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Reading to learn: Investigating general and domain specific supports in a technology-rich environment with diverse readers learning from informational text

Year: 2002
Name of Institution:
Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST)
Goal: Development and Innovation
Principal Investigator:
Dalton, Bridget
Award Amount: $1,499,281
Award Period: 3 years
Award Number: R305G020041

Description:

Co-Principal Investigator(s): Palincsar, Annemarie

Purpose:
In this project, this research team proposed to develop a computer-based instructional approach to support struggling readers and accelerate their development of reading comprehension, especially for informational text. In addition, the researchers wanted to determine how the genre of the text (narrative vs. science), the way in which the text was presented (multi-media website vs. digital text only), and how varied computer-based supports affected text comprehension by both struggling and average urban fourth-grade readers. At the conclusion of this project, the researchers aimed to have created an empirically validated computer-based instructional tool that can be used by all students to help accelerate their reading comprehension skills.

STRUCTURED ABSTRACT

THE FOLLOWING CONTENT DESCRIBES THE PROJECT AT THE TIME OF FUNDING

Research Design and Methods: In this set of studies, the research team will compare the cognitive activity and learning of both struggling and average fourth-grade readers as they read and learn from digital narrative, science text, and multi-media science websites. Science texts share a set of unique features that may be less familiar to young readers than the defining features of narrative texts. Thus, science texts explain a phenomenon by describing and modeling that phenomenon, presenting data using figures, tables, and graphs, and expecting students to generate novel inferences about the phenomenon based on information presented in the text. The results of the research effort will detail what sorts of comprehension supports are most effective at improving comprehension of science texts and in developing scientific knowledge and reasoning. In addition, the researchers will specify which supports are most effective for which students.

In summary, then, this research—on descriptive and two experimental studies—will be conducted with urban fourth-grade students using a computer-based learning environment with features such as text-to-speech decoding with synchronized highlighting of text and an embedded system of scaffolded cognitive prompts, hints, and modeling. This research will document the degree to which these embedded computer supports improve struggling readers' ability to acquire information from science texts. In addition, the research will provide basic information about how the comprehension of science texts occurs across a range of readers and the degree to which these computer supports aid readers of all skill levels. Building on the empirical evidence validating the use of computer supports, this research will be able to inform teachers as they instruct students in the process of reading science texts, textbook writers as they organize science textbooks, and web designers as they create multi-media websites.

PRODUCTS

ERIC Citations: Find available citations in ERIC for this award here.

Select Publications:

Book chapters
Dalton B., and Palincsar A.S. (2013). Investigating Text–Reader Interactions in the Context of Supported etext. International Handbook of Metacognition and Learning Technologies. New York, NY: Springer.