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DOCUMENT RESUME ED 395 280 CS 012 444 AUTHOR Guthrie, John T.; And Others TITLE Growth of Literacy Engagement: Changes in Motivation and Strategies during Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction. Reading Research Report No. 53. INSTITUTION National Reading Research Center, Athens, GA.; National Reading Research Center, College Park, MD. SPONS AGENCY Office of Educational Research and Improvement (ED), Washington, DC. PUB DATE 96 CONTRACT 117A20007 NOTE 55p. PUB TYPE Reports Research/Technical (143) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC03 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Elementary Education; Grade 3; Grade 5; *Instructional Effectiveness; *Integrated Curriculum; Reading Instruction; Reading Research; Science Instruction; *Student Motivation; Thinking Skills IDENTIFIERS *Concept Oriented Reading Instruction; *Literacy Engagement ABSTRACT This report describes a study that examined changes in literacy engagement during one year of Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI), a new approach to teaching reading, writing, and science. Literacy engagement was defined as the integration of intrinsic motivations, cognitive strategies, and conceptual learning from text. To promote literacy engagement in classrooms, a team designed and implemented CORI in two third-grade and two fifth-grade classrooms in two schools. One hundred forty students participated in an integrated reading/language arts-science program, which emphasized "real world" science observations, student self-direction, strategy instruction, collaborative learning, self-expression, and coherence of literacy learning experiences. Trade books replaced basals and science textbooks. Based on 1-week performance assessments in the fall and spring, students gained in the following higher-order strategies: searching multiple texts, representing knowledge, transferring concepts, comprehending informational texts, representing knowledge, transferring concepts, comprehending informational text, and interpreting narrative. Children's intrinsic motivations for literacy correlated with cognitive strategies at both grade levels. All _students who increased in intrinsic motivation also increased their use of higher-order strategies; and a sizeable proportion (50%) of students who were stable or decreased in intrinsic motivation failed to progress in higher-order strategies. Findings suggest that literacy engagement increased during the year. (Contains 62 references and 4 tables of data. The Performance Assessment of Literacy Engagement and 2 rubrics are attached.) (Author/RS)
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Page 1: DOCUMENT RESUME ED 395 280 CS 012 444 AUTHOR Guthrie, … · DOCUMENT RESUME. ED 395 280 CS 012 444. AUTHOR Guthrie, John T.; And Others. TITLE. Growth of Literacy Engagement: Changes

DOCUMENT RESUME

ED 395 280 CS 012 444

AUTHOR Guthrie, John T.; And OthersTITLE Growth of Literacy Engagement: Changes in Motivation

and Strategies during Concept-Oriented ReadingInstruction. Reading Research Report No. 53.

INSTITUTION National Reading Research Center, Athens, GA.;National Reading Research Center, College Park,MD.

SPONS AGENCY Office of Educational Research and Improvement (ED),Washington, DC.

PUB DATE 96CONTRACT 117A20007NOTE 55p.

PUB TYPE Reports Research/Technical (143)

EDRS PRICE MF01/PC03 Plus Postage.DESCRIPTORS Elementary Education; Grade 3; Grade 5;

*Instructional Effectiveness; *Integrated Curriculum;Reading Instruction; Reading Research; ScienceInstruction; *Student Motivation; Thinking Skills

IDENTIFIERS *Concept Oriented Reading Instruction; *LiteracyEngagement

ABSTRACTThis report describes a study that examined changes

in literacy engagement during one year of Concept-Oriented ReadingInstruction (CORI), a new approach to teaching reading, writing, andscience. Literacy engagement was defined as the integration ofintrinsic motivations, cognitive strategies, and conceptual learningfrom text. To promote literacy engagement in classrooms, a teamdesigned and implemented CORI in two third-grade and two fifth-gradeclassrooms in two schools. One hundred forty students participated inan integrated reading/language arts-science program, which emphasized"real world" science observations, student self-direction, strategyinstruction, collaborative learning, self-expression, and coherenceof literacy learning experiences. Trade books replaced basals andscience textbooks. Based on 1-week performance assessments in thefall and spring, students gained in the following higher-orderstrategies: searching multiple texts, representing knowledge,transferring concepts, comprehending informational texts,representing knowledge, transferring concepts, comprehendinginformational text, and interpreting narrative. Children's intrinsicmotivations for literacy correlated with cognitive strategies at bothgrade levels. All _students who increased in intrinsic motivation alsoincreased their use of higher-order strategies; and a sizeableproportion (50%) of students who were stable or decreased inintrinsic motivation failed to progress in higher-order strategies.Findings suggest that literacy engagement increased during the year.(Contains 62 references and 4 tables of data. The PerformanceAssessment of Literacy Engagement and 2 rubrics are attached.)

(Author/RS)

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Growth of Literacy Engagement:Changes in Motivation and Strategies DuringConcept-Oriented Reading InstructionJohn T. GuthriePeggy Van MeterAnn Dacey McCannAllan WigfieldUniversity of Maryland College Park

Lois BennettCarol C. PoundstoneMary Ellen RiceCalverton Elementary School,Prince George's County, Maryland

Frances M. FaibischBrian HuntAnn M. MitchellCatherine T. Reed Elementary School,Prince George's County, Maryland

U S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATIONMao of Educahonal Rosearch and Improvement

EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATIONCENTER (ERIC)

1/This document has been reproduced asreceived frorn the person or organizationoriginating it

El Minor changes have been made toimprove reproduction quality.

Points ol view or opinions slates in thisdocument do nol necessarily representofficial OERI position or policy

NRRC NationalReading ResearchCenter

READING RESEARCH REPORT NO. 53

Spring 1996

BEST COPY AVAILABLE2

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NRRCNational Reading Research Center

Growth of Literacy Engagement: Changes inMotivations and Strategies During

Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction

John T. GuthriePeggy Van Meter

Ann Dacey McCannAllen Wigfield

University of Maryland College Park

Lois BennettCarol C. Poundstone

Mary Ellen RiceCalverton Elementary School

Prince George's County, Maryland

Frances M. FaibischBrian Hunt

Ann M. MitchellCatherine T. Reed Elementary SchoolPrince George's County, Maryland

READING RESEARCH REPORT NO. 53Spring 1996

The work reported herein is a National Reading Research Project of the University of Georgiaand the 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.

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NRRC NationalReading ResearchCenter

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

Jamie Lynn Metsala, Interim Associate DirectorUniversity of Maryland College Park

Nancy B. Mizelle, Assistant DirectorUniversity of Georgia

Penny OldfatherUniversity of Georgia

John F. O'FlahavanUniversity of Maryland College Park

James V. HoffmanUniversity of Texas at Austin

Cynthia R. HyndUniversity of Georgia

Robert SerpellUniversity of Maryland Baltimore County

Betty ShockleyClarke County School District, Athens, Georgia

Linda DeGroffUniversity of Georgia

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 GeorgiaResearch HighlightsWilliam G. HollidayUniversity of Maryland College Park

Policy BriefsJames V. HoffmanUniversity of Texas at Austin

VideosShawn M. Glynn, University of Georgia

NRRC StaffBarbara F. Howard, Office ManagerKathy B. Davis, 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 Depadment of Public Instruction

Carl A. GrantUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison

Walter KintschUniversity of Colorado at Boulder

Robert L. LinnUniversity of Colorado at Boulder

Luis C. MollUniversity of Arizona

Carol M. SantaSchool District No. 5Kalispell, Montana

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

Louise Cherry WilkinsonRutgers University

Production EditorKatherine P. HutchisonUniversity of Georgia

Dissemination CoordinatorJordana E. RichUniversity of Georgia

Text FormatterAnn Marie VanstoneUniversity of Georgia

NRRC - University of Georgia318 AderholdUniversity of GeorgiaAthens, Georgia 30602-7125(706) 542-3674 Fax: (706) 542-3678INTERNET: [email protected]

NRRC - University of Maryland College Park3216 J. M. Patterson BuildingUniversity of MarylandCollege Park, Maryland 20742(301) 405-8035 Fax: (301) 314-9625INTERNET: [email protected]

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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 Univer-sity 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,lifelong readers. NRRC researchers are 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 diversecultural and socioeconomic backgrounds in pre-kinder-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 instructionon comprehension and critical thinking in literature,science, and history; the influence of innovative groupparticipation structures on 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 efliteracy, how they use knowledge from research, andhow they approach change in the classroom is crucial toimproving instruction. To further this understanding,the NRRC conducts school-based research in whichteachers explore their own philosophical and pedagogi-cal orientations and trace their professional growth.

Dissemination is an important feature of NRRCactivities. Information on NRRC research appears inseveral formats. Research Reports communicate theresults of original research or synthesize the findings ofseveral lines of inquiry. They are written primarily forresearchers studying various areas of reading andreading instruction. The Perspective Series presents awide range 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 Center318 Aderhold HallUniversity of GeorgiaAthens, GA 30602-7125(706) 542-3674

John T. Guthrie, Co-DirectorNational Reading Research Center3216 J. M. Patterson BuildingUniversity of MarylandCollege Park, MD 20742(301) 405-8035

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NRRC Editorial Review Board

Peter AfflerbachUniversity of Maryland College Park

Jane AgeeUniversity of Georgia

JoBeth AllenUniversity of Georgia

Janice F. AhnasiUniversity of Buffalo-SUNY

Patty AndersUniversity of Arizona

Harriette ArringtonUniversity of Kentucky

Marlia BanningUniversity of Utah

Jill BartoliElizabethtown College

Eurydice BauerUniversity of Georgia

Janet BentonBowling Green, Kentucky

Irene BlumPine Springs Elementary School

Falls Church, Virginia

David BloomeAmherst College

John BorkowskiNotre Dame University

Fenice BoydUniversity of Georgia

Karen BromleyBinghamton University

Martha CarrUniversity of Georgia

Suzanne ClewellMontgomery County Public Schools

Rockville, Maryland

Joan ColeyWestern Maryland College

Michelle CommeyrasUniversity of Georgia

Linda CooperShaker Heights City Schools

Shaker Heights, Ohio

Karen CostelloConnecticut Department of Education

HarOrd, Connecticut

Jim CunninghamGibsonville, North Carolina

Karin DahlOhio State University

Marcia DelanyWilkes County Public Schools

Washington, Georgia

Lynne Diaz-RicoCalifornia State University-San

Bernardino

Ann Egan-RobertsonAmherst College

Jim FloodSan Diego State University

Dana FoxUniversity of Arizona

Linda GambrellUniversity of Maryland College Park

Mary GrahamMcLean, Virginia

Rachel GrantUniversity of Maryland College Park

Barbara GuzzettiArizona State University

Frances HancockConcordia College of Saint Paul,

Minnesota

Kathleen HeubachUniversity of Georgia

Sally Hudson-RossUniversity of Georgia

Cynthia HyndUniversity of Georgia

Gay IveyUniversity of Georgia

David JardineUniversity of Calgary

Robert JimenezUniversity of Oregon

Michelle KellyUniversity of Utah

James KingUniversity of South Florida

Kate KirbyGwinnett County Public Schools

Lawrenceville, Georgia

Linda LabboUniversity of Georgia

MIchael LawUniversity of Georgia

Donald T. LeuSyracuse University

Susan LytleUniversity of Pennsylvania

Bert ManginoLas Vegas, Nevada

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Susan MazzoniBaltimore, Maryland

Ann Dacey McCannUniversity of Maryland College Park

Sarah McCartheyUniversity of Texas at Austin

Veda McClainUniversity of Georgia

Lisa McFallsUniversity of Georgia

Randy McGinnisUniversity of Maryland

Mike McKennaGeorgia Southern University

Barbara MichaloveFowler Drive Elementary School

Athens, Georgia

Elizabeth B. MojeUniversity of Utah

Lesley MorrowRutgers University

Bruce MurrayUniversity of Georgia

Susan NeumanTemple University

John O'FlahavanUniversity of Maryland College Park

Marilyn Ohlhausen-McKinneyUniversity of Nevada

Penny OldfatherUniversity of Georgia

Barbara M. PalmerMount Saint Mary's College

Stephen PhelpsBuffalo State College

Mike PickleGeorgia Southern University

Amber T. PrinceBerry College

Gaoyin QianLehman College-CUNY

Tom ReevesUniversity of Georgia

Lenore RinglerNew York University

Mary RoeUniversity of Delaware

Nadeen T. RuizCalifornia State University-

Sacramento

Olivia SarachoUniversity of Maryland College Park

Paula SchwanenflugelUniversity of Georgia

Robert SerpellUniversity of Maryland Baltimore

County

Betty ShockleyFowler Drive Elementary School

Athens, Georgia

Wayne H. SlaterUniversity of Maryland College Park

Margaret SmithLas Vegas, Nevada

Susan SonnenscheinUniversity of Maryland Baltimore

County

Bernard SpodekUniversity of Illinois

Bettie St. PierreUniversity of Georgia

Steve StahlUniversity of Georgia

Roger StewartUniversity of Wyoming

Anne P. SweetOffice of Educational Research

and Improvement

Louise TomlinsonUniversity of Georgia

Bruce VanSledrightUniversity of Maryland College Park

Barbara WalkerEastern Montana University-Billings

Louise WaynantPrince George's County Schools

Upper Marlboro, Maryland

Dera WeaverAthens Academy

Athens, Georgia

Jane WestAgnes Scott College

Renee WeisburgElkins Park, Pennsylvania

Allen WigfieldUniversity of Marylud College Park

Shelley WongUniversity of Maryland College Park

Josephine Peyton YoungUniversity of Georgia

Hallic YuppCalifornia State University

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About the Authors

John T. Guthrie is a Professor of Human Developmentat the University of Maryland College Park, and Co-Director of the National Reading Research Center(NRRC). The Center conducts studies of reading,writing, science and history learning, assessment andprofessional development. Prior to this position, Dr.Guthrie headed the University of Maryland's Center forEducational Research and Development. Dr. Guthriewas formerly the Director of Research for theInternational Reading Association 1974-1984. Hereceived his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois inEducational Psychology. In 1992, the National ReadingConference awarded him the Oscar Causey Award foroutstanding contributions to reading research. He is aFellow in the American Psychological Association,American Psychological Society, the National Council ofResearch in English, and was elected to the Reading Hallof Fame in 1994. Dr. Guthrie's interests are literacydevelopment and environments for learning.

