“Where Is the Action?” Challenges to Studying the Teaching of Reading in Elementary Classrooms

Abstract

The authors argue that part of the difficulty in studying the teaching of reading in elementary classrooms is determining where "the action" occurs in reading instruction. Based on their 5-year longitudinal study of fourth-and fifth-grade teachers in moderate-and highpoverty elementary schools, they describe three challenges:(a) determining key factors in the complex instructional environment that should be the focus of study, (b) determining who teaches reading to specific students, and (c) determining the boundaries of reading instruction or when it occurs during the school day and year. The authors argue that these challenges, although not insurmountable, are difficult to resolve and that they are becoming more pervasive because of current policies that promote high-stakes accountability.

Teaching Behavior Questionnaire: Verifying Factor Structure and Investigating Depressive Symptoms in Catholic Middle and High Schools

“…Instructional teaching behavior promotes critical thinking, development of skills, and understanding of concepts, and is used during the delivery of instruction (Croninger & Valli, ; Pianta, LaParo, & Hamre, ). This type of teaching behavior includes providing opportunities for students to receive positive feedback, respond to questions and prompts, and choose answers.…”

What Really Matters When Working With Struggling Readers

“…(United States Department of Education, 1999) However, if any change has occurred in Title I programs over the decade since that indictment was written, it is that paraprofessionals continue to provide an even greater proportion of Title I reading interventions. The aforementioned concern was driven by a continuing series of research reports noting that paraprofessional-led reading interventions rarely produced the accelerated reading growth necessary if one ever hopes to turn struggling readers into achieving readers (Anderson & Pellicier, 1990;Boyd-Zaharias & Pate-Bain, 1998;Croninger & Valli, 2009;Puma et al, 1997;Rowan & Guthrie, 1989;Slavin, Lake, Davis, & Madden, 2011;Wasik & Slavin, 1993).…”

Sentinels guarding the grail: Value-added measurement and the quest for education reform

“…In an article called "Where's the action?" Croninger and Valli (2009) explained that 4 th and 5 th grade reading instruction is found throughout the school day across courses and classrooms. They further noted that the distribution of responsibility for the teaching of reading only widens as high-stakes tests approach and content area teachers turn into reading tutors or test prep facilitators.…”