Influential Research in Reading Comprehension
Durkin's study (1978-1979)
influenced many researchers' thoughts on reading comprehension. Durkin observed that practically no
comprehension instruction was seen in reading classrooms and that teachers were
more assignment-givers and interrogators than instructors of comprehension
(Durkin, 1978-1979). This led to the
development of comprehension strategies that would be beneficial when instructing
learners to facilitate cognition and metacognition. The following researchers
are some of the forefront leaders in strategy learning. The beginning researchers focus on
individual strategy instruction while the latter researchers investigate the
use of multiple strategies for better comprehension.
Brown, Campione, and Day
(1981) researched instructional strategies that shifted the emphasis from a
concentration on instruction that was geared towards improving student
performance to instruction that aimed at improving student self-control and
self-awareness of his or her own learning processes. These strategies were established to get students away from rote
learning and engage in activities that promote independent thinking and
understanding, in other words, to learn to learn (Brown, Campione, & Day,
1981).
In 1983 Raphael and McKinney
taught the process of question-answer relationships (QARs). In their study on fifth- and eighth-grade
students, it was discovered that training average to low ability students the
QAR task was effective with regard to implicit question types (Raphael &
McKinney, 1983). The positive affects
of QAR are that many students benefit from training in “how” to answer
comprehension questions that accompany text (Pressley, Johnson, Symons,
McGoldrick, & Kurita, 1989).
In 1984 Palinscar and Brown
developed a cognitive strategy instruction called reciprocal teaching. Rosenshine and Meister (1994) described this strategy instruction
as “a focus on teaching students specific, concrete, comprehension-fostering
strategies which can be applied to the reading of new text and is an
interaction between the teacher and the students.” (Rosenshine & Meister,
1994, p. 480). Palinscar and Brown
(1986) describe the process as a way of activating the relevant background
knowledge that a student already possesses and allowing the student to become
involved in text by posing and answering questions.
Active comprehension is a
process that generates questions throughout reading. Nolte and Singer (1985) used story grammar during a study in
narrative text to generate questions and found that training students the
process involved in reading will help them improve their comprehension and will
be transferable to new text.
Retellings became a strategy
in the mid 1980's and early 1990's and were helpful in the organization of
text-acquired information and is a way of focusing the reader's attention on
restructuring the text (Gambrell, Koskinen, & Kapinus, 1991). Gambrell, Koskinen, and Kapinus' study
(1991) indicated that the reading comprehension of the learners would increase,
not only for less proficient readers, but for good readers as well.
Throughout the 1980's a
cognitive-based view on comprehension was explored, and direct explanation and
explicit comprehension instructions were the processes used with comprehension
strategies (Dowhower, 1999). This led
to a change in the 1990's for a push to more collaborative strategies that
promoted teacher-student and peer-led discussions during reading for better
instructional scaffolding (Dowhower, 1999).
An introduction of
transactional strategies moved the focus from one independent strategy to a
repertoire of strategies that students are taught in order facilitate reading
comprehension (Pressley, El-Dinary, Gaskins, Schuder, Bergman, Almasi, &
Brown, 1992). This group process is teacher and peer scaffolded and eventually
becomes part of the student's own processing – making it change from
interpersonal to intrapersonal (Pressly, El-Dinary, Gaskins, Schuder, Bergman,
Almasi, & Brown, 1992).
Casteel, Isom, and Jordan (2000) discussed the importance of transactional strategies to bridge the gap between what is read and the ability of students to strategically transact with the text, peers and teachers as reading takes place. Assessment is more authentic with transactional strategies, and is done through anecdotal notes, audio and video taping, conferencing, checklists and journal writing (Casteel, Isom, & Jordan, 2000). This helps develop and improve the student's metacognition as he or she reflects on the comprehension of the text.