision Using Word Processing by Undergraduate Student Writers: Changing Conceptions and Practices.” AM Dave and DR Russell. Research in the Teaching of English (May 2010), 406-434.

Quote: “However, the analysis suggests that the common classroom practice of assigning multiple drafts to encourage global revision needs to be rethought, as more drafts are not necessarily associated with global revision. The survey also suggests that printing out to revise may be in the decline. Finally, the analysis suggests the very concept of a draft is becoming more fluid under the influence of word processing.”

Comment: When I know what I am going to say, I usually write with the word processor—memos, etc. When I do not know what I am going to say, I usually begin by writing with a pencil on a yellow pad as I am doing now.

As for revising using a word processor, I find that I revise/edit as I write. For me, the concept of multiple, discrete drafts is an anachronism. Still, when I think I have completed my task, I print it out and read it as a whole, making changes by hand on the paper. I suppose I could consider that copy as a draft. I find it difficult to go over the entire piece on the screen. As one wit said, people found out long ago that reading pages is better than reading a scroll, which is the same thing as reading the screen from beginning to end of a piece. RayS.

Research in English: How to Bullshigt Academically.

10-second review: A student sets out to write a paper on Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, realizes she doesn’t know enough about the play and therefore sets out to produce academic bullshit. How did she do it?

Title: “Bullshit in Academic Writing: A Protocol Analysis of a High School Student’s Process of Interpreting Much Ado About Nothing. Peter Smagorinsky, et al. Research in the Teaching of English (May 2010), 368-405.

Quote: “When students are put in a position of having to sound more learned than they are, they often bullshit their way through their assignments to create the appearance of knowledge according to scholarly specifications, even in its considerable absence. Their writing often is garbled in what Macrorie (1970) called Engfish: the spuriously elevated language seemingly endemic to school writing.”

Quote: “I absolutely did not think of my actions as a deliberate deception, but rather a filling of space with the inconsequential.”

Quote: “The theorists…conclude that bullshit is not possible without a receptive bullshittee.”

Comment: You’ll have to read the article to learn the details of Susan’s method of bullshitting. Delighted with the title of the article, and conscious that I have completed a few bullshit assignments in my time in college, I thoroughly enjoyed the article, but still am not completely sure that this article was not a “put-on.” RayS.

Research in English: Computer Literacy in Schools

10-second review: Computers were used more at home than in schools. 189 sixth and seventh graders.

Title: “Changing Conceptions and Uses of Computer Technologies in the everyday Literacy practices of Sixth and Seventh Graders.” J Agee and J Altarriba. Research in the Teaching of English (May 2009), 363-396.

Quote: “In the past decade, American schools have made great progress in getting connected to the Internet. The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES)… reported that only 3% of American schools were connected in 1994 while 94% were connected in 2005.”

Quote: “The most interesting finding across these two middle schools where computers and access were not generally an issue was that these sixth and seventh graders were learning about computer technologies primarily on their own. Except for a sixth-grade class that focused on using basic programs such as Microsoft Word and PowerPoint, the majority of students did not use computers in school, nor did they have assignments except in one seventh grade health class where they were required to use the Internet for finding information. Their language arts teachers said they did not take students to the school computer labs or integrate computer technologies into their instruction. Consequently, these students’ conceptions and uses of computer technology and the Internet rarely included academic work or learning.”

Comment: Incredible. At least students’ writing instruction should include using the word processor for instruction in revising and editing. Not to mention research on the Internet. Incredible. I’m more persuaded  than ever that computer technology in the schools is a dead end—technology that is not being used for instruction. For keeping grades by teachers, maybe, and maybe communicating with parents. But not for instruction. RayS.