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Contributions of Academic Language, Perspective Taking, and Complex Reasoning to Deep Reading Comprehension
Abstract
Deep reading comprehension refers to the process required to succeed at tasks defined by the Common Core State Literacy Standards, as well as to achieve proficiency on the more challenging reading tasks in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) framework. The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that three skill domains not frequently attended to in instruction or in theories of reading comprehension – academic language, perspective taking, and complex reasoning – predict outcomes on an assessment of deep reading comprehension. The Global Integrated Scenario-based Assessment (GISA; O'Reilly, Weeks, Sabatini, Steinberg & Halderman, 2014) is designed to reflect students' abilities to evaluate texts, integrate information from an array of texts, and use textual evidence to formulate a position, all features of deep reading comprehension. We tested the role of academic language, perspective taking, and complex reasoning in explaining variance in end-of-year GISA scores, controlling for beginning-of-year scores and student demographics. All three predictors explained small, but significant, amounts of additional variance. We suggest that these three skill domains deserve greater attention in theories of reading comprehension and in instruction.
... While an in-depth understanding of a text is one of the ultimate goals of the reading process, it does not receive much attention in the educational process, which derives from the fact that standardized reading comprehension strategies are used in the education system [10]. Moreover, according to Roberts and Roberts [11], reading comprehension strategies are taught consciously to very few people within the framework of strategy instruction in education. ...
... Moreover, research also suggests that university students do not use effective reading comprehension strategies [13,14]. In other words, although we have reached the digital information age and individuals can access all kinds of information at will, reading comprehension continues to be an undeniable reading literacy problem of the 21st century [10]. The impact created by digital tools complexifies texts, therefore requiring individuals to learn more strategies for reading comprehension than ever before. ...
... However, informational texts suit this strategy better as they typically contain more unknown words and concepts [77,78]. In addition to the needs and interests of the readers, the texts are also chosen according to the age-appropriate use of text types [10]. ...
Reading is one of the fundamental tools for acquiring knowledge that has a direct effect on an individual’s life. Many single and multiple strategies are used to improve reading comprehension, which is a strategic acquisition. (1) This study aims to investigate the effects of close reading strategies on the life skills and individual innovativeness of preservice Turkish language teachers. (2) The study group for this research consists of 31 preservice teachers studying in the Turkish Language Teaching department at a university in northern Türkiye. A sequential mixed-method design was used. In the quantitative aspect of the research, a pre-test and post-test experimental design without a control group was used, while in the qualitative aspect, a case study design was employed. Data were collected using the Life Skills Scale, Individual Innovativeness Scale, and semi-structured interview form. In analyzing the data obtained to examine the effect of the experimental process, a t-test for dependent groups was used, whereas data from the interviews were analyzed through content analysis (3–4). According to the results obtained from the research, the close reading strategy was determined to be a strategy that significantly improves the life skills and individual innovativeness of preservice Turkish language teachers.
... Students who have good reading comprehension skills are able to solve problems that are at a high level. This reading comprehension ability can be improved by optimising the role of students' metacognition and inferential abilities (LaRusso et al., 2016;Ozturk, 2017). Metacognition is the ability for planning, monitoring, and evaluating the learning process and consists of two fundamental aspects, namely monitoring and control. ...
... This stage is the most important stage in reading metacomprehension. Metacognitive strategies can be said to be effective if readers have the right understanding of their level of understanding of a text (Cantrell & Carter, 2009;LaRusso et al., 2016). ...
... Several studies involving students to make predictions on the results of reading prove these predictions are still weak. Although predictions are made at a basic level, the results obtained are still low in accuracy (LaRusso et al., 2016;Ozturk, 2017). Measurement of metacomprehension accuracy uses students' ability to predict overall understanding and predict the results of information contained in the text and is conceptual, for example, definitions. ...
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... Students who have good reading comprehension skills are able to solve problems that are at a high level. This reading comprehension ability can be improved by optimising the role of students' metacognition and inferential abilities (LaRusso et al., 2016;Ozturk, 2017). Metacognition is the ability for planning, monitoring, and evaluating the learning process and consists of two fundamental aspects, namely monitoring and control. ...
... This stage is the most important stage in reading metacomprehension. Metacognitive strategies can be said to be effective if readers have the right understanding of their level of understanding of a text (Cantrell & Carter, 2009;LaRusso et al., 2016). ...
... Several studies involving students to make predictions on the results of reading prove these predictions are still weak. Although predictions are made at a basic level, the results obtained are still low in accuracy (LaRusso et al., 2016;Ozturk, 2017). Measurement of metacomprehension accuracy uses students' ability to predict overall understanding and predict the results of information contained in the text and is conceptual, for example, definitions. ...
In this study, the researchers explored the role of the metacognition component on reading comprehension ability and the role of reading comprehension ability in predicting the level of accuracy of metacomprehension. The first stage of research used experimental research to see the effect of inferential ability and metacognition on the reading comprehension ability. The second stage of research using the correlational method is used to study the relationship between the independent and dependent variables. This study involved 300 primary school students from 10 schools with a composition of 200 students involved in the first phase of research and 100 students involved in the second phase of research. Samples were taken randomly. The results show that the individual's reading comprehension ability can predict the level of metacomprehension accuracy. Metacognitive strategies that are carried out through planning, monitoring and evaluation have a significant impact on students' reading comprehension skills. Inferential-based questions have a significant impact on the accuracy of metacomprehension. In addition, the metacognitive component (metacomprehension), and inferential ability can improve students' reading comprehension skills, especially increasing inferential understanding. The implication of this research is that teachers can consider these aspects as well as optimise the role of these variables to enhance students' reading comprehension skills.
... As individuals progress through the stages of social perspective-taking, they become increasingly adept at considering how different social roles and contexts influence perspectives and interactions. Social perspective taking has been often measured using scenario-based assessments, where students are presented with complex social situations with conflicting perspectives and are asked to respond to open-ended questions that require them to identify actors, and infer recommended solutions presented by different actors, reasons for recommendations, and potential consequences of recommendations (Diazgranados et al., 2016;Kim et al., 2018aKim et al., , 2018bLaRusso et al., 2016). ...
... As reviewed in the literature review section, there are multiple facets of perspective taking, and recent literature has suggested the relations of perspective taking to writing. In the current study, we build on this emerging literature and examined the relation of social perspective taking to writing quality, using data from secondary students in the U.S. Social perspective taking was assessed using an adapted version of a previously validated task (Diazgranados et al., 2016;LaRusso et al., 2016), in which students answered questions that required them to analyze social conflicts, identify the involved parties, infer the recommended solutions from different actors, and consider the reasons for these recommendations as well as their potential consequences. In our data analytic approach, we used a latent variable as we were interested in the construct of perspective taking as a whole rather than different aspects such as articulation, simple positioning, and complex positioning. ...
In this study, we examined the relation between social perspective taking and writing quality among secondary school students in the United States. The participants included 214 middle and high school students (116 females), with a diverse demographic composition: 71.5% Hispanic, 10% White, 7% Pacific Islander, 5.6% Asian American, 2% African American, and 0.5% Native American. Students were asked to write an argumentative text after reading sources related to a historical topic in history class, and the quality of their essays was rated. Their social perspective taking was measured using a scenario-based assessment where students were presented with scenarios with social conflicts and provided open-ended responses related to various perspectives. These responses were coded based on their articulation, simple, and complex positioning. Structural equation modeling revealed that female students, although marginally significant, tended to have higher levels of social perspective taking compared to their male counterparts after controlling for English learner status, race/ethnicity, poverty status, and grade level. Additionally, perspective taking was positively related to the quality of argumentative writing after controlling for student demographic backgrounds. Future research should explore various dimensions of perspective taking and their impacts on writing in different genres to enhance our understanding of the relation between perspective taking and writing.
... Reading for deep comprehension that goes beyond the literal sense is a crucial skill for successful learners in the 21 st century. LaRusso et al. (2016) state that success at the reading tasks encountered in higher education settings requires deep comprehension which entails integrating newly acquired with prior knowledge, analyzing texts, making inferences and comparisons, using textual evidence to formulate a position, and synthesizing across multiple texts. However, Minguela et al. (2015) note that a large number of students who are skillful at completing low-complexity tasks struggle when they are faced with complex tasks that require making inferences from the text, integrating information across the text, evaluating the content, or constructing knowledge. ...
... Scholars (e.g. LaRusso et al., 2016;Rouijel et al., 2019) affirm that reading comprehension goes beyond lower-level skills such as retention or literal comprehension to entail applying a variety of higher-level thinking skills such as analyzing, evaluating, and creating in order to interact with the text actively. Reviewing the literature, Guevara et al. (2020) concluded that reading comprehension implies three levels; (a) literal comprehension that focuses on events, periods, scenarios, details, or ideas explicitly stated in the texts; (b) inferential comprehension that targets the construction of meanings and going beyond literal meanings by activating reader's prior knowledge and formulating predictions, hypotheses, and interpretations from the context; and (c) critical comprehension that focuses on making judgments by contrasting the ideas and values outlined in the texts with the knowledge, beliefs, and experiences of the reader. ...
Due to the COVID-19 situation, fully online flipped learning that combines online asynchronous learning activities followed by online synchronous discussions and tasks emerged as a working instructional model that provides a conducive learning environment. This study examined the extent to which online flipped reading instruction utilizing scaffolding and digital badges improved deep reading skills and reading engagement of EFL university students at Port Said Faculty of Education. Students were provided with online flipped reading instruction delivered via Edmodo and Google Classroom for reading expository texts. Sixty-eight English-majored freshmen at Port Said Faculty of Education participated in this study. A mixed-methods research design was employed with multiple sources of data, including the pre-and post-tests of deep reading comprehension, the reading engagement questionnaire, and the focus group interviews. Findings showed that incorporating scaffolding and digital badges in online flipped reading instruction can be implemented effectively within the context of university education. Besides, the results indicated that the treatment not only improved the participants’ deep reading comprehension but also significantly fostered positive collaboration and active engagement. The study is concluded by suggesting future research that targets constructing a meaningful understanding of online learning environment, deep reading comprehension, and reading engagement with implications for pedagogical practice, particularly with EFL learners.
... The development of an integrated mental model about texts allows the reader to address multiple tasks that usually involve the generation of a piece of writing. Argumentative essays have been used to assess comprehension of multiple documents in previous research (e.g., Anmarkrud et al., 2014;Florit et al., 2020;LaRusso et al., 2016). Of course, the use of argumentative writing has its own limitations. ...
... In sum, these three explanations suggest that ToM can play a relevant role in the comprehension of narrative and informative texts as well as single and multiple texts. Indeed, several empirical studies have verified the contribution of ToM in multiple and single-text comprehension (see Atkinson et al., 2017;Boerma et al., 2017;Dyoniziak et al., 2023;Florit et al., 2020;Kim, 2017;LaRusso et al., 2016). Despite the large body of literature addressing the development and correlates of ToM in childhood, only recently researchers have begun to pay attention to ToM in older individuals. ...
