The Quantity and Quality of Teachers’ Self‑perceptions of Read‑Aloud Practices in Norwegian First Grade Classrooms

Read-alouds are a frequent practice in early childhood classrooms and provide great potential for developing literacy skills for young learners including vocabulary, comprehension, text structure awareness, visual literacy, and fluency. Yet, any potential benefit of read-alouds depends on how the teacher enacts a read-aloud, particularly in regards to the amount and type of talk that surrounds the practice. Despite frequent use, read-alouds have not been systematically considered in Norwegian early childhood classrooms, which is the goal of this study. Specifically, 299 first-grade teachers completed a survey on read-aloud practices in December, as well as provided information on the most recently read-aloud texts in both December and May. Quantitative results were analyzed descriptively while qualitative results were analyzed via open coding. Findings indicate that read-alouds are most used as a tool for engaging and managing students rather than as a formal instructional practice. As read-alouds most typically occurred during lunch time, texts were selected primarily for entertainment and teacher talk occurred most frequently for the purpose of defining words. Conversely, teachers reported comparatively minimal use of planned (instructional) stops and reported limited focus on literacy elements. The analysis of book choices indicated that teachers used few informational texts and frequently relied on older, well-known children’s literature. Implications for this study are that although read-alouds provide much potential benefit for young learners’ literacy development, Norwegian teachers could capture underutilized benefits of this practice through greater planning and intentionality.publishedVersio

A Content Analysis of Visuals in Elementary School Textbooks

Although visual complexity is increasing and graphics are essential to support readers’ comprehension of disciplinary texts, visual literacy receives scant attention. Research suggests that effectively instructing students to interpret discipline-specific graphics would yield better comprehension. However, before this line of inquiry can be enacted, we must determine the characteristics of graphics in contemporary content textbooks. Therefore, this content analysis evaluated graphics within third- and fifth-grade science and social studies textbooks. We coded 3,844 graphics by type and function and compared findings between disciplines using chi-square and post hoc comparison tests. Overall, graphics were coded into 9 major types (photographs being most frequent) and 54 subtypes, indicating a diversity of graphics. When comparing disciplines, science textbooks contained more diagrams and photographs, and graphics more often functioned representationally. Social studies presented both a wider variety of graphics and more interpretationally challenging graphics. Implications for disciplinary literacy and instruction are discussed

The Preservice Teacher Self-Efficacy for Writing Inventory (PTSWI): A Tool for Measuring Beliefs About Writing

Teachers are often underprepared to teach writing, which can negatively impact the performance and attitudes of their students. In teacher preparation programs, one goal should be to specifically develop future teachers of writing. Focusing on self-efficacy beliefs, increasing preservice teachers’ confidence and preparedness for teaching writing could yield positive impacts on classroom writing instructional practices. Currently, tools to quantitatively measure self-efficacy for writing and writing instruction in preservice teachers are sparse, thus limiting teacher educators’ ability to understand the efficacy of writing instruction. Therefore, the purpose of the present study is to gather evidence of score validity and reliability of a newly developed, theoretically-grounded survey for measuring preservice teacher self-efficacy for writing and writing instruction. The Preservice Teacher Self-Efficacy for Writing Inventory (PTSWI) provides a pragmatic tool designed for use by teacher educators. Results indicate that the PTSWI produces valid and reliable scores that are aligned with current theories from writing research and psychology

How do Norwegian second-grade teachers use guided reading? The quantity and quality of practices

This paper documents how teachers use guided reading practices in Norwegian second-grade class-rooms. In a two-part study consisting of teachers’ self-reports (Study 1) and video-observations of guid-ed reading sessions (Study 2), we analyzed the frequency and characteristics of guided reading practic-es. Findings from Study 1 indicate that guided reading is a common practice of Norwegian second-grade teachers and that discussing word meaning, text, and pictures are the most frequently addressed liter-acy components. Findings from Study 2 illustrate that the teachers regularly make optimal use of the before-reading phase, while the after-reading phase is relatively lacking. The observational data also indicate that teachers are more likely to simply check students’ understanding of word meaning rather than to work in-depth with vocabulary. Likewise, teachers were more likely to supply help in the de-coding process rather than scaffold students’ decoding with strategies. In sum, the data indicate that teachers may not fully use the benefits that guided reading instruction can afford. We discuss how to help educators use more of the potential of guided reading, arguing that the benefits of guided reading can be strengthened by (1) more in-depth planning, (2) greater use of strategies, and (3) routines for observing and assessing.publishedVersio

Do You Get the Picture?: A Meta-Analysis of the Effect of Graphics on Reading Comprehension

Although convergent research demonstrates that well-designed graphics can facilitate readers’ understanding of text, there are select situations where graphics have been shown to have no effect on learners’ overall text comprehension. Therefore, the current meta-analytic study examined 39 experimental studies published between 1985 and 2018 measuring graphics’ effects on readers’ comprehension. We first quantified the overall effect on reading comprehension. Then, we considered interactions with learners’ characteristics, graphic types, and assessment formats. Our analysis revealed that the inclusion of graphics had a moderate overall positive effect (Hedges’s g = 0.39) on students’ reading comprehension, regardless of grade level. Regarding graphic type, we did not find a significant difference among pictures, pictorial diagrams, and flow diagrams. Only when compared to mixed graphics, pictures had a greater effect on comprehension. Additionally, compared with true and false assessments, graphics differentially benefited students’ comprehension on open-ended comprehension assessments and mixed format assessments. Implications for future research are presented

Writing-to-Learn in Secondary Science Classes: For Whom is It Effective?

