02702711%2e2010%2e507589 (1)

8/11/2019 02702711%2E2010%2E507589 (1)

1/49

This article was downloaded by: [Purdue University]On: 01 September 2014, At: 18:22Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH,UK

Reading PsychologyPublication details, including instructions for

authors and subscription information:

http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/urpy20

Reading and Social Imagination:

What Relationally Oriented

Reading Instruction Can Do for

ChildrenJudith T. Lysaker

a, Clare Tonge

b, Darren Gauson

b

& Angela Millerb

aDepartment of Curriculum and Instruction , Purdue

University , West Lafayette, Indianab

College of Education , Butler University ,Indianapolis, Indiana

Published online: 23 Nov 2011.

To cite this article:Judith T. Lysaker , Clare Tonge , Darren Gauson & Angela Miller

(2011) Reading and Social Imagination: What Relationally Oriented Reading Instruction

Can Do for Children, Reading Psychology, 32:6, 520-566

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02702711.2010.507589

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all theinformation (the Content) contained in the publications on our platform.However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make norepresentations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness,

or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and viewsexpressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, andare not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of theContent should not be relied upon and should be independently verified withprimary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for anylosses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages,and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/urpy20http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02702711.2010.507589http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/urpy20

8/11/2019 02702711%2E2010%2E507589 (1)

2/49

indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of theContent.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes.Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan,sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone isexpressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found athttp://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Downloadedby[PurdueUniversi

ty]at18:2201September2014
http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

8/11/2019 02702711%2E2010%2E507589 (1)

3/49

Reading Psychology, 32:520566, 2011Copyright C Taylor & Francis Group, LLCISSN: 0270-2711 print / 1521-0685 onlineDOI: 10.1080/02702711.2010.507589

READING AND SOCIAL IMAGINATION:WHAT RELATIONALLY ORIENTED READING

INSTRUCTION CAN DO FOR CHILDREN

JUDITH T. LYSAKER

Department of Curriculum and Instruction, Purdue University, West Lafayette,Indiana

CLARE TONGE, DARREN GAUSON, and ANGELA MILLER

College of Education, Butler University, Indianapolis, Indiana

Twenty-two second and third grade children experiencing difficulties with socialrelationships and reading comprehension participated in small group Relation-ally Oriented Reading Instruction for eight weeks. Developmental and literacyassessments done before and after the reading intervention showed statisticallysignificant improvements in the understanding of text and in social imagina-tion. Analysis of writing samples resulted in a typology of relationally orientedresponse. Together these data provide initial evidence linking the understanding

of texts to the development of other relational capacities like social imagination,and indicate that purposeful use of picture books within relationally orientedreading instruction may enhance this development.

The achievement of early and sustained reading proficiency is amajor focus in United States schools, and there is ongoing con-cern with those children who experience difficulty in becomingsuccessful readers. Over the past decade reading interventionshave been implemented widely for those who struggle to read.While many of these interventions have focused on instruction ofone or more skills considered necessary for reading (phonolog-ical awareness, decoding, and word identification), recent inter-ventions have demonstrated a renewed interest in reading com-prehension. These interventions have addressed such aspects ofthe comprehending process as vocabulary, story structure, andmetacognition (Boulware-Gooden, Carreker, Thornhill, & Joshi,2007; Westerveld & Gillon, 2008). Yet few reading interventions

Address correspondence to Judith T. Lysaker, Department of Curriculum andInstruction, College of Education, Purdue University, Beering Hall of Liberal Arts andEducation, Room 4108, 100 N. University Street, West Lafayette, IN 47907. E-mail:

[email protected]

520



8/11/2019 02702711%2E2010%2E507589 (1)

4/49

Reading and Social Imagination 521

focus specifically on the ability to construct inferences, to imaginesomething beyond that which is explicitly stated. This ability is acritical component of reading comprehension and necessary fordeep engagement in text (Duke, Pressley, & Hilden, 2004; Sweetand Snow, 2002).

