SSHRCC Research Project

Objectives
Context of the Research
Related Literature
Theoretical Framework
Relationship of Proposed Research to Ongoing Research
Contribution of Research
Methodology
Implementation
Data Analysis
Results
References


In the spring of 1998, I was awarded a three-year grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada to continue my study on children's reading preferences and teachers' choices of fiction and nonfiction for instructional purposes. The following information is taken from the successful SSHRC proposal and gives you details of what the study will do over the next three years. A website for this project will be developed over the 1998-99 school year and will be connected to this site as soon as it is up and running.

Title: Matching children's choices of fiction and nonfiction trade books for their independent reading with teacher's choices of fiction and nonfiction trade books used for reading instruction


Objectives

The objectives of this three-year study are:

- to identify differences in elementary children's choices of trade books for independent reading by grade level, sex and book type.

- to identify the literary qualities and book characteristics that influence elementary children's choice of trade books for independent reading.

- to identify differences in elementary teachers' choices of trade books for literacy instruction by grade level, sex and book type.

- to identify the literary qualities and book characteristics that influence elementary teachers' choice of trade books used for literacy instruction.

- to compare differences in elementary children's trade book choices for independent reading with elementary teachers' use of fiction and nonfiction trade books for literacy instruction.

Context of the Research

During the past fifteen years, elementary literacy programs have evolved from textbook, skill-based instructional programs into literature-based, process-oriented, whole language programs (Tunnell and Jacobs, 1989). This has meant that teachers must choose materials that will meet their instructional goals and, at the same time, motivate their students to read and write (McKenzie & Warlow, 1977; Huck et al, 1992). For most teachers, this has led them to develop a repertoire of children's literature that they personally like and that they feel helps them develop thematic units of study for their students. This repertoire includes fiction and nonfiction trade books that are used in a myriad of roles in their instructional programs. They find these books in their school libraries, their classroom collections of books and within the core materials provided by the school's literacy curriculum (Doiron, 1995). Children are expected to read these books as part of their work in the classroom with their teacher, but they are also given many opportunities to choose books they would like to read during silent reading, reading/writing workshops or other independent reading times. What has not been forthcoming in the literacy research is how well the choices of trade books teachers make for instruction match the choices of trade books students make for independent reading. If teachers are choosing trade books for instruction that are not similar to the reading interests of their students, then they may be undermining the overall goal of literacy instruction which is to develop capable readers who are motivated to read (Krashen, 1993). As educators, we make curriculum decisions everyday in classrooms and at the district and provincial levels (McKenzie & Warlow, 1977). Yet, we have little documented evidence that students enjoy the projects, themes and units of study centered around existing collections of trade books in our schools. This study builds on several other research studies that have documented the fact that most classroom collections of children's books and most school library collections are weighted heavily in favor of fiction trade books (Doiron, 1995: Doiron & Davies, 1996). However, the evidence from a small pilot project that tracked elementary children's free-choice reading preferences indicated just the opposite --- male and female students preferred nonfiction books and they chose more of them than fiction books. This was particularly evident around grades three and four. What is needed now is more detailed and extensive evidence of the choices of trade books children make when they want something to read independently, as well as documented evidence of the trade books teachers use for literacy instruction. If the study indicates a discrepancy between these two, then educators will have evidence which may lead them to consider at least balancing their use of fiction and nonfiction trade books in their future curriculum plans (Pappas, 1991).

Related Literature

Reading Preferences. Early studies of reading preferences were aimed at determining a broad profile of children's reading interests that could be applied generally in all situations (Jackson, 1980). While these studies indicated some general agreement on reading preferences, many of the studies made over-generalizations beyond the populations studied, while others were plagued with problems with design, sampling procedures and instrument reliability (Monson & Sebesta, 1991). Contemporary studies of reading preferences were broadened into wider areas, but still relied on single surveys, brief observations and/or fictitious lists. They attempted to examine content factors such as the book's subject area ( Graham, 1986), students' grade level (Wolfson et al, 1984), the literary qualities of the books (Abrahamson, 1979) or external factors such as the look of the books (Wendelin & Zinck, 1983). Several studies also examined students' preferences for information books or narrative materials. Studies prior to 1970 suggested students preferred narrative material (Dunn, 1921; Peltola, 1985), but that the preference for informational material has changed over time. Informational books were singled out as highly interesting to many children (Monson & Sebesta, 1991) and that this is directly related to the increase by publishers in the number of quality books. However, this is an area clearly lacking in comprehensive research.

