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Wong, Shelley; And OthersCharacterizing Teacher-Student Interaction in ReadingRecovery Lessons. Reading Research Report No. 17.National Reading Research Center, Athens, GA.;National Reading Research Centei, College Park,MD.

Office of Educational Research and Improvement (ED),Washington, DC.94117A2000735p.

National Reading Research Center, 318 Aderhold,University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602-7125.Reports Research/Technical (143)

EDRS PRICE MF01/PCO2 Plus Postage.DESCRIPTORS Grade 1; High Risk Students; Instructional

Improvement; Primary Education; Reading Difficulties;Reading Research; *Teacher Behavior; *Teacher StudentRelationship

IDENTIFIERS *Reading Recovery Projects; Scaffolding

ABSTRACTUsing a sociocultural framework to generalize

principles about how to work within an emergent reader's zone ofproximal development, this study analyzed teacher support and formsof teacher prompts in one-on-one Reading Recovery tutorials withfirst-grade students at risk of reading failure. The ways that fiveReading Recovery teachers supported children when they read afamiliar story as opposed to a new story were compared. Resultsindicated that teachers changed the nature of their scaffoldingcomments as a function of text familiarity. When students rereadfamiliar texts, teachers became less directive and began to coach thestudents' attempts to read. In contrast, when students read newtexts, teachers responded by increasing their modeling, prompting,and discussing comments. The study discusses how principles ofresponsive instruction in the one-on-one tutorials might be appliedin regular classroom literacy activities. (Contains 23 references,and one table and five figures of data. The coding scheme forscaffolding language in Reading Recovery lessons is attached.)(Author/RS)

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Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be madefrom the original document.

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E ¶ DOMES Igroductiou

Characterizing Teacher-Stadent Interactionin Reading RecoveryTM Lessons

Shelley WongLois GrathJohn O'FlahavanUniversity of Maryland College Park

Sheila GaleGayle KelleySheryl LeedsJeanette RegetzJanet Steiner-O'MalleyArlington Public SchoolsArlington, Virginia

U S DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATIONon,rt. ..1 Hrseddch Impiorme.qEDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION

CENTER (ERIC)0111-os document has been reproduced as

received horn the person or organizationoriginating it

Miner changes have been made loimptove ',production quality

Points of view or opinions slated in thisdocument do not necessarily representorlicial OElD posillun m pnlicy

NRRC NationalReading ResearchCenter

READING RESEARCH REPORT NO, 17

Spring 1994

2BEST COPY AVAILABLE

BE Duns Runatill Sit ii

NRRCNational Reading Research Center

Characterizing Teacher-Student Interactionin Reading Recovery' Lessons

Shelley D. WongLois A. Groth

John F. O'FlahavanUniversity of Maryland College Park

Sheila GaleGayle KelleySheryl Leeds

Jeannette RegetzJanet Steiner-O'MalleyArlington Public Schools

Arlington, Virginia

READING RESEARCH REPORT NO. 17Spring 1994

The work reported herein is a National Reading Research Project of the University of Georgiaand University of Maryland. It was supported under the Educational Research andDevelopment Centers Program (PR/AWARD NO. 117A20007) as administered by the Officeof Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education. The findings andopinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect the position or policies of the NationalReading Research Center, the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, or the U.S.Department of Education.

RE Dons icpaill

NRRC National9 443 f:i Reading Research

Center

Executive CommitteeDonna E. Alvermann. Co-DirectorUniversity of Georgia

John T. Guthrie, Co-DirectorUniversity of Maryland College Park

James F. Baumann, Associate DirectorUniversity of Georgia

Patricia S. Koskinen, Associate DirectorUniversity of Maryland College Park

Nancy B. Mizelle, Acting Associate DirectorUniversity of Georgia

Jamie Lynn Metsala, Interim Associate DirectorUniversity of Maryland College Park

Linda C. DeGroffUniversity of Georgia


James V. HoffmanUniversity of Texas at Austin

Cynthia R. HyndUniversity of Georgia

Robert SmellUniversity of Maryland Baltimore County

Publications Editors

Research Reports and PerspectivesLinda DeGroff, EditorUniversity of Georgia

James V. Hoffman, Associate EditorUniversity of Texas at Austin

Mariam Jean Dreher, Associate EditorUniversity of Maryland College Park

Instructional ResourcesLee Galda, University of Georgia

Research HighlightsWilliam G. HollidayUniversity of Maryland College Park

Policy BriefsJames V. HoffmanUniversity of 7exas at Austin

VideosShawn M. Glynn. University of Georgia

NRRC StaffBarbara F. Howard. Office ManagerCarmie R. Bush. Senior SecretaryUniversity of Georgia

Barbara A. Neitzey, Administrative AssistantValerie Tyra, AccountantUniversity of Maryland College Park

National Advisory BoardPhyllis W. AldrichSaratoga Warren Board of Cooperative EducationalServices, Saratoga Springs. New York

Arthur N. ApplebeeState University of New York. Albany

Ronald S. BrandtAssociation for Supervision and CurriculumDevelopment

Marsha T. DeLainDelaware Department of Public Instruction

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Anne P, SweetOffice of Educational Research and Improvement,U.S. Department of Education

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NRRC - University of Georgia318 AderholdUniversity of GeorgiaAthens, Georgia 30602-7125(706) 542-3674 Fax: (706) 542-3678INTERNET: NRRC(guga.ccmga.edu

NRRC - University of Maryland College Park2102 J. M. Patterson BuildingUniversity of MarylandCollege Park, Maryland 20742(301) 405-8035 Fax: (301) 314-9625INTERNET: NRRCOuniail.tund.edu

ERE Duni Dip ill Suin

About the National Reading Research Center

The National Reading Research Center (NRRC) isfunded by the Office of Educational Research andImprovement of the U.S. Department of Education toconduct research on reading and reading instruction.The NRRC is operated by a consortium of the Universi-ty of Georgia and the University of Maryland CollegePark in collaboration with researchers at several institu-tions nationwide.

The NRRC's mission is to discover and documentthose conditions in homes, schools, and communitiesthat encourage children to become skilled, enthusiastic,lifelorn, readers. NRRC researchers arc committed toadvancing the development of instructional programssensitive to the cognitive, sociocultural, and motiva-tional factors that affect children's success in reading.NRRC researchers from a variety of disciplines conductstudies with teachers and students from widely diverse

cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds in prekinder-garten through grade 12 classrooms. Research projectsdeal with the influence of family and family-schoolinteractions on the development of literacy; the interac-tion of sociocultural factors and motivation to read; theimpact of literature-based reading programs on readingachievement; the effects of reading strategies instruction

on comprehension and critical thinking in literature,science, and history: the influence of innovative groupparticipation structures or motivation and learning; thepotential of computer technology to enhance literacy;and the development of methods and standards foralternative literacy assessments.

The NRRC is further committed to the participationof teachers as full partners in its research. A betterunderstanding of how teachers view the development of

literacy, how they use knowledge from research, andhow they approach change in the classroom is crucial to

improving instruction. To further tOis understanding,the NRRC conducts school-based research in whichteacher explore their own philosrphical and pedagogi-cal orientations and trace their professional growth.

Dissemination is an important feature of NRRC activi-ties. Information on NRRC research appears in severalformats. Research Reports communicate the results oforiginal research or synthesize the findings of severallines of inquiry. They are written primarily for re-searchers studying various areas of reading and reading

instruction. The Perspective Series presents a widerange of publications, from calls for research andcommentary on research and practice to first-personaccounts of experiences in schools. InstructionalResources include curriculum materials, instructionalguides, and materials for professional growth, designedprimarily for teachers.