The comprehension of text is not the only challenge childrenface. Understanding other peoples thoughts and feelings is also adifficult task for many. Social problems, such as bullying, have be-come common, and schools are more than ever concerned withchildrens abilities to have positive social relationships and to un-derstand the perspectives of other people (Slee & Mohya, 2007).

Socio-emotionally focused curricula and character education pro-grams have been implemented in schools to address these socialissues and help children develop greater social sensitivity and un-derstanding. Beyond local and immediate school concerns, thereexists a more general concern for nurturing global perspectivesand helping children develop moral imagination (McCollough,1992) and the ability to understand and care for others in deepand abiding ways (Noddings, 2005).

Unfortunately, there are many children who face both dif-ficulties. They have difficulty understanding text and difficultywith social relationships. In fact as many as 75% of children withlearning difficulties are perceived by teachers as having less de-veloped social skills than their peers (Wanzek, Vaughn, Kim, &Cavanaugh, 2006). In addition, children who struggle with read-ing alone are more likely to have difficulties across their school-ing experiences as well as in life more generally (Committeeon the Prevention of Reading Difficulties in Young Children,Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998). It is widely accepted that success-ful reading depends on engagement in a variety of social con-texts in the form of small group instruction, book discussions,and the like, the benefits of which are dependent upon chil-dren understanding each others responses to books as well asto the teachers instruction. In fact, social dynamics of instruc-tional groupings have been found to impact the reading successof struggling readers in particular (Matthews & Kesner, 2000).

Taken together, we can reasonably assume that the combinationof social and reading difficulties would have a profoundly nega-tive impact on a childs experience of reading and of school moregenerally.



8/11/2019 02702711%2E2010%2E507589 (1)

5/49

522 J. T. Lysaker et al.

Yet, perhaps because social and academic problems are mostoften seen as beingaboutdifferent things, they are frequently ad-dressed as discrete phenomena: social problems are addressedthrough social interventions and reading difficulties throughreading intervention. We considered the possibility that thesephenomenareading and social difficultiesmight have some-thing in common. Since successful reading experience often in-volves a readers ability to relate to the text and to imagine thereality of the other (Langer, 1995; Rosenblatt, 1938/1983), wewondered if the understanding of people and the understandingof text might draw upon a common relational capacity, the capac-

ity for social imagination, that is the ability to understand howothers think, feel, and believe. We reasoned that approach-ing these problems as relational difficulties might prove usefulin helping children improve both reading and social imagina-tion. While picture books are commonly used to foster personalconnections (Sipe, 2000, 2002), prompt discussion of emotions(Campbell, 2001), and encourage moral reasoning (Clare & Gal-limore, 1996; Koc & Buzzelli, 2004), we know of no study that

systematically uses picture books in a reading intervention to fa-cilitate childrens personal development of social imagination.The purpose of this study was two-fold. First, we wanted to

explore the links between comprehension of texts and the ca-pacity for social imagination among children experiencing diffi-culties with reading and social relationships. Second, we wantedto investigate the effects of a reading intervention on both thecomprehension of text and social imagination. Because we wereinterested in childrens inferential understandings of text, we fo-cused on aspects of comprehension not influenced by difficul-ties with decoding. Therefore, assessments of listening compre-hension and narrative competence were used as indicators of textcomprehension. Our research question became: Can the system-atic, purposeful use of childrens literature in a reading inter-vention positively influence the listening comprehension, narra-tive competence, and social imagination of children identifiedas experiencing difficulty with social relationships and reading

comprehension? To answer this question we designed a relation-ally oriented reading intervention that focused on the relationalcapacities of social imagination and text comprehension withinfictional picture book reading events.



