Principal Investigator(s)
Bridget Dalton, Ed.D., CAST
Annemarie Sullivan Palincsar, Ph.D., University of Michigan
Funder(s)
U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Educational Sciences (IES)
Timeframe
2003 through 2006
Summary
The Reading to Learn project explored the challenges facing upper elementary school readers as they begin reading informational texts and investigates ways to present such texts in customizable, digital formats. As children shift their focus from "learning to read" to "reading to learn," they can struggle to acquire facts and concepts from information texts.
Science texts in particular 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.
Can a computer-based environment--where text, graphics and other elements are customizable for individual learners--support students in making this transition to reading to learn? In this set of studies, the research team compared the cognitive activity and learning of 4th-grade students, both struggling and average readers, as they read and learned from digital narrative and science texts, as well as multimedia Science websites. The results provided a detailed picture of the kinds of computer-based comprehension supports that were most effective for students in comprehending Science texts.
The RTL team developed and tested a computerized reading environment for struggling readers featuring graphical and interactive reading aids. By removing specific stumbling blocks and catering to the strengths of struggling readers, they aimed to close this gap and allow far more students to work effectively in the classroom.
Current Status
Having successfully developed the prototype and completed data collection, researchers are now analyzing data and preparing it for dissemination.