For more information about the NRRC's researchprojects and other activities, or to have your nameadded to the mailing list, please contact:

Donna E. Alvermann, Co-DirectorNational Reading Research Center

318 Aderhold HallUniversity of GeorgiaAthens, GA 30602 -7i25(706) 542-3674

John T. Guthrie, Co-DirectorNational Reading Research Center2102 J. M. Patterson BuildingUniversity of MarylandCollege Park, MD 20742(301) 405 8035

BE DVS Rcprodall dogyii

I

N C Editorial Review Board

Patricia AdkinsUniversity of Georgia

Peter AfflerbachUniversity of Maryland College Park

JoBeth AllenUniversity of Georgia

Patty AndersUniversity of Arizona

Tom AndersonUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Harriette ArringtonUniversity of Kentucky

Irene BlumPine Springs Elementary SchoolFalls Church. Virginia

John BorkowskiNotre Dame University

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Bernardino

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PotentialsSilver Spring. Maryland

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6

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ER Duni igodall

3

Barbara MichaloveFowler Drive Elementary SchoolAthens, Georgia

Akhnunde MoraklnyoUniversity of Maryland College Park

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at Albany

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Nadeen T. RuizCalifornia State University-Sacramento

Rebecca SammonsUniversity of Maryland College Park

Paula SchwanenflugelUniversity of Georgia

Robert SerpellUniversity of Maryland Baltimore

County

Betty ShockleyFowler Drive Elementary SchoolAthens. Georgia

Susan SonnenscheinUniversity of Maryland Baltimore

County

Steve StahlUniversity of Georgia

Anne SweetOffice of EducationJ Research

and improvement

Lining TaoUniversity of Georgia

Ruby ThompsonClark Atlanta University

Louise TomlinsonUniversity of Georgia

Sandy TumarkinStrawberry Knolls Elementary SchoolGaithersburg, Maryland

Sheila ValenciaUniversity of Washington

Bruce VannedrightUniversity of Maryland College Park

Owls WaltonNorthern Territory UniversityAustralia

Janet WatkinsUniversity of Georgia

Louise WaynantPrince Gee -ge's County SchoolsUpper Marlboro. Maryland

Priscilla WaynantRolling Terrace Elementary SchoolThkorna Park, Maryland

Dera WeaverAthens-Clarke County SchoolsAthens, Georgia

Jane WestUniversity of Georgia

Steve WhiteUniversity of Georgia

Allen WigfieldUniversity of Maryland College Park

Shelley WongUniversity of Maryland College Park

EgDuniijti SAuthors

Shelley 'Wong is an assistant professor in theDe artrnOnt of Curriculum and Instruction at the

ege of Education, University of Marylandollege Park, where she teaches undergraduate

and graduate courses in Teaching English toSpeakers of Other Languages (TESOL). As aprincipal investigator with the National ReadingResearch Center, her interests include racial,cultural, and language minority students, strength-ening home-school connections and dialogicapproaches to teaching and research.

Lois A. Groth is a doctoral student in the Depart-ment of Curriculum and Instruction at the Collegeof Education, University of Maryland CollegePark, where she studies early childhood educationand emergent literacy. As a research assistant withthe National Reading Research Center, her inter-ests include early literacy instruction for high-riskstudents in the regular classroom and the socialcontexts of instruction.

John F. O'Flahavan is an assistant professor inthe Department of Curriculum and Instruction atthe College of Education, University of MarylandCollege Park, where he teaches undergraduate andgraduate courses in language and literacy learningand teaching. As a principal investigator with theNational Reading Research Center, his interestsinclude professional development, instruction forhigh-risk students in the regular classroom, andthe social contexts of instruction.

Sheila Gale is a Reading-Recovery-trained, Chap-ter I reading teacher at Oakridge ElementarySchool and Abingdon Elementary School in Ar-lington County, VA. She received her B.A. andM.S. from the City University of New York. Shehas been a reading specialist in the ArlingtonCounty Public Schools since 1988. In 1991 shewas trained in Reading Recovery and is presentlya member of the research team of the NationalReading Research Center at the University ofMaryland and Arlington County Public Schools.Improving reading instruction with at-risk studentsis a major concern in her teaching.

Gayle Kelley is a Chapter 1 reading specialist atPatrick Henry School in Arlington, VA. Sheearned her B.S. in Upper Elementary Education atRadford University, her B.S. in NK-3 at Mary-mount University, and her M.Ed, from GeorgeMason University. She received training in Read-ing Recovery in 1992. She has presented sessions

at the local, state, and regional levels on parent-home school connections and emergent readingstrategies. She helped design and teach the Emer-gent Reading Strategies Institute as a staff develop-ment model for Arlington County Publiz Schools.She is a member of GWRC, VSRA, IRA, andNRRC.

Sheryl Leeds is a Reading-Recovery-trained,Chapter 1 reading teacher at Glencarlyn School inArlington, VA. She also serves as the ReadingRecovery resource teacher for the county, whereshe supports teachers that have Reading Recoveryprograms at their schools. This role coincides withher strong interest in extending Reading Recoveryprinciples into primary classrooms. As a memberof the National Reading Research Center (NRRC)project, she helped design an Emergent ReadingStrategies Institute (ERSI) as a staff developmentmodel for Arlington Public Schools and presentsit to teachers of beginning readers. She receivedher B.S. from Ohio State University in ElementaryEducation and M.Ed. from George Mason Univer-sity in Guidance and Counseling as well as anEndorsement in Reading.

Jeannette Regetz is a Chapter 1 reading teacherat Oakridge School in Arlington County, VA. Shewas trained in Reading Recovery in 1991. Jean-nette has a B.S. from Colby College, an M.Ed.from Syracuse University and a Ph.D. fromAmerican University. She has presented sessionson parent-home school connections and on emer-gent reading strategies at the local, state, andregional level. She helped design an EmergentReading Strategies Institute as a staff developmentmodel for Arlington County Public Schools. Sheis a member of the National Reading ResearchCenter.

Janet Steiner-O'Malley is a reading teacher atGlencarlyn School in Arlington, VA. Her workincludes coordinating the language arts program,working collaboratively with other leathers in theitclassrooms, and teaching Reading Recoverystudents. As a member of a joint Arlington PublicSchools and National Reading Research Centerproject, she helped to develop and present a 10-part Emergent Reading Strategies Institute that wasdesigned to sustain change effons begun with theintroduction of Reading Recovery to ArlingtonPuhlie Schools. Shc received her B.A. at GoshenCollege in Indiana and her M.Ed. in Reading fromthe University of Virginia.

BE Duns igodallNational Reading Research CenterUniversi f G:orgia and MarylandRead' arc 1 Report No. 17

,

I juL43SP'

Characterizing Teacher-Student Interactionin Reading Recovery' Lessons

Shelley D. WongLois A. Groth


Sheila GaleGayle KelleySheryl Leeds

Jeannette RegetzJanet Steiner-O'MalleyArlington Public Schools

Arlington, Virginia

Abstract. This study analyzes forms ofteacher prompts in one-on-one ReadingRecovery tutorials with first-grade studentsat risk of reading failure. It compares theways that five Reading Recovery teacherssupported children when they read a famil-iar story as opposed to a new story. Thestudy found that teachers changed the na-ture of their scaffolding comments as afunction of text familiarity. When studentsreread familiar texts, teachers became lessdirective and began to coach the students'attempts to read. In contrast, when studentsread new texts, teachers responded by in-creasing their modeling, prompting, and dis-cussing comments. The study analyzes teach-

er support using a sociocultural frameworkto generalize principles about how to workwithin an emergent reader's zone of proxi-mal development. It discusses how principlesof responsive instruction in the one-on-onetutorials might be applied in regular class-room literacy activities.

Despite almost thirty years of compensatoryeducation, problems in minority achievementand failure to achieve educational equity con-tinue to plague the nation (Coleman, 1966;Cummins. 1986). The distribution of knowl-edge and power among adult members ofsociety begins with literacy education in theelementary school (Luke, 1993). Research has

BE DES "pain Su ivWong et al.

that patterns of school achievement andfailure are established early in life; for exam-ple, students who are poor readers in firstgrade remain at the bottom of the class in latergrades (Juel, 1988).

A promising program for students at riskof reading failure that has emerged in recentyears is Reading Recovery. Reading Recoveryis an early intervention program for the lowestperforming readers in the first year of readinginstruction. Children identifies as being in thebottom 20% of the class in reading receivedaily 30-minute lessons from a speciallytrained teacher who provides highly responsiveinstruction during a number of literacy relatedactivities (Pinnell, Fried. & Estice, 1990).

The Reading Recovery one-on-one tutorialbegins with 15 hours of diagnostic work called"Roaming Around the Known." ReadingRecovery is based on the premise that emer-gent readers bring considerable linguisticknowledge to learning how to read. Most six-year-olds come to school knowing a great dealabout language; they know almost all of thesounds of the language and they have a vocabu-lary of 6,000-10.000 words. Rather than firstinstructing and then assessing what a child haslearned, the Reading Recovery teacher assessesfirst, and then bases her instruction on the priorknowledge and experiences of each childentering the program. By assessing what achild already knows about print and reading,the Reading Recovery teacher builds on whatthe child already knows, and thus is more ableto gear instruction to the child's development.The eventual goal of instruction is to promotein every student a "self-improving system"(Clay, 1985) .

