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.

The aim of this study was to shed some light on the extent to which digital literacy, epistemological belief and reading motivation and engagement predict pre-service teachers’ capabilities in teaching 21st century skills.

21st Century Skills Teaching Scale, Internet based Epistemological Beliefs Scale, Internet based Reading Motivation and Engagement Scale as well as Digital Literacy Scale were used to collect the data. A total of 512 pre-service teachers from four universities in Türkiye participated in the study. Descriptive statistics, correlation and structural equation model fitness tests were performed by using SPSS 24.0 and AMOS 22.0.

First, the results of the correlations analysis indicated that there were statistically significant positive correlations among measured variables. Second, the results of the path and SEM model fit tests demonstrated that all the model fit indices of X2/df, TLI, CFI, RMSEA met the acceptable criteria and were shown to be an adequate model structure. Finally, the results demonstrated strong evidence for predicting effects of digital literacy, epistemological belief as well as reading motivation and engagement on teaching 21st century skills.

This study is limited by the fact that the evidence relies solely on pre-service teachers' self-reporting. Secondly, although the hypothesised model explained 45.2% variance of pre-service teachers’ competence in the 21st century skills, 54.8% of it remains unexplained.

The results of this study suggest important implications for teaching programs as they underscore the importance of digital literacy on epistemological beliefs, reading motivation and competence in teaching 21st century skills.

Purpose – To describe four instructional components teachers can use to help create more inclusive spaces for struggling readers: (a) language use, (b) repositioning struggling readers as primary knowers, (c) making struggling normal, and (d) creating reading partnerships.Design/methodology/approach – The chapter describes research findings from studies of middle grades students in English language arts, and theorizes work with struggling readers on the basis of identity theories, research about identifying and utilizing students’ own funds of knowledge, and research about the conditions for building reading self-efficacy, motivation, and engagement.Findings – Provides detailed descriptions of how teachers’ language use, reading partnerships, making struggling a normal part of reading processes, and helping struggling readers become full participants in classroom life, including models, examples, and interview data with middle grades struggling readers.Research limitations/implications – Adjusting teachers’ language use in discussions of how to read, using students’ knowledge of reading and other topics from outside of school, enabling collaboration through peer reading partnerships, and positioning all students to understand that struggling with reading is normal and not necessarily a sign of low ability.Practical implications – This is a valuable source for classroom teachers who are seeking successful strategies for engaging and supporting struggling readers while also creating a positive classroom environment for reading instruction in general.Originality/value of chapter – The environment a reading teacher creates, including the language that teacher uses, can have a powerful and positive impact on struggling readers’ classroom identities, self-efficacy, motivation, and ability to engage successfully with reading processes in school.

Purpose: To describe how an approach to instruction that intentionally considers elements of motivation and engagement, intensity of instruction, and cognitive challenge can accelerate the reading achievement of lower-performing readers by giving them access to and support to meet reading and knowledge building with success.

Design: The authors discuss a set of high-leverage practices squarely under the teacher’s control. Grounded in longstanding and rigorous research, the integrated set of practices have been shown time and time again to accelerate achievement beyond typical growth while also intentionally considering the experiences, cultures, and linguistic knowledge students bring to the classroom. The re-conceptualized approach forefronts student agency and engages students in meaningful interactions with text to build knowledge of the world they live in.

Findings: The authors illustrate the comprehensive approach through a composite vignette drawn from work with teachers and students in school and clinical contexts. The focus of the vignette is on the actions of the classroom teacher who is working to meet the needs of three struggling readers within the broader context of her 5th-grade classroom, while also establishing a coherent instructional approach with fellow teachers.

Practical Implications: By re-conceptualizing their approaches to working with struggling readers, teachers increase the likelihood that students will not only develop component skills related to reading but also integrate these components and develop the conceptual expertise that anchors future reading and learning.

Using multimedia and print storybooks, the purpose of this paper is to compare preschool children’s reading engagement with and without adult support.

A within-subject design is used to explore the effects of multimedia stories in supporting preschool children’s story comprehension and reading enjoyment. A total of 24 children aged five to six years old from a local preschool in Taiwan participated in the experiments.

A statistical analysis revealed the (non)differences in story comprehension between multimedia and print storybooks, with and without adult support. A content analysis revealed several important themes affecting children’s reading enjoyment. These included multimedia elements (particularly motion and sound effects), haptic perception and the pause function.

Native Chinese speaking children participated in one-to-one sessions in Taiwan. To ascertain the generalizability of the findings presented in this study, further research is encouraged in other cultural contexts and settings.