Peggy Van Meter is an educational psychology in-structor in the Department of Educational and SchoolPsychology and Special Education at Pennsylvania StateUniversity where she teaches courses in educationalpsychology and reading. Her research interests are incognition and learning , including text comprehension andlearning in classroom settings. At the time of thisresearch, she was a research assistant in the NationalReading Research Center at the University of Maryland.She can be contacted at the-Department of Educationaland School Psychology and Special Education, Pennsyl-vania State University, University Park, PA 16802.

Ann Dacey McCann is a graduate assistant at theNational Reading Research Center. She is currentlypursuing an M.Ed. and elementary teaching certificate inthe Department of Curriculum and Instruction at theUniversity of Maryland. Her research interests includedesigning and evaluating learning contexts that fosterliteracy engagement through interdisciplinary teaching.She may be contacted at National Reading ResearchCenter, 3216 J. M. Patterson Building, University ofMaryland, Coliege Park, MD 20742.

Allen Wigfield is an associate professor in the De-partment of Human Development at the University ofMaryland College Park. His research interests includethe development and socialization of Children's moti-vation and achievement-related beliefs and attitudes. He

received his Ph.D. in educational psychology from theUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He can becontacted at the Department of Human Development,University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742.

Lois Bennett is a fifth-grade teacher at Calvertonelementary School in Prince George's County, MD. Shehas been a classroom teacher fol. 21 years. She began hercollaboration on the CORI project with the NRRC in1992.

Carol C. Poundstone is a classroom teacher with thePrince George's County schools in Maryland. She iscurrently workitig with the National Reading ResearchCenter at the University of Maryland on a projectdesigned to teach reading using an integrated scienceconcept approach. She can be contacted at CalvertonElementary School, 3400 Beltsville, MD 20705.

Mary Ellen Rice is a reading specialist at CalvertonElementary School, Prince George's County, MD. Shetaught in the primary grades for nine years and receivedher master's degree in reading education from BowieState University. Currently, she works with studentsexperiencing reading difficulties and collaborates withclassroom teachers and NRRC researchers on the CORIproject. She can be reached at Calverton ElementarySchool, 3400 Beltsville Road, Beltsville, MD 20705.

Frances M. Faibisch is a reading specialist at CatherineT. Reed Elementary School. During her 24 years ofteaching experience she has taught in first through ninthgrades. After earning a master's degree in reading fromBowie State University, she has devoted her teachingcareer to the teaching of reading. She has been involvedwith CORI for the past three years.

Brian Hunt is a sixth-grade teacher at Catherine T.Reed Elementary School. He has taught in the PrinceGeorge's County public schools for 27 years. He isresponsible for coordinating the computer and scienceprograms at his school. He can be contacted at CatherineT. Reed Elementary School, 9501 Greenbelt Road,Lanham, MD 20706.

Ann M. Mitchell is a primary teacher at Catherine T.Reed Elementary School. She has taught second, fourth,and third grades for the last 27 years. She became amember of the CORI program in 1993.

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National Reading Research CenterUniversities of Georgia and MarylandReading Research Report No. 53Spring 1996

Growth of Literacy Engagement: Changes inMotivations and Strategies During

Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction

John T. GuthriePeggy Van Meter

Ann Dacey McCannAllen Wigfield

University of Maryland College Park

Lois BennettCarol C. Poundstone

Mary Ellen RiceCalverton Elementary School

Prince George's County, Maryland

Frances M. FaibischBrian Hunt

Ann M. MitchellCatherine T. Reed Elementary SchoolPrince George's County, Maryland

Abstract. This study describes changes in literacyengagement during one year of Concept-OrientedReading Instruction (CORI), a new approach toteaching reading, writing, and science. Literacyengagement was defined as the integration of intrin-sic motivations, cognitive strategies, and conceptuallearning from text. To promote literacy engagementin classrooms, our team designed and implementedCORI in 2 third-grade and 2 fifth-grade classroomsin two schools. One hundred forty students partici-pated in an integrated reading/language arts-science

1

program, which emphasized "real world" scienceobservations, student self-direction, strategy instruc-tion, collaborative learning, self-expression, andcoherence of literacy learning experiences. Tradebooks replaced basals and science textbooks. Basedon I-week performance assessments in the fall andspring, students gained in the following higher-orderstrategies: searching multiple texts, representingknowledge, transferring concepts, comprehendinginformational text, and interpreting narrative.Children's intrinsic motivations for literacy corre-

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2 Guthrie et al.

lated with cognitive strategies at .8 for grade 5and .7 for grade 3. All students who increased inintrinsic motivation also increased in their use ofhigher-order strategies; and a sizable proportion(50%) of students who were stable or decreased inintrinsic motivation failed to progress in higher-order strategies. These findings were discussed interms of a conceptual framework that embracesmotivational, strategic, and conceptual aspects ofliteracy engagement.

Purposes

The main goal of this report is to describepatterns of change in literacy engagement dur-ing conceptually-oriented reading instruction.The first objective is to construct a theoreticalframework for understanding the developmentof literacy engagement. By "engagement" werefer to the integration of motivations andstrategies in literacy activities. In construct-ing the theoretical framework we integratework from the fields of motivation, literacy,and cognitive strategies. Because these areashave not been well integrated in the readingfield, we provide an extended description here.

The second and third objectives areinstructional and empirical. The second objec-tive was to create and sustain a classroomcontext that was designed to promote literacyengagement. Generated collaboratively withteachers over a two-year period, this contexthas been termed "Concept-Oriented ReadingInstruction (CORI)." We induced the essentialdimensions of the instructional framework froma variety of observational, interview, andvideotape sources.

Our third objective was to describe pat-terns of change in motivation, strategy use,and conceptual learning capacity for studentsexperiencing CORI. To portray motivationalattributes and changes, we used a multi-method, descriptive approach. We have useda grounded theory approach to generate a set ofmotivational constructs, and then developedqaantifiable measures of them. To describe thestrategic and conceptual aspects of literacyengagement, we built a coding rubric thatcharacterizes the quality of children's perfor-mance in a performance assessment. Thisrubric enabled us to quantify our groundedcategories of strategic and conceptual learning.We have used this multi-method, descriptiveapproach in order to enhance the explanatorycoherence (Thagard, 1989) of our account ofchanges in literacy engagement. This descrip-tive study, in other words, is a deliberatecombination of qualitative and quantitativemethods to address our objectives.

Theoretical Framework for ReadingEngagement

Motivations for Reading

Central to our investigation is the con-struct of reading engagement, which refers tothe joint functioning of motivations and strate-gies during reading (Newman, Wehlage, &Lamborn, 1992). An engaged reader choosesto read for a vark cy of purposes and compre-hends the materials that s/he selected within thecontext of the situation. Engaged readers areself-determining (Deci, Vallerand, Pelletier, &Ryan, 1991) in the sense that they elect a wide

NATIONAL READING RESEARCH CENTER, READING RESEARCH REPORT NO. 53

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Growth of Literacy Engagement 3

range of literacy activities for aesthetic enjoy-ment, gaining knowledge, and interacting withfriends. They are motivated to read for its ownsake, and these motivations activate the self-regulation of higher-order strategies for learn-ing through literacy (Dole, Duffy, Roehler, &Pearson, 1991).

In our engagement perspective, motiva-tions for reading are seen as internalized goalsthat lead to literacy choices and comprehensionstrategies (Pintrich & Schrauben, 1992). Inthis goal-oriented view, motivations may beregarded as "reasons for reading." Students'goals can be classified as intrinsic or extrinsic.Intrinsic motivation refers to the "performanceof activities for their own sake in whichpleasure is inherent in the activity itself'(Gottfried, 1985). Students who are intrinsi-cally motivated have an inherent interest inwhat they are reading and enjoy figuring outthe meanings for themselves. When asked thequestion "Why are you reading this text?",students who are intrinsically motivated to readwill answer "to learn how butterflies migrate"(curiosity goal) or "because the mystery was soexciting" (involvement). The motivationalgoals of curiosity and involvement are intrin-sic. Extrinsic motivation refers to motivationthat comes from outside the learner. Studentswho are more extrinsically motivated prefer toplease the teacher, perform easier readingtasks, and are dependent on the guidance ofothers. Thus, when asked the question "Whyare you reading this text?" , extrinsicallymotivated students might answer "because theteacher assigned it" (compliance) or "becauseI wanted to get a sticker" (recognition).Although some researchers (e.g., Harter,

Whitesell, & Kowalski, 1992) propose thatmotivations fall on a continuum from intrinsicto extrinsic implying that they are negativelycorrelated, other investigators such as Wentzel(1991) report that students may possess multi-ple motivational goals simultaneouslysomeof which are intrinsic and some extrinsic.We believe students have multiple goals forreading.

Furthermore, children's motivations ap-pear to be domain-specific (Wigfield & Har-old, 1992). Students may be intrinsicallymotivated to read but not to do math, and viceversa. Gottfried (1985) found that intrinsicmotivations_ for reading predicted students'perceptions of their own competence in read-ing, but intrinsic motivation in reading did notpredict perceptions of competence in math orscience. Relationships among motivationallyoriented constructs are specific to particularcontent areas.

Within reading, further distinctionsamong types of motivations can be made. Thediversity of motivations for reading is beingexplored by Wigfield (1994) with a combina-tion of methods including open-ended inter-views, and factor analysis of self-report datafrom student questionnaires. He reported cleardistinctions among several intrinsic motivationsincluding curiosity, aesthetic involvement,importance of reading, challenge, social inter-action, and self-efficacy, as well as severalrelatively more extrinsic motivations such asrecognition, grades, competition, compliance,and work-avoidance (Wigfield, 1994). Describ-ing how these different types of motivationalgoals influence reading strategies is the topic ofthe next section.

NATIONAL READING RESEARCH CENTER, READING RESEARCH REPORT NO. 53

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4 Guthrie et al.

Cognitive Strategies for Reading

Numerous studies have shown how certaincognitive strategies facilitate reading perfor-mance (Dole et al., 1991). Although we expectthat motivation will influence the large majorityof higher-order cogniti i. reading strategies, weemphasize some but not all of them in thisstudy. Our intrinsic-motivational perspective onreading places an emphasis on students' questfor information that they define as important.Cognitive strategies that are needed for thisquest include: problem finding (Collins-Block,1992), search for information (Armbruster &Armstrong, 1993), applying prior knowledgeto text (Anderson & Pearson, 1984), emphasiz-ing the acquisition of main ideas and generatinginferences from text (Dole et al., 1991), self-monitoring (Baker & Brown, 1984), and thecomprehension of narrative text (Graesser,Golding, & Long, 1991), as well as informa-tional materials. These strategies have beenshown to distinguish good from poor readersand to increase with chronological age. Thecoordination and integration of these strate-gies into a flexible repertoire is necessary forsustained use of the strategies in classrooms(Collins-Block, 1992; Pressley et al., 1992).As a consequence, we examined the strength ofthe individual strategies and the extent to whichthey become more coordinated across timeduring a year of instruction.

Although in the motivational literature alink between intrinsic motivations and the useof higher-order cognitive strategies has beenestablished (e.g., Pintrich & DeGroot, 1990),the use of a strategy is not the end-point of aliteracy activity. The end-point for many liter-acy activities is conceptual learning. Concepts

and ideas within text are the targets forstudents intentional processes and cognitivestrategies. Although strategies are invaluableinstruments, students' motivations are directedto the conceptual content, and the substance oftext. Thus, we also emphasized conceptuallearning in the instructional program.

Motivations for Strategy-Use in Reading

Relationships between motivations andstrategies have been explicated by Corno andKanfer (1993), Covington (1992), and Ford(1992). Corno and Kanfer (1993) assert thatmotivations consist of goals and intentions.However, Corno and Kanfer (1993) also em-phasize the importance of volitional strategiesthat enable individuals to fulfill their motiva-tional goals. They argue that without volition,individuals' intentions may not be realizedin action. Following Kuhl (1985), Corno andKanfer discuss a number of volitional pro-cesses. These include, first, action controlprocesses, which empower the individual tomanage cognitive and meta-cognitive resourcesfor goal attainment. Second, goal-relatedcognitions form the basis for adaptive use oflearning strategies, well-timed application ofdeep processing, self-monitoring, and self-evaluation. Finally, volitional styles such asconscientiousness , independence, and responsi-bility influence how strategies are used andregulated.

