Reading Online - From the Editors: Twenty Online Resources on Reading with Comprehension and Engagement

Twenty Online Resources on Reading with Comprehension and Engagement

Helping students read for understanding, develop as strategic learners, and become engaged in their reading -- these goals are at the heart of reading language arts instruction. As the ROL readers who responded to our September 2000 survey pointed out, these goals are the most important, and the most challenging, for teachers in today’s diverse classrooms.

Comprehension is a complex transactional process involving the reader, the text, and the purpose for reading. And reading is situated in a larger sociocultural context that influences the outcome of any particular instance of reading, as well as students’ general participation in school-based literacy. For many students, decoding problems make reading the words an effortful task that interferes with constructing meaning. For others, lack of prior knowledge makes it difficult to connect what they know with the new information presented in the text; unfamiliar vocabulary or text structures may further impede comprehension. There are still other students who have the necessary skills but who choose not to read, or who do not see the value of literacy in their lives.

A few months ago I wrote an editorial highlighting 20 online resources on early literacy that proved popular with ROL readers. My goal was twofold: to serve as an information broker, culling 20 excellent resources from among the many that are posted on the Web about this topic; and to draw attention to the wealth of resources that Reading Online and other professional journals and organizations are making freely available through the Internet. This month, my goals are similar. I have selected 20 online resources that focus on comprehension and engagement in reading, an area of critical need that is receiving renewed interest in the literacy community and in the larger arena of U.S. educational policy (see the January 2001 draft report of the RAND Reading Study Group, “Reading for Understanding: Towards an R&D Program in Reading Comprehension”).

To demonstrate the breadth and depth of knowledge that is available online, I have included theoretical and practical material from Reading Online and the Web site of the International Reading Assoication (the publisher of this e-journal), as well as from the Journal of Literacy Research, Language Arts, English Journal, and Voices from the Middle. Many of the articles highlighted in this editorial are posted as PDF (portable document format) files; viewing them requires Acrobat Reader, freely available to download from Adobe’s Web site. Each entry in the list below includes basic bibliographic data, a link to the article’s home on the World Wide Web, and a brief quote that captures the gist, or key aspects, of the piece.

“Bridging the Gap: Integrating Video and Audio Cassettes into Literature Programs” (PDF file)
by Kay Beth Avery, Charles W. Avery, and Debra Partin Pace (English Journal, February 1998)

[N]o self-respecting English teacher wants to be accused of watering down the curriculum by showing a movie simply to fill two hours of class time or in order to divert students from reading the actual novel. The challenge, then, is to enable students to go beyond an appealing movie story line into more complex examinations of themes, symbols, and literary technique by building a bridge to the printed text. The specific teaching strategies will vary, depending upon the teacher’s preferences and the students’ abilities.... [B]elow are...possible activities that can accompany a video and/or audio cassette.

Choices Booklists
from the Web site of the International Reading Association (updated annually)

If students are to become engaged readers, it is essential that they be exposed to quality literature. The International Reading Association’s annual Children’s Choices and Young Adult Choices booklists (the former cosponsored by the Children’s Book Council) include brief reviews of titles recommended by students themselves. Teachers’ Choices identifies books rated as outstanding for curriculum use by teams of teacher reviewers. Copies of all lists published from 1998 to the present are available in PDF format for downloading from the Association’s Web site.

“Classic Connections: Aiding Literary Comprehension Through Varied Liberal Arts Alliances” (PDF file)
by Janet Jurgella (English Journal, February 1998)

I have found the best approach to teaching classic literature is by making connections.... While making connections to their own lives is a popular and relevant approach, such associations can also be made flippantly by students who see no personal parallel but will obediently conjure one up to fulfill the assignment. Therefore, I have generated other legitimate alliances within the liberal arts schema that separate quite naturally into four divisions: 1) art and music; 2) dramatic interpretation; 3) video/technology; and 4) co-literacy.

“Contexts for Engagement and Motivation in Reading”
by John T. Guthrie (Reading Online, March 2001)

Engaged reading is a merger of motivation and thoughtfulness. Engaged readers seek to understand; they enjoy learning and they believe in their reading abilities. They are mastery oriented, intrinsically motivated, and have self-efficacy....

Teachers create contexts for engagement when they provide prominent knowledge goals, real-world connections to reading, meaningful choices about what, when, and how to read, and interesting texts that are familiar, vivid, important, and relevant. Teachers can further engagement by teaching reading strategies. A coherent classroom fuses these qualities.

