Search

As students proceed through school, they are expected to comprehend complex texts but may not have the necessary competencies to do so. This study examined the impact of teaching text organization of lengthy social studies textbook passages on student comprehension of the content contained there. Over a 10-week period, 205 sixth-grade students received either routine social studies instruction or instruction on identifying rhetorical patterns used to organize textbook content and on constructing graphic representations of that content. The effectiveness of the intervention was measured by comparing graphic representations and written summaries generated by participants before and after instruction. A mixed between-within subjects ANOVA showed a statistically significant interaction between time and treatment on graphic representation and written summary scores for the intervention group indicating that explicit instruction in rhetorical patterns facilitates recognition of key information and supporting details in text. Implications are discussed.

This case study examined three pre-service teachers' reflection processes during their first teaching practicum. During the six-week practicum, the pre-service teachers reflected on their own as well as their peers' teaching in group mentoring meetings several times a week. Unstructured stimulated recall facilitated pre-service teacher-initiated reflection on their teaching. As a result, they were able to frame and reframe their understanding and implement that understanding in their next lessons. Each pre-service teacher, however, went through an individual developmental process in learning to reflect. In their developmental path, turning points were identified that were important for transition into a deeper level of reflection. Our results show that it is important for teacher educators and mentors to recognize the process of development from the very first teaching practicum.

Teachers can use expository texts to teach academic vocabulary, content knowledge, text structure, and text features. National associations' recommended book lists are often used to identify books for classrooms. Previously we identified expository texts on these lists from 2001-2002 and 2011-2012. The current study explored instructional possibilities these expository books afford. More recent books have more content, academic vocabulary, and supplementary information. However, many earlier and recent books lack text features such as page numbers, tables of contents, glossaries, and indexes. Teachers will need to supplement these books with other texts to provide experiences enabling proficiency with exposition.

This study examined the thinking processes students engage in while constructing graphic representations of textbook content. Twenty-eight students who either used graphic representations in a routine manner during social studies instruction or learned to construct graphic representations based on the rhetorical patterns used to organize textbook content produced think-aloud responses while constructing graphic representations. Responses indicated that both groups of students needed to restate text while writing, but knowledge of rhetorical patterns appeared to facilitate students' ability to discriminate between main ideas and details, understand relationships between ideas, and, generally, engage the text more deeply. Implications for instruction are discussed.

Despite both longstanding and recent calls for more informational text in K-3 classrooms, research indicates that narrative text remains in the majority for read alouds, classroom libraries, and instruction, thus limiting children's opportunity to experience the demands of expository text. Because national associations' recommended book lists are frequently proposed to identify books, we analyzed current lists to determine whether they include a higher percentage of expository books than 10 years ago. Our findings show a continuing prevalence of narratives suggesting the need to carefully evaluate books on such lists if the goal is to increase students' experience with expository text.

We investigated how a teacher implemented principles of literacy teaching and learning set forth in the Finnish core curriculum in a first-grade classroom, focusing on two aspects of the curriculum: (1) "a community-oriented view of language," which can be understood from a socio-cultural perspective; and (2) "a broad conception of text," which involves diversified "literacy practices" including both digital and printed environments. We understood the classroom as a place where the teacher deployed her pedagogic habitus (Bourdieu 1977; Pahl 2012), which in turn shaped the practices. Our analysis of videotapes of classroom literacy events and the teacher's diary during one school year showed that change in practices turned the classroom habitus (Bourdieu 1977) into a communicational entity where the pupils worked collaboratively with meaningful literacy activities with oral and print texts, including old and new technologies.

This study is a secondary analysis of reading data collected from over 165,000 fourth graders as part of the U.S. National Assessment of Educational Progress. Using hierarchical linear modelling, the authors investigated factors associated with students' informational text comprehension, including out-of-school reading engagement, and in-school measures of cross-curricular reading, discussion about reading, and reading-related activities (e.g., book reports, projects). In addition, this study examined the interactions between these factors, informational text comprehension, and students' eligibility for Free and Reduced Priced Meals (FARMS). There were positive associations between students' informational text comprehension and their reading engagement, crosscurricular reading, and discussion about reading. However, reading-related experiences were associated with lower than expected scores. In addition, out-of-school reading engagement and inschool reading experiences may not be associated with informational reading comprehension to the same degree for the most at-risk U.S. students, as most results differed in strength of association for FARMS-eligible students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]