Clarence Ng

Engaging Readers in the Twenty-First Century: What We Know and Need to Know More

What does it mean to be a successful reader in the twenty-first century? To answer this important question, this chapter discusses the twenty-first century as a new context for reading research and for the development of effective reading instruction. This chapter begins with a description of the twenty-first-century reading context and the challenges that have arisen as a result of new technological and sociocultural developments. Following that, the chapter reviews current trends in research on reading in three related fields, reading motivation, new literacies, and reading strategies, which were critical for developing integrative models to inform reading research. The chapter concludes with a discussion on the need for cross-fertilisation among these fields to develop reformative reading practices that promote reading engagement and improvement. Teachers’ significant role in advancing this reformative agenda is highlighted. Special research attention is required for supporting reading and reading engagement for students who come from various disadvantaged backgrounds.

Reading for Writing: A Meta-Analysis of the Impact of Reading Interventions on Writing

This meta-analysis examined if students’ writing performance is improved by reading interventions in studies (k = 54 experiments; 5,018 students) where students were taught how to read and studies (k = 36 investigations; 3,060 students) where students’ interaction with words or text was increased through reading or observing others read. Studies included in this review involved true- or quasi-experiments (with pretests) written in English that tested the impact of a reading intervention on the writing performance of students in preschool to Grade 12. Studies were not included if the control condition was a writing intervention, treatment students received writing instruction as part of the reading intervention (unless control students received equivalent writing instruction), control students received a reading intervention (unless treatment students received more reading instruction than controls), study attrition exceeded 20%, less than 10 students were included in any experimental condition, and students attended a special school for students with disabilities. As predicted, teaching reading strengthened writing, resulting in statistically significant effects for an overall measure of writing (effect size [ES] = 0.57) and specific measures of writing quality (ES = 0.63), words written (ES = 0.37), or spelling (ES = 0.56). The impact of teaching reading on writing was maintained over time (ES = 0.37). Having students read text or observe others interact with text also enhanced writing performance, producing a statistically significant impact on an overall measure of writing (ES = 0.35) and specific measures of writing quality (ES = 0.44) or spelling (ES = 0.28). These findings provide support that reading interventions can enhance students’ writing performance.

Engagement for What Purpose? Engagement Toward What Outcome? Empowering Engagement for Students from Challenging Backgrounds

This final chapter reflects on the discussion throughout this book and provides a summary of what has preceded. It highlights key factors and variables that are essential for developing empowering classroom practices and innovative pedagogical models for promoting learning engagement among students who come from disadvantaged backgrounds or are affected by challenging conditions. The discussion highlights the need for developing practices and supports that create an empowering context for promoting learning engagement for these students. Such a transformative practice is characterized by constant attempts to address personal needs, facilitate the development of cognitive enablers, and manage sociocultural, institutional, and classroom influences and demands in a way that will enable students from at-risk backgrounds to recognize and positively respond to learning opportunities. In this chapter, we point to the need for teachers to be engaged continually in reflective practices in order to develop, evaluate, and improve empowering models and practices aimed at meeting the needs of at-risk students coming from various disadvantaged backgrounds.

Indicators and Facilitators of Engagement: Going Beyond Linear Thinking

This chapter provides a brief review of current research models on learning engagement, highlighting the distinction between indicators and facilitators of engagement. In relation to engagement indicators, this chapter discusses research that has examined behavioral, cognitive, and affective dimensions of engagement. Alongside these indicators, we add social engagement wherein students collaborate and work with others as an important indicator of engagement. In relation to facilitators of engagement, this chapter briefly discusses the importance of a list of cognitive enablers for promoting learning engagement. These cognitive enablers include achievement goals, self-efficacy, self-determination, self-regulation, and personal interest. It also discusses the importance of social influences derived from sociocultural, institutional, and classroom dimensions on sustaining learning engagement. Linking to the discussion in Chap. 1, we argue that many students from disadvantaged backgrounds lack these cognitive enablers and specific attention is needed to create learning opportunities to engage these students in meaningful participation. To do this, we argue that there is a need to consider the dynamic interplay of cognitive and social influences, disadvantaged students’ perspectives, and the negotiated nature of engagement.

“Opportunity to Read”: Student Voice as a Reading Engagement Enabler

In this chapter, we examine the opportunity to read in schools that serve mostly disadvantaged students from low socioeconomic status (SES) families. Beginning with a discussion on the literature and research on reading motivation and engagement, we argue that the conception of effective readers as motivated and strategic needs attention in its applicability among reluctant readers coming from disadvantaged backgrounds. Often, disadvantaged readers exhibit a high level of reluctance to read in school alongside a persistent pattern of underachievement. In response, some teachers react by dumbing down the reading curriculum, focusing on basic skills training using controlling teaching practices. Such practices will unintentionally limit students’ opportunities to engage in meaningful reading and hamper their reading enjoyment. We used data drawn from a case study based on repeated observations and interviews to describe how students’ voices were utilized to drive the development of new reading practices that promoted reading for Year 4 students in a low SES school in Queensland, Australia. This case study illustrates how seeking, honoring, and acting on students’ voices enable disadvantaged students to re-engage with reading for enjoyment.

