Jessica Pressman explores the rise of "bookishness" as an identity and an aesthetic strategy that proliferates from store-window décor to experimental writing. Ranging from literature to kitsch ...objects, stop-motion animation films to book design, she considers the multivalent meanings of books in contemporary culture.
How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britainasks how our culture came to frown on using books for any purpose other than reading. When did the coffee-table book become an object of scorn? Why did ...law courts forbid witnesses to kiss the Bible? What made Victorian cartoonists mock commuters who hid behind the newspaper, ladies who matched their books' binding to their dress, and servants who reduced newspapers to fish 'n' chips wrap?
Shedding new light on novels by Thackeray, Dickens, the Brontës, Trollope, and Collins, as well as the urban sociology of Henry Mayhew, Leah Price also uncovers the lives and afterlives of anonymous religious tracts and household manuals. From knickknacks to wastepaper, books mattered to the Victorians in ways that cannot be explained by their printed content alone. And whether displayed, defaced, exchanged, or discarded, printed matter participated, and still participates, in a range of transactions that stretches far beyond reading.
Supplementing close readings with a sensitive reconstruction of how Victorians thought and felt about books, Price offers a new model for integrating literary theory with cultural history.How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britainreshapes our understanding of the interplay between words and objects in the nineteenth century and beyond.
ABSTRACT
The simple view of reading is commonly presented to educators in professional development about the science of reading. The simple view is a useful tool for conveying the undeniable ...importance—in fact, the necessity—of both decoding and linguistic comprehension for reading. Research in the 35 years since the theory was proposed has revealed additional understandings about reading. In this article, we synthesize research documenting three of these advances: (1) Reading difficulties have a number of causes, not all of which fall under decoding and/or listening comprehension as posited in the simple view; (2) rather than influencing reading solely independently, as conceived in the simple view, decoding and listening comprehension (or in terms more commonly used in reference to the simple view today, word recognition and language comprehension) overlap in important ways; and (3) there are many contributors to reading not named in the simple view, such as active, self‐regulatory processes, that play a substantial role in reading. We point to research showing that instruction aligned with these advances can improve students’ reading. We present a theory, which we call the active view of reading, that is an expansion of the simple view and can be used to convey these important advances to current and future educators. We discuss the need to lift up updated theories and models to guide practitioners’ work in supporting students’ reading development in classrooms and interventions.
The simple view of reading (SVR) model proposes that reading comprehension is the product of cognitive domain skills, word decoding, and oral language (linguistic) comprehension, and that decoding ...and language comprehension make separate, independent contributions to reading comprehension. The SVR has been supported in both first (L1) and second language (L2) reading research as a viable model to explain more and less successful reading acquisition and to recommend instructional intervention. This article reviews L1 and L2 reading research that supports the SVR and explains how the model can be used to assess foreign language (FL) reading skills, identify strong and weak FL readers, and identify FL readers’ strengths and weaknesses. Specific examples of standardized cognitive and linguistic measures for English and Spanish used to assess word decoding and language comprehension skills are cited. Implications of the SVR model for assessment and pedagogy are discussed.
Primary-grade teachers face an important challenge: teaching children how to read while enabling them to build good habits so they fall in love with reading. Many teachers find the independent ...reading workshop to be the component of reading instruction that meets this challenge because it makes it possible to teach the reading skills and strategies children need and guides them toward independence, intention, and joy as readers. In "Growing Readers," the author helps teachers plan for independent reading workshops in their own classrooms. She describes the structure of the independent reading workshop and other components of a balanced literacy program that work together to ensure young students grow into strong, well-rounded readers. Kathy outlines a sequence of possible units of study for a yearlong curriculum. Chapters are devoted to the individual units of study and include a sample curriculum as well as examples of mini-lessons and reading conferences. There are also four "Getting Ready" sections that suggest some behind-the-scenes work teachers can do to prepare for the units. Topics explored in these units include: (1) print and comprehension strategies; (2) reading in genres such as poetry and nonfiction; (3) connecting in-school reading and out-of-school reading; and (4) developing the strategies and habits of lifelong readers. A series of planning sheets and management tips are presented throughout to help ensure smooth implementation. Teachers want students to learn to read, and they want them to love to read. To do this teachers need to lay a foundation on which children build rich and purposeful reading lives that extend beyond the school day. The ideas found in this book create the kind of primary classrooms where that happens. Following a foreword by Lucy Calkins and a preface, the book is divided into the following chapters: (1) Creating Classrooms for Learners, Thinkers, and Talkers; (2) Experiences in Literacy throughout the Day; (3) Units of Study in a Primary Reading Workshop "Getting Ready: Setting the Tone and the Bottom Lines"; (4) Readers Build Good Habits "Getting Ready: Behind-the-Scenes Work"; (5) Readers Use Strategies to Figure Out Words "Getting Ready: Talk amongst Yourselves"; (6) Readers Think and Talk about Books to Grow Ideas "Getting Ready: Finding Reading Mentors and Setting Up Reading Centers"; (7) Readers Pursue Their Interests in Books and Other Texts; and (8) Readers Make Plans for Their Reading Lives. The book concludes with an appendix; bibliography; and an index.
Intentional from the Start Helmers, Carolyn; Vincent, Susan
Stenhouse Publishers,
2021, 2021-00-00, 2023-10-10
eBook, Book
In
Intentional from the Start: Guiding Emergent Readers in Small Groups
, Carolyn Helmers and Susan Vincent take a concentrated look at the often-underestimated reading and writing work that occurs ...during the emergent reading stages of literacy development (PreA-D) and the seemingly simplistic books we use to teach them in small-group guided reading. Though both may appear unsophisticated, these earliest readers and the texts we use to meet their needs are each unique and full of nuances that generally go overlooked.
