Change over time in first graders’ strategic use of information at point of difficulty in reading

McGee, L.M., Kim, H., Nelson, K.S., & Fried, M.D. (2015). Change over time in first graders’ strategic use of information at point of difficulty in reading. Reading Research Quarterly, 50(3), 263-291.


What do early readers do when they come to a word they don’t know? Many reading researchers have addressed that fascinating question; this study is an attempt to update what we know about what goes on in readers’ minds when they encounter something they aren’t sure how to read.
It is clear from the study here reported that reading is a complex process, and that there is a lot going on in readers’ minds, even if they are very young readers like the first graders studied by McGee and her colleagues. We already knew that, though. What is added here is a detailed cataloging of the various kinds of things readers do, a cataloging that is perhaps more detailed than what has been provided in earlier research, though some of those researchers (notably the miscue analysis researchers, who receive a nod from these authors but not much more) might beg to differ.

The strongest finding in the article is the evidence that supports readers’ use of complex “action chains” (p. 276) consisting of multiple coordinated strategies that involve the integration of multiple information sources. In my college days we talked about students “decoding” an unknown word. Miscue analysis researchers tell us about the various kinds of cues readers attend to when they approach a word. Here, the researchers talk about “graphically constrained” errors involving the use of information within the word, “contextually constrained” errors involving the use of information in the larger context, and a third category, errors involving both kinds of information (pp. 271-273).

McGee and colleagues looked at data from running records gathered from a sample of first grade students and, in their first analysis, came up with 18 different actions. As they looked at the data, they found that what was happening with these first graders was more complex than single actions, so they initiated a second analysis, from which they derived a list of “action chains” in two categories. The first category, “typical action chains” contained four combinations using various information sources; these were the chains most often observed in the sample. The second category, “flexible action chains”, contained 68 different combinations that were observed among these children (pp. 276-281).

I found these lists of action chains fascinating; like many reading specialists, I entered the field in part because of curiosity about what readers are actually doing when they have encounters with texts. I also am fascinated by the developmental trajectories of learning to read, and these authors are as well. For the first graders whose data they analyzed, they saw definite developmental progressions over time in the relative “sophistication” of the actions and action chains they observed. All of these first graders used increasingly “sophisticated” action chains as the year of the study progressed, but the children who were reading at the first grade level at the end of the year progressed more markedly and more rapidly than those who were not reading at first grade level at the end of first grade. Knowing how successful readers process texts can perhaps help us gain some insights into helping less successful readers become more successful, though there is still a lot to learn.

This study is interesting and contributes to what we know about what readers do. Still, it is important to point out a couple of things about the data. As I often say, tongue in cheek, to my students (who are future teachers), we still do not have a machine I call the “understand-o-mometer”. In short, we do not have the ability to read minds (fortunately!), and we must rely on some form of outward observation, and therein lies the rub. We are always constrained by the sources of our data, and that is true in any research study, including this one. In many ways, reading is like magic. The mind is definitely quicker than the eye (or the ear!). Even the best reading assessments are indirect, a reflection only, requiring inferences.

Here, the data source was running records, a tool for documenting and categorizing what children do when they read. This tool involves listening to a child read a brief text, noting down any deviations from the text (some would call them “errors” or “miscues”) and coding those deviations in various ways. Informal reading inventories and miscue analysis employ similar types of procedures. Running records can provide rich data, but they still cannot get into what readers are really thinking. Of course, no assessment can do that, but I would have liked to see the researchers talking to the children a little bit more about their reading, perhaps with some form of Retrospective Miscue Analysis (an Internet search would be easy if you are interested). I would have liked to hear their voices and what they thought about their reading.

I’d also like to look more closely at the instruction these children received. That is addressed later in the article, but it was not directly observed in the study, and I think that is important. It is important that these children were in Reading Recovery (another easy topic to learn more about in an Internet search), an intervention program for first graders deemed “at-risk” in reading. We know how the model for Reading Recovery works in principle, but nothing specific about how it was implemented with the children in the study, and nothing about the rest of the literacy instruction they received. That could be an important factor here. No study can look at all factors, but this was one I really wanted to know more about.

There is a final thing that must be noted: the researchers are clearly proponents of Reading Recovery (see the information provided on p. 291) and have a stake in producing evidence in support of Reading Recovery. The first author holds a professorship that is named after the originator of Reading Recovery. One of the co-authors is a Reading Recovery trainer, and the other two authors are likely students of the first author as well as her graduate assistants. The running records used here are a mainstay of Reading Recovery, though they are also used by other educators as a source of data. All of this is disclosed clearly, and it does not mean the research is not valid. It just means that we need to keep agendas in mind, as always when reading research articles.