To What Extent and How Are Reading Comprehension Strategies Part of Language Arts Instruction? A Study of Lower Secondary Classrooms

Abstract

The authors examined naturally occurring reading comprehension strategies instruction (RCSI) across four consecutive lessons in 47 Norwegian language arts classrooms at the lower secondary level via video observations (n = 178). Although numerous studies have examined the effectiveness of RCSI for improving reading outcomes, few studies have focused on descriptions of real-world classroom instruction. This study thus provides additional insights into the extent to which and how language arts teachers in lower secondary schools provide RCSI. Further, the study sheds light on additional aspects of reading comprehension instruction to obtain a broader picture of what this instruction encompasses. The authors address these issues by providing an overview of the amount of RCSI used in language arts classrooms, a characterization of provided RCSI, the frequency of salient features of reading comprehension instruction, and an examination of the possible connections between strategy instruction and students' gains on national reading tests. The authors used the Protocol for Language Arts Teacher Observation manual to guide the first step of the analytic process, followed by qualitative content analyses of the provided RCSI and inductive coding of the reading comprehension instruction. The findings revealed limited evidence of explicit RCSI. When provided, the explicit instruction varied as either contextual or decontextual instruction. Several teachers demonstrated strategy knowledge, but in many cases, instruction seemed oriented more toward nontransferable activities than explicit strategy teaching. Mainly, the teachers focused their instruction on text-based discussions and text structure. The authors discuss various reading instructional practices, teachers' repertoire of strategies, and different approaches to explicit strategies instruction. R eading comprehension is considered a key competence in our modern information society, and there are high demands for comprehension of complex texts throughout students' schooling. This is especially the case in secondary school, where students face increasingly diverse and challenging texts in a range of different school subjects. Precisely because reading comprehension is such a crucial and complex endeavor, educational policymakers worldwide have given this topic much attention in recent years (e.g., National

The role of literature in the classroom: How and for what purposes do teachers in lower secondary school use literary texts?

“…The study also emerges from the ambition to investigate the everyday teaching practices in LA classrooms and how literary texts are embedded in these, rather than engaging in researcher-manipulated interventions that specifically prompt the reading of literature or specific ways of teaching literature. Drawing on 178 videotaped LA lessons from 47 Norwegian lower-secondary classrooms, the study captures what has been labeled "naturally occurring" instruction (e.g., Hassan et al, 2005;Magnusson et al, 2019), in the sense that teachers are not asked to do or refrain from doing anything in particular; rather, the recorded lessons attempt to capture the logic of ordinary instruction. Regarding the foundation of these recordings, the study investigates how students engage with literature and how literary texts are used and discussed across LA lessons.…”

Lesing i PISA 2000–2018: Norske elevers lesekompetanse iet internasjonalt perspektiv

“…I en evaluering av Kunnskapsløftet, med fokus på blant annet de grunnleggende ferdighetene, konkluderte forskerne i 2010 med at lesing var den grunnleggende ferdigheten som hadde fått mest gjennomslag i grunnskolen (Hertzberg, 2010). Senere forskning har også vist at arbeid med lesestrategier i noen grad forekommer blant norsklaererne (Magnusson, Roe & Blikstad-Balas, 2019). Det er imidlertid mer usikkert hvorvidt laerere i videregående skole arbeider med elevenes leseforståelse.…”

Norske elevers kunnskap om strategier for leseforståelse

“…Funn fra LISA-studien viser at laerere på ungdomstrinnet i større grad bruker strategier i det didaktiske arbeidet i klasserommet framfor å undervise elevene i hvordan de skal tenke strategisk (Magnusson et al, 2018). Det er altså viktig å skille mellom undervisningsmetoder som tar i bruk strategier og undervisning i strategier.…”