The authors explore how emergent readers learn best and position text levels appropriately in the service of students. They also turn their attention to a comprehensive exploration of the particular needs of emergent readers and how the work they do at text levels PreA-D lays a critical foundation necessary for them to continue growing successfully into text levels E and beyond. As they examine the needs of learners working at each emergent text level individually, the authors:
Detail specific demands books in that text level make on young readers and the best ways to coach students as they work through them
Highlight instructional procedures for reading, writing, and word study that can be implemented immediately at your small group table
Suggest optimal schedules, techniques, and formats for efficient instruction at that level
Unpack the book characteristics specific to that level and demonstrate ways to capitalize on them to intentionally support emergent readers and writers.
With plenty of useful classroom examples, as well as additional online resources with literacy center ideas that correlate directly with the work students are doing at particular levels, this book is a resource your emergent reading teacher heart will reach for again and again.
Research has indicated that reading aloud to young students can enhance their foundational reading skills and their reading motivation, but such research has been lacking in African contexts. In this ...study, we assessed the efficacy of story read-aloud lessons in improving students' foundational reading skills in Nigeria. The experiment took place in a cluster randomized trial of 199 schools in Northern Nigeria. In treatment schools, second-grade teachers conducted weekly read-aloud lessons as an addition to the core learning curriculum. In control schools, second-grade teachers implemented only the core curriculum, without weekly read-aloud lessons. We found that story read-alouds led to positive effects on listening comprehension, letter sound recognition, nonword decoding, and reading fluency, with effect sizes between 0.17 and 0.33 standard deviations. These outcomes suggest that enhanced student motivation from read-alouds may enhance text-based skills. To identify the effects of increased teacher experience on read-aloud effectiveness, we employed a two-period difference-in-differences approach. We found that increased teacher experience explained between 26% and 51% of the overall read-aloud effect, depending on the literacy subskill. We also found that the read-aloud effects coupled with increased teacher experience had an equalizing effect on the reading outcomes of students from divergent home literacy environments.
This study investigated the effectiveness of the Model of Reading Engagement (MORE), a content literacy intervention, on first graders' science domain knowledge, reading engagement, and reading ...comprehension. The MORE intervention emphasizes the role of domain knowledge and reading engagement in supporting reading comprehension. MORE lessons included a 10-day thematic unit that provided a framework for students to connect new learning to a meaningful schema (i.e., Arctic animal survival) and to pursue mastery goals for acquiring domain knowledge. A total of 38 first-grade classrooms (N = 674 students) within 10 elementary schools were randomly assigned to (a) MORE at school (MS), (b) MORE at home, (MS-H), in which the MS condition included at-home reading, or (c) typical instruction. Since there were minimal differences in procedures between the MS and MS-H conditions, the main analyses combined the two treatment groups. Findings from hierarchical linear models revealed that the MORE intervention had a positive and significant effect on science domain knowledge, as measured by vocabulary knowledge depth (effect size ES = 0.30), listening comprehension (ES = 0.40), and argumentative writing (ES = 0.24). The MORE intervention effects on reading engagement as measured by situational interest, reading motivation, and task orientations were not statistically significant. However, the intervention had a significant, positive effect on a distal measure of reading comprehension (ES = 0.11), and there was no evidence of Treatment × Aptitude interaction effects. Content literacy can facilitate first graders' acquisition of science domain knowledge and reading comprehension without contributing to Matthew effects.
It is well established that phonological awareness (PA) and rapid automatized naming (RAN) tasks reliably predict children's developing word reading abilities across a wide range of languages. ...However, existing research has not yet demonstrated unequivocally whether RAN and PA are independently and causally linked to reading, nor has it fully explored the underlying cognitive mechanisms. Most existing research has assessed PA and RAN in children who may already have some reading skill, making direction of influence hard to ascertain. To address this, the current longitudinal research initially assessed RAN and PA in a very young sample of 91 English children (M age = 3 years 11 months; SD = 3.7 months) demonstrated to be nonreaders. Children were reassessed on RAN, PA, and word-level reading at 18 months (Time 2) and then a further year later (Time 3). To explore underlying mechanisms, separate measures of reading accuracy and fluency were taken, and reading tasks varied according to the extent to which they required alphabetic decoding and lexical, orthographic knowledge. Path analyses revealed that from Time 1 to Time 2, both RAN and PA predicted word reading, indicating temporal precedence, though there was some degree of reciprocity in these relationships. However, by Time 3, while RAN still predicted accuracy and fluency of reading, PA only predicted reading accuracy. Furthermore, findings suggested that while RAN was robustly related to both alphabetic decoding and lexical, orthographic aspects of reading, PA's relationship was restricted to alphabetic decoding accuracy. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
Educational Impact and Implications Statement
This longitudinal study showed that preschool children's phonological awareness (sensitivity to sounds in words) and performance in rapid automatized naming (RAN; fluency in naming familiar objects) went on to predict first steps in alphabetic decoding skill. However, only RAN was also linked to lexical (sight vocabulary) development and to both fluency and accuracy in reading a further year later. Findings have implications for early screening of potential reading difficulties and for the development of effective interventions.
We present a meta-analysis to test the validity of the Simple View of Reading Gough & Tunmer (Remedial and Special Education, 7:6—10, 1986) for beginner readers of English and other, more ...transparent, orthographies. Our meta-analytic approach established that the relative influence of decoding and linguistic comprehension on reading comprehension is different for readers of different types of orthography during the course of early reading development. Furthermore, we identified key differences in the relations among different measures of decoding and reading comprehension between readers of English and other more transparent orthographies. We discuss the implications for reading instruction and the diagnosis of reading difficulties, as well as our theoretical understanding of how component skills influence reading comprehension level.
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