How Fourth-Grade English Learners Use Functional Grammar Analysis to Talk About Text

• In Event: How Research With English Learners, Informed by Systemic Functional Linguistics Theory, Can Support the Call for “Close Reading” of “Complex Texts”

Abstract

In this paper, we examine the sense students made of the instruction described in the case studies to determine the aspects of FG instruction the students applied in a novel, independent reading event. Using think-aloud and interviews, we investigated: What is the evidence that students, without prompting, draw upon the metalanguage of FG when interacting with text? Is there a relationship between the genre (i.e. narrative, informational) and their interactions with text?

The data were derived from 12 fourth grade students, all of whom were nominated by their classroom teacher as “typical students.” The first author met with the students individually, using a think-aloud/interview protocol designed to assess how students were making sense of two experimental texts, how they would use FGA to help a peer make sense of the text, and how thinking about the text using FGA helped them as readers.

The think-aloud transcripts were coded for numbers of idea units and evidence of interacting with the text (e.g., being strategic). The total number of idea units per student for each think-aloud was calculated. These data were used to examine: overall comprehension of the text passages, relationships between number of idea units and reading ability, and differences in response to the two genre.

There were multiple indicators that the texts that were used in this context were quite challenging for a number of the students. Three out of twelve students asked to reread the text either once or more during the think-aloud. Twenty five percent of the students read with a significant number of miscues and fifty percent demonstrated inconsistent prosody. Despite the challenges, the think-aloud data revealed high degrees of overall comprehension. In the narrative think-aloud, there were six stopping points. The discourse at each think-aloud stopping point was evaluated for overall comprehension based on an accurate retelling or summary of main ideas, reasonable inferences or felicitous interpretations. There was a 91% accuracy rate across the eleven students who read the narrative passage. The informational passage had four stopping points; comprehension was determined by an accurate retelling or summary of main ideas and reasonable inferences. The overall accuracy for the informational think-alouds was 79.2% indicating that the students had a more difficult time making sense of the informational text.

In the think-aloud data there appeared to be no relationship between number of idea units and students’ reading ability. These data are being analyzed for tracers of FGA which will enable us to speak to the relationship between the types of interactions students had with the text and their overall comprehension of the texts. Furthermore, we will compare the types of language students used to talk about the narrative text versus the informational text and investigate how different genre elicit different forms of metadiscourse, which could indicate different strategies for meaning making. With this study, we closely examine students’ thinking who have been taught how to use a functional grammar metalanguage for the purposes of close reading and speak to the potential benefits of such instruction.

Authors

• Carrie Symons, University of Michigan

• Annemarie S. Palincsar, University of Michigan