Janice A. Dole

Moving From the Old to the New: Research on Reading Comprehension Instruction

This article is an attempt to integrate findings from research about comprehension processes, comprehension strategies, and teaching strategies in order to inform instructional practice in reading comprehension. The article begins with a discussion of traditional views about reading and how those views have shaped the current comprehension curriculum in American schools. A view of comprehension based on recent models of the reading process is presented next as a basis for reconceptualizing the comprehension curriculum as a set of five effective comprehension strategies. From research on teaching comes a foundation for establishing a new view of instruction, one that focuses on the negotiation of meaning among students and teachers through teachers’ instructional actions. Instructional recommendations, based on the research synthesized in this article, and questions for future research bring the article to a close.

Explicit Comprehension Instruction: A Review of Research and a New Conceptualization of Instruction

Over the last several years, research in reading comprehension has provided the impetus for changes in our thinking about comprehension instruction. From this research, new instructional frameworks for teaching comprehension have been developed. Studies of instruction confirm that we can do a better job of teaching comprehension by using these new instructional frame-works than by following the traditional basal reading paradigm. This article synthesizes recent research on comprehension instruction and presents a new conceptualization of instruction. Representative instructional studies of inference training, reciprocal teaching, and process training are reviewed. The concept of explicit comprehension instruction is then described and contrasted with more traditional models of direct instruction. Next, potential difficulties in implementing explicit comprehension instruction in classrooms are discussed. Finally, 2 important curricular concerns are raised.

Help With Teaching Reading Comprehension: Comprehension Instructional Frameworks

This article presents five instructional frameworks demonstrated by research as being effective in teaching reading comprehension: The Scaffolded Reading Experience (SRE) Questioning the Author (QtA) Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR) Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies (PALS) Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI) The frameworks focus on two components of comprehension instruction: instruction in understanding the content of a given text, and instruction in using comprehension strategies to understand all texts. A vignette is presented for each framework to show what it looks like in the classroom, and various aspects of the frameworks are discussed to assist educators in making instructional decisions about their use.

What Will Be the Demands of Literacy in the Workplace in the Next Millennium

In this “RRQ Snippet,” the authors discuss their ideas about the changing demands for todays—and tomorrows—literate workforce.

“What Am I Supposed to Do All Day?”: Three Big Ideas for the Reading Coach

This article addresses a critical question for reading coaches: How should they spend their instructional time in schools? Three big ideas are presented: First, effective reading coaches focus their attention on a set of primary goals—the teachers to whom they are assigned, the reading instruction taking place, and the student learning in the classroom. They should not focus on administrative tasks or meetings. Second, effective reading coaches ensure that they are in classrooms every day. They should spend most of their time in classrooms rather than in their offices. Third, effective reading coaches establish themselves as individuals who can help teachers with reading instruction. They become part of the teaching and learning community in the school—not separate from it.

Theory and Practice in Vocabulary Learning and Instruction

This article describes principled, research-based ways to consider vocabulary instruction. The relation between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension is discussed first. Only fairly thorough understanding of words improves comprehension of a given text. Then, the roles of direct instruction and incidental acquisition of word meanings are explored. Students acquire knowledge of a great number of words incidentally; direct instruction accounts for relatively few. Next, 3 approaches to vocabulary instruction are discussed: definitional, contextual, conceptual. Each approach is discussed as it relates to learning new words and to improving comprehension. The definitional and contextual approaches used alone are not as effective as a combination of the 2 in improving comprehension. The conceptual approach builds more thorough word knowledge and is more likely to affect comprehension, but it is time consuming in terms of teacher preparation and allocated class time. Not all words need the in-depth instruction to which the conceptual approach lends itself. This type of instruction is recommended for words crucial to understanding a text. The article concludes with recommendations for future research on vocabulary instruction. Research is especially needed to determine effective ways of teaching students to become independent word learners and efficient ways of helping students develop thorough understandings of important words and concepts.

The State of Reading Professionals in the United States

The authors conducted an informal survey to assess the current state of reading professionals in the United States. They wanted to find out The different job titles used for reading professionals across the states The requirements for becoming a reading professional The typical roles and duties of these reading professionals The findings of the survey suggest that reading professionals may not be adequately prepared for their specific jobs. This situation is particularly reflected in the lack of information at the state department level regarding reading coaches.

Second Opinions on the Reading First Initiative: The View from Utah

This article provides a summary of the five years of implementation of the first cohort of schools participating in Utahs Reading First Initiative. Fifteen schools across six districts comprised this cohort. Performance is compared to the performance of a cohort of matched comparison schools as well as the average state performance on the Utah Language Arts Criterion-referenced Tests (CRTs). Results indicate that Reading First schools appeared to have made greater gains than comparison schools or the state average in the percentage of students achieving proficiency on the CRTs. In addition, the achievement gap for most disaggregated groups was reduced, and greater performance was noted for students who spent three years in Reading First schools rather than one or two. These data are in contrast to the results of the Reading First Impact Study, but highlight the need to examine the contextual effects of systemic reform initiatives such as the Reading First Initiative.

Conceptually and Methodologically Vexing Issues in Teacher Knowledge Assessment

The purpose of this article is to describe the vexing issues that arise as researchers try to define and assess the knowledge teachers need to teach reading and writing effectively in the primary grades. Over the past several years, the authors of this article have developed and tested an assessment system of teacher knowledge under a grant titled The Primary Grade Reading & Writing Teacher Knowledge Project. The research team developed and tested 2 subscales: a traditional multiple-choice test that measures the inert or “in the head” knowledge teachers possess about reading and writing instruction, and an accompanying classroom observation instrument that measures the enacted or “classroom teaching” knowledge teachers use to teach reading and writing to young students. This article reports on 6 conceptually and methodologically vexing issues that arose as the authors developed and tested the assessment system. Issues revolved around the specific knowledge to measure, the evidence needed by various stakeholders as convincing evidence of that knowledge, potential concerns related to the use of measures of teachers’ knowledge, queries about the best way to measure that knowledge, special problems the use of classroom observations present for measuring teacher knowledge, and the predictive validity of such knowledge measures.

Improving the Selection of Basal Reading Programs: A Report of the Textbook Adoption Guidelines Project

Commercially developed basal reading programs are used in most elementary school classrooms in this country. Yet, often neither the publishers developing these programs nor the members of state and local textbook adoption committees selecting programs are able to take advantage of the best and most up-to-date knowledge about the reading process and reading instruction. The development and piloting of A Guide to Selecting Basal Reading Programs is a major effort to make such knowledge available to publishers and members of adoption committees. The Guide presents current information about research and practice in reading and provides guidelines for evaluating basal reading programs. Case studies of 4 textbook adoption committees that piloted the Guide are presented. In general, these committees found the Guide contributed to a more informed selection process and committee members focused more attention on substantive issues associated with the quality of instruction and content and less attention on superficial aspects of programs and political considerations. In particular, 4 factors contributed to the successful use of the Guide: committee leadership, committee enthusiasm, adequate time to use the materials, and in-service support from a knowledgeable source. The role of this project in the larger endeavor to improve reading instruction in our elementary schools is addressed.