Literacy Now

by Sharon Vaughn
The University of Texas
July 29, 2013

Question:

I teach a 4th grade self-contained class. I am a huge proponent of reading of all types—from magazines to wordless picture books. I have always supported the use of literature circles within the classroom. I have typically always used a same-ability grouping for students in literature circles. My question is: What type of grouping works best—same ability or mixed ability?

Response from Sharon Vaughn:

It is important to consider what grouping practice is most effective for engaging readers and promoting successful outcomes. Fortunately, the answer is not limited to choosing between mixed- and same-ability grouping. The most successful grouping procedures in classrooms involve a range of grouping structures that are selected based on the learning needs of the students and the instructional goals of the teacher. One of the important decisions you have made that is associated with improved outcomes in reading is to provide small group instruction for your students (Taylor, Pearson, Clark, & Walpole, 1999).

Let’s specifically consider the question asked about same- and mixed-ability grouping for literature circles. You may know that until the 1990s, students were grouped for reading instruction into relatively homogeneous groups based on teachers’ judgment of ability, placement tests, and/or previous grouping arrangements (Barr & Dreeben, 1991; Kulik & Kulik, 1982).  Most teachers divided students into three or four reading groups within their class. Occasionally, teachers grouped students with students from other classes who had the same perceived reading ability and needs. 

Why has this practice changed? First, research revealed that students who were the poorest readers received instruction of poor quality focusing on isolated skills, with minimal time for reading connected text (Hiebert, 1983). Even students appearing to read at the same level may have very different instructional needs (Buly & Valencia, 2002). Also, there was inadequate opportunity for students to move between groups, influencing students’ self-perceptions and friendship choices (Hallinan & Sorensen, 1985; Oakes, Gamoran, & Page, 1992). However, effective teachers can overcome many of these problems associated with same-ability groups by assuring high-quality, responsive instruction to all same-ability groups and using other grouping practices to support student success such as mixed-ability groups, one-on-one instruction, and student pairing. In these contexts, students are grouped not by ability but by other factors such as their interests or consideration of group dynamics.

So, consider providing opportunities for students to work in both same- and mixed-ability grouping structures.   Also consider using other grouping formats such as peer-pairing, which can be particularly effective for rereading and promoting fluency, and one-on-one instruction addressing the specific learning needs of students. Our research suggests that these alternative grouping formats are especially important to consider for students with learning disabilities (Elbaum, Vaughn, Hughes, & Moody, 1999). And thank you for your question!

Sharon Vaughn is the H.E.Hartfelder/Southland Corp Regents Chair of Human Development and executive director of the Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk at The University of Texas at Austin.

Reader response is welcomed. Email your comments to LRP@/

by Timothy Shanahan
University of Illinois at Chicago
July 10, 2013

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) is the biggest curriculum reform of my lifetime. My own assessment of the Standards is that they represent a big improvement over past standards, though there are niggling problems—the kinds of things that one can easily critique but which would likely make little or no difference in kids’ learning if “improved.”

Nevertheless, the CCSS is now under fire by “grass roots” conservatives or “right wing fringe” groups (which description to use depends on your political perspective). These groups are starting to make headway with some of the legislatures in as many as 16 of the participating states. Their misinformation campaign may cause some mischief going forward.

The problem for educators is one of trying to implement the new Standards in a time of uncertainty. It is a big challenge to jump into professional development or curriculum writing activities if you aren’t sure whether the Standards will still be in place next week.

Further complicating the situation is the fact that the opposition, for the most part, doesn’t seem particularly interested in the Standards themselves or their implications for schools and kids. The major beef has to do with federalism and states rights, issues more about political power and control rather than pedagogy.

As such, much of their criticism isn’t even about CCSS. For example, many of the complaints are about the testing, which at least technically, is separate from CCSS. Under federal law, states are required to have educational standards, and since No Child Left Behind, they have to test how well their students meet those standards. Obviously, adopting new standards does mean new tests. However, you can have good standards and bad tests; they really are separable.

The states could have paid their own way for testing as they have in the past, but that’s where the federal government came in (they were not part of the standards development process). The feds offered support for groups of states to develop tests. Some of the critics see this support as proof that the CCSS are really “national standards,” which ignores the fact that several states that adopted CCSS, are going it alone on the testing (and with no penalty—except that they have to pay for their own tests).