8/11/2019 02702711%2E2010%2E507589 (1)

6/49


Theoretical Perspective

This study is located in a view of language and literacy as em-bodied, relational, and dialogic processes (Bakhtin, 1935/1981;Halliday, 1975; Lysaker, 2007; Vygotsky, 1978), and the personwho readsthe selfas a dialogic, fluid, ongoing set of conver-sations (Bakhtin, 1935/1981; Hermans, 2001; Hermans & Dimag-gio, 2004; Lysaker & Lysaker, 2005). Central to this view is thebelief that language, as well as the practices of reading and writ-ing, communicate, construct, and constitute who we are andhow we experience the world in physical, psychological, and

phenomenological ways. From this viewpoint reading is essentiallyrelational, dialogic activity of the self, and the teaching of readingis inherently concerned with the development of the human be-ing (Lysaker, 2006, 2007; Rosenblatt, 1938/1983). Thus, languageevents like reading, writing, and the conversations in which theyare embedded become the raw materials for self-construction,including the capacity for social imagination, which is the fo-cus of this study (Carpendale & Lewis, 2002; Fernyhough, 2008;

Hermans & Dimaggio, 2004; Vygotsky, 1978).This particular view of language is nested in a broader so-ciocultural view that suggests that literacy development, as well asthe development of the individual more generally, is mediated bysigns and fostered by participation in social interaction (Bruner,1986; Halliday, 1975; Wertsch, 1985). The meanings and the lan-guage of those interactions become semiotic resources for laterlanguage use and, when internalized, lead to an individuals de-velopment of higher mental processes (Vygotksy, 1978). Thus,like Matthews and Cobb (2009), we were interested in betterunderstanding specific aspects of individual development withinsocially constructed literacy events. Such aspects include the com-prehending of text and the capacity for social imagination. Inher-ent in this view is the importance of the more able other whoguides participation in cultural practices within a zone of prox-imal development (Vygotsky, 1978) through the subtle interper-sonal process of scaffolding (Stone, 1993).

This perspective on the role of social interaction and adultscaffolding in the formation of individual relational capacitiesled us to design a small group reading intervention. In this in-tervention teachers intentionally supported children in making



8/11/2019 02702711%2E2010%2E507589 (1)

7/49


inferences and in using their social imaginations during picturebook reading.

Related Literature

Relational Capacity and Social Imagination

Relational capacity, the capacity for connection to others, our de-sire for that connectedness, and our inability to be fully ourselveswithout it, reflects a set of concepts addressed across time and dis-ciplines by those interested in describing qualities of the self and

self-experience. Many serious scholars have described and theo-rized the nature, source, and importance of this quality of humanbeing. For example, Heidegger (1953) argues that to be in theworld as a human person is, in the first place, to be in relation,that a quality of our selfisthe presence of the other. Similarly, thework of Bakhtin and those who have taken up his work (Hermans& Dimaggio, 2004; Lysaker & Lysaker, 2005) conceptualizes thehuman person as multivocal, an ongoing conversation of voices,

itself relational, and constructed within the relationships and lan-guages of others. Feminists such as Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger,and Tarule (1986) consider the ways in which we know and un-derstand to be essentially relational; we know, learn, and growthrough our connections to others. This capacity for relationshipis so critical that Palmer (1998) suggests that the facilitation of stu-dents capacity for connectedness is a critical part of the teachersrole. Given the fluidity of self and the constructive nature of lan-guage and social interaction, the formation and growth of rela-tional capacity is considered a bidirectional phenomenon. Thatis, the relationships that constitute the self are brought into exis-tence through social relationships, while at the same time a per-sons social relationships are made possible by the relational ca-pacities with the self.

We use the term relational capacities to describe a widerange of human potentials that involve being able to connect toothers and liken it to other capacities, such as the capacity to learn

or to love, that are both embodied and sensitive to the influenceof language and social interaction. The focus of this study is oneparticular set of relational capacities, which we will refer to as so-cial imagination (Johnston, 1993; Rosenblatt, 1938/1983). Social



8/11/2019 02702711%2E2010%2E507589 (1)

8/49


imagination is the ability to recognize and make inferences aboutthe thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and intentions of others. This set ofcapacities is alternatively referred to across disciplines in a varietyof ways, including empathy, theory of mind (Baron-Cohen, 2001),moral imagination (McCollough, 1992) and social understanding(Fernyhough, 2008).