The Reading Recovery tutorial is similarto reading a bedtime story. The Reading Re-covery teacher and student sit side by side, andread enjoyable, meaningful stories together.The 30-minute tutorial has the following com-ponents: (a) reading familiar stories duringwhich the teacher takes a running record of thestudent's independent reading; (b) workingwith plastic letters that are scrambled andunscrambled to form words; (c) writing amessage or story: and (d) reading a new story.The student takes home an envelope containinga sentence he or she wrote (cut up into words)to practice putting the words into the propersequence. The student also takes home a bookthat he or she has read successfully during theday's lesson and re-reads it to an adult athome. In each session, the child successfullyreads a new book or a considerable portion ofone. Students graduate from Reading Recoverywhen they have been successfully accelerated(Clay, 1985) to reach the average readinggroup level in their classes. Reaching this goalgenerally requires 12-15 weeks, although somechildren may need as long as 20 weeks (De-Ford, Lyons, & Pinnell, 1991).

The purpose of the study described in thisreport was to characterize the teacher-studentinteraction in Reading Recovery lessons. Byanalyzing the types of teacher support in one-on-one Reading Recovery tutorials, we hopedto generalize principles about how to workwithin an emergent reader's zone of proximaldevelopment (Vygotsky, 1978). A better un-derstanding of support in Reading Recoverytutorials might lead to more responsive instruc-tion in other regular classroom activities, suchas reading groups, pair work with a buddy.

NATIONAL. READING RESEARCH CENTER. READING RESEARCH REPORT NO. 17

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4, cktag centers, and so forth. Because we wereInterested in the different ways that teachers'comments supported children when they reada familiar story as opposed to a new story, wetranscribed and analyzed only those sections ofthe lessons that exemplified these differences.

TEACHER SCAFFOLDING ANDAPPRENTICESHIP PERSPECTIVES ON

LITERACY INSTRUCTION

Wood, Bruner, and Ross (1976) first used themetaphor of scaffolding to describe ways thata tutor assisted a child during a problem solv-ing activity. Through scaffolding, the tutor (a)motivated the child to participate in working onthe task, (b) set the number of task steps ac-cording to the ability of the child, (c) main-tained pursuit of the goal, (d) marked discrep-ancies between what the child had producedand the ideal solution, (e) controlled for frus-tration and risk in problem solving, and (f)modeled an idealized version of the way theactivity was to be performed.

The metaphor of scaffolding has come tobe associated with Vygotskian approaches toinstruction (Bruner, 1985, 1986; Cole & Scrib-nern, 1978; Moll, 1990; Wertsch, 1985),although Vygotsky never used the tens him-self. For example, Tharp and Gallimore (1988)developed a theory of teaching as assistedperformance based on such a Vygotskianframework. They categorized six means ofassisted performance: modeling, contingencymanagement, feedback, instruction, question-ing, and cognitive structuring. Through model-ing, the child learns by imitating the adult'sbehavior. Contingency management is the

means of assisting performance through the useof rewards (such as encouragement, praise,consumables, or privileges) or punishments(such as loss of consumables, foss of privileg-es, or reprimands). Providing feedback onperformance is another way of assisting in-struction. Without feedback, no correction orimprovement is possible. Instruction assistsperformance by defining tasks. While too muchinstruction can impede learning, a certainamount of formal instruction is essential. Theteacher's verbal instructions become the self-instructive voice of the learners as they beginto regulate their own learning. Questioningassists performance by asking students toproduce a mental operation that they could notor would not perform alone. Cognitive stru..--turing refers to assisting performance by pro-viding a structure for thinking or acting. Whether it be categorizing, naming, evaluating,sequencing, or explaining something, a cogni-tive structure organizes perceptions in newways. Tharp and Gallimore (1988) argued thatthese six ways of assisting performance shouldbe united with Vygotskian perspectives into aguiding theory.

Central to Vygotskian theory is the con-cept of the zone of proximal development.Rather than measuring competency only interms of what a child could do independently,Vygotsky also looked at what a child could dowith the assistance of a more capable peer oradult. He called the difference between inde-pendent performance and assisted performancethe "zone of proximal development." Scaffold-ing between what a child knows independentlyand what he or she can do through assistedperformance (guided by an adult or more

NATIONAL. READING RESEARCH CENTER, READING RESEARCH REPORT NO. 17

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IC Duni OS SolWong et al.

lec'peer) constitutes teaching within astudent's zone of proximal development (Vy-gotsky, 1978). An example is a bedtime lapstory in which a toddler reads with a parent.Together they hold the book, turn the pages,and point to the pictures. The parent readingthe familiar story aloud will pause occasional-ly, and the child will supply a word. This typeof scaffolding enables children to perform at amore capable level. With an adult's guidance,a child's performance precedes her competence(Wertsch, 1985). Through joint activities,adults guide children's participation, graduallytransferring more responsibility.

Rogoff (1990) utilized the metaphor ofapprenticeship to view early childhood cogni-tive development within a social context. Thenotion of apprenticeship emphasizes children'sactive role in their own cognitive development.For example, a novice (the child) attempts tomake sense of new situations, while the expert(often, but not necessarily, an adult) plays animportant role in arranging and setting tasksand activities for the novice. An apprenticelearns not only through joint activity with asingle expert, but in a variety of pairings andgroupings with other novices and v ith moreexperienced, skilled partners.

Rogoff (1990) developed Vygotsky'snotion of intersubjectivity, which is sharedunderstanding based on a common focus ofattention. Intersubjectivity emphasizes thatunderstanding happens between people. Whentwo people communicate, the understandingcannot be attributed to only one party. Inter-subjectivity becomes the basis on which a childcan build a bridge from the known to the new.

To establish intersubjectivity or sharedunderstanding with a child, adults may simplifytheir presentation of an idea to establish acategory. For example, adults may state that awhale is a fish or an electrical outlet is "hot"(Rogoff, 1990). Similarly, teachers may scaf-fold children's reading by introducing unfamil-iar vocabulary before reading so as not todivert attention from the meaning of the story.

Scaffolding has important implications forthe measurement of intelligence. For Vygot-sky, intelligence or cognitive ability should bemeasured not only as a function of a child'smaturational level, but also in relation to in-struction or to what the child is able to performwith adult assistance (Vygotsky, 1978). Hisview of intelligence as being shaped by socialas opposed to innate forces is helpful in teach-ing students who may be marginalized by thedominant culture because of their racial oreconomic background or because they havebeen labeled as having learning problems.Vygotsky's zone of proximal development hasimportant implicatiors for developing class-room practices and environments that seek toaddress issues of equity and to transform thetraditional relationships between knowledgeand power.

According to Vygotsky, a child developsthe ability to categorize, conceptualize, andthink about thinking through the developmentof language. All of these higher order psycho-logical functions are achieved socially througha series of transformations: (a) An operationthat initially represents an external activity isreconstructed and begins to occur internally:(b) an interpersonal process is transformed into

NATIONAL READING RESEARCH CENTER, READING RESEARCH REPORT NO. 17

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BE Duns iglill Teacher-Student Interaction in Reading Recovery 5

an tal one; and (c) the transformationla Interpersonal process into an intraper-sonai one is the result of a long series of devel-opmental events (Vygotsky, 1978, pp. 56-57).

Vygotsky used the example of the gestureof pointing, to show how external operationsare internalized through social interaction. Achild will first reach for an object. The object,of course, does not respond, but a caregiverresponds by obtaining the object for the child.Only after the child grasps the relationshipbetween reaching and the caregiver's responsedoes she develop a true gesture of pointing.Thus, the origin of the gesture of deixis orreference develops through social interactionbefore the child understands its communicativefunction. In Reading Recovery, too, pointing atprint can serve as scaffolding and can be with-drawn when the child is able to read a passagefluently using "only his eyes" (Clay & Cazden,1990).

Teachers who view their role in terms ofscaffolding or supporting an apprenticeshipfocus attention on the active role of both noviceand expert in learning. Working within achild's zone of proximal development requiresthat the teacher take the student's prior knowl-edge and experience as the starting point forinstruction. Through tne assistance scaffoldingprovides, children are able to perform increas-ingly complex operations independently: Theycan perform beyond their normal competenceor bridge from the known to the new by inter-acting with a supportive adult. An apprentice-ship is further developed through the estab-lishment of intersubjectivity or shared under-standing between the novice and the expert.

Through a series of transformations over aperiod of time, external activities becomereconstructed internally in the mind and inter-personal processes become internalized.

VYGOTSKIAN PERSPECTIVES ONREADING RECOVERY

Although Reading Recovery was not developedusing Vygotsky's theory, it may be interpretedwithin a Vygotskian framework (Clay & Caz-den, 1990; Gaffney & Anderson, 1991). Read-ing Recovery takes the position that childrenwho are identified as being at the lowest levelin their class during the first year of instructionshould be assisted immediately rather thanwaiting until they are more mature and "ready"to read.

