The study examines the comprehension instruction and teachers support in development of reading motivation in four 9th-grade classrooms in Norwegian lower secondary school. The research design is a classroom study, with video recordings from the classroom and teacher interviews as the primary data source. The analysis is based on 16 video taped lectures of Language Art from four different schools. In the 16 lectures, students read expository text. The video data has been analyzed with two levels of categories. The first level of categories focuses on teaching and instructional formats, organisational structure, activities and patterns of interaction in the classroom. The second level of categories examined the teachers’ instruction in comprehension strategies and their support for development of reading motivation. Overall there is little explicit instruction in comprehension strategies in the four classrooms. Teachers encourage students to be strategic readers, but they seldom model and verbalize the use of comprehension strategies. The dominance of the whole class format in strategy instruction, leads to little scaffolding of the individual students strategy use. Support for reading motivation is not a frequent activity in the classrooms. The development of reading motivation mainly occurs within the format of group work and individual seat work. Development of reading efficacy seems to be the focus of this interaction. The interviews expose large variation in teachers’ knowledge of text comprehension, comprehension strategies and, reading motivation. In general the teachers seem to lack the procedural knowledge of comprehension instruction, and the need for such procedural knowledge is something all the teachers express in the interviews. The study indicates that teachers need procedural knowledge of how to give comprehension instruction, not just declarative knowledge of different comprehension processes.

 

The aim of this study was to explore the comprehension instruction and support for different types of reading motivation offered by teachers in four 9^th grade Language Arts classrooms.

There is solid evidence that an efficient use of cognitive and metacognitive strategies, and a high level of reading motivation, increase students text comprehension (Guthrie et al., 2004). With that in mind, it is a reason for concern when the PISA-study (Kjaernsli et al., 2004), reveal that Norwegian students has rather mediocre comprehension skills, and report a low level of strategy use and reading motivation.

There is a robust scientific knowledge base stating that teachers can play a critical role in developing comprehension strategies and reading motivation in students (Snow, 2002). Instruction in comprehension strategies should be long-term, explicit, integrated into subject matter learning, and include a repertoire of strategies (Pressley & Gaskins, 2006). An emphasis on cognitive constructs such as strategic text-processing should not make the teacher overlook the specific importance of promoting motivation for reading comprehension. In accordance with an expectancy—value model of academic motivation (Wigfield & Eccles, 2000), teachers can contribute to the development of students perceived reading efficacy as well as the task value of text comprehension. Reading efficacy concerns the question: Can I understand this? Reading task value essentially concerns the question: Why am I trying to understand this?

The research design is a classroom study, with video recordings from the classroom and teacher interviews as the primary data source. The video data were supplemented with ethnographic classroom observations. The teachers were interviewed three times during the period of observation. The aim of these interviews were to examine the teachers knowledge of text comprehension and reading motivation, and the teachers were also given the opportunity to comment on recordings from their own instruction. The analysis is based on 16 video taped lectures of Language Art from four different schools (four lectures from each school). In the 16 lectures, students read expository text.  

The video data has been analyzed with Videograph, a computer program developed for categorization of digital video files. The video data has been analyzed with two levels of categories. The first level of categories focuses on teaching and instructional formats in the classroom and organisational structure, activities and patterns of interaction. The second level of categories examined the teachers’ instruction in comprehension strategies and their support for development of reading motivation. The strategy instruction categories were developed with background in Weinstein and Mayer’s (1986) theoretical categorization of strategies into memorization-, organization-, elaboration-, and monitoring strategies. The codes for strategy instruction where combined with categories concerning the explicitness of this instruction, and how teachers did follow up students reading. The categories used to describe teachers work to develop reading motivation among students, included both reading task value (interestingness, usefulness, and importance of understanding text) and perceived reading efficacy.

 

Overall there is little explicit instruction in comprehension strategies in the four classrooms. Teachers encourage students to be strategic readers, but they seldom model and verbalize the use of comprehension strategies. The instruction in comprehension strategies can therefore be characterized as implicit. Whole class instruction is the dominant format of this teaching, and organization and elaboration strategies is the two most frequent categories seen in the four classrooms. The dominance of the whole class format leads to little scaffolding of the individual students strategy use. The teachers seem to focus on the result of text comprehension, rather than the comprehension process itself.

Support for reading motivation does occur in the classrooms, but this is not a frequent activity. While the whole class format was dominant within instruction in comprehension strategies, the development of reading motivation mainly occurs within the format of group work and individual seat work. Development of reading efficacy seems to be the focus of this support, development of reading task values is hardly noticed in any of the classrooms.    

The interviews expose large variation in teachers’ knowledge of text comprehension, comprehension strategies and, reading motivation. Two of the teachers do have elaborated declarative knowledge about text comprehension, comprehension strategies and reading motivation. In general the teachers seem to lack the procedural knowledge of comprehension instruction, and the need for such procedural knowledge is something all the teachers express in the interviews.

 

According to national curriculum and other official documents from educational authorities, Norwegian teachers are expected to address text comprehension, comprehension strategies and reading motivation in their classrooms. This study indicates that there is a gap between the knowledge gained in the last decades of research in text comprehension, and the teachers’ knowledge of such processes. The study further illustrates that teachers need procedural knowledge of how to give comprehension instruction, not just declarative knowledge of different comprehension processes. Intervention studies are needed to examine how teachers can develop such procedural knowledge. 

 

 

Guthrie, J. T., Wigfield, A., & Perencevich, K. C. (Eds.). (2004). Motivating reading comprehension. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Kjaernsli, M., Lie, S., Olsen, R. V., Roe, A., & Turmo, A. (2004). Rett spor eller ville veier? Norske elevers prestasjoner i matematikk, naturfag og lesing i pisa 2003 [right on track or going nowhere? Norwegian students' performance in mathematic, science and reading in pisa 2003]. Oslo: University Press.

Pressley, M., & Gaskins, I. W. (2006). Metacognitively competent reading comprehension is constructively responsive reading: How can such reading be developed in students? Metacognition and Learning, 1(1), 99-113.

Snow, C. E. (Ed.). (2002). Reading for understanding - toward an r&d program in reading comprehension: Report from the RAND Reading Study Group.

Weinstein, C. E., & Mayer, R. E. (1986). The teaching of learning strategies. In M. C. Wittrock (Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching. New York: Macmillan.

Wigfield, A., & Eccles, J. S. (2000). Expectancy-value theory of achievement motivation. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 25, 68-81.