Education Commons^™

Making Meaning With Friends: Exploring The Function, Direction And Tone Of Small Group Discussions Of Literature In Elementary School Classrooms, Katie Peterson

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

The merits of decentralized small groups has been questioned in literature and by practicing teachers; thus this study shows the academic and identity work children do as they attempt to make meaning in these spaces.This study explores the affordances and drawbacks of decentralized small group discussion contexts in a multiage (3rd/ 4th) grade classroom. Practical and theoretical implications from the data suggest that decentralized small groups are valuable in a variety of ways, but children need to be guided in developing effective interactional styles. Data were analyzed using a combination of constant comparative methods and a micro analysis of talk …

Fictional Narratives About Individuals With Autism Spectrum Disorder: Focus Group Analysis And Insight, Teresa Cardon, Jane E. Kelley

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

Given the CDC’s report of a 30% increase in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) diagnoses over the past two years, it is important to increase awareness and educate teachers and students in both general and special education classrooms. One way to bridge the gap between students with and without ASD is to use authentic narrative fiction as a teaching tool. The goal of this study was to identify aspects of stories with characters with ASD that contribute to authentic and accurate depictions. Insights were elicited from focus groups that included insiders, individuals or family members with ASD, and educators who work …

The Common Core Writing Standards: A Descriptive Study Of Content And Alignment With A Sample Of Former State Standards, Gary A. Troia, Natalie G. Olinghouse, Joshua Wilson, Kelly A. Stewart, Ya Mo, Lisa Hawkins, Rachel A. Kopke

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

Many students do not meet expected standards of writing performance, despite the need for writing competence in and out of school. As policy instruments, writing content standards have an impact on what is taught and how students perform. This study reports findings from an evaluation of the content of a sample of seven diverse states’ current writing standards compared to content of the Common Core State Standards for writing and language (CCSS-WL). Standards were evaluated for breadth of content coverage (range), how often content was referenced (frequency), the degree of emphasis placed on varied content elements (balance), and the degree …

Choice And Rigor: Achieving A Balance In Middle School Reading/Language Arts Classrooms In The Era Of The Common Core, Nancy L. Stevens

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

While the advantages of reading workshops are well known (Atwell, 1998), there is currently a debate among scholars, practitioners, and politicians about the use of instructional/independent level texts in light of the Common Core Standards’ end-of-year requirement for students to be reading at grade level (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010). Particularly in middle school, where motivation to read often declines, a workshop approach can help students develop and strengthen their interest in reading. A classroom survey completed by middle school students in a suburban school district in the Midwestern United …

“It’S Just Too Sad!”: Teacher Candidates’ Emotional Resistance To Picture Books, Aimee Papola-Ellis

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

The use of critical literacy with children’s books that focus on social issues and disrupt the status quo can be a powerful way to create spaces for conversations with students about social justice and empowerment. Teacher candidates in a semester long children’s literature course were asked to respond to a range of children’s texts that dealt with many social issues and disrupted the commonplace. Despite an explicit emphasis on critical literacy and social justice, the candidates were very resistant to using many of the texts in their own future classrooms. They had strong emotional reactions that prevented them from consideration …

Creating Spaces For Literacy, Creating Spaces For Learning, Christy M. Howard

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

This study represents the practices of a middle school social studies teacher as she focuses on integrating questioning, reading, and writing in her content area. This teacher uses literacy strategies to engage students in practices of reading multiple texts and writing to showcase learning. She creates opportunities for students to make connections to their learning, posing questions to enhance critical thinking and the use of multiple sources to support responses. Through these actions, she creates spaces for student reading, writing, and learning to occur.

Reading Horizons Vol. 55 No. 2

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

No abstract provided.

Pre-Service Teachers' Growth In Understandings Of Best Practice Literacy Instruction Through Paired Course And Field Experience, Jamie Lipp, Sara R. Helfrich

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

Illiteracy is on the rise in the United States, and the potential negative impact on today’s struggling reader is devastating. Now more than ever, preparing pre-service teachers to be effective teachers of literacy is crucial. This study examined the growth in understandings of best practice literacy of eleven pre-service teachers through paired course and field work. Results reveal that through paired course and field work, growth of best practice literacy instruction is shown by pre-service teachers’ enhanced abilities to define, assign importance, and relate to implications for student learning as well as develop efficacy around their use. Results of this …

Motivated To Engage: Learning From The Literacy Stories Of Pre-Service Teachers, Deborah Macphee, Sherry Sanden

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

The influence of motivation on readers' behaviors has received wide attention in literacy scholarship. The importance of readers’ motivations for reading becomes critical when considered in relation to readers’ engagement with reading activities and their perceptions of themselves a competent. This article presents a qualitative study of pre-service teachers’ literacy history stories and reflections on their identities as literate individuals. The stories represented pre-service teachers’ perceptions of home and school literacy experiences that either motivated or discouraged them from engaging in literacy activities. Their reflections were an account of how their experiences may have influenced their current self-perceptions and engagement …

The Contribution Of Morphological Knowledge To 7th Grade Students’ Reading Comprehension Performance, Kouider Mokhtari, Joanna Neel, Abbey Matatall, Andrea Richards

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

In this study, we examined the role of morphology, an important yet largely understudied source of difficulty, in reading ability among 7^th grade students in one junior high school in the southwestern United States. We sought to find out how much variance in reading ability is accounted for by these students’ morphological knowledge, and whether skilled readers do in fact have higher levels of morphological knowledge than less skilled student peers. We found that students’ sensitivity to the morphological structure of words accounted for 18% of the variance in these students’ reading performance. We further found that skilled readers …

English-Spanish Cognates In The Charlotte Zolotow Award Picture Books: Vocabulary, Morphology, And Orthography Lessons For Latino Ells, José A. Montelongo, Anita C. Hernández, Roberta J. Herter

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

English-Spanish cognates are words that are orthographically and semantically identical or nearly identical in English and Spanish as a result of a common etymology. Because of the similarities in the two languages, Spanish-dominant Latino English Language Learners (ELLs) can be taught to recognize English cognates thereby increasing their bilingualism and bi-literacy for these two languages.

There are over 20,000 English-Spanish cognates, many of the academic vocabulary words. Despite their vast educational potential, however, cognates are typically excluded as a word category in the language arts curriculum, thus denying Latino ELLs of a resource for acquiring English-Spanish bilingualism and bi-literacy.

English-Spanish …

Reading Horizons Vol. 55 No. 1

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

No abstract provided.

Reading Comprehension Strategies In Secondary Content Area Classrooms: Teacher Use Of And Attitudes Towards Reading Comprehension Instruction, Molly Ness

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

The purpose of this mixed methodology study was to identify the frequency of reading comprehension instruction in middle and high school social studies and science classrooms. An additional purpose was to explore teachers' perceptions of and beliefs about the need for reading comprehension instruction. In 2,400 minutes of direct classroom observation, a total of 82 minutes (3%) of reading comprehension instruction was observed. The qualitative findings reveal that teachers did not feel qualified or responsible for providing explicit instruction on reading comprehension. Teachers pointed to the pressure to cover content in preparation for state standardized tests as barriers to providing …