Empowerment through Literacy || The Teacher's Role in Students' Success

The Teacher's Role in Students' SuccessAuthor(s): Mariam Jean Dreher and Harry SingerSource: The Reading Teacher, Vol. 42, No. 8, Empowerment through Literacy (Apr., 1989), pp.612-617Published by: Wiley on behalf of the International Reading AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20200242 .

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Mariam Jean Dreher

Harry Singer

The teacher's role

in students' success

The interactive instructional model

of reading encourages the teacher to act as a professional in the face of pressures to be a manager.

In reading instruction, teachers are cur

rently expected to play a role that effec

tively removes them from instructional

decision making. Therefore, this article

presents an alternate view of the teacher's role

in classroom reading. For us, the teacher

plays a central role in determining the goals, materials, and methods of instruction.

The expected role A number of researchers have observed

that teachers are increasingly "activities man

agers" rather than professionals who make de

cisions about goals, materials, and methods

(e.g., Apple and Teitelbaum, 1986; Shannon,

1987; Woodward, 1987). In the current edu

cational climate, the "right" way of teaching

reading is typically represented by a commer

cial reading program which comes with goals, materials, tests and, activities determined by

"experts."

As Duffy, Roehler, and Putman (1987) have concluded, observation of classroom

reading practice as well as "virtually all the re

cent reviews of teacher decision making sug

gest that teachers make few decisions about

substantive issues of curriculum and instruc

tion. Instead, once reading groups are formed

and organizational patterns are established, most instructional decisions focus on task

completion and on maintaining student atten

tion rather than on issues of content and stu

dent understanding" (p. 359). As Woodward

(1986) found, reading instruction closely fol lows the teacher's manuals.

The situation described can be depicted as in Figure 1. Here the teacher's role is to im

plement the reading program as specified in

the textbook manual. The teacher is shown in

brackets to indicate relatively little input into

goals, methods, or materials. In fact, many authors apparently try to make their programs "teacher proof." Some have even given teach

ers scripts of exactly what to say. Thus, the

ideal role for the teacher is to be a conduit for conveying an intact program to students.

Not only is the role of the teacher played down, but so is that of the student. Goals, ac

tivities, and text materials have been deter

mined by people who have never met the

students. Readers' resources are taken into ac

count only in a very general way such as con

sidering what an average 3rd grader may know. Indeed, Shannon (1987) has concluded that reading instruction appears to be consid

ered "an interaction between objects-com mercial materials and students" rather than a

human transaction.

We believe that this situation?in which the teacher is effectively out of the instruc

tional decision making picture?will not pro duce the highest degree of reading progress.

We do not mean to condemn commercial read

ing programs but rather the assumption that

such materials should be considered a pre

scription for instruction. There is, after all,

612 The Reading Teacher April 1989



considerable evidence that commerical pro

grams have their share of faults. For example, Durkin (1981) found lessons to be character ized by assessment rather than instruction,

while Duffy, Roehler, and Putman (1987) noted a lack of rationale for what is to be

taught, a random sequence for skills, and mis

match between unit tests and unit lessons.

To facilitate all students' reading progress, we believe that teachers must be in control so

that commercial programs are used as a

resource rather than a prescription. A first

step in achieving this goal is to replace the current expectations about the teacher's role

with an alternate view of reading that recog nizes the teacher's critical contribution as a

decision maker. Replacing the current expec tations is crucial because these prevailing views cause teachers themselves to believe

that their correct role is to do what manual au

thors suggest (see Duffy, Roehler, and Put

man, 1987; Shannon, 1987).

Background Psychological explanations of reading

have long been used by educators in their ef

forts to understand the reading process. Un

fortunately, psychological explanations of the

reading process are not instructional accounts

and do not include the teacher. For example,

Figure 2 represents a model of reading based on schema theory (Adams and Collins, 1985). Such a model is a way of showing the ele

ments of a theory and the way those elements

interrelate.

Figure 2 is an interactive model of read

ing because it indicates that the characteristics

of the text interact with reader resources re

sulting in the attainment of a goal, such as un

derstanding a text. The term "text features"

refers to characteristics of the reading mate

rial. For example, how well are the content

and structure "signalled" by titles, headings, and topic sentences; how is the material orga

nized; at what rate are new ideas presented? Text features are discussed in depth by Singer (1986) who also presents an inventory for rat

ing textbooks (see also Dreher and Singer, in

press). The term "reader resources" includes the

knowledge that students have available to help them construct the meaning of the text they encounter. This knowledge includes letter and

word identification skills which allow readers

Figure 1 The teacher's role implicit in current expectations

Reading -

[Teacher] - Reader

program

Figure 2 An interactive model of reading based on schema

theory

Text < ^ Reader ^ Goal resources

to identify printed words, as well as vocabu

lary and syntactical knowledge. In addition, it

includes the knowledge readers have accumu

lated based on past experiences. For example, a selection on nest building may be more eas

ily understood by readers who have had prior experiences with birds. Reader resources also

include inference making, evaluation, recall, and recognition, as well as metacognitive

strategies which regulate and monitor cogni tive processes.

