Reading In Contested Terrain

The Reading Teacher, 2015

The National Reading Panel (NRP) identified five pillars, or essential components, of reading instruction that lead to the highest chance of reading success—phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. A decade after the NRP’s report, the majority of US states adopted the Common Core State Standards/English Language Arts & Literacy (CCSS/ELA). One of the most significant changes of the CCSS/ELA is a focus on knowledge development as part of literacy development and focus on the acquisition of literacy skills specific to different disciplines. In highlighting these connections between ELA and knowledge as part of literacy, the CCSS/ELA provide an opportunity for teachers to emphasize what research has validated for decades: that knowledge is a critical component of the reading process. In this column, we describe why knowledge development should be viewed as the sixth pillar of reading instruction and how teachers can increase their students’ knowledge building through reading.

Language Arts, 2015

Much attention has been paid to the call in the Common Core State Standards (CCSS; National Governors Association (NGA) Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), 2010) for more reading and writing of informational text in the elementary grades. Indeed, in the context of the CCSS, informational text is on even footing with literature—perhaps for the first time ever. It would be possible to respond to the call for more attention to informational texts by simply changing the balance of different text types used for instructional purposes. In this article, we discuss why this approach would miss of the intent of the CCSS and why we should focus attention on using the opportunity of reading more informational text to build students’ disciplinary and world knowledge. We suggest that the critical message of the CCSS is the need to support students in developing knowledge for and through reading. To understand how knowledge should and can be foregrounded in ELA instruction, we develop three points: • The increased attention to nonfiction texts in the Common Core stems from the emphasis on knowledge. • Knowledge and comprehension are synergistically connected to one another. • ELA instruction needs to be multifaceted to ensure that existing knowledge is activated and new knowledge (and ways of gaining new knowledge) is built.

Oxford Handbooks Online, 2015

This chapter focuses on the body of disciplinary and pedagogical knowledge required to provide high-quality beginning reading instruction to young children. The chapter examines quality literacy instruction from a historical perspective, reviews what science tells us about the successful teaching of reading, explores why teachers are not consistently teaching beginning reading in ways that are aligned with best practices, and provides recommendations for how the field can support teachers in developing the knowledge needed to improve student reading outcomes. The goal is to provide research-based suggestions for strengthening both the content and delivery of teacher professional development in the area of literacy, and to demonstrate that these suggestions have the power to affect child outcomes.

Reading and Writing, 2009

We report the results of a study with 30 teachers designed to examine the effects of teacher knowledge on the achievement of struggling readers. We worked with teachers of grades three, four, and five during a 10-day intervention focused on literacy instruction and related linguistic knowledge, and we assessed their students' learning across the year. Hierarchical models of student outcomes indicated that lower-performing students in intervention classrooms showed significantly higher levels of performance at year end on all literacy measures, compared with their peers in control classrooms (n = 140). In addition, teacher's linguistic knowledge was related to improved student performance, regardless of condition. Additional analyses including all students (n = 718) indicated that benefits for the lower performing students in intervention classrooms were shared by their classmates, but to a more limited extent. Keywords Reading instruction Á Teacher knowledge Á Phonological awareness Á Linguistic knowledge Specifying the disciplinary knowledge needed to teach reading in the elementary school is difficult not only because instruction changes across the elementary grades, but also because reading instruction is typically embedded within the language arts, an often amorphous mixture of reading, writing, and literature instruction that includes a variety of epistemological perspectives on what it means to become literate (Grossman,

Journal of Literacy Research, 2002

Reading Research Quarterly, 2007

1991

and other agencies and foundations. IRT scholars have conducted major research projects aimed at improving classroom teaching, including studies of classroom management strategies, student socialization, the diagnosis and remediation of reading difficulties, and school policies. 1RT researchers have also been examining the teaching of specific school subjects such as reading, writing, general mathematics, and science and are seeking to understand how factors inside as well as outside the classroom affect teachers. In addition to curriculum and instructional specialists in school subjects, researchers from such diverse disciplines as educational psychology, anthropology, sociology, history, economics, and philosophy cooperate in conducting IRT research. By focusing on how teachers respond to enduring problems of practice and by collaborating with practitioners, IRT researchers strive to produce new understandings to improve teaching and teacher education. Currently, IRT researchers are engaged in a number of programmatic efforts in research on teaching that build on past work and extend the study of teaching in new directions such as the teaching of subject matter disciplines in elementary school, teaching in developing countries, and teaching special populations. New modes of teacher collaboration with schools and teachers' organizations are also being explored. The Center for the Learning and Teaching of Elementary Subjects, funded by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational Research and Improvement from 1987-92, is one of the IRT's major endeavors and emphasizes the teaching of elementary mathematics, science. social studies, literature, and the arts for understanding, appreciation, and use. The focus is on what content should be taught, how teachers concentrate their teaching to use their limimd resources in the best way, and in what ways good teaching is subject-matter specific. The IRT publishes research reports, occasional papers, conference proceedings, the Elementary Subjects Center Series, a newsletter for practitioners (1RJ Communication Q. rterlv), and lists and catalogs of 1RT publications. For more information, to receive a list or catalog, and/or to be placed on the 1RT mailing list to receive the newsletter, please write to the Editor, Institute for Research on Teaching,

2010

Annals of Dyslexia, 2004

-o -bronto, Canada Recently, investigators "have begti 'to pay increasing attention t'o the'role of teachers' domaiiiAspecific knowledge in' the area bf reading, and its implications for both classroom practice and student learning. The aims of the present'study were to assess kindergarten to third grade' teachers' actual and perceived reading related subject' matt'er knowil--Ledge, and to' investigate the extent to which teachers calibrate their reading related subject matter knowledge by examining-relationships between actual and perceived knowledge. Results ihdicated that while! tedchers demonstrated limited knowledge, of'ch'ildr&h's literature, phoneme awareness, and phonics, the' majority of these' ame teachers evaluated their'knowledge levels quite positively. Teachers demonstrated some ability to calibrate their own -knowledge levels' in the area,