These more recent studies have led researchers to see that, while there are general trends in reading preferences, individual interests still play a significant role in what students will choose to read. They suggest that reading interest overlaps with other areas such as children's response to literature (Hickman, 1979), the effects of reading-aloud (Anderson, 1984) and the quality of materials chosen (Sebesta, 1980) and that future studies need to approach the topic from several perspectives. This research reinforces the importance of the reading interest construct, but cautions researchers to examine it within its complex reality and not as a unique element. A review of these studies also highlights the fact that few studies have focused on the Canadian context for analyzing elementary children's reading preferences and their balance with the choices teachers make for reading instruction.

In their comprehensive review of reading preferences research, Monson and Sebesta (1991) conclude that the bulk of the reading preferences research "has been empirically driven, not theoretically driven (p. 671)" and the construct needs to be examined within the parameters of its central role in promoting independent reading (Morrow, 1987; Fielding et al, 1984) and reading instruction ( Anderson et al, 1985).

Balancing Reading Choices. A growing body of theoretical and academic support for balancing the roles of fiction and nonfiction is beginning to influence the way teachers and researchers think about the use of children's literature (Sanacore, 1991; Pappas, 1991; Freeman, 1991). Principal among these is Louise Rosenblatt (1989, 1991), who continues to play a major role in helping educators understand the transactive nature of reading. Rosenblatt outlines two ways of reading in which we adopt either a predominantly efferent stance, where our main interest is in acquiring information, or an aesthetic stance, where we attend "mainly to what we are experiencing, thinking and feeling during the reading (1991, p.444)." What is significant in Rosenblatt's newer work is her reminder that the reader may adopt an efferent or aesthetic stance about the same piece of writing and that "we switch stances while reading (p. 445)." What has been causing us trouble says Rosenblatt, is the "either-or habit of thinking" where we consider a text as written for either an efferent or an aesthetic reading to take place. She explains, "we can read aesthetically something written mainly to inform or read efferently something written mainly to communicate experience. Our present purpose and past experiences, as well as the text, are factors in our choice of stance (p. 445)." Rosenblatt advises teachers to be aware of these "theoretical distinctions" and develop students ability to read either text from either stance. This stresses the importance of using quality examples of fiction and nonfiction to ensure a balance of opportunities for students to experience texts that can be read efferently and/or aesthetically. Balancing the books does not preclude the powerful and aesthetic role that fiction will continue to play in literacy programs, it merely establishes nonfiction with an equal opportunity to act as a model for students, to help them learn the ways these texts work and to motivate them to read (Doiron, 1994).

Theoretical Framework

The classification of books as fiction or nonfiction, reflects a similar dichotomy in our understanding of how we interact with the world and how we learn. In his seminal discussion on the ways of knowing, Bruner (1985) describes two modes of thought, "each meriting the status of 'natural kind'. Each provides a way of ordering experience, of constructing reality ... of organizing representation in memory and of filtering the perceptual world" (p.97). One is the paradigmatic mode described as "a formal, mathematical system of description and explanation" (p.98) based on categorization and conceptualization and those operations that establish categories and build systems. The narrative mode "is concerned with the explication of human intentions in the context of action .. and the vicissitudes and consequences that mark their course" (p.100). The paradigmatic seeks generality and is guided by the methods of science and logic, while the narrative seeks uniqueness and the meaning of historical events (p.102). Both are inherent "in the functioning of human beings, can be recognized by common sense .. are remarked upon as missing in those rare instances when absent, and (most important of all) can be shown to be analyzable into consistent operations that derive from the overall process they constitute" (p.103; Bruner's brackets). Each requires different forms of language and "each requires for its realization both internally in cognition and externally in speech different uses of language" (p. 110).

The two forms of language through which each mode of thought is expressed are referred to as exposition and narration, each encompassing a variety of oral and written genres. Narration includes songs, poetry, ballads, oral storytelling, rhymes, anecdotes, reminisces and a host of fiction types such as historical, science, realistic and fantasy. Exposition incorporates scientific and mathematical theory, observations and reports, journalistic prose, biography, essays, oral speeches, arguments, debates and myriad of nonfiction books on countless subjects. In literary terms, we often refer to the two text types categorically as fiction and nonfiction, with fiction including stories, novels, poetry and drama and nonfiction meaning everything else (that which is not fiction). These expository and narrative texts constitute the corpus of written language used throughout our literate adult lives and form the basis of materials used to develop early literacy among our children.

