In Becoming a Nation of Readers (BNR) (1985), Richard C. Anderson, Elfrieda H. Hiebert, Judith A.... more In Becoming a Nation of Readers (BNR) (1985), Richard C. Anderson, Elfrieda H. Hiebert, Judith A. Scott, and Ian A. G. Wilkinson argued that the quality of teaching is a powerful influence on children's reading development–more powerful than the influence of the general teaching approach or materials used. In this article, we focus on one research tradition in the area of literacy teaching quality: case studies of teachers who are identified as effective or exemplary as literacy educators. Review of these studies reveals a wide range of well-coordinated practices used by effective literacy educators, echoing, expanding, and deepening points made in BNR.
The impetus for this study came from our longstanding work on developing and evaluating integrate... more The impetus for this study came from our longstanding work on developing and evaluating integrated science-literacy curriculum units. Our approach has been is to treat vocabulary knowledge as conceptual knowledge and to leverage the supportive context of science for multifaceted, ...
This article shares insights from a symposium celebrating the retirement of P. David Pearson, one... more This article shares insights from a symposium celebrating the retirement of P. David Pearson, one of the most influential reading researchers of the last half-century. Presenters addressed the nature, instruction, and assessment of reading comprehension, teacher learning and comprehension, and the texts and contexts of comprehension. Collectively, the sessions offered the opportunity to reflect on what we have learned over five decades of comprehension research and practice and to engage with questions about the work that lies ahead. In particular, presenters called for renewed efforts to link comprehension instruction to students’ roles as agents and actors; to embrace complex views of readers, texts, and contexts; and to foreground teachers’ roles in their own learning about comprehension and in instructional reform efforts.
This study addresses the distribution of words in texts at different points of schooling. The fir... more This study addresses the distribution of words in texts at different points of schooling. The first aim was to identify a core vocabulary that accounts for the majority of the words in texts through the lens of morphological families. Results showed that 2,451 morphological families, averaging 4.61 members, make up the core vocabulary of school texts. The 11,298 words in the 2,451 morphological families account for 58% of the approximately 19,500 most frequent words in written English. The majority of the morphological families appear by the end of the elementary school period (85%), but a small group of morphological families (15%) is added through the middle to high school period. Analyses of the ranks of words across grade bands indicated that late-appearing words gain in prominence in higher level texts as some elementary-level words become less frequent. The second aim of the study was to determine the degree to which the core vocabulary accounted for the words in an independent but critical set of texts: the exemplar texts identified within the Common Core State Standards. The 2,451 families accounted for 97.1% (grades K and 1) to 89.1% (grade 11 through college) of the total words in texts and 95.6% (grades K and 1) to 74.9% (grade 11 through college) of the unique words in texts. Implications of the findings on the nature and role of the core vocabulary in complex texts are suggested for researchers, curriculum developers, and publishers.
This article represents the collaborative efforts of three teachers. Each of us is currently enro... more This article represents the collaborative efforts of three teachers. Each of us is currently enrolled in a doctoral program at a Research I university, struggling with the pressures and stresses of balancing newfound researcher voices with our teacher voices. Although this is collaborative, it is written in the first person as our voices mingle a reflection of our experience. We hope other teachers will find our ideas compelling, resonant with their own, and feel moved to action in the style we suggest. Education research should be the domain of teachers and this is a call for teachers to take back the endeavor. The field of educational research was largely homogenous in terms of its methods, epistemology, and values until the mid 1980's (Zeichner, 1999). Since then, the field has witnessed an incredible proliferation of methods and voices. This diversity has led to much innovation, provided needed breadth and depth of insight into educational phenomena, and illuminated areas and issues previously unexplored. Educational research today is a unique mix of genres and values. This diversity should be viewed as a strength of the field, as multiple voices speak to similar issues. It has truly become Shulman's "Great Conversation" (1986).
This project examined the words selected for instruction from fourth-grade English/Language Arts ... more This project examined the words selected for instruction from fourth-grade English/Language Arts (ELA) and science programs with the goal of describing the unique words in these two text types. Seven features of the words were established: (a) length, (b) frequency, (c) frequency of a word's morphological family, (d) familiarity, (e) dispersion (i.e., how frequently a word appears across subject areas), (f) conceptual complexity, and (g) semantic relatedness. Analyses showed differences on all features except for the frequency of morphological families and dispersion. Narrative vocabulary was more familiar but less frequent than science vocabulary, but science words were longer, more conceptually complex, and more semantically related than narrative words. These differences lend themselves to different instructional approaches. In science, where unique words are conceptually complex, students benefit from extensive discussion and demonstrations. Because the unique words of narrative texts represent fairly familiar concepts, instruction should emphasize the ways in which authors vary their language.