The demands of learning in the twenty-first century require being skilled in the use and comprehension of multiple documents. Some individual factors such as the metacognitive skill of theory of mind (ToM) are related to this ability. This study investigated the relationship between university students’ ability to comprehend multiple documents, measured through an argumentative essay task, and their ToM. The participants were 84 undergraduates. We assessed their ToM (using the strange stories task) and their mental state talk (using a think-aloud protocol during the reading of multiple documents—MST R —and through the content of their subsequent written essays—MST W ). The relation between students’ ToM and their MST W was mediated through MST R . In addition, students’ ToM was significantly associated with the quality of the essays, through MST R , and the relation between MST R and the argumentative quality was mediated through MST W . MST W was the only significant predictor of the quality of the essays. The involvement of ToM in multiple-document comprehension suggests, from an educational perspective, the possibility to support multiple-document comprehension by scaffolding mental state talk.
... Social Perspective-taking (SPT) has long been acknowledged as an essential feature of human interaction (Johnson, 1975;Selman, 1981). At its core, SPT entails "the active consideration of others' mental states and subjective experiences" (Todd & Galinsky, 2014, p. 374) and has been identified as a vital component in a variety of social and academic processes: navigating interpersonal relationships (Blatt et al., 2010;Epley, 2014), overcoming conflicts (Corcoran & Mallinckrodt, 2000;Galinsky et al., 2008), productive collaboration (Hesse et al., 2015), and reading comprehension (Jones et al., 2019;LaRusso et al., 2016). Moreover, SPT has been recognized as a means of increasing understanding ofand reducing prejudice towardmembers of other social groups (Shih et al., 2009;Wang et al., 2014). ...
... Being able to imagine the feelings and thoughts of others is an interpersonal skill (Sassenrath et al., 2022). Thus, efforts geared toward cultivating interpersonal SPT typically focus on engaging with the perspectives of concrete individuals via dialogue LaRusso et al., 2016). The aspiration is not to expose students to a specific perspective but to help them develop the general propensity and capacity to engage in SPT. ...
Social Perspective taking (SPT) is the aptitude to consider others' thoughts, feelings, intentions, and motivations in a particular situation. Our goal was to gain a deeper understanding of SPT by focusing on its dynamic and social nature. Qualitatively analyzing small group dialogues in an 8th-grade humanities classroom, we explore the interplay between the level of SPT acts and dialogical moves. Our findings indicate that SPT in a group dialogue context is a complex practice in which students engage with different perspectives and evaluate how their perspectives differ (or do not differ) compared to the perspectives of others. Specifically, higher levels of SPT acts stem from explaining one's own perspective and by inviting peers to put themselves in someone else's shoes. Accordingly, we offer a novel theoretical conceptualization of how perspective taking takes place in social interaction, describing it as a process of social anchoring and adjustment in which interlocutors develop and adjust their perspective by building on others' ideas and challenging them. Critically, this process transpires through a shift between the first-, second-, and third-person perspective, which include taking on the perspective of fictional characters and their actual peers.
... We found that perspective-taking was positively related to reading achievement. LaRusso et al. (2016) found a positive relationship between perspective-taking and reading among elementary and secondary school students of various cultural backgrounds. By focusing on a specific cultural group of students in Hong Kong, our study verified this positive relation. ...
... These task features required readers to handle similar or conflicting viewpoints across texts and make inferences about the relevancy of the content. High dispositional perspective takers strive to understand what different authors write or characters know and figure out the multiple defensible stances carried in the test questions (LaRusso et al., 2016). Taking account of factors beyond their self-believes, perspective-taking students can expand insights on the multiaspects of a question and disentangle the reasons why disagreement occurs. ...
Teacher feedback has been acknowledged as an important facilitator for students' learning performance. However, teachers' feedback efforts are not always found to pay off, especially in the context of Confucian-heritage countries. Scholars are seeking answers from student agencies during feedback-taking. The current study aimed to examine the role of students' perspective-taking in passing over the effect of teacher feedback on students' reading test performance. We set the study in Hong Kong, where teacher feedback has often been reported to fail its aims. We used OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018 data generated by 5665 15-year-old students. The results of multi-level structural equation modeling confirmed our hypothesis that perspective-taking significantly mediated the relation between teacher feedback and students' reading achievement. Our results highlight the benefits of accounting for perspective-taking as a key element of student feedback literacy. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.
... That is, text-based analytical writing draws on both reading and writing abilities, and perspective taking is one shared skill between reading and writing (Kim, 2020c;Kim & Graham, 2022). Perspective taking is required when reading a source text, as students make inferences about the characters' and authors' intentions, feelings, and thoughts (Kim, 2017(Kim, , 2020bKuhn & Moore, 2015;LaRusso et al., 2016;Uccelli et al., 2015). When writing about the source text, perspective taking is necessary in considering the goals of the writing task, meeting the expectations of the audience, and advancing a claim through engaging in complex reasoning (Cho et al., 2021;Kim & Graham, 2022;Kim & Park, 2019). ...
... Incorporating independent measures of perspective taking skills, not perspective taking represented in written composition (H. Y. Kim et al., 2018;Kim, 2020a;Kim & Park, 2019;Kim & Schatschneider, 2017;LaRusso et al., 2016), will enhance our understanding of the contribution of perspective taking to writing quality. ...
This study examined the extent of perspective taking and language features represented in secondary students’ text-based analytical writing. We investigated (1) whether perspective taking is related to writing quality, accounting for language features in writing; (2) whether students’ English learner status is related to perspectives represented in their writing; and (3) whether the relation between perspective taking and writing quality differs by the level of language features (e.g., syntactic diversity, appropriate word usage, and tone). Secondary students’ text-based analytical essays (N= 195, Grades 7–12) were coded for perspective taking and language features and analyzed using multiple regression. There was a higher frequency of own-side perspectives than dual perspectives. Dual perspective was related to writing quality after accounting for student demographics and grade levels. However, the relation was no longer statistically significant when language features were accounted for. English learners exhibited significantly less own-side perspectives compared to their English-only counterparts, but there was no difference in dual perspectives, which might be due to overall low frequency of dual perspectives represented in students’ text-based analytical writing. The findings suggest the roles of both perspective taking and language features in quality writing.
... That is, text-based analytical writing draws on both reading and writing abilities, and perspective taking is one shared skill between reading and writing (Kim, 2020c;Kim & Graham, 2022). Perspective taking is required when reading a source text, as students make inferences about the characters' and authors' intentions, feelings, and thoughts (Kim, 2017(Kim, , 2020bKuhn & Moore, 2015;LaRusso et al., 2016;Uccelli et al., 2015). When writing about the source text, perspective taking is necessary in considering the goals of the writing task, meeting the expectations of the audience, and advancing a claim through engaging in complex reasoning (Cho et al., 2021;Kim & Graham, 2022;Kim & Park, 2019). ...
... Incorporating independent measures of perspective taking skills, not perspective taking represented in written composition (H. Y. Kim et al., 2018;Kim, 2020a;Kim & Park, 2019;Kim & Schatschneider, 2017;LaRusso et al., 2016), will enhance our understanding of the contribution of perspective taking to writing quality. ...
... Reading as a complex skill involves cognitive processes, ranging from word recognition to understanding and interpreting the meaning of texts (Harianto, 2020;LaRusso et al., 2016). At the high school level, reading proficiency in English becomes one of the indicators of students' success in mastering advanced academic skills, including understanding other subjects taught in that language. ...
The ability of reading English texts is an essential in English mastery, especially in the context of formal and professional education. However, the success of reading texts is often influenced by various factors. This research aims to explore various factors that influence the effectiveness of learning to read English texts. The factors that were analysed are (1) teacher activities; (2) school facilities and services; (3) student activities; and (4) the learning process. The research was conducted using a quantitative survey approach with 279 students in 11th grade. The subjects of this research are 11th grade students with a sample size of 279 students. The analysis results show that teacher activity in the learning process does not affect learning effectiveness (tcount = 0.314 < ttable; pvalue > 0.05), as well as the availability of school facilities and services (tcount = -0.652 < ttable; pvalue > 0.05). Meanwhile, the positive influence on learning effectiveness is shown by student activity (tcount = 3.441 > ttable; pvalue < 0.05) and learning process (tcount = 2.080 > ttable; pvalue < 0.05). Overall, these four factors contribute 24.9% to the success of English text reading learning at the school. The results of this study provide important implications for the development of more effective learning strategies by considering the quality of educational facilities and the active role of teachers in the learning process, which can ultimately enhance the effectiveness of learning in reading English texts.
... According to LaRusso et al. (2016), academic language, perspective-taking, and complex reasoning can significantly impact deep reading comprehension. Furthermore, Soiferman (2010) emphasised the importance of comparing inductive and deductive research methods. ...
Developing strong critical reading skills is essential for undergraduate student success. Despite the increasing demand for critical reading and thinking abilities in the global job market, many students face challenges in acquiring these competencies, which impacts their academic performance and future career opportunities. The purpose of this structured guide is to present a comprehensive review of key strategies for building critical reading skills among undergraduate learners. Drawing from a thorough analysis of scholarly articles, textbooks, and empirical studies, the review identifies essential tools for enhancing critical reading; strengthening vocabulary and language comprehension, identifying main ideas and supporting details, constructing topics and providing evidence, making inferences, and recognizing implied meanings, understanding types of support and applying reasoning, evaluating arguments and analysing statements, and conducting contextual analysis to detect underlying assumptions. These tools form a structured guide that educators and researchers can utilise to design effective instructional approaches, activities, and assessments, thereby fostering critical reading skills in their students. The guide offers a comprehensive foundation for enhancing undergraduate academic performance and career readiness. Future research should focus on validating the framework and exploring the influence of cultural and linguistic differences on critical reading development in diverse student populations.
... Here, reading becomes more complex because readers are navigating, evaluating, and synthesizing information across multiple, and often multimodal, texts (Braasch et al., 2018;Britt & Rouet, 2012;Coiro, 2021;Goldman et al., 2019;Leu et al., 2013). Comprehension thus often involves purposedriven and goal-directed behavior (McCrudden & Schraw, 2007) that requires readers to interact socially, to collaborate, to communicate, and to consider multiple, different perspectives (LaRusso et al., 2016). Additionally, comprehension practices can shift depending on disciplinary purpose of a given reading activity and text (Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008). ...
Scholarship on the science of reading (SoR) has, in some instances, taken up more narrow views of reading in discussions and instantiations of reading assessment that do not center equity and justice, especially in schools. This can lead to less valid and even harmful reading assessment, especially for students from historically marginalized communities with diverse language, cultural, and neurological differences. Here, we draw on critically-minded reading research, as well as on work in equity-oriented educational assessment, to inform a justice-based reading assessment framework that can guide research, theory, policy, and practice. Using an equity-oriented and justice-based lens, the framework outlines three interwoven components: (1) relational and humanizing assessment practices; (2) justice-based products and outcomes; and, (3) a critical construct of reading. The framework compels designers, developers, and users to center the needs of rights-holders, and especially those from historically marginalized communities, throughout the assessment process. To do so, the framework outlines five principles that include orienting to equity and justice; prioritizing humanizing and critical assessment practices; grounding assessment in a complex, dynamic, and critical construct of reading for diverse populations; designing for justice-based social consequences, and engaging in critical debrief throughout. These principles guide eight phases of assessment, which we outline in detail. Finally, we discuss conceptual contributions as well as practical implications.