Corno (1993) asserts that volitional strate-gies are not merely energized by motivations,but more importantly, these strategies arecontingent on different kinds of motivations.For example, when motivations possess per-sonal significance, they are intrinsic and will

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be associated with higher-level strategies. Incontrast, a student who wishes to receiverecognition for reading may not necessarily beconcerned with understanding or enjoying thecontent of a book or story. This student willattempt to be perceived as competent and tocomply with the demands of the teacher consci-entiously. But the student may not read onhis/her own, share books with friends, orpursue difficult tasks that are not assigned.Some motivations, such as fear of failure, maylead to strategies of low goal setting, avoidanceof risk, and minimal effort. These strategiesmay help a student fulfill the intention ofavoiding failure, but will not foster deep com-prehension or extended reading for personalinitiative. We expect that students who possessintrinsic motivations for reading will workindependently, show responsibility, and consci-entiously translate their intentions into actions.Thus motivational and volitional systems workin close association, and exploring their jointfunctioning during reading was one of thepurposes of this study.

Relationships between students' motiva-tions and their use of reading strategies duringlearning have been examined by several inves-tigators. Pintrich and De Groot (1990) con-ducted a study of 173 grade-7 students fromscience and English classrooms. The studentsresponded to a self-report questionnaire assess-ing student motivation, cognitive strategy use,and the management of effort. The motivationsof intrinsic value and self-efficacy stronglypredicted students' uses of strategies. Intrinsicvalue was measured with statements such as thefollowing: "It is important for me to learn whatis being taught in this class"; "I like what I amlearning in this class"; "I think what I am

learning in this class is useful for me toknow." Self-efficacy was measured with suchstatements as: "I expect to do very well in thisclass"; "I am certain I can understand the ideastaught in this course"; "Compared to otherstudents in this class, I think I know a greatdeal about the subject." Both intrinsic valueand self-efficacy predicted self-regulation ofstrategies which was measured with such itemsas: "I ask myself questions to make sure Iknow the material I have been studying";"Before I begin studying I think about thethings I will need to do to learn"; "When I'mreading I stop once in awhile and go over whatI have read." Intrinsic value correlated .73with self-regulation, and self-efficacy corre-lated .44 with self-regulation. In addition,intrinsic value and self-efficacy predictedstudent level of performance on grades, seatwork, quizzes, essays, and reports.

Meece, Blumenfeld, and Hoyle (1988)also found that intrinsic motivation predictsstudents' cognitive strategy-use in scienceclassrooms. They examined students' orienta-tion to task mastery, which referred to interestin learning rather than interest in demonstratingcompetence to the teacher or other students.They measured task mastery by having thechild respond to such statements as "I want tolearn something new" and "I felt involved inmy work." They asked students to reply to aquestionnaire on their use of cognitive strate-gies, containing such statements as "I askedmyself some questions as I went along to makesure the work made sense to me." Students'motivations for task mastery correlated .63with their use of cognitive strategies whenseveral other motivational constructs werestatistically controlled. Finn and Cox (1992)

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added gmerality to the relationship of motiva-tion and strategy-use by reporting that studentswho were intrinsically motivated in a learningsituation were more likely to have high stan-dardized achievement test scores in readingthan students who were less intrinsicallymotivated .

The reciprocity of motivation and cogni-tion during reading includes the effects ofstrategy learning on motivation levels. Schunkand Rice (1985) reported that learning a strategyfor reading increased students' reading self-efficacy. Students who were taught to verbalizea strategy for comprehension increased theirbeliefs in their personal capabilities forsuccessful performance of a particular task.The authors concluded that "training studentsto use self-regulated learning strategies such asself-verbalization improves their perception ofefficacy, motivation, and learning" (p. 197).Zimmerman, Bandura, and Martinez-Pons(1993) confirmed that possessing strategies forlearning increased students' aspirations. Theyreported that students who had high self-efficacy for the strategies of summarizing,outlining, and taking notes were likely to sethigher academic goals than students with lowerself-efficacy for these strategies. The basicpurposes of strategies have not been addressedin this paper. One purpose that is prevalentfrom grade 3 to 12 is conceptual learning frominformational text, which is considered next.

Conceptual Learning from Text

Concepts can be defined as rule-basedmental representations (Holland, Holyoak,Nisbett, & Thagard, 1986). When a studentunderstands a concept, sThe has abstracted

critical features from the observable world andconstructed sensible relationships among thosefeatures. For example, a student who under-stands the concept that an owl is a predatorybird knows that the owl has structures of thewing and the claw that permit it to fly andcapture prey. For young children (Keil, 1987)and adults (Neisser, 1987), concepts expandthrough the addition of particular features,differentiation of features from each other, andthe elaboration of the relations among thesefeatures. Holland et al. (1986) expressedconceptual growth in terms of the acquisitionof four types of rules (categorical, associative,predictor, and effector rules) for connectingobjects and events in the real world:The use ofthese rules permits transfer of knowledge fromone situation to another. Although prior knowl-edge can occasionally interfere (Chinn &Brewer, 1993), conceptual learning is usuallymore flexible and adaptable than the learningof isolated facts. Concepts can be elaborated,interconnected and transferred to new situa-tions. Because conceptual learning entails thedevelopment of relations that have personalsignificance, it is reasonable that deep concep-tual learning from text will be interwoven withintrinsic motivations for reading (Head &Sutton, 1985; Pintrich, Marx, & Boyle, 1993).

Motivations for Conceptual Learning from Text

When motivations for reading are viewedas goals and commitments toward learningthrough literacy activities, the relationship ofmotivation to conceptual learning becomesapparent. Students who have a commitment tounderstand the content of an instructional unitand find the text inherently intriguing are likely

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to acquire a deeper understanding of the con-tent than students who possess different kindsof commitments. Students whose motivationsare more extrinsic, such as working just tocomplete an assignment or gain recognition forgood performance, are likely to engage in rotelearning and gain verbatim knowledge ratherthan a fully integrated conceptual understand-ing (Pintrich et al., 1993). Thus, it can beexpected that intrinsic motivations will yieldhigher levels of conceptual learning than willmore extrinsically oriented motivations.

In support of this view, Lee and Anderson(1993) reported exactly this pattern in an in-depth study of grade-12 students in two scienceclassrooms. From field notes of classroomobservations, they identified four types ofmotivation among students in these classrooms:(1) intrinsically motivated; (2) motivated;(3) task-avoidant; and (4) task resistant. Intrin-sically motivated students "engaged" in class-room tasks with the goal of achieving betterunderstanding of science in specific situations.As they attempted to understand, these individ-uals integrated their personal knowledge withscience knowledge presented in the classroomand applied their knowledge to describing,explaining, and predicting the world aroundthem. Students who were intrinsically moti-vated initiated their own learning activities,enjoyed asking conceptual questions, madeconnections among topics in a variety of les-sons, and displayed high scientific interest.Notably, these students gained elaborate,explanatory understandings of the scienceconcepts being taught in the curriculum. Asecond group of students was motivated tolearn, but was not as intrinsically oriented.These students did not initiate their own activi-

ties and displayed little interest; although,they did complete tasks and assignments. Theygained rudimentary knowledge of the sciencefacts, but did not integrate higher-order rela-tions or gain a grasp of science principles .

The task-avoidant students were inattentive,uninvolved, and not inclined to learn. Theyasked few questions, did not complete tasksfully, and gained relatively little conceptualunderstanding. Task-resistant students weredisruptive, noisy, contrary, showing a dislikefor science, and a disinterest in the class andthe learning situation. This group gained noconceptual understanding nor did they showany forms of verbatim learning. In thisinvestigation, students who were intrinsicallymotivated appeared to gain conceptual knowl-edge of science principles, whereas studentswho were compliant with the instructionalsituation gained rudimentary and functionalknowledge but not fully elaborated conceptualunderstanaings. The two negatively motivatedgroups, the task-avoidant and task-resistant,were detached from instruction, did not uselearning strategies, and did not learn thestructures and functions needed to formhigher-order conceptual understandings of thecontent. This study clearly shows that themotivations that students bring to the text andthe classroom are associated with conceptuallearning.

In addition to motivational orientations ofstudents, topic-based interests also influenceconceptual learning from text (see Alexander,Kulikowich, & Jetton, 1994 for detailed discus-sion). For instance, Hidi and Anderson (1992)investigated the characteristics of particulartexts that affected how interesting they were tostudents, and that led to increased conceptual

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understanding. Fourth and sixth graders readthree different types of texts about inventors.The first type of text contained high action,strong character identification, novelty, andreal-Efe themes related to the experiences ofstudents. The second type of text containedadditional description and elaboration on thethemes, and the third type presented newinformation that was intended to peak theinterest of students. Students showed thehighest interest ratings and conceptual recallfor the high action, life-theme texts. Studentsalso showed extremely high recall on explicitdescriptions of activities or scenes such as howto build an igloo, and how to make a model ofa globe from an orange. Although Hidi andAnderson (1992) did not control the variablesof background knowledge and intelligence inthe relationship of interest and text understand-ing, Schiefele (1992) did introduce these con-trols in his study of interest and comprehensionin college students. Schiefele (1992) reportedthat students' ratings of interest for text pre-dicted their level of conceptual understandingof the text only if students experienced feelingsof enjoyment, involvement, or personal signifi-cance of the topic. This leads us to concludethat text-based interest evoked intrinsic motiva-tions of involvement, enjoyment, and personalsignificance which then generated increasedconceptual understanding of text.

ContextualReading

Influences on Motivations for

Although students come to school withmotivational orientations that are developedduring the preschool years (Deci, 1980), thedifferent contexts of instruction also greatly

influence student motivations as they gothrough school (Ames, 1992). Previous researchsuggests that contexts which increase intrinsicmotivation will be socially interactive, withfreedom for the learner (Blumenfeld, 1992;Turner, in press), providing strategic tools forlearning (Guthrie, Mc Gough, Bennett, & Rice,1996), and "real-world" literacy tasks (Newby,1991). However, relatively few investigatorshave attempted to implement and then describeextended, instructional contexts (Stevenson &Carr, 1993) that are designed to enhanceintrinsic motivation for literacy. One exceptionis Covington (1992), who reported that a"global gambit" project eni.:anced intrinsicmotivation of grade-9 students in a socialscience class. In the project, students studiedglobal warming by observing temperatures andcomparing them to temperatures of one centuryago and measuring the effects of acid rain onlocal statues. Students proceeded to read vora-ciously and monitor their learning as theyaddressed problems of global warming. Inaddition, Blumenfeld et al. (1991) proposed the"project-based" approach to instruction, inwhich students collaborate to create an artifactsuch as a diorama or a chart to display theirlearning. Although these approaches holdpromise, neither author presented clear evi-dence on the growth of intrinsic motivation.

One of the objectives of the projectdescribed in this report was to design anddescribe a classroom instructional programthat would enable teachers to enhance thedevelopment of reading engagement. Weexpected that CORI would enhance intrinsicmotivations for reading through several pro-cesses. First, teachers initiated the instructionwith concrete observational experiences. As

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students interact with concrete objects andevents, they activate their senses of seeing,hearing, feeling, and smelling. These sense-perceptions generate a vivid interest in theobjects and events. As students become fasci-nated, they naturally experience a sense ofwonder and an urge to know more. Questionsspontaneously erupt. Curiosity is ignited. Asstudents express their need to know throughasking questions and formulating thoughtsaloud, motivation is further enhanced. Thesequestions forr the basis for conceptual learn-ing. If students' questions and curiosities canbe satisfied through literacy activities of read-ing books, writing journals, and drawing, thestarting point for sustained conceptual learningis reached. From this point, the context mustafford students the opportunity to satisfy theirmotivational goals by providing appropriatematerials, time, and social support for partici-pating in a range of literacy activities. Asliteracy enables students to understand the topicand share their understanding with peers,intrinsic motivation will be extended, refined,and regenerated.

In sum, concept-oriented instruction cre-ates the occasion for growth of literacy engage-ment, including motivations and strategies.Because the purpose of this investigation wasto describe the nature of growth in literacyengagement, we did not compare students whoreceived CORI to a control group.

Questions for this Study

Several authors (e.g., Blumenfeki, 1992;Graham & Golan, 1991; Zimmerman & Marti-nez-Ponz, 1992) have pointed to the need forstudies that explore how intrinsic motivations

and strategies for learning influence each otheracross time in actual classroom settings. Forinstance, Blumenfeld (1992) suggested that weneed to examine how qualities of a task such asvariety and challenge, relate to motivationalprocesses across time. Graham and Golan(1991) said that "we think that a systematicmapping of distinct motivational states untoparticular sets of cognitive processes is a usefuland needed step toward the goal of greaterconceptual clarity in motivation research."Zimmerman & Martinez-Ponz (1992) notedthat "researchers need to undertake microanal-ysis of the role of self-efficacy at numerouspoints before, during, and after various strate-gic efforts to learn" (p. 201). Jagacinski (1992)concluded that "research is needed that exam-ines how differences in achieving orientationsinteract with situational demands" (p. 321). Inkeeping with these recommendations, we haveused the following questions as guides for thepresent study:

1. Which aspects of literacy engagementincrease during Concept-Oriented ReadingInstruction?

2. Were the increases in literacy engagementeducationally significant?

3. How highly correlated were intrinsicmotivation and engagement in the spring?

4. How do changes in intrinsic motivationrelate to changes in literacy engagement?

5. How do changes in intrinsic motivation,amount and breadth of reading, and voli-tional strategies relate to each other?