“Electronic Books: Reading and Studying with Supportive Resources”
by Lynne Anderson-Inman and Mark Horney (Reading Online, April 1999)

The term electronic book means different things to different people. For some, it is software that talks; for others, it is a CD-ROM full of interconnected pictures, text, movies, and sound.... When is it appropriate to call a software program an electronic book?... What are the advantages and disadvantages of having a book in electronic form? Are all electronic books equally useful to teachers and students? These are some of the questions we hope to answer in this column -- for, whether we like it or not, electronic books are here to stay.

“Exploring the Literature of Fact: Linking Reading and Writing Through Information Trade Books” (PDF file)
by Barbara Moss, Susan Leone, and Mary Lou DiPillo (Language Arts, October 1997)

In this article Moss, Leone, and DiPillo examine how elementary teachers can improve student understanding of expository text through reading and writing of information trade books. They describe three ways teachers can involve children in such text: a) reading and writing about information trade books, b) reading and creating innovations on information trade books, and c) reading and writing retellings of information trade books.

“Finders Keepers: Owning the Reading They Do” (PDF file)
by Jayne M. Hobgood (Voices from the Middle, April 1998)

[W]hen it comes to learning, all students need something to make their own. And what I want them to own is the reading they do, so they can take from the literature a deeply felt meaning for their own lives. To help my students do this, I free them to choose their own reading from a wide selection of classics, young adult fiction, and nonfiction. After my students are “into” a good book, I tell them that they are going to burrow into the story, “find” something, and make it theirs -- a true case of “finders keepers.”

Florida State English Education WEBQUESTS
from the Web site of the Department of English Education, Florida State University, Tallahassee, USA

This Web site developed by students enrolled in a university technology in language arts education course features many WebQuests for adolescent and secondary literature that provide thoughtful and motivating contexts for learning.

“Fostering High Levels of Reading and Learning in Secondary Students”
by Michael F. Graves (Reading Online, October 1999)

Obviously, none of us would want to teach for misunderstanding or to have in mind the goal of students’ forgetting whatever we are teaching. Yet we know that in all too many cases, misunderstanding and forgetting take place. Teaching for understanding is hard. But by realizing that we can’t teach everything -- or, to be more precise, that students can’t learn, understand, and remember everything -- and by using tools...in situations where they are appropriate, understanding is a goal we can help our students reach.

“Four Fourth Graders Thinking Aloud: An Investigation of Genre Effects”
by Linda Kucan and Isabel L. Beck (Journal of Literacy Research, June 1996; abstract or full-text PDF file)

This study investigated 4 developing readers’ processing of text by asking them to think aloud as they read 5 narratives and 5 expository texts over the course of a school year. Five general categories of processing were identified: paraphrasing, questioning, elaborating, hypothesizing, and monitoring.... When reading narratives, students made more inferences, predictions, and interpretations, which seemed to be based on a developing synthesis and integration of incoming text information. When reading expository texts, students focused more on personal knowledge and experiences, providing commentary about or creating comparisons in response to details and more local text information.

“Guidelines for Teaching Middle and High School Students to Read and Write Well: Six Features of Effective Instruction”
by Judith A. Langer, with Elizabeth Close, Janet Angelis, and Paula Preller (National Research Center on English Learning and Achievement, May 2000; full-text PDF file)

Most teachers work hard planning their lessons, teaching and interacting with students, and assessing student progress. Why, then, are some schools and teachers more effective than others? Judith Langer and her colleagues at the Center on English Learning and Achievement offer guidelines about effective English instruction that are based on a 5-year study of 44 classrooms across the United States. The guidelines and classroom examples provide a larger context for thinking about how to develop students who read for understanding and are engaged learners.

“‘A Horizon of Possibilities’: A Critical Framework for Transforming Multiethnic Literature Instruction”
by Arlette Ingram Willis and Julia L. Johnson (Reading Online, September, 2000)

We conducted a semester-long qualitative research study in which we critically framed the teaching of a work of African-American literature, highlighting issues of social justice. In this article, we focus on aspects of that study: how sociohistorical information informs students’ reading of a text and how the use of multiple forms of reader response supports students’ ways of knowing and communicating their understanding of that text.

“Learning on the Web: A Content Literacy Perspective”
by John E. McEneaney (Reading Online, January 2000)

Supporting students’ learning from subject area text involves focusing on both the text’s content and on the processes students apply as they work to acquire, organize, and integrate that content.... Resources on the World Wide Web pose special difficulties with respect to these processes.... The objective of this article is to describe (and, in one version, to illustrate by example) how new web technologies can be applied to assist readers both in integrating content and in maintaining a process focus as they navigate complex expository text.