... The English teaching and learning curriculum in higher education in some countries, such as Saudi Arabia, is characterized by a foreign language nature (Alqunayeer & Zamir, 2016), that has put much emphasis on grammar and vocabulary memorization (Abduh & Algouzi, 2020;Eisa, 2020), with teaching done through traditional methods and extensive use of code-switching (Alkatheery, 2014;Almansour, 2016). Most of these approaches have often been found lacking in the sense that they fail to develop interpretive skills critical for text comprehension (LaRusso et al., 2016). In this line, educators and linguists agree that creative teaching approaches are essential if there is any hope for students' increased involvement with complex texts. ...
This study explores the integration of Discourse Analysis (DA) into English reading instruction in higher education to enhance reading comprehension skills among students. Recognizing the limited effectiveness of traditional teaching methods, which primarily focus on grammatical structure and vocabulary memorization, this research advocates for a pedagogical shift towards teaching strategies that incorporate DA for deeper textual engagement and interpretation. DA enables students to move beyond the surface textual features towards critical engagement with the text, fostering higher-order cognitive skills like analysis and synthesis. The research uses a qualitative paradigm that employs Critical Discourse Analysis to investigate the relationship between the text and the reader in an educational context. The study has shown that DA enables students to interpret complex academic texts, thus making their academic work easier and preparing them for professional challenges. This is also said to enhance academic performance, which the study also recorded as a dramatic improvement in the critical and analytical skills required of students to handle the complexities of global communication. The findings of this study direct toward the fact that DA must be integrated by the curriculum designers and educators within the teaching practices to adhere to the contemporary needs of education. This would help the students to develop cognitively and with the required skills to handle the texts in academic and professional life. The integration of CDA with English reading instruction emphasizes a change approach toward transformation in language education, which is dynamic and interactive beyond the traditional paradigm. DOI: https://doi.org/10.52783/pst.894
... The English teaching and learning curriculum in higher education in some countries, such as Saudi Arabia, is characterized by a foreign language nature (Alqunayeer & Zamir, 2016), that has put much emphasis on grammar and vocabulary memorization (Abduh & Algouzi, 2020;Eisa, 2020), with teaching done through traditional methods and extensive use of code-switching (Alkatheery, 2014;Almansour, 2016). Most of these approaches have often been found lacking in the sense that they fail to develop interpretive skills critical for text comprehension (LaRusso et al., 2016). In this line, educators and linguists agree that creative teaching approaches are essential if there is any hope for students' increased involvement with complex texts. ...
This study explores the integration of Discourse Analysis (DA) into English reading instruction in higher education to enhance reading comprehension skills among students. Recognizing the limited effectiveness of traditional teaching methods, which primarily focus on grammatical structure and vocabulary memorization, this research advocates for a pedagogical shift towards teaching strategies that incorporate DA for deeper textual engagement and interpretation. DA enables students to move beyond the surface textual features towards critical engagement with the text, fostering higher-order cognitive skills like analysis and synthesis. The research uses a qualitative paradigm that employs Critical Discourse Analysis to investigate the relationship between the text and the reader in an educational context. The study has shown that DA enables students to interpret complex academic texts, thus making their academic work easier and preparing them for professional challenges. This is also said to enhance academic performance, which the study also recorded as a dramatic improvement in the critical and analytical skills required of students to handle the complexities of global communication. The findings of this study direct toward the fact that DA must be integrated by the curriculum designers and educators within the teaching practices to adhere to the contemporary needs of education. This would help the students to develop cognitively and with the required skills to handle the texts in academic and professional life. The integration of CDA with English reading instruction emphasizes a change approach toward transformation in language education, which is dynamic and interactive beyond the traditional paradigm.
... 235). More recently, LaRusso et al. (2016) demonstrates how cultural expectations of the "all-knowing" teacher discourage teachers from displaying emotion in instruction. Similarly, Dunn's (2021) research on literacy teachers who are grieving explores their conflicted feelings about showing pain to their students, as this may deter from academic goals, or the need to "comprehend texts and identify themes" (p. ...
Viewing teacher vulnerability as a pedagogical tool, this comparative case study examined two secondary literacy teachers' use of vulnerability in relation to various instructional goals. Through the analysis of eight video‐recorded lessons, we found that teachers demonstrated vulnerability through multiple ways within their literacy instruction through modeling ways of connecting personal experiences to texts, and establishing classroom norms that welcome difficult emotions and experiences. However, we also found that teacher vulnerability can sometimes lead to uncertainty, and even constrain student participation. We argue that teacher vulnerability helps establish a humanizing pedagogy , and offer possible strategies for teachers who are vulnerable within literacy instruction. We conclude with a discussion of different levels of appropriating vulnerability as a pedagogical tool.
... It is shown that most students had a lack of interest in the reading activity (Marhaeni et al., 2018;Sumaryanti, 2020;Tahmidaten & Krismanto, 2020). It can be seen on PISA (Program for International Students Achievement) in 2015 shows that Indonesian's reading value was in the bottom 60 of 72 countries (Chamisah, 2017;LaRusso et al., 2016). From this result, it means reading interest among the Indonesian students is at the weakest level. ...
Some students still have challenges in reading, such as pronunciation, identifying the text’s content, and accent. Then students did not participate actively since there is still limited activities of reading conducted during the learning process. This study aimed at analyzing reading-related activities that are available in English textbook used for grade 8 students in SMP Cipta Dharma Denpasar and observing how the texts are exploited by teacher in English class. The subject of this study was an English textbook used in the school and English teacher.This current research used qualitative descriptive analysis as the research methodology. The data collection was done through observation of the English textbook and the teacher’s strategy in conducting the learning in the classroom. In analyzing the data, this study is involving four processess including data collection, data reduction, data display, and conclusion (drawing/veryfying). From the analysis of the English textbook, the results showed there are several reading-related activities available in the textbook namely skimming/scanning, reference activity, lexical item activity, activating, inferring, and questioning. The most frequent exploitation of text done by the teacher are short-answer activities, searching-selecting, completing, and matching activities. Therefore, this study suggests more research regarding the texts exploitation done by English teacher in different levels of schools and classrooms.
... This approach to assigned reading can increase engagement in a course (Lazzara & Clinton-Lisell, 2022) as well as help instructors gauge students' understanding of assigned text (Neugebauer et al., 2022). From a constructivist perspective (Dewey, 1916), social annotation supports students in co-creating knowledge during reading and facilitates complex understanding and perspective taking (LaRusso et al., 2016). Morales et al. (2022) indicated that students using social annotation found it beneficial to their knowledge construction and sense-making abilities because of its interactive nature. ...
This article presents the results of a multi‐site study conducted by nine graduate educators in the United States investigating how reading comprehension might be supported by social annotation. This research examines collaborative learning and group construction of knowledge that took place in six classrooms across a university semester. The findings of this study provide insight into the general reading comprehension practices of graduate students. The results also demonstrate how social annotation can operate as a pathway for understanding learning in process. We hope this study can act as a catalyst for discussion in the development of students' metacognitive practices.
... To complete PISA-like reading literacy questions, students need reasoning skills to achieve comprehensive reading skills. This is in line with LaRusso et al. (2016), who stated that comprehensive reading skills emerge when people deepen complex reasoning. ...
Due to PISA inconsistencies and three years of learning loss, Indonesia's new curriculum paradigm focuses on core skills, particularly reading literacy. In 2021, the minimum competency assessment (MCA) took the place of the national assessment, and since then it has had teachers and students worried about academic success. This research aims to develop valid, practical, and effective PISA-like reading questions to prepare students for the MCA. The development study was used as a grand framework of design research, consisting of a preliminary evaluation stage and a formative evaluation stage. This research involved 45 15-year-old middle school students of varied reading literacy levels. The analysis in this research was conducted qualitatively based on data from interviews, document reviews, observations, and tests to see how students worked on PISA-like reading literacy questions. This research produced valid and practical PISA-like reading literacy questions according to the PISA 2022 framework. In terms of content, the PISA-like reading literacy questions focus on topics of news items. In terms of context, students explore new situations, especially in relation to health. Student competences are measured at the application and reasoning levels. This study suggests that PISA-like reading literacy questions can be a source of inspiration for teachers in designing questions, and they can be used to improve students' literacy skills.
... One word is worth more than a thousand images. The interaction between texts is a relevant form of comprehension of psychological, social, and economic phenomena [26,27]. Each text, paragraph, word, and each element gathered from a group of texts form a coherent content that originates a collective and multiple entity that evolves and renews itself into new, different, and unexpected perspective-dependent configurations. ...
From the merge of arts and crafts towards practice for mass production of desirability, consumption, and product development in a capitalist economy of scale, design has lost its natural ability of problem comprehension and tension alleviation. The modern world needs creativity, flexibility, and responsiveness embedded into design practices, mostly when a behavioural change, either individual or organisational, is intended. Still, the informality nature of the field is creating a gap between the study, research, and industrial design practice. Here, it is presented the Biology of Creativity Model (BoC), which is a design-by-analogy method that promotes an empowered design and creative practice through analysis of mostly biology reference texts for enhanced creative performance in a diverse array of contexts.
... The GISA has been shown to be reliable in elementary through high school populations as evidenced by good internal consistency (Cronbach's α > 0.80; O'Reilly et al., 2014) and test-retest reliability (r = 0.87; Sabatini et al., 2014). Additionally, the GISA has robust correlations with other reading measures such as English language arts state test scores ranging from 0.52 to 0.68 and correlates with measures of deep understanding including academic vocabulary, complex reasoning, and perspective taking (LaRusso et al., 2016). The items cover a broad range of difficulty with no apparent floor or ceiling effects when used with intended populations (see Sabatini et al., 2014;McCarthy et al., 2018). ...
Reading is typically guided by a task or goal (e.g., studying for a test, writing a paper). A reader’s task awareness arises from their mental representation of the task and plays an important role in guiding reading processes, ultimately influencing comprehension outcomes and task success. As such, a better understanding of how task awareness arises and how it affects comprehension is needed. The present study tested the Task Awareness Mediation Hypothesis. This hypothesis assumes that the strategies that support reading comprehension (e.g., paraphrasing, bridging, and elaborative strategies) also support a reader’s task awareness while engaged in a literacy task. Further, it assumes that the reader’s level of task awareness partially mediates the relationship between these comprehension strategies and a comprehension outcome. At two different time points in a semester, college students completed an assessment of their propensity to engage in comprehension strategies and a complex academic literacy task that provided a measure of comprehension outcomes and an assessment of task awareness. Indirect effects analyses provided evidence for the Task Awareness Mediation Hypothesis showing that the propensity to engage in paraphrasing and elaboration was positively predictive of task awareness, and that task awareness mediated the relationships between these comprehension strategies and performance on the complex academic literacy task. These results indicate that task awareness has complex relationships with comprehension strategies and performance on academic literacy tasks and warrants further consideration as a possible malleable factor to improve student success.
... The writing prompt was: Should we allow iPads in our classrooms? The writing task was developed by the IES-funded Catalyzing Comprehension through Discussion and Debate (CCDD) team LaRusso et al., 2016;Lawrence et al., 2015;Snow et al., 2009) to assess upper elementary and middle school students' writing 2 . Students were given 20 to 25 minutes to write an argumentative essay. ...