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Method

To address these questions, we imple-menml an instructional program that wasdesigned to enhance literacy engagement,charting the growth of students from fall tospring as they participated. Our description ofgrowth was both quantitative and qualitative.The qualitative cases are selected for typicality(Erickson, 1986) to exemplify group trends;and the quantitative analyses are performed toassure that the conclusion about the growth ofliteracy engagement were warranted for thepopulation of students, as well as individualswithin the populations (see a fuller rationale forthis approach in Brown, 1992).

Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction: AnOverview

The Concept-Oriented Reading Instructionprogram was a yearlong instructional designthat was implemented in four classrooms in twoelementary schools. A major purpose of theprogram was to increase students' engagementin literacy and science. The program wasdesigned in collaboration with teachers andreading specialists in two elementary schools.The instructional framework contained fourphases: observe and personalize, search andretrieve, comprehend and integrate, and com-municate to others. Examples of the activitiesare given for third grade only, due to limita-tions of space.

Observe and personalize. Our first step inengaging students in literacy was to provideopportunities to observe concrete objects andevents in their natural world. Observing naturalobjects such as a tree, flower, cricket, caterpil-

lar, bird nest, or feather was intriguing. Afterexperiencing an initial fascination with tangi-ble, concrete objects students began to wonder,and to ask questions that lead to conceptualinterests. Siudents brainstormed and explicitlystated the questions they wanted to explorewith additional observations, data collecting,reading, writing, and discussion. Observing the"real world" was a point of departure forextended literacy, and it provided a frame ofreference that enabled students to select read-ing and writing activities, and to self-monitortheir pursuits.

Grade-3 classrooms studied the adaptationof animals to their environments beginningwith a 12-week unit on birds. By observingbird nests, attempting to build a bird nest,drawing feathers, Tecording behavior at feedingstations, simulating the crop of a bird in aclassroom experiment, and visiting a display ofstuffed birds, students gained a long-livedcuriosity, according to teacher reports. Stu-dents kept journals of their observations andone student reported that:

"We built our nest with leaves, grasssticks and twigs. Mud too. But first welooked for each of these things at theplayground. Clay was to stick our nesttogether because if we didn't have clayour nest would break. We called the claymud. I learned that its hard to make anest unless you really try to. I learnedthat birds have a hard time making nestsbut we read a book that helped us learnand I found out that if you try with agroup it might be easy. And you mightmake a lot of friends."

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Students personalized their interest inlearning about birds and their environments bywriting questions both as teams and individu-als. Questions were placed on the classroomwalls, forming the cornerstone of a coherentsequence of learning activities that connectedscience with language arts activities. Studentswere excited and gratified by having theirquestions legitimated and publicly displayed.Grade-3 science goal& included: observing,gathering, and recording data; recognizingpatterns; comparing; and understanding thatscience knowledge is explanatory. Sciencecontent in grade-3 emphasized structural char-acteristics of birds such as peaks and feathers,and functional characteristics such as flying andfeeding that aid survival.

Search and retrieve. Teaching studentshow to search was fundamental to enablingthem to pursue their interests and answer thequestions they generated from observationalactivities. Students were encouraged to choosesubtopics for learning, and to search for books,resources, references, pictures, and explana-tions of the topics they chose. Initial searchesbegan with a question formulated by eachstudent after first-hand observations triggerednew ideas. Students began to wonder aboutnew concepts they had not previously consid-ered. They found their answers in the class-room books. Students were taught how to:search for books in the school library; locatebooks in the classroom; and use the table ofcontent, index, headings, and pictures asguides. Strategies for searching were taughtexplicitly through teacher modeling, peermodeling, teacher scaffolding, guided practice,and teamwork. Typically, teachers presented adirected lesson using a class set of one book for

all students, emphasizing book organization,relevance of information, appropriateness ofdetail, extensiveness of the search, and distin-guishing between facts, explanations, andopinions. Teams of students then explored theirgroup sets of information books and exchangedideas about how to search for ideas in them.

Third- and fifth-grade students weretaught four fundamental search processesthat have been identified by previous investi-gators (Armbruster & Armstrong 1993;Guthrie, Weber, & Kimmerly, 1993) including:(1) forming goals, which refers to knowingwhat you want to find or having an objectivefor the search activity; (2) categorizing, whichrefers to understanding how things are orga-nized; (3) extracting, which refers to findingcritical details, note taking, paraphrasing, andsummarizing within a book or resource; and(4) abstracting, which refers to synthesizing orputting ideas together and forming a generalunderstandirg. For 3-4 weeks in the middle ofeach unit, teachers addressed at least oneaspect of search daily for 15-30 min. Teachersmodeled each of these stages, students dis-cussed them in groups, and students recordedprogress toward each of them in their journals.

Comprehend and integrate. As studentsfollowed the interests they had generatedfrom their observational activities, theyidentified a wide range of texts and resourcesthat were relevant. The phase of "search andretrieve" yielded a rich reserve of inter-esting material, but the students faced thechallenge of comprehending and integrating.To help students in fully comprehending andintegrating the texts with their own previousknowledge, teachers emphasized: determin-ing the topic of a text selection, detecting

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critical details, summarizing the text, mak-ing comparisons between texts, relatingillustrations to text, developing criteria forevaluating a book, and critically reflectingon the organization of information and theauthor's point of view. Students also le,. -ledthat a novel or short story may address thesame topic as an information book, and willprovide a different experience of the theme.

Trade books were used exclusively. Basalreaders were not used for any purpose; andscience textbooks were used rarely for refer-ence. Grade-3 students began the year byreading Owl Moon by Yolen. At later points inthe unit, they read the novels White Bird byBulla and Wingman by Pinkwater, as well aspoetry on birds. Within these books teachersemphasized imagery, aesthetics of language,and characterization, as well as the traditionalconstituents of setting, plot, conflict, andresolut ion.

Third-graders were taught to use infor-mation books to pursue the interests theyformulated during the observing and personal-izing phase of instruction. Searches were firstconducted using teacher-generated questions.Later, students formulated their own questionsand found appropriate informational texts. Tohelp students comprehend books, teachersprovided explicit instruction in identifyingtopic, details, and writing summaries. Throughteacher modeling, peer modeling, and smallgroup discussion, students were providedinstruction in "fix-up" strategies, enablingstudents to: (1) use pictures, illustrations,diagrams, and graphs; (2) refer back to theirown questions; (3) look up vocabulary in anindex glossary or dictionary; (4) break text intoparts and put it back together; (5) ask peers and

teams; (6) form images about what they know;(7) reread the text in a new way; (8) slowdown or speed up; and (9) consult their ownbackground knowledge. In addition to compre-hension strategies, students were taught notetaking and critical reflection on informationfrom expository books. Students learned tocritique books using their own questions,interests, and topical knowledge as criteria forjudgement.

Communicate to others . In CORI, studentsbecome experts on the topic they have chosento learn about. As they gained knowledge,students wanted to express their understandingsto others. To foster this self-expression, teach-ers provided instruction that enabled studentsto present their understanding in many forms,including a written report, a class-authoredbook, dioramas, charts, and informationalstories. Teachers coached students in identify-ing their audience, organizing their messageto the audience, identifying critical details,and elaborating their writing. Students wereencouraged to express their understandings ina variety of coherent, persuasive, and accuratecommunications to classmates or other audi-ences of their choosing.

Grade-3 teachers invited students to makecharts about their observations about birds.One class created wall displays of the materialsfound in bird nests. Another class createdcharts of adaptive features such as beaks andfeet. Students wrote journals which wereshared with other students, and small class-room teams composed books on their favoritebird which were illustrated, covered, andshared with other teams.

Students in grade 5 composed imaginative,knowledge-rich tales about a day gecko, pray-

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ing mantis, wild horse, squirrel, and othercreatures. To support their writing, studentswere exposed to descriptive and figurativelanguage through books, such as Tuck Everlast-ing, Moon of the Chickapee, and poetry. Theywere encouraged to apply these writing stylesin their books. Informational stories were apopular art form for expressing interests andexchanging expertise.

Participants . One grade-3 and one grade-5teacher in one elementary school and onegrade-3 and one grade-5 teacher in anotherelementary school in a diverse suburban schooldistrict in the mid-Atlantic region volunteeredto embark on this venture, accompanied by onereading specialist in each school. Students were140 boys and girls who were a lower income,ethnically diverse population. These 140 stu-dents were all of the students in the four class-rooms; because the project was school-basedall children participated. The students wereAfrican American, Hispanic, Asian American,and Caucasian. A substantial portion of thestudents (35-60%) qualified for a free orreduced-fee lunch.

Design of the CORI Program. Preparationfor teaching CORI consisted of a summerworkshop of 8 half days held at the schoolswith the four teachers, two reading specialists,one university faculty member, and one gradu-ate student. The university faculty membercoordinated the summer workshoi; guidingeach teacher toward her own classroom design.He also supervised the graduate students incollecting data from the children. All of theinstruction was provided by the teachers whohad 10 or more years of experience in theprofession.

Performance Assessment of Engaged Reading

We conducted an assessment that wasdesigned to reflect a wide spectrum of motiva-tional and strategic literacy processes thatappeared in CORI. The assessment was intend-ed to generate data for addressing questions 1through 3. Our performance assessments weredesigned to enable students to perform sevendistinct but connected tasks: (1) statement ofprior knowledge, stating what they know aboutthe topic; (2) searching, finding resources andideas about the topic; (3) drawing, expressingwhat they have learned through drawing; (4)writing, communicating their learning throughcomposition; (5) conceptual transfer, address-ing a related problem using conceptual knowl-edge learned during the unit; (6) informationaltext comprehension, understanding an exposito-ry text related to the theme; and (7) narrativeinterpretation, understanding and responding toa literary text on the theme of the unit (seeAppendix A).

Performance on these tasks reflects the useof cognitive strategies. The assessment is alsoresponsive to motivations, because the tasksare open-ended and unspeeded, thus rewardingeffort, persistence, and elaboration. For exam-ple, in the search task, students were givenpackets. Each packet .was a 2-4 page text withillustrations and there were 12 (3rd grade) to14 (5th grade) packets in each booklet. Aquestion was presented to the student withinthe booklet. Students were free to use the tableof contents, index, headings, and illustrationsto locate information relevant to the question.The log of the search described which resourc-es were selected, the reasons for selectingthem, and the information they learned from

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reading. In addition, tasks are integrated into atheme, permitting students who are inclined tobe curious and involved to find an opportunityto fulfill these motivations. To reflect thesemotivations, the coding rubrics recognizeelaboration, extended work, and relevantexpressions of affect. The interest-value of theassessment was apparent as students in mostclasses asked to take the assessment home toshow their parents.

These assessments were conducted in thegrade-3 and grade-5 classrooms as instructionalunits lasting 4 to 6 days. Half of the studentstook one topic (owls for grade-3) and the otherhalf took a different topic (ponds for grade-3)in September 1993; and the topics were reversedin March 1994. Student responses were codedaccording to the rubric in Appendix B. Todetermine the level of interrater agreement,two raters examined the responses of sixgrade-3 students and six grade-5 students.Each rater gave a numerical rating to eachsection of the assessment for each student.Across all students and sections, the two ratershad 93% agreement. To chart growth, wecompared the peiformance of all students onthe seven measures on the counterbalancedtopics, which permitted us to see generalizedgains in literacy engagement.

Appraisal of Motivations for Literacy

To determine the nature of thc students'motivations for literacy, we interviewed 24students, 6 students from each classroom.These appraisals were intended to generate datafor addressing questions 3-5. Each teacherselected students to represent 2 highly engaged,2 moderately engaged, and 2 less engaged

readers. Each student yvas interviewed inOctober 1993 and March 1994. The interviewerfollowed a semi-structured, student-responsiveguideline and tape-recorded the dialogue.Transcripts were coded using an inductiveanalytic procedure (LeCompte, Priessle, &Tesch, 1993). Following Corno's (1993)framework of motivations and volitions, weformed a coding rubric. Motivations werecharacterized as goals for participating inliteracy events; strategies were the studentsactions or procedures to attain the motivationalgoals; and styles were characteristic modes ofparticipating in events (see Appendix C). Eachof the motivations, volitional strategies, andstyles was given a strength rating of 1 (low) to3 (high). High ratings reflected motivationalprocesses that were highly important, frequent,detailed, and occurring across contexts. Toexamine interrater agreement, one of theauthors and another independent person ratedtwo randomly selected transcripts on all ofthe categories in the rubric. Agreement was82 % for exact coding, and 89 % for adjacentcoding, in which rating within one number wasaccepted.

Findings

Question 1: Which Aspects of Literacy Engage-ment Increased During Concept-OrientedReading Instruction?

