From Reading-Writing Research to Practice

Teachers regularly seek to update their practice with newly-developed tools from the realm of research, with the aim of applying them directly in the classroom, particularly for teaching reading and writing. Thus, teachers’ continuing education is dependent on the effective dissemination and appropriation of research results.

This book explores this problem from multiple angles, presenting research projects from France and Quebec, Canada. Using a variety of methods, including creating teaching materials and engaging classroom teachers in the research process, the authors demonstrate the importance of ownership and dissemination of research results in schools. Although this necessity sometimes complicates the work of researchers, it is vital to develop and maintain the relationship between reading–writing research and its practical applications.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wiley
• Release date: Apr 10, 2019
• ISBN: 9781119610731

Book preview

Table of Contents

Cover

Title

Copyright

Introduction

1 Teaching Reading Comprehension Strategies: A Research Program Combining Partners from A to Z

1.1. Introduction

1.2. Problematic and conceptual framework

1.3. Presentation of the project and the stages of dissemination and appropriation

1.4. Reflections and conclusions

1.5. Bibliography

2 Scientific Project: Creating a Website Dedicated to French Didactics

2.1. Introduction

2.2. Problem and theoretical framework

2.3. Presenting the research project

2.4. Work carried out between September 2016 and June 2017

2.5. Work carried out since September 2017

2.6. Conclusion

2.7. Appendices

2.8. Bibliography

3 Teacher-researcher Dialogue in Differentiated Support to Develop Students’ Skills in Syntax and Punctuation

3.1. Introduction

3.2. Problem and conceptual framework

3.3. Methodology

3.4. Results

3.5. Discussion

3.6. Conclusion

3.7. Appendices

3.8. Bibliography

4 The Learning Community Mobilized to Raise the Reading Levels of Adolescents with Intellectual Disabilities

4.1. Introduction

4.2. Theoretical frameworks

4.3. From production to knowledge transfer: the activities carried out

4.4. Discussion

4.5. Conclusion

4.6. Bibliography

5 Teaching Practices that Promote the Development of Reading Skills in Inclusive Secondary Schools

5.1. Introduction

5.2. Question and perspective adopted

5.3. Reference framework

5.4. Methodology

5.5. Results

5.6. Conclusion

5.7. Bibliography

6 Supporting the Professional Development of Elementary School Teachers: Action Research in an Aboriginal Context

6.1. Introduction

6.2. General context, problem and research objective

6.3. Theoretical framework

6.4. Methodology

6.5. Some results of the interventions in teaching and reading assessment

6.6. Conclusion

6.7. Bibliography

7 When Researchers Discover that Organizational and Collaboration Models that are Still Not Very Explicit for School Stakeholders

7.1. Introduction

7.2. Context and issues

7.3. Reference framework

7.4. Methodology

7.5. Analysis of the interviews

7.6. Results

7.7. Dissemination of results to the school community

7.8. Conclusion

7.9. Bibliography

8 Encouraging the Appropriation of Research Results on Morphological Knowledge by School Stakeholders

8.1. Introduction

8.2. Question and theoretical framework

8.3. Presentation of a research project aiming for the evaluation of the morphological knowledge of elementary school students

8.4. Challenges and obstacles in translating research results into a didactic book

8.5. Conclusion

8.6. Bibliography

Conclusion

List of Authors

Index

End User License Agreement

List of Tables

Chapter 2

Table 2.1.

Chapter 3

Table 3.1. Teachers participating in group interviews by research field and grad...

Table 3.2. Grammatical glossary used during the two-year research project

Chapter 5

Table 5.1. Categories of combined keywords in databases

List of Illustrations

Chapter 2

Figure 2.1. DIDACFRAN website home page. For a color version of the pictures in ...

Figure 2.2. The actors

Chapter 3

Figure 3.1. Professional development model in a community of practice (Shulman a...

Chapter 4

Figure 4.1. Fostering knowledge transfer (source: according to [TUR 10]). For a ...

Chapter 6

Figure 6.1. The reading/appreciation process of literary works by a reader (Lépi...

Figure 6.2. Possible reading events (source: adapted from Dufays, 2011)

Series Editor

Renaud Fabre

From Reading–Writing Research to Practice

Edited by

Sophie Briquet-Duhazé

Catherine Turcotte

First published 2019 in Great Britain and the United States by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms and licenses issued by the CLA. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms should be sent to the publishers at the undermentioned address:

ISTE Ltd

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John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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USA

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© ISTE Ltd 2019

The rights of Sophie Briquet-Duhazé and Catherine Turcotte to be identified as the author of this work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019932254

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-78630-355-4

Introduction

As early as 2002, Étévé and Rayou raised the question of transferring research results to practice in the field of reading/writing (Étévé and Rayou 2002). They associated the poor dissemination of these results with the problem of delimiting the fields of intervention between researchers, practitioners and political specialists, while pointing to the lack of training engineering.

