Session Information
27 SES 03 B, Insights into Mulitliteracies, Literacy and Reading Competence Approaches
Paper Session
Contribution
Reading competence is a very important scholar ability. Through this competence, students may learn and receive information from differents texts. In this way, students can develop more knowledges and develop a critical thinking. According with a sociocultural approach, teachers may use the collaboration and the free decision-making, connecting with Vygotsky’s (1980) “zone of proximal development”. Teachers guide and show the way to read, and readers build their own meaning, linking previous knowledge with the new ideas, and linking differentes ideas from the sociocultural context with the text (Das, 2018).
Readers make hipotesis and drives goals according based on theirs emotions, affects, beliefs and thinkings, in relation with the sociocultural context. Reading comprehension is a complex process, which involves differents abilities, decisión-making and solving problems with the new information obtained. In a critical reading, readers read as an active agent, build their new knowledge and create a new mental model (Mahapatra, 2016)
The PASS theory of intelligence allows understand the multiple processes underlying cognitive ability. PASS theory explain the intelligence in three systems and four process. Planning, attention, and coding process. Coding include successive and simultaneous process. Plannings is a superior process that oversees the rest of the processes.
The previous knowledge, coming from experience and cultural baggage, activates and modulates the rest of process (Georgiou & Das, 2014). In this way, social and cultural context is really important to understand texts. Readers need to know social norms, metaphors, word games and implicit knowledge to deeply understand a text. To understand a text and get a critical idea about it, readers ask questions about the content of the text, investigate and reflect on it. This process is easier if they do by collaboration, interchanging their ideas from the text. In this way reader process is not an isolated task, it can be a a joint process between people. Current research show how the interaction between readers stimulates the construction of a joint discourse, more elaborate and complex (Frith, 2012).
Thus, reading is a dynamic activity, not static, that is maintained in constant interaction with the sociocultural identity and the culture of the environment (Leander et al., 2017).
Teachers need to be aware of the cultural and social implications when it comes to teaching reading skills. This is necessary to develop in students a critical reading competence, to develop the ability to learning to learn. Both competence allows students to understand their context and build their own ideas and thoughts. In this way, this competences allow to be able to judge the credibility of texts information and of sources, enhancing the development of free and reflexive citizens (McLaughlin & DeVoogd, 2017; Luke, 2018)
Nowadays, in this politic and socioeconomic context, the citizens need to understand deeply the information to may develop free and fully and play an active role in society.
In this research, we carry out an intervention in comprehension reading with a sociocultural perspective and based on the PASS Reading Enhancemente Program (Das, 2018) in three schools.
The objectives of this paper is analyse how this intervention may to enhance comprehension reading and try to develop social and critical thinking abilities. It also aims to know how students and teachers means their experiences during the reading comprehension intervention. This study has been carried out through a multiple case. It tries to understand deeply the values of a reading intervention, since the idiosyncrasy of the contexts where it is applied.
Method
From a qualitative approach, participant observation is the methodology that leads the study. The data collection tools are interviews, discussion groups and the field diary. The study is a multiple case study, which corresponding to three contexts, three schools of Zaragoza city. These contexts include 5 group-class (116 children) of 4º grade of Primary School, their teachers, 1 counsellor and 1 primary mistress. Each context has differents features, which became them three particularly and complex realities (Merrian, 2009). The teachers and the researcher carry out the intervention of reading comprehension in the classroom jointly during a school year. This intervention consists in carrying out reading comprehension activities based on the PASS Theory, in order to improve this competence. We have analyzed the data from the participant observation, the students discussion groups and the interviews to the teachers, the counsellor and primary mistress. The data obtained was contrasted by the triangulation between the different sources of information and from the different information collection tools. We have categorized them through Grounded Theory (Glaser & Strauss, 2017) with the support of Nvivo program.
Expected Outcomes
The findings show SENSIBILITY and ARGUMENT as key elements for the development of reading comprehension. SENSIBILITY would include the categories of self-questioning, autonomy, motivation and change. Organizational dynamics enhance the development of socio-affective and reflection processes for reading. The interaction between students facilitated the self-questioning, and therefore, critical thinking and social abilities (Frith, 2012). It strengthened reading process. In this way, thinking and doing through the dialogue allow learning from others. The ARGUMENT category involves the categories of debate, error like source of learning, explicit meta-cognition and cooperation, which are also linked with the SENSIBIlITY. With debate, children improve the respectful exchange of ideas between them. The explicit metacognition allows children to be aware about their own thoughts. Considering the error as source of learning, children give opinions about text without afraid or without thinking in what the teachers want. In this way, children feel free to express their opinion (Foucault, 1997). Cooperation and regulated participation are very connected. Regulated participation facilitates habits of communication, and values of respect and tolerance. In this way, it also facilitates the collaboration enhance the search for a common goal, the shared responsibility and, certainly, the comprehension reading. On the other hand, the collaboration generated stronger networks and sense of team (Lawler, 2001). Therefore, a critical reading enhances critical thinking with values of respect, freedom, collaboration between colleagues, and social responsibility. They learn to think for themselves and built their mental cultural and social model, what prepares them to be citizens and participate actively in their society.
References
Das, J.P. (2018). The PASS Theory of Intelligence: A Brain-Based Approach. Oxford Research Encyclopedia, Education. Oxford University Press USA. Foucault, M. (1997). Ethics: Subjectivity and truth. New York: The New Press Frith, C. D. (2012). The role of metacognition in human social interactions. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B, 367(1599), 2213-2223. Georgiou, G. K., & Das, J. P. (2014). Reading comprehension in university students: relevance of PASS theory of intelligence. Journal of Research in Reading, 37(S1), S101-S115. Glaser, B.G., & Strauss, A.L. (2017). Discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative research. NY: Routledge. Lawler, E. J. (2001). An affect theory of social exchange. American Journal of Sociology, 107(2), 321-352 Leander, K.M., Aziz, S., Botzakis, S., Ehret, C., Landry, D., & Rowsell, J. (2017). Readings and Experiences of Multimodality. Literacy Research: Theory, Method, and Practice, 66(1), 95-116. Luke, A. (2004). Two takes on the critical. In Critical Literacy, Schooling, and Social Justice. In Norton, B. & Toohey, K. (eds.), Critical Pedagogies and Language Learning, 21–29. Routledge: London. Mahapatra, S. (2016). Development of Planning Behaviour and Decision Making Ability of Children. Journal of Education and Practice, (7) 6, 74-77. http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1092502.pdf . McLaughlin, M., & DeVoogd, G. (2017). Reading Comprehension, Critical Understanding: Research-based Practice. In D. Lapp, & D. Fisher. Handbook of Research on Teaching the English Language Arts. NY: Routledge Merrian, S. B. (2009). Qualitative Research. A guide to Design and Implementation. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Vygotsky, L.S. (1980). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Harvard university press.
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