The performance assessment of ReadingLanguage-Arts was administered to all grade-3and grade-5 students in the fall and spring.Because each student took the assessment ondifferent topics in the fall and spring, thedifferences in student performance during the

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Table 1. Increases in Literacy Engagement during the year for fifth- and third-grade students.

Fifth Grade Third Grade

Fall Spring Fall Spring

Prior Knowledge 1.84 1.97 2.33 2.61

Search 2.10f 2.66f 2.74, 3.63,

Drawing 2.5; 3.09 2.33 2.42

Writing 2.46, 2.84, 2.50b 3.18b

Transfer 2.40 2.78 2.56, 3.09,

Informational 1.64h 236h 167d 2.25d

Narrative 3.56, 4.19, 2.88, 4.04,

Note. Cells sharing the same subscripted letter differ significantly.Possible score is 5.

two time periods represent changes in theprocesses of literacy engagement across differ-ent topics. As indicated in the Method section,the assessment contained tasks that requiredcognitive strategies in a situation that wassensitive to motivations. Table 1 presents theresults of the performance assessment. Prelimi-nary analyses showed very few differencesacross topics in each grade; therefore, wecollapsed across topics, and present the resultsthat way.

Prior knowledge. There were no differ-ences in prior knowledge at either grade level.

Search. As described in the Method sec-tion, this part of the assessment provided asubstantial, realistic opportunity for students tosearch for ideas in a collection of packets.Table 1 shows the gain in performances fromfall to spring, summed across both topics forthe two age groups. Although Table 1 contains

means and the statistical analyses werecomputed on means, we use medians to dis-cuss the findings because medians can bedirectly related to the rubric levels.

Grade-5 students began the year with amedian of 2 on this measure. As the rubricshows, a median of 2 indicated that thesestudents could locate at least two relevantpackets as well as some irrelevant ones. Theygave at least one clearly stated reason for theselection of a relevant packet and they wrotesimple, clear notes illustrating what they hadlearned from one of the selections. In thespring, the typical student progressed to a levelof 3 on the rubric which indicated that s/hecould identify three relevant packets and mayhave found several irrelevant ones. Appropri-ate reasons for selecting at least two of theresources were given. The increase reflects notonly a greater number of relevant packets that

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Bird Sample

Packet Why did you choose this packet? What did you learn from this packet?

D To see .how they hunt silent. I learned that and owl can turn hishead all the way round. It can eat askunk.

I I want to know how they kill. I learn that only small claws can killsnakes.

G I want to know what kind of birdeats fish.

I learn that a flamingo eats fish.

K I want to know how they talk toeach other.

I learned that . . .

B I want to know if a male hawk isbig.

I learned that a female hawk is bigger.

were selected, but also improvements in thenotes that were taken. Most prominently,students' notes showed an accumulation ofinformation gained during the search process,illustrating metacognitive awareness in a con-ceptually-driven search activity. Change overtime from fall to spring was analyzed quantita-tively with a paired samples t-test. The springscores were significantly higher than the fallscores, t(48) = 3.84, p < .001.

Grade-3 students made comparable prog-ress during the year of instruction. The typir.21learner gained one level moving from a score of3 to 4, which was statistically significant accord-ing to a paired samples t-test, t(45) = 4.56,p < .001. In the fall, grade-3 studentsperformed at a level of 3, indicating thatthey could locate two relevant packets ofinformation and very few irrelevant ones,

giving an appropriate reason for at least oneof their selections and sensible notes on oneof the packets. Progressing one level for-ward in the rubric meant that these studentswere capable in the spring of locating atleast three relevant packets, irrelevant pack-ets, and giving appropriate reasons for atleast two of their selections. Clear anddetailed notes for at least two selectionswere provided and irrelevant notes did notcontradict the other information in thesearch log. Again, these increased scoresdemonstrate that more packets were read andthe quality of notes improved. Note that thescores of grade 3 and gi ale 5 cannot becompared because the rubric levels arereferenced within-grade and not acrossgrades. A sample of spring search logs forboth ow/s and ponds is shown here.

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This shows grade-3 strategies for search inthe spring (level 3).

Drawing. This was a measure of ability torepresent conceptual understanding throughdrawing . Grade-5 students began the fall ata median of 2, which indicated that theygenerally included appropriate objects or partsof a system in their drawing. However, thefunctions of these elements and their relationsto each other were absent or vaguely describedat best. Students typically progressed to amedian of 3, which showed an understandingnot only of the objects, parts, and elements, butthe relationships among them. The relationship,however, was vague and undefined. Students ata median of 3 in the tide task showed thescififically correct objects such as moon,earth, sun, and water, with no scientificallyincorrect objects such as beach chairs andblankets. A vague depiction of relationshipswas included. Level-3 drawings also showedseveral parts and connections between twofunctions represented in a vague and undefinedform. Students increased significantly duringthe year according to a paired samples t-test,t(49) = 2.13, p < .038.

Grade-3 students progressed in the draw-ing section of the performance assessment interms of the mean change. The change, how-ever, was not significant statistically and themedian was a level of 2 for both fall andspring. Performance at the level of 2 illustratesthat students included appropriate parts of birdswith a vague or scientifically correct connec-tion to their function.

Writing. The writing task provided stu-dents an opportunity to display their conceptualunderstanding of their assessment topic includ-ing new ideas they had gained from the search

activity. The drawing they had completed wasavailable for their inspection during the writingactivity. In the fall, grade-5 students performedat a level of 2, which indicated that they werecapable of describing a few parts or objects,but that any comparisons or functions werevaguely described or absent. The typical fifth-grade student progressed to a level of 3, whichindicated that s/he was capable of showing anunderstanding of relationships among relevantobjects. Although the relations were not pre-sented in a high amount of detail, they werescientifically correct. Student gain from the fallto spring on the writing task was statisticallysignificant, t(49) = 1.96, p < .05.

A typical grade-5 student in the springwho performed at level 3 on the trees assess-ment stated that:

"Leaves can help the plant turn light intofood and roots help the plant suck upwater. The trunk holds the tree togetherand leaves change color in the fall; treesdon't only depend on roots but theirleaves too, they help give off gas oxygenand help the tree get food. A plant has tohave roots to grow roots help the treestay in the ground."

Typical grade-3 students began the fall atthe level of 2 on the writing task. They listedsome parts of the topic and possibly a vaguefunction for one of the parts, but fewer rela-tionships or other functions were included.Students moved to a level of 3 in the spring.Not only did they include several parts of theirobject, but functional connections were madebetween at least two of the parts. Elements ofthe object were connected to the total system ina general, vague fashion. Gains from fall to

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spring for grade-3 students were statisticallysignificant, t(45) = 4.09, p < .001.

This example shows grade 3 writing in thespring. A student who wrote about birds stated:

"The beak lets it eat and his feet helphim catch food. His legs so he can walkhis claws to catch food and his mouth toeat food and his big yellow eyes to seewith. The wings help it fly and the hornshelp it to know if it is another barn owl.Its' claws help it catch food and its' eyeshelp it to see. The heart helps the owl tolive and the food helps the owl live too.The claws help the owl catch his prey."

Conceptual transfer. The conceptualtransfer activity required an extension andapplication of concepts learned during thesearch activity. The problem consisted of anovel situation in which students were expectedto use the conceptual knowledge and scienceprinciples previously learned. Grade-5 studentsbegan the year at level 2 in the rubric, whichindicated that they were capable of very little.They showed a scientifically incorrect solutionto the problem or a solution that was not rele-vant to the question. Fifth graders progressedto a level of 3 in the spring. The application ofek.nents to the problem was vague and unclearalthough the solution was scientifically correct.The advance from 2 to 3 was not statisticallysignificant, due to relatively large varianceswithin the groups.

Grade-3 students progressed significantlyin conceptual transfer from the fall to thespring, t(45) = 2.36, p < .023. In the fall, thetypical third grader had a median of 2, whichindicated that s/he gave an incorrect, illogical,or nonscientific solution. S/he progressed to a

level of 3. S/he was able to present the prob-lem and some of the requirements for thesolution, but s/he could not apply knowledgecompletely.

An example of grade-3 conceptual transferin the spring is shown for a student who tookthe owl version of the assessment. This versionasked what an owl would be like if it was blindbut was surviving successfully in the wild. Astudent who answered at a level of 3 statedthat:

"These owls will have good hearing bevery good at catching. Their beaks willhelp them eat. Their wings help themfly. Their nose will help them dig. Theywill have to feel what they pick up andwill have to be good at catching mice."

Informational text comprehension. Forboth grades and all assessment topics, studentswere given an illustrated informational text thatwas relevant to the topic. A question waspresented that required the student to synthe-size information from the text and illustration,and to write an answer. Grade-5 students beganthe fall at the level of 1, which indicated thatthey relied heavily on prior knowledge or oninformation from only one portion of the text.Separate sections were not integrated, andsome incorrect information may have beenincluded. Fifth graders moved to a level of2 in which their answers integrated informa-tion from two or more parts of the text andreferences the text appropriately. However,significant portions of text were omitted andthe information was not elaborated. Gain forfifth graders was statistically significant,t(42) = 4.99, p < .001.

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Third graders began the fall at the level of1, which indicated that they provided answersthat came from only one part of the text withno integration and may have included incorrector irrelevant information. They moved to alevel of 2, indicating that they were capable ofintegrating information from two or more partsof the text, but the integrations were not elabo-rate or detailed. Third graders' change fromfall to spring was statistically significant,t(47) = 4.16, p < .001.

Narrative interpretation. In this portionof the performance assessment, students weregiven one integrated episode of approximately1,000 words from a narrative book. Studentswere first asked to read the text and thenanswer three different questions. The firstquestion requested a low-level reproduction ofone portion of the narrative. The second ques-tion requested students to make inferences andgeneralizations about the character in the story.The third question asked children to reflect ontheir own experience in relation to one of thecharacters. Answers to all of the questionswere coded in terms of whether they wereconsistent with the text and whether theywere elaborated. Grade-5 students began theyear with a median of 3. They had two answersto two of the questions that were consistentwith the text, but none of the answers wereelaborated. Fifth graders progressed to alevel of 4, indicating that they had threeanswers consistent with the texts but rela-tively little elaboration. This increase fromfall to spring was statistically significant,t(44) = 3.42, p < .001. Grade-3 students inthe fall performed at a level of 3, indicatingthat they gave text-consistent answers to twoof the questions. Third graders progressed to

the level of 4 in the spring showing threetext-consistent answers but little elaboration.Third grade progress was statistically signif-icant, 447) = 6.25, p < .001.

Learning to learn. Within the performanceassessment, we had an opportunity to observelearning. The first stage of the assessment is ameasure of prior knowledge about the topicbeing addressed in the assessment. The writingstage of the assessment requests students tocompose a statement of their conceptual under-standing on the same topic. During the searchactivity, which falls between the prior knowl-edge and the writing activity, students aregiven a chance to learn about the topic. Thedifference between the writing level and theprior knowledge level during the test is anindicator of learning within the assessmentactivity..

If learning-during-the-assessment in thespring is higher than comparable performancein the fall, it can be concluded that studentshave "learned how to learn." Their capabilityto form concepts from text has been increased.The assessment permits documentation of theamount of this learning-capacity increase.

For grade-5 students, the fall prior-knowledge mean was 1.84 and the fall writingmean was 2.52, which was a statistically sig-nificant difference, t(43) = 4.26, p < .001. Inthe spring, the prior-knowledge score of thestudents was 1.97 and the writing score was3.09. This was a statistically significant differ-ence, t(43) = 6.0, p < .001. These findingsindicate that grade-5 students were learningduring the assessment at both the fall andspring administrations.

For grade-3 students in the fall, the meanscore on the prior knowledge task was 2.33

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and the mean score on the writing task was2.50. This difference was not statisticallysignificant. In the spring, the mean score ofthird graders on the prior knowledge task was2.61 and the mean score on the writing taskwas 3.18, which was statistically significant,t(43) = 3.27, p < .002. This indicates thatwhile learning did not occur during the assess-ment in the fall, learning did occur during theassessment in the spring. In other words,grade-3 students' capacity for new learningthrough literacy was enhanced during thecourse of the year.

Question 2: Were these Increases in LiteracyEngagement Educationally Significant?

The previous results may not revealwhether the gains in literacy engagement wereeducationally and practically significant. Wedid not compare the gains in literacy engage-ment to standardized reading test scores orgrades, because standardized scores may notreflect higher-order learning, and grades aretoo normative within one classroom. However,to describe the magnitude of the impact of theCORI on students' literacy engagement, wecompared the third graders in the spring, afterreceiving a year of CORI, to the fifth gradersin the fall before the year began, and beforethey had received any CORI. Of course, thefifth graders in the fall were more than 1 yearolder, with 1 year more of schooling than thethird graders in the spring.