In this regard, approaches suggested by researchers or any other external stakeholder may be considered ineffective or insufficiently specific and supported to satisfy a school or class (Fullan 2007).

In a study examining the disparity between what the research suggests and teachers’ practices, Vanderlinde et al. (2010) interviewed principals, teachers and researchers and concluded, in particular, that the relationship between research and practice was a complex phenomenon. According to these researchers, a collaborative research model between researchers and teachers should include a dissemination phase that would highlight teachers’ expertise, knowledge and responsibilities.

In Quebec and France, teachers are trained in the research process, and many feel the need to obtain research tools that are directly applicable in the classroom, particularly in the didactics of reading and writing. Thus, the problem is not only the dissemination of research results, but also the role that continuous professional development can have in the appropriation of these results. Our book addresses this issue by presenting research projects in Quebec and France that have attempted to address it through a variety of means, including engaging teachers in the research process. The authors of this book have taken this question on board, even if it was not the primary objective of their studies. This suggests that this stage of dissemination and appropriation is indeed part of the stages of research, as well as the problem, the theoretical framework, the methodology and the analysis.

The eight chapters in this book can be grouped according to common axes that can be defined in different ways:

– If the reader is interested in the sub-domains of French, he or she may refer to Chapters 1 and 4 on reading comprehension, Chapter 3 on syntax and comprehension, Chapter 6 on speaking, reading and writing, Chapter 7 on the start of writing, Chapter 8 on morphology and Chapter 5 on reading.

– If the reader’s interest is more concerned with the level of education, it should be noted that Chapter 7 deals with kindergarten, Chapters 1, 2, 6 and 8 are devoted to elementary school (Grades 1–6), Chapters 3 and 4 deal with the end of elementary and the beginning of secondary education (Grades 7–11), then Chapter 5 is dedicated to secondary school.

– If the reader wishes to acquire knowledge about teachers, Chapters 3, 5, 6 are particularly insightful. If they would rather learn more about the teams of school workers and other partners and actors, Chapters 1, 2, 4, 7 and 8 are more appropriate.

Each of the eight chapters is also of particular interest in regards to the theme of this book: the dissemination of research results in practice settings.

Chapter 1 by Catherine Turcotte and Marie-Julie Godbout focuses on teaching reading strategies. Reading an informative text is a demanding activity, because it involves processing information while understanding its structure. But one thing is clear: teaching the act of comprehension is rather complex in informative texts. Teachers do not always know how to choose strategies to teach, or how to achieve them. The project described in this chapter has highlighted an approach that supports this teaching.

Chapter 2 by Sophie Briquet-Duhazé explores the issue of websites consulted by elementary school teachers when they prepare their French lessons. These data are used to support a project to build websites dedicated to French didactics, combining scientific research and tools that can be used directly in the classroom.

Chapter 3 by Marie-Hélène Giguère, Marie Nadeau, Carole Fisher, Rosianne Arseneau and Claude Quevillon Lacasse discusses syntax and punctuation, the forgotten concepts of grammar in Quebec and France. Support is an innovative activity and teachers have learned that regular and formative feedback can support learning. By confronting the class and the responses of students and teachers, the researchers were able to better understand the learning objectives.

Chapter 4 by Céline Chatenoud, Catherine Turcotte, Rebeca Aldama and Sabine Codio discusses the reading levels of young people with intellectual disabilities. The best way to promote the educational and academic success of these students is to bring together different actors to work in a learning community: identifying needs, defining objectives, choosing knowledge, using this knowledge, supporting the use of this knowledge, identifying resistance, adjusting for transfer, etc. These are all challenges for this audience, as scientific data are so few.

Chapter 5 by France Dubé, Chantal Ouellet, France Dufour, Marie-Jocya Paviel, Olivier Bruchesi, Émilie Cloutier and Marc Landry questions practices that promote the development of reading and writing skills, particularly in inclusive education at secondary school level. The corpus studied consists of summaries from the scientific databases analyzed using N’Vivo software.

Chapter 6 by Christiane Blaser and Martin Lépine aims to support teaching and assessment practices in reading and writing in an Aboriginal context in order to improve them. How should we choose a literary work for kindergarten students and elementary school students; provide literature areas; understand and interpret, educate judgment and taste; appreciate literary works… these are some of the challenges addressed by this research.

How should we encourage a stimulating start to writing, for students from disadvantaged backgrounds? This is the question addressed in Chapter 7 by Nathalie Prévost and Catherine Turcotte. The objective of the research is to describe organization and collaboration models of exemplary school teams that prevent academic difficulties during the transition from kindergarten to the first year of elementary school. Key factors for a successful transition are emerging.

Rachel Berthiaume’s Chapter 8 studies morphology, as morphological knowledge helps us to better understand the meaning of words, in addition to improving reading and writing levels. This chapter reports on an experience that encourages a back and forth between research and practice to design a book that is useful for teachers, while being based on rigorous scientific knowledge. Many lessons can be learned from it!

