The Research Says... Best Practices in Reading... use texts which reflect the reading students do in the real world

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1 The Research Says... use texts which reflect the reading students do in the real world nonfiction texts need to include specific features that help students decode and better understand the text they are reading use fiction, which students are more familiar with, to teach the strategies necessary for understanding nonfiction expose students to a variety of genres to add interest and give students maximum exposure to all kinds of texts modeling showing students how to apply the strategies as opposed to simply giving them the instruction is critical to successful reading comprehension by 4th grade, many students are struggling with reading comprehension due to gaps in informational literacy it s important to access the many great nonfiction resources available for students Best Practices in Reading... pairs fiction and nonfiction selections on the same topic with two permissioned pieces in each level to engage and hold students attention uses eye-catching photos, art, graphic organizers, and visuals to aid in comprehension helps students build background knowledge through first reading engaging fiction followed by nonfiction includes a variety of genres, including historical fiction, biography, realistic fiction, fantasy, myth and pourquoi tales provides extensive modeling of each of the six, research-based strategies in early lessons, gradually moving students to a point where they independently apply the strategies to texts begins at grade 3 to include critical strategies for comprehension presents well-written, engaging original texts as well as high-interest permissioned pieces from such well-recognized sources as Cobblestone, Kids Discover, Odyssey, and Contact Kids. P.O. Box Littleton, Merrimack, MA NH Fax:

2 Best Practices in Reading: A RESEARCH-BASED PROGRAM FOR IMPROVING STUDENTS READING Best Practices in Reading takes a strategic, interactive approach to reading. As students progress through the book, they are given instruction, modeling, and guided practice with key comprehension strategies that require them to interact with the various types of text. Each lesson consists of a fiction and a nonfiction selection on the same topic and draws on all the key comprehension strategies: Before Reading Prior Knowledge, Predict During Reading Make Connections, Make Inferences, Question, Visualize After Reading Visualize (graphic organizers), Summarize, Determine What Is Important, Make Connections In addition, students receive instruction and practice in recognizing genre structure. Genre instruction for fictional text includes story grammar (key literary elements and plot structure), as well as specific genre characteristics. Genre instruction for nonfiction text includes visual cues (such as headings, captions, and graphic aids), as well as various text organization patterns (such as causeeffect, sequence/process, compare/contrast, and problem/solution). Why Take a Strategic, Interactive Approach? The goal of reading is comprehension. Good readers expect to comprehend the text that they are reading. Poor readers, struggling to make sense of text, have different expectations. In the past few decades, reading research has investigated and analyzed exactly what it is that good readers do to reach their expected goal. Research has demonstrated compellingly that the process of comprehending text is interactive (Anderson and Pearson, 1984) and strategic (Anderson, Hiebert, Scott, and Wilkinson, 1985). Good readers apply a variety of strategies to process text (Pearson, Roehler, Dole, and Duffy, 1992), making decisions and adjusting their reading to suit their purposes and the kind of text in which they are engaged. How Can These Findings Benefit Poor Readers? The research has also demonstrated that comprehension strategies can, in fact, be taught (Tierney, 1982) and that readers who have difficulty comprehending text make huge gains when they are explicitly taught reading strategies (Kern, 1989). Moreover, studies have shown that when less-able readers are taught a few key comprehension strategies, their ability to comprehend a text is often indistinguishable from that of good readers who use such strategies spontaneously (Hansen and Pearson, 1983). Further, researchers have determined that these students are able to transfer their use of strategies to their independent reading (Griffin, Malone, and Kameenui, 1995; Pressley, Symons, Snyder, and Cariglia-Bull, 1989). Excerpted from Best Practices in Reading, Teacher Guide Level D 2003 Options Publishing

3 How Were the Key Strategies Selected? There is general agreement among researchers as to which key strategies students need to master to become effective readers (Pearson et al., 1992; Pressley, Johnson, Symons, McGoldrick, and Kurita, 1989). Such strategies include using prior knowledge, predicting, summarizing, determining what is important, questioning, visualizing, making inferences, and making connections. Why Pair Fiction and Nonfiction? Every reader brings a store of background knowledge and experience to a particular text. This knowledge provides a foundation for new information that the reader learns (Graves, Juel, and Graves, 1998). Good readers, who read widely and can retain what they have read, develop a substantial knowledge base. Poor readers, who avoid reading and have text-recall problems, tend to have a limited knowledge base. The use of twin texts has been effective in combating this uneven playing field (Camp, 2000). Twin texts are two selections a piece of fiction followed by a piece of nonfiction on the same topic. The fictional work is read first for two reasons. One, narrative text (text that tells a story) is far more familiar, making it more accessible to students and less daunting than expository (nonfiction-informative) text (Graves et al., 1998). Two, the fictional text serves to build background for students with sparse knowledge of a topic. After the topic has been introduced through the fictional selection, the nonfiction selection can offer a more in-depth look at the subject (Camp, 2000, p. 401). This background building levels the playing field for students. Why Teach Genre? Recent and current research have amply demonstrated that being able to understand how text is organized helps readers construct meaning (Dickson, Simmons, and Kameenui, 1998). Making students aware of the story grammar in a narrative provides a framework that guides them through the story (Dickson et al., 1998). Developing a knowledge of genre, and its impact on story grammar, provides students with a schema, or a set of expectations upon which they can draw when approaching a new story (Graves et al., 1998). Well-organized informational texts use visual and structural cues to direct readers to the central concepts and ideas. Research has shown that when students are taught to recognize and use these cues, they are better able to determine the important ideas in a text and to understand how those ideas are related (Seidenberg, 1989). These text cues may include, for example, the use of headings, subheadings and boldfaced words. Further, student awareness of structural patterns in expository text leads to better understanding and recall of text information (Seidenberg, 1989; Pearson and Fielding, 1991). Conclusion By drawing on established research, Best Practices in Reading can help struggling readers previously baffled by text become interactive, strategic readers who confidently expect to comprehend what they read whether it s fiction or nonfiction text Options Publishing Excerpted from Best Practices in Reading, Teacher Guide Level D

