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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
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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
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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
614 The Reading Teacher April 1989
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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?
The teacher's role in students' success 615
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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.
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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.
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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
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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
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Yopp, Hallie K., and Harry Singer. "Are Metacognitive and
Metalinguistic Abilities Necessary for Beginning Read
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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
Road, PO Box 8139, Newark DE 19714-8139, USA.
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The teacher's role in students' success 617
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