Marcia H. Davis

Increasing Reading Comprehension and Engagement through Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction.

Based on an engagement perspective of reading development, we investigated the extent to which an instructional framework of combining motivation support and strategy instruction (Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction—CORI) influenced reading outcomes for third-grade children. In CORI, five motivational practices were integrated with six cognitive strategies for reading comprehension. In the first study, we compared this framework to an instructional framework emphasizing Strategy Instruction (SI), but not including motivation support. In the second study, we compared CORI to SI and to a traditional instruction group (TI), and used additional measures of major constructs. In both studies, class-level analyses showed that students in CORI classrooms were higher than SI and/or TI students on measures of reading comprehension, reading motivation, and reading strategies. A widespread goal of education in the elementary grades is reading comprehension for all students. Reading comprehension becomes especially important in the later elementary grades (Sweet & Snow, 2003) and provides the basis for a substantial amount of learning in secondary school (Kirsch et al., 2002). Without the skills of reading comprehension and the motivation for reading to learn, students’ academic progress is limited (Alvermann & Earle, 2003). In view of the prominence of reading comprehension, a vital issue for educational psychology is investigating the characteristics of effective instruction for reading comprehension (Hiebert & Raphael, 1996). The growing knowledge base about instruction for reading comprehension is rightly directed toward identifying classroom practices with known effects on specific aspects of reading, and a major focus of this research has been on identifying effective reading strategies that increase children’s comprehension (Block & Pressley, 2002; Duke & Pearson, 2002; National Reading Panel, 2000). However, the evidence rests primarily on instructional research in which single cognitive strategies, such as questioning, are taught in controlled experiments. Relatively little investigation has been conducted on how multiple strategies can be combined in long-term comprehension instruction within the classroom, and

MOTIVATING STRUGGLING READERS IN MIDDLE SCHOOL THROUGH AN ENGAGEMENT MODEL OF CLASSROOM PRACTICE

Many struggling readers in middle school are disengaged from reading. In addition to low achievement, these students can have low motivation for reading. Many factors contribute to disengagement in middle school. Reading instruction is often disconnected from content, making reading tedious. Textbooks are formidable, and students are expected to respond to text with formal criticism or outlining rather than personal reactions. Middle school often shows an increase teacher control and a curtailment of student freedom, as compared to elementary school. Finally, students are too often removed from the social support of teachers and are expected to compete rather than cooperate with each other in reading. To provide support for engaged reading, middle school teachers can use six classroom practices: they can (1) construct rich knowledge goals as the basis of reading instruction, (2) use real-world interactions to connect reading to student experiences, (3) afford students an abundance of interesting books and materials, (4) provide some choice among material to read, (5) give direct instruction for important reading strategies, and (6) encourage collaboration in many aspects of learning. Using these practices creates a context for engagement in literacy learning.

To camelcase or under_score

Naming conventions are generally adopted in an effort to improve program comprehension. Two of the most popular conventions are alternatives for composing multi-word identifiers: the use of underscores and the use of camel casing. While most programmers have a personal opinion as to which style is better, empirical study forms a more appropriate basis for choosing between them. The central hypothesis considered herein is that identifier style affects the speed and accuracy of manipulating programs. An empirical study of 135 programmers and non-programmers was conducted to better understand the impact of identifier style on code readability. The experiment builds on past work of others who study how readers of natural language perform such tasks. Results indicate that camel casing leads to higher accuracy among all subjects regardless of training, and those trained in camel casing are able to recognize identifiers in the camel case style faster than identifiers in the underscore style.

The impact of identifier style on effort and comprehension

A family of studies investigating the impact of program identifier style on human comprehension is presented. Two popular identifier styles are examined, namely camel case and underscore. The underlying hypothesis is that identifier style affects the speed and accuracy of comprehending source code. To investigate this hypothesis, five studies were designed and conducted. The first study, which investigates how well humans read identifiers in the two different styles, focuses on low-level readability issues. The remaining four studies build on the first to focus on the semantic implications of identifier style. The studies involve 150 participants with varied demographics from two different universities. A range of experimental methods is used in the studies including timed testing, read aloud, and eye tracking. These methods produce a broad set of measurements and appropriate statistical methods, such as regression models and Generalized Linear Mixed Models (GLMMs), are applied to analyze the results. While unexpected, the results demonstrate that the tasks of reading and comprehending source code is fundamentally different from those of reading and comprehending natural language. Furthermore, as the task becomes similar to reading prose, the results become similar to work on reading natural language text. For more “source focused” tasks, experienced software developers appear to be less affected by identifier style; however, beginners benefit from the use of camel casing with respect to accuracy and effort.