As younger generations encounter daunting challenges such as climate change, social injustice, and recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, the imperative of sustainability stands as a fundamental endeavor in the present and future. Education has been identified as a key strategy for facilitating sustainability at both individual and collective levels. However, the link between sustainability and education is complex and dynamic, compelling transformations in what, when, where, how, and why we learn. While these transformations will provide a foundation for education to contribute to the generation of more sustainable futures, this paper explores how further innovations in how learning is assessed can support education in fostering the changes necessary for a better future. By reimagining both the theoretical functions and practical techniques of assessment, education can better capture complex learning outcomes such as sustainability competencies while enabling their application as learners create real-world change. This paper investigates tensions, challenges, and possibilities in assessment in order to propose a vision for reorienting teaching and learning towards sustainability. Through innovations in both the process and purpose of assessment that cultivate more multifaceted, integrated, technology-enhanced, and action-focused approaches, education will become better equipped to advance towards transformative learning futures.
... One word worth more than a thousand images. The interaction between texts is a relevant form of comprehension of psychological, social, and economical phenomena (Kintsch, 1988, LaRusso et al., 2016. Each text, paragraph, word, and each element gathered from a group of texts, forms a coherent content that originates a collective and multiple entity that evolves and renews itself into new, different, and unexpected perspectivedependent configurations. ...
From the merge of arts and crafts towards a practice for mass production of desirability, consumption and product development in a capitalist economy of scale, design has lost its natural ability of problem comprehension and tension alleviation. The modern world needs the creativity, flexibility, and responsiveness embedded into design practices, mostly when a behavioural change, either individual or organizational, is intended. Still, the informality nature of the field is creating a gap between the study, research, and industrial design practice. Here it is presented the Biology of Creativity Model (BoC) which is a design-by-analogy method that promotes an empowered design practice through analysis of mostly biology reference texts for enhanced creativity and innovation performance in a diverse array of contexts.
... For this person correction is often seen as an attempt to bring him down, (2) he tends to avoid dialogue with various justifications or wrong logic, (3) he is very responsive to praise, for these people all complements that uphold his dignity always be the center of his attention, and (4) he will be pessimistic about competition and think he will be powerless to face competition. Students who have low self-concept tend to feel less confident in their abilities and pessimistic in doing a task, and students tend to be reluctant to express their ideas (Kane et al., 2014;LaRusso et al., 2016;Lyster et al., 2016). Although the group of students who have low academic selfconcept has these characteristics, by applying the reciprocal teaching learning model it turns out that the reading comprehension results are better for the group of students with low academic self-concept compared to conventional learning models. ...
The reading ability of students in the field is still very worrying. This is reinforced by the low ability of students to understand material or questions that require higher-order thinking skills. The low reading comprehension ability can be seen from the low literacy ability of students based on PISA rankings. This study aims to analyze the effectiveness of the reciprocal teaching model on students' reading comprehension skills in terms of students' self-concept levels. The approach used in this research is quantitative with a quasi-experimental method. The participants of this study were 100 elementary school students who were divided into two groups of 50 students each in the experimental and control groups. Data was collected through reading comprehension tests and observations. Data analysis was performed by two-way ANOVA. The results showed that the Reciprocal Teaching model gave a more significant contribution to students' reading comprehension skills compared to conventional methods, especially for students who had low self-concept. Based on the findings above, it is concluded that the Reciprocal Teaching learning model has an effect on students' reading comprehension skills. Both reciprocal and conventional learning models have the same effect on students who have high self-concept. The implication of this research is that teachers must choose a learning model that can accommodate all students, not only students with high academic abilities, but also students with low academic abilities.
... It is a foundation from which individuals come to understand and interact with their world throughout their life and even grow their intelligence (Ritchie et al., 2015). Aside from productivity and information access, literacy is associated with the development of interpersonal skills, such as empathy and perspective-taking, that are key for navigating human relationships (Batini et al., 2021;Dodell-Feder & Tamir, 2018;LaRusso et al., 2016;Sparapani et al., 2018). Literacy has the potential to help young people create the future they desire. ...
Current conversations in literacy research call for the need to consider children’s social-emotional development and academic learning in an integrated way that honors and supports the whole child in their cultural context. Here we review available literatures on the cognitive, linguistic, affective, social and cultural dimensions of typical and atypical reading acquisition and what is known of their neural correlates. From this review, and in consultation with neuro- and psychological scientists and expert educators working in a range of contexts, we derive a series of interdisciplinary Learnings. These describe what is known about how diverse children grow into readers and how literacy development can be optimally supported in school, home and community contexts across the first decades of life. The Learnings together provide a critical cross-disciplinary synthesis of how literacy and social-emotional development are coordinated, individually variable, dynamic and sensitive to contextual influences. They reveal how evidence-based, culturally inclusive, socially attentive and developmentally appropriate instruction is an essential piece of helping every child organize their brain and mind for literacy. Such comprehensive instruction is necessary to address inequities in general and special education, and to help children become fully literate—a designation that goes beyond simply decoding and comprehending text. Impacts of digital technology, and other timely issues and open questions, are also discussed.
... The perspective taking question shows the extent to which students are able to appreciate and understand the worldviews of others who might be distinct in their cultural backgrounds, attitudes, beliefs or practices. Significantly greater sensitivity toward understanding the perspectives of others showed in all cases girls and students with advantageous backgrounds that might be related to the different approaches associated with educational activities within different socio-economic groups as well as to the differences in ability to operationalize cultural knowledge and assess culture-specific situations (LaRusso et al., 2016). Similarly as in previous cases, students with more favorable socio-economic status have possibly more opportunities to acquire cognitive adaptability skills which should in turn help them cope with feelings associated with cultural shock, such as stress, frustration, and alienation in novel environments (Levin, 2015). ...
... The writing prompt was: Should we allow iPads in our classrooms? The writing task was developed by the IES-funded research team to assess upper elementary and middle school students' writing (Jones et al., 2019;LaRusso et al., 2016;Lawrence et al., 2015;. Participants were given 20 to 25 minutes to write an argumentative essay and were provided with the following scenario: their school principal had decided to stop the school's policy of providing iPads to students, thus participants were asked to take a position and to write an argumentative essay to be published by their school newspaper. ...
Prior adolescent writing research typically used omnibus length-based measures, such as Mean Length of Clauses (MLC), to describe and evaluate students’ performance at constructing complex sentences. This study undertook to: (1) develop a novel approach, Diversity of Advanced Sentence Structures (DASS), with a more detailed inventory of students’ complex sentence structures; and (2) provide evidence of DASS’ validity. To develop DASS, seven types of sentence structures (adverbial clause, clausal complement, clausal prepositional complement, relative clause as modifier, clausal subject, noun as modifier, and passive voice) that characterize school-based texts in adolescence, were identified. Students’ essays were coded for the presence or absence of each structure; the total types of structures present in an essay determined the 0-to-7-point DASS score. A cross-sectional sample of fifth-to-eighth graders (N = 512) wrote argumentative essays responding to a school policy controversy. DASS scores in seventh or eighth grade were significantly higher than those in fifth grade. DASS significantly and positively predicted both students’ writing quality and their receptive academic language, while MLC did not show significant associations with either, controlling for students’ grade, gender, socio-economic status. This study suggests that the DASS offers a promising novel approach to capturing a detailed picture of how emerging academic writers construct complex sentences.
Early literacy is essential for the enhancement of language skills in young children. A bidirectional relationship may exist between Theory of Mind (ToM) and reading comprehension. This study utilized an empirical research methodology to investigate the connection between reading comprehension and ToM. The sample consisted of 62 children aged 4 to 5 years, who were randomly assigned to either experimental or control groups. The experimental group received training in Theory of Mind, and the effects of this training on their reading comprehension were evaluated. The results revealed a significant increase in ToM levels in the trained group compared to their pre-training assessments. Additionally, a positive correlation was found between ToM scores and reading ability scores, with the trained group exhibiting significantly higher reading ability scores than the untrained group. Therefore, ToM training can effectively improve children’s reading skills.
Academic language and its associations with school success have been established in many prior studies. However, the scholarship lacks research on the mechanisms that constitute these relations. This study investigates the mediating role of motivational-affective variables, specifically reading self-concept and reading enjoyment, in relations between academic language and reading comprehension assessed one year later. Path analyses were performed with a newly developed German measure of academic language proficiency on two samples (N = 198, Mage = 9.05 years [SD = 0.76], 49% girls, and N = 360, Mage = 9 years [SD = 0.80], 52% girls) of primary school students in Grades 2 and 3. Results reveal differential outcomes, suggesting an effect mediated via reading self-concept when academic language is operationalized as the comprehension of connectives. The findings are discussed within the context of contemporary perspectives on mental abilities, ranging academic language into current views on cognitive capabilities.
Although links between knowledge and reading comprehension have been widely documented for decades, recent translational science publications (e.g., teacher journals, books, and podcasts) have increasingly referred to studies using baseball (a sport popular in the USA) as a proxy for knowledge to explain those links, especially within science of reading conversations. We conducted a systematic review of studies using baseball as a proxy for knowledge necessary for reading comprehension. After a comprehensive literature search, we found 19 “baseball studies” dating from 1978 to 2018, and we note that 13 of the studies used the same two measures of baseball knowledge. When analyzing the measures of baseball knowledge, we find that their measures of knowledge focused heavily on vocabulary and baseball trivia, and we found that the most common baseball comprehension text was deceptively complex. Finally, we analyzed recent research citations of baseball studies and found that even the oldest baseball studies are commonly cited in high‐impact journals even in the last 5 years. Ultimately, we interrogate the role of baseball knowledge studies in the body of research on knowledge and comprehension. We also call for reliance on non‐baseball studies to create a knowledge–comprehension translational science likely to positively impact systematic curricular improvement, move the science of reading conversation forward, and improve all students' reading comprehension at scale.
On the reading literacy part of PISA, learners in Iceland have demonstrated a dramatic drop. From the year 2000 to 2018 mean scores declined by 32 points, whereas only between 2018 and 2022 they collapsed by 38 points. In 2000 the share of learners who did not reach the minimum proficiency level was 40%. These findings are in line with Icelandic screening for reading fluency showing over 30% of 15 year old learners below basic proficiency level. Indeed, those with poor phonological skills by age 5 and/or Icelandic vocabulary in grade 4 tend to lag behind their peers in Icelandic language skills with an increasing gap throughout the compulsory school years. As regards students with an immigrant background, first generation shows on average slow progress in Icelandic language skills, in spite of spending 8-9 hours a day in pre-shcool from age 2, and throughout the compulsory school years they continue to fall behind. On PISA 2022, 51% of second generation and 69% of first generation immigrants were below the basic proficiency level. In Iceland, the theory of language and literacy has been a neglected area in teachers' education, in the national curriculum, and thus in teaching material, as well as in teaching and learning approach in pre- and compulsory schools. It is a general believe that children with poor initial Icelandic skills will catch up with their peers eventually. This has also been the main focus as regards children and youth who use another language than Icelandic with their families, the main focus has been on supporting them to develop multilingual skills and that schools are multicultural in their practices, those factors indeed important. But neglecting an entire theoretical field within educational studies has had dramatic consequences. In this analysis on PISA results in reading literacy for Iceland, it is recommended that research findings in the fields of language and literacy will be used as a foundation for taking effective steps by the school community, that will enable children and adolescents to make regular progress in Icelandic language skills, which then will make them eventually academically stronger in post secondary school and in further education.
