Development of Reading Comprehension Through Collaboration and Dialogue: An Intervention in the Natural Classroom Context from the PASS Model PDF

# Development of Reading Comprehension Through Collaboration and Dialogue: An Intervention in the Natural Classroom Context from the PASS Model ## Authors - Ana Cristina Blasco Serrano - Esperanza Cid Romero - Irene Bitrián González ## Abstract Deep and critical reading comprehension is a key in...

# Development of Reading Comprehension Through Collaboration and Dialogue: An Intervention in the Natural Classroom Context from the PASS Model ## Authors - Ana Cristina Blasco Serrano - Esperanza Cid Romero - Irene Bitrián González ## Abstract Deep and critical reading comprehension is a key instrument for the development of a full citizenship. It is a complex task, as it involves different skills and processes, where teachers must assume the role of mediators and facilitators to enable students to take ownership of their learning and comprehension. This qualitative study, with a multiple case design, has two objectives: a) to understand the relationships between skills, cognitive processes, and interaction between different agents involved; b) to identify classroom situations that promote these processes and the role that teachers play in them. The study included 115 students in 4th grade of primary education, 7 teachers, an orientation specialist, and the researcher herself. The findings reveal how different elements and processes contribute to reading comprehension. They show that favoring collaboration, argumentation, and decision-making autonomously fosters deeper and critical reading comprehension. Teachers need to question their own teaching practices and encourage learning situations where collaboration, dialogue, and argumentation are the backbone of classroom dynamics. ## Keywords - Reading Comprehension - PASS - Collaboration - Mediation - Qualitative Research ## Introduction Reading is a means for acquiring knowledge, which is key in the teaching-learning processes in classrooms and schools of primary and secondary education. It can also be a source of pleasure when it is used according to individual interests (Eleuterio, 2015). Reading is a key competence very closely related to school success (Díaz-Iso et al., 2022), as it facilitates a large number of teaching-learning processes (Elboj et al., 2013; Gómez, 2016; Solé, 2012) in almost all academic areas (Gutiérrez-Braojos & Salmerón, 2012). Therefore, from an inclusive perspective (Ainscow, 2012), it is necessary to ensure that students are capable of engaging in deep and reflective reading, enabling them to interpret and understand the information received from texts throughout the various contexts of their lives (home, leisure, educational institutions), and in different formats (books, newspapers, electronic documents, legal documents, or social networks). Reading comprehension also serves to enjoy, learn, communicate, document oneself or solve a problem (Solé, 2012). Considering these factors, reading comprehension is seen as a key competence for learning, personal and professional development, a necessary right for ensuring equity and full social development for citizens capable of expressing their own critical views (Freire, 1989; Jiménez Perez, 2023; Morin et al., 2002; Santos, 2000). In this sense, the OECD (2018) considers reading as a skill beyond comprehension; a skill for using and analyzing texts of all kinds, including digital ones, with the aim of using these learnings to participate in society. The current Spanish legislative framework for education aligns with this perspective of reading, which considers reading competence from a critical and functional viewpoint. Given its transdisciplinary nature, it is an essential tool for gaining access to knowledge, driving learning, and inclusion (Blasco-Serrano,2019; Clemente, 2014; Monge, 2009). In this sense, the curriculum highlights reading competence as a key element for the development of skills and a key tool for underpinning all learning. Success or failure in key competences, especially reading, places the child in a key role. However, the role of the values of the educational institution, the order of the school, and all social, cultural, economic, and legislative factors must not be overlooked (Escudero, 2005). The organizational and methodological dynamics that are implemented in the school, influenced by these values, also accompany and support this model of reading. Teachers have to focus on implementing strategies that encourage interaction between students, allowing them to learn how to interpret, remember, manipulate, and use the information independently (Broek et al., 2017, Hayward et al., 2007). They need to support students in selecting and constructing strategies (Das, 2000, Paris & Paris, 2001), stimulating their personal, social, and academic development based on their interests, needs, and life experiences. Finally, given the complexity of the reading comprehension process, students need support in developing their reading comprehension skills, as well as the early prevention and detection of potential difficulties. This can be achieved through various techniques for gathering information (Gutiérrez-Braojos & Salmerón, 2012), using a response-to-intervention model based on reading comprehension (Jiménez, 2019), which involves teachers, families, and educational professionals working together to advance reading