Reflections on a Step Toward Synthesis - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Reflections on a Step Toward Synthesis

Looking across the RFU projects for some insights about what we have learned that might inform reading theory, practice, and policy

P. David Pearson

UC BerkeleySlide2

RFU: A synthesis

RFU

: Toward a synthesis

RFU:

A step toward a synthesis

RFU: Reflections on a step toward a synthesisSlide3

What have we learned about

The nature of reading comprehension

The nature of its acquisition

Productive pedagogical pathways for teaching and fostering its growthWays of assessing its infrastructure, development, and applicationSome cross cutting reflections aboutEnduring challengesEnduring themes

Collateral benefitsSlide4

Nature of Reading Comprehension

Simple

RC = D x LC

Not so simpleRC = {

CoU[AxKxDis(D X LC)]}/SELCC

RC = Reading Comprehension

LC = Listening Comprehension

K = knowledge

D = Decoding and

subword

level skill

A = activity

CoU

= Contexts of Use

Dis = Discourse setting (text, genre, discourse, debate)

SELCC = Socioeconomic/

Lnguistic

/Cultural ContextSlide5

The nature of reading comprehension acquisition/development

Sub word level processes do matter

Language matters at many levels: lexical, syntactic, discourse (pragmatic level)

Curriculum matters: Activities used to engage, enact, and apply practicesTexts matterDiscussable = edgyTalk matters

Coherent, relevant, edgySlide6

The stability of performance on reading achievement measures.

SES

OR OTHER

PREDICTOR

READING COMPREHENSIONSlide7

Productive Pedagogical Pathways

Teaching it directly

Components and antecedents

Strategies and other heuristicsClose examinations of the language of text in relation to the taskSituating its development within other purposes and activitiesAcquiring knowledge within disciplines and topics

Both little kids and big kidsDebating controversial social, cultural, and ethical issuesUnderstanding, critiquing, and constructing arguments and explanations of the natural and social worlds in which we liveDeveloping cultural capital and personal identitiesBuilding on and shaping bothSupporting it with a little help from my friendsTeachers and PeersSlide8

Progress on Assessment Front

If we divide the world into

Enabling, under the hood, and reflective comprehension skills

Substantial progress on eachReading development involves the gradual automatizing of reading component skills (read enabling

and under the hood) and the incremental expansion of strategic processes (read reflective) necessary to handle the types of texts and tasks that students are expected to engage with at different ages/grades. Slide9

Enduring challenges

You really do seem to get what you pay for

Lots of proximal and few distal effects.

Things seldom travel far beyond the instructional contextTwo possibilitiesYou may have to do it all in order for any one component to “show its stuff.”

Won’t emerge if other components are weak.Does this implicate a balanced approach to reading and RC instruction?We are teaching it within a procedural rather than substantive patinaThis is how you draw an inference in general notLet’s see if we can figure this out—then name itThe strategy of the momentJust in time pedagogySlide10

Enduring challenges

Design and implementation dilemmas

Our capacity to draw inferences about constructs is constrained by the quality of our measures

Time FidelityLogistical issues: e.g., groupingTexts to match our aspirationsSlide11

Enduring themes

Some old friends continue to show up

Vocabulary

Traversing the stuff of human experienceSome new friendsSyntax The discourse of complex reasoningSlide12

Policy Possibilities

Extending teaching reading beyond grade 5 or beyond grade 8

Not every teacher is a teacher of reading

Every teacher has both an obligation and an opportunityObligation to understand how reading (and writing and language) can make or break the acquisition of disciplinary knowledge and inquiry practicesOpportunity to use reading, writing and language to support not supplant disciplinary learning

Putting assessment in its place: two possibilitiesAs long as people are going to teach to the test, let’s have tests worth teaching toNever send a test out to do a curriculum’s jobCurriculum-driven assessment not test driven curriculumSlide13

Policy Possibilities

A different stance toward enabling skills

Enablers are just that.

The job of phonics isn’t done until kids learn how to critique the subtext of the texts they encounterSlide14

Collateral Benefits: A Serendipitous Legacy

Someone should do a monograph highlighting those contributions

Refined applications of the very latest in research methods

Applications of the latest in Research and statistical designs and analysesMeasuring fidelity and dosage

Iterative design-based workIncredibly well-designed pedagogical programsIntegrating components documented in more focused studies Many many useful assessmentsSlide15

An agenda for the future

Building on snapshots of promise in RFU

The affective face of learning

Engagement RelevanceChoiceSelf-efficacyIdentity

Cultural capital KnowledgeCapitalizing on the synergies for reading, writing, and languageThe role of talk in promoting reading comprehension.Slide16

An agenda for the future

New issues and enterprises

The digital world of text (acknowledging GISA)

Global contexts for engaging reading, writing, and languageSlide17

Taking Stock

What do

we know now that we did not know before?Slide18
Slide19

Thank yous

To IES for funding all of this work!

To the various RFUs for advancing our knowledge about the core of this thing called reading!