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

Wed Nov 4 08:52:25 GMT 2009

Now THIS is how these new online technologies SHOULD be used:

Long-time leaders in our field engaging in powerful discussion about central issues, each with a long history of the finest contributions in research to their specific area of work.  I am sitting here marveling and  in awe of the exchange.  Thank you David, David, Arthur, and Jay!!!!

Truly a memory I shall not soon forget!  I hope it continues.

Perhaps it is too naïve to think that someone should pick this up and publish the discussion, assuming it continues at such a high level with such important minds, as they continue to look more deeply at this central issue.  I wonder if the RHOF should initiate a series of discussion topics and try to replicate what we have all just read, in other areas with other voices?  Perhaps it might begin with an issue or with a recent, important study.

Maybe this is too unique to these voices and this issue, though, or that my early morning mind gets too excited, too easily.  I am holding my breath, hoping this important discussion continues.

In all cases, thank you!!

Cheers,

Don
--
Donald J. Leu, Ph.D.
John and Maria Neag Endowed Chair in Literacy and Technology
Board of Directors, International Reading Association
University of Connecticut
249 Glenbrook Road
Storrs, CT  06269-2033
Office:  860.486.0202    Office Fax: 860-486.2994
Cell:  860.680.3752      Home: 860.447.8881
The New Literacies Research Lab: http://www.newliteracies.uconn.edu/

"Every  one of us is given the gift of life, and what a strange gift it is.
If it is preserved jealously and selfishly, it impoverishes and
saddens. But if it is spent for others, it enriches and beautifies."

-- Geraldine  Ferraro.
   Acceptance speech at the 1984 Democratic Party National  Convention.

________________________________
From: Jay Samuels <samue001 at umn.edu>
Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 23:35:15 -0500
To: "P. David Pearson" <ppearson at berkeley.edu>, Arthur N Applebee <AApplebee at uamail.albany.edu>
Cc: <reading-hall-of-fame at lists.nottingham.ac.uk>, <gaysu at pinnelleducation.com>, David Olson <dolson at oise.utoronto.ca>
Subject: RE: [Reading-hall-of-fame] RE: Reading-hall-of-fame Digest, Vol 42, Issue  1

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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