Abstract
Reading and reading comprehension are crucial skills, yet many students in grade 4 struggle with them. To address this, several instructional practices have gained popularity. For one, explicit reading strategy instruction (ERSI) is deemed useful, given the finding that successful readers tend to employ reading strategies. As a second example, differentiated reading instruction (DRI) is believed to improve all students’ reading comprehension.
Indeed, a one-size-fits-all approach may not work for all students, considering their different reader profiles. Despite the importance of ERSI and DRI, much uncertainty remains about what happens in the classroom and why. One way to understand teacher instructional practices such as ERSI and DRI, is by applying psychological behavioural theories to the teaching context.
They provide a framework to predict human behaviour based on human characteristics and beliefs. Educational research points to teachers’ self-efficacy (TSE) and attitudes (TA) as particularly important concepts, especially in the field of science. However, associations between TA, TSE, instructional practices and students’ reading achievement remain insufficiently studied. This study addresses this knowledge gap by exploring the interplay between TSE and TA regarding ERSI and DRI, the implementation of these practices, and students’ reading achievement.
Methods
DigitalPIRLS 2021 data from Belgium (Flanders) were used. To gather information about ERSI, DRI, TA and TSE, national adaptations were made to the teacher questionnaires. Three nested path models with a two-level design (students nested into classes) were estimated.
Results
This study indicates that teachers with higher TSE and more positive TA in ERSI and DRI implement these practices more frequently. Positive TA regarding ERSI and DRI also correspond to positive TSE regarding these instructional practices. Furthermore, ERSI and DRI implementation are positively related. Finally, no significant associations between teacher beliefs, instructional practices, and students’ reading comprehension were found.
Conclusion
Whereas TSE and TA are considered highly context-dependent, uncertainty remains about TSE and TA regarding ERSI and DRI. The results highlight the importance of subject-specific TSE and TA for teachers’ instructional practices. Ultimately, the findings emphasize the necessity of supporting teachers in developing their TSE and TA towards reading comprehension instruction.
Introduction
In a world “dominated by the written word, both online and in print” (European Commission, 2012, p.11), reading and understanding what we read are of undeniable importance. Teaching our children to read from an early age on is crucial, since students’ level of reading proficiency is an important predictor for both academic and out of school success (e.g., De Naeghel et al., 2014; Merchie et al., 2019; Taboada et al., 2009). Being able to infer meaning from written texts is considered a basic prerequisite for almost all higher-order cognitive skills (McNamara & Magliano, 2009). Furthermore, a low reading comprehension level in primary education is among the best predictors for delayed graduation and school dropout (Hernandez, 2011). Unfortunately, research shows that many students in primary education still struggle with comprehending texts (Mullis et al., 2017). For example, results from the international PIRLS 2016 study indicated that 18% of all participating students performed below the intermediate benchmark (i.e., locate and reproduce explicitly stated information) at the end of grade 4. The recent PIRLS 2021 results paint an even more alarming picture, with 25% of students failing to reach this level (Mullis et al., 2023). Furthermore, PISA 2018 results revealed that these struggles persist throughout compulsory education, with 23% of the 15-year-olds performing below the minimum reading proficiency level (OECD, 2019). Considering these concerning observations, it is important to acknowledge the multifaceted factors influencing students’ reading comprehension. From an economic perspective for instance, the intricate relationship between poverty and poor literacy forms a vicious circle (European Commission, 2012). Given this context, acknowledging the impact of socio-economic aspects is crucial when aiming to enhance reading comprehension. Additionally, from an educational standpoint, effectiveness research points to the important role of teacher practices in contributing to students’ academic achievement (Scheerens, 2016). In this respect, as the use of reading comprehension strategies was found to be related to reading comprehension (Cromley & Azevedo, 2007), explicit reading strategy instruction (ERSI) has been gaining momentum as an effective instructional teacher practice over the last decades (NICHD, 2000). When offering ERSI, teachers guide their students to become strategic readers by highlighting the relevance of specific reading comprehension strategies, explaining and modeling the strategies and encouraging the students to use them in various contexts (Duke et al., 2011). Despite the acknowledged positive effects of ERSI in terms of students’ reading strategy use and reading comprehension (e.g., Droop et al., 2016; Okkinga et al., 2018), counter-indications for a one-size-fits-all approach have been suggested within reading comprehension instruction, considering a range of different student reader profiles (e.g., Rasinski, 2017). Consequently, offering differentiated reading instruction (DRI), i.e., adapting instruction to accommodate students’ differential needs (Parsons et al., 2017), is also gaining support as an effective instructional practice that could benefit the reading comprehension achievement of all students.
Although the effectiveness of ERSI and DRI has been demonstrated repeatedly, much uncertainty remains about whether and why teachers are actually implementing these instructional practices. One way to better understand and gain insight into teacher instructional practices, is by applying psychological behavioural theories, such as for example the Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen, 1991) and the Social Cognitive Theory (Bandura, 1986), to the teaching context. These theories provide a framework to predict human behaviour based on human characteristics and beliefs. Educational research—mainly in the field of science—points to the particular importance of two of these beliefs, more specifically teachers’ self-efficacy and teachers’ attitudes (Zint, 2002).
Teacher Attitudes (TA) refer to teachers’ evaluative judgements regarding particular attitude objects, such as the importance of certain instructional behaviours. Teachers’ Self-efficacy (TSE) encompasses one’s own assessment of the ease or unease associated with successfully performing a particular behaviour. To our knowledge, the relationship between TA, TSE, and teachers’ instructional practices remains rather unstudied within the research field of reading education.
Despite the widely acknowledged importance of ERSI and DRI, classroom observations of reading lessons suggest that both instructional practices are too often not implemented by primary school teachers (e.g., Peters et al., 2022). To understand and ultimately impact classroom practice, research should gain insight into teacher beliefs in relation to their behaviour (Zint, 2002). Furthermore, considering the alarming trends in students’ reading comprehension, it is essential to develop a comprehensive understanding of the teachers’ attributes that are related to students’ reading achievement. However, within the context of reading comprehension, research into these beliefs is rather scarce (Ness, 2011). As such, the main research question of the present study is: How does the interplay between primary school teachers’ TSE and TA towards ERSI and DRI, along with their self-reported instructional practices, relate to students’ reading comprehension achievement.
Theoretical framework
Reading comprehension is a dynamic and active process involving a complex range of cognitive and metacognitive subprocesses. Many researchers have proposed models and definitions, trying to capture this complexity. The central element in the most cited definitions is the process of actively extracting and constructing meaning from written texts (e.g., McNamara & Magliano, 2009; Snow, 2002). The readers’ activities, such as reading strategy use, and the readers’ characteristics, such as mother tongue, socio-economic status (SES), and reading difficulties, play a key role in the reading comprehension process. Each of the listed characteristics can be a source of diversity leading to different reader profiles (Merchie et al., 2019).