To make the comparison, we selected twotypical cases (Erickson, 1986). Typicality wasdefined in the following manner. Averageswere obtained for the search, drawing, writing,and conceptual transfer tasks for both the grade

3 spring performance on the owl assessmentand the grade-5 fall performance on the treesassessment. All scores were then inspected foreach of these stages to identify "typical"performances at each stage (i.e., those per-formances that were equal to the average groupscore). Two third-graders and 3 fifth-gradersfit these descriptions of typical performanceacross each of the four stages inspected. Scoresfor stages 6 (expository text comprehension)and 7 (narrative text comprehension) were thenused as tie breakers. The two students selectedwere thus typical of their grade levels. Com-parisons were then made regarding the qualityof the performances at each stage. Quality wasdefined in a manner consistent with the scoringrubrics.

Prior knowledge. On the prior knowledgetask, third graders responded to a questionabout owls: "Tell how the parts of an owl helpit to live." The third grader wrote:

The owl's ear help him to know wind ahunter is here. The owl's feet help himto grab its food in the air.

The fifth grader responded to the ques-tion: "What are the parts of a tree? How dothese parts help it to live?"

I selected the branch because you couldswing on it and stuff. how does it livewell some people put water at the bottomof the tree that pushes the water up in thebranch and keep it alive.

These answers are nearly indistinguish-able although several points of distinctionfavor the grade-3 student. This third graderincluded two systems of adaptation (i.e.,

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protection and body parts related to hunt-ing), while the grade-5 answer included onlyone system (i.e. , water helping the treebranch to survive). Quality of writing alsofavored the third grader who used completesentences and punctuation.

Search. Performances in the search stagewere roughly equivalent. The grade-5 studentselected four packets, including two relevant tothe topic of tree parts and adaptation. Notestaken on these packets were vague (e.g., Ilearned that plant can be different and samebecause some don't grow flowers or leaves andsome do). The grade-3 student selected threepackets, including two relevant ones. The thirdgrader was slightly more efficient, selecting67% relevant packets, compared to 50% rele-vant packets for the fifth grader. The thirdgrader's notes were more specific, containingstructures and functions (e.g., Their feet areusually bare and scalyunfeathered feet aremuch easier to clean). Both sets of notes werenonspecific and incomplete in relation to theabundance of information that was available inthe respective packets of text.

Conceptual learning (drawing andwriting). Drawings showed a clear advantagefor the grade-3 spring performance over thegrade-5 fall performance. Each student includ-ed two drawings, an overview with labels formajor structures, and a "close-up." The thirdgrader's "close-up" showed an extension of heroverview, depicting the method of hunting anda nest with eggs. Close-up drawings of the fifthgrader, however, were irrelevant to the ques-tion asked, simply listing the labeled structuresand adding flowers to the scene.

When grade-5 students were asked towrite what they had learned about the parts of

the tree and how the parts help it to live, ourcase wrote:

What I know about trees. They havedifferent parts like the Roots The trunkand the branch. Some trees live millionsof years ago and that they lived in differ-ent time. Some trees you have to waterunder roots or they will die.

In this answer, the only portion of the treeconnected to a survival function was the toots,which were part of this student's backgroundknowledge. The only other reference to treeparts involved a listing of the trunk andbranch. Again, information irrelevant to thequestion was included in the statement thatsome trees lived millions of years ago. Thisanswer included only one adaptive system witha number of plant structures.

The third grader responded to the questionof "Tell how the parts of an owl help it to live"by stating:

The owl uses its feet to get a mouse or arat and eat it a live. Some owls hunt atnight. Owls take birds nest and live in it.

Although this grade-3 student includeda portion of background (e.g., hunting), sheadded that the kind of prey can be a mouse ora rat. She also added a new adaptation, nest-ing. The third grader included two systems ofadaptation, hunting and nesting, while the fifth-grade answer included only one relevant system,the trees' need for water at the roots.

Conceptual transfer. The grade-5 studentwas asked to solve the problem of how a treecould live in 1,000 feet of snow ten months ayear. This student wrote:

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I don't think the trees will live, becauseif we had that much snow the tree willkeep falling off branch by branch becausetoo much pressure is going on to it.because when the snow balls drop it isjust too much pressure.

No solution was forwarded; and adaptations forsurvival were not presented.

The grade-3 student was asked how aspecies of blind owls could survive. She wrote:

The owl would have to be a good smeller,hunter, Mother or Father, fast thinkerand able to use his feet, head, wings.The owl would need to be a good hinter.The would need to teach his or her childto use its wings, feet and head.

This was a viable solution to the survivalproblem. Two new adaptations were intro-duced, smelling and teaching. Not only wouldan owl have to be a good hunter, using itssense of smell as well as its feet and wings, itwould also have to be a good parent to teachthe child how to survive without sight. Theprinciple that structures and their functions aremodified by the conditions of the environmentwas evident.

In sum, comparison of a grade-3 springperformance and grade-5 fall performancesuggests that the third graders at the end of theyear were equivalent to, or higher than, thefifth graders at the beginning of the year. Thirdgraders showed a more integrated knowledgerepresentation using a greater variety of adap-tive systems and they used this knowledge tosolve problems more effectively than fifthgraders. While both groups brought equivalentprior knowledge to this text-based learning

situation, the grade-3 student built on thisknowledge and extended it to solve a novelproblem, while the grade-5 student did not.

This comparison suggests that, by theend of the school year, the grade-3 studenthad reached a beginning grade-5 level ofperformance. It should be noted that thefifth graders read a set of materials whichwere more complex and higher in quantitythan the materials read by the third graders.This could disadvantage the fifth gradersbecause they had "harder" texts. On the otherhand, both groups had materials suitable totheir grade levels; and the fifth graders had alarger number of texts that contained moreinformation, affording more opportunity toselect and write about relevant information.Therefore, it is unlikely that the third gradershad an advantage. The coding rubrics in thisstudy were constructed to be appropriate forthe two grade levels separately; therefore, asimple rubric-level comparison was not possible.However, similarities between these assess-ments were that each involved texts that wereat the students' grade level, as well as slightlyeasier text, for reading materials. In addition,questions were equated by focusing on thesame characteristics of the studied topic (i.e.,"Tell how the different parts of an owl help itto live," "What are the parts of a tree? How dothese parts help the tree to live?"). Thesesimilarities increase comparability of the tasks.

Question 3: How Highly Correlated wereIntrinsic Motivation and Engagement in theSpring?

The performance assessment was designedto be sensitive to intrinsic motivations as well

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Table 2. Changes in Literacy Engagement and Intrinsic Motivation During One Year of Concept-OrientedReading Instruction

Literacy Engagement

Increase Decrease

Intrinsic Motivation

IncreaseDecrease

13 03 3

Note. This table contains an N of 19 because the spring Literacy Engagement score was missing for one student.

as strategies for literacy. Our view of engage-ment is that motivations are /integral to thelearning and use of strategies. If this is true,motivations should be correlated with the levelsof engagement observed in the performanceassessment. To examine this question, we com-pared the results of the motivation interview withthe engagement assessment. From the motivationinterview, we constructed a composite measureof intrinsic motivation. The composite wasformed by summing the scores of involvement,curiosity, social, emotional tuning, and self-efficacy for each of 20 students. We also con-structed a composite measure of engagement bysumming the scores on search, dniwing, writing,and conceptual transfer for each student.

We rank ordered all students on the moti-vation composite and the engagement composite.For grade 5, the correlation of the rank orderswas .81, which was statistically significant atp < .01. For grade 3, the rank order correla-tion was .70, which was statistically significantat p < .05. These correlations show thatstudents who were intrinsically motivated byinvolvement, curiosity, social interchange,emotional tuning, and self-efficacy were highlyengaged in literacy as evidenced by their highperformance in text-based search, drawing,

writing, and conceptual transfer in the assess-ment. Students with lower intrinsic motivationswere lower in literacy engagement. This con-firmed our expectation that intrinsic motivationsand strategy learning were highly associated; andthat the assessments were sensitive to individualdifferences in motivations for literacy.

Question 4: How did Changes in IntrinsicMotivation Relate to Changes in LiteracyEngagement?

-To address this question, we used thecomposite of literacy engagement consisting ofthe combination of search, drawing, writing,and conceptual transfer. We classified eachstudent as either increasing, not changing, ordecreasing from fall to spring in this compos-ite. We also used the intrinsic motivationcomposite, which was the sum of involvement,curiosity, social, emotional tuning, and self-efficacy for each student. Each student wasclassified as increasing, not changing, or de-creasing in intrinsic motivation. We related thechanges in literacy engagement to the changesin intrinsic motivation for both third and fifthgraders combined as shown ih Table 2. Stu-dents were placed in the quadrant of increase/

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increase if both engagement and motivationincreased or if one increased and the other didnot change. Students were placed in decrease/decrease quadrant if both decreased or if onedecreased and the other was unchanged. Stu-dents were placed in the increase/decreasequadrant only if the motivation increased andthe engagement decreased; and they wereplaced in the decrease/increase quadrant ifthe motivation decreased and the engagementincrea3ed.

A pronounced relationship can be observedbetween change in intrinsic motivation andchange in literacy engagement. Thirteen stu-dents of the 19 increased in both motivationand engagement. At the same time none of thestudents increased in intrinsic motivation anddecreased in literacy engagement. In otherwords, 100% of the students who increasedin intrinsic motivation from fall to spring,increased in literacy engagement as well.Students who decreased in intrinsic motivationwere equally likely to increase and decreasein literacy engagement. Fifty percent ofthose who decreased in motivation decreasedin literacy engagement. These frequenciesshowed a statistically significant associationaccording to the chi-square statistic, X2(1,N = 20) = 4.57, p < .05. This associationsupports the theoretical expectation thatincreasing the strength and breadth of intrin-sic motivations will be associated with theenhancement of strategy-based literacy en-gagements.

To exemplify these changes in motivationand literacy engagement, we report some of theinterview results with one grade-5 student. Joy,a 10-year-old Asian-American student exhibitedthe pattern of noticeable gains in intrinsic

motivation during the year. According to herschool's reading specialist, Joy had completedthe fourth grade basal text and had consumedthe first quarter of the grade-5 reader prior toentering grade 5. Although Joy showed anunderstanding of the material covered in classthrough her finished products, she was notquick to volunteer her thoughts when theteacher called for participation from the stu-dents.

Recalling the characters in the SweetValley books, Joy reflected her involvement bysaying:

Well urn, the girls are about sixth grad-ers, so they're about my age so, theywell, it's about their every day life, howthey get in trouble and stuff. Well, I,sometimes it's like a mystery, who takessomething, so I always urn, want tofinish it so I could find out who took itor something.. Like um, there was thisreally urn, Jessica's friend um, Lila,she's really rich and um, once urn, lotsof um, their stuff was missing so theyitturned out in Jessica's lockerso theythink she took it, but she was framed.

From fall to spring, Joy exhibited growthin the strength of her self-efficacy for reading(from "medium" to "high") by volunteeringthat reading was an activity in which she wascompetent to participate, and that she knewhow to pursue her classroom-based interests byretrieving related books in their classroomlibrary. For example, she explained that:

We have three book shelves and onethat's really big it has um, the topicsthat we urn, pasted up there so we know

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Table 3. Changes in Volume of Reading and Intrinsic Motivation

Volume of Reading

Increase Decrease

Intrinsic Motivation

IncreaseDecrease

11 2

2 5

where to look for the books about themoon. There was thesetable of con-tents and I looked for a specific topicand then, then I skimmed through thebook and I got, I just read the wholething . . .

Joy's intrinsic reasons for reading ofinvolvement, curiosity, and self-efficacy werecomplemented in the fall by the more extrinsicmotivation of recognition. In the spring, how-ever, Joy did not mention any reading forrecognition. Instead, she reported a new, socialmotivation for reading.

Her 11-year-old female cousin became acompanion and a discussant for their sharedinterest in series books like the new, highlysought-after Sweet Valley University books.This new interaction was formed not only outof family ties, but of a desire to share opinionsof a text.

. . When my cousin gave it to me, shesaid it was really good, cause she read oneand she bought it in the bookstore . . . IfI read a new book for her I always tell herwhat happens so, she always has to read itfirst. And she takes a long time to read abook. So 1 have to wait for a long time, Ihave to beg her to read her books.

Question 5: How did Changes in IntrinsicMotivation, Amount and Breadth of Reading,and Volitional Strategies Relate to Each Other?

Intrinsic motivation with amount andbreadth of reading. Enabling students to readwidely and frequently is one of the aims ofCORI. Our theoretical expectation is thatintrinsic motivation should be related to fre-quency and breadth of reading. Furthermore,changes in intrinsic motivation should berelated to changes in volume of reading. Toexamine this expectation, we used portions ofthe interview in which students were askedhow frequently they read: fiction, sports,nature/animals, romance, biography, direc-tions, science, stories, and history. A score of0-3 was given to each student on each topic.The sum reflects both the breadth and frequen-cy of reading interests and preferences. Forgrades 3 and 5 combined, we classified each stu-dent as increasing, not changing, or decreasingin volume (which includes both frequency andbreadth) of reading. These classifications wererelated to students' changes in intrinsic motiva-tions as reported in the previous paragraph.

The association of changes in intrinsicmotivation from with the changes in volume ofreading was substantial. As Table 3 indicates,

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11 students increased in both intrinsic motiva-tion and volume of reading. Eighty-five percentof the students who increased in intrinsicmotivation also increased in frequency andbreadth of reading. Of the 7 students whodecreased in intrinsic motivation, 5 of them(70%) decreased in volume of reading. Thisassociation was found to be statisticallysignificant according to a chi-square test,X2(1, N = 20) = 4.06, p < .05.