“Opportunity to Connect”: Social Skills as Engagement Agents

In this chapter, we define and examine the development of social skills known to be influential in students’ lives, particularly in school. We specifically identify social skills critical for engagement in learning and describe several school-based programs designed to teach or improve a robust set of social skills known to be helpful at school, home, and in the community. A central theme is that although social skills don’t make children smarter, they can help children relate to and work with others who are motivated to learn and, hence, promote academic engagement. Social skills are essential in the development and maintenance of successful relationships with peers, parents, teachers, employers, and new acquaintances. Researchers, however, have found that for many children, social skills do more than foster interpersonal relationships; they also function as academic enablers by facilitating engagement in learning. A substantial amount of research supports this claim that effective social skills play an important role in children and youth’s efforts to engage effectively with others in daily activities, achieve well-being, and succeed in school. Admittedly, in some cases, children, especially those who come from disadvantaged families, have serious behavior difficulties that interfere with the production of desired social behaviors and make it challenging for educators to successfully intervene. Yet, in schools across the globe, many capable children are still not achieving these outcomes, and, in some cases, educators are unprepared to facilitate the development of key social skills essential to achieve these outcomes and to avoid social and cultural exclusion.

“Opportunity to Aspire”: Promoting Mathematics Engagement and Aspiration for Challenging Mathematics

In many OECD countries, including Australia, attention is required to examine and solve the problem of low levels of engagement in, and aspiration for, advanced mathematics among students coming from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. Not only are students from disadvantaged backgrounds in Australia overrepresented among those who fail to meet the benchmark in national and international tests of school mathematics; they are also underrepresented in mathematics-related degree programs at the university level. Few from disadvantaged groups have shown sustained aspirations for learning mathematics. It is, therefore, important to understand what motivates and sustains disadvantaged students’ aspirations and engagement in mathematics. In this chapter, classroom observations and interview data derived from a longitudinal study will be used to discuss the extent to which disadvantaged students’ aspiration is being promoted in their math classes. Based on the results, this chapter discusses classroom practices that are crucial for offering students the opportunity to aspire for deep learning in mathematics.

“Opportunity to Flourish”: Reconnecting Pedagogy for Youths Out-of-School and Out-of-Work

For all who consider education as the fundamental preparation for a flourishing life, there is particular reason to be mindful and attentive to those of our youth who have failed during their schooling to develop the means for preparing. Many of these young people are in danger of becoming progressively sidelined from opportunities of personal and social development as students and of remaining unfulfilled and marginalized in their post-school years. In this chapter, we reflect on what can go wrong when connection in a broader sense of engagement in education has not worked so well during a young person’s years of schooling and possible marginalization that may have accompanied impoverished circumstances and limited opportunities that many such students will have had in comparison with those of their classmates. We focus also on what can be retrieved when better engagement is at the heart of a second-chance reconnection.

Engaging in Learning: The Challenges and Consequences for Students from Challenging Backgrounds

Acknowledging the critical role of engagement to learning and achievement, this chapter focuses on students at risk of learning disengagement—marginalized students in alternative education settings who have experienced chronic exclusion and disadvantaged students from high-poverty backgrounds. It provides a description of major issues and problems experienced by these students in relation to sustained learning engagement. Special research attention is required to investigate factors and conditions that may contribute to learning engagement and disengagement of these at-risk students. This chapter maintains that these students are capable of learning and engaging when appropriate supports are provided to ensure their opportunity to learn. This chapter ends with a brief discussion of important considerations for researching engagement and disengagement with students from disadvantaged backgrounds. The considerations include engagement fluctuates; engagement has a focal object; engagement is situational and malleable; engagement is purposeful; and engagement is negotiable and often involved power struggles.

Access and Opportunity to Learn: Essentials for Academic Engagement

Accessibility—defined as the extent to which a product, environment, or system eliminates barriers and permits equal use of components and services for a diverse population of individuals—is necessary for effective instruction and fair testing. To the extent that instruction, instructional materials, and tests are not accessible, engagement is undermined, learning is likely to be incomplete, and inferences made from observations and test results are likely to be underestimated of a student’s actual knowledge and skills. In this chapter, we focus on access to meaningful learning opportunities that optimize students’ engagement in instruction and classroom assessments and conceptualize accessibility to instructional materials and classroom tests as important enablers of meaningful and active participation. The engagement-enhancing strategies featured are considered by many to focus primarily on cognitive aspects of students’ learning; however, with more robust cognitive engagement often comes more successful learning experiences, which, in turn, can improve students’ learning behaviors, collaboration with others, and attitudes toward learning, hence reducing educational exclusion in important ways. Thus, the goals of this chapter are first to understand the evolving concepts of access, accessibility, and opportunity in relation to learning; then to examine strategies based on these concepts for increasing cognitive, emotional, and behavioral (social and agentic) engagement for all students; and finally, to translate theory and research-based findings on accessibility into actionable guidelines for teachers.