Features of Dialogic Instruction in Upper Elementary Classrooms and their Relationships to Student Reading Comprehension

Abstract

There is widespread agreement that language skill underpins reading comprehension (e.g. Cutting & Scarborough, 2006; Dickinson, McCabe, Anastasopoulos, Peisner-Feinberg, & Poe, 2003; Snow, 1991), and empirical work over the last 20 years has shown positive effects of dialogic instruction on student literacy outcomes. This suggests the importance of the engagement with others in the learning process as a scaffold for academic literacy skills (Wells, 1999). Research in this area has shown a number of important features of dialogic instruction to be positively correlated with literacy skills, but it is still not well understood how teachers guide and support students in developing language abilities for reading comprehension. Drawing on dialogic theories of language and the simple view of reading model (Hoover & Gough, 1990), and using a convergent mixed method analysis, the study explores how features of dialogic instruction relate to students' reading comprehension outcomes, and identifies themes within the patterns and variations of these features during instruction. Multilevel modeling (Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002) and case study analysis (Merriam, 1998; Stake, 2006; Yin, 2009) are used to identify significant talk moves for reading comprehension and to qualify the content and function of these moves in their instructional contexts. Quantitative analyses showed five significant talk moves predicted reading comprehension achievement, including the rate of uptake questions, teacher explanations, and low-quality evaluations. High rates of student explanations and high-quality questions were predictive of lower reading outcomes. Case study analyses show a preponderance of teacher talk, a lack of quantity and quality to student talk, and an efferent stance (Rosenblatt, 1994) toward reading. These findings indicate a lack of dialogic practices across the grades and classrooms. However, there were opportunities for dialogic practices that support students' linguistic comprehension. Overall, this analysis showed mixed results for the importance of dialogic instructional moves, and indicates the importance of teacher talk to facilitate linguistic comprehension, as well as the promise of talk moves that incorporate student attention and participation around texts.