Similarly, the critics seem to confuse “Race to the Top,” Arne Duncan’s stimulus-funded school reform, with CCSS. Since CCSS came out right when Race was getting going, Duncan offered states competitive points for adopting the Standards. Coercive? Perhaps. But the courts have approved even stronger instances of such coercion in the past without seeing any threats to federalism (including very conservative justices, like Antonin Scalia).

The critics are right that these dollars may have made a difference in some states; either instigating adoption or hurrying up the approval process.

On the other hand, the critics appear blind to the fact that several states didn’t compete for Race to the Top dollars, and yet they adopted Common Core anyway (including a state like Indiana, under the leadership of a very conservative governor, Mitch Daniels).

In any event, that the feds sweetened the benefits for adopting CCSS does not make them “national standards” and does not change the fact that the states adopted them voluntarily. I go to work voluntarily, even though my employer pays me.

Critics also make much of the fact that the Gates Foundation paid the bills for CCSS. Consequently, they confuse other Gates’ initiatives with it. They say, for example, that CCSS is requiring the collection of massive amounts of student data in the schools? Of course, they do no such thing. The initiative to build that database has nothing to do with CCSS, except a shared funding source.

The problem with conflating all of these programs and initiatives into a single narrative is that it makes a mess of the facts. The critics’ purpose is to build a political movement, and so they hope they can get the privacy rights folks angry about the databases, the anti-testing folks angry about the testing, the anti-Obama folks riled up about “Obamacore,” and so on. That’s why the opposition to Common Core in Indiana is reported to have been an alliance of liberal Democrats and conservative Tea Partyers; the Democrats opposed the Republican who was heading up the state school system and the TPers oppose the federal involvement in education and health care. Not exactly a marriage made in heaven, and yet politics makes strange…

The one thing that no one in the opposition has really done is put forth a strong cogent argument against the English Language Arts Standards. There are claims that they are “confusing,” or “not always clear or measurable,” or that they “focus on skills over content in reading,” or don’t address cursive writing, or treat “literary elements” inconsistently. But none of these critiques either provide specifics or go so far as to compare the Standards with the status quo. The biggest of their content criticisms? Glenn Beck’s claim that the Standards require teachers to stop teaching “classical literature” to make way for instruction in the reading of “EPA fiberglass installation manuals “ and “Federal Reserve Board minutes.”

Of course, some of these complaints are nonsensical or even outright mendacity (I’m still looking for the fiberglass installation manual in the exemplary text lists. Perhaps he was being metaphorical—maybe, fiberglass installation is code for The Federalist Papers). And, all of these whines miss the real point: despite their faults, the CCSS are markedly clearer, higher, and more coherent than past standards. Accordingly, none of these critics has dared comment on the science or history reading standards or the requirement that students demonstrate skills with texts more challenging than in the past.

Personally, I’d be willing to join these critics in their opposition to CCSS if they had any credible alternatives for our kids or our nation. The Senator Grassleys of the world who can, on the one hand, vote to require that states impose educational standards and tests of those standards, and on the other, to block federal assistance to states in carrying out these mandates, don’t interest me much.

In the past, political and intellectual conservatives have put forth spirited and imaginative curriculum proposals (e.g., Bill Bennett, Lynn Cheney, E.D. Hirsch); proposals that have been honored in the CCSS. But those who oppose the CCSS have no such imagination. They righteously embrace the educational status quo, though apparently not for their own kids (a status quo in which 42% of the students who meet or exceed the current standards require remedial instruction).

Any donkey can kick down a barn. I’ve never seen one that could build one. Make sure your legislators know that you support the CCSS—at least until something better comes along.

Reader response is welcomed. Email your comments to LRP@/

P. David Pearson, University of California, Berkeley
Virginia Goatley, University of Albany
July 2, 2013

Note: This document was authored by P. David Pearson and Virginia Goatley, with contributions from Karen Wixson, Peter Afflerbach, Gloria Ladson-Billings, Catherine Snow, and William Teale.

Introduction

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The June 17 release of the National Council for Teacher Quality report on the state of teacher education in the United States, dubbed Teacher Prep Review, has prompted numerous responses from the educational research and policy community. Most of the responses focus on the numerous flaws in the methodology used to collect and analyze evidence about the quality of the more than 1100 teacher education programs the NCTQ tried to evaluate (AACTE, 2013; NCTE, 2013; Darling-Hammond, 2013).