Reading Recovery lessons are designed todevelop within students a self-improving sys-tem (Clay, 1985; Pinnell et al., 1990). Theteacher's role is to identify the student's zoneof proximal development, using various levelsof text, and to provide appropriate materialsand scaffolding for the purpose of constructingthe self-improving system. This goal requiresthat teachers read with children and begin tosee reading as children do. In addition, teach-ers must help children gain a new perspectiveon their knowledge of reading that includesstrategic knowledge. Skillful use of scaffoldingtaps the child's existing knowledge and extendsthat knowledge whether it be letter-soundconnections, the structure of language, or themeaning of a story. Reading Recovery teachersmake use of the redundancy of natural lan-guage to teach students to construct meaning


ocaollikqrodall Su iv Wong et al.

I II

from three text-based cueing systems (visual,4-4 rat, and meaning).

To date, no study has systematicallyclassified the various types of scaffoldingprovided in Reading Recovery tutorials. Thepresent study set out to do so. We wanted toexamine teachers' comments aimed at scaf-folding children's reading as the teacher trans-ferred more and more responsibility to thechild. We were interested in documenting howteachers' comments aimed at scaffolding werea function of children's familiarity with texts.This information would enable us to study thedynamic relationship between the teachers'scaffolding in assisting a child to read a famil-iar text and their scaffolding in assisting a childto read a new text.

METHOD

The present study was part of a larger researchproject. The goals of the larger project are (a)to determine key instructional principles thatwould guide systematic and comprehensiveinstructional reform in the regular classroomfor students placed at-risk of reading failure,and (b) to design a comprehensive instructionalframework grounded in these principles.

The project brought together a collabora-tive research team of school-based and univ-ersity-based teacher researchers that includedfirst- and second-grade classroom teachers;eight Chapter I teachers, five of whom werealso Reading Recovery teachers; three adminis-trators; two university professors: and twograduate students. The theoretical perspectiveof the study and the larger project is the socio-cultural approach to literacy instruction, teach-

er scaffolding, and mediation described earlierin this report.

Participants

Five Reading Recovery teachers from fournorthern Virginia elementary schools partici-pated in the study. Over 40 languages arespoken in the communities served by theschool system, although the majority of bilin-gual students come from homes in whichSpanish is the dominant language. Other mi-nority languages include Vietnamese, Cambo-dian, Chinese, Urdu, Farsi, Tagalog, Korean.and Arabic. The number of students for whomEnglish is a second language is increasing inthe district.

All of the Reading Recovery teachers in-volved in the study had successfully completeda year-long training program to become Read-ing Recovery teachers. All held graduatedegrees in reading prior to this training. All ofthe regular classroom and Chapter 1 teacherswere experienced, having taught between 13and 27 years (mean= 18 years). The ReadingRecovery teachers had used that approach fromone to four years. All of the Reading Recoveryteachers had taught as regular classroom teach-ers, reading teachers, and Chapter 1 teachers.

Procedures

In the spring of 1992, the teachers and theirstudents were observed and videotaped as theyengaged in Reading Recovery tutorials. Eachteacher was videotaped with two students. Eachstudent was taped for two consecutive days and


14

TEEM kgroictiollk

4116

Teacher-Student Interaction in Reading Recovery 7

aganipthree weeks later, resulting in a database0 44 of-25 videotaped lessons.

The reading levels for the students duringdata collection for this study ranged from 11 to18 (Scott Foresman Reading Recovery TestingPacket, 1979), indicating a range in the primer1-2 level. (There are 20 Reading Recoverylevels. The first three Reading Recovery levelsare roughly equivalent to a pre-primer. If afirst-grade class reads three soft pre-primers inthe first semester, this is roughly equivalent toreading the first nine of the twenty ReadingRecovery levels.) Reading Recovery students.who are selected from the bottom 20% of theirclass, successfully graduate from the programwhen they have reached the average readinglevel of the class. This average level variesfrom class to class and year to year. The levelof difficulty increases as the children in theclass progress from being emergent to early tofluent readers through the school year. Forexample, a class may have an average readinglevel of 10 in January, but an average of 18 byJune.

Two portions of each 30-minute tape wereselected for transcription, the interaction be-tween teacher and student reading a familiartext and the interaction between teacher andstudent reading a new text. Reading familiartexts and reading new texts were salient con-texts for informing regular classroom instruc-tion, so we wanted to see the changes in medi-ation between them.

A coding manual was developed to ana-lyze teacher-student interaction through thecoding of the first five tapes. The categoriesemerged after multiple passes through thecomplete data set. The resulting categories

reflected five distinct types of scaffoldingcomments:

Telling comments are made within thereading act to provide the reader with aword or an explanation of structure ormeaning.

2. Modeling involves the explicit demonstra-tion of an act with the intention of gettingthe student to employ the same behavior.

3. Prompting focuses the student's attentionon visual, structural, or meaning cuesavailable in the text and scaffolds oralreading performance. This larger prompt-ing category was subcategorized intovisual, structural, meaning, and oralreading dimensions.

4. Coaching gives the reader perspective bytaking him or her outside the reading act.It either directs the lesson or focuses onhow the student performs or responds.This larger coaching category was sub-categorized into visual, structural, mean-ing, oral reading, and procedural dimen-sions.

5. Discussing is talk about the text thatoccurs during the story introduction or asthe child reads the book and is intended tofocus attention on the meaning of thestory.

Two raters coded a randomly selected20% sample of the transcribed lessons (n = 5).Overall agreement for categorizing comments


10

ERE Doc OAS kin Wong a al.

4 I'l.fll an Proportion of Modeling Comments for Each Teacher

Teacher

Text 1 2 3 4 5

Familiar 2.2 0.1 2.0 10.1 0.3

New 0.5 9.2 6.6 13.1 2.8

was .90. (For details of the coding scheme, seethe Appendix.)

RESULTS

The first step in our analysis was to determineif the teachers differed significantly in theirscaffolding comments. Five 2-way analyses ofvariance (teacher x text familiarity) conductedon each type of scaffolding comment yieldedonly one categorical difference attributable toteachers' individual differencesmodeling (F= 9.819; p < .0001). The mean proportion ofmodeling comments for each teacher, as afunction of text familiarity, are provided inTable 1. However, it should be noted thatmodeling comments, on average, accounted forless than 3% of the discourse when studentsread familiar texts (range: 0.1 - 10.1%) andless than 7% when students read new texts(range: 0.5 - 13.1%). Furthermore, analysis ofthe teachers' inclusion of modeling in theirlessons revealed little qualitative variation. Tomodel fluent reading. all invoked choral read-ing more than other types of modeling. Allother comparisons were not statistically signifi-cant.

Figure 1 depicts the mean percentage ofteachers' scaffolding comments made while

students read familiar and new texts. Severaltrends can be seen in these data. First, textfamiliarity influenced the degree to whichteachers scaffolded the reader-text transaction.This trend is not surprising: one would expectthat students read familiar texts with morefluency and independence than they did newtexts. Approximately 50% of all of the com-ments made while students were reading famil-iar text were attributed to teachers providingsome form of scaffolding. The remainder ofthe comments were attributed to students'questions, responses, and oral reading, and toteachers' procedural comments. When studentsencountered new texts, the proportion of teach-ers' scaffolding comments increased by 15% to64.4% of the discourse. A two-tailed t-testconfirmed the fact that these differences werestatistically significant (t = 14.725; df = 49;

p < .0001).Second, the distribution of teachers' scaf-

folding comments varied as a function of textfamiliarity. Figure 1 also illustrates the shift inthe distribution of teachers' telling, modeling,prompting, coaching, and discussing commentsas a function of text familiarity. This findingsuggests that these teachers supported thereader-text transaction differently depending onwhether students read familiar or new texts.

NATIONAL READING RESEARCH CENTER, READING RESEARCH REPORT NC. 17

16

BE Duns iglill Teacher-Student Interaction in Reading Recovery 9

Telling Modeling Prompting Coaching Discussing

Types of Cm ts

TOTAL

Figure 1. Mean Percent of Teachers' Scaffolding Comments by Type

Quantitative and qualitative data pertaining toeach category will be described separately inthe subsequent sections.

Telling

When an emergent reader shares a reading witha more capable reader, each plays a role inmoving the activity toward a successful conclu-sion. In those cases where the text is new orbeyond the emergent reader's ability to readindependently, the more capable reader maytell the less capable reader information thatsustains meaning (e.g., pronunciations, mean-ings, interpretations, labels, etc.).

As Figure 1 illustrates, the five ReadingRecovery teachers did little telling while scaf-folding students' attempts to read familiar

(1.7%) and new texts (1.3%). Figure 2 depictsthe distribution of types of telling commentsfound in the lessons. Most telling commentsfocused on visual cues in the text, regardless oftext familiarity (92.4% familiar; 89.5% new).Typically, when a student could not recognizeor read a word while reading a familiar text,the teachers provided students with the pronun-ciation of the word:

S: [reads] 1 wish I had a big tail. Please..."