There are a variety of explanations for how relational capac-ities such as social imagination develop in children. Fernyhough(2008) describes several ways in which theorists have sought to ex-plain this development. Some (Gordon, 1992; Harris, 1989) sug-gest that social imagination develops from an individuals ability to

take the perspective of another and simulate the mental processesof that other. Still others argue that the relational capacity for so-cial imagination grows out of an innately human desire to shareour thoughts, feelings, and intentions with others (Tomasello,Carpenter, Call, Behne, & Moll, 2005). Finally, Carpendale andLewis (2002) describe a theory of development that accounts forthe growth of social imagination as a product of social interac-tion and the language that helps to construct and maintain those

interactions. Relationships between people in social settings de-mand sensitivity to the thoughts and feelings of others and hencepromote the development of social imagination.

In addition to these psychologically oriented explanations,theoretical work in neurobiology suggests that the developmentof social imagination is predicated upon the observation and thensimulation of anothers empathetic responses by the observer(Gallese, 2003). Such observations stimulate the brain in ways thatare similar to the ways in which the brain reacts when the personexhibits his/her own empathetic response, evoking participationin shared manifold of intersubjectivity (Gallese, p. 34) and ef-fectively priming the brain for empathy. Indeed, this neurobio-logical explanation of empathy fits well with social constructivistthinking about language, and in particular Cambournes (1995)notion of demonstration, in which he suggests that language isnaturally learned through observation of a more proficient lan-guage user.

Despite some differences in accounting for the developmentof social imagination, all concur that being with others, both ob-serving and interacting with them, is critical to the developmentof social imagination, particularly those interactions in which



8/11/2019 02702711%2E2010%2E507589 (1)

9/49


participants notice and respond to the perspectives of othersthrough language.

Social Imagination and Social Skills

It is perhaps not surprising to find that relational capacities suchas social imagination are linked to school age childrens socialskills; when one is able to imagine the thoughts, feelings, andintentions of others, one is more likely to be able to get alongwith other people. Indeed, Liddle and Nettle (2006) found thatteacher ratings of childrens social competence correlated with

performance on tasks of social imagination in which childrenwere asked to imagine and respond to the thoughts and feel-ings of others in a set of stories. Indeed, some hypothesize thatsocial imagination may develop in relation to a childs ability tounderstand and process stories, that is, that narrative capacity in-fluences the relational capacity of social imagination (Liddle &Nette, 2006; Szarkowicz, 2000). Thus the development of socialimagination may be seen as an important aspect of childrens

growth as social beings, and, specific to this study, potentially re-lated to the comprehension of narrative texts.

Text Comprehension

Reading comprehension has become defined as a complex pro-cess involving the elements of reader, text, activity, and/or context(RAND, 2002; Sweet & Snow, 2002). Largely extrapolated fromthe theoretical work of Rosenblatt (1938/1983), this definitionclearly lays out the role of the text, and the reading event itself, ascentral to the act of comprehension. While theoretical perspec-tives dictate differences in the relation between, and relative im-portance of, these elements, as well as to what degree meaning isactively constructed or extracted by the reader (RAND, 2002),it is widely accepted that reading comprehension is influenced incomplex ways by characteristics of the reader, text, and context,and that making interpretations is an ongoing part of the process.

Indeed, the ability to make interpretations or inferences dur-ing reading is considered critical to accomplished reading (Dukeet al., 2004; Keene & Zimmermann, 2007; RAND, 2002; Sweet &Snow, 2002). Such interpretations involve a transaction between



8/11/2019 02702711%2E2010%2E507589 (1)

10/49


reader and text in which the reader is able to relate to the text insuch a way that both the reader and the text are changed (Rosen-blatt, 1938/1983). A new person and a new text are created witheach reading. Grumet (1988) suggests in her essay on bodyread-ing that reading is a passage between self and world, in whichtransformation resulting in a loss of the old self is always a risk.

