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S The purpose of the study was to determine the impact of a literature‐based program integrated into literacy and science instruction on achievement, use of literature, and attitudes toward the literacy and science program. Six third‐grade classes with children from diverse backgrounds (N = 128) were assigned to one control and two experimental groups (literature/science program and literature‐only program). Both standardized and informal written and oral tests were used to determine growth in literacy and science. Use of literature was measured by asking children to name book titles they knew and had read both in and out of school. Interviews with teachers and children determined attitudes toward the literature and science programs. Children in the literature/science group scored statistically significantly better on all literacy measures than children in the literature‐only group. Children in the literature‐only group scored statistically significantly better on all literacy measures, except for the standardized reading test, than children in the control group. There were no differences between the groups on number of science facts used in science stories written. In the test of science facts and vocabulary, the literature/science group scored statistically significantly better than the literature‐only group and the control group. Observational data collected during periods of independent reading and writing, when children interacted in social settings, reported the nature of literacy activities that took place. El propósito del estudio fue determinar el impacto de un programa basado en la literatura, integrado en la enseñanza de la lectoescritura y la ciencia, sobre los logros, el uso de la literatura y las actitudes hacia el programa de lectoescritura y ciencia. Seis cursos de tercer grado de niños de diversas procedencias (N = 128) fueron asignados a un grupo de control y dos grupos experimentales (programa de literatura/ciencia y programa de literatura). Para determinar el avance en lectoescritura y ciencia se usaron pruebas estandarizadas y pruebas informales escritas y orales. El uso de la literatura se midió pidiendo a los niños que nombraran títulos de libros que conocían y habían leído en la escuela y fuera de ella. Las entrevistas con docentes y niños determinaron las actitudes hacia los programas de ciencia y literatura. Los niños del grupo de literatuZWECK ra/ciencia se desempeñaron significativamente mejor en todas las medidas de lectoescritura que aquellos del grupo de literatura. Los niños del grupo de literatura se desempeñaron significativamente mejor que los del grupo de control en todas las medidas de lectoescritura, excepto en la prueba estandarizada de lectura. No hubo diferencias entre grupos en el número de hechos científicos usados en los relatos escritos de ciencia. En la prueba de hechos científicos y vocabulario, el grupo de literatura/ciencia se desempeñó significativamente mejor que los grupos de literatura y de control. Los datos observacionales recogidos durante períodos d...

We examine the effectiveness of a teachers-as-readers

Psychologists have long debated the extent to which people transfer knowledge from context to context. This debate has emerged in the study of literacy where researchers of composition and literary understanding have begun to examine the extent to which different tasks require particular knowledge and the extent to which different interpretive communities require specific understandings. This article reviews issues related to transfer and knowledge specificity as articulated in psychology and then examines theory and research in composition and literary understanding which parallel the debate in psychology. The authors identify three positions that have emerged in literacy debates: the case for general knowledge, the case for task-specific knowledge, and the case for community-specific knowledge. Each position carries with it certain assumptions about learning and transfer, and each has clear implications for curriculum and instruction. The authors delineate the positions and the assumptions that drive them and detail their instructional consequences, arguing that researchers and teachers need an articulated understanding of their assumptions about knowledge and transfer in order to establish a clear and coherent relationship between theory and practice.Whenever teachers instruct, they implicitly convey their beliefs about knowledge transfer. Teachers assume not only a certain knowledge base on the part of students but also an ability on the students' part to bring that knowledge to bear on new instructional situations. Furthermore, teachers make assumptions about the knowledge that students will transfer from new instruction to future learning experiences: They will learn from writing one composition how to write well on subsequent essays, they will learn from reading Gulliver's Travels how to understand other satires, and so on.The questions that researchers of literacy investigate often concern knowledge transfer. Inquiries into language and literacy acquisition have investigated ways in which learners draw on prior knowledge as they read and write and, often, seek connections between the processes underlying the two (e.g., Irwin & Doyle, 1992). The purpose of this article is to review the issue of knowledge transfer as it has been discussed generally in the literature of educational psychology and then to examine three positions relative to knowledge transfer that have emerged in studies of literacy We thank a number of colleagues who took the time to provide thoughtful critiques of earlier versions of this manuscript:

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