The Gradual Release of Responsibility in Literacy Research and Practice

ISBN: 978-1-78769-448-4, eISBN: 978-1-78769-447-7

ISSN: 2048-0458

Publication date: 26 August 2019

Citation

(2019), "", McVee, M.B., Ortlieb, E., Reichenberg, J.S. and Pearson, P.D. (Ed.) The Gradual Release of Responsibility in Literacy Research and Practice (Literacy Research, Practice and Evaluation, Vol. 10), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. i-x. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2048-045820190000010018

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2019 Emerald Publishing Limited


Half Title Page

The Gradual Release of Responsibility in Literacy Research and Practice

Title Page

Literacy Research, Practice and Evaluation

Series Editors: Evan Ortlieb and Earl H. Cheek, Jr.

Previous Volumes:

Volume 1: Using Informative Assessments Towards Effective Literacy Instruction
Volume 2: Advanced Literary Practices: From the Clinic to the Classroom
Volume 3: School-based Interventions for Struggling Readers, K-8
Volume 4: Theoretical Models of Learning and Literacy Development
Volume 5: Video Reflection in Literacy Teacher Education and Development:
Lessons from Research and Practice
Volume 6: Video Research in Disciplinary Literacies
Volume 7: Writing Instruction to Support Literacy Success
Volume 8: Addressing Diversity in Literacy Instruction
Volume 9: Best Practices in Teaching Digital Literacies

Literacy Research, Practice and Evaluation Volume 10

The Gradual Release of Responsibility in Literacy Research and Practice

EDITED BY

Mary B. McVee

University at Buffalo, State University of New York (SUNY), USA

Evan Ortlieb

St. John’s University, USA

Jennifer Sharples Reichenberg

Medaille College, USA

P. David Pearson

University of California Berkeley, USA

Copyright Page

Emerald Publishing Limited

Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK

First edition 2019

Copyright © 2019 Emerald Publishing Limited

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No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying issued in the UK by The Copyright Licensing Agency and in the USA by The Copyright Clearance Center. Any opinions expressed in the chapters are those of the authors. Whilst Emerald makes every effort to ensure the quality and accuracy of its content, Emerald makes no representation implied or otherwise, as to the chapters’ suitability and application and disclaims any warranties, express or implied, to their use.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-78769-448-4 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-78769-445-3 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-78769-447-7 (Epub)

Contents

List of Contributors vii
Foreword ix
Chapter 1 In the Beginning: The Historical and Conceptual Genesis of the Gradual Release of Responsibility
P. David Pearson, Mary B. McVee and Lynn E. Shanahan 1
Chapter 2 We Must Know What They Know (And So Must They) for Children to Sustain Learning and Independence
Janet S. Gaffney and Rebecca Jesson 23
Chapter 3 Releasing Responsibility for What? Developing Learning Environments for Text-based Inquiry in the Disciplines in Secondary Schools
Cynthia Greenleaf and Mira-Lisa Katz 37
Chapter 4 The Ebb and Flow of Scaffolding: Thinking Flexibly about the Gradual Release of Responsibility during Explicit Strategy Instruction
Lynn E. Shanahan, Andrea L. Tochelli-Ward and Tyler W. Rinker 53
Chapter 5 Sustainable School Improvement: The Gradual Release of Responsibility in School Change
Kathryn H. Au and Taffy E. Raphael 67
Chapter 6 Leading Learning through a Gradual Release of Responsibility Instructional Framework
Kimberly Elliot, Nancy Frey and Douglas Fisher 91
Chapter 7 Gradually Releasing Responsibility in Justice-centered Teaching: Educators Reflecting on a Social Justice Literacy Workshop on Police Brutality
Tiffany M. Nyachae, Mary B. McVee and Fenice B. Boyd 103
Chapter 8 Gradual Release in the Early Literacy Classroom: Taking Languaging into Account with Emergent Bilingual Students
Joseph C. Rumenapp and P. Zitlali Morales 119
Chapter 9 Employing the Gradual Release of Responsibility Framework to Improve the Literacy Instruction of Emergent Bilingual Students in the Elementary Grades
Georgia Earnest García and Christina Passos DeNicolo 137
Chapter 10 Scaffolding Development of Self-regulated and Strategic Literacy Skills in Deaf or Hard-of-Hearing Students: A Review of the Literature through the Lens of the Gradual Release of Responsibility Model
Maryam Salehomoum 153
Chapter 11 Literacy Coaching for Agentive and Sustainable Teacher Reflection: Joint Action within a Gradual Release of Responsibility as Apprenticeship
Jennifer Sharples Reichenberg 169
Chapter 12 “See, You Can Make Connections with the Things You Learned Before!” Using the GRR to Scaffold Language and Concept Learning in Science
H. Emily Hayden 189
Chapter 13 Passing the Pen: A Gradual Release Model of the Recursive Writing Process
Evan Ortlieb and Susan Schatz 205
Chapter 14 Think Aloud, Think Along, Think Alone: Gradually Releasing Students to Use Comprehension Strategies in Elementary Classrooms
Molly K. Ness 217
Chapter 15 Sustaining Culture, Expanding Literacies: Culturally Relevant Literacy Pedagogy and Gradual Release of Responsibility
Jennifer D. Turner and Chrystine Mitchell 229
Chapter 16 Epilogue: Reflections on the Gradual Release of Responsibility Model: Where We’ve Been and Where We’re Going
Janice A. Dole, Gerald G. Duffy and P. David Pearson 245
Index 265