T: That word is "perhaps."

S: "Perhaps that Magic Man can give me a bigtail."

Subsequent interviews with the teachers re-vealed a number of reasons for these telling


1 7

C Duni 5pductioll d it icy Wong a al.

Visual Structural

TypesofCcanments

Meaning

Figure 2. Mean Percent of Teachers' Telling Comments by Type

behaviors: to maintain fluency while reading vant cues for identifying a difficult word; whenfamiliar texts, to save instructional time by this failed, the teachers simply told the studentproviding pronunciations of low-frequency the word:

words, and to reduce a student's struggle withwords that had proven to be too difficult for T: Why don't we try it at the beginning again?him or her in earlier instructional situations. Because I think we're missing some of the

The pattern of teachers' telling comments meaning.

shifted when students read new texts. ReadingRecovery teachers are trained to foster stu- S: "He thinks he will clean the house so that if

dents' independent use of strategies through children-a

careful prompting (Clay, 1985); thus, onewould expect these teachers to prompt first and T: Yeah, he's cleaning the house so that what?

then tell when all else fails. As illustrated inthe following excerpt, the teachers in this study S: "Want to visit them too, it will look very

prompted students to attend to all of the rele- fine."


BE Docami 'hyoductioll Sit ii o Teacher-Student Interaction in Reading Recovery 11

Ood job. That word means "very," but if it1, t,

IL 443 2 were "very" what would you see at the begin-ning?

S:

T:

S:

T:

"Very." Say it slowly.

"Very."

What would you see at the beginning?

S: A v.

T: A e. Is that a v?

S: No.

T: It means the same thing. This is "really."

S: "R...really."

T: This is "really, really."

S: Really fine.

T: Very good. We're going to go back to thebeginning and read together.

Modeling

The Reading Recovery teachers providedexplicit verbal modeling (e.g., "Good readerslook back in the text") and nonverbal modeling(e.g., turning a page from right to left). Emer-gent readers may learn a great deal aboutreading behavior when it is modeled by a morecapable reader. However, for the purposes ofthis paper, we focus on explicit verbal model-ing because most of the interactions betweenthese teachers and students were verbal andbecause a large portion of classroom-based

strategy learning is mediated through socialdiscourse.

Teachers in this study provided explicitverbal modeling infrequently (Figure 1). Onaverage, they modeled less frequently whenstudents were reading familiar texts (2.9%)than when they were reading new texts (6.5%).A two-tailed t-test revealed these differences tobe statistically significant (t = 20.949; df =49; p < .0001).

The only explicit verbal modeling observ-ed, regardless of text familiarity, occurred inthe form of choral reading. For the most part,teachers engaged students in choral readingafter extended prompting, when students'fluency on a given passage continued to beunacceptable:

S: [reads] "Dan and Carl made a tent on theporch. They ate sandwiches and had morecherry drink. It rained all night, but Dan andCarl didn't get wet. They were as-...asl-..."

T: What would make sense there? Start again andthink about what would make

S: "They were..."

T: What you did was good. Say this part and thengo on to the next part.

S: "As-...as-..."

T: What are they doing in here, Genevie?

S: Sleeping.

T: So what would make sense there?

S: "Sleep."

T: Let's read it.

NATIONAL READING RESEARCH CF.NTER, READING RESEARCH REPORT NO. 17

8

ERE 11Ellitkro uctioll Wong et al.

ere sleep in their tent on the porch." sat in his cave on the top of the hill andhe"

So what were they doing? "They were... a -..."

S: "Sleep."

T: Right. Rcad it again.

5: "They were asleep in their tent on the porch.They were asleep...they were..."

T: Let's read this page together.

T & 5: [reading together] "But Dan and Candidn't get wet. They were asleep in theirtent on the porch."

T: Urn hum.

At times, the teacher would stop readingaloud during a choral reading at the placewhere the initial breakdown in fluency oc-curred in order to assess the effectiveness ofprevious attempts to scaffold a student's per-formance. In this next excerpt, for example,the teacher leads a student back to a difficultsection in the text and the two read it chorally.As they approach the place in the text thatproved difficult for the child, the teacher'svoice trails off, allowing the student to com-plete the reading independently:

T: Let's read this together.

T & S: "The Little Knight."

T: We're just gonna read a little bit of it, 'causeyou did a good job.

T & 5: "Once upon a time, a King and Queenlived in a big old castle. The King andthe Queen were sad because their castlewas so cold. Sometimes the Queen had toput on a blanket to keep warm.... 'laterin the reading' ...Every night the dragon

5: "roared."

T & S: "The King and the Queen didn't know it,but the dragon was sad, too. Everybodywas"

S. "afraid"

T & S: "of him. No one came to see him. Hewas always"

S: "lone...lonely one.'

T: That makes sense, you said "He was alwaysa--"

S: "Alone."

T & 5: "That's why he v. as sad. That's whyhe"

5: "roared. Sometimes he was so sad he cried."

T: Yeah...

In a few instances, these Reading Recov-ery teachers provided modeling on pronnici-ation and phrasing; often, this kind of supportwas provided for ESL students:

T: That was nice. That was easy for you, isn't it,wasn't it?

S: [inaudible]

T: Even without your fingers! When I pulled yourfinger away, I think I made something happen.But I want to double-check this, all right? Um.You said here that Mrs. Trim said "That'swhat we get!" Can you see something [Tcovers the bottom of the text) that doesn't fit?


n 0

ant lcptodthll Scr.

St

T:

S:

T:

411?"

"We'll"

"We'll?"


"That's what we'll get." It means "we will."We say "we'll" when we see this word, okay?All right.

Prompting

In order to read familiar and new texts well, anemergent reader must learn to coordinate all ofthe cues available in the text when constructingmeaning. As Clay put it, emergent readersmust develop a "self-improving system" (Clay,1985). More capable readers prompt emergentreaders to attend to different sources of infor-mation at appropriate times. Learning to pro-vide timely and unambiguous prompts thatfocus a student's attention to visual, structural,and meaning cues and help them to marshalsalient knowledge is a major feature of ReadingRecovery training. And, as the teachers in thisstudy stated repeatedly, providing appropriateprompts is one of the most challenging aspectsof creating effective lessons.

As expected, teachers prompted studentsmore often when students encountered newtexts (8.2%) than when students reread familiartexts (3.2%). A. two-tailed t-test revealed thesedifferences to be significant (t = 21.166; df =49; p C .0001). Prompting episodes varied inlength and character. In some episodes a singleprompt resulted in successful reading; in otherepisodes extended prompting occurred beforethe student successfully made sense of the text.or the teacher simply read the difficult sectionfor the student (i.e., telling).

Whether the teacher initiated these ex-tended episodes with a meaning, visual, orstructural prompt, and whether other scaffold-ing comments were involved (e.g., coaching),there was a clear attempt in nearly every epi-sode to focus on meaning. For example, in thefollowing excerpt, the teacher responds to thestudent's miscue on the word slid with a mean-ing prompt. The teacher eventually moves to afocus on visual cues ("He sl-"). After a closeapproximation from the student ("slide"), theteacher provides the correct form:

S: [reads] "The wolf said down the chimney

T: Does that make sense to you? "The wolf saiddown the chimney"? What would make sensethere? Try that one more time. What did hedo? How did he get down to the bottom? "Hesl"

S: "Slide. The wolf saidthe wolf slide down thechimney."

T: "Slid...slid down the chimney." That was agood try. I liked the way that you tried to fixthat up....

Figure 3 portrays the distribution of teach-er prompts that focused students' attention onstructural, visual, and meaning cues and onstudents' oral reading performance. Aside fromthe increased frequency at which these teachersprompted students when they read new text,there were no qualitative differences in theways that teachers provided prompts as afunction of text familiarity. Teachers tended toencourage attention to the visual and meaning


Domani boductia Wong et at.

Structural Visual Meaning

Types of Comments

Oral reading

Figure 3. Mean Percent of Teachers' Prompting Comments by Type

cues in the text more often than to the struc-tural cues or to the students' oral reading per-formance.

In terms of visual prompts, teachers fos-tered strategies for using sound-symbol associ-ations and other writing and spelling conven-tions when students encountered words theycould not decode independently. In the follow-ing excerpt, the teacher helped the student seefamiliar patterns in an unfamiliar word byusing a finger to isolate the familiar pattern no-in nobody:

S: [reading' "Stanley ate and ate and..." [S stopsand stares al the word "nobody")

T: If you cover up part of that word, would youknow it? What's the first part say?

S: [covers "-body] No-. "Stanley ate and ate andnobody was cross."

