The dialogic highway

Considering the act of reading comprehension is often carried out via written responses to right or wrong questions, changing this to a focus on talk will disrupt entrenched notions of what counts as reading comprehension. As Castles et al. (2018) claim, when we make a shift from teacher-directed lesson to a student-directed discussion, the concept of what is knowledge and what is teaching changes. Further to this, the orientation one takes towards comprehension will influence any priority to provide discussion-based experiences. Aukerman (2013) declares that the way educators treat reading comprehension pedagogy rests on varied assumptions about what reading comprehension means. He explains these assumptions are embodied in three pedagogical orientations.

1. Comprehension-as-outcome (getting right answers – question/answer, quizzes like Kahoots, eAstle testing, PAT testing)
2. Comprehension-as-procedure (doing the right kind of reading – proceduralisation of strategies in isolation)
3. Comprehension-as-sensemaking (valuing meanings made from a text regardless of ‘rightness’)

The focus of The Dialogic Highway approach is comprehension-as-sensemaking. It is the ‘openness’ involved with the sense-making approach that distinguishes it from outcome or procedure. Dialogic comprehension-as-sensemaking privileges students’ textual ideas regardless of rightness. Using a dialogic approach to reading comprehension-as-sensemaking moves beyond a student’s knowledge of correct answers and task completion. It privileges the students’ sense making and not that of the teacher or the test. In a classroom where dialogic discussion is valued, the quality of student thinking and their acquired disposition to reflect upon and question their thinking and the thinking of others is what is important (Reznitskaya, 2012). However, entrenched forces in schools, such as standardised testing, incentivise teachers to “not waste time on dialogue” (Lefstein as cited in Asterhan, 2020) and this can be a barrier to a change in practice. 

A dialogic approach is more about the journey than the destination. Traditional reading comprehension activities which focus on right answers is to “arrive without having travelled” (Barnes, A. as cited in Simpson et al. 2010). Benefits of dialogic discussions might not be seen immediately but over time there will be shifts in the level of cognitive thinking as long as there are multiple, regular, deliberate opportunities for dialogic discussions (Oldehaver, 2018).  

Aukerman, M. (2013). Rereading Comprehension Pedagogies: Toward a Dialogic Teaching Ethic that Honors Student Sensemaking. Dialogic Pedagogy: A Journal for Studies of Dialogic Education, 1. https://doi.org/10.5195/dpj.2013.9 

Castles, A., Rastle, K., & Nation, K. (2018). Ending the Reading Wars: Reading Acquisition From Novice to Expert. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 19(1), 5-51. https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100618772271Census: New Zealand as a village of 100 people. (2019) retrieved from: https://www.stats.govt.nz/assets/Uploads/Infographics/New-Zealand-as-a-village-of-100-people-education-and-employment/new-zealand-village-100-people-2018-census-poster.pdf

Asterhan, C. S. C., Lefstein, A., Reznitskaya, A., Howe, C., & Matusov, E. (2020). Controversies and consensus in research on dialogic teaching and learning. Dialogic Pedagogy: An International Online Journal, 8, 1–16.

Reznitskaya, A. (2012). Dialogic teaching: Rethinking language use during literature discussions. The reading teacher, 65(7), 446-456.