Norman A. Stahl

The Effect of Imagery Instruction on Vocabulary Development

(1987). The Effect of Imagery Instruction on Vocabulary Development. Journal of College Reading and Learning: Vol. 20, No. 1, pp. 131-137.

An Initial Validation of a Study Strategy System

This study sought to determine the effectiveness of an integrated study strategy system that used self-assigned student writing as a means of learning psychology content. Sixty-five college freshmen from four sections of a reading/study strategy course were trained over a 3-week period to use either a question-answer recitation format or PORPE (Predict, Organize, Rehearse, Practice, and Evaluate). All subjects took an initial and delayed multiple choice test and an essay exam which were used as the dependent measures. The essays were scored for content, organization, and cohesion. The results indicated that the students trained in PORPE scored significantly better than the Question-Answer students on both the recall and recognition measures. In addition, the PORPE essay answers were significantly more organized and cohesive than the essays of the students trained in answering questions. It was concluded that PORPE can be a potent, durable, and efficient independent study strategy for college students in their efforts to learn content area concepts.

The National Reading Conference: The College and Adult Reading Years

The National Reading Conference has a long and honored history spanning a period of nearly 50 years. This article delves into the birth, childhood, and adolescence of the organization with direct attention given to the germination of the Journal of Reading Behavior.

The Materials of College Reading Instruction: A Critical and Historical Perspective from 50 Years of Content Analysis Research.

Abstract Content analysis research of instructional materials published for the college reading and study‐skills market provides a unique view of the educational practices driving the field for the past 60 years. Hence, this article examines the published content analysis of college reading texts from the vantage of (a) methodology employed by various writers, (b) specific information presented in respective content analyses, and (c) observed trends in content that have been presented since the mid‐1920s.

Building Better Bridges: Understanding Academic Text Readiness at One Community College

ABSTRACT The multipronged study described in this manuscript was designed to determine the implicit definition of college-text ready at one community college. The impetus for this study is a need to fully understand what it means to be college-text ready based on the literacy demands, practices, and expectations in introductory-level (or entry-level) general-education courses. Only with this deeper understanding of college-text readiness can college reading professionals begin to design effective literacy interventions to help students who may not be considered college-text ready. Thus, another major goal of this study is to provide information on whether, how, and to what extent, current developmental reading courses are adequately preparing students for the reading expectations of the introductory-level courses that follow. Three component investigations were conducted: one on the text practices and expectations as observed, one on the faculty perspectives, and one on the student perspectives. Data sources included text analyses, classroom observations, faculty surveys and focus groups, and student surveys and focus groups. Findings included a mismatch between developmental reading and general-education courses in terms of the text types and difficulty levels, the purpose for the text, and the text-associated tasks and learning foci. Another major finding was that general-education faculty in this study do not provide explicit instruction on text-navigation. Instead faculty tend to use text-alternatives to deliver content. Finally, in response to the original driving question, the findings of this study suggested that there is not any widely accepted definition of college-text ready at this institution.

Communication Across the Silos and Borders: The Culture of Reading in a Community College

As part of a study (Armstrong, Stahl, & Kantner, 2015a, 2015b, 2016) of curricular alignment between developmental reading (DR) and introductory-level general education (GE) at one community college, we asked faculty participants about the DR coursework at their own institution. Throughout data analysis, we became interested in how non-DR faculty understood reading at the college level, and especially what a major role lack of communication seemed to play in these understandings. We identified five major themes in the faculty responses: reading comprehension, vocabulary instruction, emphasis on writing, study skills instruction, and disciplinary literacy instruction. In this article, we detail each theme through exemplar responses coded in this category, a discussion, and recommendations for professionals within the DR (and surrounding) fields striving to build bridges to others on campus. Our intention is to initiate a conversation related to the issue of communication between DR and other higher education professionals, as we see value in DR faculty having this insight regarding how others on campus view their work.

Toward Systematic Study of the History and Foundations of Literacy

This study of a literacy course begins with methodological approaches useful in the historical study of the literacy profession, its practices, beliefs, and participants. A model course is presented via “moments” in the history of literacy. Results from implementations of the model course are also presented.

Re-Claiming, Re-Inventing, and Re-Reforming a Field: The Future of College Reading.

At present, there is much discussion regarding the future of reading instruction at the postsecondary level. In order to contemplate the future of the field of college reading, however, we must first consider the field’s history, and particularly the last several decades. The purpose of this manuscript is to explore both the external and internal catalysts over the most recent decades that have led to what we call “the fall of the field of college reading.” After discussing “the fall,” we move on to anticipate the future of college reading by providing a solutions-oriented discussion that explores possibilities to re-claim, re-invent, and re-reform a once-vital and still very much-needed field.

Revisiting Ethics Updating Earlier Beliefs With a Queer Exemplar

In this article, the authors update key constructs in the area of ethics within qualitative research in literacy. Issues such as newer interpretive theory, media incursion into data security, and newer expectations for privacy problematize what were once “taken-for-granted” assumptions about the ethical conduct of qualitative inquiry as it is now practiced in the fields of literacy education and queered ethics.

80 Lives and 80 Stories: Literacy and the Common Person in the 20th Century

Literacy in American Lives by Deborah Brandt of the University of Wisconsin, Madison takes the field of literacy history in a direction possible only through the study of the life experiences of 80 individuals born between the late 1890s and the early 1980s. It is a study about how individuals from varied backgrounds and different generations pursued literacy in learning to write and read in the 20th century. In addition, it is a study about the respondents’ uses for and values of literacy at key stages across the lived experience. The importance of such work to the field of literacy research is clear as Brandt proposes that direct accounts of how the non-elite citizens of the United States acquired both writing and reading as well as their motivations for doing such are generally missing from the literature base. Hence, within this text Brandt has the “persistent interest...to characterize literacy not as it registers on various scales but as it has been lived” (p. 11).