High School Reform and Student Engagement

This chapter describes how internal high school reforms can be aimed at six different dimensions of student motivation and engagement. Students will respond to more accessible immediate rewards such as good grades and teacher praise when high schools improve with focused extra help for needy students and other interventions to narrow skill gaps or recognize individual progress. Students will benefit from embedded intrinsic interest in their school program when innovations are introduced to challenge their minds and creativity. Students will find more functional relevance in their studies when high schools integrate academic and career education. Students will enjoy a more positive interpersonal climate for learning when high schools use smaller learning communities with teacher teams and advisors. Students will find opportunities to exercise their own personal nonacademic talents when schools provide more diverse electives and extracurricular activities. Students will feel more connected to shared communal norms when high schools practice fair disciplinary procedures and provide for some shared decision-making. Different combinations and sequences of high school reforms are discussed in terms of implementation strategies and the interactions of the six dimensions of student motivation and engagement. High school reform can be aimed at either the external constraints and incentives for school improvement or the internal conditions for student engagement and learning. This chapter puts reforms of the internal conditions in the context of alternative strategies for improving American high schools and examines six different aspects of student engagement in high school and how specific internal reform efforts can activate and maximize each component.

Organizing Schools to Address Early Warning Indicators (EWIs): Common Practices and Challenges

An early warning system is an intentional process whereby school personnel collectively analyze student data to monitor students at risk of falling off track for graduation and to provide the interventions and resources to intervene. We studied the process of monitoring the early warning indicators and implementing interventions to ascertain common practices and challenges. Research questions focused on the process of collecting and reviewing student data, conducting team meetings, and designing or selecting, and following through on, student interventions. This article reports on typical practices and implementation challenges of early warning indicators meetings from 10 schools that participated in the pilot phase of the Diplomas Now School Transformation Model across the country, gathered through meeting observations and interviews.

Measuring Reading Comprehension of Content Area Texts Using an Assessment of Knowledge Organization.

ABSTRACT The authors outline results of 3 studies conducted to examine the structure of disciplinary knowledge from reading measured through proximity data. In Study 1, 168 third-grade students were asked to read a science text and rate the relationships of keywords from the passage. From these ratings, comprehension scores were calculated that related well to a free-recall measure of science reading comprehension and differentiated poor and proficient readers. In Study 2, 176 third-grade students were given the proximity data measure on science text along with measures of prior knowledge, questioning, and text searching. In Study 3, 160 ninth-grade students were given the proximity data measure after reading a social studies text that varied on the presence of text signals and familiarity. The findings of this study extend the literature on the cognitive processing that contributes to higher order comprehension of information text among elementary and secondary students.

A Review of Reading Motivation Scales.

Reading motivation is a critical contributor to reading achievement and has the potential to influence its development. Educators, researchers, and evaluators need to select the best reading motivation scales for their research and classroom. The goals of this review were to identify a set of reading motivation student self-report scales used in research, examine the development and psychometric properties of each reading motivation scale, and compare scales on availability, reliability, age range, and motivation constructs measured. This article summarizes 16 current reading motivation scales. Findings suggest the need for more research regarding the multidimensionality of reading motivation and measures that could span early childhood to adolescence.

The Effects of Coaching on English Teachers' Reading Instruction Practices and Adolescent Students' Reading Comprehension.

ABSTRACT Although the use of literacy coaches is becoming more common, few research studies have shown positive effects of coaching on teacher practices and student achievement. In the current study, a cluster randomized design was used to evaluate usefulness of coaches for teachers of struggling high school students. High schools were randomly assigned across three experimental conditions: professional development workshops, workshops with written lesson materials, and workshops with lesson materials and coaching. Participants in this three-year study included 130 ninth-grade teachers and 3,160 ninth grade students. Recommended literacy practices included teacher modeling, student team discussions, and self-selected reading. Findings indicated that coaching improved teachers’ use and quality of recommended literacy practices and increased student reading achievement over the period of a year.

A Review of: “Improving Urban Middle Schools: Lessons from the Nativity Schools. L. Mickey Fenzel.”

Many are familiar with the term achievement gap, and most educators can agree on the conditions that are making this achievement gap a reality. Poor and minority students, especially those attending urban schools, are not receiving the education they deserve due to high teacher turnover, lack of teacher control, and a need for curriculum that accommodates student diversity (Chou & Tozer, 2008). As knowledgeable as people are, however, about the failures of schools to support learning for these students, little has been decided on how to rectify these problems. One way to find answers is by closely examining schools and educational models that do work with this population. In Improving urban middle schools: Lessons from the Nativity Schools, Mickey Fenzel presents his findings from a year-long examination of Nativity schools serving urban students. Fenzel uses a variety of sources such as teacher, student, and administrator interviews; surveys; achievement test scores; and classroom observations to fully portray the schools using the Nativity model. Further, he examines the impact of the Nativity model on student achievement. This book would be appropriate for both those who wish to start their own Nativity schools and college classes focused on urban education. This book has eight chapters with a foreword written by Dr. Peter Murrell. In Chapter 1, ‘‘The Current State of Urban Middle Schools,’’ Fenzel presents the plight of the urban student. These adolescents often learn from watered-down curriculum that leaves them unable to meet the demands of competency examinations they need to pass to graduate. Fenzel reports that teachers in urban schools often hold low expectations of their students and fail to modify their teaching styles to match the multicultural nature of the students in their classrooms. These conditions often cause students to disengage from school, as indicated by poor attendance, behavior, and course performance. This disengagement from middle school is a strong predictor of whether students will drop out of high school (Balfanz, Herzog, & MacIver, 2007).