Increasing Reading Comprehension and Engagement Through Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction.

Abstract

Based on an engagement perspective of reading development, we investigated the extent to which an instructional framework of combining motivation support and strategy instruction (Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction—CORI) influenced reading outcomes for third-grade children. In CORI, five motivational practices were integrated with six cognitive strategies for reading comprehension. In the first study, we compared this framework to an instructional framework emphasizing Strategy Instruction (SI), but not including motivation support. In the second study, we compared CORI to SI and to a traditional instruction group (TI), and used additional measures of major constructs. In both studies, class-level analyses showed that students in CORI classrooms were higher than SI and/or TI students on measures of reading comprehension, reading motivation, and reading strategies. A widespread goal of education in the elementary grades is reading comprehension for all students. Reading comprehension becomes especially important in the later elementary grades (Sweet & Snow, 2003) and provides the basis for a substantial amount of learning in secondary school (Kirsch et al., 2002). Without the skills of reading comprehension and the motivation for reading to learn, students’ academic progress is limited (Alvermann & Earle, 2003). In view of the prominence of reading comprehension, a vital issue for educational psychology is investigating the characteristics of effective instruction for reading comprehension (Hiebert & Raphael, 1996). The growing knowledge base about instruction for reading comprehension is rightly directed toward identifying classroom practices with known effects on specific aspects of reading, and a major focus of this research has been on identifying effective reading strategies that increase children’s comprehension (Block & Pressley, 2002; Duke & Pearson, 2002; National Reading Panel, 2000). However, the evidence rests primarily on instructional research in which single cognitive strategies, such as questioning, are taught in controlled experiments. Relatively little investigation has been conducted on how multiple strategies can be combined in long-term comprehension instruction within the classroom, and