How can you connect, supplement, and extend students' firsthand investigations? Look toward y... more How can you connect, supplement, and extend students' firsthand investigations? Look toward your bookshelves for a clue. Books and other textual materials can serve the following roles in support of scientific inquiry: providing context, modeling, supporting firsthand inquiry, supporting secondhand inquiry, and delivering content. Each of these roles are described in this article, and examples that demonstrate how trade books can support students' (a) involvement in inquiry experienced, (b) grasp of science concepts, and (c) understanding of the nature of science. (Contains 1 figure.)
When writing for academic purposes, you are contributing toward a larger conversation taking plac... more When writing for academic purposes, you are contributing toward a larger conversation taking place among scholars. Therefore, you need to place your thoughts and input within that larger conversation. What do others have to say about this topic and how does your contributribution relate to, and extend, this larger conversation? Establishing this conversation is the purpose of including a literature review in a paper. But you must do more than simply review what others have stated; you must then contribute to this conversation in a meaningful and significant way. Luckily, there are a number of "moves" that can be made in order to enter the ongoing conversation related to your chosen topic. It is in the beginning of your paper where you will use these introductory moves to create a research space in which your paper will exist. Writing experts and scholars, John Swales and Christine Feak (2009) created a list of moves that can be followed when writing graduate papers and scholarly articles: Move I: Establish a Research Territory A. Show that your research area is of importance, is interesting, problematic, or relevant in some way. Why should your audience care about your research area? B. Introduce and review the previous and current research in your chosen research area. This is where you are showing the larger conversation taking place and what you are, therefore, responding to in your paper. Move II: Establish a Niche A. Point out a gap, raise questions about, or extend the knowledge in some way of the previous and current research.
This study investigates the efficacy of an integrated science and literacy approach at the upper-... more This study investigates the efficacy of an integrated science and literacy approach at the upper-elementary level. Teachers in 94 fourth grade classrooms in one Southern state participated. Half of the teachers taught the treatment unit, an integrated science-literacy unit on light and energy designed using a curriculum model that engages students in reading text, writing notes and reports, conducting firsthand investigations, and frequent discussion of key concepts and processes to acquire inquiry skills and knowledge about science concepts, while the other half of the teachers taught a content-comparable science-only unit on light and energy (using materials provided by their districts) and provided their regular literacy instruction. Students in the treatment group made significantly greater gains on measures of science understanding, science vocabulary, and science writing. Students in both groups made comparable gains in science reading comprehension.
In Becoming a Nation of Readers (BNR) (1985), Richard C. Anderson, Elfrieda H. Hiebert, Judith A.... more In Becoming a Nation of Readers (BNR) (1985), Richard C. Anderson, Elfrieda H. Hiebert, Judith A. Scott, and Ian A. G. Wilkinson argued that the quality of teaching is a powerful influence on children's reading development–more powerful than the influence of the general teaching approach or materials used. In this article, we focus on one research tradition in the area of literacy teaching quality: case studies of teachers who are identified as effective or exemplary as literacy educators. Review of these studies reveals a wide range of well-coordinated practices used by effective literacy educators, echoing, expanding, and deepening points made in BNR.
The impetus for this study came from our longstanding work on developing and evaluating integrate... more The impetus for this study came from our longstanding work on developing and evaluating integrated science-literacy curriculum units. Our approach has been is to treat vocabulary knowledge as conceptual knowledge and to leverage the supportive context of science for multifaceted, ...
This article shares insights from a symposium celebrating the retirement of P. David Pearson, one... more This article shares insights from a symposium celebrating the retirement of P. David Pearson, one of the most influential reading researchers of the last half-century. Presenters addressed the nature, instruction, and assessment of reading comprehension, teacher learning and comprehension, and the texts and contexts of comprehension. Collectively, the sessions offered the opportunity to reflect on what we have learned over five decades of comprehension research and practice and to engage with questions about the work that lies ahead. In particular, presenters called for renewed efforts to link comprehension instruction to students’ roles as agents and actors; to embrace complex views of readers, texts, and contexts; and to foreground teachers’ roles in their own learning about comprehension and in instructional reform efforts.
This study addresses the distribution of words in texts at different points of schooling. The fir... more This study addresses the distribution of words in texts at different points of schooling. The first aim was to identify a core vocabulary that accounts for the majority of the words in texts through the lens of morphological families. Results showed that 2,451 morphological families, averaging 4.61 members, make up the core vocabulary of school texts. The 11,298 words in the 2,451 morphological families account for 58% of the approximately 19,500 most frequent words in written English. The majority of the morphological families appear by the end of the elementary school period (85%), but a small group of morphological families (15%) is added through the middle to high school period. Analyses of the ranks of words across grade bands indicated that late-appearing words gain in prominence in higher level texts as some elementary-level words become less frequent. The second aim of the study was to determine the degree to which the core vocabulary accounted for the words in an independent but critical set of texts: the exemplar texts identified within the Common Core State Standards. The 2,451 families accounted for 97.1% (grades K and 1) to 89.1% (grade 11 through college) of the total words in texts and 95.6% (grades K and 1) to 74.9% (grade 11 through college) of the unique words in texts. Implications of the findings on the nature and role of the core vocabulary in complex texts are suggested for researchers, curriculum developers, and publishers.
