Teaching Reading

Effective Schools, Accomplished Teachers

Barbara M. Taylor, P. David Pearson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2005
• ISBN:
  9781135637712
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This unique book tells the story of a select group of schools and teachers who have managed to beat the odds in terms of improving elementary students reading achievement. Originating with the CIERA School Change Project directed by Barbara Taylor and David Pearson, it was subsequently expanded to include the work of other research teams doing similar work. It combines large scale studies of effective schools and teachers (Part I) with case studies of individual schools and teachers who have successfully transformed research findings into situation-specific strategies appropriate to their schools and classrooms (Parts II and III). The book's distinct contribution is showing that no matter how consistent the research findings on effective school and classroom practice, groups of teachers must improvise their own situation-specific programs and practices. In short, they must be able to create variations on a common theme. Key features of this outstanding new volume include: * Integration of research and cases --One cannot fully understand research-based general principles without knowing how they play themselves out in specific settings. Similarly, one cannot fully understand cases without seeing the commonalities across different schools and classrooms sharing similar goals. This book provides both perspectives. * Diverse cases --The schools and classrooms depicted in this book are urban, rural, and suburban; poor and middle class; and English-only and bilingual. Rather than telling readers how to beat the odds, it provides them with a wide variety of cases from which they can extrapolate to build their own customized teaching programs and practices. * Summarizing section --The final section contains a summary of research on effective schools and teachers and a concluding chapter by Gerry Duffy and Jim Hoffman in which they reflect on the book's content and possible directions for future research. The book is targeted to both in-service elementary teachers and literacy students in advanced college courses.

IV
Syntheses Across Cases

16
Research-Supported Characteristics of Teachers and Schools That Promote Reading Achievement¹

Barbara M.Taylor

University of Minnesota/CIERA

Michael Pressley

Notre Dame University

P.David Pearson

Michigan Sate University/CIERA

INTRODUCTION

All educators want the best schools possible for children, schools that help them acquire the knowledge, skills, and dispositions they will need to pursue whatever dreams and paths they wish. Yet the reality is that many children are not reading well enough to keep up with the demands of school (Campbell, Donahue, Reese, & Phillip, 1996; Donahue, Voelkl, Campbell, & Mazzeo, 1999), let alone the demands of society or their personal dreams. In the recent national report, Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children, a National Academy of Science Committee concluded that “quality classroom instruction in kindergarten and the primary grades is the single best weapon against reading failure” (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998). The committee recommended that the number one priority for educational research be to improve classroom reading instruction in kindergarten and the primary grades.

In addition to advocating improved classroom reading instruction, the Committee on the Prevention of Reading Difficulties in Young Children discussed the importance of systematic, schoolwide restructuring efforts in reading. The committee (Snow et al., 1998) recommended that low-performing schools consider reading reform efforts with a dual focus on improved classroom reading instruction and schoolwide organizational issues.

In an effort to share the good news about what can be done to increase learning and achievement for students in high-poverty schools, the research has been combed for this report to pinpoint those instructional and organizational factors that lead to student success. Specifically, the report represents an effort to explain how and why some schools across the country are attaining greater than expected reading achievement with populations of students who are at risk for failure by virtue of poverty. The terms instructional and organizational are emphasized because it is the conclusion of the authors, based on a thorough reading of the research, that only when both classroom level (instructional) and school level (organizational) facets of reform are attended to can aspirations to improve literacy for all students be met.

EFFECTIVE TEACHERS

A great deal is known about the teaching that occurs in elementary-level classrooms that are effective in promoting literacy development. This knowledge about effective teaching is the cumulative result of a number of research efforts in the latter part of the 20th century.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, researchers began documenting the teaching processes that occurred in classrooms. The goal was to identify processes associated with an important educational product—high achievement, often reading achievement. Hence, this body of research came to be identified as process-product approach. Some of the now well-known researchers contributing to this tradition were Brophy (1973), Dunkin and Biddle (1974), Flanders (1970), Soar and Soar (1979), and Stallings and Kaskowitz (1974).

The process-product approach reflected the commitment in the middle part of the century of educational researchers to neobehavioris...

Table of contents

• COVER PAGE
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT PAGE
• FOREWORD
• PREFACE
• I. LARGE SCALE STUDIES
• II. SCHOOL CASE STUDIES
• III. TEACHER CASE STUDIES
• IV. SYNTHESES ACROSS CASES