The paper provides insights into how multimedia and interactive features affect and enhance children’s enjoyment. Recommendations are made to assist library professionals to incorporate digital media into children’s programs.

Children’s reading motivation and engagement are often linked with improved reading attainments. This study elicited a range of perspectives and themes relating to what the children themselves felt influenced their enjoyment when reading print or multimedia storybooks. Findings were analyzed in a theoretical framework of facets of engagement.

Purpose – This chapter provides the reader with an overview of the process involved in creating a Literacy Center to help students to rise above challenges and flourish academically. It focuses on instructional planning that brings the curriculum to life for P-12 students and emphasizes their strengths and interests.

Methodology/Approach – The authors describe the process of creating a Literacy Center that focuses on students’ strengths and enhances student achievement. They communicate the factors involved in (1) initiating the planning process, (2) designing a policy manual, (3) creating instructional frameworks, and (4) enhancing literacy development through support from home.

Practical implications – This chapter includes a detailed overview of the creation of a Literacy Center, a process that could be replicated by the educators who read the chapter. This description provides educators with insights that could facilitate the planning process and provide ideas for lesson planning and curriculum development in a Literacy Center.

Social implications – The chapter suggests how faculty could work together to create a Literacy Center to enhance student achievement in the community. This could potentially help P-12 students in many locations to acquire the skills and strategies they need in order to turn challenges into strengths. This will help Literacy Centers to provide effective, research-based literacy instruction and promote outstanding literacy leadership in our schools.

The purpose of this paper is to define engagement and propose the utility of the concept in developing sustainable libraries.

The paper compares traditional “motivation” practices with methods of engagement for relevance in organizations where knowledge work is dominant or important.

The paper finds evidence that “motivation,” relying on rewards, is not productive in such organizations.

It is argued that traditional “motivation” practices are not productive with knowledge workers and that engagement ideas have the potential of attracting greater staff commitment.

The proposal is for directors and managers that engagement methods have the potential of attracting greater staff commitment to the organization and its work.

This research explored how COVID-19 affects Shenzhen high school students' reading behavior and preference and their parents' attitudes toward reading during the lockdown.

This research adopted a qualitative approach to conduct one-on-one semi-structured interviews with parents of a boarding high school in Shenzhen, China. Thirteen parents were recruited through a purposeful sampling method, and NVivo12 software was used to analyze the results with a theme-based approach guided by the 5E instructional model.

The results revealed the effectiveness and problems of high school students' use of electronic resources and discovered changes in the reading behavior of high school students and their parents' attitudes during COVID-19.

There are few studies specifically on the reading behavior of boarding students from a parental view, especially in Asia. This research can fill the gaps in related research during COVID-19.

The purpose of this paper is to present a conceptualization of reading comprehension that extends beyond the traditional cognitive viewpoint on comprehension common in the field.

Drawing on literature and theory from various perspectives (cognitive, sociocultural and critical), the authors propose a conceptual heuristic that can inform future scholarship.

Using four foundational principles of reader–text interactions as a starting point (non-neutrality, tethered polysemy, variable agency and unruliness), the authors describe reader–text interactions in terms of the tethers/resources that are brought into the interaction, the moment-to-moment improvisation that occurs when readers meet a text and the changes at the intra- and interpersonal levels that result from and influence future reader–text interactions.

The conceptualization can inform future research and practice in literacy by situating meaning making within a broader understanding of the processes and consequences of textual interaction.

While higher education has been encouraging interdisciplinary research, few studies have been conducted to understand how interdisciplinarity shapes the identity construction of scholars, especially doctoral students who may already strive to socialize into academia.

Therefore, this study adopts the approach of autoethnography to analyze my lived experience of developing disciplinary literacy and constructing interdisciplinary identity as a Chinese international doctoral student at a North American university. Communication theory of identity (CTI) is the theoretical framework through which I understand the negotiation among my personal, enacted, relational and communal identities while communicating my research through diverse literacy practices.

This autoethnography reveals that interdisciplinary doctoral students can flexibly use discursive resources from different disciplines and literacy practices in both English and their first language to dynamically create interdisciplinary identities communicable to different discourse communities. Their identities in different disciplines can develop simultaneously, rather than suppressing one for the development of the other as they do interdisciplinary research.

This study first extends current scholarly discussion of disciplinary literacy to a less-investigated setting, i.e. doctoral education in higher education. Second, it adds an additive and current layer of interdisciplinarity to the existing understanding of international doctoral students’ identity construction. Third, it helps to understand how the development of disciplinary literacy can facilitate disciplinary identity construction and how disciplinary identity construction can facilitate the development of disciplinary literacy.