This article represents the collaborative efforts of three teachers. Each of us is currently enro... more This article represents the collaborative efforts of three teachers. Each of us is currently enrolled in a doctoral program at a Research I university, struggling with the pressures and stresses of balancing newfound researcher voices with our teacher voices. Although this is collaborative, it is written in the first person as our voices mingle a reflection of our experience. We hope other teachers will find our ideas compelling, resonant with their own, and feel moved to action in the style we suggest. Education research should be the domain of teachers and this is a call for teachers to take back the endeavor. The field of educational research was largely homogenous in terms of its methods, epistemology, and values until the mid 1980's (Zeichner, 1999). Since then, the field has witnessed an incredible proliferation of methods and voices. This diversity has led to much innovation, provided needed breadth and depth of insight into educational phenomena, and illuminated areas and issues previously unexplored. Educational research today is a unique mix of genres and values. This diversity should be viewed as a strength of the field, as multiple voices speak to similar issues. It has truly become Shulman's "Great Conversation" (1986).
This project examined the words selected for instruction from fourth-grade English/Language Arts ... more This project examined the words selected for instruction from fourth-grade English/Language Arts (ELA) and science programs with the goal of describing the unique words in these two text types. Seven features of the words were established: (a) length, (b) frequency, (c) frequency of a word's morphological family, (d) familiarity, (e) dispersion (i.e., how frequently a word appears across subject areas), (f) conceptual complexity, and (g) semantic relatedness. Analyses showed differences on all features except for the frequency of morphological families and dispersion. Narrative vocabulary was more familiar but less frequent than science vocabulary, but science words were longer, more conceptually complex, and more semantically related than narrative words. These differences lend themselves to different instructional approaches. In science, where unique words are conceptually complex, students benefit from extensive discussion and demonstrations. Because the unique words of narrative texts represent fairly familiar concepts, instruction should emphasize the ways in which authors vary their language.
How can you connect, supplement, and extend students' firsthand investigations? Look toward y... more How can you connect, supplement, and extend students' firsthand investigations? Look toward your bookshelves for a clue. Books and other textual materials can serve the following roles in support of scientific inquiry: providing context, modeling, supporting firsthand inquiry, supporting secondhand inquiry, and delivering content. Each of these roles are described in this article, and examples that demonstrate how trade books can support students' (a) involvement in inquiry experienced, (b) grasp of science concepts, and (c) understanding of the nature of science. (Contains 1 figure.)
When writing for academic purposes, you are contributing toward a larger conversation taking plac... more When writing for academic purposes, you are contributing toward a larger conversation taking place among scholars. Therefore, you need to place your thoughts and input within that larger conversation. What do others have to say about this topic and how does your contributribution relate to, and extend, this larger conversation? Establishing this conversation is the purpose of including a literature review in a paper. But you must do more than simply review what others have stated; you must then contribute to this conversation in a meaningful and significant way. Luckily, there are a number of "moves" that can be made in order to enter the ongoing conversation related to your chosen topic. It is in the beginning of your paper where you will use these introductory moves to create a research space in which your paper will exist. Writing experts and scholars, John Swales and Christine Feak (2009) created a list of moves that can be followed when writing graduate papers and scholarly articles: Move I: Establish a Research Territory A. Show that your research area is of importance, is interesting, problematic, or relevant in some way. Why should your audience care about your research area? B. Introduce and review the previous and current research in your chosen research area. This is where you are showing the larger conversation taking place and what you are, therefore, responding to in your paper. Move II: Establish a Niche A. Point out a gap, raise questions about, or extend the knowledge in some way of the previous and current research.
This study investigates the efficacy of an integrated science and literacy approach at the upper-... more This study investigates the efficacy of an integrated science and literacy approach at the upper-elementary level. Teachers in 94 fourth grade classrooms in one Southern state participated. Half of the teachers taught the treatment unit, an integrated science-literacy unit on light and energy designed using a curriculum model that engages students in reading text, writing notes and reports, conducting firsthand investigations, and frequent discussion of key concepts and processes to acquire inquiry skills and knowledge about science concepts, while the other half of the teachers taught a content-comparable science-only unit on light and energy (using materials provided by their districts) and provided their regular literacy instruction. Students in the treatment group made significantly greater gains on measures of science understanding, science vocabulary, and science writing. Students in both groups made comparable gains in science reading comprehension.
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