Synopses & Reviews
Review
"The book could serve as an excellent text for graduate literacy courses as well as a useful resource for reading researchers and reading professors....Compelling reading, for its insights into both reading and the politics of reading."--PsycCRITIQUES
Review
"It is truly rare that research is grouped and explained in this way. Researchers, graduate students, professors, and teachers will appreciate this volume's common sense and personal explanations of such important topics as instructional trends, reading acquisition, fluency, comprehension, and assessment. The contributors do an excellent job of unifying Steven Stahl's diverse insights and drawing connections to many current educational dilemmas and opportunities. A 'must read' for literacy professionals."--Mark Conley, PhD, Department of Teacher Education and Literacy Achievement Research Center, Michigan State University
"Reading Research at Work is an important book in several regards. First, it is a model for how to situate seminal research studies within a historical context. Second, it is a model for how to trace the impact these studies have on subsequent lines of inquiry. Finally, the book is a fitting tribute to Steven Stahl's many insightful contributions to the literacy field."--Linda D. Labbo, PhD, Department of Language and Literacy Education, University of Georgia
"This book has been organized into sections on literacy instruction trends, reading acquisition, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, and assessment, with each section featuring a selected published article by Steven Stahl matched with closely related scholarly articles. Literacy researchers and graduate students will find this text to be an invaluable resource for information on all of these topics. It will also be a superb text for graduate literacy courses."--Mary Alice Barksdale, EdD, Department of Teaching and Learning, Virginia Tech
"This volume will compete with other research handbooks and texts as one of the finest collections of classic and contemporary scholarship on the most crucial and controversial issues in reading. It is one of the foundational texts that I will keep handy above my desk for teaching my reading graduate courses and seminars."--David OBrien, PhD, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, College of Education and Human Development, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
Synopsis
This book presents state-of-the-science research on the components of successful literacy learning and how to target them in contemporary classrooms. The volume builds on and extends the work of Steven Stahl, whose pioneering contributions encompassed the key areas of phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, comprehension, and assessment. Ten classic papers by Stahl are accompanied by 16 new chapters by other leading experts, who highlight Stahl's theoretical, methodological, and instructional innovations; describe how knowledge about each domain continues to evolve; and discuss implications for helping all children become better readers.
About the Author
Katherine A. Dougherty Stahl, EdD, is Assistant Professor in the Language and Literacy Division of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research interests focus on reading acquisition, including reading fluency and reading comprehension of novice readers. Dr. Stahl has taught in public elementary and middle school classrooms for over 25 years.
Michael C. McKenna, PhD, is Thomas G. Jewell Professor of Reading at the University of Virginia. He has authored, coauthored, or edited 15 books and more than 80 articles, chapters, and technical reports on a range of literacy topics. Dr. McKenna's research has been sponsored by the National Reading Research Center and the Center for the Improvement of Early Reading Achievement. He also serves on the editorial board of Reading Research Quarterly. Dr. McKenna's research interests include comprehension in content settings, reading attitudes, technology applications, and beginning reading.
Table of Contents
Foreword, Lesley Mandel Morrow
I. Instructional Trends
1. How Shall Research Inform Reading Instruction?: The Legacy of Steven A. Stahl, Michael C. McKenna
2. Whole Language and Language Experience Approaches for Beginning Reading: A Quantitative Research Synthesis, Steven A. Stahl and Patricia D. Miller
3. Fostering the Scientific Study of Reading Instruction by Example, Keith E. Stanovich and Paula J. Stanovich
4. Understanding Shifts in Reading and Its Instruction, Steven A. Stahl
5. The Shift from Polarization in Reading: Relying on Research Rather Than Compromise, Timothy Shanahan
II. Reading Acquisition
6. Phonics and Phonemic Awareness, Marilyn Jager Adams and Jean Osborn
7. Defining Phonological Awareness and Its Relationship to Early Reading, Steven A. Stahl and Bruce A. Murray
8. Hunting the Elusive Phoneme: A Phoneme-Direct Model for Learning Phoneme Awareness, Bruce A. Murray
9. Everything You Wanted to Know about Phonics (but Were Afraid to Ask), Steven A. Stahl, Ann M. Duffy-Hester, and Katherine A. Dougherty Stahl
10. More about Phonics: Findings and Reflections, Linnea C. Ehri
III. Fluency
11. Seeking Understanding about Reading Fluency: The Contributions of Steven A. Stahl, Timothy Rasinski and James Hoffman
12. Fluency-Oriented Reading Instruction, Steven A. Stahl and Kathleen Heubach
13. Fluency-Oriented Reading Instruction: A Merging of Theory and Practice, Melanie R. Kuhn and Paula J. Schwanenflugel
IV. Vocabulary
14. The State of Vocabulary Research in the Mid-1980s, William Nagy and Judith A. Scott
15. The Effects of Vocabulary Instruction: A Model-Based Meta-Analysis, Steven A. Stahl and Marilyn M. Fairbanks
16. Issues in the Advancement of Vocabulary Instruction: Response to Stahl and Fairbanks's Meta-Analysis, Margaret G. McKeown and Isabel L. Beck
V. Comprehension
17. Comprehension Research over the Past Three Decades, Richard C. Anderson, Qiuying Wang, and Janet S. Gaffney
18. Prior Knowledge and Difficult Vocabulary in the Comprehension of Unfamiliar Text, Steven A. Stahl, Michael G. Jacobson, Charlotte E. Davis, and Robin L. Davis
19. Improving Students' Reading Comprehension, Barbara M. Taylor, P. David Pearson, Georgia Earnest García, Katherine A. Dougherty Stahl, and Eurydice B. Bauer
20. What Happens When Students Read Multiple Source Documents in History?, Steven A. Stahl, Cynthia R. Hynd, Bruce K. Britton, Mary M. McNish, and Dennis Bosquet
21. Reading Multiple Documents in History Class: Evolution of a Teaching Strategy Based on the Reading Processes of Practicing Historians, Cynthia Hynd Shanahan
VI. Assessment
22. Connecting Scientific and Practical Approaches to Reading Assessment, Scott G. Paris
23. An Educational Model of Assessment and Targeted Instruction for Children with Reading Problems, Steven A. Stahl, Melanie R. Kuhn, and J. Michael Pickle
24. Intelligent Action as the Basis for Literacy Instruction in Classroom and Clinical Settings, Marjorie Y. Lipson
25. The "Word Factors": A Problem for Reading Comprehension Assessment, Steven A. Stahl and Elfrieda H. Hiebert
26. Making the Invisible Visible: The Development of a Comprehension Assessment System, Katherine A. Dougherty Stahl, Georgia Earnest García, Eurydice B. Bauer, P. David Pearson, and Barbara M. Taylor
Epilogue, Michael C. McKenna