"It shouldn’t take very long to help students understand a concept like 'making predictions' or 'summarizing.”'The studies that support such instruction generally last no more than six weeks, and a prominent reading expert has concluded that students accrue all the benefits they’re going to get from it after just ten sessions, which is equivalent to two weeks.
So why have them “practice” these skills and strategies month after month, year after year? Why not have them start applying those strategies to content in subjects like social studies, science, and literature as soon as possible, so that they’re using them to acquire, deepen, and retain new knowledge?"
I would take this one step further and say that the strategy 'practice' actually comes through APPLICATION to text. There doesn't need to be a six-week period of isolated strategy instruction. What there needs to be at the beginning of introducing a strategy is more 'We do together' rather than 'You do' (using Anita Archer's lesson structure of "I do, we do, you do") as analysis and discussion of the text is scaffolded--with the hope that students can eventually apply the strategy independently as they read.
Thank you for adding clarifications to Tim Shanahan's piece--both very important.
I certainly agree that there doesn't have to be a six-week period of isolated strategy practice, or even a two-week one. That's just how these studies are conducted -- you isolate one variable, like instruction in a particular strategy, and try to assess its effect -- but it doesn't mean that's necessarily how classroom instruction should proceed. Still, if people are wedded to strategy instruction, I'd rather see them limit it to two weeks or six weeks instead of spending years on it as we do now!
I will say that with writing, I see a value in some preliminary explicit strategy instruction -- for example, teaching the strategy of using a subordinating conjunction -- before embedding that in content. As I've learned from Judith Hochman, when you're introducing a new writing strategy, that should be done in the context of familiar content, because that frees up more cognitive capacity to learn the strategy (kids aren't also trying to juggle unfamiliar content). But then, as soon as they've got the idea of the strategy, you should have kids apply it to content they're learning.
I'd say that kind of brief isolated strategy instruction is needed more with writing strategies than reading strategies, because writing imposes a heavier cognitive load on working memory than reading does.
Knowledge-building involves, in part, learning new words. Here is a fascinating study about the relationship between teachers' use of academic words and their 2nd grade students' vocabulary. They say, "Our findings demonstrate that, at present, students have only limited access on average to academic language or the grade-level vocabulary in the curriculum, during the oral instruction and discussion from their teachers."
Wanzek, J., Wood, C., & Schatschneider, C. (2023). Teacher Vocabulary Use and Student Language and Literacy Achievement. JSHR, ePub Ahead of Issue,1-14
Thanks! I've seen a similar study, from Nonie Lesaux, showing a significant boost from more sophisticated teacher vocabulary, but I can't seem to locate it at the moment.
"It shouldn’t take very long to help students understand a concept like 'making predictions' or 'summarizing.”'The studies that support such instruction generally last no more than six weeks, and a prominent reading expert has concluded that students accrue all the benefits they’re going to get from it after just ten sessions, which is equivalent to two weeks.
So why have them “practice” these skills and strategies month after month, year after year? Why not have them start applying those strategies to content in subjects like social studies, science, and literature as soon as possible, so that they’re using them to acquire, deepen, and retain new knowledge?"
I would take this one step further and say that the strategy 'practice' actually comes through APPLICATION to text. There doesn't need to be a six-week period of isolated strategy instruction. What there needs to be at the beginning of introducing a strategy is more 'We do together' rather than 'You do' (using Anita Archer's lesson structure of "I do, we do, you do") as analysis and discussion of the text is scaffolded--with the hope that students can eventually apply the strategy independently as they read.
Thank you for adding clarifications to Tim Shanahan's piece--both very important.
I certainly agree that there doesn't have to be a six-week period of isolated strategy practice, or even a two-week one. That's just how these studies are conducted -- you isolate one variable, like instruction in a particular strategy, and try to assess its effect -- but it doesn't mean that's necessarily how classroom instruction should proceed. Still, if people are wedded to strategy instruction, I'd rather see them limit it to two weeks or six weeks instead of spending years on it as we do now!
I will say that with writing, I see a value in some preliminary explicit strategy instruction -- for example, teaching the strategy of using a subordinating conjunction -- before embedding that in content. As I've learned from Judith Hochman, when you're introducing a new writing strategy, that should be done in the context of familiar content, because that frees up more cognitive capacity to learn the strategy (kids aren't also trying to juggle unfamiliar content). But then, as soon as they've got the idea of the strategy, you should have kids apply it to content they're learning.
I'd say that kind of brief isolated strategy instruction is needed more with writing strategies than reading strategies, because writing imposes a heavier cognitive load on working memory than reading does.
Knowledge-building involves, in part, learning new words. Here is a fascinating study about the relationship between teachers' use of academic words and their 2nd grade students' vocabulary. They say, "Our findings demonstrate that, at present, students have only limited access on average to academic language or the grade-level vocabulary in the curriculum, during the oral instruction and discussion from their teachers."
Wanzek, J., Wood, C., & Schatschneider, C. (2023). Teacher Vocabulary Use and Student Language and Literacy Achievement. JSHR, ePub Ahead of Issue,1-14
https://doi.org/23814764000300140072
That study sounds interesting, but the DOI isn't working and I can't seem to find it by Googling.
The abstract is available here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37541302/
Thanks! I've seen a similar study, from Nonie Lesaux, showing a significant boost from more sophisticated teacher vocabulary, but I can't seem to locate it at the moment.