Principles of Integrated Instruction for Engagement in Reading

Our purpose in this article is to propose a set of design principles to serve as a structural framework for enhancing engagement in reading. We provide a rationale for our emphasis on engagement, which we believe is an important aim of reading instruction. We discuss the sources of the proposed design principles. These design principles consist of a set of features of the classroom context including: conceptual themes, real-world interactions, self-direction, interesting texts, social collaboration, self-expression, cognitive strategy instruction, time for engaged reading, and coherence. We present empirical support from the educational psychology literature for each principle. For illustration, we provide a brief depiction of each principle functioning within a framework of Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI). We emphasize that each principle is dependent on several others, and we describe how the functioning of each principle is contingent on the occurrence of several affiliated principles in the vignettes of CORI.     

Questioning Techniques: A Study of Instructional Practice

To what extent do teachers use questions to encourage deeper thinking and elicit fuller responses? How do teachers use the levels of questions and wait time as a teaching technique? How do teachers make space for students to talk together so that their thoughts are visible to other students? This article seeks to provide answers to these important questions through a review of the literature that begins with a study of the history of questioning, and then turns to the following topics: developing higher level thinking through questioning strategies; the role of wait time within the context of classroom climate and peer interactions; and higher order questioning strategies aligned with student achievement in reading and language arts. Although the author's frame of reference for how these issues play out is within the context of a school where students’ ability to articulate understanding and their own point of view is purposefully promoted and highly valued, the insights will have broad applicability across a full spectrum of schools.     

Learning from and responding to students' questions: The authoritative and dialogic tension

In this study we present an analysis of classroom interactions initiated by students' wonderment questions. Our interest in such events arises from their potential to stimulate active intellectual engagement in classrooms, which can impact upon the subsequent development of the classroom discourse. In investigating this issue we shall address the following research question: How do student questions impact upon the teaching explanatory structure and modify the form of the ongoing classroom discourse, in selected science lessons? From data collected in a Brazilian secondary school we have selected three classroom episodes, with large differences in both the context in which the student's question emerges and in the communicative approach developed in response to it. The analysis, based on the framework proposed by Mortimer and Scott [Mortimer and Scott (2003). Meaning making in secondary science classrooms. Maidenhead: Open University Press], shows that questions made by students are important in providing feedback from students to the teacher, enabling adjustments to the teaching explanatory structure. These adjustments sometimes occur smoothly, at other times with major changes to the features of the classroom discourse, and elsewhere with misunderstanding and disagreement. The data also suggest the need to consider students' intentions and their active participation in the negotiation of both the content and structure of classroom discourse. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 47:174–193, 2010     

Who’s asking the questions in classrooms? Exploring teacher practice and student engagement in generating engaging and intellectually challenging questions

Student engagement that leads to enhanced learning outcomes involves three interdependent facets: behaviour, emotion and cognition. As such, learning activities that encourage deep learning and the intellectual challenging of minds should provide opportunities for reasoning and critical and creative thinking. An approach that resonates strongly with student engagement involves fostering student voice in the classroom, and the generation and utilization of students’ questions is one means of achieving this. Implicit in this approach is the need for both teachers and students to pose questions that engage and intellectually challenge thinking. In this pilot case study, eight volunteer teachers from one school chose to investigate their own practice by either focusing on their own questioning skills to foster student engagement in the classroom or, on how they could support their students to generate intellectually challenging questions that lead to increasing student voice, engagement and deeper learning in the classroom. Key findings were that who does the questioning is not an either-or dichotomy, and that significant pedagogical shifting requires a long-term focus. This shift is influenced by teachers’ commitment to using questioning as a pedagogical approach for enhancing student learning.     

Teacher ratings of student engagement with educational software: An exploratory study

The quality of students' learning engagement may significantly influence their learning. Can teachers accurately judge student learning engagement with educational software? In this exploratory study, 3 fifth-grade teachers used a seven-level taxonomy to rate the frequency of different forms of engagement among 42 students interacting with different types of educational software. Teachers spontaneously treated the seven levels of engagement as a continuum, rating students highest on one level or a set of contiguous levels. Teachers generally agreed when ranking students by their typical levels of engagement, but disagreed regarding the actual frequencies of different engagement types. Ratings of software engagement conceived of as interpretive activity were correlated significantly with student reading test scores. Given the authentic classroom conditions in which this study took place, the results are promising for the classroom utility of the seven-level conception of student engagement with software.     

