Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-17T19:08:40.682Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Essay: Bring reading research to the trenches

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2009

Kurt W. Fischer
Affiliation:
Harvard University, Massachusetts
Jane Holmes Bernstein
Affiliation:
The Children's Hospital, Boston
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang
Affiliation:
University of Southern California
Get access

Summary

Connection: This short essay is an emotional plea from an urban educator to translate research into a form that is usable in schools. Research on reading and writing skills needs to move out of the laboratory and into the schools, which have a pressing need for answers about effective practice, especially for disadvantaged or learning-disabled students, but also for many “normal” and able students. Research on learning problems is not just a theoretical exercise! Thousands of children, together with their parents and teachers, look to researchers and educators for guidance in helping students who have difficulties with reading and other important skills. Fortunately several chapters in this book reflect exactly this kind of effort – to create knowledge about reading problems and instruction that can positively affect school practice and improve instruction for children with diverse kinds of reading problems.

The Editors

I am a teacher and reading consultant. My colleague Esther Sands and I work in the classrooms of New York City inner-city areas. We work for an organization called Reading Reform Foundation of New York, which was founded by teachers to train teachers in the classroom.

Our organization sends trainers, when invited by principals or district superintendents, into sixty public school classrooms twice a week all year long to help teachers apply what they have learned from us in courses taken the previous summer in the teaching of reading, writing, and spelling.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bereiter, C. & Scardamalia, M. (2004). Learning to work creatively with knowledge. In E. De Corte, L. Verschaffel, N. Entwistle & J. van Merriënboer (eds), Unravelling basic components and dimensions or powerful learning environments. EARLI Advances in Learning and Instruction Series.
Brown, A. L. & Campione, J. C. (1986). Psychological theory and the study of learning disabilities. American Psychologist, 41(10), 1059–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, A. L. & Campione, J. C. (1996). Psychological theory and the design of innovative learning environments: On procedures, principles, and systems. In Schauble, L. & Glaser, R. (eds), Innovations in learning: New environments for education, 289–325. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Brown, A. L. & Campione, J. C. (1998). Designing a community of learners: Theoretical and practical lessons. In Lambert, N. M. & McCombs, B. L. (eds), How students learn: Reforming schools through learner-centered education, 153–86. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campione, J. C., Shapiro, A. M. & Brown, A. L. (1995). Forms of transfer in a community of learners: Flexible learning and understanding. In McKeough, A., Lupart, J. & Marini, A. (eds), Teaching for transfer: Fostering generalization in learning, 35–68. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Chall, Jeanne, S. (1996). Stages of reading development, 2nd edn. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace College Publishers.Google Scholar
Chall, Jeanne S. (2000). The academic achievement challenge: What really works in the classroom. New York and London: The Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Fink, R. (1995). Successful dyslexics: A constructivist study of passionate interest reading. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 39, 268–80.Google Scholar
Palincsar, A. S. & Brown, A. L. (1984). Reciprocal teaching of comprehension-fostering and monitoring activities. Cognition and Instruction, 1(2), 117–75.Google Scholar
Palincsar, A. S., Brown, A. L. & Campione, J. C. (1993). First-grade dialogues for knowledge acquisition and use. In Forman, E. A., Minick, N. & Stone, C. A. (eds), Contexts for learning: Sociocultural dynamics in children's development, 43–57. New York: Oxford University Press.
Report of the National Reading Panel: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implication for reading instruction, 2000.
Scardamalia, M. & Bereiter, C. (1999). Schools as knowledge-building organizations. In Keating, D. P. & Hertzman, C. (eds), Developmental health and the wealth of nations: Social, biological, and educational dynamics, 274–89. New York: Guilford.Google Scholar
Shaywitz, Sally M. D. (2003) Overcoming dyslexia: A new and complete science-based program for reading problems at any level. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.Google Scholar
Snow, C. E., Burns, M. S. & Griffin, P. (eds) (1998). Preventing reading difficulties in young children. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.Google Scholar
Wolf, M. & Katzir-Cohen, T. (2001). Reading fluency and its intervention. Scientific Studies of Reading, 5, 211–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×