Per Henning Uppstad - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Per Henning Uppstad
Nordic journal of literacy research, Apr 30, 2023
Forskning fremhever laereres positive selvoppfatning som en forutsetning for å kunne gi god lese-... more Forskning fremhever laereres positive selvoppfatning som en forutsetning for å kunne gi god lese-og skriveopplaering (Hodges et al., 2021); de må oppleve seg kompetente, ha handlingsrom og oppleve en tilknytning til arbeidet (Deci & Ryan, 2012). Selv om forskningslitteraturen innen motivasjon for skriving er omfattende og voksende (Camacho et al., 2021; Graham et al., 2018; Walgermo & Uppstad, under utgivelse), pekes det i litteraturen på at laererutdannere ikke legger nok til rette for å styrke laereres positive selvoppfatninger knyttet til skriveopplaering (Cutler & Graham, 2008; Hodges et al., 2021). I denne artikkelen følger vi et autentisk undervisningsopplegg i laererutdanningen og utforsker i hvilken grad det å gi laererstudenter en innføring i å skrive tekster for barn i begynneropplaeringenut over ordinaer undervisning i laererutdanningen-kan styrke studentenes forventning til egen engasjerende begynneropplaering. I et forfatterledet undervisningsopplegg fikk førsteårsstudenter i laererutdanning en kort innføring i å skrive tekster for barn, før de selv skrev slike tekster og fikk tilbakemelding på disse. Studentenes mestringsforventning ble innhentet før og etter opplegget gjennom digitalt distribuerte spørreskjema. Som forventet opplevde studentene en signifikant økning i mestringsforventning for å skrive tekster for barn. Av større interesse er sammenhenger som kan peke mot et potensial for å styrke laereres beredskap for engasjerende begynneropplaering i klasserommet gjennom å laere å skrive tekster for barn. Diskusjonen drøfter denne muligheten i lys av teori om utvikling av mestringsforventning.
wentieth-century psychology has placed an extraordinarily high value on data that are publicly ob... more wentieth-century psychology has placed an extraordinarily high value on data that are publicly observable and replicable, while it has not distinguished itself for the quality of its theories. Much of contemporary linguistics has focused on the construction of elaborate theories invented for the understanding of minuscule and questionable observations. The human sciences thus suffer from various pathologies that block more complete understandings of language and the mind. (Chafe, 1994, p. 11) It is the objective task of the scientist-an objective World 3 task which regulates his 'verbal behaviour' qua 'scientist'-to discover the relevant logical consequences of the new theory, and to discuss them in the light of existing theories.
Routledge eBooks, Jun 7, 2023
Journal of Educational Change, Dec 8, 2022
Having two teachers work collaboratively in the same class has been suggested as a possible solut... more Having two teachers work collaboratively in the same class has been suggested as a possible solution to several instructional challenges, including the inclusion of students with special needs in mainstream classrooms and as part of school-wide prevention models to increase student achievement. In this, shared responsibility between teachers is regarded as a prerequisite to successful co-teaching. However, few studies have investigated whether shared responsibility between teachers actually leads to improved student achievement. This mixed methods study investigates shared responsibility in a sample of 148 classrooms where two general educators worked collaboratively in literacy instruction through first and second grade. First, we analysed whether the degree of shared responsibility between the two teachers for planning, enacting, and evaluating literacy instruction predicted student reading when controlling for pre-reading skills at baseline. Second, we carried out in-depth individual interviews with six collaborative teacher dyads purposefully selected from high-and low-performing classrooms to investigate what characterized their sharing of responsibility. The results show that shared responsibility significantly predicts students' reading achievement. Further, the interviews reveal a surface level collaboration between coteachers in low-performing classes, yet a more profound level of collaboration with influence on key teaching decisions in high-performing classes. Keywords Co-teaching • Early literacy instruction • Mixed methods • Teacher collaboration • Student-teacher ratio Aslaug Fodstad Gourvennec and Oddny Judith Solheim have contributed equally to this work.
