Tuesday 17 March 2015

Coming soon: Guest academic bloggers share their research


Over the last couple of months I have been in touch with a number of researchers in the UK, whose research focuses on children’s and adolescents’ learning and development.   I am very pleased that many of these researchers will be providing guest posts within this blog to share their research; these will be uploaded throughout 2015.   At present, some of the guest bloggers and titles of posts include:
Working memory in the classroom. Dr Helen St.Clair-Thompson, Senior Lecturer, School of Psychology, University of Newcastle

How much carrot and how much stick: What messages do teachers use prior to high-stakes exams and does it have any influence on their students? Professor Dave Putwain, Professor, School of Education, Edge Hill University. 

How to develop children’s emotion understanding.  Dr Ana Aznar, Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Dr Harriet Tenenbaum, Reader, School of Psychology, University of Surrey.

Using computerised assessments in schools: Advantages and disadvantages. Dr Jo Horne, Lecturer, Department of Psychology, University of Hull.

Network Autism – Autism and Technology. Dr Sue Fletcher-Watson, Chancellor’s Fellow, The Patrick Wild Centre, University of Edinburgh.

Can a smart phone game really make kids more active at school? Professor Judy Robertson, Chair in Digital Learning, School of Education, University of Edinburgh

We hope that contributions from these areas will allow those working within primary and secondary education settings to gain greater insight into current research, from those academics directly conducting research in the field.   By sharing research through this outlet, we also hope primary and secondary school teachers will feel more confident about using research to inform their practices. 

These posts will be shared throughout the year, with more guest bloggers still to come …..

Monday 2 March 2015

Does it matter what children and adolescents read? Different text types and the relationship with reading outcomes


There is a considerable amount of research to demonstrate that children and adolescents who engage more often in reading activities have better literacy skills (Anderson, Wilson & Fielding, 1988; Cunningham & Stanovich, 1991; Leppanen, Aunola & Nurmi, 2005; Mol & Bus, 2011).  In addition, frequency of reading has been associated with the development of other abilities such as general knowledge, oral language, spelling, vocabulary and verbal fluency (Cunningham & Stanovich, 1991; Echols, West, Stanovich & Zehr, 1996; Senechal & Cornell, 1993; Senechal, LaFevre, Hudson & Lawson, 1996).  Therefore encouraging children to read is advantageous to both reading and language outcomes.

That said, some types of reading activities have been more consistently associated with reading skill than others.  For example, Anderson et al. (1988) reported that time spent reading books was more strongly associated with reading comprehension and reading speed than other text types (e.g., comics, newspapers and magazines).  Similarly, Spear-Swerling, Brucker and Alfano (2010) found that fiction book reading was more closely associated with various reading-related skills (i.e., word reading, oral comprehension, vocabulary and reading comprehension) compared to other reading habits. 

Therefore book reading, but particularly fiction book reading, does appear to be a stronger correlate with reading outcomes compared to shorter paper based texts.  It is possible that the composition and extended nature of these text types, in addition to the wider and more varied vocabulary that books introduce children and adolescents to, means that this type of reading activity is more closely associated with positive reading outcomes.

However, over the last decade or so, there has been a steep and steady increase in the diversity of text types available to children and adolescents, more specifically, an increase in the availability and ubiquity of digital texts (e.g., text messages, emails, websites, ebooks, blogs, facebook, etc).  These text types are as varied (or arguably more varied) than their paper based equivalents and children and adolescents now have opportunities to engage in a much wider range of reading activities than ever before.  Large scale research by Clark (2011) shows that digital texts are among children’s and adolescents’ most popular reading activities, highlighting a need to understand more about the relationship between these different reading activities and reading outcomes.

In a recent research study (McGeown et al., 2015), we examined the extent to which adolescents’ reported time spent engaging with different text types: fiction book reading, factual book reading, school book reading, short traditional texts (comprising of: magazine, comic, newspaper, song lyrics, instructions/manual, poetry) and short digital texts (comprising of: text messages/email, social networking site, computer game, factual website, Twitter) predicted a number of reading outcomes (word reading, reading comprehension, reading summarisation skills and reading fluency).

We found that fiction book reading was the only consistent positive predictor of all reading outcomes (even after controlling for other variables).  In additional statistical analyses (not included in the paper), we examined the relationship between each of the text types in turn.  As expected, fiction book reading was the most consistent and strongest correlate with all reading outcomes.  The second most consistent and strongest correlate was time reported using Twitter; this statistically inversely related with most reading outcomes (i.e., greater use of Twitter was associated with poorer reading scores).

However, we need to consider that the association between reading skills and choice of reading material is likely to be reciprocal -although different text types may differ in their ability to develop reading skills, children and adolescents’ choice of text types is also likely to be influenced by their reading skills; students with better reading skills may be more likely to seek out more difficult texts (e.g. books), thereby further developing their reading skills.  That said, the research to date suggests that encouraging children and adolescents to spend more time reading books (but particularly fiction books) is the safest advice to promote reading development.

 

 
References

Anderson, R. C., Wilson, P. T., & Fielding, L. G.  (1988). Growth in reading and how
children spend their time outside of school.  Reading Research Quarterly, 23, 285-303. doi: 10.1598/RRQ.23.3.2

Clark, C., (2011).  Setting the Baseline.  The National Literacy Trust’s first annual survey
into young people’s reading – 2010.  National Literacy Trust.

Coiro, J., & Dobler, E.  (2007).  Exploring the online reading comprehension strategies used
by sixth-grade skilled readers to search for and locate information on the Internet.  Reading Research Quarterly, 42, 214-257. doi: 10.1598/RRQ.42.2.2

Cunningham, A. E., & Stanovich, K. E.  (1991).  Tracking the unique effects of print
exposure in children: Associations with vocabulary, general knowledge, and spelling.
Journal of Educational Psychology, 83, 264-274. doi: 10.1037/0022-0663.83.2.264

Echols, L. D., West, R. F., Stanovich, K. E., & Zehr, K. S.  (1996).  Using children’s literacy activities to
predict growth in verbal cognitive skills: A longitudinal investigation.  Journal of Educational
Psychology, 88, 296-304. doi: 10.1037/0022-0663.88.2.296

Leppanen, U., Aunola, K., & Nurmi, J-E.  (2005).  Beginning readers’ reading performance
and reading habits.  Journal of Research in Reading, 28, 383-399. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9817.2005.00281.x

Mol, S. E., & Bus, A. G.  (2011).  To read or not to read: A meta-analysis of print exposure
from infancy to early adulthood.  Psychological Bulletin, 137, 267-296.  doi:
10.1037/a0021890

McGeown, S. P., Duncan, L. G., Griffiths, Y., & Stothard, S. E.  (2015). Exploring the relationship
between adolescents’ reading skills, reading motivation and reading habits.  Reading and
Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal. doi: 10.1007/s11145-014-9537-9

Pitcher, S. M., Albright, L. K., DeLaney, C. J., Walker, N. T., Seunarinesingh, K., Mogge, S.,
Headley, K. N., Ridgeway, V., Peck, S., Hunt, R., & Dunston, P. J.  (2007).  Assessing adolescents’ motivation to reading.  Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 50, 378-396. doi:10.1598/JAAL.50.5.5

Senechal, M., & Cornell, E. H. (1993).  Vocabulary acquisition through shared reading experiences. 
Reading Research Quarterly, 28, 360-364.

Senechal, M., LeFevre, J-A., Hudson, E., & Lawson, E. P. (1996).  Knowledge of storybooks as a
predictor of young children’s vocabulary.  Journal of Educational Psychology, 88, 520-536.
doi: 10.1037/0022-0663.88.3.520