Better Together: Combining Reading and Writing Instruction to Foster Informative Text Comprehension

Abstract

This study conducted with French-speaking students living near Montréal, Canada, assess if teaching the shared knowledge between reading and writing of informative texts improves reading comprehension in fourth grade (9-10 years old) to a greater extent than teaching that separates reading and writing. Teachers participating in the experiment received teaching material and training during 1 year prior to data collection. The teaching approach involved three steps and included activities that were spread over 20 weeks and lasted approximately 2 h per week. Teachers from the non-experimental condition teach reading comprehension and writing strategies in a dissociated way. Students (n = 248) were tested with a reading comprehension assessment in September and May. Results show a significant interaction between time and groups, suggesting a moderate effect size. The experimental group started the experiment slightly behind in reading comprehension and ended up significantly better than the control group. Teaching how to articulate knowledge in reading and writing might favor reading comprehension of informative texts better than teaching strategies in a dissociated way. However, the introduction of such an approach required continuous training and robust teacher support.

The influence of multiperspectivity in history texts on students’ representations of a historical event

“…However, there are perhaps other reasons why the perspective of ordinary people who were engaged in the revolt-for example, Catrijn van Leemput-was ignored. In general, the understanding of the macrostructure of a text enhances text comprehension (Turcotte & Caron, 2020). In this case, it could be that students did not mention Catrijn van Leemput because, to them, this kind of agency was not part of the macrostructure of the text.…”

“…This raises the question of how domain-specific elements, such as a detailed description presented from a specific perspective in the case of Catrijn van Leemput, are "admitted" to the macrostructure of the text in the understanding of students. Turcotte and Caron (2020) suggested that combined teaching of macrostructure (e.g. the perspectives of ordinary people) and microstructure (e.g.…”

“…When students master macrostructures (e.g. comparison, sequence, cause and effect and problem and solution), they produce more coherent and richer texts and are more likely to retain the main ideas in the text (Turcotte & Caron, 2020). However, it is often difficult to identify a single structure in a text.…”

“…The summary of the students can be seen as an indicator of the "event model" which they have constructed (Bogaerds-Hazenberg et al, 2021). Making a summary reactivates the text's macrostructure (Turcotte & Caron, 2020). In a summary, students skip details and secondary events, make inferences from prior knowledge and present the essential information in their own words (Kintsch & Van Dijk, 1978).…”

Vers une définition de l’approche intégrée du français

“…En effet, depuis un certain nombre d'années, des recherches ont été réalisées afin d' observer les liens entre les différentes compétences langagières (Doubet et Southall, 2018 ;Graham, 2020). Un grand nombre d'études ont démontré les liens existant entre la lecture et l' écriture (Graham et Harris, 2017 ;Shanahan, 2016 ;Turcotte et Caron, 2020). Bien que moins nombreuses, d'autres recherches ont aussi établi des liens entre l' oral et la lecture (Kim, 2020 ;Pan et al, 2020) ainsi qu' entre l' oral et l' écriture (Kim et Schatschneider, 2017 ;Reznitskaya et al, 2001 ;Shanahan, 2006).…”