The "goal" in the model refers to the de

sired outcome of the interaction between a

reader and a text. The goal varies according to

the purposes of the reader as well as the de

mands of the text.

Figure 2 is a good description of the schema theoretic or interactive view of read

ing which has gained wide acceptance in re

cent years. According to this view, meaning does not reside in the text waiting for readers

to extract it. Instead, it is now generally ac

cepted that readers must use their own re

sources, such as prior knowledge, to interact

with text information in order to construct

meaning; the text is seen as providing clues

for this construction of meaning (Pearson,

1985). The interactive approach to reading is ad

equate for explaining what occurs when a

reader reads independently in an individual

setting. However, this explanation is not ade

quate when reading occurs under a teacher's

guidance because, like other psychological accounts of reading, it does not recognize the

The teacher's role in students' success 613



Figure 3 An interactive instructional model of reading

Text ^ ^ Reader -^~ Goal

features resources

^^ Teacher

teacher's role. What is needed is an interactive

instructional model of reading.

Interactive instruction

Figure 3 depicts an interactive instruc

tional model for reading and learning from text, adapted from Singer (1987), which rec

ognizes the teacher's effect on the reader, the

text, and the goal of the reading process and

the reciprocal influence of the reader, the text,

and the goal on the teacher. According to this

view, the teacher can select, supplement, or

modify the text. He or she can also add to

reader resources and set the goal for readers'

interaction with the text.

The teacher not only influences the

reader, the text, and the goal, but is also af

fected by them. The characteristics of the text

may cause teachers to decide on a particular instructional approach for their students. For

example, a teacher may select a particular em

phasis to build upon the strength of a book or to compensate for its weaknesses. Moreover, a

teacher's decisions will be influenced by his or

her knowledge of the resources students do or

do not have.

Whether a teacher tries to develop certain

understandings before assigning a selection, for example, may depend on how far removed

the content is from students' prior experi ences. Teachers' decisions are also influenced

by whether students have attained the goals which have been set. Information on the at

tainment of the goal, often in the form of test

performance, may result in teachers modify

ing the text, the readers' resources, and/or the

goal.

Using the approach By using an interactive instructional ap

proach, we can clearly focus on the important

s

role of the teacher as an instructional decision

maker in classroom reading and learning from

text. The interactive instructional view in Fig ure 3 makes explicit how the teacher affects all

the aspects of classroom reading so that all

students can make progress. Although the ex

amples could be generated at any level, we

will illustrate the benefit of thinking in terms of an interactive instructional view with exam

ples from research on beginning reading in

struction.

Research indicates that the ability to seg ment words into their constituent sounds

(e.g., being able to say "hat" without the "h") is related to reading achievement (e.g., Liber

man et al., 1977). Research also indicates that

many children are not able to segment words

when reading instruction starts (Yopp and

Singer, 1984). However, whether the lack of this ability interferes with reading progress depends on whether the teacher takes into ac

count this reader resource problem. For example, Yopp (1985) found that if a

teacher uses an instructional approach which

does not require students to segment words into their constituent sounds, such as a sight

word program, then even children who lack

segmentation skills can succeed. Moreover, as

these students become able to segment words, their teachers can add phonics to their instruc

tion.

With the right intervention by the teacher, even children who are not able to segment

words can succeed in a phonics program. For

example, Moore (1961) used a phonics pro

gram to teach 2 to 5 year olds to read, even

though these students lacked segmentation skills. They were able to succeed because

Moore circumvented shortcomings in the

readers' resources by shifting some of the re

quirements to himself and by modifying the

goal. He reduced the demands on reader re

sources by working one to one. He also modi

fied the goal by effectively converting the task into an associative learning task rather than a

sound segmentation task?Moore used his

own skills to segment words for students. The

task thus did not require linguistic abilities which the students had not yet developed.