SensePublishers eBooks, 2015
Nordic Journal of Literacy Research
The present editorial article presents the concept and function of peer-reviewed study protocols ... more The present editorial article presents the concept and function of peer-reviewed study protocols as part of the academic process, particularly in the context of furthering transparency and rigour in educational research. The aim is to provide a first rationale for publishing peer-reviewed study protocols in the Nordic Journal of Literacy Research (NJLR) in order to further increase scientific rigour in its field, which is now well established, although it is still young. Our proposal goes beyond the status quo by also encompassing qualitative study protocols. Here we have drawn our inspiration from common practices in medicine and from claims within the philosophy of science to the effect that the fate of both quantitative and qualitative studies stands or falls with their transparency. Our proactive suggestion also reflects a 'climate change' with regard to the status of qualitative studies on the international scene. The publication of peer-reviewed study protocols is now common procedure in some fields of research. This also happens in educational research, but much less consistently. A study protocol can be defined as a highly precise and scholarly description of the design of an upcoming study, including its rationale, aims, research questions and measures. Such a protocol has several functions. First of all, protocols ensure transparency and force researchers to adhere to their initial choice of approach. This is of particular importance in quantitative studies, to prevent cherry-picking. Second, protocols give other researchers information at an early stage about the scope and scientific rigorousness of a study. Such early communication helps to avoid duplication of effort and makes it possible to position new studies relative to the one described. When the protocol is not published, other researchers generally have to rely on hearsay. Third, the publication of the research protocol will facilitate the subsequent publication of results and findings, given that the methodology used has already been peer-reviewed. A related advantage is that, as a protocol allows the methodology to be
Nordic Journal of Literacy Research
Effective reading instruction requires precise assessment of the learner’s current skill level. F... more Effective reading instruction requires precise assessment of the learner’s current skill level. For young learners, however, assessment often comes at a great cost: Tests take a long time and students are presented with items that are both too easy and too difficult. Recent developments in adaptive testing have the potential for solving both these challenges. In this paper, we take the path of argument-based validity (Kane, 2015) by presenting an interpretation and use argument for an upcoming adaptive test. We term this paper a study protocol, in line with the established tradition for protocols for pre-registered empirical trials. The function of the protocol is to communicate openly what often remains tacit knowledge on test development.
Can We Read Letters? provides a scholarly, yet approachable, treatise, provoking the reader to re... more Can We Read Letters? provides a scholarly, yet approachable, treatise, provoking the reader to reconsider both current and historical accounts of reading development and of the impairment we call 'dyslexia'.
Educational Psychology Review
For attaining success in writing, motivation is essential. Crucially, instruction is dependent on... more For attaining success in writing, motivation is essential. Crucially, instruction is dependent on knowing the student’s capabilities and inner drives. To date, research on writing has yet to establish a consistent framework for assessing writing motivation, and often fails to acknowledge students’ self-reports, rather favoring evaluations of students’ writing motivation made by others, such as teachers and researchers. This limbo state originates partly from a general skepticism towards the trustworthiness of elementary students’ self-reports. Nonetheless, the validity of such self-reports has been acknowledged in adjacent fields, such as reading. Aiming to establish a knowledge base from studies addressing students’ voices, the present study adopts the method of a systematic review and investigates how writing motivation has been assessed in empirical studies (1996–2020) through K-5 students’ self-reports. Of the 7047 studies identified through database search, 56 met the inclusion...