Teachers' meaning prompts focused onnarrative events, pictures, related experiences,and so forth. Teachers frequently asked stu-dents "What would make sense?" as a way toprompt them to consider meaning. In thisexcerpt, the teacher uses meaning-basedprompts as the student read a new text andstumbled on the word away:

S: "Poor Fred. He was sad. 'Go...


0 4

ERIC Doug igolictiot Teacher-Student Interaction in Reading Recovery 15

T.,; 'What would make sense there? Look whatL/-4) she's doing. What does she tell him to do?

S: Go.

T: What is she doing here? [points to the picture]

S: Sweeping.

T: And what 's she standing in?

S: Water.

T: So what do you think she's going to tell him?Think about what would make sense.

S: Go.

T: Does she want him standing there?

S: No.

T: So she tells him to go

S: away. "Go away, Fred!"

T: Yes.

These teachers also prompted students'oral reading performance. However, suchprompts occurred most often when studentsread familiar texts (11% of the total prompts).

Given the students' repeated exposure to thefamiliar texts, the teachers expected morefluent reading and prompted it. In this excerptfrom a familiar reading segment, for example,

the teacher noted that the student could read apart of the text with better phrasing and intona-

tion. She prompted the student to read charac-ter dialogue in a way that might better reflectcharacter mood:

S: [reads] "'Wife,' he called. 'Come here and seethis big g- bean. Please help...help me pickh.!"

T: Now pretend you're the old man and you'recalling your wife. Now are you gonna saythat? Say it 'formin his voice. Can you trythat for me? What's he gonna say?

S: Oh. I can talk like a man.

T: Okay. You're gonna try that?

S: [reads in a deep voice] '"Come and wit- withth- this big green bean. This big bean, pleasehelp me pick it.'"

Coaching

Coaching comments surfaced at various timesthroughout the lessons. In a majority of cases,the teachers participated as coaches after stu-dents finished reading a text. Typically, as theReading Recovery teachers observed studentsread, they noted instances in which studentsread well and where students could benefitfrom more instruction. Teachers shared theirevaluation, returned to specific places in thetext, asked the students to articulate theirreasoning, and provided instruction. The fol-lowing excerpt illustrates this form of coach-ing:

S: [reads] "'Then I'll huff and I'll puff and I'llblow your house in,' called the wolf, the wolf.So he huffed and he puffed and he blew thehouse in."


ER Docznikpro SMIIWong et al.

80

70

60

}I 50

40

30

20

10

0Visual Structural Meaning Oral Reading Perfonnamce

Types of Comments

Figure 4. Mean Percent of Teachers' Coaching Comments by Type

T: Okay, good, Jose. That was really good read-ing. You know what I liked that you did backhere? I liked the...when you read at the begin-ning of the story, you said "The first little pigbuilt the house" or "built his house" and youwent back and you went back again and youwent "The first little pig" and you changed itto the word "made a house." And I like...Ithink you...what did you think? How comeyou changed that word "made"?

S: Al.

T: 'Cause you saw the tn. Okay. So you knewthat the first little pig, that word It -sn't builtbecause the word didn't look right. It didn't

look like built. Right? And you saw that m and

you remembered that it might be made. Goodjot . That was really good. The other thing thatI liked that you did was on this page when youread about how the big bad wolf went to thehouse. I noticed how you were reading. Youwent "The big bad wolf" and you got yourmouth ready and you looked at the picture tocheck and you looked back at the word againand you went, "Went to the house of the firstlittle pig." I liked how you double-checked tomake sure it made sense.

In fewer cases, the teachers providedcoaching as the students read. Typically, such


4


MI, 11attaching occurred when the student experi-J443 diced great difficulty. The teachers' intent wasto help students maintain fluency, developconfidence, and gain a new perspective on theirreading performance:

S: fS reads] The people ran to get the p... pot...the water, and the stones. Then they gotthree big...fire. Then, then they got, got thethree...then they got the th- t- three big flatstones.

T: You said here, "The people ran to get the pot,the water, and the stones. Then they got thethree big flat stones." Does that sound right?[S shakes head]. No, it's not making sense.Where do you think the hard bit is? Whatneeds to get fixed?

S:

T:

S:

T:

[inaudible)

MI right.

"Sticks."

Now, you called this "stones" and this one"stones." Are they the same? Which one is"sticks"? Which one is "stones"?

S: IS points to the text] "Sticks."

T: All right. Let's read that together.

T & S: "The.... The pipeople ran to get the potof water and the"

S: "sticks."

T & S: "Then they got the three big flat"

S: "stones."

T: Good fix.

Teachers provided more coaching com-ments when students encountered familiar text(33.8%) than when students read new text(20.1%). A two-tailed t-test revealed thesedifferences to be statistically significant (t =14.968; df = 49; p < .0001). Figure 4 depictsthe distribution of coaching comments focusedon students' use of cueing systems, students'oral reading fluency, and students' overallperformance.

Teachers coached their students' use of thecues similarly whether their students werereading familiar or new texts. Coaching com-ments that focused on the visual cueing systemenabled both teacher and student to gain per-spective on students' knowledge and strategies.The following excerpt illustrates how theteacher, as coach, helped the student gainperspective on what the student accomplishedas a reader and how a particular strategy couldprove to be beneficial in the future:

T: How come you looked back over there? Ididn't understand that. What did you do?

S: I looked back over here because I saw the twothe's and I thought that there...

T: Did you know the word "the"? Did you haveto look back?

S: I thought it was a.

T: Oh, okay. So you were just checking to make

sure. Youwe can do that sometimes. We look

back at the page before it to see if that wordwas there.

As students read new and familiar texts,teachers in this study prompted them to use


BEST COPY AVAILABLE

EEC St llillgoductill SCISWong et al.

cues Infrequently. Typically, how-e*e ;Meaning cues served to make students'thinking and actions visible to both teachersand students, to increase students' self-aware-ness, and to remind students of the utility of aspecific strategy;

T: How did you figure that out?

S: I looked at the picture with the apple.

T: Does that help you sometimes?

S: Yes.

T: Okay. so looking at the picture is a good thing

to do.

Coaching comments that focused on stu-dents' oral reading and overall performancerepresented the largest number of the coachingcomments. The teachers in this study provideda few more comments focused on students' oralreading while they read familiar texts thanduring the reading-of new texts, but the differ-ence was not statistically significant. Theyexplained that this finding was due to theirhigher expectations for fluency when rereadingfamiliar texts. In the next excerpt, for example,the teacher waits for a natural break in the textto coach the student on his oral reading per-formance. In this instance, she relates herperception of the student's mental processesand selfcorrection strategies and her evaluationof his oral reading performance:

St treads' "But first I'll make the tree so...so Ican find it again."

T: Good reading. And we stop there. I think thatwe even read a little more than where westopped yesterday. That was very nice. Oh! I

like how on this page right here, you started tosay, "The elf took the pot, urn, and I think youwere going to say the pot of gold. But then you

realized, "Wait a minute! They don't have apot of gold." Then you went back and you saidthe elf took Grumble to a

S: -big tree.

T: Okay. Hiked the way you fixed that. That was

very good. Did that look like pot? That N. ordbig? No. And so I think you went back and youthought that word is pot. And it didn't looklike pot, so you made it, you read it again,andyou got big.

Discussing

Our analysis revealed that Reading Recoverylessons are focused, shaped by the purpose ofaccelerating students' abilities to read in-

creasingly challenging texts autonomously. Ingeneral, therefore, the bulk of the text-relatedtalk is a combination of the student attemptingto read independently and the teacher respond-ing to those attempts. This focused talk differsfrom the discourse typical of traditional class-room instrurtion, such as the recitation scriptin reading lessons (Mehan, 1979, 1991) andreading group discussions (O'Flahavan, Hart-man, & Pearson, 1988). At times, the talkbecame a conversation on topics such as thestory, visual cues, and students' related priorknowledge.

The proportion of teachers' discussingcomments increased significantly when studentsread new texts (28.1%) compared to when theyread familiar texts (9.1%). A two-tailed t-testrevealed this difference to be statisticallysignificant (t = 21.899; df = 49; p < .0001).


ER Coal R9rod Teacher-Student Interaction in Reading Recovery 19

Story Visual

Types of Comments

Prior Knowledge

Figure 5. Mean Percent of Teachers' Discussing Comments by Type

While most of the discussing comments fo-cused on aspects of the story (Figure 5), famil-iarity of texts influenced the way that theseReading Recovery teachers and their studentstalked about the story. When students readfamiliar texts, discussion focused on students'recall of events. For example, the teacher andstudent in this excerpt searched the text for the

student's favorite part of a familiar story. Theteacher engaged the student in discussion ofwhat happens before and after that favorite part

and why he considered it his favorite part:

T: OK, so what part did you like in that story? InStanley Goes to School?