Despite Bruner's warning against efforts "to reduce one mode to the other or to ignore one at the expense of the other ..." (p.97), there is a tendency to perceive the two modes of thought as each providing a separate understanding or distinct picture of the world, rather than accepting them as working together to provide a complete and holistic picture of our world. This tendency to bifurcate the two modes of thought is clearly evident in the dichotomous way we use expository and narrative texts. We are inclined to think that expository texts provide knowledge of, while narrative yields knowledge through; expository is conceived of as temporal, cognitive and non-literary, while narrative is spiritual, affective and literary; expository is "of the mind", concerned with the outside world and the "other", while narrative is "of the heart", concerned with the inner world and the "self". In terms of learning, expository text conveys knowledge, is represented by the sciences and does the work of our language, while narrative leads to understanding, is represented by the arts and engages in the playfulness of language.

This dichotomy tends to be played out even further in our thinking and eventually in our teaching by the way we treat nonfiction solely as a source of information, and rely on fiction as the basis for building positive attitudes towards reading. Keeping the two ways of knowing and their associated text forms separate, severely restricts our use of fiction and nonfiction materials particularly when we examine current practice and current trade books for children and recognize that fiction offers the reader a wealth of information and nonfiction gives most readers a great deal of pleasure. It is only when we collapse the dichotomy and re-focus our attention away from the two text types and onto the sources of these texts that the aesthetic value of each can be fully realized. Such a re-orientation can help us recognize that any text has aesthetic qualities, both in its form and the process that led to its creation, and that the best of these texts hold the potential to develop students' literacy skills while motivating them to read. Research in this area is growing (Crook & Lehman, 1991; Pappa, 1991) as educators realize the relationship between the balance of fiction and nonfiction in the reading choices of students and in the inclusion of both in literacy programs.

Relationship of Proposed Research to Ongoing Research

My research agenda has always centered around the role and use of children's trade books in elementary programs. In an earlier study for my Master's thesis (Doiron, 1986), I examined the storytelling behavior of pre-school children from different home-literacy environments where I discovered that students with rich home-literacy environments included more story elements and literary devices in their oral retellings of a wordless book than students without rich literacy environments (Shapiro & Doiron, 1987; Doiron & Shapiro, 1988). The anecdotal research journal that I kept during the data collection period suggested that not all children were interested in the type of books used in the study. As I pursued this idea into my doctoral work, I found that the existing research base revealed little evidence of what trade books classroom teachers were using in their classroom collections of books. These collections of books (often referred to as a classroom library) became the focus of a study (Doiron, 1995) that examined the relationship between these classroom collections of books and the school library resource centre program. Every elementary classroom collection in a large school district in Prince Edward Island was examined for a variety of information. One analysis within that study indicated that over 90% of the books teachers collected in their classrooms were fiction.

While working in a school library as a teacher-librarian, I collected a great deal of data with an automated circulation system and it suggested that much more nonfiction material was being used. This led to a pilot project funded by a University of PEI Senate Research Grant that has since indicated that when factors of why students want the books are controlled, they do indeed prefer nonfiction books when choosing books for independent reading. This evidence has provided the impetus for a further and more comprehensive examination of the differences in what students choose to read and what teachers choose to use for instruction. As an improvement on much of the previous research on children's reading preferences, this proposed study would allow for a longitudinal analysis of the research questions, approached from several perspectives and with a variety of research instruments, while maintaining a strong pedagogical connection to today's elementary classrooms. The findings will be given immediate application within our own province and should provide valuable information for all educators across North America.

Contribution of the Research

Prior to 1980, many studies were conducted to determine student reading preferences (Weintraub, 1969; Kimbrough, 1973; Chiu, 1973; Feeley, 1974; Conway, 1976; Lynch-Brown, 1977; Huus, 1979) . These studies were limited by a number of factors. First, they were all conducted before literature-based programming became the principal method for language arts instruction. Since 1980 and the influence of whole language programs, few studies have examined the role that students preferences has in the overall development of early literacy skills. Second, the previous studies were all conducted in the United States with only two comprehensive studies ever conducted with Canadian children and Canadian children's books (Burdenuk, 1978; Summers & Lukasevich, 1983). Third, since 1980, the children's trade book market has exploded with many innovative and exceptional fiction and nonfiction trade books being produced in greater quantity and quality. No study has looked at students' reactions to these books, nor the impact they could be having on their reading interests. This study has been conceptualized as a comprehensive examination of this area within the population of three elementary schools in Prince Edward Island. It will help educators determine if the trade books chosen for students' literacy instruction matches their reading preferences or whether they may have a preference for one type of trade book, while another type dominants instruction. Information on any discrepancy in these two areas will help educators match the two more closely and provide continuity between reading instruction and reading interest. It may also suggest to educators areas where they need to stimulate student interest and broaden their reading choices.

