A Historical Perspective on Reading Research and Practice

Blog 4: Briefly summarize your chosen reading. In class you'll share your summary with students who read the other article (and vice versa).  These readings are quite dry, so allow yourself enough time to digest them.  I've posted graphics organizers below to help you in your reading and note taking.  As you read your chosen articles, take notes not just on the material, but also on the difficulties that you are having in reading, the strategies and cognitive processes that you're using to "unpack" the ideas, the background knowledge that you're drawing on, and also, importantly, the emotional reactions your having when you come parts of the text that are unfamiliar, frustrating, boring, or otherwise difficult.  

Brief summary/outline of Alexander and Fox’s survey of reading research, theory and practice from the 1950’s to 2004:

Postwar U.S. and the problem of reading acquisition

• A change in school populations

Postwar United States in the 50’s brought a baby boom, which eventually led to a transformation in school populations, resulting in a rising number of students experiencing reading struggles. During the age of Sputnik, this was more significant (the U.S. was concerned with its “ability to compete globally”) and the need to compete spurred educators and researchers to define and seek answers “to the problem of reading acquisition.”  

Skinner and behaviorism (The Era of Conditioned Learning, 1950-1965)

• Diagnostic views 

Potential answers to the “reading problem” were promised a scientific perspective through the lens Skinnerian behaviorism. The idea was that, “the processes and skills involved in learning to read could be clearly defined and broken down into their constituent parts...parts could then be practiced and reinforced in a systematic and orderly fashion during classroom instructions.” 

Reading was seen as conditioned behavior, and it was believed that learning occurred when environmental stimulation created predicable responses.  There was a focus on reading as perceptual activity - identification of visual signals, translation of signals into sounds, assembly of sounds into words, etc.  

Chomsky, psycholinguists, sociolinguists (The Era of Natural Learning, 1966-1975)

• Innate language abilities 

So then Chomsky became influential, with his theory of generative grammar (i.e. language is innate, hard-wired, universal grammar etc.) and the psycholinguists felt that “attention to discrete aspects of reading advocated in behaviorism destroyed the natural communicative power and inherent aesthetic of reading.”  All of this related to the notion that we have built-in capacity for language.  

At the same time, the sociolinguists (Labov, for example) investigated language in relation to social setting, social groups and social roles.  

Kant, Rosenblatt, Schema Theory (The Era of Information Processing, 1976-1985)

• Basic research, cognitive psychology, the individual mind

Kantian philosophy distinguished between the sensible and intelligible worlds, spurring researchers to seek “laws that explained human language as an interaction between symbol system and mind.”  The theory was that knowledge was stored in the individual mind.  Schema theory emerged. Reading strategies were emphasized (text processing, summarizing, mapping, self questioning, predicting etc).  

Rosenblatt’s theory of efferent versus aesthetic stance was seen as a rival stance.  

Vygotsky (The Era of Sociocultural Learning, 1986-1995)

• Knowledge is social

The idea was that knowledge arises from social interaction.  Literacy involves many “knowledges.” Existing knowledge might interfere with future learning, and schooling is a social phenomenon.  

Dewey and others (The Era of Engaged Learning, 1996-present)

• Engagement and motivation

A new focus on hypermedia and hypertext.  Research on motivation.  Developmental perspective on reading (not just young readers).  Engagement - students’ meaningful and goal-directed participation in text-based learning.  Dewey - engagement in relation to motivation research.  

“Learners are more than passive receptacles of information.”  Reading is cognitive, aesthetic and sociocultural.