As these examples illustrate, the teacher

has a powerful role in classroom reading and

learning from text. The teacher can modify the text, increase or decrease the demands on

reader resources, add to reader resources, and




set goals that are difficult or easy in relation

ship to reader resources. Indeed, depending on what the teacher does, the students in one

class may be successful in reading while in

another class they might fail. Thus, when we

look at reading and learning from text in the classroom, we cannot do so in a complete

manner unless we include the teacher.

A shift in perspective Both informal observation and research

suggest that reading instruction based on the

interactive instructional approach would make a difference in students' performance. Teach

er's who view their roles as instructional deci

sion makers (Figure 3) are more likely to make needed modifications in texts, reader re

sources, and goals than teachers who see their

role as managers of an intact reading program

(Figure 1). For example, when we empha sized that it was appropriate to do so, even

preservice teachers in our reading methods

classes identified activities in basal manuals that needed to be altered or replaced so that

the needs of students in their reading groups were adequately met.

Moreover, Duffy, Roehler, and Putman

(1987) report research in which teachers were trained to make their own instructional deci

sions. These teachers were able to produce

significantly better reading achievement for their low reading groups than were teachers

who taught control groups "by the book." In

terestingly, these teachers were able to accom

plish this improvement in their students'

reading performance even with a mandated

basal reader series; what they learned to do was to reorganize, modify, or replace the

packaged lessons according to their own in

structional purposes.

However, it whould be noted that al

though the teachers in the Duffy, Roehler, and Putman study could successfully make deci

sions that benefitted students, these teachers

found it hard to carry out these activities. Ap

parently they were under a good deal of stress

because they believed they really should be

following what the "experts" told them to do in the manuals.

Although there is clear evidence that

reading programs are not perfect, teachers felt

it was inappropriate to deviate from what they saw as prescribed lessons. The reactions of

teachers in Duffy, Roehler, and Putman's

study show the need to highlight the teacher's active role as in Figure 3-especially now

when "teacher as manager" is the expectation rather than "teacher as instructional decision

maker." The interactive instructional view

stresses that it is permissable, indeed desir

able, to deviate from teachers' manuals.

Questions to ask The interactive instructional approach can

be used as a frame of reference for evaluating the success of reading instruction. For exam

ple, questions such as those in the Table can

be formulated to address the contributions of each part of Figure 3 -the text, the reader, the

goal, and the teacher. These questions can

Questions to ask about reading instruction

Text 1. Is the text appropriate for the students? [If not, what does the teacher do?]

Reader 2. Do the readers of this text have the necessary resources for learning from it? [If not, what does the

teacher do?] Goal

3. Is the kind of comprehension required at this grade, often defined by a test, appropriate for the text and the reader? (For example, tests may emphasize inferential comprehension while the

questions in the text or the teacher's manual emphasize literal comprehension.) [If not, what does the teacher do?]

Teacher 4. Does the teacher modify or supplement the text to make it more appropriate for the reader and the

goal of instruction? 5. Does the teacher enhance reader resources to enable students to comprehend the text and

achieve the goal of instruction? 6. Does the teacher vary the goal to enable students to achieve successfully?




then be used to help teachers evaluate their own degree of success in taking an active role

in classroom reading instruction. A negative answer for any of the first three questions im

mediately calls for teacher action related to one of the last three questions.

Constraints Teachers have varying degrees of free

dom since there may be constraints on their decisions about reading and learning from text. A state requirement, or a school system's or a principal's mandate may limit a teacher's

options. For example, we have talked to teach ers who are required to use only a certain text

book and, at frequent intervals, to report on

what page their classes are working. These

teachers have less flexibility since they cannot

select a more appropriate text for their stu

dents, and constraints have been placed on

their ability to supplement or modify the test. But as the Duffy, Roehler, and Putman (1987) results suggest, teachers can still make mean

ingful instructional decisions despite con

straints; their willingness and ability to do so,

however, hinges on being convinced of the

"correctness" of their role of teacher as profes sional.

Even when constraints are present, the in

teractive instructional approach still serves a

very useful purpose because it can be used to

clarify just what aspects of the reading process are still open to modification. It can also be used to illustrate graphically for principals and school boards the areas that have been re

moved from teachers' control.

Conclusion In short, in recent years the role of teach

ers as professional decision makers has been undercut by a conception of teachers as con

duits for implementing an intact, "expert de

signed" program. To some degree, this role

has been implicitly supported by the omission of the teacher in the psychological models that have been relied upon for explanations of the

reading process. We believe that a new conception of read

ing and learning from text in the classroom

setting is needed. Specifically, we have pro

posed an interactive instructional model which provides a clear delineation of the im

portant role of the teacher as a part of reading in the classroom. Although at some level most

people would acknowledge the importance of the teacher in reading instruction, the key is sue is the nature of the teacher's importance.