Proceedings of the 2022 AERA Annual Meeting
Dyslexia, 2007
Phonology has been a central concept in the scientific study of dyslexia over the past decades. D... more Phonology has been a central concept in the scientific study of dyslexia over the past decades. Despite its central position, however, it is a concept with no precise definition or status. The present article investigates the notion of 'phonology' in the tradition of cognitive psychology. An attempt is made to characterize the basic assumptions of the phonological approach to dyslexia and to evaluate these assumptions on the basis of commonly accepted standards of empirical science. First, the core assumptions of phonological awareness are outlined and discussed. Second, the position of Paula Tallal is presented and discussed in order to shed light on an attempt to stretch the cognitive-psychological notion of 'phonology' towards auditory and perceptual aspects. Both the core assumptions and Tallal's position are rejected as unfortunate, albeit for different reasons. Third, the outcome of this discussion is a search for what is referred to as a 'vulnerable theory' within this field. The present article claims that phonological descriptions must be based on observable linguistic behaviour, so that hypotheses can be falsified by data. Consequently, definitions of 'dyslexia' must be based on symptoms; causal aspects should not be included. In fact, we claim that causal aspects, such as 'phonological deficit', both exclude other causal hypotheses and lead to circular reasoning. If we are to use terms such as 'phonology' and 'phoneme' in dyslexia research, we must have more precise operationalizations of them.
L1 Educational Studies in Language and Literature, 2006
Written language skills are dynamic, they develop differently in individuals and are acquired in ... more Written language skills are dynamic, they develop differently in individuals and are acquired in multiple ways and contexts. Paradoxically, mainstream research on and teaching of these skills is based on a linguistic philosophy that has always valued highly systematic-and static-descriptions. The problem of static perspectives is that they describe only a proficiency related to structures at a given point in time, without any flexible model of reading and writing behaviour. In the present article I claim the socalled 'alphabetical principle' to be an unfortunate product of static perspectives, and which has a very limited relevance when we want to seize the dynamics of written language acquisition. A consequence of my position is that it does not make sense to polemicize whether one should teach 'phonics' or 'whole language'. Before we search for a narrow perspective-a teaching method-we must assure that the basic assumptions we choose to lean on are the best possible. After doing so, we may end up with a narrow perspective that may involve some aspects of what we today know as both 'phonics' or 'whole language'. But the most important goal is that such perspective should make teachers and researchers capable of seizing the dynamics of written language acquisition. In the present article, an alternative approach is suggested in order to maintain dynamic perspectives on written-language acquisition. This approach degrades the role of traditional linguistic description, such as the 'phoneme', focusing instead on a psychological model of 'skill' in which linguistic structures in spoken language play a role as possible cues in the acquisition of written language. It is claimed that this model also carries greater potential for explanation than do static approaches. French Dans le domaine de la recherche et de l'enseignement de la lecture-écriture, un problème général renvoie à l'utilisation de perspectives statiques alors que l'on se centre sur le développement. Le heit' der lingvistiske strukturar i talt språk kan tena som hypotetiske signal i innlaeringa av skrive språk. Det blir også hevda at denne modellen-i motsetnad til statiske tilnaermingar-har eit potensiale for forklaring.
Studies in Writing
The present chapter investigates theoretical perspectives on how to combine new information about... more The present chapter investigates theoretical perspectives on how to combine new information about on-line measures with end-product features. An attempt is made to delimit traditional approaches to writing, which focus primarily on aspects of the end product. In order to outline an alternative, it is suggested how writing and cognition can be operationalized and how awareness and automaticity are intertwined in writing. A pilot study of three eleven-year-old bilingual pupils is used as an example of the theoretical and methodological questions raised in this chapter. This example shows how pupils exploit their pausing time differently, and how on-line measures add information to the profile drawn from end-product measures. The chapter presents a model for the skills of writing. This model is considered to be a hypothesis which is testable by further use of the on-line measures described in the present chapter.
Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 2006
Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 2010
The notion of the phoneme counts as a breakthrough of modern theoretical linguistics in the early... more The notion of the phoneme counts as a breakthrough of modern theoretical linguistics in the early twentieth century. It paved the way for descriptions of distinctive features at different levels in linguistics. Although it has since then had a turbulent existence across altering theoretical positions, it remains a powerful concept of a fundamental unit in spoken language. At the same time, its conceptual status remains highly unclear. The present article aims to clarify the status of the concept of 'phoneme' in psycholinguistics, based on the scientific concepts of description, understanding and explanation. Theoretical linguistics has provided mainly descriptions. The ideas underlying this article are, first, that these descriptions may not be directly relevant to psycholinguistics and, second, that psycholinguistics in this sense is not a sub-discipline of theoretical linguistics. Rather, these two disciplines operate with different sets of features and with different orientations when it comes to the scientific concepts of description, understanding and explanation.
L1 Education Studies in Language and Literature, 2012
The Simple View of Reading (SVR) was introduced by Gough and Tunmer in 1986 as a model to predict... more The Simple View of Reading (SVR) was introduced by Gough and Tunmer in 1986 as a model to predict reading comprehension by means of two factors: decoding and linguistic comprehension. Over time, the SVR has acquired the status of a definition of reading, and it counts as a starting point for both research and teaching programmes for reading. In the present manuscript an attempt is made to maintain Gough and Tunmer's (1986) original purpose of the SVR by discussing potential problems that arise when the SVR is applied beyond its original intention. This is done by means of a critical look at some core assumptions of the SVR. The basic argument put forward is that the SVR-with its two factors for prediction-provides teachers with no understanding of how reading develops in a society dominated by texts. The article presents some perspectives on how a focus shift in the use of the SVR could be brought about rather than claiming to provide a new, consistent framework.
Psychological Research
This study investigates the possibility that lack of fluency in spelling and/or typing disrupts w... more This study investigates the possibility that lack of fluency in spelling and/or typing disrupts writing processes in such a way as to cause damage to the substance (content and structure) of the resulting text. 101 children (mean age 11 years 10 months), writing in a relatively shallow orthography (Norwegian), composed argumentative essays using a simple text editor that provided accurate timing for each keystroke. Production fluency was assessed in terms of both within-word and word-initial interkey intervals and pause counts. We also assessed the substantive quality of completed texts. Students also performed tasks in which we recorded time to pressing keyboard keys in response to spoken letter names (a keyboard knowledge measure), response time and interkey intervals when spelling single, spoken words (spelling fluency), and interkey intervals when typing a simple sentence from memory (transcription fluency). Analysis by piecewise structural equation modelling gave clear evidence...
Definitions and Explanations in Language, Reading and Dyslexia Research 209 reading involve langu... more Definitions and Explanations in Language, Reading and Dyslexia Research 209 reading involve language? Inasmuch as these words do not have meaning, and given that phonemes are defined as the smallest meaning differentiating unit in language, the sounds elicited from reading a nonsense word cannot be defined as phonemes.
Mainstream research on reading and writing is based on the assumption, common in modern linguisti... more Mainstream research on reading and writing is based on the assumption, common in modern linguistics, that spoken language is primary to written language in most important respects. Unfortunately, the conceptual framework for the study of language and 'literacy' (encompassing both reading and writing skills) is built around this assumption. This is problematic with regard to the philosophy of science, since this framework lacks sufficient empirical support. It is claimed in the present thesis that a view of spoken and written language as distinct - but not isolated - sets of codes with potential for meaning is the best working hypothesis in the search for true empirical findings about the relationship between spoken- and written-language skills. This position calls for critical reflection on the conceptual framework used in research on reading and writing. Article I examines the notion of 'phonology' in dyslexia research, particularly within the paradigm of cognitive ...
