Reading and Questioning in Content Area Lessons

Armbruster, Bonnie B.; Anderson, Terry; Armstrong, James O.; Wise, Marsha A.; Janisch, Carole; Meyer, Linda A.

doi:10.1080/10862969109547726

Cited by 25 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 10 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Rather, whether students were on the mark or not with their responses, teachers provided feedback that sustained student involvement and processing, prompting students to think more about the topic and develop more sophisticated understandings. These findings are in contrast to those of most current researchers of classroom conversations (e.g., Alvermann & Hayes, 1989;Armbruster et al, 1991) who found that teachers focus more on "right" answers and less on using strategies to construct meaning.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 55%

Six Teachers' Dialogue during Cognitive Process Instruction

Gaskins¹,

Anderson²,

Pressley³

et al. 1993

The Elementary School Journal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The instruction of six teachers in a private school for bright underachievers that is characterized by a strategic teaching initiative, strong instructional leadership, and collegiality was examined to characterize the nature of instructional dialogue. Lesson transcripts were coded for the presence and organization of eight instructional moves often found in good strategy instruction. Results demonstrated teachers' fidelity to a particular vision of instruction. Instructional moves designed to make strategic processing specific and explicit were found in all lessons, with the majority of the lessons containing at least seven of the eight strategy instruction moves. Instruction was found to be transactional and process-oriented. Interactive cycles of dialogue, during which teachers were responsive to students' strategic construction of knowledge, were prevalent. Student and teacher demographic variables were considered as they related to characteristics of instruction. The transactional strategy instruction found here is likened to instruction described by Duffy and Roehler (1987b) and is contrasted with a recitation model of instruction.Gaskins, Anderson, Pressley, Cunicelli, & Satlow SIX TEACHERS' DIALOGUE DURING COGNITIVE PROCESS INSTRUCTIONThe typical way to change education is to propose a new curriculum; instead, we propose looking at instruction. The instructional moves of teachers entail countless decisions about various classroom contingencies--decisions that no curriculum developer could be expected to envision. For this reason, a curriculum can only be an abstraction until it is realized in the instruction of a particular teacher in a particular classroom. Curriculum artifacts such as statements of purpose, scope and sequence charts, textbooks, teachers' manuals, and lesson guides are by themselves lifeless; they are brought to life when teachers collaborate with students.Teachers and students must, in fact, construct the curriculum. The use of construct that we intend parallels the use among reading educators when we say that readers construct the meaning of text. It is now generally agreed that meaning is not in texts but arises from transactions between readers and texts (Rosenblatt, 1978). Similarly, instruction arises from transactions of teachers and students with curriculum materials. The relationship between the teacher, students, and materials is a reciprocal one in which each influences the other and, in turn, the context influences the transactions--transactions that provide the opportunity for instruction that is dynamic and flexible.When implementing a curriculum, teachers must bring to bear subject-matter knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and curricular knowledge (Shulman, 1986, p. 26). However, teachers vary not only in terms of their knowledge but also in their values, training, and personal and professional experience. If anything, students are even more variegated. Therefore, it follows that, as teachers and students collaboratively construct the curriculum, the curriculum act...

show abstract

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 55%

Six Teachers' Dialogue during Cognitive Process Instruction

Gaskins¹,

Anderson²,

Pressley³

et al. 1993

The Elementary School Journal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Content area literacy instruction is often eclipsed by concern about teaching content, especially with the current emphasis on standards-based instruction and high-stakes testing. Students do little textbook reading, either in class or as homework (Wade & Moje, 2000), and teachers often read aloud to students rather than show students how to read textbook material themselves (Armbruster et al, 1991).…”

Section: Mossmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Information Text Gap: The Mismatch between Non-Narrative Text Types in Basal Readers and 2009 NAEP Recommended Guidelines

