What is it about?
In this article, we describe and reflect on a collaborative, school-based professional development project (an ‘intervention’) intended to encourage innovation in classroom teaching. Specifically, the intervention included a collaboration between university-based researchers/mentors and primary school teachers in Singapore who were interested in discovering new strategies for reading comprehension instruction. The results show that by working together, over time, teachers were able to innovate by adopting new strategies for leading reading comprehension discussions and adapting the new strategies to fit the local teaching context.
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Why is it important?
Crucially, the innovation found that ‘learning’ the new strategies was insufficient; teachers needed professional support from the teacher trainers and their collaborating colleagues as well as time—over three years—to develop their expertise and their confidence in the implementation of the new strategies.
Perspectives
From an author-researcher perspective, one of the best things about doing this research project and preparing this article was the collaboration between teachers and researchers (in the project) and the collaboration in the writing (with Jessie Png).
Dr Rita Elaine Silver
National Institute of Education, Singapore
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Learning to Lead Reading Comprehension Discussion, RELC Journal, October 2015, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/0033688215609217.
You can read the full text:
Resources
Sustaining good classroom intervensions
ReEd Vol 14 (2014): Sustaining Good Classroom Interventions
The Crucial Time Factor in Sustainable Teacher Development and Assessment of Student Outcomes
NIE Research Briefs No. 16-017: The Crucial Time Factor in Sustainable Teacher Development and Assessment of Student Outcomes
In Pursuit of Continuous Teacher Development
ReEd Vol 21 (2017): In Pursuit of Continuous Teacher Development
Building Reading Comprehension Through Classroom Discussion in Singaporean Schools -Discussion Moves
A short video providing descriptions of the 'discussion moves' used in the classroom intervention for reading comprehension. (See Beck & McKeown, 2006, for complete information on Questioning the Author.)
Building Reading Comprehension Through Classroom Discussion With Questioning the Author
A brief overview of Questioning the Author as used in this reading comprehension intervention. (See Beck & McKeown, 2006, for complete information on Questioning the Author.)
OER KnowledgeBank
Further information about the project, especially for teachers, can be found at this KnowledgeBank link. Please note that it is still under development.
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