Nordic journal of literacy research, Apr 30, 2023
Forskning fremhever laereres positive selvoppfatning som en forutsetning for å kunne gi god lese-... more Forskning fremhever laereres positive selvoppfatning som en forutsetning for å kunne gi god lese-og skriveopplaering (Hodges et al., 2021); de må oppleve seg kompetente, ha handlingsrom og oppleve en tilknytning til arbeidet (Deci & Ryan, 2012). Selv om forskningslitteraturen innen motivasjon for skriving er omfattende og voksende (Camacho et al., 2021; Graham et al., 2018; Walgermo & Uppstad, under utgivelse), pekes det i litteraturen på at laererutdannere ikke legger nok til rette for å styrke laereres positive selvoppfatninger knyttet til skriveopplaering (Cutler & Graham, 2008; Hodges et al., 2021). I denne artikkelen følger vi et autentisk undervisningsopplegg i laererutdanningen og utforsker i hvilken grad det å gi laererstudenter en innføring i å skrive tekster for barn i begynneropplaeringenut over ordinaer undervisning i laererutdanningen-kan styrke studentenes forventning til egen engasjerende begynneropplaering. I et forfatterledet undervisningsopplegg fikk førsteårsstudenter i laererutdanning en kort innføring i å skrive tekster for barn, før de selv skrev slike tekster og fikk tilbakemelding på disse. Studentenes mestringsforventning ble innhentet før og etter opplegget gjennom digitalt distribuerte spørreskjema. Som forventet opplevde studentene en signifikant økning i mestringsforventning for å skrive tekster for barn. Av større interesse er sammenhenger som kan peke mot et potensial for å styrke laereres beredskap for engasjerende begynneropplaering i klasserommet gjennom å laere å skrive tekster for barn. Diskusjonen drøfter denne muligheten i lys av teori om utvikling av mestringsforventning.
wentieth-century psychology has placed an extraordinarily high value on data that are publicly ob... more wentieth-century psychology has placed an extraordinarily high value on data that are publicly observable and replicable, while it has not distinguished itself for the quality of its theories. Much of contemporary linguistics has focused on the construction of elaborate theories invented for the understanding of minuscule and questionable observations. The human sciences thus suffer from various pathologies that block more complete understandings of language and the mind. (Chafe, 1994, p. 11) It is the objective task of the scientist-an objective World 3 task which regulates his 'verbal behaviour' qua 'scientist'-to discover the relevant logical consequences of the new theory, and to discuss them in the light of existing theories.
Routledge eBooks, Jun 7, 2023
Journal of Educational Change, Dec 8, 2022
Having two teachers work collaboratively in the same class has been suggested as a possible solut... more Having two teachers work collaboratively in the same class has been suggested as a possible solution to several instructional challenges, including the inclusion of students with special needs in mainstream classrooms and as part of school-wide prevention models to increase student achievement. In this, shared responsibility between teachers is regarded as a prerequisite to successful co-teaching. However, few studies have investigated whether shared responsibility between teachers actually leads to improved student achievement. This mixed methods study investigates shared responsibility in a sample of 148 classrooms where two general educators worked collaboratively in literacy instruction through first and second grade. First, we analysed whether the degree of shared responsibility between the two teachers for planning, enacting, and evaluating literacy instruction predicted student reading when controlling for pre-reading skills at baseline. Second, we carried out in-depth individual interviews with six collaborative teacher dyads purposefully selected from high-and low-performing classrooms to investigate what characterized their sharing of responsibility. The results show that shared responsibility significantly predicts students' reading achievement. Further, the interviews reveal a surface level collaboration between coteachers in low-performing classes, yet a more profound level of collaboration with influence on key teaching decisions in high-performing classes. Keywords Co-teaching • Early literacy instruction • Mixed methods • Teacher collaboration • Student-teacher ratio Aslaug Fodstad Gourvennec and Oddny Judith Solheim have contributed equally to this work.