List of Contributors

Kathryn H. Au SchoolRISE, LLC, USA
Fenice B. Boyd University of South Carolina, USA
Christina Passos DeNicolo Wayne State University, USA
Janice A. Dole University of Utah, USA
Gerald G. Duffy Michigan State University, USA
Kimberly Elliot Health Sciences High and Middle College, USA
Douglas Fisher San Diego State University, USA
Nancy Frey San Diego State University, USA
Janet S. Gaffney University of Auckland, New Zealand
Georgia Earnest García University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign, USA
Cynthia Greenleaf WestEd, USA
H. Emily Hayden Iowa State University, USA
Rebecca Jesson University of Auckland, New Zealand
Mira-Lisa Katz WestEd, USA
Mary B. McVee University at Buffalo, State University of New York (SUNY), USA
Chrystine Mitchell Pennsylvania State University, USA
P. Zitlali Morales University of Illinois at Chicago, USA
Molly K. Ness Fordham University, USA
Tiffany M. Nyachae Buffalo State College, USA
Evan Ortlieb St. John’s University, USA
P. David Pearson University of California, USA
Taffy E. Raphael SchoolRISE, LLC, USA
Tyler W. Rinker University at Buffalo, State University of New York (SUNY), USA
Jennifer Sharples Reichenberg Medaille College, USA
Joseph C. Rumenapp Judson University, USA
Maryam Salehomoum Emerson College, Boston, USA
Susan Schatz St. John’s University, USA
Lynn E. Shanahan University at Buffalo, State University of New York (SUNY), USA
Andrea L. Tochelli-Ward Le Moyne College, USA
Jennifer D. Turner University of Maryland, USA

Foreword

In 1983, P. David Pearson and Margaret Gallagher published The Instruction of Reading Comprehension Technical Report No. 297 through the Center for the Study of Reading at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. This report formed the basis for the article by the same title published in the journal of Contemporary Educational Psychology the same year. Neither David or Meg (as they were known by colleagues) could have predicted how the gradual release of responsibility model of instruction would have such staying power over the coming decades. Given its ongoing relevancy, it is surprising that, until now, no volume has been devoted exclusively to the gradual release model, its history, and its future. This edited volume addresses this oversight and, for the first time, brings a specific examination and exploration of the gradual release of responsibility as a model applied to research and practice across a multitude of areas related to literacy instruction.

Now, many decades after publication, the model continues to appeal to researchers, teachers, teacher educators, curriculum specialists, and literacy specialists alike. It has been used, as originally intended, to consider the scaffolding necessary as children and teachers engage in reading comprehension tasks, but use of the model has spread to other developmental age groups and levels of instruction and to other content areas. From the genesis of the model to the present, the gradual release framework has been employed to explain numerous literacy practices from reading and writing with young children to reading and writing with adolescents. But the model has also been applied to the work of teachers who, as adult learners, are exploring how to teach reading, writing, and other content areas. Numerous curriculum specialists, literacy coaches, and school districts have adopted the model to help explain their instructional philosophy and approach to literacy instruction, and teacher education programs have employed the model as a general instructional framework for reflection or in ways as specific as a guide for lesson planning.

