Knowing Readers

Dr Susan La Marca2008

Pleasure Reading and Student Achievement

The Centrality of Engagement The Teacher-Librarian as Enabling Adult Examples of Practice

Pleasure Reading and Student Achievement

Reading andStudent Achievement Research

..Campbell, J. R., Hombo, C. M., & Mazzeo, J. (2000)1999 Trends in Academic Progress: Three Decades of Student Performance

Clark, C. & Rumbold, K. (2006). Reading for Pleasure: A Research Overview

Cullinan, B. E. (2000) Independent Reading and School Achievement

Haycock, K. (2003) The Crisis of Canada’s School Libraries: The Case for Reform and Re-investment

Krashen, S. D. (2004) The Power of Reading: Insights from the Research

Lonsdale, M. (2003) Impact of School Libraries on Student Achievement: a Review of the Research (Australian report)

OECD (2000) Reading for Change: Performance and Engagement Across Countries.

Reading and Student Achievement

reading for fun had a positive relationship to average scores. At all three ages (9, 13, 17 years), students who said they read for fun scored higher than peers who said they never read for fun.

Campbell, J. R., Hombo, C. M., & Mazzeo, J. (2000) 1999 Trends in Academic Progress: Three Decades of Student Performance

Reading andStudent Achievement

Students who read independently become better readers, score higher on achievement tests in all subject areas, and have greater content knowledge than those who do not.

Cullinan, B. E. (2000) Independent Reading and School Achievement

One crucial factor that education systems can work on is the degree to which students are active and well motivated readers. This report shows that the degree to which students are engaged in reading is a crucial factor associated with reading proficiency.

OECD (2000) Reading for Change: Performance and Engagement Across Countries. Results form PISA

2000 (Executive summary)

OECD Reading for Change

-Read widely for a variety of purposes

-Read regularly

-And the extent to which they perceived reading to be intrinsically valuable

OECD (2000) Reading for Change: Performance and Engagement Across Countries. Results form PISA

2000 (Executive summary)

OECD Reading for Change

The Centrality of Engagement

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 orientated, intrinsically motivated…’

Engagement

Guthrie, J. T. (2000) ‘Contexts for Engagement and Motivation on Reading’

•How much time is spent in reading for enjoyment each day.

•The frequency and variety of reading such as newspapers, emails and novels.

•An attitude towards reading that it is enjoyable and an activity that readers would find hard to give up.

Definition of Engagement (OECD)

OECD (2000) Reading for Change: Performance and Engagement Across Countries. Results form PISA 2000 (Executive summary):

OECD - PISA (Program for International Student Assessment)

the mental manipulation of concepts;

the positioning of thinking as pleasurable;

the identification of the importance of patterns, likenesses, connectedness;

the facilitation of concentration and involvement;

the pursuit of an activity so pleasurable it is undertaken for its own sake.

Csikszentmihalyi’s ‘Flow’

Csikentszentmihalyi, M. (1992) Flow: The Psychology of Happiness.

Creating classroom communities, providing challenging tasks, and allowing students to make choices characterise effective practices that connect to students’ interests and motivations. Connecting to students’ interests and values ultimately can produce motivated, engaged readers.

Guthrie, John T. & Donna E Alvermann (1999) (editors)

Engaged Reading: Process, Practices and Policy Implications.

Student centred

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.

Guthrie, J. T. (2000) ‘Contexts for

Engagement and Motivation on Reading’

Theory into practice

The Teacher-Librarian as Enabling Adult

The Enabling AdultWe can’t teach what we don’t know, so anyone who doesn’t know how to enjoy reading literature, thinking about it, and entering into dialogues about it shouldn’t try to teach these pleasures. On the other hand, those of us who do have these abilities need do nothing more than figure out what we ourselves do in the process of enjoying literature and then devise ways of teaching children to do the same thing.

Nodelman, P. (1996) The Pleasures of Children’s Literature

The Enabling Adult

Teachers who are passionate about reading talk about the importance of reading in their lives, share their love of books and language, read aloud favorite poems, excerpts, and stories, and choose books to share that they themselves enjoy.

La Marca and Macintyre (2006)Knowing Readers

The Enabling Adult…communicates their passion for, and belief in the value of reading by providing regular time for silent and serial reading and reading aloud in their classrooms.

La Marca and Macintyre (2006)

Knowing Readers

The Enabling AdultThey enjoy listening to and reading students’ responses and designing meaningful and purposeful ways of supporting thinking and talking about text. They demonstrate in subtle ways, by the way they position reading in their classroom, what it means to them and their students.

La Marca and Macintyre (2006)

Knowing Readers

The Enabling Adult

…model the negotiations that experienced readers do: predicting on the basis of what they know about the way texts work, what they know about the world, the way people behave, and so on, and then adjusting and modifying these predictions as the text progress.

La Marca and Macintyre (2006)

Knowing Readers

Access and Choice

People do not become committed readers on a diet of prescribed texts only, however well chosen they may be…We cheerfully become willing readers when following our own instincts and tastes.

Chambers, A. (1991)

The Reading Environment

TalkIn isolation, intrinsic motivational goals cannot sustain engagement in reading…Students who are socially inclined, talk with their friends, share books, and discuss their writing are most likely to become avid readers. Thus, motivations for reading cannot be considered in isolation from their social and cultural contexts.

Guthrie and Anderson

in Guthrie and Alvermann (1999) (editors) Engaged Reading

In Practice

Text Centred Thematic Unit

In a modern world

What do these texts tell us about ourselves and societies values? 

Text Centred Thematic UnitsSecondary

Advertising catalogues

The Simpsons television show

Supersize Me (documentary film)

The art of Andy Warhol, Edward Hooper, Munch.

Youth Society pages – The Age

Who Weekly Magazine

So Yesterday & Uglies series

The Short and Incredibly Happy Life of Riley

The Singing Hat

The Gospel According to Larry

Affluenza: When Too Much is Never Enough

Don’t Eat this Book

Chew on this!

Oryx and Crake

Comic Life

Photo Story