Dialogism and Text Comprehension

It is useful at this point to return to the notion of the dialogic

self. In this view the self or person reading is conceptualizedas a fluid, ongoing set of conversations (Bakhtin, 1935/1981;Hermans, 2001; Hermans & Dimaggio, 2004; Lysaker & Lysaker,2005). From this perspective, the activity of reading involves theintroduction of new voicesthose of the textin the conversa-tion that is the self. The transaction that occurs between readerand text consists of a conversation between the voices of text andthe voices of self, which, like other conversations, have the po-

tential to transform. In this way dialogism allows a more detailedview of what occurs in a transaction between the person who readsand the text and provides a way of understanding why readingcan lead to personal transformation. Indeed, reading comprehen-sion might be viewed as an inner dialogue (Walker, 2005), a setof conversations among the voices of the person and the voicesof the text. Importantly, this conversation is influenced by thecontext within which it occurs. In this light the process of mak-ing inferences might be thought of as appropriating the voices of

others through language interactions (Lysaker, 2006, 2007). Thisact of appropriation affords perspective taking, viewing the worldfrom the position of someone else, making it possible to infer thethoughts, feelings, and intentions of the character. Thus compre-hension of text is more than aesthetic response, cognitive pro-cessing, linguistic knowledge, or cultural practice, but rather is arelational, dialogic event of the self (Langer, 1995; Lysaker, 2006,2007; Rosenblatt, 1938/1983).

A relational, dialogic view of reading accounts for the readerin broad terms. Here the wholeperson who reads is considered,and it is the persons relationship with the text that leads to per-sonal transformation. In this study we use the phrase the per-son who reads to replace reader in order to emphasize the



8/11/2019 02702711%2E2010%2E507589 (1)

11/49


belief that reading comprehension engages the whole person asan embodied activity. Indeed, defining reading as relational activ-ity provides a way to integrate what are often segregated aspectsof reading: cognitive, linguistic, emotional, physical, social, andcultural. In other words, defining reading as a relational eventreclaims the person who reads as a holistic and dynamic self. Inthis study we use a modified version of the reader, text, and con-text definition to frame our work and refer to reading compre-hension as a complex relational, dialogic activity involving theperson who reads, the text as relational environment, and thecontext.

The Person Who Reads

When one reframes a reader as a person who reads, and readingas relational dialogic activity, new resources for making sense oftext emerge. Relational activity, unlike decoding or extractinginformation, suggests that the person who reads, in additionto background knowledge, brings emotional resources (Bird &

Reese, 2006), and relational histories (Matthews & Cobb, 2009)to meaning making, or, as Ladd, Birch, and Buhs (1999) suggest,a broader set of individual provisions. The relational historyof the person who reads is brought to bear in a reading event.There are several ways to think about the ways in which relationalqualities might be significant to the relational act of reading.Winnicott (1971), for example, conceived of a metaphoricalspace created by the childs relationship with a caring mother.He considered this potential space to be the location of allcultural and aesthetic experience, one that would include theunderstanding of texts. The caring relational connection betweenmother and child creates space, that is, thepossibilityof engagingin other meaning-making experiences beyond the primaryrelationship between mother and child. In addition, Chodorowswork (1989) goes on to suggest that the primary relationshipsin our lives, along with the desires and other human emotionsthat accompany them, are integral to the later relationships we

form. This particular view of relationships suggests that beingin relation with one caring other creates within the individualperson the possibility for knowing, interpreting, and imagining,all of which are critical to the comprehension of text.



