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A Call for an End to the Paradigm Wars in Reading Research
Abstract
Research on the reading process has been undertaken from a variety of perspectives. Too often progress in understanding reading is impeded when researchers working from different perspectives adopt a strong assumption of paradigm incompatibility: that a gain for one perspective is a loss for another. These paradigm wars in reading research mirror those that have taken place within the general educational research community during the last decade. It is argued that this assumption of paradigm incompatibility is false, and that progress toward a comprehensive understanding of the reading process would be hastened if we declared an end to the paradigm wars in the reading field and if investigators from all perspectives agreed to peaceful co-existence.
... 30 Dokumentujú to práce celého radu autorov prehľadových prác (Blatný, Fabiánková, 1981;Santlerová, 1995; na Slovensku najmä Ružička, 1966 Nasledujúca izolácia ponechala didaktiku čítania a nachádzala aj v zahraničí. Ešte na začiatku 60 ako zručnosť ("reading skill"), vyučovanie ako jej trénovanie (" V nasledujúcich dekádach však tento prístu sa striedavo presúvala na rôzne úrovne a podstatne širšie a komplexnejšie (" konfrontovali a striedavo menili (Stanovich, 1990), výsledok pre didaktiku i bol v konečnom dôsledku produktívny (Turbill, 2002;Robinson et al., 1990). ...
... storočia sa čítanie aj vo svete chápalo "), vyučovanie ako jej trénovanie ("reading instruction nasledujúcich dekádach však tento prístup čelil intenzívnej kritike, pozornosť odborníkov striedavo presúvala na rôzne úrovne a aspekty vyučovania čítania, ktoré sa začalo chápať komplexnejšie ("literacy education"). Aj keď sa názory často vyhrocovali, davo menili (Stanovich, 1990), výsledok pre didaktiku i prax vyučovania čítania konečnom dôsledku produktívny (Turbill, 2002;Robinson et al., 1990). ...
... V prečo je to tak. Pokúsime sa naznačiť potenciálne príčiny toho, že za medzinárodným priemerom sa s 38 Išlo skôr o zjednodušené interpretácie vedeckého diskurzu na poli teórie a výskumu čítania, ktorý skutočne prebiehal a ako vojnu paradigiem ("reading wars") ho označil a podrobne opísal K. Stanovich (1990). ...
Čitateľská gramotnosť sa zákonite spája aj s využívaním čitateľských stratégií. Dobrého čitateľa spoznáme podľa toho, ako dokáže spárovať vhodnú stratégiu s učebnou (či čitateľskou) situáciou. Hlavným cieľom predloženej kapitoly je preto ponúknuť učiteľom možnosti, ako u svojich žiakov rozvíjať vyššie úrovne spracovania informácií z čítaného textu za pomoci rôznych stratégií čítania a učenia. Z výsledkov medzinárodných meraní PISA sa napokon opakovane potvrdzuje, že žiaci, ktorí pri učení sa z textu používajú efektívne stratégie čítania dosahujú v čitateľskej gramotnosti najlepšie výsledky. Uvedené budeme prezentovať v kontexte aktuálneho poznania v oblasti metakognície a jej teoretického rozpracovania vo vyučovaní. Záverom kapitoly sa pokúsime zodpovedať otázku, ako je vo vzdelávacom štandarde pre Slovenský jazyk a literatúra pre 1. stupeň ZŠ vytvorený priestor pre aktívne osvojovanie vedomostí, spôsobilostí a zručností z pohľadu autoregulovaného učenia, keďže zlepšenie metakognitívnych procesov u žiakov a ich efektívnejšie metakognitívne uvedomovanie vedie k lepším čitateľským výsledkom a spolupodieľa sa na autoregulovanom učení žiakov.