Are reading and behavior problems risk factors for each other?

Two questions were investigated. First, are children with reading problems in first grade more likely to experience behavior problems in third grade? Second, are children with behavior problems in first grade more likely to experience reading problems in third grade? The authors explored both questions by using multilevel logistic regression modeling to analyze data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Class (ECLS-K). After statistically controlling for a wide range of potential confounds, they found that children with reading problems in first grade were significantly more likely to display poor task engagement, poor self-control, externalizing behavior problems, and internalizing behavior problems in third grade. They also found that children displaying poor task engagement in first grade were more likely to experience reading problems in third grade. Collectively, these findings suggest that the most effective types of interventions are likely to be those that target problems with reading and task-focused behaviors simultaneously.     

The effects of reading to prepare for argumentative discussion on cognitive engagement and conceptual growth

Dialogue based approaches to education have been shown to benefit students through the quality of shared discourse. Warm conceptual change theories propose that these benefits are also mediated by increasing student engagement. Discourse and engagement effects were isolated in this study by having 130 third and fourth grade students read a science text for different purposes (no stated purpose, to prepare for a regular classroom discussion, or to prepare for an argumentative discussion) and then testing children before the discussion took place. Children who anticipated a discussion, especially an argumentative discussion, read more slowly than other children after controlling for fluency. A subset of reading times predicted conceptual growth. Finally some children who participated in argumentative discussions had higher rates of conceptual growth. Results substantiate the efficacy of argumentative discussion as a context for reading scientific texts, and they support the central mechanism of dual-processing theories of warm conceptual change.     

Reading vocabulary knowledge and deafness

With respect to reading vocabulary knowledge and deafness, this article addresses two broad questions: (1) Why is vocabulary knowledge related to reading comprehension ability? (2) How is reading vocabulary (i.e., word meanings) acquired? The article argues that the answers to these questions are best addressed by a vocabulary acquisition model labeled the knowledge model. In essence, this model asserts that both breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge are critical. It is necessary to teach vocabulary, especially to poor readers, who are not likely to derive many word meanings from the use of context during natural or deliberate reading situations. On the basis of theoretical and research syntheses, the article offers implications for vocabulary instruction for deaf children and adolescents.     

The Potential of Web 2.0 Tools to Promote Reading Engagement in a General Education Course

General education classes involve extensive course readings. College instructors have a limited time to cover every detail of the materials students are supposed to learn in class; thus, they expect students to learn through course readings. However, many college students demonstrate a low level of engagement in course reading tasks. Existing research has reported that most college students do not complete their assigned readings or they only engage in shallow levels of reading such as skimming and literal comprehension. Despite this negative phenomenon in college, a lack of research has been conducted to promote reading engagement in college classrooms. The purpose of this paper is to provide college instructors with practical guidance on using Web 2.0 tools to enhance student engagement in this task. According to self-determination theory (SDT), Web 2.0 tools share several engagement-enhancing factors. The paper discusses the potential of Web 2.0 technology to engage students by aligning with SDT. Based on the potential of Web 2.0, the paper suggests practical ways of using different Web 2.0 tools (i.e., GoogleDocs, Blog, Twitter, and Facebook) to promote reading engagement in a college classroom.     

An examination of student- and across-level mediation mechanisms accounting for gender differences in reading performance: a multilevel analysis of reading engagement

Enjoyment of reading, diversity of reading and metacognitive awareness of reading strategies are cognitive and affective variables pertaining to three facets of reading engagement for students to read happily, widely and skilfully. These have been found to be related to effectiveness in reading instruction. They together form a focus for this study to examine the underlying student- and across-level mechanisms to explain gender differences in reading performance of Macao students. Drawing data from Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2009 Study, the mediation effects of gender and the school’s gender composition on reading performance are analysed. Two findings are of both theoretical and pedagogical interests. Firstly, the three facets of reading engagement from the nurture perspective explain substantially the within-school gender gap. Secondly, in coeducation context where students read happily and skilfully, there are gender-specific peer influences across-level onto student reading performance. Implications for gender-inclusive reading instruction programmes are discussed.     

