Armbruster, Bonnie B.

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Why some children have trouble reading content area textbooks

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HI L L I N 0 I SUNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGNPRODUCTION NOTEUniversity of Illinois atUrbana-Champaign LibraryLarge-scale Digitization Project, 2007.CPcoCU -IITechnical Report No. 432WHY SOME CHILDREN HAVE TROUBLEREADING CONTENT AREA TEXTBOOKSBonnie B. ArmbrusterUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignAugust 1988Center for the Study of ReadingTECHNICALREPORTSUNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN174 Children's Research Center51 Gerty DriveChampaign, Illinois 61820CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF READINGA READING RESEARCH AND EDUCATION CENTER REPORTTechnical Report No. 432WHY SOME CHILDREN HAVE TROUBLEREADING CONTENT AREA TEXTBOOKSBonnie B. ArmbrusterUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignAugust 1988University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign51 Gerty DriveChampaign, Illinois 61820The work upon which this publication was based was supported in part by theOffice of Educational Research and Improvement under Cooperative AgreementNo. OEG 0087-C1001. The publication does not necessarily reflect the views of theagency supporting the research.Context Area Textbooks - 1WHY SOME CHILDREN HAVE TROUBLEREADING CONTENT AREA TEXTBOOKSMany children who can breeze through the stories in their basal readers have trouble when it comes tolearning from their textbooks in science or social studies. This fact is often puzzling to teachers. Apopular assumption is that once students have mastered basic reading skills, they should be able toread almost anything. But for several reasons, reading in content area textbooks is different andusually more challenging than reading in basal readers. This article discusses three major reasons whychildren who are adequate decoders may still have difficulty learning from reading their content areatextbooks.Reason #1. Lack of Prerequisite KnowledgeChildren need many types of knowledge in order to learn from reading their textbooks. Importantprerequisite knowledge includes content, discourse, and strategic knowledge. The role of these threetypes of knowledge in reading to learn from content area textbooks is described in this section.Content KnowledgeContent knowledge refers to knowledge about the topic of the text. Readers draw on their store ofknowledge about the topic in constructing an interpretation of a text. Differences in content knowledgecan have a significant effect on text comprehension. Obviously, content knowledge figures importantlyin reading subject matter textbooks because the text is content-laden, and because the purpose ofreading the text is to acquire new content knowledge.Several problems in content area reading are related to content knowledge. First, students may lackprerequisite content knowledge to understand the text. Second, students may have appropriate contentknowledge but fail to make use of it during reading. Third, students may have content knowledge thatinterferes with learning new content.The problem of missing content knowledge is likely to be a significant problem in learning in thecontent areas, where students are usually learning new information. Often children do not have muchprior knowledge of the topics they are reading about, including the vocabulary associated with thetopic. With little prior knowledge, students will have trouble constructing meaning from the text,particularly if the text explanation is sparse.A second problem occurs when students have prior knowledge of a topic but fail to draw on thisknowledge during reading. This situation is especially common in school settings (Anderson, Hiebert,Scott, & Wilkinson, 1985). Students may know something relevant to what they are reading about, butfail to make the connection. For example, they may have a pet lizard or snake at home, but not thinkabout what they know about their pet when reading a science lesson on reptiles. Functionally, it is as ifthey had no prior content knowledge at all.A third problem can arise if the knowledge that students have and use interferes with new learning.One way that prior knowledge can interfere is when a familiar name or label is associated with a "new"concept. This happens frequently in content area learning. For example, terms like "fault" and "mass"in science, and "cabinet" and "strike" in social studies have subject matter-specific meanings that arequite different from their everyday meanings. To confuse the matter even more, some terms like"state" and "revolution" have very different meanings in science than they do in social studies.ArmbrusterContext Area Textbooks - 2Another way that prior content knowledge can interfere with learning new information is when the"knowledge" is actually inaccurate or incomplete. People cling to their pre-existing knowledge orbeliefs with remarkable tenacity. Such faulty content knowledge can greatly impede the learning ofnew content (Alvermann, Smith, & Readance, 1985; Smith & Anderson, 1984).In sum, content knowledge can hinder learning from content area textbooks in three ways: if it ismissing, if it is present but not used, and if it is present but interferes with new learning.Discourse KnowledgeDiscourse knowledge refers to knowledge about the organization of units of text larger than singlesentences. It includes knowledge of the structure of different types of writing.One reason that children may have difficulty with content area textbooks is that they are