S: I said the map.

T: Oh, you liked the map. Right. /know you likethe map. Yeah, that was a good pan. Let'sread where he goes up the steps and down the

steps and he goes to all those places.

S:

T:

S:

T:

S:

T:

He

He goes all around. Right. Up the steps anddown the steps. And then to theWhere doesit say "trash can"? Right there. Uh-huh. Thenwhere does he go?

To the spider.

To the spider and through the-

- library.

And then through the door into the


BE Dad Sioa SCIS Wong et al.

T & S 6brfult.

, now let's find those words. And we'llread that part, because that's the part you like.

[T and S begin to search text]

S: Uh-huh.

T: OK?

S: Not the part

T: Where is that part? You find it.

S: Let me find the.... I like it when he's at thepark.

T: Oh, you like it when he's at the park?

S: Yes. Right there. That's the part I like.

T: OK.

S: [reads] "They went out the gate and over theroad, down the...and down the street. 'Hereyou are. Home at last,' said Morn."

T: What did she ask him?

S: "Here you had?"

T: Is that what she said? What does Mom say to

Stanley? S: Standing.

On the other hand, when students readnew texts, most of the discussion occurredduring the teachers' introduction to the newbooks. Typically, the teacher led this intro-duction to familiarize the student with the storyline and with new pictures and words that thestudent was about to encounter. As seen in thisexcerpt, the teacher engaged the student incollaboratively predicting the narrative:

T: [holds book in front of S and begins to turnpages slowly] This is a story about two chil-dren and their mom, and in this story, like inour other story, they don't say "mom." Theycall her "Mum." Remernber, 'cause this iswritten from another country. So they call her"Mum." Well, we have two children. We haveNed and Lottie. And guess where they want goor at least where Lottie wants to go? Shewants to go walk in the what?

S: Grass.

T: Yeah. And Ned, he doesn't want to go. Youknow why? You think he wants to get his feetwet? [S shakes head] I don't think so either.He doesn't like the wet grass. But Lottiedoesn't mind that. And Mum doesn't mindeither. So she went on. OK. But did he go?Did Ned go? What's he doing there? IT pointsto picture!

S: "Here you..."

T: After all those things, after he went out thegate, and over the road, and down the street.What does she ask him? She says, "Are..."

S: "You hungry'?"

T: Yeah. Do you think he's going to go? They'rewaving goodbye, 'cause I think they're goingto leave him. They're gonna go without him.Do you think he wants to be left behind? ISnods] You do? Let's see what happens on thenext page. Where's Ned now?

S: In the wet grass.

T: Right. T: In the wet grass!

NATIONAL READING RESEARCH CENTER. READING RESEARCH REPORT NO. 17

9 Z;

ant igo Rio 1Teacher-Student Interaction in Reading Recovery 91

tt other cases, teachers adopted a more S:

--cocrwersationalstyle while introducing the new

story to the student:

T: Our new book for today is about tents. Have

you ever made a tent with your sisters?

S: [S holds book and reads title on book cover]"Tents."

T: And your brother? Hmmm?

S: [S turns to title page and reads title] "Tents."

T: Have you ever made one in the yard?

S: Oh, a tent? No.

T: You never have? Well, these two boys made atent in their backyard.

S: "Tents."

T: What did they use? Can you tell?

S: Ummm...

T: What did they do?

S: Blankets.

T: They used blankets. And what did they do with

the blanket?

Ummm...they put it up and bury the stick andhold it up.

T: Well they...you see this? [T points to picture.]What 's that? Can you tell what that is?

5: Rope.

T:

S:

T:

§:

T:

S:

T:

Uh-huh.

What do you think they want to do? They're

talking to their father. What do you think they

would like to do?

Go to sleep there.

Ahah. Let's see, is that what they wanted todo?

Yes.

Urn hum. And they took a snack with them,didn't they? They took some cherry drink-

- They start eating-

- They ate. And then... what happened in themiddle of the night? Can you tell what this is?

Coordinating Scaffolding Comments

The scaffolding comments described thus fardid not occur in isolation. On the contrary,teachers' protnpting, coaching, discussing,modeling, and telling comments occurreddynamically as the teachers attempted to findthe appropriate support for the student at theright time.

For example, in the following interactionthe teacher and student were in the middle ofreading an unfamiliar text when the studenthappened upon a challenging section. We havelabeled each comment to illustrate the way thatthe teacher used a variety of prompts to firstlocate the student's confusion and then toscaffold the student's reading within his or herzone of proximal development.

T: It's a rope, and they tied it to the trees, didn't S: [reads] "...keep his promise. He had no...they? no...note...


BE Coca Wong et al.

T: You thiitk)i It's, it looks like "note" 'causee_'s a I in it (coaching-visual), but we

wouldn't say that (coaching-visual). Thatdoesn't sound right (coaching-visual). "He had

note" (coaching-visual) "He had... (coach-ing-visual)

S:

T: What didn't the elf do? (discussing-story). Hehad..." (coaching-visual)

S:

T: Did he take off the scarf? (prompting-meaning)Okay, let's read it. (coaching-performance)

T & S: "He had"

S:

He had ram..." (prompting-visual)

S:

T: Good. (coaching-oral reading)

S: ...take, taken"

T: Good. (coaching-oral reading)

S: "Grumble's scarf off the tree."

T: Good reading. (coaching-oral reading)

S: "He had a pot, a. he had..."

T: It looks like pot. (prompting-visual)You'reright. (prompting-visual) It kind of does.(prompting-visual) But pot wouldn't makesense. (prompting-meaning) He had pot all the

red scarves on the tree? (prompting-meaning)

S: "Put a red scarf on each tree."

T: Good job. (coaching-oral reading).

CONCLUSIONS

Our analysis of five Reading Recovery teach-ers' comments during 25 lessons revealed thatabout half of the discourse in these lessens canbe attributed to teachers' scaffolding com-ments. High levels of scaffolding were in evi-dence as students read familiar texts and statis-tically significant higher levels emerged whenstudents encountered new texts. While thisdimension of Reading Recovery lessons has notbeen systematically linked to individual out-come measures in this study, it is likely to be amajor contributing factor to the developmentalprogression exhibited by students in otherstudies (cf. Pinnell et al., 1988).

The proportional distribution of these scaf-folding comments also suggests that the teach-ers changed the nature of their scaffolding as afunction of text familiarity. As students rereadfamiliar texts, for example, teachers becameless directive and began to coach the students'attempts to read. These teachers offered com-ments designed to give readers a new perspec-tive on their oral reading and overall perfor-mance. In contrast, when students read newtexts, these teachers responded by increasingtheir modeling, prompting, and discussingcomments. They actively shared the experienceof reading with the students. They invitedstudents to read chorally as a way of modelingfluency, prompted students to attend to visualand meaning cues, and discussed the story line.

This study has several implications forthose who want to improve early literacyinstruction in the regular classroom. First, thenotion of prompting students to attend to thethree cueing systems and to have studentsdevelop a self-improving system is not con-


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leith current instruction in the regularIt,) 44 iassroom. Marie Clay speaks in terms of

"acceleration" (Clay. 1985). Regular classroominstruction often focuses narrowly on sound-symbol correspondencesnot on the dynamicrelationship between the structural, visual, andmeaning cueing systems. The teacher scaffold-ing behaviors documented in this study suggestthat through a number of scaffolding roles,regular classroom teachers might help studentsdevelop a self-improving system. However,since one-to-one tutorials on a daily basis aredifficult to manage in the typical classroom,innovative instructional adaptations may needto be explored

Second, developing regular classroom in-structionai routines and methods that fosterself-improving systems requires that studentsbecome interdependent before they becomeindependent. Most teachers want their studentsto be able to read independently, to choosetexts that fit their interests and abilities, tomonitor recoding and comprehension strategiesas they read, and to know how to respond tothe reading appropriately. Traditional teachingpractices, however, often do not acknowledgethe influence of the social world on indepen-dent literacy development. Future classroominterventions will require social support in theform of more capable peer and teacher scaf-folding.