On-line Literature: The Challenge of Integrating Web-based Materials

This classroom research discusses the challenges of integrating face-to-face interactions with the use of on-line resources in secondary English classrooms. Examining the lesson plans of pre-service and early career teachers in the US, I found that the uses of on-line resources were frequently neither coherent nor consistent with the goals and objectives teachers had planned for their lessons. As well, on-line resources rarely furthered teachers’ attempts to support students’ analytical or close reading of literary texts, but instead were used primarily to foster student engagement with the literature. Although on-line literature resources provide almost unimaginable possibilities for enriching classrooms, teachers must learn to identify and clarify their objectives for reading, and they must distinguish their objectives from those of website developers and sponsors. If we want on-line resources to transform our classrooms, then we must be willing and able to transform those materials, to translate them for our students through developing robust questions that will guide their viewings and readings. Additionally, we must acknowledge that on-line contexts may themselves change reading behaviours, and that when using the World-Wide Web, our local contexts matter greatly.     

A Complexity Approach Toward Mind–Brain–Education (MBE); Challenges and Opportunities in Educational Intervention and Research

In the context of an educational or clinical intervention, we often ask questions such as “How does this intervention influence the task behavior of autistic children?” or “How does working memory influence inhibition of immediate responses?” What do we mean by the word influence here? In this article, we introduce the framework of complex dynamic systems (CDS) to disentangle the meaning of words such as influence, and to discuss the issue of education and intervention as something that takes place in the form of complex, real‐time, situated processes. What are the applied implications of such a CDS framework? Can we use it to improve education? Five general principles—process laws—are introduced, which can be used to guide the way we formulate research questions and methods, and the way we use the results of such research. In addition, we briefly discuss a project in progress, in which we ourselves attempt to apply the process laws that govern educational activities. Finally, we report about a discussion about the usability of the process laws, both in educational research and in the classroom, as was held during our workshop at the Mind, Brain, and Education Conference, November 2014.     

Do the rich get richer and the poor poorer?: The effects of an intervention programme on reading in the home and school language in a high poverty multilingual context

There is little research on differential reading performance in multilingual contexts in less than ideal learning conditions. This article reports on a reading intervention project in a poor multilingual primary school in South Africa where reading levels in Northern Sotho (home language) and English (language of schooling) were initially very low amongst Grade 7 learners. The nature of the reading intervention is briefly sketched and the outcomes after three years of implementation presented. Results at the intervention school showed some Matthew effects in both languages. Differential reading performance is discussed in relation to the high poverty and multilingual context of the school. Although this is a single case longitudinal study, implications for reading interventions and classroom instruction are considered in the context of disadvantaged multilingual primary schools.     

Lesson observation and quality in primary education as contextual teaching and learning processes

Quality in primary education is currently high on the education agenda in developing countries. What is quality? How can we effectively measure it? How can we achieve it? How can we improve it? The author considers two suggestions to be critical to answering these above questions and engages with them in this article:

• •place what is happening in the school and classroom, specifically teaching and learning processes, at the top of the quality agenda; and
• •use lesson observation to answer the questions.

The engagement in the article with the term “quality” highlights that six conceptualisations are used in the literature. However, the author argues that only two subsections of one of the conceptualisations are influencing policy, i.e. the input and output definitions of quality. An exploration of the common indicators of quality supports this and the author uses a political economy perspective to consider the reasons for it. This leads to the main section of the paper which seeks to explore the two suggestions bulleted above.     

