Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction: An Integrated Curriculum To Develop Motivations and Strategies for Reading

A project designed and implemented a framework of conceptually oriented reading instruction to foster students’ amount and breadth of reading, intrinsic motivations for reading, and strategies of search and comprehension. The framework emphasizes five phases of reading instruction in a content domain: observing and personalizing, searching and retrieving, comprehending and integrating, communicating to others, and interacting with peers to construct meaning. Instruction was implemented in a year-long curriculum with a multicultural population of fifth-grade students in a Chapter 1 school in Prince George’s County, Maryland. Measures of learning suggested that students who had Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI) for 4 months surpassed a comparison classroom in amount and breadth of reading and intrinsic motivations for reading. The CORI students gained significantly in the cognitive strategies of search and comprehension during the 4 months. CORI instruction was contrasted to experience-based teaching and strategies instruction in terms of their support for motivational and cognitive development.