Moss

2008

Journal of Literacy Research

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The purpose of this study was to compare the text genres represented in two recent California-adopted basal readers (grades 1 through 6) with the guidelines for informational text types in the 2009 NAEP framework. Phase 1 of data collection involved the use of two measures to determine the presence of each text genre: number of pages and number of selections. The researchers assigned pages and selections to one of four categories: narrative, poetry, play, or nonfiction. The second phase of data collection involved classification of nonfiction selections according to one of four categories: literary nonfiction, or one of three types of informational text: expository, argumentation and persuasive, or procedural and documents. The researchers computed percentages of pages and selections devoted to each genre and each type of nonfiction across grade levels and series. Results overall indicated that 40% of pages/selections in both series were devoted to nonfiction text, and that 50% of nonfiction text selections were expository and 33% were literary nonfiction. The findings indicate that these basal readers expose students to more nonfiction text than in the past, but that the exposure to informational text is still less than recommended by the 2009 NAEP and limited mainly to exposition. ResúmenEn este estudio se compararon los géneros representados en 2 textos básicos de lectura recientemente adoptados en California (de 1 a 6 grado) con las recomen-

show abstract

Section: Problems With Prevailing Practicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Even in subject-matter instruction, where textbooks also predominate (Tyson-Bernstein, 1988), most students do not learn most content by reading their textbooks. They rely rather on their teachers' presentations of content through lectures, discussions, films, and hands-on activities (Armbruster et al, 1991;Goodlad, 1984;Stodolsky, 1989).In sum, elementary children appear to be getting little practice with reading in general and with reading informational text in particular. Without practice reading informational text, children will not gain the text-structure knowledge they need to search effectively.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Teachers ask questions for a variety of purposes, such as to check whether students have read, to see whether they were paying attention, to evaluate understanding, and to review important information (O'Flahavan, Hartman, & Pearson, 1988). Teachers also ask rhetorical questions, or questions that serve some purpose other than to elicit a response (Armbruster et al, 1991). Likewise, questions in textbooks may serve a variety of functions, such as activating prior knowledge, setting a purpose for reading, or encouraging critical thinking.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Locating Information in Text: A Focus on Children in the Elementary Grades

Armbruster

Armstrong

1993

Contemporary Educational Psychology

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A review was conducted of the research related to the ability of elementary school children to carry out search tasks with informational text. The review was organized within a framework of components of the search process: Goal Formation, Text Selection, Information Extraction and Integration, and Evaluation. The research reviewed suggests that older and more proficient readers are better able than younger and less proficient readers to execute search tasks successfully and spontaneously. Other factors, such as the considerateness of text and the reader's prior knowledge of text structure and topic, were also shown to affect children's ability to search informational text. Implications for instruction are discussed.Locating Information in Text -2 LOCATING INFORMATION IN TEXT: A FOCUS ON CHILDREN IN THE ELEMENTARY GRADESIn school, children search text for answers to questions, pursue evidence in support of a point, and seek information on topics of interest. Recognition of the importance of locating information is evident in the fact that it is assessed on standardized tests and taught in commercially published programs, such as basal programs in reading and social studies.In this report we review research related to the ability of elementary school children to search text to locate information. We conclude with some reflections on the educational implications of this research. What is Involved in Locating Information?Locating information is a type of strategic reading (Guthrie & Mosenthal, 1987). Strategic readers have the following characteristics: (a) They have a purpose or goal for reading, which defines the reading task; (b) They analyze the task and all the factors that affect it; (c) From an analysis of the task, the text, and their own cognitive and affective resources, strategic readers carefully select tactics appropriate for achieving their goal; (d) They monitor their comprehension, thinking, and learning; and (e) They are flexible, changing their strategy as necessary to achieve their goal (Wade & Armbruster, in press).Guthrie and his colleagues have addressed the more specific question of what is involved in the subset of strategic reading of interest here--locating information. Guthrie and Mosenthal (1987) propose a model of the subprocesses of information location. The components of their model are:1. formulate a goal, 2. inspect appropriate categories of information, 3. sequence the inspection, 4. extract details from one or more categories, and 5. recycle to obtain a solution.Dreher (1992) presents a variation of this model, with the following five components:1. goal formation--formulating a goal or plan of action, 2. category selection--selecting appropriate text sections or categories (e.g., table of contents) for inspection, 3. information extraction--extracting the relevant information from the selected categories, 4. integration--integrating the extracted information with prior knowledge of the topic, and 5. recycling--repeating the preceding processes until the search task is comp...

show abstract

Reading and Questioning in Content Area Lessons

Cited by 25 publications

References 10 publications

Six Teachers' Dialogue during Cognitive Process Instruction

Six Teachers' Dialogue during Cognitive Process Instruction

The Information Text Gap: The Mismatch between Non-Narrative Text Types in Basal Readers and 2009 NAEP Recommended Guidelines

Locating Information in Text: A Focus on Children in the Elementary Grades

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About