Methodology

Data-Gathering Instruments: Most of the previous studies examining students' preferences and reading interests have relied on data collected at one point in time using a single instrument, such as an interest inventory (Smith & Eno, 1961), open-ended questionnaires (Shore, 1968) or the appearance of the book ( Burgess, 1985) . This seriously limited the application of the findings to today's elementary classroom since the data collected in a one-shot measure gave only a partial picture of the whole phenomenon. To counteract this limitation, this study will collect data from the same population over three years and with several data-gathering instruments. Many previous studies were also limited by the small population who took part, so this study will examine the reading preferences of over 1700 students. Students in three elementary schools will be followed from their first year in school through grades two and three; students in the same schools in grade four will be followed through their intermediate grades 4-6. This will give long-term data on the same three sets of students in the same schools over three consecutive years. The primary and intermediate grade teachers in these three schools will also be involved for three years. These students and teachers will act as informants, rather than subjects, and they will be directly involved in the data gathering process through a series of self-reporting techniques, survey instruments, observational tools and focus group activities and discussions. This will provide the researcher with a rich and comprehensive data pool from which to describe and compare preferences.

The following techniques will be used to gather data on students' choices of fiction and nonfiction trade books for their independent reading:

a) Fiction /Nonfiction Counts. Student choices of fiction and nonfiction trade books will be recorded by a research assistant during their free-choice reading time in the classroom and at book exchanges in the school library. A form will be created to enter the data and teacher-librarians in the schools will be trained to collect the information at times when the research assistant is not there. This data will be counted and summarized by grade level, sex, number of books chosen and book type (fiction or nonfiction).

b) Reading Logs. Students will keep a reading record of books they read over the years in a Reading Log designed for this project. They will record the book title, book type and subject, as well as write a response to the reading. These Reading Logs will be integrated into a regular part of the classroom literacy program.

c) Writing Samples. Samples of students' writing will be collected and categorized by genre, grade level, sex and content as evidence of the types of writing (fiction or nonfiction) that students choose to do or are asked to do in their literacy programs. Journals, project work and language arts scribblers will be examined.

d) Focus Groups. A set of 30 children's trade books which represent appropriate and quality fiction and nonfiction titles for each grade level will be used in a series of in-class activities and discussions designed by the researcher. These activities will focus students on their reading choices and why they choose certain book types over others. The literary qualities of the selected books and the characteristics of the books (such as cover, illustrations and specialized features) will also be examined and documented.

e) A Survey of Student Reading Interests. Students will be surveyed on their responses to various subjects and book types to determine what their reading interests are at each grade level. This researcher-designed instrument will be developed with sets of questions that probe students' interests in a wide range of subject areas and genre. It will be given to each student once a year and will require them to rate items, choose items of interest to them and to give open-ended responses. Rating scales will yield numerical scores and the open-ended questions will provide examples that the rating scales could miss.

In addition, the following techniques will be used to collect information on teachers' choices of fiction and nonfiction for their instructional programs:

a) Read Alouds. A form will be created for teachers to keep a list of all books read aloud to students throughout the school year. Student/research assistants will assist teachers in collecting this information. These titles will be categorized by grade level, book type and purpose for the read aloud (eg. listening, introducing a theme, starting a lesson).

b) Book Lists. Lists of books used in thematic units of study will be gathered by teachers, teacher-librarians and the student/research assistants. Items on these lists will be counted and then analyzed by grade level, fiction/nonfiction categories and instructional use.

c) Texts Used in Reading Instruction. Lists will be kept of novels students read with the teacher's guidance, books used for direct teaching of a skill or strategy, books given as required reading for everyone, books used to spark writing activities and any other books used by the teacher for instruction. Books will be listed by grade level, book type and instructional use.

d) Focus Groups. Teachers will examine the same set of 30 pre-selected fiction and nonfiction books used for the children's focus groups and discuss how these books would be used for their instructional programs. They will also provide feedback on the literary qualities and book characteristics of the books which they feel make the books useful for instruction. e) Teachers' Perceptions of Student Reading Interests. Teachers will complete this researcher-designed survey to determine their perception of what the students in their classroom like to read. This form will parallel the one developed for the student survey and the results will be examined for correlation with the results of the Survey of Student Reading Interests completed by the children.