Effective study skills and study habits are associated with student persistence and success in college and beyond. This chapter focuses on the significance of study skills critical to college-level learning. Effective study skills contribute to improved academic performance, better time management, increased self-efficacy, improved critical thinking, better preparedness for the workforce, and reduced stress and anxiety. Hence, this chapter defines and provides examples of the various study skills students need to successfully engage in college-level learning. Furthermore, this chapter incorporates student study habits that are foundational to a student’s ability to demonstrate their study skills effectively and efficiently. Study skills and study habits encompass a variety of actions, behaviors, and attributes that a student must be prepared to demonstrate to experience success in college. This chapter emphasizes the equal importance of both study skills and study habits for student success. A student can maximize their chances of success by developing and applying strategies associated with study habits and study skills. Given that study skills and study habits can be developed, this chapter presents strategies for students to engage in activities to support their development and utilize resources that promote the enhancement of study skills and study habits. Finally, this chapter offers guidance specifically for online students on how to develop, enhance, and apply study skills and study habits in an online learning environment. The unique nature of online learning necessitates additional student study skills and study habits that are essential to student success as an online learner.
Teaching literacy skills through high-quality trade books that provide diverse cultural perspectives is increasingly difficult due to challenges to teachers’ book selections. To meet their professional responsibilities, teachers must select literature they judge effective for developing students’ awareness and understanding of others’ perspectives. Adriana L. Medina, Rachelle Kuehl, and Edwina Pendarvis discuss how teachers can prepare for challenges by relying on learning standards, consulting book awards lists, and building trust with families. They offer methods for navigating controversy while fostering social responsibility and global competencies and protecting students’ access to literature that teaches perspective-taking and promotes understanding of people with differing backgrounds, experiences, and societal contributions.
In today’s interconnected world, students must do more than just respect other cultures; they must also grasp global issues to become truly globally competent. This study explored students’ perspectives on the “why” and “how” of promoting global competence. Utilizing a descriptive qualitative approach, five themes were discovered through analysis of primary and secondary data sources, including virtual interview transcripts of 13 class leaders in the Purposive Communication course, essays, reports, and journals. Three themes emerged concerning the “why” of promoting global competence: gateway to career opportunities, inspiring a sense of social responsibility, and nurturing intercultural relationships. As for the “how,” two themes surfaced: the use of technology-infused strategies (TIS) and non-digital methods (NDM). These themes comprehensively addressed the three core aspects of global competence: knowledge, skills, and attitudes. The findings of this study can provide the basis for integrating global competence into the General Education Curriculum’s course objectives or outcomes. Additionally, they offer valuable insights for creating instructional materials to enhance global competence.
Meginhugsunin í siðferðilegu uppeldi er sú að þrátt fyrir að það sé líkast til sífelld vinna og ævilöng að verða dygðug manneskja sé hægt að móta tilfinningar okkar og geðshræringar með aukinni þekkingu, umræðu og rökræðum um það hvernig við sjálf viljum vera og verða. Bókmenntir eins og Gísla saga Súrssonar gefa kost á að þróa og styrkja sjálfsþekkingu nemenda ef þeir nálgast þær með hið sammannlega að leiðarljósi og tengja þær við bæði tíðarandann og eigið gildismat. Með því að setja sig í spor persóna og lesa söguna út frá þeim er hægt að skoða hvernig geðshræringar stýra athöfnum og gjörðum manneskja og koma í leiðinni upp um innræti þeirra, gildi og siðferði. Að sama skapi hvetur sú nálgun nemendur, án kvaða, til að spegla eigið líf og samfélag í bókmenntunum og hugsa um sitt eigið siðferðilega sjálf. Á þennan hátt er bókmenntakennsla tækifæri til siðferðilegs uppeldis.
To explore the relationship between Theory of Mind(ToM) and literature reading among middle school students in China. A six month follow-up survey was conducted using the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test(RMET), the emotional intelligence scale, the personality trait questionnaire for middle school students and literature reading tests. After controlling for emotional intelligence and personality traits, the results found that: (1) There was a significant predictive effect between ToM and literature reading for junior middle school students. Among them, T 1 ToM significantly predicted T 2 score, T 1 score significantly predicted T 2 ToM. (2) There was a significant predictive effect between ToM and literature reading for senior middle school students. Among them, T 1 ToM significantly predicted T 2 score, T 1 score significantly predicted T 2 ToM. Conclusion: (1)There is a significant predictive effect between ToM and literature reading among middle school students in China; (2)ToM and literature reading are a mutually reinforcing development process among middle school students.
Introduction: Can a student with learning disability pass the university exam and get into the faculty of medicine? Number of studies on gifted students with learning disabilities, also known as different students, has increased recently. The aim of the present study was to examine the strengths and weaknesses of Fatih who succeeded in getting into the faculty of medicine despite academic failure and to determine strategies he used against problems.
Method: Case study among qualitative research methods was used as the study model. Through family interviews, interviews with Fatih, the drawings of Fatih and result of intelligence test, areas he had difficulties as well as those he was gifted were analyzed.
Findings: Results of the study revealed that Fatih has been suffering from learning disability since primary school, he has struggled especially in the Turkish lesson and he has been experiencing academic failure. Despite his academic failure, he performed well in the field of mathematics. In addition, he was gifted in general mental ability and that he is extraordinarily skilled at painting.
Discussion: When the strengths and weaknesses of Fatih are taken into consideration, it can be asserted that he is a gifted student with learning disability. The results were discussed within the context of identifying gifted individuals with learning disability.
Previous reviews of the nature and consequences of adult-child book reading have focused on seeking impacts of interactive reading on the acquisition of vocabulary and emergent literacy skills. In this systematic review we examined to what extent there has been systematic study of the effects of interactive reading on four less frequently studied developmental outcomes important to children's academic and life prospects: socio-emotional and socio-cognitive (SEL) skills, narrative skills, grammar, and world knowledge. We identified 67 studies of interactive reading that met the inclusion criteria and that examined the targeted outcomes, using either experimental, quasi-experimental, correlational, or single-group intervention methods. We found that studies of effects on grammar and world knowledge outcomes were very sparsely represented; though narrative was often studied as an outcome, the wide variation in conceptualizing and assessing the construct hampered any clear conclusion about book-reading effects. The most robust research strand focused on SEL skill outcomes, though here too the outcome assessments varied widely. We speculate that better instrumented approaches to assessing vocabulary and emergent literacy have led to the persistent emphasis on these domains, despite robust evidence of only modest associations, and argue that work to develop sound shared measures of narrative and SEL skills would enable cross-study comparison and the accumulation of findings. In addition, we note that the various studies implicated different explanatory principles for the value of reading with children: specific interactional features (open-ended questions, following the child's lead, expanding child utterances) or content features (emotion-enhanced books, talk about mental states, science topics), raising another topic for more focused study in the future.
Introducción. Existe variada literatura respecto al desarrollo de la lectura en su etapa de adquisición y también sobre las dificultades que se presentan en la primera infancia y niñez, sin embargo, desde el punto de vista cognitivo, la comprensión de lectura ha sido menos estudiada en enseñanza secundaria. El objetivo general de este estudio fue analizar el desarrollo de la inteligencia fluida, la atención, el razonamiento inductivo, deductivo y espacial y determinar su impacto en la comprensión lectora de textos informativos en estudiantes chilenos de tercer año de enseñanza secundaria. Método. Se utilizó un diseño transversal descriptivo, de alcance correlacional predictivo. La muestra quedó conformada por 99 estudiantes de ambos sexos, de tres cursos diferentes, con una edad promedio de 15 años. Se tomaron medidas estandarizadas de inteligencia fluida, atención, razonamiento inductivo, razonamiento deductivo, razonamiento espacial y comprensión lectora. Se realizaron análisis descriptivos de las variables en estudio, un estudio de correlaciones y un análisis de regresión múltiple para determinar las variables predictoras. Resultados. Los resultados muestran relaciones estadísticamente significativas entre razonamiento inductivo y comprensión lectora de textos informativos, así como de la atención, en tanto que función ejecutiva, con la comprensión lectora de este tipo de estructura textual. Discusión. De los resultados se derivan implicaciones pedagógicas y psicopedagógicas acerca de la importancia de potenciar el razonamiento inductivo y la capacidad de atención en estudiantes de secundaria, de manera de favorecer la comprensión lectora de los textos informativos.
Der Beitrag betrachtet unterrichtliche Anschlusskommunikation aus gesprächslinguistischer und sprach-didaktischer Sicht. Er richtet den Blick auf die bisher erst in Ansätzen berücksichtigten sprachlichen Herausforde-rungen, denen Schüler:innen beim Sprechen über literarische Texte begegnen. Dabei differenziert er diskursive, d.h. auf das sprachliche Handeln in der Mündlichkeit bezogene Anforderungen, von solchen, die sich auf kognitive (hierarchieniedrige oder hierarchiehohe) Prozesse des Textverstehens beziehen. In mikroanalytischem Zugriff wird exemplarisch für zwei prototypische Fälle unterrichtlicher Anschlusskommunikation gezeigt, dass und wie diskur-sive und textverstehensbezogene Anforderungen miteinander gekoppelt sind. Gegenübergestellt werden ausge-wählte diskursive Praktiken der Anschlusskommunikation, die ‚rekonstruktive Text(stellen)wiedergabe', das expla-nativ angelegte ‚Verdichten zu einer Kernaussage bzw.-thematik' und das ‚(begründetes) Zuordnen zu einer Dar-stellungsstrategie'. Abstract: This article deals with classroom discourse on literary texts from the perspective of applied conversation analysis and educational linguistics. Focusing on linguistic challenges that students encounter when speaking about literary texts, we address a question that former research on literary communication has mostly neglected. In doing so, we differentiate between discursive requirements of oral communication and those related to (lower order or higher order) cognitive processes of text comprehension. In a micro-analytical approach, we analyse two prototypical cases of literary classroom interaction and show how discursive and text comprehension-related requirements are coupled with each other. Selected practices are described in detail: 'reconstructive text reproduc-tion', 'condensing a text to a core message/theme' and 'identifying a rhetorical/poetic strategy'.