A brief Internet image search for the gradual release of responsibility returns numerous visual iterations of the models ranging from published models to handmade teacher posters to commercial style graphic posters. There are even cartoon versions of the gradual release (two of which we share in Chap. 1). Clearly, the model depicting how teachers help aid in explicit instruction by gradually releasing responsibility over time resonates deeply with literacy practitioners and scholars alike. The chapters in this volume articulate the history, multiple iterations, applications, and staying power of the model and its conceptual origins across varied content and contexts.

The first chapter authored by P. David Pearson (with a little help from colleagues McVee and Shanahan) begins with a retrospective on the genesis of the model and the context of reading research that prompted Pearson and Gallagher to attempt to map out a model of instruction that included both explicit strategy instruction alongside the idea of fading that explicitness or scaffolding over time. Contextualizing the model historically and conceptually, Pearson et al. present multiple iterations of the model as it has been presented by various scholars and teachers and also describe some essential elements of the gradual release. The 14 chapters that follow revisit the gradual release framework applying it to considerations of explicit teaching and scaffolding for emerging readers and adolescents, bilingual learners, and students who are deaf and hard of hearing. Authors consider the socially and culturally diverse context within which the gradual release of responsibility model can be used and its applications for adults, namely teachers, literacy coaches, and school leaders. Across the chapters, the authors explore not only reading but literacy as a social practice – and socially just practice – and literacy as inclusive of writing and vocabulary development, two areas where the model has been applied less often. In addition to reading, writing, and comprehension, research chapters in the volume explore how the model can be applied to understand school change, teacher reflection and coaching, and disciplinary literacies. The volume closes with a look back by Dole, Duffy, and Pearson who consider the historical evolution of instructional research on reading and how the model has evolved as reading/literacy research itself has changed. This final chapter also considers some common misuses or misinterpretations of the model and what can be done to avoid them. In sum, this text has something to offer those who first became aware of the model decades ago and those who are discovering it for the first time – a feat that speaks to the longevity and flexibility of this particular model.

Prelims
Chapter 1: In the Beginning: The Historical and Conceptual Genesis of the Gradual Release of Responsibility
Chapter 2: We Must Know What They Know (And So Must They) For Children to Sustain Learning and Independence
Chapter 3: Releasing Responsibility for What? Developing Learning Environments for Text-Based Inquiry in the Disciplines in Secondary Schools
Chapter 4: The Ebb And Flow of Scaffolding: Thinking Flexibly About the Gradual Release of Responsibility During Explicit Strategy Instruction
Chapter 5: Sustainable School Improvement: The Gradual Release of Responsibility in School Change
Chapter 6: Leading Learning Through a Gradual Release of Responsibility Instructional Framework
Chapter 7: Gradually Releasing Responsibility in Justice-Centered Teaching: Educators Reflecting on a Social Justice Literacy Workshop on Police Brutality
Chapter 8: Gradual Release in the Early Literacy Classroom: Taking Languaging into Account with Emergent Bilingual Students
Chapter 9: Employing the Gradual Release of Responsibility Framework to Improve the Literacy Instruction of Emergent Bilingual Students in the Elementary Grades
Chapter 10: Scaffolding Development of Self-Regulated and Strategic Literacy Skills in Deaf or Hard-of-Hearing Students: A Review of the Literature Through the Lens of the Gradual Release of Responsibility Model
Chapter 11: Literacy Coaching for Agentive and Sustainable Teacher Reflection: Joint Action within a Gradual Release of Responsibility as Apprenticeship
Chapter 12: “See, You Can Make Connections with the Things You Learned Before!” Using the GRR to Scaffold Language and Concept Learning in Science
Chapter 13: Passing the Pen: A Gradual Release Model of the Recursive Writing Process
Chapter 14: Think Aloud, Think Along, Think Alone: Gradually Releasing Students to Use Comprehension Strategies in Elementary Classrooms
Chapter 15: Sustaining Culture, Expanding Literacies: Culturally Relevant Literacy Pedagogy and Gradual Release of Responsibility
Chapter 16: Epilogue: Reflections on the Gradual Release of Responsibility Model: Where We’ve Been and Where We’re Going
Index