8/11/2019 02702711%2E2010%2E507589 (1)

12/49


Attachment theory (Bolby, 1980) provides a related butslightly different way of understanding the importance of theserelational histories. Central to this theory is the idea that chil-dren need a secure attachment with a caregiver in order to de-velop social and emotional well-being. This attachment, or closeemotional bond, is based upon a childs needs for safety andin good conditions results in the childs sense of security. It iswithin attachment relationships that children develop internalmodels, or schema, for self and other. These representations arethen thought to influence the childs expectations of him/herselfand others as they participate in other relationships. Second,

this attachment relationship forms a secure base (Ainsworth,Blecher, Waters, & Wall, 1978) from which children are able toexplore their environment and participate in learning about theworld, including the world of texts. Bus and her colleagues (Bus& Ijzendoorn, 1995; Bus, Belsky, Ijzendoorn, & Crnik, 1997; Bus,2003) found that preschool children in secure reading dyadsread more often and paid more attention to their mothers infor-mal instruction, characteristics of written language, and the read-

aloud event altogether. Moreover, the atmosphere of the read-ing events of mothers and children who were more secure wasidentified as more positive than in less securely attached dyads.The relational history of the person who reads also provides thecontext for the development of social imagination. It is withinattachment relationships, particularly those with caring others,that children are thought to begin to be able to imagine thethoughts, feelings, and intentions of others (Meins & Russell,1997).

Put within a sociocultural context of learning and develop-ment, these theoretical perspectives on adult/child relationshipshighlight the role of emotional content and relational history inthe formation of the person who reads. Taken together they sug-gest that these relational histories and the emotions that accom-pany them may influence the person who reads in several ways.First, the childs capacity for aesthetic experience, including theabilities to interpret and imagine, may be predicated on the qual-

ities of past relationships. Second, the childs eagerness, curiosity,and desire to explore the world, including the world of text, mayalso be shaped by relational histories. Third, the internal repre-sentations of self, other, and the world that the person who reads



8/11/2019 02702711%2E2010%2E507589 (1)

13/49


bring to encounters with texts are also likely shaped by his/herearly significant relationships. Finally, relational histories providethe context for the development of social imagination in the per-son who reads, making it possible for him/her to imagine or in-fer the thoughts, feelings, and intentions of others. Critical tothe current study, this work implies thatpresentcaring relation-ships are also formative and contribute to the development of theperson who reads, continually recreating the relational historiesbrought to bear during reading. Indeed from a dialogic view ofself-transformation, we posit that the potential space created by acurrent secure caring relationship creates a hospitable interper-

sonal environment for the appropriation of new voices within theself, thus supporting the comprehension of texts and the develop-ment of social understanding.

The Text as a Fictive Relational Context

Theoretical perspectives on reading, as well as empirical research,

time and again suggest that the text a child engages with influ-ences his/her reading process in complex ways (Duke et al., 2004;Sweet & Snow, 2002). In fact, features of texts are regarded as crit-ical to the quality of reading that ensues and the ways in which theperson engages in the reading. Most often perhaps, the linguisticquality and cognitive demands of text are considered in choosingbooks for children experiencing difficulty with reading. Sentencecomplexity, font size, number of words on a page, and the par-ticular relationship between text and illustration impact the way

reading operates for young children. In addition, the degree andkind of predictability, such as rhyme, rhythm, repetition of a bodyof vocabulary, consistency of characters, and so on, also contributeto the ways in which children are able to make sense of text.

However, this study examines a different kind of role that textcan play. Like Alexander and Jetton (2000), we view the text as akind of environment for the person who reads, which might beregarded as open (Rosenblatt, 1938/1983) or considerate

(Armbruster, 1984), or conversely, closed and inconsiderate.These qualities of text make it more or less possible for the personwho reads to engage the voices of the text in ways that construct arich reader/text transaction.



