An Investigation of Effective Instructional Methods to Train Preservice Teachers in Reading Comprehension Strategies.

This qualitative study investigated effective instructional methods to train elementary education preservice teachers to apply reading comprehension strategies as readers and teachers. Four comprehension strategies and the components of two instructional models that have proven their efficacy were selected for the content and instructional methods. Preservice teachers enrolled in a literacy education course participated over one semester. Data were gathered through observation of students in strategy practice and performance and through document analysis of lesson plans and course assessments. A narrative account of teaching and learning emerged with instructor modeling and guided practice of the strategies in book clubs found to be the most effective instructional methods. The students’ needs for modeling and practice, and the challenges of learning the strategies, were among the findings. Investigation of Effective Instructional Methods 3 An Investigation of Effective Instructional Methods to Train Preservice Teachers in Reading Comprehension Strategies Since the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act (2002), the spotlight of the American educational agenda has been on the attainment of literacy. There is high demand to produce students who are proficient in reading. This is supported by an abundant supply of researchbased knowledge to draw upon in literacy instruction (National Reading Panel, 2000). In spite of this wealth of research, there are areas needing additional research. One of these is teacher preparation in reading instruction. In a review of educational research, Anders, Hoffman, and Duffy (2000) reported that studies on preservice teacher education in reading represented “less that 1% of the total studies conducted in reading over the past 30 years” (p. 724). More recently, the National Commission on Excellence in Elementary Teacher Preparation in Reading Instruction (2003) called for colleges and universities “to examine seriously the content and structure of their reading teacher preparation programs” (p. 3). This research study was designed to answer that call, as well as to meet the needs of my students, future teachers of elementary reading. Since I began teaching a field-based reading course several years ago, I found that the majority of my students did not see teachers “teaching” comprehension. My students’ field notes reflected Durkin’s (1978-1979) and Pressley, Wharton-McDonald, Hampston, & Echevarria’s (1998) observational studies, which found that teachers regularly assigned and tested comprehension, but rarely taught their students the strategies needed to comprehend. Since Durkin’s study, Pressley et al. (1998) found that many comprehension tasks had become more complex, but still were not taught. As Pressley (2002) later stated, “The teachers seemed to Investigation of Effective Instructional Methods 4 expect that the behaviors would develop naturally if students were given enough independent assignments” (p. 241). Excerpts from my students’ field notes illustrated this phenomenon. During my field experience, my teacher did not use any comprehension skills at all. When the students have reading class, it is more like a chore. When this teacher does teach reading, it is very fast-paced. The students copy the vocabulary words, and then, that is it for the day. The next day, they read the story by calling on each other. I have graded two reading tests, and the comprehension section is always the lowest scoring. The strategy I mostly saw my cooperating teacher use to teach comprehension was to ask students questions. She would have them read a story aloud. She then would stop them at certain points to ask them questions. At the end of the story, there would be written questions that she would also ask them. The students seemed to get the answers right most of the time. I do not think that this is an effective way to teach comprehension. I realized this when the students were working on their own in workbooks. I would correct them and a lot of answers were wrong. My teacher [cooperating teacher in an elementary classroom] basically evaluated comprehension with worksheets and questions. She would use questions from the book to check for student comprehension. I observed that this strategy did work, but not for all of the students. Many understood and could answer the questions, but there were some students who did not know where the answers came from. Numerous entries similar to these excerpts appeared in my students’ field notes. In class discussions, I listened to my students’ concerns and tried to address their requests to show them how to teach their future students to not only become fluent readers, but also good comprehenders. My concerns about the quality of comprehension instruction in schools and my students’ needs as future teachers of reading spured me to investigate and identify effective, evidence-based strategies for comprehension instruction. I found clear evidence that reading comprehension strategies, when taught to students and used in combination with each other, created more active readers who could comprehend better (Anderson, 1992; Brown, Pressley, Van Meter, & Schuder, 1996; Duke & Pearson, 2002, Gambrell, Block, & Pressley, 2002); however, I also learned that teacher preparation in Investigation of Effective Instructional Methods 5 comprehension strategy instruction was rare (National Reading Panel, 2000). A search of the research on comprehension strategy training in teacher preparation resulted in finding no existing research in this specific area; however, recent research reporting on exemplary teacher preparation programs in reading was found (Hoffman, Roller, Maloch, Sailors, Duffy, & Beretvas, 2005; National Commission, 2003; Williams, 2002). I felt the evidence for the use of these strategies was so compelling that teacher training at the preservice level was critically needed. My goal became to uncover the instructional methods that would be most effective in training preservice teachers to use and apply comprehension strategies, both as readers and as future teachers. The strategies that had proven their efficacy in research as improving students’ achievement in reading comprehension were selected as the content for training my students. Background knowledge on each strategy was built into the training using information from the work of Harvey & Goudvas (2000), whose presentation of comprehension strategies was recommended by practicing teachers as practical and easy to apply. The specific strategies focused on in the training were: (a) making connections--a strategy which prompts readers to activate their prior knowledge and recall prior experiences by interacting with the text prior to and during reading (Levin & Pressley, 1981); (b) questioning--a strategy that involves readers in generating questions before and during reading and seek answers to their questions after reading (Rosenshine, Meister, & Chapman, 1996); (c) inferring--a form of drawing conclusions about text as it is read that ties into prior knowledge, predicting, and questioning (Anderson & Pearson, 1984); and (d) visualizing--constructing mental images based on text while reading (Gambrell & Jawitz, 1993). Investigation of Effective Instructional Methods 6 The teaching methods I used mirrored the methods elementary teachers would use in strategy instruction with their students. These methods were grounded in the work of Duffy et al. (1987) and Pressley et al. (1992) and were chosen based on their evidence of increasing student achievement in comprehension. The decision to train my students as they would teach the strategies was made after consulting with M. Pressley [personal communication, 2003] who recommended this approach but cautioned me that learning to teach the strategies was not without challenge. His advice was well taken, and his caution evidenced itself in the findings of my study. Modes of Inquiry This study took place in the fall of 2003 within an undergraduate education course in literacy that focused on language arts and children’s literature. The 13 students enrolled in the course gave their voluntary consent to participate; however, one dropped out of the course with no explanation at mid-semester, leaving 12 students in the study. Qualitative inquiry was employed in order to better understand the teaching and learning processes in comprehension strategy training at the teacher preparation level (Dick, 1999). Documentation of the teaching methods used, and my students’ responses to these methods, was recorded in field notes. In addition, data from observations and documents were gathered from guided practice sessions, performance assessments, lesson plans, and a course assessment. The training materials consisted of various handouts, visuals, and assigned readings to build background knowledge, as well as children’s literature to model and practice the strategies. The training sequence began with direct explanation, a form of direct instruction (Duffy et al., 1987), to explain each strategy’s purpose and application in reading. I then modeled the strategy using a think aloud; a process whereby I read an excerpt from a children’s book or novel and Investigation of Effective Instructional Methods 7 shared my connections, questions, inferences, or visualizations as a reader. Each strategy was modeled and practiced separately with the use of various graphic organizers and note taking techniques. Guided practice sessions took place in small groups using a literature circle format (Daniels, 2002), which I called book clubs. After students selected an intermediate level novel, they were grouped by common genre or themes into the clubs. It was within the book clubs that the specific strategies were practiced and that discussions of the books and the strategies took place. The book club meetings took place once per week, seven times during the course. Documents were al