unfamiliarwith exposition as a discourse type. They may not understand that the intent of exposition is to inform.They may not have learned how exposition is structured in different ways to achieve its purposes. Forexample, children may not know that a newspaper article, a biographical sketch, and a set ofinstructions for performing a science investigation are written in quite different ways to achieve quitedifferent purposes.Children's lack of familiarity with exposition is understandable, for they have had much moreexperience with narrative than with expository discourse. Most children have had stories read to them;they have seen stories enacted on television and in movies. And, of course, children learn to read byreading simple stories. Furthermore, most of the selections in the basal readers are narratives (Flood& Lapp, 1987). The few expository selections that are included bear little resemblance to theexposition of content area textbooks (Beck, McKeown, & Gromoll, 1986). For example, expositoryselections in basals are often about unusual topics of high interest to children (e.g., secret codes andburied treasure). Also, they are short and self-contained, bearing little, if any, relationship tosurrounding selections. Unfortunately, for many students, what they read in their basal readersconstitutes the vast majority of their total reading (Anderson, Hiebert, Scott, & Wilkinson, 1985).Therefore, most students get little practice in reading expository text, and the exposition they do read isnot like that of their content area textbooks.Strategic KnowledgeStrategic knowledge refers to knowledge about behaviors that foster comprehension and learning.Although there is no consensus about critical reading comprehension strategies, a few key strategieshave been identified that are consistent with recent theory, supported by research, and teachable inschool programs. These strategies include (a) determining what's important in text, (b) synthesizingand summarizing information, (c) using prior knowledge to understand text, (d) drawing inferences, (e)asking questions about the reading, (f) monitoring comprehension, and (g) adapting resources toovercome comprehension problems (Pearson, Dole, Duffy, & Roehler, in press). [The latter twostrategies are often referred to as metacomprehension--knowledge and control of comprehension(Baker & Brown, 1984).]Basal reading programs typically include a few of these strategies on their scope and sequence chartsunder labels such as "main idea," "drawing conclusions," and "summarizing." But even for the handfulof key strategies that are included, the basal manuals actually contain few suggestions for directinstruction of the strategies (Durkin, 1981), nor does much strategy instruction occur in classrooms(Durkin, 1978-79). Content area programs, at least social studies, may also include similar strategieson their scope and sequence charts, but once again, few suggestions for direct instruction are includedArmbrusterContext Area Textbooks - 3(Armbruster & Gudbrandsen, 1986). It appears, then, that students probably learn little about keycomprehension strategies, much less how to apply these strategies to their content area reading.Reason #2. "Inconsiderate" TextbooksThe term "inconsiderate textbooks" refers to textbooks that are difficult to read, understand, and learnfrom. In the past several years, textbooks have been under attack for their inconsiderateness.Textbooks may be inconsiderate for many reasons. Some have to do with how understandable the textis. Textbooks have been criticized for the following impediments to comprehension: poororganization, lack of coherence, explanations that are inadequate because facts are merely "mentioned,"inappropriate vocabulary, and erroneous or inconsistent information (Anderson & Armbruster, 1984;Anderson, Hiebert, Scott, & Wilkinson, 1985; Tyson-Bernstein, 1988).Textbooks may also be inconsiderate because they are boring. The writing in textbooks tends to be"choppy, stilted, and monotonous" (Tyson-Bernstein, 1988, p. 21). Or, as Anderson et al. put it, ". . .textbooks for children often do not have features that would arouse and hold a child's interest" (1987, p.298). Since interest has a strong and pervasive effect on learning (Wigfield & Asher, 1984; Anderson,Shirey, Wilson, & Fielding, 1987), boring textbooks bode ill for content area instruction.Unfortunately, the features of "inconsiderate" textbooks are not indexed by readability formulas, thetraditional means of determining the readability level of a text (Armbruster, Osborn, & Davison, 1985).Therefore, even if students are reading a textbook with a reported readability level appropriate fortheir grade, it is no guarantee that the textbook will be easy for them to read, understand, and learnfrom."Inconsiderate" textbooks can bore and bewilder even sophisticated adult readers. For children whoare not only novice readers but also novices in the content areas, the problem may be overwhelming.Reason #3. Classroom Experiences withReading in the Content AreasSome children have difficulty learning from reading because of their classroom experiences withcontent area reading. First, a child's previous teacher(s) may have coped with the problem of studentswho could not read the textbook by putting the books back on the shelves and "telling" the content.This is a reasonable solution to the immediate problem of "covering" the content. Unfortunately, aside-effect is that children are further deprived of practice in reading exposition, so they will be thatmuch further behind in content area reading for next year's class.Second, many teachers rely