SensePublishers eBooks, 2015
Nordic Journal of Literacy Research
The present editorial article presents the concept and function of peer-reviewed study protocols ... more The present editorial article presents the concept and function of peer-reviewed study protocols as part of the academic process, particularly in the context of furthering transparency and rigour in educational research. The aim is to provide a first rationale for publishing peer-reviewed study protocols in the Nordic Journal of Literacy Research (NJLR) in order to further increase scientific rigour in its field, which is now well established, although it is still young. Our proposal goes beyond the status quo by also encompassing qualitative study protocols. Here we have drawn our inspiration from common practices in medicine and from claims within the philosophy of science to the effect that the fate of both quantitative and qualitative studies stands or falls with their transparency. Our proactive suggestion also reflects a 'climate change' with regard to the status of qualitative studies on the international scene. The publication of peer-reviewed study protocols is now common procedure in some fields of research. This also happens in educational research, but much less consistently. A study protocol can be defined as a highly precise and scholarly description of the design of an upcoming study, including its rationale, aims, research questions and measures. Such a protocol has several functions. First of all, protocols ensure transparency and force researchers to adhere to their initial choice of approach. This is of particular importance in quantitative studies, to prevent cherry-picking. Second, protocols give other researchers information at an early stage about the scope and scientific rigorousness of a study. Such early communication helps to avoid duplication of effort and makes it possible to position new studies relative to the one described. When the protocol is not published, other researchers generally have to rely on hearsay. Third, the publication of the research protocol will facilitate the subsequent publication of results and findings, given that the methodology used has already been peer-reviewed. A related advantage is that, as a protocol allows the methodology to be
Nordic Journal of Literacy Research
Effective reading instruction requires precise assessment of the learner’s current skill level. F... more Effective reading instruction requires precise assessment of the learner’s current skill level. For young learners, however, assessment often comes at a great cost: Tests take a long time and students are presented with items that are both too easy and too difficult. Recent developments in adaptive testing have the potential for solving both these challenges. In this paper, we take the path of argument-based validity (Kane, 2015) by presenting an interpretation and use argument for an upcoming adaptive test. We term this paper a study protocol, in line with the established tradition for protocols for pre-registered empirical trials. The function of the protocol is to communicate openly what often remains tacit knowledge on test development.
Can We Read Letters? provides a scholarly, yet approachable, treatise, provoking the reader to re... more Can We Read Letters? provides a scholarly, yet approachable, treatise, provoking the reader to reconsider both current and historical accounts of reading development and of the impairment we call 'dyslexia'.
Educational Psychology Review
For attaining success in writing, motivation is essential. Crucially, instruction is dependent on... more For attaining success in writing, motivation is essential. Crucially, instruction is dependent on knowing the student’s capabilities and inner drives. To date, research on writing has yet to establish a consistent framework for assessing writing motivation, and often fails to acknowledge students’ self-reports, rather favoring evaluations of students’ writing motivation made by others, such as teachers and researchers. This limbo state originates partly from a general skepticism towards the trustworthiness of elementary students’ self-reports. Nonetheless, the validity of such self-reports has been acknowledged in adjacent fields, such as reading. Aiming to establish a knowledge base from studies addressing students’ voices, the present study adopts the method of a systematic review and investigates how writing motivation has been assessed in empirical studies (1996–2020) through K-5 students’ self-reports. Of the 7047 studies identified through database search, 56 met the inclusion...
Proceedings of the 2022 AERA Annual Meeting
Dyslexia, 2007
Phonology has been a central concept in the scientific study of dyslexia over the past decades. D... more Phonology has been a central concept in the scientific study of dyslexia over the past decades. Despite its central position, however, it is a concept with no precise definition or status. The present article investigates the notion of 'phonology' in the tradition of cognitive psychology. An attempt is made to characterize the basic assumptions of the phonological approach to dyslexia and to evaluate these assumptions on the basis of commonly accepted standards of empirical science. First, the core assumptions of phonological awareness are outlined and discussed. Second, the position of Paula Tallal is presented and discussed in order to shed light on an attempt to stretch the cognitive-psychological notion of 'phonology' towards auditory and perceptual aspects. Both the core assumptions and Tallal's position are rejected as unfortunate, albeit for different reasons. Third, the outcome of this discussion is a search for what is referred to as a 'vulnerable theory' within this field. The present article claims that phonological descriptions must be based on observable linguistic behaviour, so that hypotheses can be falsified by data. Consequently, definitions of 'dyslexia' must be based on symptoms; causal aspects should not be included. In fact, we claim that causal aspects, such as 'phonological deficit', both exclude other causal hypotheses and lead to circular reasoning. If we are to use terms such as 'phonology' and 'phoneme' in dyslexia research, we must have more precise operationalizations of them.