ability. ## Reading Comprehension from the PASS Model Reading comprehension is a complex process involving a range of skills, decision-making, problem-solving, planning processes, and metacognitive skills. As a consequence, it is an interactive and global process, also encompassing various cognitive processes and interactions (Ares Ferreiros et al., 2021; Sánchez, 2000). Based on the PASS Theory (Das, 2018), intelligence is organised through three systems and four processes that interact. Planning is the first system, responsible for controlling and organizing behavior, monitoring, constructing, and executing plans or strategies. When it comes to reading comprehension, planning selects and activates the most appropriate strategies for interpreting and comprehending, thus encouraging awareness of one's own cognitive, metacognitive, and emotional processes (Das, 2018; Mahapatra, 2015). The second system, attention, is responsible for maintaining levels of excitement and alertness, and helps in selecting relevant stimuli, as well as the level of commitment, and other elements that influence the information attention process (Skinner et al., 2008). The third system involved, coding information, transforms and stores information through two concurrent and sequential processes (Georgiou & Das, 2014). In this case, prior knowledge stemming from one's own experiences and cultural background is responsible for activating and modulating all other processes. The combination of systems and processes needs to interact for the development of high-level reading comprehension. ## Skills needed for reading comprehension Reading Comprehension is considered a complex competence (Elleman & Oslund, 2019) incorporating various skills. Teachers have to take all skills into account in their daily practice if they want reading comprehension to be a tool for learning. As such, reading comprehension requires decoding words, vocabulary, prior knowledge, making inferences, working memory, grammatical skills, and knowledge of the text structure (Ares Ferreirós et al., 2021; Elleman & Oslund, 2019; Sánchez et al., 2002). This study focuses on higher-level reading, with an emphasis on the reader as an active agent involved in the process of establishing relationships between words, structures, or propositions and prior knowledge in order to construct the meaning, the gist (Ares Ferreirós et al., 2021; Das, 2018). Through an interactive and dynamic process, the relationship between words creates the structure of the sentences. At this point, grammatical skills come into play, as they organize the arrangement of words and phrases and help in understanding implicit content and text cohesion. Moreover, it is necessary to retrieve information from memory and prior knowledge in order to build a new meaning, make inferences, and contextualize the new information in the text (Ares et al., 2021, Kintsch & Dijk, 1978, León et al., 2011). It is also necessary to recognize the relationships between the propositions that compose them, both in terms of micro-structures and macro-structures, in order to comprehend text in depth, follow the thread of the text, and understand the meaning of the overall discourse (Kintsch & Van Dijk, 1978; Roehling et al., 2017). This illustrates how deep and critical reading involves a range of cognitive processes related to knowledge and experiences, requiring the activation of various strategies and decision-making, so that the selected strategies are appropriate (Broek et al., 2017, Das, 2018). In this sense, planning guides, regulates, and evaluates the level of understanding and reading strategies (Gutiérrez Fresneda, 2022, Georgiou et al., 2020, Mahapatra, 2016). When planning is part of a collaborative process, a social act, the outcomes of decisions tend to be richer, more refined, and more conscious (Blasco-Serrano et al., 2019). Through discussion with others, readers become aware of their own knowledge, beliefs, processes, and strategies. In a joint process, involving social and cultural norms, individuals have to take into account their goals, their knowledge base, and beliefs, share these, and collaborate, making an effort, cooperating and not working alone (Bang & Frith, 2017). Recent studies show how guidance and mutual support contribute to improve reading comprehension (Durán et al., 2020, Tavakoli & Koosha, 2016, Teng, 2016). Combined with cognitive and social processes, emotional processes emerge (Boza et al., 2001, Paris & Paris, 2001, Pérez-Álvarez at al., 2019, Jiménez et al., 2019). Interest in reading involves questions about the discourse, reflection, and connections with prior knowledge and experiences. Planning depends on awareness of one's own skills and knowledge, as well as commitment and motivation for the task, elements that reinforce each other (Sandoval-Muñoz et al., 2018). For all these reasons, this research aims to study how classroom dynamics can be organized to improve reading comprehension and respond to school and societal demands. The study seeks to offer guidance for teachers to strengthen the cognitive processes related to learning and reading comprehension. If teachers understand the processes underlying the skills, they can better guide and support students' reading skills, thereby promoting academic, personal, and social development. To this end, various programs have been developed based on the PASS theory, such as FUNDI (Mayoral-Rodríguez et al., 2020) or PREP (PASS Reading