These responses, coupled with the telling limitations acknowledged in the report itself (see pages 90-92) and the early reviews of its own audit panel, raise the question why the report was released in the first place, and how it justifies its strong claims that teacher education programs across the country are lacking in quality. Thus, we affirm our endorsement of colleagues who have questioned the integrity of this report on methodological and conceptual grounds.  It should never have seen the light of day. 

But methodology is not the major point of this particular response.  Instead our purpose as a leading literacy professional organization is to look forward to what we can do as a profession, and as a nation, to improve teacher education. We believe there is a role for the NCTQ goals and perspective.  As members of both IRA and the LRP we share with NCTQ a commitment to improving teacher education through the application of high standards and rigorous evaluation. Whether we could join efforts with NCTQ on this common agenda depends upon whether NCTQ is willing to: (a) acknowledge and repair some of the shortcomings in its current approach to evaluating the quality and impact of teacher education programs, and (b) expand the set of criteria and standards that it applies to teacher education program evaluation. 

To respond to our first concern, NCTQ needs to reconsider its methodology in line with the critiques offered by our colleagues, and acknowledge the many sources of information it missed.   To respond to the second, NCTQ needs to learn more about the factors that shape effective teaching practices and, therefore, effective teacher education. 

Three questions derive from the current disconnect between the standards and methods of NCTQ and what we in literacy education know about what is effective for teacher education.  The first concerns the standards to which the research tells us we should be accountable.  The second concerns the question of who speaks for and cares about the improvement of teacher education.  The third concerns how we might create coalitions of concerned reformers to accomplish our common goals.  In the remainder of this response we analyze each of these questions before returning to the question of what we as a profession might do to improve teacher education.

Question 1:  To what standards should teacher education programs be accountable?

NCTQ uses 17 standards to evaluate teacher education programs, a number that appears to cover a range of qualities broad enough to provide a comprehensive analysis of quality. Yet, close analysis of these 17 standards reveals important gaps necessary to true understanding of the state of teacher education in the United States today.

Among the missing are:

• Anything to do with speaking and listening.  Even the most cursory reading of the research literature on classroom and small group discussion leads one to conclude that talk about text is an essential ingredient in any class at any grade level in any discipline.
• Anything to do with writing.  This is very problematic in the era of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), which rightfully stresses the importance of students being able to write research-based accounts in which they mount credible arguments, explanations, descriptions, and narratives.
• The special role of text in discipline-based learning.  In the era of the CCSS, text has been accorded a special, central role, especially in conducting and reporting research in the form of essays that are good arguments, explanations, and descriptions.  Why isn’t expertise with texts representing different domains and disciplines and written in different genres and registers a part of the list of key understandings?
• Diversity.  Although diversity was on the list of NCTQ standards, it was somehow deferred to the next round.  This is a curious omission.  Have we learned nothing about the central role of diversity in education in the last 20 years such that it deserves to make it into these standards?  Have we not an inkling of the marginalization that such an omission represents?   At the secondary school level, if there are no standards for either language or diversity, what does this say about our commitment to underrepresented students and their families and histories?  What does it say about our commitment to promoting multicultural understandings and respect? What does it say about any serious attempt to address the achievement gap in the United States?
• Forming instructional groups for specific purposes.  How one organizes a classroom and orchestrates grouping that addresses differentiation of instruction and maximizes student opportunity for learning is another indispensable knowledge base that is plainly ignored in the list.
• Motivation and engagement that facilitates learning. How do educators go about making instructional decisions to motivate and engage learners with relevant texts in ways that lead to increased retention and graduation rates?
• Metacognition.  How do teachers help students develop the metacognitive mindsets and tools that lead students to truly independent, successful work?

In addition, there are curiously flawed applications of the standards in the list:

• Many of the NCTQ standards apply only to elementary school teacher preparation and some, only to secondary programs.  We are puzzled by the decisions about which programs should be accountable to which standards.  For example, quite sensibly, NCTQ applies rigorous standards of specific domain knowledge to secondary programs (e.g., physics teachers need to know physics, not general science or chemistry), but they dismiss secondary teachers from the standards for English Language Learner or Struggling Reader issues.  This makes no sense for the majority of schools across the United States.  English learners are virtually everywhere, and they are not just in elementary schools!   Struggling readers are a fact of life in secondary schools, too—and not just in English or reading classes but also in science and history classes.  So why are secondary-teaching programs not examined in relation to these two standards?  We have no idea, as most secondary teachers face both of these issues on a daily basis. 