on "round robin" oral reading to solve content area reading problems. Oralreading can enhance reading achievement for disabled readers under certain conditions, such asrepeated oral practice on the same text and teacher modeling of fluent reading (Hoffman, 1987). Butthese conditions probably seldom occur in content area classes. In addition, there are disadvantages toround robin reading, including (a) possible inattention to reading because many children do not like tohear their peers read, particularly peers who are less than fluent readers, (b) frequent disruptions inthe "flow" of reading as errors are corrected and transitions are made from reader to reader, and (c)further lack of practice in independent, silent reading of exposition.Third, reading in the content area is often fragmented. Either by following the teacher's manual ortheir own inclinations, teachers tend to interrupt reading frequently in order to ask questions. Many ofthese questions, at least in the teacher's manual, are "lower level" questions focusing on details; fewquestions ask students to synthesize information over extended text (Armbruster & Ostertag, 1988).ArmbrusterArmbruster Context Area Textbooks -4Some possible unfortunate results are (a) children may fail to see the forest for the trees--that is, theymay miss the "big picture" in the myriad of details, (b) children may develop a set for readingmyopically, which will lead them to miss major concepts and themes in later reading materials, and (c)children may become bored with the constant questioning and the focus on details.ConclusionThis report has outlined several reasons why even "good" readers may have trouble reading theircontent area textbooks. There is probably no simple reason why content area reading is difficult forany particular child; more likely, several reasons interact in a complex way to make learning fromreading textbooks difficult. Obviously, there is no panacea. Rather, the intent of this report was toheighten teachers' awareness of variables in learners, textbooks, and instruction that may be stumblingblocks to their students in content area classes.Context Area Textbooks - 5ReferencesAlvermann, D. E., Smith, L. C., & Readence, J. E. (1985). Prior knowledge activation andcomprehension of compatible and incompatible text. Reading Research Quarterly, 20, 420-436.Anderson, R. C., Hiebert, E. H., Scott, J. A., & Wilkinson, I. A. G. (1985). Becoming a nation ofreaders: The report of the Commission on Reading. Urbana, IL: Center for the Study of Reading.Anderson, R. C., Shirey, L. L., Wilson, P. T., & Fielding, L. G. (1987). Interestingness of children'sreading material. In R. E. Snow & M. J. Farr (Eds.), Aptitude, leaming and instruction: Conativeand affective process analyses (Vol. 3, pp. 287-299). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Anderson, T. H., & Armbruster, B. B. (1984). Content area textbooks. In R. C. Anderson, J. Osborn,& R. J. Tierney (Eds.), Learning to read in American schools: Basal readers and content texts (pp.193-226). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Armbruster, B. B., & Gudbrandsen, B. (1986). Reading comprehension instruction in social studiesprograms. Reading Research Quarterly, 21, 36-48.Armbruster, B. B., Osborn, J. H., & Davison, A. L. (1985). Readability formulas may be dangerous toyour textbooks. Educational Leadership, 42, 18-20.Armbruster, B. B., & Ostertag, J. (1988, April). Questions in content area textbooks: How do theyfunction? Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational ResearchAssociation, New Orleans.Baker, L., & Brown, A. L. (1984). Metacognitive skills and reading. In P. D. Pearson (Ed.), Handbookof reading research (pp. 353-394). New York: Longman.Beck, I. L., McKeown, M. G., & Gromoll, E. W. (1986). Issues concerning content and structure ofexpository text for young readers. Unpublished manuscript, University of Pittsburgh, LearningResearch and Development Center.Durkin, D. (1978-79). What classroom observations reveal about reading comprehension instruction.Reading Research Quarterly, 14, 481-533.Durkin, D. (1981). Reading comprehension instruction in five basal reading series. Reading ResearchQuarterly, 16, 515-544.Flood, J., & Lapp, D. (1987). Forms of discourse in basal readers. The Elementary School Journal, 87,299-306.Pearson, P. D., Dole, J., Duffy, G., & Roehler, L. (in press). Developing expertise in readingcomprehension: What should be taught? How should it be taught? In S. J. Samuels & A. E.Farstrup (Eds.), What research says to the teacher (2nd ed.). Newark, DE: International ReadingAssociation.Smith, E. L., & Anderson, C. W. (1984). Plants as producers: A case study of elementary scienceteaching. Journal of Research in Science Teaching 21, 685-698.Tyson-Bernstein, H. (1988). A conspiracy of good intentions: America's textbook fiasco. Washington,DC: The Council for Basic Education.ArmbrusterArmbruster Context Area Textbooks - 6Wigfield, A., & Asher, S. R. (1984). Social and motivational influences on reading. In P. D. Pearson(Ed.), Handbook of reading research (pp. 423-452). New York: Longman.EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD1988-89Beck, DianaCommeyras, MichelleFoertsch, DanielHartman, DougJacobson, MichaelJihn-Chang, JehngJimenez, RobertKerr, BonnieKerr, PaulMeyer, JenniferMoran, JuanOhtsuka, KeisukeRoe, MarySchommer, MarloScott, JudyStallman, AnneWilkinson, IanWolff, PhillipMANAGING EDITORMary A. FoertschMANUSCRIPT PRODUCTION ASSISTANTSDelores PlowmanNancy Diedrich

Why some children have trouble reading content area textbooks

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