Dialogical-thinking reading lessons : promoting critical thinking among learning-disabled students

Includes bibliographical references (p. 26-28

Analyzing a critical-thinking reading lesson

Includes bibliographical references (p. 21-22)The work upon which this publication was based was supported in part by the Office of Educational Research and Improvement under Cooperative Agreement No. OEG 0087-C100

Dialogical-thinking reading lessons: Promoting critical thinking among "learning-disabled" students

This research investigated whether reading instruction that emphasizes critical thinking would benefit "learning-disabled" fifth grade students. Seven students were assigned to the instructional group and seven to the comparison group. The instructional group participated in a program of ten dialogical-thinking reading lessons while the comparison group remained with their classroom teacher. Each lesson involved reading a story and discussing a central issue. Two alternative hypothesized explanatory conclusions regarding the central issue were considered. Students were asked: (a) to identify reasons to support each hypothesis; and (b) to evaluate the truth and relevance of each reason. Vignettes of the program lessons chronicle the procedures used and the modifications made in order to meet the students' needs. The vignettes provide examples of the critical thinking that occurred.Two reading comprehension tests and one critical thinking test were administered to both groups of students. Each group participated in a base-line and post dialogical-thinking reading lesson. In addition, an individual assessment interview, designed to match the dialogical-thinking reading lesson, was conducted with each student.Differences were found between the two groups on the post dialogical-thinking reading lessons. The instructional group was better at arriving at sound defensible evaluations of the reasons they had generated to support the two hypothesized conclusions. They also gave better final conclusions regarding the central issue than did the comparison group. There was no evidence of improvement on the paper and pencil tests of reading comprehension and critical thinking for either group. Comparing the students performance on paper and pencil tests with their performance in discussion settings revealed significantly differing views of competency.This study lends support to two major conclusions: (a) assessing "learning-disabled" students' reading and thinking should be re-examined from a contextualist perspective; and (b) "learning-disabled" students should receive reading instruction that calls for critical thinking.U of I OnlyETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permissio

Reviewing published information on reading in Botswana secondary schools

The main purpose of this review on published information on reading in Botswana schools is to seek ways of providing instruction and assessment that result in children becoming proficient readers. Botswana has made impressive progress in literacy growth since independence. However, a lot still needs to be done if literacy is to become all that it needs to be in the lives of the youth. One conclusion from this review is that there is an urgent need in Botswana to teach reading in ways that meet the needs of all students, especially those from Khoesan-speaking backgrounds. There is also a clear mismatch between policy and practice in the teaching of reading and this greatly disadvantages the students. Two important recommendations emanating from this review are, firstly, the teaching of reading should be linked more explicitly to that of writing; secondly, the Ministry of Education and concerned stakeholders need to encourage a marriage of policy and practice in the teaching of reading in Botswana

A Comparative Study of Symbolic Reading: Salt Peddler and Shinbone

This article investigates the interplay of cultural knowledge, symbolic language, and interpretive reading comprehension, focusing on the role of culture in symbolic understanding of text. Eight graduate students from two different cultural communities read and discussed a Korean folktale. Data were collected in the form of initial written responses and discussion transcripts. Thematic interpretative qualitative analyses are reported on initial reading stances, symbolic understandings, and efforts to identify the moral of the tale. Overall the analyses show that Korean readers focused mostly on discerning the morality being communicated symbolically through the story, whereas the American readers focused on individual values and freedoms to make sense of the story. Our findings indicate that there will be diversity in symbolic reading comprehension both across cultural groups and within cultural groups. We propose that when readers from several cultures come together in classrooms to talk about symbolic texts it is important for them to reflect on how they use their own cultural reference points to form similar and dissimilar understandings and interpretations. Heightening this awareness of diversity within cultural knowledge provides exciting and beneficial experiences for readers in today's multicultural classrooms. (Reading Comprehension, Symbolic Reading, Multicultural, Literacy Research, Cross-Cultural Study