4 Research Bibliography Anderson, R.C., and Pearson, P.D. (1984) A schema-theoretic view of basic processes in reading comprehension. In P.D. Pearson (Ed.), Handbook of Reading Research. NY: Longman, pp Anderson, R.C., Hiebert, E.H., Scott, J.A., and Wilkinson, I.A.G. (1985). Becoming a Nation of Readers: The Report of the Commission on Reading. Washington, DC: National Institute of Education. Camp, D. (2000) It takes two: Teaching with Twin Texts of Fact and Fiction. The Reading Teacher, 53 (5), pp Dickson, S.V., Collins, V.L., Simmons, D.C., and Kameenui, E.J. (1998). Metacognitive Strategies: Research Bases. In What Reading Research Tells Us About Children with Diverse Learning Needs: Bases and Basics. Simmons and Kameenui (Eds). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Graves, M.F., Juel, C., and Graves, B.B. (1998). Teaching Reading in the 21st Century. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon. p Griffin, C.C., Malone, L.D., and Kameenui, E.J. (1995). Effects of graphic organizer instruction on fifth-grade students. The Journal of Educational Research, 89 (2) pp Hancock, J. (1999). The Explicit Teaching of Reading. Newark, DE: International Reading Association Hansen, J. and Pearson, P.D. (1983). An instructional study: Improving the inferential comprehension of good and poor fourth-grade readers. Journal of Education Psychology, 75, pp Harvey, Stephanie, and Goudvis, Anne (2000). Strategies That Work. York, ME: Stenhouse Publishers. Kern, R.G. (1989). Second language reading strategy instruction: its effects on comprehension and word inference ability. The Modern Language Journal, 73, pp Pearson, P.D., and Fielding, L. (1991). Comprehension instruction. In R. Barr, M.L. Kamil, P. Mosenthal, and P.D. Pearson (Eds.), Handbook of Reading Research (Vol 2), loc. cit., pp Pearson, P.D., Roehler, L.R., Dole, J.A., and Duffy, G.G. (1992). Developing expertise in reading comprehension. In S.J. Samuels and A.E. Farstrup (Eds.), What Research Has to Say About Reading Instruction (2nd ed.) Newark, DE: International Reading Association, pp Pressley, M., Johnson, C.J., Symons, S., McGoldrick, J.S., and Kurita, J.A. (1989). Strategies that improve children s memory and comprehension of text. Elementary School Journal, 90. pp Pressley, M., Symons, S., Snyder, B., and Cariglia-Bull, T. (1989). Strategy instruction research comes of age. Learning Disability Quarterly, 12 (1). pp Seidenberg, P.L. (1989). Relating textprocessing research to reading and writing instruction for learning disabled students. Learning Disabilities Focus, 5(1), pp Tierney, R.J. (1982). Essential considerations for developing basic reading comprehension skills. School Psychology Review, 11(3), pp Harvey, Stephanie (1998). Nonfiction Matters. York, ME: Stenhouse Publishers. Excerpted from Best Practices in Reading, Teacher Guide Level D 2003 Options Publishing

5 2003 Options Publishing

6 Results The results of the pre-test/post-test comparison are reported in Table 2. The table indicates that the students improved from their pre-test to their post-test scores. Paired comparison t- tests were computed to determine if the raw score improvements were statistically significant. For both program levels, the improvements were statistically significant. Table 1 Scope and Sequence of Assessments Matching Levels D and E Strategy Level D Level E Use Context Clues X X Analyze Vocabulary X X Identify Genre X X Make Predictions X X Table 2 Statistical Comparison Pre-Test/Post-Test Scores Levels D and E Program Level Level D Level E Pre-Test Percent Correct 50% 62% Post-Test Percent Correct 54% 73% t-test Significance <.05 <.01 Make Inferences/ Draw Conclusions X X 100% Summarize X X 90% Identify Main Idea X X Figure 1 provides a visual comparison of the changes from pre-test scores to post-test scores. 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 50% 54% 62% 73% 20% Pre-Test Post Test 10% 0% Level D Level E Conclusions Figure 1 Pre-Test/Post-Test Percent Correct Scores Levels D and E The pre-test/post-test comparisons show that the participating students increased significantly from pre-test scores to post-test scores. The gain might be considered even more significant when one considers that the students enrolled in the summer school programs in which this study took place were all selected for the programs because their reading skills were limited. The study was of very short duration, only lasting a few weeks during the summer. Reading test score gains during summer reading programs are not usually realized. In this study, not only were there gains, but the gain scores were statistically significant Options Publishing Catalog Number R