Search results

We describe the development and various implementations of a reading comprehension instruction program called Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI). CORI was designed to enhance students’ reading motivation and reading comprehension, and has been implemented at both elementary and middle school, with a particular focus on science information text reading.

We overview Guthrie and Wigfield’s (2000) reading engagement model, which provides CORI’s theoretical framework. Then we present the major implementation of CORI at elementary school and middle school.

CORI teachers in elementary school focused on five teaching practices to foster motivation: (1) providing thematic content goals; (2) optimizing choice; (3) hands-on activities connected to reading; (4) providing interesting texts; and (5) fostering collaboration. Teachers also taught six reading strategies recommended by the National Reading Panel. Results of several studies showed that CORI students had higher reading motivation and better reading comprehension than students receiving only strategy instruction or traditional reading instruction. We next describe three implementations of CORI at middle school. The motivational instructional practices at this level included (1) thematic contact goals; (2) emphasizing the importance of reading; (3) showing how reading is relevant to student lives; (4) fostering collaboration; (5) optimizing choice; and (6) enabling success. Results of several studies again documented CORI’s success at boosting students’ motivation and comprehension.

The studies carried out show the success of CORI and the paper closes with suggestions about the next steps for the program.

In response to the urgent national need to implement evidence-based literacy supports for adolescent struggling readers (ASRs), this chapter provides a framework for addressing reading comprehension instruction. Schools face significant challenges in the education of ASRs including how to address the achievement gap that emerges between proficient readers and a variety of poor reader subgroups predicted by the Simple View of Reading. The authors present current research in the components of reading comprehension (e.g., text structures, vocabulary, prior knowledge, cognitive strategies, and motivation) and explicit pedagogical practices associated with improving outcomes for ASRs, including a school-wide framework called the Content Literacy Continuum. Two specific interventions with supporting research are presented as model practices to improve outcomes for ASRs.

Reading comprehension is a critical area of instruction for all students, but particularly for students with learning disabilities (LD) that impede their ability to understand what they read. This synthesis includes 30 intervention studies on reading comprehension for students with LD conducted in several countries and all regions of the United States. Specifically, the current review focuses on the efficacy of these strategies across grade levels, with various types of reading materials, and in conjunction with other instructional components that have potential to enhance instructional benefits to students. Results suggest that reading comprehension instruction is effective for improving the skills of this population.

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to introduce the conceptual and historical genesis of the gradual release of responsibility (GRR) model (Pearson & Gallagher, 1983) which has become one of the most commonly used instructional frameworks for research and professional development in the field of reading and literacy.

Design/Methodology/Approach – This chapter uses a narrative, historical approach to describe the emergence of the model in the work taking place in the late 1970s and early 1980s in reading research and educational theory, particularly at the Center for the Study of Reading at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana as carried out by David Pearson, Meg Gallagher, and their colleagues.

Findings – The GRR Model began, in part, in response to the startling findings of Dolores Durkin’s (1978/1979) study of reading comprehension instruction in classrooms which found that little instruction was occurring even while students were completing numerous assignments and question-response activities. Pearson and Gallagher were among those researchers who took seriously the task of developing an instructional model and approach for comprehension strategy instruction that included explicit instruction. They recognized a need for teachers to be responsible for leading and scaffolding instruction, even as they supported learners in moving toward independent application of strategies and independence in reading. Based in the current research in the reading field and the rediscovery of the work of Vygotsky (1978) and the descriptions of scaffolding as coined by Wood, Bruner, and Ross (1976), Pearson and Gallagher developed the model of gradual release. Over time, the model has been adapted by many literacy scholars, applied to curriculum planning, used with teachers for professional development, reprinted numerous times, and with the advent of the Internet, proliferated even further as teachers and educators share their own versions of the model. This chapter introduces readers to the original model and multiple additional representations/iterations of the model that emerged over the past few decades. This chapter also attends to important nuances in the model and to some misconceptions of the instructional model.

Research Limitations/Implications – Despite the popularity of the original GRR model developed by Pearson and Gallagher and the many adaptations of the model by many collaborators and colleagues in literacy – and even beyond – there have been very few publications that have explored the historical and conceptual origins of the model and its staying power.

Practical Implications – This chapter will speak to researchers, teachers, and other educators who use the GRR model to help guide thinking about instruction in reading, writing, and other content areas with children, youth, pre-service teachers, and in-service teachers. This chapter provides a thoughtful discussion of multiple representations of the gradual release process and the nuances of the model in ways that will help to dispel misuse of the model while recognizing its long-standing and sound foundation on established socio-cognitive principles and instructional theories such as those espoused by Jerome Bruner, Lev Vygotsky, Anne Brown, and others.