... To this end we collected articles discussing the scope and aims of the journal, summarising the work that had or had not been done and outlining the directions for future research. This set of articles consisted of (1) all the articles from 1969, the first year of the journal's existence, (2) all the articles from the 1999 anniversary issue and two editorials from the 2018 anniversary issue (Volume 50, Issue 4), (3) existing reviews of the journal's publications (Baldwin et al., 1992;Garc ıa et al., 1998;Guzzetti et al., 1999;Hoffman et al., 1999;Sailors et al., 2018), (4) articles discussing how to communicate research to different audiences (Graves & Taylor, 1984;Jensen, 1985;Roller & Long, 2001) and (5) articles specifically addressing the so-called 'paradigm wars' (Kamil, 1995;Shannon, 1989;Stanovich, 1990). In contrast to the first set, these articles helped us to look 'offstage', as the majority did not aim to present new evidence to an audience, but rather looked behind the scenes and laid the groundwork for future research by pointing out the shortcomings of past performances and towards what was considered desirable scientific knowledge about reading. ...
... Against this background, it is interesting to examine the so-called 'paradigm wars' in reading research that took place in the 1980s and 1990s and are said to have had a dramatic impact on the entire field. These 'wars' were over epistemological dominance, that is, over which methods (quantitative or qualitative), approaches (outcome-oriented or interpretative), paradigms (experimental or ethnographic) and philosophies (positivist or postpositivist) were most appropriate for producing knowledge about reading (Editorial, 1996;Kamil, 1995;Shannon, 1989;Stanovich, 1990). Paradigms, as Shannon (1989) noted when discussing reading research, are internalised rules of the game that help researchers to order the world but also constrain the ways in which they think, see, feel and act in the world. ...
Using reading research as an example, this article aims to provide new conceptual tools for examining the production of scientific knowledge. Drawing on the metaphor of a theatre of truth, it explores how scientific knowledge is staged, dramatised and communicated within the field of reading research. It highlights the performative and public nature of knowledge production and examines the role of human and non-human actors, such as researchers, audiences, methods and visualisations, in shaping what counts as scientific truth. Focusing on the articles published in the Journal of Reading Behavior (later Journal of Literacy Research), the study traces how shifts in paradigms – such as the transition from qualitative to qualitative and interpretative approaches – reconfigure the ‘stage’ of reading science. The article also introduces the concept of a contract of intelligibility to explore how shared assumptions and conventions govern the production and reception of scientific knowledge. We also consider the techniques of dramatisation that are used to differentiate concepts and demonstrate scientific truth in an accessible and persuasive way. Ultimately, the article underlines the need to critically examine the mechanisms through which educational research constructs and communicates its truths, thereby revealing its broader societal and political implications.
... Literacy researchers have likewise witnessed expansion in research methodologies over the last several decades (Beach & O'Brien, 2018;Duke & Mallette, 2001;Gaffney & Anderson, 2000;Guzzetti et al., 1999;Reutzel & Mohr, 2015). Qualitative approaches to reading research did not fully emerge until the 1980s (Pearson, 2004), which led to the paradigm wars, where quantitative and qualitative approaches were pitted against one another (Kamil, 1995;Kamil et al., 2011;Stanovich, 1990). This evolution of research methodologies was occurring in educational research generally. ...
... The field of literacy also experienced the "reading wars," where code-based approaches to teaching beginning reading were juxtaposed against whole-language approaches (Pearson, 2004;Stahl, 1998). These "wars" led to contention and fragmentation in the field (Duke & Mallette, 2001;Kamil, 1995;Stanovich, 1990). And it is a war that has reemerged, especially in popular media, in current debates about the "science" of teaching reading. ...
In this content analysis, a research team examined the articles in 15 journals published over a span of 10 years to obtain an overview of the current field of literacy. Researchers coded the topics, theoretical perspectives, designs, and data sources in a total of 4,305 literacy-related articles. Analyses revealed statistically significant differences in the topics, perspectives, designs, and data sources among literacy articles in journals written for practitioners, those written for researchers, and those written for both practitioners and researchers. Although the topics in journals written for practitioners somewhat reflected the content of those written for researchers, results demonstrated a need to diversify methods used in articles published in journals written for researchers. We argue that this diversity is likely to enhance the ability of research to build the knowledge base in our field.
... Researchers and educators began to seek a means for "peaceful co-existence" (Stanovich, 1990) and a "more dispassionate and open-minded consideration of existing approaches to understanding reading acquisition and reading ability differences" (Stanovich, 1990, p. 228). Comprehensive reviews of reading research were undertaken in the United States (the most influential being the National Reading Panel report of 2000), the United Kingdom (Rose, 2006), and Australia (Rowe, 2005). ...