I.1 Bibliography

Étévé, C., Rayou, P. (2002). La démarche de transfert des résultats de la recherche. Présentation de quelques problèmes et points de vue. Recherche et Formation, 40(1), 27–41.

Fullan, M. (2007). The New Meaning of Educational Change, 4th edition. Teachers College Press, New York.

Vanderlinde, R., Braak, J., Fullan, M. (2010). The New Meaning of Educational Change. British Educational Research Journal, 36(2), 299–316.

Introduction written by Sophie BRIQUET-DUHAZÉ and Catherine TURCOTTE.

1

Teaching Reading Comprehension Strategies: A Research Program Combining Partners from A to Z

1.1. Introduction

In Quebec, starting in Grades 3 and 4 of elementary school, informative texts become more dense and complex in all disciplines, requiring the mobilization of new skills and strategies among students. According to Dockrell et al. (2015), this is a very cognitively demanding reading activity, since it requires both processing new information of understanding its structure. Thus, since reading these texts requires the articulation of knowledge about a subject, knowledge of syntactic skills (consistency between sentences), and knowledge and skills in information structure (text macrostructure), teachers face a major challenge. In order to find solutions, researchers and teachers have developed an approach to teaching strategies for reading comprehension of informative texts, as part of action research training. This chapter describes the stages of this project, which took place between 2010 and 2014, as well as the various initiatives aimed at the appropriation and dissemination of the knowledge resulting from this project.

1.2. Problematic and conceptual framework

Teaching reading comprehension across different school subjects requires high-level and specific knowledge and skills from teachers. Gajria et al.’s (2007) research synthesis, on the effectiveness of teaching approaches to understanding informative texts, states that explicit teaching of strategies is the intervention method that has the most positive effects on students’ understanding of these said texts.

Approaches have, in this sense, proposed the explicit teaching of strategies to support understanding (Cervetti et al. 2007; Scharlach 2008). Among these strategies, those targeting the formulation of inferences, the identification of main ideas and the recognition of the text structure are the most complex, but also the most crucial strategies to support the understanding of informative texts (Hogan 2011; Williams 2014).

Indeed, to generate a mental representation of the text, the reader must go beyond the literal understanding at the basic level of the text (Kintsch 2013). Inferential understanding and understanding of the macrostructure of the text, which is not based solely on what is explicitly revealed by the author, requires an articulation of knowledge, skills and strategies that must be taught to a very large number of students (Blouet and Marin 2010; Jitendra and Gajria 2011).

However, although this teaching method is interesting for promoting the learning of comprehension strategies, at the end of elementary and beginning of secondary school, teaching reading comprehension is not always a priority (Scharlach 2008). Indeed, teachers say they do not always know what reading strategies to teach, and then how to approach this teaching. They also report a lack of material support and guidance to structure their implementation (Alvermann et al. 2013; Denti and Guérin 2004).

Moreover, according to the Conseil supérieur de l’éducation du Québec (Quebec’s higher education council) (Conseil 2014), in-class support, which could facilitate the improvement of their comprehension teaching practices, is not governed by a common framework. Thus, on the one hand, reading comprehension strategies are complex to master and, on the other hand, they are difficult to teach. This dual problem of professional development and the complex teaching of comprehension strategies for informative texts is at the heart of the project presented in this chapter.

1.3. Presentation of the project and the stages of dissemination and appropriation

The project presented in this chapter followed several steps, some of which were planned from the beginning and others which were added as they progressed. The first phase of the project consisted of action research training on teaching comprehension strategies. The subsequent steps, which are part of a transfer and dissemination process, are conducive to the results and fruits of this research.

1.3.1. Step 1: appropriation through collaboration, training and support

Since this project focused on the professional development of teachers over a long period of time, it was necessary to maintain a dynamic relationship with the various actors involved. In this regard, Bissonnette and Richard (2010) surveyed more than 5,000 Francophone school stakeholders to determine the factors considered most beneficial for professional development. Three categories emerged from this study: personal factors, professional factors and relational factors. The collaboration project between researchers and teachers is based in particular on these factors.

1.3.1.1. The personal dimension

The first factor is the personal dimension. Professional development activities must correspond to teachers’ values and needs, and be in line with their recent requests for training or support. This personal dimension of development and training for practitioners is crucial. Indeed, when the needs and problems are those that teachers have identified themselves from their practice, the professional development attached to them is likely to make much more sense than when the problem and needs come from outside.

With regard to this first dimension, the collaborative project was initiated following a discussion with teachers who had worked with students in late elementary and early secondary school stages (ages 10 to 14). According to them, students’ comprehension strategies were not consolidated when they entered secondary school, which did not allow everyone to read independently in all subjects. It is in this context that the project was designed on the basis of a possible solution: to start teaching strategies for understanding informative texts earlier and in a more structured way. Teachers invited to participate in the project later on therefore already had an interest in experimenting with new ways of doing things that would meet these