“Literacy, Emotions, and the Brain”
by Gerald Coles (Reading Online, March 1999)

This essay proposes that, contrary to the topics now receiving most attention and to the no-nonsense view that separates academics from feelings, reading educators, who want to craft an education that can successfully serve all children, must make the role of emotions a primary concern. Reaching a full understanding of thinking and learning requires attention to the “continuous and interwoven fugue” (Lewis, Sullivan, & Michalson, 1984) of cognition and emotions. Indeed, not making emotions a primary concern leads to a misunderstanding of children’s thinking and neglects countless influences that contribute to literacy outcomes.

“The Nature of Engaged Reading in Classroom Discussions of Literature”
by Janice F. Almasi, Margaret G. McKeown, and Isabel L. Beck (Journal of Literacy Research, March 1996; abstract or full-text PDF file)

The goal of this investigation was to gain an understanding of engagement as fourth graders and their teachers attempted to construct meaningful interpretations during classroom discussions of literature.... Engagement occurred when students and teachers used interpretive tools to select, connect, and organize information in the text to construct meaningful interpretations. The context of the literary act and the culture of the classroom influenced engaged reading. There were cognitive, metacognitive, and motivational components to the engagement observed.

“The Precarious Place of Self-Selected Reading” (PDF file)
by Jo Worthy, Margo Turner, and Megan Moorman (Language Arts, April 1998)

The 35 language arts teachers interviewed for this study agreed that self-selected reading (SSR) is an important way to improve students’ reading attitudes and achievement. However, their schools rarely provided funds for buying student-preferred materials. Further, finding time for SSR was difficult because of the pressure to prepare for tests and cover skills.

“Reader-Based and Teacher-Centered Instructional Tasks: Writing and Learning About a Short Story in Middle-Track Classrooms”
by George E. Newell (Journal of Literacy Research, March 1996; abstract or full-text PDF file)

This study describes how and what 2 classes of middle-track 10th-graders wrote and learned when their teacher employed reader-based and teacher-centered instructional tasks for discussing and writing about a short story. The students wrote an analytic essay in response to the story and completed 3 posttests of story understanding.... The reader-based tasks enabled the students in developing both textual and experiential knowledge about and a thoughtful stance toward the short story. These patterns suggest why the reader-based tasks permitted students to attain significantly higher posttest scores than did the teacher-centered tasks.

“Reader Response Approaches and the Growth of Readers” (PDF file)
by Dixie Lee Spiegel (Language Arts, September 1998)

For the past decade, teachers in many elementary, middle, and high schools have implemented reader response approaches to literature as part, if not all, of their literacy development programs.... Much has been written about the affective results of reader response.... But enjoying reading and even doing a lot of it does not necessarily mean that children grow in their ability to respond to literature or in their ability to read. Happily, research also shows that children involved in reader response approaches do become better responders and better readers.

Reciprocal Teaching
from the Web of the Dade-Monroe Teacher Education Center, Florida, USA

This site provides an overview of reciprocal teaching, an instructional approach to strategic reading developed by Annemarie Palincsar and Ann Brown (see Palincsar & Brown, 1984). Model lesson plans and materials are provided to teach students how to predict, clarifiy, question, summarize, and visualize to enhance their understanding and monitor their comprehension.

“ReWrite: A Music Strategy for Exploring Content Area Concepts”
by Thomas W. Bean (Reading Online, May 1997)

A few years ago I began using my hobby of playing blues guitar and writing songs to enhance students’ textbook reading. Students often find content area concepts and related textbooks to be boring....

The teaching strategy introduced in this article, ReWrite, capitalizes on small group learning that is directed at rewriting a song to correct misconceptions about a topic.

The WebQuest Page
from the Web site of the Educational Technology Department of San Diego State University, California, USA

This comprehensive WebQuest site developed by Bernie Dodge and his colleagues and students at San Diego State University has attracted more than a million visitors. There are excellent examples here of how literature can deeply engage students in reading and inquiry.

This listing of 20 online resources about reading for understanding and engagement is deliberately eclectic, addressing theory, practice, and materials. I hope it serves as a useful starting point for your mining of professional resources available on the Internet, and I invite you to share your comments and information about Internet resources via the Online Communities listserv.

References

Lewis, M., Sullivan, M.W., & Michalson, L. (1984). The cognitive-emotional fugue. In C.E. Izard, J. Kagan, & R.B. Zajonc (Eds.), Emotions, cognition, and behavior. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Palincsar, A.S. & Brown, A.L. (1984). Reciprocal teaching of comprehension- fostering and comprehension-monitoring activities. Cognition and Instruction, 2, 117-175.
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Citation: Dalton, B. (2001, May). Twenty online resources on reading with comprehension and engagement. Reading Online, 4(10). Available: http://www.readingonline.org/editorial/edit_index.asp?HREF=/editorial/may2001/index.html