Working with a group of Alberta Grade 1 and 2 teachers we have observed and heard described several of the complexities they face in practicing well amidst multiple and competing dimensions of contemporary literacy instruction. The outcomes-driven machinery of their provincial context, their school district’s system for communicating classroom assessments, and the increasing dominance of synthetic phonics are factors the teachers note as constraining their knowledge, skills, and ways of being/doing, and that of their students. When these material expectations are positioned against other commitments to literacy education and diverse ways of being/becoming literate they both intend a certain future and serve as reminders of literacy education’s philosophical and practical “trouble without end” (Tsing, 2015, p. 2). Conceptualizing instructional contexts and practices as research assemblages, the study in which this paper is based investigates how early elementary teachers work at, with, and within the current conditionings of school-based literacy practices. Drawing on teacher interviews, photographs from within literacy teaching and learning situations (Snaza, 2019), and extended observations with a Grade 1 French Immersion teacher and class, the purpose of this paper is to explore liveable possibilities in reading, writing, and language instruction for the “right now” of literacy education (Kuby et al., 2019). Focusing on examples in which teachers seek “and…and…and…” pedagogies (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, p. 25) our purpose is not to settle the troubled waters of literacy education but to trace contours of possibility as teachers encounter literacy education’s boxes and boundaries and exceed their confines. We follow teachers’ material and social participation in curricular attentions to affect and cultivations of newness as a practice of care for and curiosity about a shared world in early elementary literacy instruction.
... It is one link in an interlocking multi-level explanatory chain extending from genetic risk factors through neurobiology, cognition and language, to environmental-instructional factors including the home, schooling, and the broader socio-cultural-historical setting, all of which interact with brain plasticity. Neurobiological accounts must connect coherently to the available evidence at other levels of explanation [107]. ...
In this discussion paper, I review a number of common misconceptions about the phonological deficit theory (PDH) of dyslexia. These include the common but mistaken idea that the PDH is simply about phonemic awareness (PA), and, consequently, is a circular “pseudo”-explanation or epiphenomenon of reading difficulties. I argue that PA is only the “tip of the phonological iceberg” and that “deeper” spoken-language phonological impairments among dyslexics appear well before the onset of reading and even at birth. Furthermore, not even reading-specific expressions of phonological deficits—PA or pseudoword naming, can be considered circular if we clearly distinguish between reading proper—real meaning-bearing words, or real text, and the mechanisms (subskills) of reading development (such as phonological recoding). I also explain why an understanding of what constitutes an efficient writing system explains why phonology is necessarily a major source of variability in reading ability and hence a core deficit (or at least one core deficit) among struggling readers whether dyslexic or non-dyslexic. I also address the misguided notion that the PDH has now fallen out of favor because most dyslexia researchers have (largely) ceased studying phonological processing. I emphasize that acceptance of the PDH does not imply repudiation of other non-phonological hypotheses because the PDH does not claim to account for all the variance in reading ability/disability. Finally, I ask where neurobiology enters the picture and suggest that researchers need to exercise more caution in drawing their conclusions.
... Foorman, Francis, Fletcher, and Schatschneider (1998) reported that decoding is a necessary skill in learning to read but that phonics rules might just play an attentional role in identifying the connections between orthographic and phonological units (Adams, 1990). Research has continued to follow the assumption that decoding accuracy is the single best predictor of reading comprehension in primary grades (Stanovich, 1990;Vellutino, 1991). These research studies demonstrated the positive effects of direct code instruction but suggested that these findings might not generalize to entire classrooms and research that used a large, more diverse sample was recommended. ...
Students with low reading achievement experience difficulty accessing content area
instruction. English learners from Hispanic homes traditional lag behind their English
speaking counterparts. Previous research has identified various teaching methods that
support reading achievement in English learners with particular emphasis on early grades.
The current study adds to the existing literature by examining the effects of a small-group
intervention cycle on middle school aged students. A small-group intervention was
developed with components identified in the research literature on effective teaching
methods for English learners. This cycle employed a gradual release of responsibility for
instruction from the expert teacher to the students. Areas of reading acquisition receiving
particular emphasis included phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, and
comprehension. Students were assigned to treatment groups randomly from a stratified
sample of English language proficiency and Lexile reading achievement scores.