One 11-year-old African-American studentin grade 5, Mariah, increased in her intrinsicreasons for reading, and also increased in thevariety of books that she chose to read. Mariahwas described by her CORI teacher as beingpainfully shy and not a visibly enthusiasticreader. The reading specialist indicated shewas reading on grade level at the time of theinterviews.

Mariah read for the purpose of involve-ment in the spring, reporting the elements ofmystery novels which captured her attention:

In interesting mysteries, they like, theyleave follow-up clues to the mysteries soit takes more to figure it out. And inboring ones, it's just easier to figure outwhat it is, and you don't need any clue.

Mariah read a more diverse selection ofbooks in the spring than in the fall. She main-tained a strong preference for fiction novels,including series of mysteries by a particularauthor. A new interest in biographies of favor-ite stars emerged in reading that she did outsideof school. Mariah showed increased curiosityabout nature, referring to the most recent bookabout animals that she had read:

It was about this lady, who was, um, incollege and she wanted to see if shecould get instead a chimpanzee to com-municate with her. They communicatedwith sign language. She'd teach themthat sometimes. They lived in a trailertogether. And then, when she got anewshe got another gorilla, so that theother one wouldn't be lonely.. . .

Amount and breadth of reading withvolitional strategies. Breadth and frequency ofreading were expected to be related to volition-al strategies as well as intrinsic motivations.Volitional strategies are deliberate proceduresused to fulfill motivational goals, such asmanaging resources of time and materials(Como & Kanfer, 1993). Managing time wasevidenced by students who had a time of theday they preserved for reading. From the inter-views, we combined the volitional strategiesrelated to time and the volitional strategiesrelated to finding, keeping, and organizingbooks. We classified students as increasing,unchanging, or decreasing in volitional strate-gies and related this classification to theirvolumes of reading.

There was a substantial association of thestudents changes in volume of reading with thechanges in their volitional strategies which wasstatistically significant, X2(1, N = 20) =11.43, p < .01). As indicated in Table 4, 14students increased in both volitional strategiesand reading volume. One hundred percent ofthose who increased in frequency and breadthof reading also increased in volitional strate-gies. At the same time, 5 students decreased inboth volume of reading and volitional strate-gies. These few students were choosing to read

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Table 4. Changes in Volume of Reading and Volitional Strategies

Volume of Reading

Increase Decrease

Volitional Strategies

IncreaseDecrease

14 1

0 5

less widely and frequently; and they were alsousing fewer volitional strategies. In sum,volitional strategies for reading were correlatedwith volume of reading activity.

These trends for the whole group wereillustrated by Mariah. Her increased breadth ofreading was accompanied by her expandedvolitional strategies. Volitional strategies ofinterest to the investigators were for makingtime to read, and finding interesting, appropri-ate materials to invest in. In the fall, Mariahcited the public library as her main source fortexts to read. In the spring, she reported fre-quent visits to the public library where shecould use the computer to search for booktitles. She also talked of receiving books asgifts. In the spring, Mariah found a new sourcefor fiction books to read for her own enjoyment:

Well, we have TAP dayit's trade-a-paperback day. And we all bring inpaperback books, and I got one new.And I've had that one in my desk, sowhen I leave it in the desk, I know I haveat least two books in my desk.

Mariah commented on the ways that shecoordinates reading around other activities in

her daily life. At home, she stated that shetried to read a little bit before she would gooutside to play with friends, and then continueher reading afterwards. At school, Mariah ex-plained what she did with her free time:

Sometimes our teacher gives us time inthe morning. You can either read a book,or you can make up work that you haveto do. I usually read.

We also related changes in intrinsic moti-vation to changes in extrinsic motivation. Theanalysis of intrinsic motivations was based onthe sum of involvement, curiosity, social,emotional tuning, and self-efficacy; extrinsicmotivations were the sum of compliance,utility, and investment. There was no signifi-cant association between shifts in intrinsic andextrinsic motivations.

Discussion

What were the Main Findings of this Study?

Growth of literacy engagement. Our basicconclusion from this investigation is that liter-acy engagement of third and fifth graders

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increased during their yearlong experience inCORI. Not only did teachers observe theseincreases in literacy engagement throughstudents' portfolios and classroom participa-tion, but our performance assessment alsodocumented statistically significant increases.Specifically, third graders appeared to increaseto the level of beginning fifth graders.

Students' enhanced literacy engagementwas evident in their success on tasks that reflectboth cognitive strategies and intrinsic motiva-tions. We documented the growth of literacyengagement related to: (1) searching for infor-mation in multiple texts; (2) representing ideasthrough drawing and writing; and (3) transfer-ring conceptual knowledge to new situations.Success in these authentic literacy activitiespermits us to infer the successful use ofstrategies. Although many investigators useself-report as a measure of strategies (Collins-Block, 1992; Pinuich & De Groot, 1990), webelieve that successful performance onauthentic literacy activities in the classroomis a more secure ground for inferring thelearning, use, and growth of literacy strate-gies for literacy.

Our notion of literacy engagement com-bines the construct of self-regulation withintrinsic motivation. For both the third andfifth graders in this study, intrinsic motivationwas highly correlated with literacy engagementduring the performance assessments. This find-ing is consistent with the results observed byPintrich and De Groot (1990) that self-reportedintrinsic-interest and strategy-use were highlyassociated. Successful learners were distin-guished from the less successful learners intheir ability to combine complex higher-orderstrategies with intrinsic motivations of involve-

ment, curiosity, and self-efficacy. With thisintegration, they learned ideas from multipletexts and used these ideas in solving novelproblems.

These results confirm that literacyengagement increased during ine year forthese groups of students. Although theamount of increase was not compared to thechanges in a control group because this wasnot a comparative, experimental study, themagnitude of the increase was noteworthy..Across time during elementary school,intrinsic motivation usually declines (Harter,1981; Wigfield, 1994), leading us to sup-pose that literacy engagement might declineduring the year. However, literacy engage-ment combines cognitive strategies withintrinsic motivation, and strategies usuallyincrease during a year of schooling. It seemssignificant, therefore, that the increase inliteracy engagement for grade-3 studentsappeared to exceed the increase that wouldbe associated with change in chronologicalage. Grade-3 students in the spring, afterparticipating in CORI for 6 months, surpassedthe level of literacy engagement observed ingrade-5 students in the fall, before theyreceived any CORI. After documenting theseincreases in literacy engagement for thegroups, we next addressed our primarypurpose of describing the nature of thegrowth.

intrinsic motivation and literacy engage-ment increased concurrently. The secondfinding is that increases in literacy engagementduring the year were tied to increases inintrinsic motivation. Despite the general trendfor intrinsic motivations to decrease duringthe elementary school years (Harter, 1981;

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Wigfield, 1994), we observed that 68% of thestudents in our CORI classrooms increased intheir overall levels of intrinsic motivation forliteracy. Among the students who increased inintrinsic motivation, 100% increased markedlyin literacy engagement. Among students whodid not increase in intrinsic motivation (e.g.,who stayed the same or who decreased), 50%increased in literacy engagement, and 50%decreased. These findings suggest that instruc-tion that increases in intrinsic motivations forliteracy may improve the higher-order cogni-tive competence and use of strategies for anextremely large proportion of learners. Ofcourse, strategies may also increase for someof the learners who do not become more intrin-sically motivated due to the power of extrinsicincentives such as in recognition and rewards,or to general cognitive maturation. Our datadoes not permit us to determine which comesfirst, motivation or engagement. We expectthey are reciprocal and mutually supportiveduring long-term literacy learning. Thesefindings are consistent with conclusions fromcorrelational studies reviewed by Ames (1992)and Blumenfeld (1992) that point to high asso-ciations between student interest in subjectmatter and development of cognitive competen-cies. Our findings contribute to the knowledgebase by documenting that long-term increasesin motivational and cognitive aspects of literacyare interdependent.

Intrinsic motivations enhanced breadth ofreading activity. The third finding of thisinvestigation was that increases in intrinsicmotivation were tied to amount and breadth ofreading. Students who became more involved,curious, and social in their literacy activitiesread a broader range of topics and reported

higher frequencies of reading activities thanless motivated students. This linkage wasparticularly important because literacy isvital for many aspects of development. Amountand breadth of reading are related to readingachievement, general knowledge, and societalparticipation (Guthrie & Greaney, 1991;Stanovich & Cunningham, 1993). Therefore,it is valuable to know that students expandedtheir reading activities as their intrinsicmotivation increased. Also contributing toamount and breadth of reading were volitionalstrategies (Corno & Kanfer, 1993), such asfinding time to read every day, keeping aprivate place for personal books, and knowinghow to get to the library. In sum, amount andbreadth of reading increased when it wasenergized by intrinsic motivations, and enabledby volitional strategies.

Classroom Contexts that Enhance LiteracyEngagement

Literacy engagement in grades 3 and 5was associated with distinctive qualities of theclassroom context. Although space does notpermit an elaborate description, we identifiedseveral aspects of the classroom context thatwe regard as vitally important based on class-room observation, discussion with teachers,and analysis of videotapes. Consistent with themotivational literature, our observations ofCORI suggested that engaging classroomcontexts were: (1) observational, encouragingstudents to initiate learning by generating theirown questions from "real-world" observation(Lepper, 1988; Newby, 1991); (2) conceptual,with a focus on substantive topics rather thanreading skills or rewards (Maher & Fyans,

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1989); (3) self-directing, suptiorting studentautonomy and choice of topics, books, andpeers (Skinner & Belmont, 1993); (4) metacog-nitive, with explicit teaching of reading strate-gies, problem solving , and composing (Collins-Block, 1992); (5) collaborative, emphasizingsocial construction of meaning and communi-ties of learners (Almasi & Gambrell, 1994);(6) expressive, creating opportunities forself-expression through writing, debating,and group interaction (Oldfather & Dahl,1994); and (7) coherent, containing connec-tions between classroom activities and tasksacross the day, week, and month (Gamoran &Nystrand, 1992). Our theoretical perspective isthat these classroom qualities accelerate thedevelopment of literacy engagement.

Several of tnese dimensions of classroomcontext have been e,..amined in other investiga-tions. For example, our conceptual focus isshared by Brown (1992) in her studies of howcommunities of learners pursue topics in envi-ronmental science. Our reliance on writing andproblem solving is consistent with Calfee's(1994) program for critical literacy in whichchildren read and write extensively. Our empha-sis on metacognitive strategies of searching forinformation, representin? ideas graphically,planning, evaluating, and integrating is similarto the thinking guidelines of Collins-Block(1992). Although each instructional theme isimportant, we expect that it is the integration ofall seven dimensions within one instructionalunit that enhanced the development of literacyengagement of the students in this study, aswell as students in other schools where theseclassroom contexts are constructed and main-tained for substantial periods of time.

Limitations

This investigation was intended to initiateour study of how classroom contexts can bedesigned to enhance the development of litera-cy engagement. There were several limits toour purposes and accomplishments. We did notattempt to compare the patterns of change inengagement of students in CORI classrooms tochange in engagement in other types of class-rooms. We did not seek to identify whichdimensions of the complex classroom environ-ment were more or less influential in promot-ing engagement. This was not a componentialanalysis. We did not attempt to compare whe-ther the patterns of change in literacy engage-ment varied for different demographic groups,such as age and gender. Finally, we did notattempt to describe all aspects of literacyengagement that we believe are important. Forexample, we have not measured word-levelfluency nor social dispositions for sharingliteracy. Despite the breadth of our descriptiveaccount, there are many aspects of engagementthat call for careful research. We plan to un-dertake many of these tasks in future research.

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APPENDIX A

Performance of Assessment of Literacy Engagement

Task: Prior Knowledge

Purpose: Determines the amount of conceptual knowledge about the topice beforethe start of the assessment.

Question: Open-ended question with one or two parts. Example for third grade:What are the body parts of an Owl; and how do these body parts help itto live?

Material: One sheet of paper is provided to answer the question.

Response Format: Students write their response in essay.

Conditions: Students are given approximately 10 minutes to complete, but all studentsare expected to finish.

Task: Search

Purpose:

Question:

This task measures the strategies involved in searching for informationfrom multiple texts. Cognitive strategies include: maintaining focus on thequestion, under s'.anding the organization of information texts using accessroutes (table of contents, index, headings), sequencing to generate newinformation, extracting appropriate ideas from selected texts, and takingcoherent notes. Motivational attributes measured in this task include:effort and persistence in selecting multiple sources, elaboration of reasonsfor choosing selections, topic interest as reflected in extended notes aboutthe topic of the search.

Use these packets of information to help you answer the question of: Whatare the body parts of an owl; and how do these body parts help it to live?Keep a log of your work showing your packet letter, reasons for choosingthe packet, and your notes on your reading.

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Material: Students are given a set of 12-14 packets of 2-4 pages each of informa-tional texts. Half are directly relevant to the question; and half are aboutanimals or birds other than owls. Table of contents, index, page numbers,headings, and illustrations are provided. Difficulty of the texts range fromone grade below to two grades below.

Response Format: Students are given a response log, with columns for packet letter, reasonsfor choosing a packet, and notes on what they learned.

