Embedding reading comprehension training in content-area instruction.

Abstract

This study evaluated the effectiveness of comprehension training embedded in a program that taught science content to 2nd graders. The program included instruction about the structure of compare-contrast expository text, emphasizing clue words, generic questions, graphic organizers, and the close analysis of well-structured text exemplars. This program was compared with a program that focused on the science content but included no compare-contrast training as well as with a no-instruction control. Regular classroom teachers (14 from 4 schools), randomly assigned to treatment, provided the instruction; 215 students (7-8 years old) participated. The study replicated acquisition and transfer effects found in an earlier study, that is, transfer to compare-contrast text with content related and unrelated to the instructional content (with no loss in the amount of science content acquired). The program also led to better performance on written and oral response measures and on 1 of the 2 measures involving authentic (less well-structured) compare-contrast text. These findings support and extend previous findings that explicit instruction in comprehension is effective as early as the primary-grade level.

Improving Language-Focused Comprehension Instruction in Primary-Grade Classrooms: Impacts of the Let’s Know! Experimental Curriculum

“…In light of numerous studies and theoretical frameworks asserting the important role of children's language skills to their achievement of skilled reading comprehension (e.g., Cain et al, 2004;Connor et al, 2004;Perfetti, 2007;Williams et al, 2009), an emerging body of work is focused specifically on identifying effective ways to improve children's language skills within classroom instruction. Logically, we can speculate that enhancing children's exposure to high-quality language-focused comprehension instruction in P-3 is a worthy route to improving language skills in the short term and reading comprehension in the longer term.…”

“…Williams and colleagues, for instance, examined the effects of an explicit text-structure program as implemented by second grade teachers (Williams, Stafford, Lauer, Hall, & Pollini, 2009). The program featured reading, discussing, and analyzing expository texts as coupled with explicit teaching of how to navigate various text structures (e.g., cause/effect texts, compare/contrast texts) and how to understand clue or signal words important to navigating texts (e.g., because, since and therefore for cause-effect texts).…”

“…That is, teachers were provided a script that organized the sequence of instruction within a given lesson, and were provided general suggestions for what she could say and examples she could use. Text Mapping lessons were designed to promote students' text-structure knowledge using techniques presented in Williams and colleagues' work in this area (Williams, 2005;Williams, Hall, & Lauer, 2004;Williams et al, 2005;Williams et al, 2009). These lessons were soft-scripted to provide teachers with guidance in how to promote students' attainment of clue words and to support their extraction of information from different types of texts (e.g., narrative, expository).…”

Teaching Text Structure: Examining the Affordances of Children’s Informational Texts

“…Meyer (1981) reported, "It is the structure of text that primarily differentiates text from simple lists of words or sentences" (p. 7). Informational text structures are conventionally identified as description, sequence, problem/solution, compare/contrast, and cause/effect (Meyer, 1979;Meyer & Poon, 2001;NGA Center & CCSSO, 2010;Williams, Stafford, Lauer, Hall, & Pollini, 2009). …”

The Effect of Reciprocal Mapping on High-Risk Sixth-Grade Students' Social Studies Achievement

“…Research supports the use of informational text which include the embedded text structures (Duke & Bennett-Armistead, 2003;Hall, Sabey, & McClellan, 2005;Moss, 2005;Purcell-Gates, Duke, & Martineau, 2007;Reutzel, Read & Fawson, 2009). Some research related to text structure has been shown to help students comprehend informational text, (Rosenshine & Meister, 1994;Klingner, Vaughn & Schumm, 1998;Guthrie, VanMeter, McCann, et al, 1996, Ciardiello, 2002Williams, Stafford, Lauer, et al, 2009) text types were compare and contrast, cause and effect, and problem and solution. 4.…”