Sprachliche und kommunikative Kompetenz ist, wenn auch mit unterschiedlichen Schwerpunkten, eines von vielen Lernzielen für Lernende in allen Bildungseinrichtungen von der Kindertageseinrichtung bis zur Universität. Gefordert wird unter anderem die Produktion von komplexen Diskurseinheiten auf bildungssprachlichem Niveau. Bildungssprache soll in diesem Zusammenhang als ein detaillierter, kontextentbundener verständlicher sowie begrifflich präziser (Morek und Heller 2012, S. 68). Sprachgebrauch mit dem übergeordneten Merkmal der Explizitheit (Feilke 2012) verstanden werden. Das Sprechen kann dabei unter anderem als Werkzeug der Wissensvermittlung (kommunikativ) und des Denkens (epistemisch) fungieren (Morek und Heller 2012). Wie bildungssprachliche Fähigkeiten vermittelt werden können, ist allerdings noch nicht abschließend geklärt (Feilke 2012). Hinzu kommt, dass sich zumindest bezüglich des mündlichen Sprachgebrauchs in Lehr- und Lernkontexten häufig wenig Gelegenheit zum Einüben längerer Redebeiträge bietet. Die Kommunikation über Texte erscheint hierfür schon aufgrund der Annahme geeignet, dass Texte eigentlich erst während der Rezeption von den Rezipient*innen konstruiert werden. Wir gehen mit Hausendorf et al. 2017 davon aus, dass Texte Lesbarkeitshinweise bereitstellen, die von den Rezipient*innen zur Konstruktion ihrer eigenen mentalen Modelle genutzt werden. Diese können als Ausgangspunkt für Gespräche mit längeren Redebeiträgen (epistemische Funktion) verwendet werden, in denen Bedeutungen immer wieder ausgehandelt werden (kommunikative Funktion). Solche Aushandlungen sind zwangsläufig kontextentbunden und fordern auch einen gewissen Grad an sprachlicher Explizitheit. Eine Möglichkeit ist die Verwendung literarischer Texte als Gesprächsanlass. Im Sinne eines erweiterten Textbegriffs (vgl. Staiger 2007) sollen darunter Texte in allen Medien verstanden werden, wie z. B. Bilderbücher, Computerspiele, Comics, Gedichte oder Filme. Die Offenheit literarischer Texte ermöglicht es, dass sie auf stets variierende Art interpretiert und verstanden werden können (vgl. Charlton und Sutter 2007). Dies entlastet die Interaktant*innen davon, eine „richtige Antwort“ geben zu müssen. In Anschluss- oder Begleitkommunikationen wie z.B. in Vorlesegesprächen (vgl. u.a. Wieler 1997, Spinner 2004, Gressnich et al. 2015) sind unterschiedliche Sichtweisen auf die Texte sogar ein erwünschter Effekt, der es auch Rezipient*innen mit sehr unterschiedlichen Wissensständen ermöglicht, sich über die Texte auszutauschen. Außerdem können die am Gespräch Teilnehmenden insofern voneinander lernen, als dass sie die unterschiedlichen Sichtweisen auf den Text nachvollziehen. Auch von der eigenen Deutung abweichende Äußerungen bergen ein großes Potenzial, weil sie dazu veranlassen, die eigene Haltung zum Text zu reflektieren, sie argumentierend zu verteidigen oder zu modifizieren (vgl. u.a. Spinner 2010, Preußer 2017, Heizmann 2019). Im vorliegenden Sammelband werden in elf Beiträgen unterschiedliche Perspektiven und verschiedene Erhebungs- und Auswertungskontexte, unter denen Gespräche über literarische Texte aktuell betrachtet werden, vorgestellt.
This study explores the dialogues about social values, emotions and feelings that emerge during the implementation of dialogic literary gatherings (DLG). DLG is a classroom-based program grounded in the dialogic reading of classic books. Ten DLG sessions with fourth-grade students (n = 126) were implemented in 5 elementary schools in Spain. The analysis of dialogues that took place in selected DLG sessions reveals that students discuss a range of topics related to social values, emotions or feelings and that they relate these topics to different domains in their daily life (classroom experiences, relationships with their family or peers, etc.). The results suggest that the interactive environment surrounding classic books that is created in DLG allows students to address themes that matter to them, thus providing the students with valuable opportunities to increase their social and emotional awareness.
Family income strongly influences child development. However, the impact of income trajectories on developmental outcomes is unclear. Using nationally representative data of children in poor and moderate income families and three relevant theoretical frameworks, the present study (a) empirically classified family income from 2001 to 2007 and (b) evaluated associations between derived income trajectories and kindergarten outcomes. Results identified four distinct family income trajectory profiles: stable adequate, low to adequate, stable low, and adequate to low. Most children were classified in the stable low trajectory (67%). Multiple regression results suggested children in the stable low trajectory demonstrated poorer kindergarten outcomes than children in more advantaged trajectories, and children who experience economic disadvantage early with later income growth display poorer reading outcomes than children who were economically advantaged initially and experience later income decline. Findings are discussed in the context of current dialogue about the nature of family poverty over time.
There is a range of reasons why college students may be underprepared to read, but one possibility is that some college students are below a threshold of proficiency in the component skills of reading. The presence of thresholds means that when students fall below that threshold, their proficiency in that component skill of reading is not sufficient for there to be a relationship with comprehension performance. The present study assessed (a) whether there were thresholds in proficiencies in foundational skills, (b) whether students falling below the thresholds were disproportionately in developmental literary programs (i.e., institutionally designated as underprepared), and (c) the implications of being below the thresholds on engaging in strategic processing during reading. College students were administered assessments of foundational literacy skills, text comprehension, and strategic processing of texts. The sample included students who were enrolled in developmental literacy programs and students who were not. There were thresholds found in the foundational skills associated with word-, sentence-, and discourse-level processing. Participants below these thresholds were represented disproportionately by students determined to be underprepared for college and assigned to developmental literacy programs. Finally, students falling below the thresholds demonstrated lower reading strategy scores than students above the threshold.
While there is a strong consensus on the importance of Critical and Creative Thinking (CCT) skills for the rise of participatory citizens and work-ready professionals, the extent to which university attendance by itself supports their development and acquisition remains controversial. This research presents a cohort, longitudinal follow-up study aimed at investigating the impact of university attendance by itself on the CCT skills development of 41 higher education students from two, 3-year Bachelor’s programmes at a northeastern Portuguese university, namely Pre-Service Teaching and Psychology. Using Lopes et al.’s Critical and Creative Thinking Test, an open-access CCT assessment instrument validated for the Portuguese higher education population, data were collected at the beginning of the first and of the third academic years: 2016–2017 and 2018–2019, respectively. Non statistically significant differences were found for both cohorts, suggesting that the domain-specific training of these study programmes per se are not a sufficient condition to enhance students’ domain-general CCT skills. Therefore, further research is still needed to better identify the moderating variables influencing the development of students’ CCT skills during their attendance in undergraduate higher education.
To understand and assess how early adolescents use their social perspective taking (SPT) skills in their consideration of social problems, we conducted two studies. In study 1, we administered a hypothetical SPT scenario to 359 fourth to eighth graders. Modeled on the linguistic pragmatics of speech acts, we used grounded theory to develop a functional approach that identified three types of SPT acts: (1) the acknowledgment of different actors, (2) the articulation of their thoughts and feelings, and (3) the positioning of the roles, experiences, or circumstances that influence how they resolve problems. Study 2 tested the validity of an expanded instrument, the Social Perspective Taking Acts Measure, with 459 fourth to eighth graders. We confirmed the structure of the construct with a fully saturated confirmatory factor analysis , with factor loadings in the range of .62 and .71, and a factor determinacy of .90. We obtained evidence of criterion-related validity by successfully predicting that girls and older participants would exhibit better performance than boys and younger students , and that SPT would exhibit a negative association with aggressive interperso-nal strategies, a positive but moderate association with writing, and non-significant associations with academic language, complex reasoning, and reading skills.
This report describes the foundation and rationale for a framework designed to measure reading literacy. The aim of the effort is to build an assessment system that reflects current theoretical conceptions of reading and is developmentally sensitive across a prekindergarten to 12th grade student range. The assessment framework is intended to document the aims of the assessment program, define the target constructs to be assessed, and describe the assessment designs that are aligned with the aims and constructs. This framework report is preliminary in that we are engaged in an iterative process of writing and revising the framework, based on what we learn from efforts to instantiate the ideas in new assessment designs and the results we garner from piloting novel designs. We also anticipate drafting further sections to address issues such as the scoring models and analytic plans once assessments have been designed and piloted.
In K-12 contexts, the teaching of English language learners (ELLs) has been greatly influenced by the theory and practice of content-based instruction (CBI). A focus on content can help students achieve grade-level standards in school subjects while they develop English proficiency, but CBI practices have focused primarily on vocabulary and the use of graphic organizers along with cooperative learning activities. This article reports the results of a project intended to enhance CBI through activities that focus on the role of language in constructing knowledge. The strategies we present are based on identification and analysis of the challenges presented by grade-level textbooks in middle school history classrooms. By engaging in functional linguistic analysis, ELLs and their teachers can deconstruct the language of their textbooks, enabling students to develop academic language by focusing on the meaning-making potential of the historian's language choices.
Beyond academic vocabulary, the constellation of skills that comprise academic language proficiency
has remained imprecisely defined. This study proposes an expanded operationalization of this construct
referred to as core academic language skills (CALS).CALSrefers to the knowledge and deployment of a
repertoire of language forms and functions that co-occur with school learning tasks across disciplines.
Using an innovative instrument, we explored CALS in a cross-sectional sample of 235 students
in Grades 4–8. The results revealed between- and within-grade variability in CALS. Psychometric
analyses yielded strong reliability and supported the presence of a single CALS factor, which was found to be predictive of reading comprehension. Our findings suggest that the CALS construct and
instrument appear promising for exploring students’ school-relevant language skills.
Drawing on sociological and philosophical studies of science, science educators have begun to view argumentation as a central scientific practice that students should learn. In this article, we extend recent work to understand the structure of students' arguments to include judgments about their quality through content analyses of high school students' written explanations for 2 problems of natural selection. In these analyses, we aim to explicate the relations between students' conceptual understanding of specific domains and their epistemic understanding of scientific practices of argumentation as they try to learn science through inquiry. We present a method that assesses the warrant of explanatory claims, the sufficiency of the evidence explicitly cited for claims, and students' rhetorical use of specific inscriptions in their arguments. Students were attentive to the need to cite data, yet they often failed to cite sufficient evidence for claims. Students' references to specific inscriptions in their arguments often failed to articulate how specific data related to particular claims. We discuss these patterns of data citation in terms of what they suggest about students' epistemological ideas about explanation and consequent implications for inquiry-oriented, science education reforms.
The literature suggests that a complex relationship exists between the three main skills involved in reading comprehension (decoding, listening comprehension and vocabulary) and that this relationship depends on at least three other factors orthographic transparency, children's grade level and socioeconomic status (SES). This study investigated the relative contribution of the predictors of reading comprehension in a longitudinal design (from beginning to end of the first grade) in 394 French children from low SES families.
Reading comprehension was measured at the end of the first grade using two tasks one with short utterances and one with a medium length narrative text. Accuracy in listening comprehension and vocabulary, and fluency of decoding skills, were measured at the beginning and end of the first grade. Accuracy in decoding skills was measured only at the beginning. Regression analyses showed that listening comprehension and decoding skills (accuracy and fluency) always significantly predicted reading comprehension. The contribution of decoding was greater when reading comprehension was assessed via the task using short utterances. Between the two assessments, the contribution of vocabulary, and of decoding skills especially, increased, while that of listening comprehension remained unchanged.
These results challenge the 'simple view of reading'. They also have educational implications, since they show that it is possible to assess decoding and reading comprehension very early on in an orthography (i.e., French), which is less deep than the English one even in low SES children. These assessments, associated with those of listening comprehension and vocabulary, may allow early identification of children at risk for reading difficulty, and to set up early remedial training, which is the most effective, for them.
The popular print media constitute a major source of new information about scientific research for the public and for members of the scientific community outside their areas of expertise. Despite the potential importance of media reports to scientific literacy and public awareness of science, little is known about the content of these articles. We sampled the popular print media (e.g., publications such as those sold at a convenience store or supermarket) and found that the majority of articles about scientific research were in the form of news briefs. We analyzed and compared (a) the content of these news briefs, (b) advice given by experts about how to read media reports about science critically, and (c) university students' requests for information as they evaluated brief reports about research. Some marked discrepancies were found. For example, much of the information that experts advised readers to attend to or that students spontaneously requested were infrequently available in news briefs. Our findings have implications for conceptualizing scientific literacy, as well as for changing science journalism and science education in ways that can enable readers to become effective consumers of scientific information.