Enhancement Program) (Das, 2018). These programs specifically target cognitive processes in order to prevent reading difficulties. This study, building on this latter program, involves a systematic review of previously implemented programs that have been effective, including the use of specific interventions in the natural classroom context. This review will contribute to a more sophisticated understanding of how to use the framework of the PASS Model to enhance reading comprehension. In this model, teachers should act as guides, promoting educational development through motivation, peer dialogue, and critical thinking. They should encourage independent decision-making, collaboration, and autonomy in their teaching practices. ## Program to Develop Reading Comprehension Skills Through Textbooks The classroom is, more often than not, the setting where students develop their reading skills. Additionally, learning school subjects implies understanding information. primarily from written texts. Therefore, reading comprehension can be developed through the academic contents of the classroom using teaching-learning strategies and activities that activate the cognitive processes underlying reading comprehension. Following this framework, the program described here is a proposal for developing reading comprehension, taking into account the criteria used in the PREP program (Das, 2000). This program includes communicative and methodological dynamics that occur in the classroom for teaching social science and natural science content. ## Example of Activities The activities are based on a socio-constructivist perspective, placing the teacher in a role that fosters student-led learning and development of reading comprehension skills. ### Activities - **Memory** - Decode words (Vocabulary) - **Recognition of words** - Connect letters and syllables (Vocabulary) - **Comprehension** - Rearrange words to form a sentence (Vocabulary); Guess the word (Vocabulary); Solve riddles (Vocabulary); Choose the correct answer (Vocabulary) ## Implementing Activities - The classroom is divided into heterogeneous groups of 3-5 students. - Students, in teams, need to discuss and debate the possible solutions to each activity, reaching consensus between all members of the group. - Each group presents its solution with justifications to the rest of the class. - Reflection as a group encourages students to analyze their own arguments and those of others, leading to a rethinking, deconstruction, and reconstruction of ideas and learning (Bang & Frith, 2017). The teacher's role is to ensure that the group members reflect on their ideas, thus encouraging students to ask themselves questions about their reasoning. For example: "Why did you decide to do this?", "Why not another option?", or "How did you come up with this answer?" Each activity is designed to promote: - **Memory -** Decode words; Planification: Processing in succesion - **Recognition of words** - Connect letters or syllables; Planification: Processing in succesion - **Comprehension** - Rearrange words to form a sentence; Planification: Processing in succesion; Guess the word; Planification: Processing in succesion; Solve riddles; Planification: Processing in succesion; Choose the correct answer: Planification: Processing in succesion ## Categories and their Relationship with Each other - **Processes and Skills** - Attention, Previous Knowledge, Integration of Contents, Planning - **Argumentation** - Debate, Error as a source of Learning, Explicit Metacognition - **Sensitivity** - Motivation, Autonomy, Self-Questioning The categories present a strong interplay. Based on prior studies of the PASS model that support research on reading comprehension (Davis et al., 2019; Mahapatra, 2016) the three cases under study show an increase in students' planning of tasks in relation to the category of prior knowledge. Recent studies (Ares et al., 2021; Carcamo, 2023, Das, 2018) confirm that vocabulary activates the cognitive processes that foster reading comprehension, aligning with the findings presented in this study. The findings show how students have become aware of the need for vocabulary and prior knowledge, leading to a plan of action for completing activities: "In the activities, the children tried to extract information that they had learned before" (E.M.CasoI.A); "Those who have studied and have the knowledge, do the activities much more easily and faster" (DC.CasoIII.Ref.1605). Planning is closely related to integrating content and prior knowledge (McCarthy & Goldman, 2019; Ripoll & Aguado, 2015), since students need to connect prior knowledge with the elements of the text and the hypothesis of interpretation in order to understand what is being read: "We think about the questions that you ask us" (N.Al16.CasoIII); "In the riddles, the children had to deduce the solution, they were great because, there, the children tried to relate the content that I had discussed with them on previous days" (E.M.CasoIII). As Das (2018), Mahapatra (2015), and Dunn et al. (2018) point out, attention and planning are intertwined and play an auxiliary role in other processes. A child explains: "There are 'traps' in activities. There are words or sections that we need to pay close attention to, as they are important for solving the activity" (GD.Al10.CasoIII). Motivation, one of the categories with the most weight in this study, in keeping with previous ones (Boza et al., 2001, Jiménez et al., 2019, Paris & Paris, 2001, Pérez-Álvarez et al., 2019, Sandoval-Muñoz et al., 2018), is closely linked to cognitive processes and skills. Motivation for the task promotes prior knowledge. "It motivated them to reread the topic to make sure they know the material well enough to understand the texts and not make mistakes" (E.M.CasoI.B). Additionally, it is observed how students plan their actions and are more attentive to solve tasks well. This is reflected in the field diary from case III: "Before going to class, I see the children studying at recess. They want to know the lesson so they can play the comprehension activities." (DC.CasoIII.Ref.2702). Another teacher explains that motivation makes students more attentive: "It was hard at first, but then they were really focused, as if... they had to reason everything through, they were quite serious" (E.M.CasoI.D). This category, motivation, is closely linked to autonomy and error as a source of learning (Sánchez Castro & Pascual Sevillano, 2022). A student explains how he is motivated because he has to make decisions even if he might make a mistake: "I like the sheets you give us where we have to solve riddles, do a quiz on the scrambled stories, choose the correct answer, and what I like the most is when we have to memorize texts and put the right answer." (N.A15.CasoIII). The category of error as a source of learning, found in the category of argumentation, also appears in the same way in earlier research by Ares and colleagues (2021). It is believed that embracing errors encourages autonomy: "They are not as afraid to make mistakes, they feel more secure when giving an opinion" (E.M.CasoI.A). The category of explicit metacognition is closely linked to error and debate, which is in keeping with previous research, which emphasizes the importance of asking different types of questions about the text (Gutiérrez Fresneda, 2022). The school principal of case III states: "It is no longer just about reading skills, it's about making discoveries, learning to learn, knowing how to do things (...) reconsidering what they say during the debate, seeing that what they are saying is just as good as anyone else's, that they can make mistakes" (E.DEP.CasoIII). Along the same lines, research by Espárrago (2021) and Jiménez Perez (2023) highlights the importance of inviting students to participate in discussions without fear of making mistakes or saying what is expected, to explain their reasoning and make their own decisions to achieve a deeper understanding. ## Relationship Between the Categories The finding indicate that the categories have an interrelationship. - **Processes and Skills** - The study shows a strong relationship between prior knowledge and planning for the students. - **Argumentation** - The study reveals that students are motivated to integrate content and prior knowledge. - **Sensitivity** - Motivation for the task is one of the most important findings from this study that supports previous research. The results have shown how processes and dynamics invite teachers to reconsider their teaching practices in favor of a more participative approach, guided by the interests and needs of the students (Vigo et al., 2016). As a result, the findings of the intervention demonstrate that reading comprehension is a social activity, of interaction (Blasco-Serrano et al., 2019, Durán et al., 2020), which is reflected in the relationship presented in the category of prior knowledge with the debate: "very good, they search together, discuss, what was the concept we were working on" (E.M.CasoIII). In the same vein, the study reveals how interaction underpins the relationship between planning and explicit metacognition (Bang & Frith, 2017), "Sometimes they know the answers, but find it hard to explain how they arrived at that conclusion. They are not used to explaining their reasoning to others" (E.M.CasoII). Therefore, cognitive processes and skills emerge from interactive dynamics of collaboration and dialogue between participants, where autonomy and taking decisions without fear of being wrong are key elements. ## Conclusions Deep and critical reading is an essential competence for the development of a full citizenship. It is crucial that guidance and teaching practices are redefined to create learning scenarios within the natural classroom context where students can practice reading comprehension independently and critically. While the PASS Model emphasizes how prior knowledge, planning, and attention are key elements for reading comprehension, the dynamics of classroom interaction play a fundamental role in the learning and understanding processes. Collaboration between learners and the promotion of learners' autonomy and taking decisions freely, with a range of possibilities, facilitate the development of reading competence. As a consequence, guidance and teachers should foster learning situations that encourage the development of reading comprehension skills within the natural classroom context and the PASS framework. Students should learn through dialogue and participation with the ability to express their arguments and decide without fearing mistakes. It is undeniable that today, due to the overwhelming amount of information we receive from multiple sources, it is necessary to educate future citizens to develop reading comprehension skills in order to acquire knowledge in a deep and critical manner, and make decisions and participate in society in a free and aware manner.