Finally, there is the problem of standards that are too narrowly defined: 

• The most glaring example of a standard that represents a problematically narrow construal of research is the Early Reading standard as applied to elementary credential programs.  Passing the standard can be achieved by a program if (and only if) it teaches the 5 pillars reviewed in the report of the National Reading Panel—phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary (see Rickenbrode & Walsh, 2013).  The LRP recognizes the wisdom of ensuring that these five topics are adequately covered in courses for future teachers.  However, the LRP also recognizes that the research base for other literacy-related topics, many in the previous bulleted list and most representing the core of the Common Core State Standards, is sufficiently strong to merit their systematic inclusion in teacher education programs also. 
  
  In other words, these five pillars are necessary for inclusion in an early reading teacher education program, but they are by no means sufficient. As a matter of record, it should also be noted that even the National Reading Panel did not believe that these 5 areas of instruction were the only ones that should be taught in schools or in teacher education programs, stating, “The Panel’s silence on other topics should not be interpreted as indicating that other topics have no importance or that improvement in those areas would not lead to greater reading achievement” (see NICHD, 2000, p. 1-3 of the methodology section of the NRP Report). 

Question 2:  Who cares about the improvement of teacher education?

Acknowledging the knowledge base.  Another frustrating aspect of the NCTQ report is the unstated but readily inferable assumption that until the publication of this report, no one, least of all those associated with teacher education research and development was concerned enough about the quality of teacher education to worry about its improvement.  Nowhere in the report is there acknowledgement of the work of the profession on quality control, nor is there any attempt to review the knowledge base in teacher education.

A basic principle of all scholarship, including the scholarship of evaluation, is that it is built on the work that has gone on before.  But in this report, we find no attempt to even point to, let alone summarize, what is known about the nature, quality, and reform of teacher education as a prelude to what NCTQ has to report.  To cite just a few of the overlooked resources:

• The Handbook of Research on Teacher Education (Cochran-Smith, Feiman-Nemser, McIntyre, Demers, 2008).  Approximately every 10 years, a new handbook, consisting of rigorously vetted state of the art reviews on over 40 aspects of teacher education research, is published.  Most of the chapters specify implications for improving the practice of teacher education.
• In 2005, AERA published Studying teacher education, a specially commissioned report, comprised of a set of nine reviews and three chapters concerning various aspects of teacher education (Cochran-Smith & Zeichner, 2005).
• The National Academy of Education has published two books describing the knowledge base for teacher education in general (Darling-Hammond, Bransford, 2007) and for teaching reading in particular (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 2005).

Consulting public databases.  Even more surprising is the fact that the NCTQ did not avail themselves of readily available data that would have filled many of the gaps that they attributed to uncooperative and recalcitrant program personnel.  NCTQ reported that only 1% of the institutions from which they requested information fully cooperated.

However, as Darling-Hammond (2013) recently pointed out in her initial response to this report, the NCTQ reviewers failed to consult the rich body of information available from state accreditation agencies and the national organization, the Council for the Accreditation of Educational Professionals—CAEP, which conducts accreditation reviews almost 50% of the institutions providing teacher education in the country. 

Much of the data that NCTQ complained they could not get from individual programs (e.g., syllabi and course requirements/assignments) would have been available in publicly accessible state reports.  Just why they failed to take advantage of this resource is puzzling, especially since the program evaluation data are collected in such a systematic and easily retrievable manner.

Although NCTQ states that they examined the information on state accreditation agency websites, they apparently did not pay attention to all that was available.  For example, if they had attended to the website of the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, they would have rated all programs high on the standard of secondary subject matter presentation because of the built-in requirement that all single subject candidates, prior to entering a teacher education program, document an undergraduate major in the subject matter for which they are seeking a credential or pass a rigorous examination of that specific subject matter. 

Also, they would have ranked all of California’s programs high on Standard 17, addressing outcomes, because all candidates in California must pass a rigorous performance-based assessment of their ability to apply their knowledge to specific teaching-learning scenarios, including an analysis of a video of their own teaching, before they can receive a credential. 

