Growth of literacy engagement: Changes in motivations and strategies during concept-oriented reading instruction

THIS STUDY describes changes in literacy engagement during 1 year of Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI), a new approach to teaching reading, writing, and science. Literacy engagement was defined as the integration of intrinsic motivations, cognitive strategies, and conceptual learning from text. To promote literacy engagement in classrooms, our team designed and implemented CORI in two third- and two fifth-grade classrooms in two schools. One hundred and forty students participated in an integrated reading/language arts-science program, which emphasized real-world science observations, student self-direction, strategy instruction, collaborative learning, self-expression, and coherence of literacy learning experiences. Trade books replaced basals and science textbooks. According to 1-week performance assessments in the fall and spring, students gained in the following higher order strategies: searching multiple texts, representing knowledge, transferring concepts, comprehending informational text, and interpreting narrative. Children's intrinsic motivations for literacy correlated with cognitive strategies at .8 for Grade 5 and .7 for Grade 3. All students who increased in intrinsic motivation also increased in their use of higher order strategies. A sizeable proportion (50%) of students who were stable or decreased in intrinsic motivation failed to progress in higher order strategies. These findings were discussed in terms of a conceptual framework that embraces motivational, strategic, and conceptual aspects of literacy engagement.