Although many agree that writing can make a unique contribution to learning, harnessing that contribution is difficult, particularly in the middle grades. The purpose of this study was to measure the efficacy of a feasible writing-to-learn intervention in Grade 6–11 science classes. We focused on middle school students because this group has been least responsive to writing interventions in previous research. We conducted an 8-week intervention in which students completed short metacognitive and longer argumentative writing tasks. Our results indicated that overall students’ ability to engage in scientific rhetoric improved, and we identified minimal difference in the growth of middle and high school students. We therefore conducted a cluster analysis to examine how learner-level variables impacted the effectiveness of the intervention. Most notable was that students with low writing motivation and science knowledge showed the largest response to the intervention. These findings suggest that writing-to-learn can be implemented in secondary science to support scientific literacy development

Co-Teaching Implementation: How Do School Leaders Support Teachers?

School leaders play a pivotal role in fostering change and improvement, including via teacher-led interventions, such as co-teaching. Leaders’ vision and support create the conditions for teachers to maximize the effectiveness of school interventions. However, there is limited understanding of how school leaders provide support for the intervention of co-teaching. This gap in knowledge is crucial because co-teaching has the potential to be transformative, but teachers must actively drive pedagogical changes. We conducted a mixed-methods study involving 150 Norwegian elementary schools participating in a multi-year co-teaching initiative for literacy instruction. We collected data through open and closed survey questions, inquiring about school leaders’ beliefs and support practices regarding co-teaching. Our descriptive analysis examined school leaders’ practices and explored potential associations with their epistemological perspectives. Our findings indicate that leaders who approach co-teaching with cautious optimism tend to provide more thoughtful support compared to those who are overly optimistic and may underestimate implementation challenges. Moreover, most leaders prioritize structural support elements while potentially overlooking psychological and emotional support practices aligned with self-determination theory (SDT). We conclude with practical recommendations for school leaders to offer support to teachers that are grounded in the principles of SDT and organized according to implementation phases.publishedVersio

Assessing Writing Motivation: a Systematic Review of K-5 Students' Self-Reports

For attaining success in writing, motivation is essential. Crucially, instruction is dependent on knowing the student’s capabilities and inner drives. To date, research on writing has yet to establish a consistent framework for assessing writing motivation, and often fails to acknowledge students’ self-reports, rather favoring evaluations of students’ writing motivation made by others, such as teachers and researchers. This limbo state originates partly from a general skepticism towards the trustworthiness of elementary students’ self-reports. Nonetheless, the validity of such self-reports has been acknowledged in adjacent fields, such as reading. Aiming to establish a knowledge base from studies addressing students’ voices, the present study adopts the method of a systematic review and investigates how writing motivation has been assessed in empirical studies (1996–2020) through K-5 students’ self-reports. Of the 7047 studies identified through database search, 56 met the inclusion criteria and are examined in this review. Results indicate that (a) storytelling is the genre most used to operationalize writing in the investigations, (b) surveys and interview questions measuring students’ attitude towards writing are the most common type of self-report used, and (c) students’ voices are weighted differently across the studies. Findings suggest that future research should (1) work to counteract existing biases in writing tasks, (2) provide a rationale for their choice/design of measure of motivation, and (3) report clearly whose voices are being heard (e.g., students’, teachers’, or researchers’) and the appropriateness of this choice regarding study purpose, design, and findings.publishedVersio

Shared responsibility between teachers predicts student achievement: A mixed methods study in Norwegian co-taught literacy classes

Having two teachers work collaboratively in the same class has been suggested as a possible solution to several instructional challenges, including the inclusion of students with special needs in mainstream classrooms and as part of school-wide prevention models to increase student achievement. In this, shared responsibility between teachers is regarded as a prerequisite to successful co-teaching. However, few studies have investigated whether shared responsibility between teachers actually leads to improved student achievement. This mixed methods study investigates shared responsibility in a sample of 148 classrooms where two general educators worked collaboratively in literacy instruction through first and second grade. First, we analyzed whether the degree of shared responsibility between the two teachers for planning, enacting and evaluating literacy instruction predicted student reading when controlling for pre-reading skills at baseline. Second, we carried out in-depth individual interviews with six collaborative teacher dyads purposefully selected from high- and lowperforming classrooms to investigate what characterized their sharing of responsibility. The results show that shared responsibility significantly predicts students’ reading achievement. Further, the interviews reveal a surface level collaboration between coteachers in low-performing classes, yet a more profound level of collaboration with influence on key teaching decisions in high-performing classes.publishedVersio

Developing and Examining Validity Evidence for the Writing Rubric to Inform Teacher Educators (WRITE)

Assessment is an under-researched challenge of writing development, instruction, and teacher preparation. One reason for the lack of research on writing assessment in teacher preparation is that writing achievement is multi-faceted and difficult to measure consistently. Additionally, research has reported that teacher educators and preservice teaches may have limited assessment literacy knowledge. In previous studies, researchers have struggled to provide strong evidence of validity, reliability, and fairness across raters, writing samples, and rubric items. In the present study, we fill several gaps in the research literature by developing a rubric, the Writing Rubric to Inform Teacher Educators (WRITE), which utilizes a structure that promotes assessment literacy while raters score samples. Furthermore, using modern measurement theory, we strengthen the field’s understanding of writing assessment by providing evidence of validity, reliability, and fairness of scores to support the interpretation and use of the WRITE