Resources in literacy.  Those of us in the field of literacy research and teacher education are particularly concerned about the failure of NCTQ to acknowledge the positive contributions of the primary professional organization to which we belong, the International Reading Association (IRA). IRA has a long history of providing leadership in teacher education, with multiple efforts in the last decade. Offering resources to teacher educators and reading professionals, these efforts use research evidence to lead the field in new directions. Here are a few examples:

IRA Standards for Reading Professionals – Revised 2010.  IRA developed the Standards for Reading Professionals as a framework for what reading professionals should know and be able to do.  There are six key standards:

1. Foundational Knowledge,
2. Curriculum and Instruction,
3. Assessment and Evaluation,
4. Diversity,
5. Literature Environment, and
6. Professional Learning and Leadership.

As a guide for professional practice, these standards are delineated into clear goals for a range of professionals and candidates, including:

• PreK and elementary classroom teachers,
• Middle/high school teachers (reading and content area),
• Literacy specialists/coaches,
• Administrators,
• Teacher educators, and
• Support personnel. 

The IRA Standards for Reading Professionals use research evidence and performance criteria to set a high standard for teacher education programs.  Extending across grade levels and teaching areas, this model requires teaching candidates to have comprehensive understandings of literacy content and how to teach that content to diverse students.

IRA Involvement with Teacher Education Accreditation.  Teacher preparation has rigorous means of establishing valid and reliable measures of evidence.  Through CAEP, the Council for the Accreditation for Educator Preparation (formerly NCATE and TEAC), the accreditation process involves extensive data collection and analysis for program improvement.  Required in some states and voluntary in others, this process (unlike the NCTQ process) includes a site visit for validation of written documents. In partnership with NCATE for over thirty years, IRA has had teams of trained reviewers who read the materials and write a report for reading specialists/literacy coaches programs seeking accreditation.  The Standards for Reading Professionals is a key component of the accreditation process. 

Position Papers and Research Reports. Based on studies by IRA’s National Commission on Excellence in Elementary Teacher Preparation for Reading Instruction and the Teacher Education Task Force, IRA has produced research reports and position statements to inform best practices in teacher education. The document Teaching Reading Well (2003) outlines six essential features for teacher education programs.  This synthesis suggests,

Outstanding reading education programs are grounded by content, powered by teaching, energized by apprenticeships, enriched by diversity, evaluated by assessment, and sustained by vision and good governance (p. 2).

In Prepared to Make a Difference, IRA summarizes the findings of the National Commission on Excellence in Elementary Teacher Preparation for Reading Instruction.  This longitudinal research tracked 101 graduates of teacher education programs into their first three years of teaching, including analysis of achievement data of their students.  The results generated eight critical features for excellence in reading teacher preparation programs, showing convergence with both the Standards for Reading Professionals and the NCATE standards.

IRA Certification of Distinction for the Reading Preparation of Elementary and Secondary Teachers.  A group of reading scholars created the IRA Certificate of Distinction as a way to recognize outstanding teacher education programs in reading.  As noted in the vetting specifications:

The Certificate of Distinction recognizes only distinguished programs that consistently prepare well–qualified reading teachers who know about and use evidence-based practices.

With research as a framework for how a program is evaluated, the process requires both extensive documentation of program qualities and then a site visit by a team of reading experts.  A peer-reviewed research study by Lucina & Collins Block (2011) on teacher education programs receiving this Certificate identified 14 common programmatic features.  Highest ranking were:

1. consistent, carefully selected, and relevant field experiences,
2. teaching and assessing children using a wide variety of strategies and assessment instruments, and
3. integrated, aligned, and spiraling literacy curriculum.

These programs provide multiple opportunities throughout the coursework and field experiences for students to learn literacy practices, rather than relying on one or two courses or field experiences.

Question 3:  How do we determine and pursue common goals for improvement efforts?

For candidates to be prepared as literacy teachers as noted in many of the resources available the education process is carefully planned to intertwine areas such as content knowledge of literacy foundations; rich field experiences to develop expertise; evidence-based approaches to assessment and instruction; and appreciation of the diversity present in our classrooms. This complex process is intended to help candidates move towards a professional teaching role.

The conclusion (pp. 93-94) of the NCTQ report reveals information key to understanding the stance that the NCTQ takes toward the teacher education process.  In that section, the authors make much of the distinction between teacher "training" and teacher "preparation", noting that professional teacher educators reject the training metaphor in favor of preparation.  NCTQ suggests that teacher education programs view their responsibility as exposing future teachers to the knowledge base and a range of philosophies of teaching so that each future teacher educator can develop a personal approach to teaching.  

