and Cervetti (2017) describe the genesis of metacognitive research as:
A logical extension of the rapidly developing work on both schema theory and text analysis. These latter two traditions emphasized declarative knowledge, knowing that X or Y or Z is true, but were scant on specifying procedural knowledge, knowing how to engage a strategy for comprehension or memory. This is precisely the kind of knowledge that metacognitive research has emphasized. (p. 26)
The primary metaphor that researchers used to refer to students’ use of metacognitive strategies when their comprehension breaks down was reader as fixer.
Teaching Techniques: Gradual Release of Responsibility
Researchers also sought to describe effective instructional techniques for teachers to use when teaching comprehension and metacognitive strategies. David Pearson and Margaret Gallagher (1983) proposed an explicit model, called gradual release of responsibility, which many educators still use today. In brief, it involves three phases.
1. Teacher responsibility: The teacher explains the purpose of a strategy (or set of strategies), how to use it, and when to use it. Then, he or she models its use by thinking aloud, so that students are aware of what is going on in the teacher’s mind during reading.
2. Shared responsibility: Students engage in guided practice while the teacher provides scaffolding and facilitation.
3. Student responsibility: Students use the strategy or strategies independently.
Many studies find that comprehension strategy instruction, using a gradual release of responsibility model (or similar approach), produces measurable gains in students’ reading comprehension (see Wilkinson & Son, 2011, for a review). Nevertheless, over the same time period, several notable studies indicated that teachers actually engaged in very little comprehension strategy instruction (for example, Durkin, 1978/1979). Why? Strategies instruction is difficult to learn and difficult to implement effectively. For example, Pamela Beard El-Dinary and Ted Schuder (1993) document the difficulties seven teachers experienced as they learned to implement transactional strategies instruction (a multiple-strategies approach similar to reciprocal teaching). By the end of the year, only two of the seven teachers were still committed to using the approach. More recent studies find similar results (Connor, Morrison, & Petrella, 2004; Hilden & Pressley, 2007; Klingner, Vaughn, Arguelles, Hughes, & Leftwich, 2004; Klingner, Vaughn, Hughes, & Arguelles, 1999; Mason, 2004; Pressley, Wharton-McDonald, Mistretta-Hampton, & Echevarria, 1998; Taylor, Pearson, Clark, & Walpole, 2000; Taylor, Pearson, Peterson, & Rodriguez, 2003, 2005). Pearson and Cervetti (2017) label these implementation challenges the Achilles heel of comprehension strategies instruction.
From the 1990s to the Present: Reading Wars and the Common Core
As the 20th century drew to a close, reading research continued to build on the foundation laid in the previous two decades, refining and adding nuance to create a philosophy of reading instruction that researchers often refer to as whole language. Kenneth S. Goodman and Yetta Goodman (1985) describe whole language as a “comprehension-centered pedagogy” in which “literacy—reading and writing—is regarded as a natural extension of human language development” (p. 2). Whole language builds on the previously articulated ideas of reader as builder, creator, and fixer of meaning but goes several steps further. In particular, whole language proponents advocate for consideration of context, incorporation of literature, and the addition of critical literacy. Table 1.3 (page 14) elaborates on these three emphases.
Table 1.3: Whole-Language Emphases
| Emphasis | Description |
| Consideration of Context | Considering context means recognizing that the situation in which a reader encounters a text affects the meaning of the text. Rand J. Spiro, W. P. Vispoel, John G. Schmitz, Ala Samarapungavan, and A. E. Boerger (1987) advocate for looking at texts from multiple perspectives using the metaphor of crisscrossing a landscape from many different directions in order to fully understand and appreciate it. Following the lead of the influential Louise M. Rosenblatt (1978), Peter Smagorinsky (2001) argues that meaning resides neither in the text nor in the reader, but in a “transactional zone” where text, reader, and context come together (p. 133). Just as text had moved to the background and the reader’s response to a text was privileged in the 1970s, the reader moved to the background and context came forward in the 1990s. |
| Incorporation of Literature | In Becoming a Nation of Readers, Richard C. Anderson, Elfrieda H. Hiebert, Judith A. Scott, and Ian A. G. Wilkinson (1985) advocate for an increased amount of independent reading in elementary reading programs. Nancie Atwell, with her popular 1987 book In the Middle, inspired many teachers to help students explore literature through reader’s workshops. Many basal readers and reading programs paled in comparison to the richness and complexity of authentic literary texts. |
| Addition of Critical Literacy | Pearson and Cervetti (2017) describe critical literacy as a set of practices that “encourage students to analyze texts with attention to the contexts and features of their construction and the ideologies that underlie them, asking, among other things, whose interests are served by particular texts and particular readings of those texts” (p. 34). Such practices require skillful teaching and facilitation of complex analysis in the classroom. |
For many reading researchers, theorists, and educators, the whole-language approach represented the leading edge of reading research and instruction.
Nevertheless, throughout the 20th century, there were persistent concerns about students who simply couldn’t read. For example, in 1955, Rudolf Franz Flesch wrote the highly controversial Why Johnny Can’t Read—And What You Can Do About It, a book that advocated for phonics instruction over more holistic, comprehension-based approaches. In 1965, the U.S. federal government passed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and began infusing significant funding into education in general, and into reading instruction and intervention in particular. Over the next fifty years, the federal government would continue to pour money into reading instruction. With so much money at stake, legislators wanted to know how effective different instructional approaches were at improving students’ reading abilities. The following documents and reports attempt to answer those questions and strongly influenced reading policy during this time.
• A Nation at Risk (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983)
• Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998)
• Report of the National Reading Panel (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development [NICHD], 2000)
• Reading for Understanding: Toward an R&D Program in Reading Comprehension (RAND Reading Study Group, 2002)
• Developing Literacy in Second-Language Learners: Report of the National Literacy Panel on Language-Minority Children and Youth (August & Shanahan, 2006)
• Developing Early Literacy: Report of the National Early Literacy Panel (National Early Literacy Panel, 2008)
While