8/11/2019 02702711%2E2010%2E507589 (1)

14/49


Text as a Relational Context for the Development of Social Imagination

This view of texts as relational contexts led us to consider the waysin which they might serve as scaffolds for the development of so-cial imagination in the person who reads. Indeed, the capacityfor social imagination has been linked to language developmentand the understanding of story. A large body of empirical worksuggests that the development of language in children markedlyinfluences the growth of social imagination (Astington & Baird,2005; Carpendale & Lewis, 2002). This is consistent with the preva-lent idea that language influences cognition in many ways. Vygot-

sky (1978) and others in cultural psychology have long arguedthat language and other signs used in the social sphere mediatethinking and are regarded as the provocation for the develop-ment of higher mental processes (Rogoff, 1990; Wertsch, 1991).According to this view, the social interaction and the languagethat accompanies it are internalized by actively involved partic-ipants, leading to developmental transformations (Lawrence &Valsiner, 1993; Vygotsky, 1978).

Given that language mediates cognitive activity as well as thedevelopment of social imagination, it seems reasonable to assumethat texts, as well as the reading and the language practices usedto engage those texts, may also influence the development ofsocial imagination. Indeed, the role of story in human experi-ence suggests that story influences the development of certainrelational capacities. Because stories unfold on two landscapes,that of consciousness and that of action (Bruner, 1986; Rosen-blatt, 1938/1983), narratives offer children a context within whichto understand the relationship between how people feel, think,and act (Szarkowicz, 2000) and provide children with resourcesfor understanding the mental states of others, other than thosein their real world social interactions (Dyer, Shatz, & Wellman,2000). Indeed, kindergarten children with more developed socialimagination retold stories from wordless picture books with morefrequent reference to characters thoughts, beliefs, and inten-tions than those children with less developed social imaginations

(Pelletier & Astington, 2004). In sum, stories provide relationalcontexts within which we are asked to imagine the motivationsand actions of others, which leads to enhanced social imagination.



8/11/2019 02702711%2E2010%2E507589 (1)

15/49


Such activity is of course also critical to the comprehension of fic-tional text.

Dialogism and Text as Fictive Relational Context

We have thus far articulated our view of the person who readsand the text as a particular kind of relational context and now re-turn to the notion of dialogism to further explicate howaspectsof the individual person transact with the text in specific ways.As suggested, if comprehension is a dynamic event of the selfthat transforms the reader, then texts are important contexts for

self-development. Texts offer rich relational environments withinwhich we can reimagine ourselves by taking up the reality of char-acters within the text (Johnston, 1993). In this waythe act of read-ing literatureaffords opportunities to explore possibilities for self-authorship(Holquist, 1990; Zunshine, 2006). As Ricoeur (1991)tells us, the appropriation of the identity of a fictional characterby the reader is a form of mediation of the self (p. 77). ForBakhtin, language for the individual consciousness lies on the

borderline between oneself and the other (p. 226), and appro-priation might be thought to involve ventriloquation, the speak-ing of anothers words. Indeed, a sociocultural view of human de-velopment relies on the notion that we develop by taking up thelanguage of others and imbuing it with our own intentions, that is,the development of consciousness depends on ventriloquation(Bakhtin, 1935/1981).

A literary text, then, may serve as a prosthesis of the mindby providing relational resources for the ventriloquation of newvoices. Such activity requires that the person who reads engagein perspective taking as she/he speaks, reads, or infers the originof anothers words. In fact, texts might be thought of as contextswithin which we are called on to exercise our relational capacity ofsocial imagination as we ventriloquate the perspectives of othersas part of the conversation that is self. This of course would leadto self-development (Bakhtin, 1935/1981; Holquist, 1990). Thisappropriating of the voices of others, identified within reading, is

so critical to the reading of fiction that Zunshine (2006) boldlyasserts that fiction is impossible without the readers ability toimagine the reality of the other.



