[Reading-hall-of-fame] RE: Reading-hall-of-fame Digest, Vol 42, Issue 1

Wed Nov 4 04:35:15 GMT 2009

If I understand Pearson's comment correctly, he is stating that if you take
an indicator of fluency such as reading speed and make it into the goal, you
are creating a possible problem.  Conversely, however, if lack of processing
speed turns out to be a problem, to ignore the student's problem simply adds
to the student's troubles. The diagnostic solution? Reminds me of a little
saying, "Different strokes for different folks.".. jay samuels

From: P. David Pearson [mailto:ppearson at berkeley.edu] 
Sent: Tuesday, November 03, 2009 10:08 PM
To: Arthur N Applebee
Cc: P. David Pearson; David Olson; Jay Samuels;
reading-hall-of-fame at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
Subject: Re: [Reading-hall-of-fame] RE: Reading-hall-of-fame Digest, Vol 42,
Issue 1

What all of this says to be is that comprehension skills and strategies,
like phonics skills and strategies (and like the assessment of enabling
skills), go awry when they become goals not tools to assist learning or, put
differently, when they become ends not means.  So a skill or strategy
brought forward at a particular moment to solve a particular problem, might
be just what a student needs to achieve that productive cumulative
experience in a domain of knowledge or inquiry.  But set aside, isolated,
and taught and practiced as an isolated end unto itself becomes an
irrelevant curricular appendage.  

But to move to the other end of the continuum--the direct refusal to offer
kids any advice about how to enact a routine of some sort to solve a problem
of some sort--seems equally as misguided.

So the only think that makes sense is the situated instruction and enactment
of any sort of "procedures", whatever label--skill, strategy, process, or
routine--we give it.

David P.

On Nov 3, 2009, at 6:06 PM, Arthur N Applebee wrote:

David,

I think you are touching on a central issue-the difference between novice
and expert may be a function of the knowledge of the domain gained through
cumulative experience, rather than the attainment of specific knowledge or
skills through direct instruction.  But we often focus on the skills, rather
than the guided immersion in the domain that leads to productive cumulative
experience.  We framed our AERJ study of discussion-based approaches to the
development of understanding in part in terms of the literature on
comprehension strategies, but the results suggest that the process of
sustained and focused discussion, without an emphasis on specific
comprehension strategies, has a powerful effect on learning.   Our work was
with middle and high school students, but I think the general principle is
true across ages.

Arthur

(Arthur N. Applebee, J. Langer, M. Nystrand, & A. Gamoran, Discussion-based
approaches to developing understanding: Classroom instruction and student
performance in middle and high school English. American Educational Research
Journal 40:3, 685-730, 2003. )

  _____  

From: reading-hall-of-fame-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:reading-hall-of-fame-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of
David Olson
Sent: Tuesday, November 03, 2009 4:54 PM
To: Jay Samuels
Cc: reading-hall-of-fame at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
Subject: Re: [Reading-hall-of-fame] RE: Reading-hall-of-fame Digest, Vol 42,
Issue 1

Jay et al:

In my view "processing speed" is merely a reflection of one's knowledge.
But I think the question raises a more general question.  In reviewing a
bunch of papers on literacy, it occurred to me that there is a considerable
gap among experts (like ourselves) on the following issue:

Do tested differences between the good and poor readers, the literate and
the non/less literate, provide a reliable guide as to what should be taught.

I think not.  And that included speed of processing.  Whereas most/many
literacy researchers seem to think that if good/poor readers differ on, say,
short term memory for letters, vocabulary, sentence comprehension,
inferencing, etc. that implies that such  "skills" should be taught.  That
assumption is taken for granted by most prescriptive reading programs.  I
don't agree.

How about you?

David

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