Øistein Anmarkrud

Naturally-Occurring Comprehension Strategies Instruction in 9th-Grade Language Arts Classrooms

In this descriptive classroom study, we used video-based observations supplemented with teacher interviews to provide precise information about the instruction of comprehension strategies that naturally occurred in 4 Norwegian lower-secondary language arts classrooms while students worked with expository texts. The results showed that the teachers varied vastly with respect to the amount of comprehension strategies instruction, that the repertoire of strategies that was taught was quite narrow, that the instruction was mainly implicit and carried out with the whole class, and that the teachers lacked professional knowledge about reading comprehension and reading comprehension instruction. We discuss our methodology and findings in relation to previous descriptive work on comprehension strategies instruction.

Beliefs about justification for knowing when ethnic majority and ethnic minority students read multiple conflicting documents

We examined the role of justification for knowing beliefs in learning and comprehension when ethnic majority and ethnic minority students from the same school classes read five conflicting documents on the scientific issue of sun exposure and health. Results showed that the more ethnic minority students trusted scientific authorities and the less they relied on personal opinion when validating knowledge claims in the domain of science, the more they learned from and the better they comprehended the documents. In contrast, justification for knowing beliefs did not seem to play a role in learning and comprehension among ethnic majority students. These results may reflect that the documents represented more of a challenge to the ethnic minority students, with justification beliefs affecting learning and comprehension processes to a greater extent when the task is perceived as an ill-structured problem. This study is probably the first to indicate different relationships between various justification beliefs and performance in different language and cultural groups, having theoretical as well as educational implications.

Inquisitor, Evaluator or Facilitator?

Comprehension instruction, or the lack of it, has been given considerable attention by reading researchers, policy makers, and teacher educators during the last 30 years (Pearson 2009). Researchers have made significant progress in identifying and addressing several important components and processes involved in skilled text comprehension, with active and flexible strategic processing described as a hallmark of expert reading within an academic domain (Pressley and Afflerbach 1995; Stromso et al. 2003). Thus, a substantial amount of research effort has been put into instructional research, making it possible to give research-based recommendations on what comprehension instruction should look like in the classroom (Dewitz et al. 2009). Because the majority of the instructional research is conducted in elementary and middle-grade classrooms, less is known about comprehension instruction, particularly about instruction in comprehension strategies, as it is regularly offered adolescents in secondary schools (Conley 2009).

Comprehending Multiple Texts

In their academic lives, students are commonly invited to make use of multiple texts when carrying out assignments, such as project work. Also during leisure time, students may typically encounter conflicting information, in the form of websites, articles, blogs, advertisements and social media.