Analyses of variance and covariance were employed to evaluate the differences in
reading outcomes for the two treatment groups. The results suggest that research-based small-group intervention can have positive effects on low performing middle school
students and would be a useful strategy for intervention.
In this essay, I outline some of the essential ingredients of a universal theory of reading acquisition, one that seeks to highlight commonalities while embracing the global diversity of languages, writing systems, and cultures. I begin by stressing the need to consider insights from multiple disciplines including neu-robiology, cognitive science, linguistics, socio-cultural, and historical inquiry, although my major emphasis is on a writing systems approach. A theme common to several of these perspectives is the need to attain a level of word reading speed and effortlessness necessary to overcome the severe limitations of human (sequential) information processing thereby allowing the reader to devote maximum cognitive resources to comprehension. I then present the Combinatorial Model-a universal theory of learning to read based on the fundamental principle of spoken and written language combinatoriality. This principle ("infinite ends from finite means") makes it possible for children to learn how to decipher (i.e., decode), combine and chunk/unitize a limited and learnable set of rudimentary (typically meaningless) elements such as letters, aksharas, syllabograms, and character components into a nested hierarchy of meaningful higher-order units such as morphemes and words that can be recognized instantly and effortlessly via rapid parallel processing of their constituent elements. Combinatoriality enables an orthography to provide learnability and decipherability for the novice reader (via phonological transparency) as well as unitizability and automatiz-ability for the expert (via morphemic transparency). I then elaborate on the (i) dual nature of this model and the unfamiliar-to-familiar/novice-to-expert framework, (ii) the unit/s of unitization, and (iii) the dual nature of writing. I liken the development of reading to a tree that grows both upwards and out-wards. Vertical growth can be thought of as a universal 3-phase progression from sub-morphemic, through morpho-lexical, to supra-lexical phases in which later-developing phases do not replace earlier phases but are added in a nested combinatorial hierarchy. Outward growth is conceptualized as a process of knowledge arborization-ongoing refinement, elaboration, and diversification. I conclude by noting that, despite important recent advances, our knowledge of learning to read in non-European and non-alphabetic systems is still in its infancy. Current research is over-reliant on English-an outlier orthography-together with a handful of Roman-script Western European languages. This has led reading science to neglect many issues of global significance such as homography, tone, diacritics, visual complexity, non-linearity, linguistic distance, multilingualism , multiscriptism, and more. An appreciation of the specifics of the particular language (or languages) and orthography (or orthographies) a child is learning to read within the broader context of global linguistic, orthographic, and cultural diversity is crucial not only for a deeper understanding of learning to read a specific language but for a truly global non-ethnocentric science of reading. "Writing-the art of communicating thoughts to the mind, through the eye-is the great invention of the world. Great in the astonishing range of analysis and combination which necessarily underlies the most crude and general conception of it-great, very great in enabling us to converse with the dead, the absent, and the unborn, at all distances of time and of space; and great, not only in its direct
Bibliografia do Novo Deit Libras, 3ª edição revista e ampliada (2015). A publicação lista 2.841 referências bibliográficas que foram consultadas para a elaboração da 3a. edição revista e ampliada do Novo Deit-Libras: Novo Dicionário Enciclopédico Ilustrado Trilíngue da Língua de Sinais Brasileira. As referências cobrem campos como os de Psicologia e Neuropsicologia Cognitivas e do Desenvolvimento, Linguística e Neuropsicolinguística Cognitiva, Educação, Educação de Surdos, História de Educação de Surdos, Filosofias educacionais em surdez, Fonoaudiologia, Antropologia Cultural, dentre muitos outros. Como esse dicionário propõe, em diversos capítulos associados, um novo modelo de lexicografia e lexicologia da Libras, grande esforço foi feito na justificação e explicação das bases desse modelo. O dicionário encarna, usa e ilustra esse novo modelo. References used in the New Encyclopedic Illustrated Dictionary of Brazilian Sign Language, 3rd edition (2015). The publication lists 2,841 references that were used to support the elaboration of the Brazilian Sign Language Encyclopedic Dictionary, 3rd edition. The references cover fields such as Cognitive and Developmental Psychology and Neuropsychology, Cognitive Linguistics and Neurolinguistics and Neuropsycholinguistics, Applied Linguistics, Lexicography, Lexicology, Education, Deaf Education, Special Education, History of Education, Bilingualism, History of Deaf Education, Speech Language Pathology, Cultural Anthropology, among many othes. In several chapters, this seminal dictionary advances a groundbreaking original model dicionário in sign language lexicography and lexicology. The chapters justify and explain such a model, which is embodied by the dictionary itself.
