Eye‐tracking studies have indicated that there are different kinds of silent reading. Simply having eyes on text does not always result in adequate comprehension. Understanding common eye‐tracking ...measures that distinguish productive reading behaviors can help teachers promote better reading habits among students. This research synthesis highlights the need to focus on reading goals and mindful reading, rather than merely promoting eyes or time on text. The authors provide several instructional options for promoting mindful reading based on eye‐tracking research and suggest ways to coach a more metacognitive approach to comprehension.
This open access book provides teachers with approaches to strengthen reading comprehension instruction based on scientific research and evidence-based didactic principles. In this volume, the ...Progress in International Reading Study (PIRLS) framework is used to inform teachers about the skills and knowledge that students need to comprehend certain texts. The book gives practical guidance on how a teacher can help students to learn these skills, specifically, when teaching reading to multilingual students. Good practices from schools in five participating PIRLS countries—Chile, Chinese Taipei, England, Georgia, and Spain—are shared. A description of the schools’ education in reading comprehension is provided with practical tips and example lessons. These insights into daily reading education in multilingual classrooms across the globe can be an inspiration to teachers all over the world.
IL MONDO SCOMPOSTO Finocchiaro, Anna
Politico (Pavia, Italy),
07/2019, Volume:
84, Issue:
2
Journal Article
The fall of the Berlin Wall broke the balance of the political order in Italy and decreed the end of mass parties. In Europe the idea that the collapse of the Berlin Wall had expelled the conflict ...out of the history appeared to be an illusion. Both in Italy and in Europe this was due to an insufficient capacity of comprehension and governance of such a complex event and of the countless effects it would have caused.
•Listening comprehension of narrative texts is complex.•Working memory is directly and indirectly related.•Vocabulary and grammatical knowledge are important.•Higher order cognitive skills make ...contributions.
We investigated component language and cognitive skills of oral language comprehension of narrative texts (i.e., listening comprehension). Using the construction–integration model of text comprehension as an overarching theoretical framework, we examined direct and mediated relations of foundational cognitive skills (working memory and attention), foundational language skills (vocabulary and grammatical knowledge), and higher-order cognitive skills (inference, theory of mind, and comprehension monitoring) to listening comprehension. A total of 201 first grade children in South Korea participated in the study. Structural equation modeling results showed that listening comprehension is directly predicted by working memory, grammatical knowledge, inference, and theory of mind and is indirectly predicted by attention, vocabulary, and comprehension monitoring. The total effects were .46 for working memory, .07 for attention, .30 for vocabulary, .49 for grammatical knowledge, .31 for inference, .52 for theory of mind, and .18 for comprehension monitoring. These results suggest that multiple language and cognitive skills make contributions to listening comprehension, and their contributions are both direct and indirect.
Advocates of the science of reading have invoked the simple view of reading (SVR) to justify an approach that foregrounds decoding in early reading instruction. The SVR, which describes comprehension ...as the product of decoding and listening comprehension, also served as the primary theoretical model underlying the Reading for Understanding (RfU) initiative. Research funded under the RfU initiative included direct examinations of the validity of the SVR and the nature of its underlying components and extended the SVR in studies of middle school and high school readers. In this article, the authors use research conducted under the RfU initiative to examine the validity and utility of the SVR, in general, and the appropriateness of its application in the “science of reading” debate. RfU research has provided not only evidence in support of the overall SVR model but also important cautions relevant to the “science of reading” debate. In particular, RfU has provided evidence regarding the significance of the listening comprehension component of the SVR, often overlooked by advocates of the science of reading. This research has documented the importance of early oral language skills, which support both decoding and listening comprehension in young readers and plays a critical role in students’success as readers as they move through school. In addition, RfU research has identified a complicated constellation of skills and knowledge that impact reading comprehension as students advance in school.
To positively influence students’ behavior and social relationships in the school and community settings, teachers can support students during early interventions and active conversations. ...Conversations held during class time that use picturebooks and restorative practice activities can be an appropriate way to support student learning and engagement. Lessons and activities can be implemented through any subject and integrated into classroom discussions to support students’ relationships, personal growth, well‐being, and behaviors. Incorporating discussions surrounding picturebooks with specific messages relating to social skills or situations in the classroom or community can support a restorative justice framework. The authors present ideas and activities relating to using picturebooks while upholding a restorative environment.
Researchers agree that comprehenders regularly predict upcoming language, but they do not always agree on what prediction is (and how to differentiate it from integration) or what constitutes ...evidence for it. After defining prediction, we show that it occurs at all linguistic levels from semantics to form, and then propose a theory of which mechanisms comprehenders use to predict. We argue that they most effectively predict using their production system (i.e., prediction-by-production): They covertly imitate the linguistic form of the speaker's utterance and construct a representation of the underlying communicative intention. Comprehenders can then run this intention through their own production system to prepare the predicted utterance. But doing so takes time and resources, and comprehenders vary in the extent of preparation, with many groups of comprehenders (non-native speakers, illiterates, children, and older adults) using it less than typical native young adults. We thus argue that prediction-by-production is an optional mechanism, which is augmented by mechanisms based on association. Support for our proposal comes from many areas of research (electrophysiological, eye-tracking, and behavioral studies of reading, spoken language processing in the context of visual environments, speech processing, and dialogue).
Public Significance Statement
This theoretical review shows that people regularly predict upcoming language. Importantly, it also shows that in most cases people rely on their own ability to produce language to make predictions that are compatible with both the speaker's language and their intended message. This form of prediction aids, but it is not necessary for, language understanding.
There is intense public interest in questions surrounding how children learn to read and how they can best be taught. Research in psychological science has provided answers to many of these questions ...but, somewhat surprisingly, this research has been slow to make inroads into educational policy and practice. Instead, the field has been plagued by decades of 'reading wars.' Even now, there remains a wide gap between the state of research knowledge about learning to read and the state of public understanding. The aim of this article is to fill this gap. We present a comprehensive tutorial review of the science of learning to read, spanning from children's earliest alphabetic skills through to the fluent word recognition and skilled text comprehension characteristic of expert readers. We explain why phonics instruction is so central to learning in a writing system such as English. But we also move beyond phonics, reviewing research on what else children need to learn to become expert readers and considering how this might be translated into effective classroom practice. We call for an end to the reading wars and recommend an agenda for instruction and research in reading acquisition that is balanced, developmentally informed, and based on a deep understanding of how language and writing systems work. Author abstract
This article discusses language comprehension and developing skills with emergent readers, in particular verbal reasoning and language structures, that are necessary for later reading comprehension.
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