Participants: Previous studies have used separate populations of children in each of several grade levels, which made it difficult to establish any long-term pattern or developmental change (Chiu, 1973; Conway, 1976; Summers & Lukasevich, 1983) . This study will collect data from the same students and their teachers in three elementary schools followed over their primary (grades 1-3) or intermediate (grades 4-6) years in school. This will help establish any developmental pattern by age or sex in children's reading choices and show if primary and intermediate students and teachers show differences in their choices of fiction and nonfiction.

All primary and intermediate students (approximately 1700 students) in three large elementary schools in Prince Edward Island will be involved in the study. All schools serve a mixed population of rural and suburban students from all socio-economic status groups. Each school has a well-developed school library program with a full-time teacher-librarian and an adequate collection of learning resources and children's literature to serve the needs of the schools' literacy programs. The teachers in these schools have various levels of teaching experience and all are using either the Reflexions language arts program for grades one to three or the Collections language arts program for grades four to six. Both programs make extensive use of children's trade books, organize instruction around thematic units and involve students in many reading and writing projects. All teachers in these schools have had extensive professional development in the use of children's trade books in literacy programs. They use children's literature in many ways including novel studies, author studies, literature circles, reading response, writing and research projects.

Implementation Plan

The data-gathering and analysis for the study is conceptualized over a three-year period. In Year One, all five data-collecting tools will be used with the students starting school in grade one in each of the schools and with the students in grade four. The teachers of grades one and four in each school will also be involved in data collection. In Year Two, the Year One data will be analyzed and the five data-collecting instruments will be used with the same students who will by then be in grades two and/or five. Teachers in grades two and five will be involved in data collection too. In Year Three, the analysis of the first two years of data will be completed and the five data-gathering tools will be used with the same students who will now be in grades three and six. The teachers of grades three and/or six will be involved in data collection. By the end of Year Three, all data will have been collected and analyzed.

Analysis, Synthesis and Presentation of Data

Extensive statistical analysis will be done to determine the significance of any differences in children's choices in books by grade level, sex and book type. This data will be examined across primary and intermediate grade categories, among schools and by sex to ensure that a full picture is developed. ANOVA tests will compare variability of scores within groups and among groups and several numerical and visual summaries of this data will be presented and discussed. Similar statistical analysis will be done to determine differences in teachers' choices in books for instruction by grade level, sex and book type. Comparisons will be made between male and female teachers in primary and intermediate grades. Extensive use of numerical and visual summaries will also be made.

The self-reported data from students' Reading Logs and Writing Samples, as well as teachers' Read Alouds, Book Lists and Reading Texts will be analyzed by grade level and sex using exploratory data analysis (EDA) such as frequency counts and factor analysis. An interaction analysis, as modeled by Nunan (1992, p. 159-183) will identify common themes in the responses by students and teachers during the Focus Group sessions in which a consistent set of children's fiction and nonfiction will be used in several in-class activities and discussions. These discussions will be used to determine the literary qualities students and teachers name as reasons for choosing a particular book and will be analyzed using discursive and contextual procedures. The topic and/or content of the books will also discussed as a possible factor in why they were chosen.

Statistical comparisons will be made between students' responses on the Survey of Student Reading Interests and teachers' responses on Teachers' Perceptions of Students' Reading Interests in order to identify any consistencies or co-relations between the two.

The analysis process will be aimed at synthesizing the results into a detailed report for curriculum consultants, teachers and teacher-librarians who choose children's books for elementary literacy programs. The findings of the study should give educational decision-makers the information they need to make better decisions on what trade books to use to develop their instructional goals, while maintaining and responding to student reading interests.

Communication of Results

1) Research Community. During the three years of the study, "in progress" research papers will be presented at these conferences: Canadian Society for the Study of Education and the American Educational Research Association. The final research report will also be presented at the International Reading Association Annual Convention and the National Reading Council Annual Meeting. Journal articles will be prepared for publication in refereed journals such as Reading Psychology, The Reading Teacher and Education Canada.

2) Educators. A final research report will be prepared for and shared with the educators in the three research schools and in the wider educational community in Prince Edward Island and North America. This will involve the preparation and dissemination of the final report, oral presentations at local and national conferences, workshops in schools, as well as involvement in curriculum committees and joint planning activities with policy makers in the Department of Education. Results will also be shared with several national library organizations including the Canadian School Library Association and the Association for Teacher-Librarianship in Canada.

3) Children. It is planned that during the final year of the research, students in all three schools will become involved in creating a site on the World Wide Web where they can deposit their reviews and comments on their choices of children's trade books. This will become an on-going legacy of the research where students can go to read what others say about the children's books they are reading, make recommendations and write their own comments and suggestions for other children.

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