Capine has led the 11-member team, which has collected 66 studies in which the reading instruction has been observed in real classrooms in the last 40 years. Most of the studies took place after 2000 and included observations of nearly 1800 teachers. Studies not only looked at reading or English, but also science and social research. In some studies, researchers registered training hours and analyzed transcripts.
These observations and records are just pictures of what is happening in classrooms. Unfortunately, these observation studies cannot explain why teachers do not follow the scientific evidence of understanding reading and Capine failed to determine whether the instructions for understanding have improved with a new interest in reading science. But he shared some insights.
A little time spent to read
Teachers spend limited time reading texts with children. “The obvious problem is that it is difficult to support the understanding of reading if students do not read,” Capin said.
The shortage of reading was particularly pronounced in science classes where teachers tend to prefer PowerPoint slides to the texts. More time was spent reading instructions for understanding in a reading class or English, but it was still only 23 percent of the teaching time. However, this is a major improvement over the original 1978 study, which documented that only 1 % of the teaching time was spent on understanding reading.
A Separate study of teachers in high school Posted in 2021, these observation findings sounds very little reading in classrooms. Seventy percent of science teachers said they had spent less than 6 minutes for texts a day or less than 30 minutes a week. Only 50 percent of social research teachers have said they spend more time reading in classrooms.
“A bad reading instruction may have a bad reading instruction,” Capin said. “Teachers often report that their students have difficulty reading class texts.” So they avoid reading completely.
It may look like catch-22. Teachers do not spend more time for reading instruction because students have difficulty reading. But without more time reading, students cannot improve.
More attention to decoding than understanding
Capin said his team found that the reading instruction was more focused on reading skills, what teachers call “decoding”. Researchers have noticed that teachers also build students’ knowledge, especially in science and social research classes. But this construction of knowledge was divorced most from engaging students in understanding text.
“We have accepted this approach that the instructions for understanding reading is determined by reading and understanding text,” Capin said. This may sound apparent, but Capin said that some advocates of the construction of knowledge criticize his analysis, arguing that the construction of knowledge itself is beneficial for understanding reading and does not matter if the teacher uses slides or actual texts.
Low -level instruction
Evidence -based reading instruction as recommended in Learning guides from the Institute of Education SciencesIt’s rare, Kapin said.
Instead, researchers observe an “low -level” reading instruction, in which the teacher asks the question and the students answer an answer in one word. Capin offered me an example.
Teacher: We just read about ancient Egypt. Who were the ancient Egyptian leaders?
Class: Pharaohs!
And the teacher continues.
A more complex approach may be to ask the students for the purposes of the Pharaohs or why the ancient Egyptians built the tombs.
Teachers tend to confirm whether students’ answers are “correct” or “wrong”. Capin said that only 18 percent of teachers ‘answers have developed or developed students’ ideas.
Capin said that teachers tend to give lectures rather than encourage students to talk about what they understand or think. Teachers often read the text aloud, ask a question, and then answered the question when the students did not answer correctly. He said leading a discussion could help students understand the text better.
Capin said that teachers also often ask common questions about understanding, such as “What is the main moment?” Without considering whether the questions are suitable for the passage of reading. For example, in fiction, the main point of the author is not almost as important as identifying the main characters and their goals. Even the ways based on the evidence of improving reading understanding can be poorly implemented.
Some teachers are discussing reading in their classrooms. Capin said he visited such a classroom a few weeks ago. But he believes that good understanding instruction is not common because it is much more difficult than teaching basic reading skills. Teachers need to complete omissions in students’ skills and basic knowledge so that everyone can engage. Teacher training programs do not focus enough on the evidence -based methods, and researchers are not good at telling teachers about these methods. In the meantime, teachers are facing pressure to obtain high test results and low -level understanding strategies can produce short -term results.
“I also do not want to pretend that the researchers know everything when it comes to reading understanding,” Capin said. “We have been lagging behind about 20 years in the science of reading understanding instructions compared to fundamental reading skills.”
The interest in reading science has erupted all over the country over the last five years, especially after a podcast, “”I have sold a story“The need for more instructions for the phonika emphasized. Let’s hope we won’t have to wait another 50 years to find out to improve.