L1 Educational Studies in Language and Literature, 2006
Written language skills are dynamic, they develop differently in individuals and are acquired in ... more Written language skills are dynamic, they develop differently in individuals and are acquired in multiple ways and contexts. Paradoxically, mainstream research on and teaching of these skills is based on a linguistic philosophy that has always valued highly systematic-and static-descriptions. The problem of static perspectives is that they describe only a proficiency related to structures at a given point in time, without any flexible model of reading and writing behaviour. In the present article I claim the socalled 'alphabetical principle' to be an unfortunate product of static perspectives, and which has a very limited relevance when we want to seize the dynamics of written language acquisition. A consequence of my position is that it does not make sense to polemicize whether one should teach 'phonics' or 'whole language'. Before we search for a narrow perspective-a teaching method-we must assure that the basic assumptions we choose to lean on are the best possible. After doing so, we may end up with a narrow perspective that may involve some aspects of what we today know as both 'phonics' or 'whole language'. But the most important goal is that such perspective should make teachers and researchers capable of seizing the dynamics of written language acquisition. In the present article, an alternative approach is suggested in order to maintain dynamic perspectives on written-language acquisition. This approach degrades the role of traditional linguistic description, such as the 'phoneme', focusing instead on a psychological model of 'skill' in which linguistic structures in spoken language play a role as possible cues in the acquisition of written language. It is claimed that this model also carries greater potential for explanation than do static approaches. French Dans le domaine de la recherche et de l'enseignement de la lecture-écriture, un problème général renvoie à l'utilisation de perspectives statiques alors que l'on se centre sur le développement. Le heit' der lingvistiske strukturar i talt språk kan tena som hypotetiske signal i innlaeringa av skrive språk. Det blir også hevda at denne modellen-i motsetnad til statiske tilnaermingar-har eit potensiale for forklaring.
Studies in Writing
The present chapter investigates theoretical perspectives on how to combine new information about... more The present chapter investigates theoretical perspectives on how to combine new information about on-line measures with end-product features. An attempt is made to delimit traditional approaches to writing, which focus primarily on aspects of the end product. In order to outline an alternative, it is suggested how writing and cognition can be operationalized and how awareness and automaticity are intertwined in writing. A pilot study of three eleven-year-old bilingual pupils is used as an example of the theoretical and methodological questions raised in this chapter. This example shows how pupils exploit their pausing time differently, and how on-line measures add information to the profile drawn from end-product measures. The chapter presents a model for the skills of writing. This model is considered to be a hypothesis which is testable by further use of the on-line measures described in the present chapter.
Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 2006
Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 2010
The notion of the phoneme counts as a breakthrough of modern theoretical linguistics in the early... more The notion of the phoneme counts as a breakthrough of modern theoretical linguistics in the early twentieth century. It paved the way for descriptions of distinctive features at different levels in linguistics. Although it has since then had a turbulent existence across altering theoretical positions, it remains a powerful concept of a fundamental unit in spoken language. At the same time, its conceptual status remains highly unclear. The present article aims to clarify the status of the concept of 'phoneme' in psycholinguistics, based on the scientific concepts of description, understanding and explanation. Theoretical linguistics has provided mainly descriptions. The ideas underlying this article are, first, that these descriptions may not be directly relevant to psycholinguistics and, second, that psycholinguistics in this sense is not a sub-discipline of theoretical linguistics. Rather, these two disciplines operate with different sets of features and with different orientations when it comes to the scientific concepts of description, understanding and explanation.