The purpose of this study is to describe educationally relevant differences in literacy use among three subject-matter disciplines—history, chemistry, and mathematics. These analyses were drawn from an investigation of the teaching of disciplinary literacy in high schools. The purpose of the overall project was to improve the literacy-teaching preparation in a secondary preservice teacher education program, but this study sought to identify specific features of literacy and literacy use only in the three disciplines. It is the first expert-reader study to consider the reading of mathematicians and chemists (though other kinds of scientists have been studied in this way). To conduct this investigation, three teams were assembled, one for each discipline, including two disciplinary experts (historians, chemists, and mathematicians), two teacher educators who prepare high school teachers to teach those disciplines, and two high school teachers from each discipline. Using think-aloud protocols, transcripts from focus group discussions, a recursive process of member checking, and a cross-disciplinary consideration of reading approaches identified in each discipline, the study identified important differences in the reading behaviors of the six disciplinary experts. Although much of the work was based on think-aloud protocols and interviews with the disciplinary experts, the teachers and teacher educators participated with the disciplinary experts in focus-group discussions of the protocols, and their reactions and insights helped the disciplinary experts to articulate their approaches and to determine implications of the reading behaviors that were observed. Differences were evident in sourcing, contextualization, corroboration, close reading and rereading, critical response to text, and use of text structure or arrangement and graphics.
Informal learning experiences have risen to the forefront of science education as being beneficial to students' learning. However, it is not clear in what ways such experiences may be beneficial to students; nor how informal learning experiences may interface with classroom science instruction. This study aims to acquire a better understanding of these issues by investigating one aspect of science learning, scientific reasoning ability, with respect to the students' informal learning experiences and classroom science instruction. Specifically, the purpose of this study was to investigate possible differences in students' scientific reasoning abilities relative to their informal learning environments (impoverished, enriched), classroom teaching experiences (non-inquiry, inquiry) and the interaction of these variables. The results of two-way ANOVAs indicated that informal learning environments and classroom science teaching procedures showed significant main effects on students' scientific reasoning abilities. Students with enriched informal learning environments had significantly higher scientific reasoning abilities compared to those with impoverished informal learning environments. Likewise, students in inquirybased science classrooms showed higher scientific reasoning abilities compared to those in non-inquiry science classrooms. There were no significant interaction effects. These results indicate the need for increased emphases on both informal learning opportunities and inquiry-based instruction in science.
This article focuses on a particular educational context, the school, and how characteristics of the structure and organization of high schools influence students' academic development. The emphasis is on a type of quantitative inquiry called school effects research. It describes a methodology that is most appropriate for conducting studies of school effects in particular and educational contexts in general: hierarchical linear modeling (HLM). Two previously published studies are used as heuristic examples of school effects studies conducted with HLM methods. Both studies use large and nationally representative longitudinal data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 to explore school effects on learning and its social distribution by student socioeconomic status. Study 1 focuses on the effects of high school size on learning. Study 2 focuses on how teachers' attitudes, taken as a collective property of the social organization of schools, influence both learning and its social distribution. Implications for both policy and research are discussed.
Skill theory provides tools for predicting developmental sequences and synchronies in any domain at any point in development by integrating behavioral and cognitive-developmental concepts. Cognitive development is explained by skill structures called "levels," together with transformation rules relating these levels to each other. The transformation rules specify the developmental steps by which a skill moves gradually from one level of complexity to the next. At every step in these developmental sequences, the individual controls a particular skill. Skills are gradually transformed from sensory-motor actions to representations and then to abstractions. The transformations produce continuous behavioral changes; but across the entire profile of a person's skills and within highly practiced task domains, a stagelike shift in skills occurs as the person develops to an optimal level. The theory suggests a common framework for integrating developmental analyses of cognitive, social, language, and perceptual-motor skills and certain behavioral changes in learning and problem solving. (6 p ref)
The Simple View of Reading (SVR) suggests that the components of reading comprehension are decoding and linguistic comprehension. Given research that suggests that fluency is a separate construct from decoding and linguistic comprehension in fourth grade, the aim of this study was to examine the role of fluency in the SVR model. Analyses of data from 248 fourth-grade children explored whether the influence of fluency on reading comprehension is direct or whether fluency plays an indirect role on reading comprehension as a mediator or moderator of decoding. Structural equation modeling and latent regression analyses revealed that reading fluency plays a mediating role in explaining the relation between decoding and reading comprehension. This novel finding is placed in the context of studies that reported either a direct effect or no effect of reading fluency in SVR.
This study examined whether individual variance in letter-name knowledge and phonological processing assessed in English (L1) in kindergarten French immersion students predicts their French (L2) decoding and reading comprehension scores at the end of grade 1; whether L2 oral language factors also contribute significantly to predictions of variability in L2 reading outcomes beyond knowledge of the alphabet and phonological processing; and whether the Simple View of Reading — SVR — (Gough & Tunmer, 1986) applies cross-linguistically as well as intra-linguistically. We administered a comprehensive battery of predictor tests that have been correlated with L1 decoding and comprehension skills in English to English-speaking students in early total French immersion at the beginning and end of kindergarten. Tests of word and pseudo-word decoding and reading comprehension in French were given at the end of grade 1. The best kindergarten predictors of L2 decoding were knowledge of the alphabetic principle in English, phonological awareness in English, and knowledge of French at kindergarten entry. The same variables were significant predictors of French reading comprehension, with the added contribution of scores related to oral language skills in L1. The results provide support for the SVR intra-linguistically, but not cross-linguistically.
Because characters’ goals play a key role in the structure of narratives, the ability to make inferences about goals is essential to narrative comprehension. Despite their importance, no previous studies have examined the process by which children make these goal inferences. In the current study, we examined 6- and 8-year-old children's goal inference making processes through think-aloud protocols. We also examined the product of comprehension, the mental representation of text, through free recall and comprehension questions. The results revealed that children of both ages regularly made appropriate goal inferences while listening to narratives. In addition, the number of goal inferences predicted children's recall of the stories. Thus, children as young as 6 years old are sensitive to the vital role of characters’ goals in narrative structure, and they can engage in sophisticated cognitive processing while they listen to narratives to form coherent mental representations of them.
Overview Since the seminal work of Jean Piaget on the relation between knowledge and general biology, researchers have started to understand the basic neurocognitive processes in the unfolding of human development. In particular, recent dynamic growth models illuminate the complex, interrelated changes that take place during brain growth, cognitive development, and learning. Neurocognitive development should be conceived not as a ladder of successive stages but as a complex network of interactions and attractors, convergent and divergent paths, nested cycles, stabilities and instabilities, progressions and regressions, clusters of discontinuities and stable levels of performance. Cycles of cortical development and cycles of cognitive performance seem to be related. In particular the relationship becomes most visible with optimal functioning of the cognitive system, such as when a good teacher or textbook supports a student's performance. A series of discontinuities in optimal cognitive growth define a ten-level developmental scale, which has many potential educational implications. More generally, the systematic growth cycles of cognition and brain have many implications for education, which are sometimes not straightforward. It is essential to the future of education that teachers become involved in neurocognitive research and neuroscientists discover the great theoretical and practical challenge of working in schools. The Editors Most scientists and teachers find it obvious that cognitive development and brain development go together, and the enterprise of connecting mind, brain, and education starts with that assumption, as evident in most chapters of this book. © Pontifical Academy of Sciences and Cambridge University Press 2008 and Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Specific Language Impairment (SLI) is associated with reading difficulties. The evidence to support this association, typically, is drawn from studies of elementary school children. Additionally, the extent of the relationship between language and reading skills during adolescence is not yet clear. This study aimed to examine the word reading and comprehension skills of adolescents with a history of SLI at the end of compulsory education in the UK. The study is framed within the Simple View of Reading and the two-dimensional model of reading as proposed by Bishop and Snowling (2004). Fifty-six young people, identified at the age of 8 as having SLI were assessed at 14 and 16 on a range of language and literacy measures. Results indicated that adolescents with a history of SLI were at higher risk of experiencing reading difficulties when compared with their typically developing peers. Single word decoding and receptive vocabulary were significant factors in explaining reading comprehension at the age of 16 for the adolescents with a history of SLI, a pattern that differed from that for their matched peers. Educational and clinical implications for the assessment and intervention of reading skills during secondary education are discussed. (Contains 2 figures and 4 tables.)
For decades, standardized reading comprehension tests have consisted of a series of passages and associated multiple-choice questions. Although widely used in and out of the classroom, there continues to be considerable disagreement regarding how or whether such tests have net value in the service of advancing educational progress in reading. This chapter begins with a review of features that characterize standardized reading assessments. In particular, we discuss how assessment designs and analytics reflect a balance of practical and measurement constraints. We then discuss how advances in the learning sciences, measurement, and electronic technologies have opened up the design space for a new generation of reading assessments. Abstracting from this review, we end by presenting some examples of prototype assessments that reflect opportunities for enhancing the value and utility of reading assessments in the future.
This paper demonstrates the effectiveness of a specific methodology-developmental maieutics-designed to bridge developmental research and practice by setting up an ongoing conversation between test takers and test developers. The approach involves building standardized, diagnostic educational assessments that also function as research instruments. After reviewing the research and theory behind developmental maieutics, we direct attention to a particular instance of current research and application involving the Lectical Decision Making Assessment™ (LDMA). The LDMA focuses on three aspects of decision making-perspective taking, argumentation, and the decision-making process. It has been used in a variety of contexts, most recently as an online assessment employed by researchers and management consultants to diagnose the learning needs of individual managers. Here, we show how data produced during the process of providing feedback to test takers has contributed to our understanding of an important aspect of perspective taking and perspective seeking, demonstrating how usable knowledge about human development can be constructed through an ongoing conversation between two groups of learners-test developers and test takers.
This book presents an account of the relationships among novel reading, empathy, and altruism. Though readers' and authors' empathy certainly contribute to the emotional resonance of fiction and its success in the marketplace, this book finds the case for altruistic consequences of novel reading inconclusive. It offers instead a detailed theory of narrative empathy, with proposals about its deployment by novelists and its results in readers. The book engages with neuroscience and contemporary psychological research on empathy, bringing affect to the center of cognitive literary studies' scrutiny of narrative fiction. Drawing on narrative theory, literary history, philosophy, and contemporary scholarship in discourse processing, the book brings together resources and challenges for the literary study of empathy and the psychological study of fiction reading. Empathy robustly enters into affective responses to fiction, but its proper role in shaping the behavior of emotional readers has been debated for three centuries. The book surveys these debates and offers a series of hypotheses about literary empathy, including narrative techniques inviting empathetic response. It argues that above all readers' perception of a text's fictiveness increases the likelihood of readers' empathy, by releasing readers from their guarded responses to the demands of real others. The book confirms the centrality of narrative empathy as a strategy, as well as a subject, of contemporary novelists. Despite the disrepute of putative human universals, novelists from around the world endorse the notion of shared human emotions when they overtly call upon their readers' empathy. Consequently, the book suggests, if narrative empathy is to be better understood, women's reading and popular fiction must be accorded the respect of experimental inquiry.