Conditions:

Task: Drawing

Purpose:

Question:

Students are encouraged to find all of the relevant information and aregiven sufficient time for all students to fill in at least one packet selectionwith a reason and notes, or about 30-60 minutes. Students are encouragedto keep working until they have found all of the useful ideas. Studentswho finish early are asked to wait quietly for 5 minutes and are thenpermitted to read.

This task measures the ability to represent conceptual knowledge aboutbirds and their survival through drawingvisual illustration. Drawingmay include ideas gained in the search combined with prior knowledge.Motivational attributes of task involvement and interest are reflected byattention to detail, breadth of information, and labeling.

Students are asked to make a picture that shows what they know about thetopic (e.g., what are the body parts of an owl; and how do these bodyparts help it to live?).

Material: One page of paper is provided, the top half of which is blank, with briefdirections.

Response Format: Students draw with pencil and label the picture.

Conditions: Time is provided for all students to finish, about 15 minutes. Coloring isnot permitted. The search materials and logs are not available.

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Task: Writing

Purpose:

Question:

Students represent their conceptual knowledge about the topic of the task(e.g., the body parts of owls and how they help survival) through writing.Ideas from the search activity and prior experience may be included.Motivational attributes include the effort and persistence in writing elabo-rate, coherent paragraphs, the expression of fascination about some aspectof the topic, and self-efficacy in the acquisition of conceptual understand-ing.

Students are asked to write what they know about the topic (e.g., the bodyparts of owls and how these body parts help the owl to survive). Studentsare encouraged to write everything they know.

Material: Students are given one-half page of lined paper, which is the bottom halfof the paper on which they drew their understanding in the previous task.

Response Format: Students write or print in the space provided.

Conditions: Ample time is provided for all students to complete the task, about 20minutes. The packets and their search logs are not available.

Task: Conceptual Transfer

Purpose: This task measures whether the concepts and principles that were learnedduring search were learned in a form that permits problem solving.Motivational attributes include the enjoyment of challenge, and the satis-faction of encountering novelty.

Question: A question is asked that invites multiple approaches and answers, usingthe conceptual knowledge that was represented during the drawing andwriting tasks. For example, the third-grade owls question was: "Supposeyou saw a type of owl that was blind but it was living a good life. Whatwould its body parts be like; and how would these parts help it tosurvive?"

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Material: Students are given a line piece of paper with the question at the top.Previous materials are not available.

Response Format: Students write and/or draw their answer to the question.

Conditions: Time is provided for all students to finish, about 20 minutes. They areencouraged to compose any answer they think might be appropriate.

Task: Informational Text Comprehension

Purpose: This task measures the extent to which students can comprehend the mainideas in an illustrated text of about 200 words in 8 paragraphs. Theoptimal answer will integrate information from both the illustration andseveral parts of the text.

Question: The question is a two-part item of the same complexity as the question inthe prior knowledge task.

Material: The student is presented the text and illustration with the questionfollowing on the next page.

Response Format: Students write answers to the question on one page of lined paperprovided.

Conditions: Time is given for all students who are permitted to finish, about 15minutes. Previous materials are not available. The text is on the samegeneral topic (e.g., birds), but specific information from previous taskswill not be useful.

Task: Narrative Interpretation

Purpose: This task measures basic text comprehension, literary interpretive pro-cesses, and response to narrative.

Question: Three questions are presented to be answered in order. The first questionrequests a simple recall (i.e., reproduction of a portion of the text). Thesecond question requests the student to describe the specific motive of one

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specified character, using text-based information and inference. The thirdquestion requests the student to write a personal response about whethera character's action was right or wrong and to describe their own beliefabout the situation.

Material: A brief narrative (i.e., a folktale) or episode from a story is provided,with an illustration.

Response Format: Students write answers to the three questions on lined paper provided.

Conditions: Time is provided for all students to answer at least some of the questions,about 20 minutes.

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APPENDIX B

Rubric for Coding Engagement in Aerformance Assessment

Prior Knowledge

1. No ConceptionStudent writes nothing at all or the answer does not contain informationrelevant to the question.

2. PreconceptionStudent may list objects or parts and their functions may be vaguelydescribed; the answer is scientifically incorrect but demonstrates an understanding that thereare relationships among objects or events relevant to the concept.

3. Partial ConceptionStudent answer is scientifically correct and shows a limited understand-ing of some of the relationships among a few of the relevant objects or events but thestatements are vague.

4. Incomplete ConceptionStudent answer is scientifically correct, shows an understanding ofrelationships among many but not all of the relevant objects or events, and the relationshipsare clear but incomplete.

5. Full ConceptionStudent answer is scientifically correct, shows an understanding ofrelationships among all important objects or events, and the relationships are depicted in clearand complete form.

Search

1. No searchNo evidence of search or selection of materials.

2. MinimumStudents chose at least two relevant packets as well as some irrelevant ones, tookgood notes from one packet and gave one clear reason for choosing one of the packets.

3. ModerateStudents chose at least three relevant packets and very few irrelevant ones, withappropriate reasons for their selections and good notes on two packets.

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4. AdequateStudents chose at least four relevant packets with few or no irrelevant ones, givingclear reasons for all their selections and clear notes.

5. ProficientStudents selected all of the relevant packets with no irrelevant ones, and all oftheir notes were related to the theme. Their reasons for choosing packets were diverse, andtheir notes showed that they learned during the course of the reading and note-taking activity.

Drawing

Same Coding Categories as Prior Knowledge

Writing

Same Coding Categories as Prior Knowledge

Conceptual Transfer

1. No solutionNo answer given.

2. PresolutionSolution is scientifically incorrect or the solution is not relevant to the problem;some conceptual knowledge of the topic is evident.

3. Partial SolutionSome objects are present but the concepts are not applied to solving theproblem; solution is scientifically correct, but the answer is vague or incomplete.

4. Incomplete SolutionAll objects and/or events are present and the concepts are related tosolving the problem, but the answer is incomplete or vague.

5. Full SolutionAll objects and events are present; the concepts are fully applied and theanswer is complete.

Informational Text Comprehension

1. No AnswerNo answer; answer relies on prior knowledge not related to the text; orinformation is incorrect, nonspecific, or verbatim copy.

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2. AccurateResponse accurately integrates information from two or more parts of the text.

3. ElaboratedResponse connects an integrated statement with additional information in the textthat elaborates, explains, or contextualizes the statement.

Narrative Text Comprehension

Quality of narrative comprehension was judged with a rubric based on responses to all of thequestions. Student responses to the reproductive, explanatory, and open-extension questions wererated as appropriate (accurate and text-based) or elaborated (embellished with details andcharacterizations). The scoring scheme was: 1 = no appropriate responses; 2 = 1 appropriateresponse; 3 = 2 appropriate responses; 4 = 3 appropriate responses; 5 = 3 appropriate responsesand at least 2 elaborated responses.

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APPENDIX C

Rubric for Motivations, Strategies, and Styles of Reading

Motivations

1. InvolvementReading to get lost in a story, for the enjoyment of the plot, characterdevelopment, the language/prose, or format of the story. Showing a "genuine interest" or a"passion" for a type of reading. Experiencing a positive feeling from being engrossed in whatthey are reading, talking about the good qualities of the book, why they like reading it (e.g.,fast-moving, sweeps them into story, interesting characters, etc.).

2. CuriosityReading to explore a new topic or to build upon previous knowledge of a topic orpersonality/character that is interesting to tnem. Reading to answer a question, or to comparecompeting answers or theories.

3. SocialEngaging in interactions with others that promote literacy, such as sharing readinginterests with another person, sharing or discussing reading materials, or participating in thereading process with another person by reading to or with them. May also include usingreading as a means for spending time with someone.

4. InvestmentReading to build experience that will culminate in achieving a long-term goal,such as attending college or becoming a member in a certain type of profession (e.g., "I reada lot of books because I want to be smart and become a science teacher. . . .").

5. ChallengeBeing willing to undertake or persist in a reading activity despite the perceiveddifficulty level of the text. Choosing to read a particular text because it appears to be moredifficult or stimulating than other choices.

6. Emotional TuningReading to change an existing mood or feeling, such as alleviatingsadness or loneliness, beating boredom (very comm .n), or extinguishing a fear. Reading tounwind mentally, release tension, or relax after hard work. Reading jokes, riddles, andbrainteasers or funny comics for the purpose of being amused.

7 . ComplianceReading to meet a goal or expectation set by someone else. Completingassignments set by the teacher. Reading to conform to the behavior of classmates/peers,reading to finish a task without extension or exploration beyond the original limits of the task.

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8. RecognitionReading to be known as a competent or avid reader. Reading to increase statusamong teachers, peers, and others, reading to be a successful participant in a drive or contestgeared toward consuming books.

9. GradesReading to achieve a certain score on an exam, to receive a desired letter grade.Reading to attain a prestigious level of academic achievement or honor roll status.

10. RewardsReading to gain desirable privileges in the classroom or at home. Rewards forreading can be tangible like books, gold stars, stickers, and treats or intangible like praise,"free choice" time, or attention from a teacher/family member.

11. CompetitionReading to be a "better" reader than other people. Reading to amass moreinformation or resources than others.

12. UtilitarianReading to learn a procedure or rules for a game, hobby, or craft, includingmanuals and directions. The "how-to" is the important aspect of this reading.

13. Work AvoidanceReading to avoid prevent (more) work. Using reading as a buffer to avoidpunishment or unpleasant consequences. Combining reading assignments/activities tominimize reading commitments.

14. Reading EfficacyFeeling that their reading behaviors are completely within their owncontrol (e.g., I choose what I read, when, where, and how). Perceiving that there are choicesabout when, where, and how to read. Believing that they can read independently, confidentin their own abilities.

Volitional Strategies

I. Spending/Managing TimeInvesting in reading as an activity in lieu of other choices athome, choosing to read during free time at school (other than DEAR time) when there areother possibilities (like drawing or computer time). Seemingly scheduling a time for readingthat fits around the other activities of daily life at home, and at school. Having a particularplace where literacy activities occur, such as a room or specific area of a home or classroom.Having a "system" to go about their reading, with a time, place, and situational factors(listens to music while reading, etc.). Some children give responses with several situationalcomponents. Give credit to more defined answers with the strength ratings.

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2. Finding/Keeping MaterialsHaving knowledge of where to obtain reading materials,borrowing from a library, trading with peers, buying from a store or ordering books froma club, subscribing to magazines, and so forth. Also, includes knowledge of how to retainmaterials such as renewing a book that they are not finished with, or keeping a collection oftheir own reading materials.

3. Coping with DistractionsMaintaining a comfort level for engaging in reading, asking forquiet, tuning others out, changing the place to read if necessary, getting the help of an adultto enforce quiet, and so forth.

4. Interpreting TextTrying to decipher the form and content of the reading by "clue reading"in context, using imagery or illustrations, sounding out difficult words, re-reading texts, orasking another person for help. (Note: This differs from the social motivation for reading atthe point of using a person that they read with as more of a human dictionary/resource ortutor. The social motivation would be coded in situations where the literacy activity is beingshared aside from the child asking for help.)

5. Browsing for BooksDeciding what to read and what not read by perusing the shelves,scanning book jackets for reviews, comparing titles, replacing a book that is too hard orunavailable with another selection. Showing a keen knowledge of the organizational systemor labeling of a classroom bookshelf or library/bookstore layout.

6. Communicating to OthersHaving successful methods for telling other people about theirexperiences with literacy, discussing plot turns, characters, and so forth. Sharing theseexperiences may be through words or writing.

7 . Finishing TextIndicating that they have an expectation to complete the materials they arereading, or that they usually finish what they decide to read. Code as H when this is the focusof the inquiry. It is usually coded in response to a specific question about finisng a text.

8. Succumbing to ObstaclesDescribing something that prevents literacy from happening (e.g.,my parents can't take me to the library, homework takes up all my free time for reading). Notovercoming this obstacle. (Note: The strength rating for the obstacle is similar to the othercategories: a 3 represents a formidable obstacle, where a 2 and 1 are weaker.)

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Styles

1. AppropriatenessShowing that they differentiate between materials that they have previouslyread, and new reading materials. Indicating that they perceive information that is not up-to-date in some texts. Showing that they differentiate between books that have thorough,pertinent information for lieir purpose, and others that do not provide useful knowledge.

2. LevelsUnderstanding the level of reading materials that matches their reading abilities,recognizing that some books are simple and others are difficult in terms of the language used(e.g., the presence or absence of "hard words"). Revealing that they differentiate betweenbooks of various lengths, numbers of pages, or chapters. Indicating that they perceive sometexts to be for children and some to be for adult consumption.

3. PreferencesIndicating that they have a clear preference or dislike for a genre of books, suchas fiction, nonfiction, romance, poetry, sports, and so forth. Identifying certain readingmaterials as "boring," or as ones they never read. Indicating that they perceive a differencebetween books that contain pictures and those that do not. Showing that they have a clearpreference or dislike for a particular type of book within a genre, such as romantic poetry,sport biographies, and so forth.

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NRRC

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NationalReading ResearchCenter318 Aderhok4 University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602-71253216J. M. Patterson Building, University of Marylan4 College Park, MD 20742

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