A Critical Social Literacy Project: Newfoundlanders Challenge The Shipping News

In this paper we challenge traditional classroom reading and writing practices by presenting a critique of a critical literacy project that used hypermedia as the vehicle for textual engagement and resistance. We begin with remarks that locate critical literacy within a postmodern world, explain why we invited our students in the Faculty of Education at Memorial University of Newfoundland to read The Shipping News (1993), and continue with an analysis of their constructed World Wide Web texts. In addition to the Web pages, our data consist of students' commentaries on the course assignments, emails to the instructors, and the Internet audience's responses to the site. Literacy emerges and expands well beyond its earlier restrictive text-based practices. It assumes a plurality of constructions and meanings that are situated within social engagements with the world in which the students live.     

Division business

We examine characteristics of classroom contexts that influence motivations for reading. We frame the discussion in terms of design principles. First, we propose several general criteria that a set of design principles should meet if the set is to be sufficient to increase long-term motivations for reading. Next, we propose 8 principles derived from research on motivational and cognitive processes, instructional research, and classroom innovations. These design principles relate to (a) conceptual themes, (b) real-world interactions, (c) self-direction, (d) interesting texts, (e) social collaboration, (f) self-expression, (g) cognitive strategy instruction, and (h) curricular coherence. We constructed these design principles from sets of design principles offered by psychologists and educators, our studies, and a literature review we conducted. In particular, we note problems of underspecification typical of psychologists' proposed sets of principles and problems of overspecification typical of educators' designs. We conclude with suggestions for needed research on classroom contexts for increasing students' motivations for reading.     

Factors affecting student engagement in HEIs - it is all about good teaching

The passive role of students in their learning and education and the absence of student engagement in higher education institutions (HEIs) are quite common in many higher education institutions in developing countries. The main objective of the research presented in this paper is to explore the influential factors on student engagement in HEIs in the situational frame where student engagement and active learning and teaching do not have a long tradition. To answer our research questions, we conducted a survey with 279 undergraduate students from four universities in Libya. Our findings show that the availability and active usage of the university’s ICTs resources, the university’s reputation and teachers’ activating influence on students most efficiently predict student engagement in HEIs. The role of teachers and their competencies to use active learning techniques are perceived to be very influential in promoting student engagement.     

Bringing web‐enhanced courses to communities of learners in early childhood teacher education

Abstract

In our graduate programs in early childhood education, we model constructivist practice in the belief that teachers are better able to understand and implement constructivist principles having experienced them in their work. In this practice we attempt to be explicit about constructivist practice in our program and in elementary classrooms. As we examine and modify our constructivist pedagogy, one key question for teachers and ourselves emerges: What does a classroom based on constructivist pedagogy look like in early childhood (K‐2)? The goal of this research is a clearer understanding of constructivist pedagogy in the context of primary classrooms. The study was designed using qualitative methods in order to understand the experiences in classrooms guided by constructivist theory. The classroom participants are six teachers who graduated from a Master's degree program based on constructivist principles. Analysis of the six classrooms indicated 24 key elements of constructivist classrooms. A focused analysis of three constructivist teachers and their classroom supports these elements and indicates three broader characteristics: the important role of children, authentic and purposeful interactions among classroom participants, and engagement in academic activity. A vignette of a constructivist classroom is provided to present the essence of our findings while maintaining participants' views and voices.     

Effects of self-questioning on EFL students’ engagement in literary reading / Los efectos del autocuestionamiento en la lectura comprometida de textos literarios de estudiantes de inglés como lengua extranjera

This study examines the effects of self-questioning on EFL students’ literary reading engagement. Two interventions were tested: (1) students generating questions while reading short stories, and then exploring their questions in small-groups; and (2) students generating questions while reading, and then reflecting through a free writing activity. Participants were 59 Vietnamese undergraduate students enrolled in an English as a foreign language course. A pre-test post-test control group design with switching replications was used, with a control condition in which the teacher (instead of the students) posed the questions. Students’ reading engagement was measured by a written response to a short story and a questionnaire. Results showed that both self-questioning interventions positively influenced students’ reading engagement compared to the control condition. A maintenance of effects was also observed. We conclude that self-questioning combined with group discussions or free writing promotes students’ reading engagement.