• Narrow Reading Related to thematic text sets is the concept of “narrow reading.” In narrow reading, students read multiple texts more narrowly focused on a specific topic rather than a more expansive theme “to delve deeply into a relevant issue” so that “key concepts and related high-utility words and phrases” are recycled, “consolidating students’ background while increasing repetitive word knowledge” (Krashen, 2004). The relationship between a given text and the texts surrounding it is often known by the term “intertextuality.” As readers finish one book in either a narrow or thematically related text set, they experience intertextuality as progressively broadening knowledge. Each book offers a literacy experience that builds on the previous one, providing a network of support for all students. This support is especially helpful for students who are learning English as an alternative language as they explore key themes or more specific topics across multiple texts, encountering similar vocabulary and understandings that make it easier to learn and retain new material. EAL learners get a leg up by developing the all-important background knowledge that enables them to comprehend new books. Evidence-Based Writing Inviting EAL learners to write—which consolidates their views and understandings—also helps drive their reading comprehension. Additionally, students learn to synthesize information in their own words and use the text as the basis for putting forth an argument or opinion, all of which provides EAL learners with invaluable support (Neuman and Roskos, 2012). Evidence-based writing calls on students to use passages from the text to support their opinions, summations, and conclusions. Graham and Herbert (2010) and Graham and Perin (2007) note that writing about a text enables students to crack it open and construct meaning and knowledge in more effective and precise ways than would be possible if they were simply reading and rereading the text, or reading and discussing it. Reading as the Best Support for EAL Learners In their classic study, Elley and Mangubhai (1983) found that reading significantly increased the achievement of children. They studied 614 children (380 in the experimental groups and 234 in the control group) in fourth- and fifth-grade classrooms in rural Fiji schools with very few books. The researchers provided 250 high-interest illustrated storybooks in English per classroom to the experimental groups. The control group continued to use the ongoing English language program that put little emphasis on reading. Eight of the 16 experimental classrooms had sustained silent reading (time set aside in class for children to read books of their choice). The other eight experimental classrooms had the shared book experience (also called shared reading, a teaching technique where the teacher points to the print in full view of the children while reading to them). They found that after eight months, the pupils in the two experimental groups progressed in reading comprehension at twice the rate of the comparison group.
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CHAPTER 1: READERS
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