Explicit reading comprehension instruction in elementary classrooms

Ness, M. (2011). Explicit reading comprehension instruction in elementary classrooms: Teacher use of reading comprehension strategies. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 25(1), 98-117. doi: 10.1080/02568543.2010.531076

Background

The authors highlighted that although research has emphasized the effectiveness of comprehension strategies in enhancing the understanding of texts, students in the elementary grades have often missed out on such instruction.

Aims

This observational study examined the extent to which elementary teachers included explicit reading comprehension instruction during their English language arts instruction and the type and frequency of reading comprehension strategies that were incorporated into the classrooms.

Sample

The participants were 20 language arts teachers teaching first- through fifth-grade students in two American elementary schools and the two researchers of this study.

Method

The data included 3,000 minutes of classroom instruction observations. Each teacher was observed for a total of 120 minutes in the 2008–2009 academic year.

Findings

The findings indicated that the highest amount of reading comprehension instruction occurred in the fourth grade (a total of 287 minutes), followed by the first-grade, then the second grade, and the fifth grades, with the lowest amount taking place in third grade. In terms of the type of reading comprehension strategies, the most frequently occurring strategies adopted by the teachers were question asking, predicting or activating prior knowledge, and summarization. The teachers used largely single-strategy reading comprehension instruction, as opposed to multiple-strategy instruction.

Implications

The authors highlighted that it would be challenging to determine whether 3,000 minutes of classroom observations were sufficient to determine whether comprehension instruction was being implemented in language arts classrooms. They also noted that the presence of outside researchers could have influenced the teacher instruction. They suggested the possibility that reading comprehension instruction was incorporated into classes other than English, such as in science and social studies lessons. The authors suggested a follow-up qualitative study outside of the scope of the current study to explore factors such as teachers’ backgrounds, training, and instructional beliefs that might influence their instruction. The relatively small number of reading comprehension strategies found could be attributed to teachers’ unfamiliarity with other comprehension strategies or to their lack of confidence in teaching other strategies. Hence, teachers have to be provided with the evidence that particular instructional practices have demonstrated a positive impact on student achievement and in-service professional learning to help them implement the strategies effectively in the classroom.

Original article retrieved from EBSCOHost.