The purpose of this study was to determine the topics being studied, theoretical perspectives being used, and methods being implemented in current literacy research. A research team completed a content analysis of nine journals from 2009 to 2014 to gather data. In the 1,238 articles analyzed, the topics, theoretical perspectives, research designs, and data sources were recorded. Frequency counts of these findings are presented for each journal. Chi-square tests of independence revealed statistically significant differences among the topics, theoretical perspectives, designs, and data sources across the nine journals. These results suggest that the field of literacy research may be fragmented, which has been a concern for literacy researchers since the paradigm wars of the 1980s and 1990s. We urge the literacy research community to continue to demand rigorous research, but to do so in a way that appreciates the power in viewing and studying teaching and learning from diverse perspectives, using diverse methods, and with recognition that a foundational aspect of rigorous research is the match between research questions asked and research methods used.
Three bodies of research that have developed in relative isolation center on each of three kinds of phonological processing: phonological awareness, awareness of the sound structure of language; phonological recoding in lexical access, recoding written symbols into a sound-based representational system to get from the written word to its lexical referent; and phonetic recoding in working memory, recoding written symbols into a sound-based representational system to maintain them efficiently in working memory. In this review we integrate these bodies of research and address the interdependent issues of the nature of phonological abilities and their causal roles in the acquisition of reading skills. Phonological ability seems to be general across tasks that purport to measure the three kinds of phonological processing, and this generality apparently is independent of general cognitive ability. However, the generality of phonological ability is not complete, and there is an empirical basis for distinguishing phonological awareness and phonetic recoding in working memory. Our review supports a causal role for phonological awareness in learning to read, and suggests the possibility of similar causal roles for phonological recoding in lexical access and phonetic recoding in working memory. Most researchers have neglected the probable causal role of learning to read in the development of phonological skills. It is no longer enough to ask whether phonological skills play a causal role in the acquisition of reading skills. The question now is which aspects of phonological processing (e.g., awareness, recoding in lexical access, recoding in working memory) are causally related to which aspects of reading (e.g., word recognition, word analysis, sentence comprehension), at which point in their codevelopment, and what are the directions of these causal relations?
In this 1989 book Rorty argues that thinkers such as Nietzsche, Freud, and Wittgenstein have enabled societies to see themselves as historical contingencies, rather than as expressions of underlying, ahistorical human nature or as realizations of suprahistorical goals. This ironic perspective on the human condition is valuable on a private level, although it cannot advance the social or political goals of liberalism. In fact Rorty believes that it is literature not philosophy that can do this, by promoting a genuine sense of human solidarity. A truly liberal culture, acutely aware of its own historical contingency, would fuse the private, individual freedom of the ironic, philosophical perspective with the public project of human solidarity as it is engendered through the insights and sensibilities of great writers. The book has a characteristically wide range of reference from philosophy through social theory to literary criticism. It confirms Rorty's status as a uniquely subtle theorist, whose writing will prove absorbing to academic and nonacademic readers alike.
Thomas Hughes has recently noted that historians of technology have been shifting from their traditional concern with the interrelations of science and technology to a focus on the nature of technological development.1 This shift, however, provides a good opportunity for philosophers of science, who have traditionally neglected the topic, to take up the question of science and technology. The reason is that an important strategy in historians’ analyses of technological change has been the application of models of scientific change — specifically Thomas Kuhn’s — to technology. Reflecting on such applications — e.g., on the extent of their success, on the sorts of modifications they require in the model of science — provides a good starting point for a philosophical account of the peculiar ways science and technology are both distinct and connected.