L1 Education Studies in Language and Literature, 2012
The Simple View of Reading (SVR) was introduced by Gough and Tunmer in 1986 as a model to predict... more The Simple View of Reading (SVR) was introduced by Gough and Tunmer in 1986 as a model to predict reading comprehension by means of two factors: decoding and linguistic comprehension. Over time, the SVR has acquired the status of a definition of reading, and it counts as a starting point for both research and teaching programmes for reading. In the present manuscript an attempt is made to maintain Gough and Tunmer's (1986) original purpose of the SVR by discussing potential problems that arise when the SVR is applied beyond its original intention. This is done by means of a critical look at some core assumptions of the SVR. The basic argument put forward is that the SVR-with its two factors for prediction-provides teachers with no understanding of how reading develops in a society dominated by texts. The article presents some perspectives on how a focus shift in the use of the SVR could be brought about rather than claiming to provide a new, consistent framework.
Psychological Research
This study investigates the possibility that lack of fluency in spelling and/or typing disrupts w... more This study investigates the possibility that lack of fluency in spelling and/or typing disrupts writing processes in such a way as to cause damage to the substance (content and structure) of the resulting text. 101 children (mean age 11 years 10 months), writing in a relatively shallow orthography (Norwegian), composed argumentative essays using a simple text editor that provided accurate timing for each keystroke. Production fluency was assessed in terms of both within-word and word-initial interkey intervals and pause counts. We also assessed the substantive quality of completed texts. Students also performed tasks in which we recorded time to pressing keyboard keys in response to spoken letter names (a keyboard knowledge measure), response time and interkey intervals when spelling single, spoken words (spelling fluency), and interkey intervals when typing a simple sentence from memory (transcription fluency). Analysis by piecewise structural equation modelling gave clear evidence...
Definitions and Explanations in Language, Reading and Dyslexia Research 209 reading involve langu... more Definitions and Explanations in Language, Reading and Dyslexia Research 209 reading involve language? Inasmuch as these words do not have meaning, and given that phonemes are defined as the smallest meaning differentiating unit in language, the sounds elicited from reading a nonsense word cannot be defined as phonemes.
Mainstream research on reading and writing is based on the assumption, common in modern linguisti... more Mainstream research on reading and writing is based on the assumption, common in modern linguistics, that spoken language is primary to written language in most important respects. Unfortunately, the conceptual framework for the study of language and 'literacy' (encompassing both reading and writing skills) is built around this assumption. This is problematic with regard to the philosophy of science, since this framework lacks sufficient empirical support. It is claimed in the present thesis that a view of spoken and written language as distinct - but not isolated - sets of codes with potential for meaning is the best working hypothesis in the search for true empirical findings about the relationship between spoken- and written-language skills. This position calls for critical reflection on the conceptual framework used in research on reading and writing. Article I examines the notion of 'phonology' in dyslexia research, particularly within the paradigm of cognitive ...
Brill, 2015
Careful reflection on the concepts and methods used is a prerequisite for further development in ... more Careful reflection on the concepts and methods used is a prerequisite for further development in any field of research.
The authors think cognitive psychology has become too dominant in reading and dyslexia research, arguing that it should be combined with behaviourism and connectionism—in part by focusing on the concept of ‘skill’. The key components of a skill are claimed to be automaticity, awareness and shifts between them. Reading is defined as an interpretative skill, which should be viewed from the perspective of hermeneutics.
The authors use these fundamental analyses and definitions to shed new light on the ‘balanced approach to reading instruction’, ‘reading fluency’ and other key concepts. The book also deals with problems in the definition of ‘dyslexia’ and proposes a method to arrive at clear and fruitful definitions. It concludes with a chapter trying to answer the question of in what sense, or to what extent, it can be claimed that reading and dyslexia research has made progress.
The book mainly builds on articles published over the past 25 years by Professor Finn Egil Tønnessen at the National Centre for Reading Education and Research, Stavanger, Norway.
ISBN: 978-94-6209-956-2