This paper represents the third installment of the Reading for Understanding (RfU) assessment framework. This paper builds upon the two prior installments (Sabatini & O'Reilly, 2013; Sabatini, O'Reilly, & Deane, 2013) by discussing the role of performance moderators in the test design and how scenario-based assessment can be used as a tool for assessment delivery. Performance moderators are characteristics of students that impact reading performance but are not considered a part of the reading construct. These include (a) background and prior knowledge, (b) metacognitive and self-regulatory strategies and behavior, (c) reading strategies, and (d) student motivation and engagement. In this paper, we argue there is added value in incorporating performance moderators into a reading test design. We characterize added value with respect to the validity of the claims derived from test scores, the interpretation of the test scores, and the relevance to instruction. As a second aim, we present a case for using scenario-based assessments and how they can be used to integrate into the test design both the performance moderators as well as other features that make the assessment more instructionally relevant.
When designing a reading intervention, researchers and educators face a number of challenges related to the focus, intensity, and duration of the intervention. In this paper, we argue there is another fundamental challenge-the nature of the reading outcome measures used to evaluate the intervention. Many interventions fail to demonstrate significant improvements on standardized measures of reading comprehension. Although there are a number of reasons to explain this phenomenon, an important one to consider is misalignment between the nature of the outcome assessment and the targets of the intervention. In this study, we present data on three theoretically driven summative reading assessments that were developed in consultation with a research and evaluation team conducting an intervention study. The reading intervention, Reading Apprenticeship, involved instructing teachers to use disciplinary strategies in three domains: literature, history, and science. Factor analyses and other psychometric analyses on data from over 12,000 high school students revealed the assessments had adequate reliability, moderate correlations with state reading test scores and measures of background knowledge, a large general reading factor, and some preliminary evidence for separate, smaller factors specific to each form. In this paper, we describe the empirical work that motivated the assessments, the aims of the intervention, and the process used to develop the new assessments. Implications for intervention and assessment are discussed.
Despite a long- standing awareness of academic language as a pedagogically relevant research area, the construct of academic- language proficiency, understood as a more comprehensive set of skills than just academic vocabulary, has remained vaguely specified. In this study, we explore a more inclusive operationalization of an academic- language proficiency construct, core academic- language skills ( CALS ). CALS refers to a constellation of highutility language skills hypothesized to support reading comprehension across school content areas. Using the Core Academic Language Skills Instrument ( CALS - I), a theoretically grounded and psychometrically robust innovative tool, we first examined the variability in students' CALS by grade, Englishproficiency designation, and socioeconomic status ( SES ). Then, we examined the contribution of CALS to reading comprehension using academic vocabulary knowledge, word reading fluency, and sociodemographic factors as covariates. A linguistically and socioeconomically diverse cross- sectional sample of 218 students (grades 4-6) participated in four assessments: the CALS - I, a standardized reading comprehension assessment (Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test), an academic vocabulary test (Vocabulary Association Test), and a word reading fluency test (Test of Silent Word Reading Fluency). General linear model analysis of variance revealed that CALS differed significantly by grade, English- proficiency designation, and SES , with students in higher grades, English- proficient students, and those from higher SES backgrounds displaying higher scores, on average. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses identified CALS as an independent predictor of reading comprehension, even after controlling for academic vocabulary knowledge, word reading fluency, and sociodemographic factors. By specifying a set of language skills associated with reading comprehension, this study advances our understanding of school- relevant language skills, making them more visible for researchers and educators.
Existing reading comprehension assessments have been criticized by researchers, educators, and policy makers, especially regarding their coverage, utility, and authenticity. The purpose of the current study was to evaluate a new type of assessment of reading comprehension that was designed to broaden the construct of reading. In light of these issues, we developed a Scenario-Based Assessment (SBA) of reading comprehension that was inspired by the cognitive literature in reading, learning, and instruction. The SBA was designed to measure students' ability to integrate and evaluate a set of thematically related sources for the purpose of achieving an overarching goal. The SBA also measured students' ability to form an integrated and global mental model of the text, student background knowledge, and social interactions in a digital environment (e.g., perspective taking; classifying and evaluating simulated peer claims). A sample of 426 sixth grade students completed the SBA form and a subsample of 161 students completed a reading component skills battery. Results indicated adequate psychometric properties of the SBA, evidence generally in support of the alignment of the SBA to the assessment design, and strong correlations between the SBA and traditional reading comprehension assessments. While students were able to engage with a variety of complex tasks, items that measured students' ability to form a coherent mental model (e.g., write a summary) and digital literacy tasks that required students to integrate perspectives from multiple texts were particularly difficult.
This article describes the development and evaluation of a new academic word list (Coxhead, 1998), which was compiled from a corpus of 3.5 million running words of written academic text by examining the range and frequency of words outside the first 2,000 most frequently occurring words of English, as described by West (1953). The AWL contains 570 word families that account for approximately 10.0% of the total words (tokens) in academic texts but only 1.4% of the total words in a fiction collection of the same size. This difference in coverage provides evidence that the list contains predominantly academic words. By highlighting the words that university students meet in a wide range of academic texts, the AWL shows learners with academic goals which words are most worth studying. The list also provides a useful basis for further research into the nature of academic vocabulary.
In recent years, researchers, educators, and policy makers have called for a new generation of reading comprehension assessments (e.g., Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2008). Advocates of this movement argue for a deeper type of reading assessment, one that captures students’ ability to not only understand single texts in isolation but also to engage in purposeful, multisource integration of sources. While this shift in how we define and measure reading comprehension is laudable, assessments must also measure the fundamental reading skills that may impede higher-level comprehension processes. This article presents data from two assessments that were designed to work in tandem to provide a more complete picture of reading comprehension. Middle school students were given a component skills battery which measured core reading skills such as word recognition, decoding, vocabulary, and morphology, as well a second assessment designed to measure reading comprehension. Reading comprehension was measured using a scenario-based assessment approach, which required students to read a range of sources to fulfill a particular reading goal. The results indicate that students, including struggling readers, were able to read, understand, and problem solve in complex learning environments, but students’ ability to do so was often tempered by their basic reading skills. We argue that including a measure of component skills alongside a measure of higher-level comprehension is beneficial in interpreting student performance. Accordingly, we present the results on the scenario-based measure as a function of reading component skills and argue for the value of using this approach for struggling readers.
To clarify the role of decoding in reading and reading disability, a simple model of reading is proposed, which holds that reading equals the product of decoding and comprehension. It follows that there must be three types of reading disability, resulting from an inability to decode, an inability to comprehend, or both. It is argued that the first is dyslexia, the second hyperlexia, and the third common, or garden variety, reading disability.
This study modelled reading comprehension trajectories in Grades 4 to 6 English
language learners (ELLs = 400), with different home language backgrounds, and
in English monolinguals (EL1s = 153), and examined an augmented Simple View
of Reading model. The contribution of Grade 1 (early) and Grade 4 (late) cognitive,
language and word-level reading to Grade 6 reading comprehension was examined.
The reading comprehension trajectory was non-linear in ELLs but linear in EL1s.
Syntax predicted consistently rate of growth in reading comprehension. ELLs
consistently underperformed EL1s on reading comprehension. Word-level reading
and all components of language (vocabulary, syntax and listening comprehension)
remained stable predictors of Grade 6 reading comprehension. Grade 1 phonological
awareness, naming speed and working memory predicted reading comprehension
in Grade 6, as did Grade 4 phonological short-term memory. Results support an
augmented Simple View of Reading that includes cognitive, word-level and language
components, and underscore the importance of considering developmental changes
in the constructs.
This article explores components of reading accuracy and comprehension in 14 teenagers. The study contrasted the explanatory power of decoding and listening comprehension subskills (the 'simple view of reading'; Gough & Tunmer, 1990), and 'verbal cognitive ability' (a more traditional psychometric model). Research also investigated teenagers' literacy self-percepts. Listening comprehension was the best predictor of reading comprehension, although reading accuracy was an additional predictor. Decoding skills best predicted reading accuracy. Reading self-percepts correlated with decoding but not comprehension skills. Possible uses of 'the simple view of reading' for conceptualisations of literacy problems, interventions and effective professional roles are considered.
This article synthesizes research by applied linguists and mathematics educators to highlight the linguistic challenges of mathematics and suggest pedagogical practices to help learners in mathematics classrooms. The linguistic challenges include the multi-semiotic formations of mathematics, its dense noun phrases that participate in relational processes, and the precise meanings of conjunctions and implicit logical relationships that link elements in mathematics discourse. Research on pedagogical practices supports developing mathematics knowledge through attention to the way language is used, suggesting strategies for moving students from informal, everyday ways of talking about mathematics into the registers that construe more technical and precise meanings.
This article provides an analysis of some linguistic features of school-based texts, relating the grammatical and lexical choices of the speaker/writer to the functions that language performs in school contexts. Broadly speaking, the context of schooling requires that students read and write texts that present information authoritatively in conventionally structured ways. This article describes some of the lexical and grammatical resources—the register features—that realize this context of schooling. It shows that the presentation of information typically requires technical and specific lexis and explicitly stated logical relations. Authoritativeness is reflected in the choice of declarative mood and the use of grammatical and lexical resources instead of intonation to convey speaker/writer stance or attitude toward what is said. A high degree of structure is expected in school-based language, realized through elaboration of noun phrases, sentence rather than prosodic segmentation, and clause-structuring strategies of nominalization and embedding. These features are functional for creating the texts students read and are expected to write at school.
The Skills of Argument presents a comprehensive empirical study of informal reasoning as argument, involving subjects across the life span. Subjects ranging in age from adolescence to late adulthood were asked to describe their views on social problems that people have occasion to think and talk about in everyday life, such as crime and unemployment. In addition to providing supporting evidence for their theories, subjects were asked to contemplate alternative theories and counterarguments and to evaluate new evidence on the topics. This is the first major study of informal reasoning across the life span. Highlighting the importance of argumentive reasoning in everyday thought, the book offers a theoretical framework for conceptualizing and studying thinking as argument. The findings address issues of major importance to cognitive and developmental psychologists, as well as educators concerned with improving the quality of people's thinking. The work is also relevant to philosophers, political scientists, and linguists interested in informal reasoning and argumentive discourse.
The author focuses on literacy among students--those still in school or recently graduated. She discusses literacy trends among elementary, high school, and college students; uses of literacy trends; results of a 1980 National Assessment of Educational Progress study; developmental changes in individuals; and reading disability, dyslexia, and learning disabilities. (CT)
Developing academic literacy involves learning valued content and rhetoric in a discipline. Within history, writing from primary documents to construct an evidenced interpretation of an issue requires students to transform both background and document knowledge, read and interpret historical documents, and manage discourse synthesis. The authors examine the potential of the Advanced Placement Document-Based Question as constructed and presented by an exemplary teacher to engage students in historical reasoning and writing. The authors analyzed how five students responded to four document-based questions over a year, tracing how organization, document use, and citation language indicate the degree to which writers transformed and integrated information in disciplinary ways. Students moved from knowledge telling (listing period and document content as discrete information bits) to knowledge transformation (integrating content as interpreted evidence for an argument). Students had difficulty learning to handle the complex layers of the task. The authors discuss how instruction might mediate this complexity and promote academic literacy.