The report critiques this approach on the grounds that it privileges personal ideology over scientific (i.e., research-based) knowledge and therefore runs the risk that teachers will deny students and their families access to the most up-to-date scientifically-validated teaching approaches. In privileging training over preparation (or the even more common metaphor of educating), NCTQ sides with generalized technical skill over situated and highly contextualized knowledge.  Implicit in this choice is the assumption that teaching is more a trade than a profession.

This view of teaching as trade is problematic on many levels. The training that NCTQ promotes enables one to repeatedly enact a routine with a high degree of fidelity; the education that we as the Literacy Research Panel value prepares one to apply knowledge flexibly and differentially to particular situations and students.  Similarity matters more in training; difference and variation, in education.  

For the trainer and the educator, an identical piece of research-based knowledge (the 5 pillars of reading from the National Reading Panel report, for example) represents a very different asset.  For the trainer, the knowledge is a recipe or routine to be enacted faithfully; for the educator, it is significant information that guides practice in concert with multiple related pieces of research-based knowledge.  This distinction helps to explain the impatience of the NCTQ with teacher education (Rickenbrode  & Walsh, 2013).  But it also suggests that the NCTQ thinks of teaching as a technical vocation rather than as a profession.  The Literacy Research Panel is unwilling to abandon the goal of increasing the professional character of teaching.  Teaching—like medicine, law, social work, or even acting—is too complex and too consequential to regard as a technical, vocational enterprise.  

The Challenge—for NCTQ and for Us

If the NCTQ and its founders are serious about improving the quality of teacher education in this country, they should reject their current strategy of trying to shame programs into compliance by subjecting their practices to an unprofessional evaluation and holding superficial records up to public ridicule.  Instead they should join those of us who have labored in the field for decades to promote improvement through research, researched-based practice, and exemplary programs.  Research on change in a wide range of institutions and social settings tells us that shame as a tactic rarely produces change of lasting value and impact.  Inviting colleagues to become part of the solution to the vexing problems and shortcomings of the field is a strategy with a much better track record.  Let’s hope that NCTQ reformers accept this challenge and invitation to be a force for good and for positive change in a profession with such a grave responsibility to our society, our parents, and, above all, our children and youth.  One can even imagine a legitimate long-term role for NCTQ in monitoring program quality on a national scale, but only if its goals, criteria, and methods are grounded in solid research, broad professional consensus, and the highest societal aims. 

Reader response is welcomed. Email your comments to LRP@/

by Annemarie Palincsar
University of Michigan
June 11, 2013

The Internet offers so many possibilities for supporting information gathering; that is both its blessing and its curse! Students have incredible amounts of information at their fingertips, but, of course, the quality and accessibility of that information varies dramatically. Unfortunately, Internet sites do not come with any warnings about their reliability; in addition, users have to do some sophisticated thinking to: integrate information they are likely to glean from various sites, recognize where there are disparities in the information; determine what the gaps are in the answer to their query, make judgments about the adequacy of the information, and monitor whether or not they have been successful in their search; that is, the extent to which they have satisfied the original intent with which they launched an Internet search.

Goldman and her colleagues have a history of conducting sterling research that has informed the field’s understanding about how readers make sense of text, including how they make sense of  - and integrate  - information across multiple documents. In the RRQ study, they were interested in capturing the differences in the activity of students using websites when those learners were characterized in terms of how much they learned from their search; hence the term “better and poorer readers” in their title. 

One reason the research of Goldman and her colleagues is so helpful is the clarity and robustness of the conceptual framework that they use to describe reading comprehension. The RRQ research is no exception.  The authors draw on the construction-integration model of Kintsch (1998), which, as its name suggests, proposes two processes essential to comprehension. When we read, we use the information presented to construct – or build – the meaning of the text ideas. In addition, we integrate these newly constructed ideas with the existing ideas that we already have regarding the topic. The product of this meaning construction is called a mental representation of the text. Kintsch actually proposed that there are two mental representations: the one that reflects the ideas captured in the words and phrases of the text itself, which he called the textbase and the mental representation that results from integrating the textbase with prior knowledge, which he called, the situation model.

Goldman et al. investigated readers developing and elaborating their mental representations of the causes of the eruption of Mt. St. Helens. The study was well designed; the researchers constrained the sites that were navigable so that they could control the content; they included a total of seven sites (all were representative of sites that a typical user might access via the Internet); three were deemed reliable sites (i.e., they were prepared and hosted by known reputable organizations), three were deemed unreliable, and one was a commercial educational site.  The researchers used both a 30-item assessment, as well as essay writing, to evaluate learning before and after using the websites. As the participants (n=34), who were college students, navigated the various websites in order to advance their understanding of the driving question, they were asked to say everything that they were thinking about as they conducted their search (i.e., this was a think-aloud study). The students were also asked to rank order the seven sights in terms of how reliable they thought they were.