Regular classroom teachers will need tolearn how to alter their instructional stances de-pending on their students' familiarity withtexts. Teachers trained in Reading Recoveryseem to know from moment to moment whattext to focus on, when and how to prompt,when to tell, when to coach, and when to allowreaders to direct their own reading. Learning to

teach within a student's zone of proximaldevelopment enables a teacher to determinewith some confidence what text will be chal-lenging enough and when each scaffoldingbehavior is appropriate. There are times whenunfamiliar words or phrases are outside ofstudent's ability to comprehend, even with thesupport of a more capable peer or teacher.There are times when one might expect a childto stumble on a word, yet, with some self-correction, he invokes appropriate strategies torecode the word. Understanding how to re-spond in these situations requires that theregular elassroom teacher construct teachingevents that make it possible to identify theupper and lower boundaries of each student'szone of proximal development. Traditionalsmall group reading instruction, independentpencil and paper tasks, large group Big Bookactivities, and a variety of literature responseactivities may not provide enough mutualengagement between teacher and student forthe teacher to identify these boundaries. Al-though many experienced teachers have learnedintuitively to make the distinctions central toReading Recovery, many others will need todevelop new skills in interacting with studentsduring reading lessons.

REFERENCES

Bruner, J. (1985). Vygotsky. A historical and con-ceptual perspective. In 1. V. Wensch (Ed.),Culture, communication and cognition: \iv-gotskian perspectives (pp. 21-34). New York:Cambridge University Press.


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er, J 09861. The language of education. In J.rurfer. Actual minds, possible worlds (pp.

121-133). -Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress.

Clay, M. (1985). The early detection of readingdifficulties. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Clay, M.. & Cazdcn, C. B. (1990). A Vygotskianinterpretation of Reading Recovery. In L. Moll(Ed.), Vygotsky and education: Instructionalimplications and applications of sociohistorical

psychology (pp. 206-222). New York: Cam-bridge University Press.

Cole. M., & Scribner, S. (1978). Introduction. InN4. Cole. V. John-Steincr, S. Scribner, & E.Souberman (Eds.), Mind in soder). (pp. 1-14).Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Coleman. J. S. 09661. Equality of educationalopportunity t Report No. 0E-380011. Wash-ington. DC: National Center for EducationStatistics.

Cummins. J. ( (986). Empowering minority stu-dents: A framework for intervention. HarvardEducational Review, 56(11, 18-36.

DeFord, D. E., Lyons, C. A., & Pinnell, G. S.(1991). Bridges to literacy: Learning fromReading Recovery. Portsmouth, NH: Heine-mann.

Gaffney, J. S., & Anderson. R. C. (1991). Two-tiered scaffolding: Congruent processes ofteaching and learning. In E. H. Hiehert (Ed.),Literacy for a diverse society. New York:Teachers College Press.

Jucl. C. (1988). Learning to read and write: Alongitudinal study of fifty-four children fromfirst through fourth grades. Journal of Educa-tional Psychology, 80, 437-447.

Luke, A. (1993). The social construction of literacyin the primary school. Melbourne: Macmillan.

Mehan, H. (1979). Learning lessons. Cambridge,MA: Harvard University Press.

Mehan, H. (1991). Sociological foundations sup-porting the study of cultural diversity. Santa

Cruz, CA: National Center for Research onCultural Diversity and Second Language Learn-ing.

Moll, L. (Ed.). (1990). Vygotsky and education:Instructional implications and applications ofsociohistorical psychology. Cambridge: Cam-bridge University Press.

O'Flahavan, I. F., Hartman. D., & Pearson, P. D.(1988). Teacher questioning and feedbackpractices: A twenty year retrospective. In]. E.Readcnce & R. S. Baldwin (Eds.), Dialoguesin literacy research (Thirty-seventh Yearbookof the National Reading Conference). Chicago,IL: National Reading Conference.

Pinnell, G. S., DeFord, D., & Lyons. C. (1988).Reading Recovery: Early intervention for at riskfirst graders. Arlington, VA: EducationalResearch Service.

Pinnell, G. S., Fried. M. D., & Esticc, R. NI.(1990). Reading Recovery: Learning how tomake a difference. The Reading Teacher, 93.

282-295.

Rogoff, B. (1990). Apprenticeship in thinking:Cognitive development in social context. NewYork: Oxford University Press.

Tharp, R., & Gallimorc, R. (1988). Rousing mindsto life. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: Thedevelopment of higher psychological processes.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Wench, J. V. (1985). Introduction. In J. V.?Misch (Ed.), Culture, communication andcognition: Vygotskian perspectives (pp. 1-18).New York: Cambridge University Press.

Wench, J. V. (1985). Vygotsky and the socialformation of mind. Cambridge: Harvard Uni-versity Press.

Wood, D., Bruner, J. S., & Ross, G. (1976). Therole of tutoring in problem solving. Journal ofChild Psychology and Psychiatry, 17, 89-100.

NATIONAL. READING RESEARCH CENTER. READING RESEARCH REPORT NO. 17

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V Teacher-Student Interaction in Reading Recovery 25

APPENDIX

Coding Scheme for Scaffolding Languagein the Reading Recovery Lessons

Prompting (P) Comments designed to focus thestudent's attention on the visual, structural, ormeaning cues available in the text and to scaffoldoral reading performance.

Visual (Pv) Comments that focus the student's

attention on the text at the word level.

Student miscues, reading "house" as "home,"Teacher says, "If this word were home, what

would it have at the end?" Student says, "M,"then reads "house."

Structural (Ps) Comments that focus the stu-

dent's attention on structural elements in thetext.

"See how this is written kind of funny (referring

to italicized print in the text). They want you tosay it a bit louder."

Meaning (Pm) Comments that provide meaning

cues.

Student is reading "Stop, stop, come..." andpauses, unable to read the word "bark."Teacher says, "What does he (main character)want them (other characters) to do?" Studentreplies, "Come back." Teacher asks, "Doesthat make sense?" Student reads, "Stop, stop,come back."

Oral reading (Por) Comments that focus onoral reading performance.

Student pauses. Teacher asks, "Are you stuck?What are you going to do?" Reader decides to

look for the word on another page.

Coaching (C) Comments designed to give readerperspective by taking him or her outside the readingact. They either direct the lesson or focus on howthe student performed or responded.

Visual (Cv) Comments that focus on the stu-dent's performance at the word level.

After student has read, the teacher turns backto a spot where student miscued. Teacher says,"There was a word that you had trouble with.See if you can find the word on this page."

Structural (Cs) Comments that focus on thestudent's performance at the sentence structure

level.

After student has read, the teacher drawsattention to a question mark at the end of asentence and says, "What did you see at theend of that sentence?"

Meaning (Cm) Comments that focus on thestudent's performance at the comprehensionlevel.

Teacher reviews student's reading by drawingattention to self-correction of "sweet" readas "some." Teacher says, "When you read'Grandpa likes to eat some things, did it makesense to you?"

Oral reading (Cor) Comments that focus onstudent's oral reading performance.

Teacher refers student to a page of text thatincludes a question and says, That was acel-


DOCUElli4roductioll Scr. fc

\R"let 't g. I liked the way you used your

' 44,ic like you're really asking a question.

Wong et al.

Procedure (Cp) Comments that direct thelesson.

As student opens the book at the beginning of asession, teacher says, "You can stan readingfrom there."

Modeling (M) Explicit sharing of the act with theintention of getting the student to employ behaviors.

Modeling oral reading (Mor) Teacher modelshow to read alone or through choral reading.

After student reads, teacher returns to a pagethat was difficult for the student. Teacher says,"Let's read this part together."

Telling (T) Comments made within the reading actthat provide the reader with a word or an explana-tion of structure or meaning.

Visual (Tv) Teacher provides a word or wordsas the student reads orally.

Student reads, "The wolf slide down the chim-

ney." Teacher says, "Slid. Slid down the chim-

Structural (Ts) Teacher provides an explana-tion of a structural element as the student readsorally.

Student mentions People's Drugs (a store) incomparison to a word in the ten. Teacherresponds, "That (referring to possessive) means

the drugs belong to somebody, to the people.

Meaning (Tin) Teacher provides an explanationof the meaning of a word as the student readsorally.

Student pauses after reading the word jerk.Teacher says, "Do you know what that means?

If somebody grabs you and you go like this (she

demonstrates), you jerk yourself away."

Discussing (D) Talk about the text occurring duringthe story introduction or as the child reads the bookto focus attention on the meaning of the story.

Prior knowledge (Dpk) Teacher elicits studentexperiences to activate prior knowledge.

As part of the story introduction to Wet Grass,the teacher says, "Did you walk in the grassafter it rained this weekend? What was it like?"

Story (Ds) Talk about the plot, characters, orother elements of the story.

Before beginning The Kick-a-lot Shoes, the

teacher asks, "Do you remember what the witch

did in this story?"

Vocabulary (Dv) Talk about story vocabulary.

During the story introduction the teacher er-plains, "This is a story about two children andtheir mom. In this story they don't say 'Mom.'They call their mother 'Mum' because this was

written in another country."


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NRRC NationalReading ResearchCenter318 Aderhold University of Georgia, Athens. Georgia 30602-91232102J. M. Patterson Budding University of Maryland College Park, MD 20942

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