Dixie Massey

Promoting Reading Comprehension in Social Studies.

Researchers suggest there is a reading crisis in middle and secondary schools. However, many content area teachers do not consider themselves reading teachers, nor do they know how to help students develop comprehension skills. Using the Scaffolded Reading Experience approach as a framework, this article provides content area teachers with concrete techniques for teaching reading and content through textbook, primary, and fictional sources.

“You Teach for Me; I've Had It!” A First-Year Teacher's Cry for Help

Abstract This case study describes the impact of high-stakes testing on a first-year teachers literacy instruction. Results indicated that content from literacy methods courses was often abandoned in favor of compliance to a test preparatory program. As an intervention, I began teaching in the third-grade classroom while the beginning teacher observed. This model highlights the need for further consideration regarding the role of teacher educators in preparing and mentoring beginning teachers.

Personal journeys: Teaching teachers to teach literacy

Abstract This study is a description of a teacher research project. The purpose of the project was two‐fold. First, I wanted to use it to help me carefully reflect and examine my own teaching, so that I could move past the “naïve” label. Second, I wanted to understand how my instruction impacted my preservice teachers. Results from this teacher research project suggest this reading methods course was effective in adding some strategies to the students’ understandings of reading. Students seemed more willing to add reading strategies in areas where they lacked prior knowledge and experiences, such as fluency and assessment, while demonstrating more reluctance to change in areas familiar to them, such as word identification and comprehension. Results imply a need for educators to do more teacher research at the university level and further research into the role prior knowledge plays in the preservice teachers’ willingness to adapt new instructional strategies.

Reading History: Moving from Memorizing Facts to Critical Thinking

The task of reading and studying history in the K-12 setting has long been a memory task—knowing dates, places, and events. In contrast, historians use disciplinary-specific heuristics of sourcing, corroboration, and contextualization to understand not just what the text says, but when the text was written, who wrote it, and what may be missing from the text. “Doing history” is largely dependent on reading and studying texts (VanSledright, Read Res Q 39:342–346, 2004b) and it is the texts themselves, as well as the thinking about those texts that distinguishes history from other disciplines. This chapter explores what makes text in history different from texts in other disciplines. Identifying what makes historical texts unique suggests specific instruction that is needed to move students from novice readers to readers with growing levels of expertise in disciplinary reading.

“The Discovery Channel Said So” and Other Barriers to Comprehension

With increasing attention focused on comprehension, there is a need for research regarding how to implement comprehension instruction for struggling readers and assess its effectiveness. This article describes reading instruction as it occurred over two years with one struggling reader in third and fourth grade. A comprehension checklist provided a framework for instruction that was both systematic and responsive to the readers needs. The result was improved comprehension and metacognition for the student, though the progress was slow and often cyclical instead of sequential.

“You teach!” beginning teachers’ challenges to teacher educators

Abstract This research describes three beginning teachers and the development of their literacy instruction. Research questions addressed included a) what characterized their instruction throughout their beginning years of teaching and b) were they using the content from their literacy methods coursework? Additionally, as their former teacher for literacy methods courses, I wanted to reflect on and improve my own instruction in these methods courses. The three teachers’ approach to instruction developed in similar patterns. First, they all relied on mandated and suggested curricula and neglected integration of ideas not listed in the curricula. Second, they each went through periods of abandoning the curricula in favor of creating their own plans. Third, they all asked me to teach for them, while they watched. This development was not linear; rather, their development occurred in a recursive pattern. Implications are described for teacher educators regarding how we might better facilitate beginning teachers’ learning.

Situated Word Learning: Words of the Year (WsOY) and Social Studies Inquiry

Abstract Current events influence public interest and drive Internet word searches. For over a decade, linguists and dictionary publishers have analyzed big data from Internet word searches to designate “Words of the Year” (WsOY). In this study, we examine how WsOY can foster critical digital literacy and illuminate essential aspects of inquiry and disciplinary thinking within social studies. We contend WsOY and online dictionaries are fertile ground for simultaneously supporting academic language development, digital literacy, critical historical literacy, comprehension, and disciplinary heuristics of social studies. WsOY also represent an exemplar of a kind of vocabulary study that can bolster situated cognition to actively engage learners with multi-genre content through disciplinary techniques. Delving into complex and layered word meanings through non-linear and generative word learning processes embedded in technology-mediated contexts naturally encourages situated word learning and models how disciplinary heuristics can be learned through word meaning development.

It Only Looks the Same From a Distance: How U.S., Finnish, and Irish Schools Support Struggling Readers

This study examined how U.S., Finnish, and Irish educators identified and supported struggling readers. Using Johnstons (2011) framework for evaluating reading interventions and activity theory (Engeström, 1999), we interviewed educators in four U.S., three Irish, and three Finnish schools. In the United States, the adoption of three beliefs—reductionist reading philosophy, difficulties as cognitive and remediated through instruction, and reading problems as unexpected phenomena—reinforced a skills-driven approach. Irish and Finnish educators adopted a more holistic view of reading, and teachers used formative assessment to support struggling students over extended periods while working collaboratively with other staff. Discussion focuses on how these beliefs influenced divisions of labor, roles and responsibilities, and the urgency with which difficulties were addressed.