Originality/Value of Paper – This chapter makes an original contribution to the field in explaining the historical development and theoretical origins of the GRR model by Pearson and Gallagher (1983) and in presenting multiple iterations of the model developed by Pearson and his colleagues in the field.

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to share empirical research with educators and researchers to show how the gradual release of responsibility (GRR) model can support bilingual teachers’ implementation of dialogic reading comprehension instruction in student-led small groups and linguistically responsive literacy instruction with emergent bilingual students (Spanish–English) in grades one through four.

Design/Methodology/Approach – The authors provide brief literature reviews on the literacy instruction that bilingual students in low-resourced schools typically receive, on dialogic reading comprehension instruction, and on linguistically responsive literacy instruction. Then, the authors show how teacher educators utilized the GRR framework and process to support bilingual teachers’ movement from whole-class, teacher-directed instruction to dialogic reading comprehension instruction in student-led small groups. Next, the authors illustrate how a third-grade dual-language teacher employed the GRR to teach her students how to use Spanish–English cognates. Lastly, the authors share three vignettes from a first-grade bilingual teacher’s use of the GRR to facilitate her students’ comprehension of teacher read-alouds of narrative and informational texts and English writing.

Findings – When the teacher educators employed the GRR model in combination with socio-constructivist professional staff development, the teachers revealed their concerns about small-group instruction. The teacher educators adjusted their instruction and support to address the teachers’ concerns, helping them to implement small-group instruction. The third-grade bilingual teacher employed the GRR to teach her students how to use a translanguaging strategy, cognates, when writing, spelling, and reading. The first-grade bilingual teacher’s use of the GRR during teacher read-alouds in Spanish and English provided space for her and her students’ translanguaging, and facilitated the students’ comprehension of narrative and informational texts and completion of an English writing assignment.

Research Limitations/Implications – The findings were brief vignettes of effective instruction in bilingual settings that employed the GRR model. Although the authors discussed the limitations of scripted instruction, they did not test it. Additional research needs to investigate how other teacher educators and teachers use the GRR model to develop and implement instructional innovations that tap into the unique language practices of bilingual students.

Practical Implications – The empirical examples should help other teacher educators and bilingual teachers to implement the GRR model to support the improved literacy instruction of bilingual students in grades one through four. The chapter defines linguistically responsive instruction, and shows how translanguaging can be used by bilingual teachers and students to improve the students’ literacy performance.

Originality/Value of Chapter – This chapter provides significant research-based examples of the use of the GRR model with bilingual teachers and students at the elementary level. It shows how employment of the model can provide bilingual teachers and students with the support needed to implement instructional literacy innovations and linguistically responsive instruction.

This paper reports on a quasi-experimental research performed in the field of reading comprehension and translation quality. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the comparative effect of explicit vs implicit reading comprehension skills on translation quality of Iranian translation students at BA level.

The design of this research was quasi-experimental in nature. This design was preferred in this study, as it was impossible to assign random sampling to the subjects and apply a true experimental design. The research in hand was also a comparative group design research in a sense that it was supposed to compare two reading comprehension methods (explicit vs implicit) with different treatments.

In light of this research, some conclusions can be drawn. It can be concluded that there is a positive and direct relationship between reading comprehension and translation, as the first step of translation is to understand the content of the source text (Reid, 1993).

The reading comprehension ability of translation students should be enhanced in their undergraduate classes so that they can better understand the source text and produce a more fluent translation. In order to teach reading comprehension skills, both implicit and explicit techniques can be applied; however, it is better if the subjects receive explicit instruction, as this technique may have more positive results.

Various researchers have explored explicit and implicit instructions on such areas as reading, speaking and listening (see, e.g. Jalilifar and Alipour, 2007; Vahid Dastjerdi and Shirzad, 2010; Negahi and Nouri, 2014; Khanbeiki and Abdolmanafi-Rokni, 2015; Khoii et al., 2015; Mostafavi and Vahdany 2016; Rahimi and Riasati, 2017). Although the results of these studies have shown the positive impacts of both explicit and implicit teaching, explicit has more positive impacts. However, the review of the literature shows that explicit and implicit reading comprehension skills have not been investigated in relation to teaching translation and their possible impacts on translation quality.