While the better and poorer learning groups did not differ in terms of the prior knowledge they had about the topic, they did differ in terms of the gains that they made from pre- to post-assessment.  Furthermore - and what is particularly noteworthy  - is that the good learners were distinguished from the poor learners by the finding that the better learners produced essays that integrated concepts from across the sites, resulting in more complete and accurate situation models. To understand these differences, it is helpful to look more closely at the time spent on the activity and how the time was spent.  All learners, regardless of their status as better or poorer learners, spent comparable amounts of time engaged in the task, but the better learners spent more time on the reliable sites, while the poorer learners were not as discriminating about where they spent their time. This finding, in part, reflects the finding that the better learners tended to be more adept at evaluating the reliability of sites (although there was not a statistically significant difference between the two groups’ rankings).

To understand the processes the readers engaged in on the various sites, the researchers coded the think-aloud data, noting, for example, the use of self-explanations and paraphrasing, the building of connections within and between sites, the extent to which learners monitored for sense-making, and the extent to which learners made comments suggesting that they were evaluating the information on the sites. To summarize the findings from this analysis: better and poorer learners did not differ that much with respect to the processes that they used as they navigated within and across site; rather, they differed in terms of when they chose to engage in comprehension-building and comprehension-monitoring activity, with the better learners choosing to execute these processes more frequently when they were consulting more reliable sites.  Better learners were more attentive to what they regarded to be more reliable, higher quality sites, while poorer learners’ activity was more guided by what they regarded as relevant to their search.

There are a number of important implications from this study for teachers across all grade levels. The first is that, in the course of reading comprehension instruction, teachers must attend not only to ensuring that their students have a repertoire of strategies to use while interpreting and learning from text (e.g., comprehension monitoring, self-explanation, question generating), but also that they attend to the flexibility with which students apply these strategies as a function of the reading material with which they are working and the purposes for which they are reading. Teachers of younger students need to be explicit about the fact that the good practices that students bring to their reading of texts in isolation are appropriate – and indeed perhaps even more necessary – when reading on the Internet. Finally, this study suggests the appropriateness of teaching students how to make judgments about the reliability of websites, and encouragement that, while unreliable websites may have fascinating facts and/or opinions, their attention should be reserved for those sites that will advance their knowledge building.

Reader response is welcomed. Email your comments to LRP@/

by Nonie Lesaux
Harvard Graduate School of Education
June 10, 2013

The short answer to this question is: no. An English-only rule at home is unlikely to support English language learners’ (ELLs) academic development in the way that one might think. In fact, it’s likely to do more harm than good.

Encouraging all families to talk (and talk, and talk!) in the languages with which they are most comfortable (most often their native languages) is a key way to provide children with the learning experiences they need for reading success (Snow, Porche, Tabors, & Harris, 2007). In other words, from the earliest years, families can help build knowledge about the world and therefore children’s literacy skills by having rich conversations at home in familiar languages. 

How is it that rich conversations at home in a language other than English can probably better support a child’s English language and reading development than conversations in English?

When caregivers speak using the language that best facilitates sharing ideas, telling stories, and having rich dialogue, they are boosting children’s world knowledge, which almost always boosts their ability to read in any language (August & Shanahan, 2006). We need to help families realize that the accumulation of knowledge, over time, is what enables children to read and understand the texts they will encounter in later school years (Lesaux, 2012). It is also what enables critical thinking as adults. In the end, it is depth of knowledge about the world that is a difference maker in reading achievement.

Because it is natural to use more words and spin more creative narratives in the language that is most comfortable, an English-only rule at home doesn’t make sense. When children develop deep understanding of concepts in their home languages, they then just need to map a new label, in English, to a concept they already grasp. This is much like we do, as adults, when we are in a foreign country--we learn the names of familiar concepts in the foreign language in order to navigate the new territory.

To support our ELLs’ vocabulary knowledge and literacy development, we need to partner with all families to support and encourage the use of questioning, dialogue, and storytelling in everyday moments to build up children’s knowledge of language—in whatever style and language comes most naturally.

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