The prevailing view of the teacher as a "pro gram deliverer" needs to be countered with a

shift to a recognition of the importance of the teacher's active role in instructional decision

making. Thus, we have presented an approach to

serve as a guide for teachers seeking to im

prove their students' reading and learning from text in the classroom setting. This inter active instructional perspective of classroom

reading serves to guide, justify, and give con

fidence to teachers who seek to be profession als in the face of pressures to be managers.

Dreher teaches reading courses at the University of Maryland, College Park, and is interested in

improving reading and learning from text. Before his untimely death, Singer was the Director of the

University of California, California State Univer

sity Learning from Text Project.

References

Adams, Marilyn J., and Alan Collins. "A Schema-Theo retic View of Reading." In Theoretical Models and Proc esses of Reading, 3rd ed., edited by Harry Singer and Robert B. Ruddell (pp. 404-25) Newark, DE: Interna tional Reading Association, 1985.

Apple, Michael W., and Kenneth Teitelbaum. "Are Teach ers Losing Control of Their Skills and Curriculum?" Journal of Curriculum Studies, vol. 18 (1986), pp. 177 84.

Dreher, Mariam J., and Harry Singer. "Friendly Texts and

Text-Friendly Teachers." Theory Into Practice, in press. Duffy, Gerald G., Laura R. Roehler, and Joyce Putman.

"Putting the Teacher in Control: Basal Reading Text books and Instructional Decision Making." The Ele

mentary School Journal, vol. 87 (1987), pp. 357-66.

Durkin, Dolores. "Reading Comprehension Instruction in Five Basal Reader Series." Reading Research Quar

terly, vol. 16, no. 4 (1981), pp. 515-44.

Liberman, Isabelle Y., Donald Shankweiler, Alvin Liber

man, Carol Fowler, and F. Fischer. "Phonetic Segmen tation and Recoding in the Beginning Reader." In Toward a Psychology of Reading, edited by Arthur S. Reber and Don L. Scarborough, pp. 207-25. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1977.

Moore, Omar K. "Tis Time He Should Begin to Read."

Carnegie Corporation of New York Quarterly, vol. 9 (1961), pp. 1-3.

Pearson, P. David. "Changing the Face of Reading Com

prehension Instruction." The Reading Teacher, vol. 38

(April 1985), pp. 724-38. Shannon, Patrick. "Commercial Reading Materials, a

Technological Ideology, and the Deskilling of Teach ers." The Elementary School Journal, vol. 87 (1987), pp. 307-29.




Singer, Harry. "Friendly Texts: Description and Criteria."

In Reading in the Content Areas, edited by Ernest K.

Dishner, Thomas Bean, John E. Readence, and David

W. Moore, pp. 112-28. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt, 1986.

Singer, Harry. "An Instructional Model for Reading and

Learning from Text in a Classroom Setting." Journal of

Reading Education, vol. 13 (1987), pp. 8-31.

Woodward, Arthur. "Over-programmed Materials: Taking the Teacher Out of Teaching." American Educator,

(Spring 1986), pp. 26-31.

Woodward, Arthur. "From Professional Teacher to Activi

ties Manager: The Changing Role of the Teacher in

Reading Teachers' Guides, 1920-1985." Paper pre sented at the American Educational Research Associ

ation Conference, Washington, DC, April 1987.

Yopp, Hallie K. "Phoneme Segmentation Ability: A Pre

requisite for Phonics and Sight Word Achievement in

Beginning Reading." In Issues in Literacy: A Research

Perspective, edited by Jerome Niles and Rosary Lalik,

pp. 330-36. Thirty-fourth Yearbook of the National

Reading Conference. Rochester, NY: National Read

ing Conference, 1985.

Yopp, Hallie K., and Harry Singer. "Are Metacognitive and

Metalinguistic Abilities Necessary for Beginning Read

ing Instruction?" In Changing Perspectives on Re

search in Reading/Language Processing and

Instruction, edited by Jerome Niles and Rosary Lalik,

pp. 110-16. Thirty-third Yearbook of the National Read

ing Conference. Rochester, NY: National Reading Con

ference, 1984.

Proposal forms for 1990

IRA Stockholm World Congress The Thirteenth World Congress on Reading will be held in Stockholm, Sweden, July 3-6, 1990. The

deadline for proposing a possible Congress presentation is July 10, 1989. Proposal forms are avail

able on request from the Conferences Division, International Reading Association, 800 Barksdale

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Empowerment through Literacy || The Teacher's Role in Students' Success