Reading comprehension levels of elementary students have not significantly improved in the twenty-first century, and, as a result, the need for systematic and intensive reading interventions is as high as ever. Literacy clinics are an ideal setting for struggling readers to experience success through the implementation of a cyclical approach to individual assessment, planning, instruction and evaluation. Yet, additional research is needed to create current and relevant models of literacy clinics for today’s diverse learners. This paper aimed to measure the effects of an experimental approach to reading comprehension instruction for third graders within an off-campus literacy clinic; the intervention involved a scope and sequence of comprehension strategies in which students had to demonstrate skill mastery before progressing to the next skill.

This investigation used a classic controlled experiment design by randomly assigning half of the literacy clinic participants (30) to either a control or experimental group. The previous year-end’s Criterion-Referenced Competency Test (CRCT) scores of the participants were used as indicators (or base lines) of each participant’s preexisting level of reading achievement.

There was a statistically higher achievement rate in the experimental group as measured by the CRCT statewide assessment with a Cohen’s effect size value (d = 0.79) suggested a moderate to high practical significance.

This study’s findings are relevant to those involved in literacy remediation, including literacy clinic directors, preservice educators and curriculum directors.

This paper is one of a kind in that it is the first to trial a scope and sequence of evidence-based comprehension strategies for comprehension improvement in primary school students. The findings call for major changes to thinking about how we improve students’ reading skills by focusing on depth rather than breadth.

Purpose – To provide educators an overview of instructional practices in reading that are associated with improved learning outcomes with students K-8 who have a mild-to-moderate learning disability.Design/methodology/approach – The chapter provides a conceptual framework to view the process of reading, discusses foundational reading skills necessary to master word reading, presents two approaches to teaching comprehension, and highlights ways to effectively teach vocabulary.Findings – The content of this chapter presents empirical evidence as well as specific examples for clinical practice.Research limitations/implications – This chapter highlights key practices that have been extensively researched and found to be associated with improved learning outcomes for all students, including those with learning disabilities (LD).Practical implications – The chapter offers a wealth of information to help educators more effectively provide reading instruction for struggling readers K-8.Originality/value of chapter – The information compiled in this chapter will help teachers impact learning and reading outcomes for all of their students, particularly those who have a mild-to-moderate LD.

Purpose – To provide educators with an overview of both generalized and specific comprehension strategies applicable to the content areas.Design/methodology/approach – The chapter is organized by (a) providing a rationale for incorporating reading strategy instruction, especially at the adolescent grade range and above; (b) discussing reading strategies that are appropriate for all content areas; and (c) describing reading strategies that can be used in specific content area subjects.Findings – Research-based strategies for scaffolding comprehension in content area subjects are presented in varying levels of detail.Research limitations/implications – The strategies discussed in this chapter do not constitute an exhaustive list of strategies or approaches to content area literacy instruction.Practical implications – This is a valuable resource for educators to obtain practical guidance in providing content area reading instruction for a wide range of student ages and abilities.Originality/value of chapter – This chapter provides significant research-based information for designing and implementing content area strategy instruction.

There has been much discussion in the literature in recent years on the problems involved in the identification of children with reading disabilities. One of the most influential sources of knowledge in the field of learning disabilities is the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). This agency has typically been a major funding source for methodologically rigorous reading intervention research. Further, such research has contributed significantly to the validity of identifying children suspected of learning disabilities as “treatment resistors” (e.g. Vellutino et al., 1996). Yet, the NICHD has recently been the focus of some controversy. The purpose of this chapter was to synthesize NICHD funded research conducted over the past 10 years via a meta-analysis to determine what can be generalized from this body of research that can be applied to the identification of students with learning disabilities in reading. The results of the synthesis were that a prototypical intervention study has a mean effect size (ES) of 0.67 (SD=0.42), indicating that most interventions designed to increase reading skills were effective. The overall ES ranged, however, from 0.19 to 1.76, and therefore some criterion could be established for identifying treatment resistors. Performance below an overall ES of 0.25 was suggested as one of several criteria for identifying children with potential reading disabilities. However, this suggestion must be put in the context of intervention outcomes. The synthesis indicated that: (a) performance was more pronounced on skill or process measures (e.g. ES varies from 0.45 to 1.28 on measures of segmentation and pseudoword reading) than on measures of actual reading (ES varies from 0.17 to 0.60 on real word and comprehension measures); (b) the magnitude of effect sizes were more related to instructional activity (e.g. explicit instruction/practice) than to the content of instruction (e.g. type of phonics instruction); and (c) the bulk of intervention studies focused on a narrow range of reading behaviors (i.e. phonological awareness). Implications related to identification and sound teaching practice versus content training of reading instruction (e.g. phonological skills, comprehension skills) are discussed.