8/11/2019 02702711%2E2010%2E507589 (1)

16/49


Given the powerful role of text, particularly fictional text,to provide rich fictive relational environs for self-development, itseems reasonable to assume that the use of particular kinds of fic-tional texts may be especially useful as resources for the develop-ment of social imagination. From a relational perspective, booksin which the reader is introduced to characters with distinct hu-man needs may be thought of as setting up relational demandson the person who reads, demands that ask the reader to inferthe thoughts, feelings, or intentions of characters, that is, relateto them, to take up their realties as our own, however briefly. En-gaging in these fictive relationships may then build the relational

capacity for social imagination.

Context of Instruction

Aspects of the person who reads and qualities of texts are onlytwo of the multiple and interacting influences on the understand-ing of text (RAND, 2002; Rosenblatt, 1938/1983; Sweet & Snow,2002). In addition, the nature of the context within which the

reading occurs is important. In schools a crucial aspect of this con-text is instruction. Reading instruction for children who strugglewith comprehension remains an area of concern and of inquiry(Block, Gambrell, & Presley, 2002). Historically, reading compre-hension instruction had been afforded little classroom time andreflected a narrow isolated skills approach (Durkin, 19781979).Since that time, though frequently upstaged by concerns with de-coding (Duke et al., 2004), approaches to reading comprehensioninstruction have broadened to include direct strategy instructionand the use of discussion and cooperative learning to facilitatechildrens development of text understandings (National Read-ing Panel, 2000), with small group instruction being particularlyeffective (Wanzek & Vaughn, 2007). With this in mind and in lightof our own beliefs about text comprehension and the person whoreads, we constructed a dialogic relational context for compre-hension instruction.

Dialogism and Text Comprehension Instruction

Consistent with assumptions about the relational and dialogic na-ture of reading, we approached the idea of reading intervention



8/11/2019 02702711%2E2010%2E507589 (1)

17/49


pedagogy as similarly relational and dialogic. Based largely onthe theoretical positions of Bakhtin (1935/1981), dialogic ap-proaches to literacy instruction regard the reading and discus-sion of literature as inherently constituted by multiple responsesand interpretations of text, or multivocal (Langer, 1995; Nystrand,1997; Skidmore, 2006). In contrast to what might be called amore traditional approach, in which the teacher assumes an au-thoritative voice within the instructional discourse, a dialogic ap-proach to pedagogy suggests a greater reciprocity in communica-tive stances on the part of the teacher and the students (Juzwik,Nystrand, Kelly, & Sherry, 2008). Implied in this reciprocity is a

feeling of connectedness in the emotional tone of instruction, inwhich the teacher acts and is perceived as an active part of thecommunity of learners. As Skidmore (2006) argues, dialogic peda-gogy signals the co-presence of the teacher as a concerned other,as a member of a community of learners through the emotionalrollercoaster ride of self development that occurs in social learn-ing context (p. 513).

This fits well with others who suggest that the emotional tone

and the quality of relationships within literacy events are impor-tant to literacy learning. As recognized earlier, Buss work (Buset al., 1995; Bus et al., 1997; Bus, 2003) suggests that the qual-ity of the adultchild relationship in storybook reading influencesthe childs meaningful engagement in the story. She asserts thatthe cognitive and linguistic input of the reading event is not ade-quate for encouraging significant engagement with text. A secureattachment to the adult leading the reading event acts as a facilita-tive emotional context for the reading. This notion is made morerelevant to reading in school by Al-Yagon and Margalit (2006),who suggest that the benefits of attachment relationships and theidea of a secure base are also applicable to school-age childrenwith reading difficulties.

It is this caring emotional tone and sense of reciprocity thatleads todialogicrather than monologic qualities. Nystrand (1997)identified three aspects that define it as dialogical: the use ofauthentic questions on the part of the teacher, uptake of stu-

dent ideas (Cazden, 2001; Collins, 1982), and the opportunityfor students to change the focus of the conversation. Dialogic in-struction also stresses peer interactions and the sense of a learn-ing community or reading collective (Nystrand, 1997) in order



8/11/2019 02702711%2E2010%2E507589 (1)

18/49


to enhance intersubjectivity among the participants (Skidmore,2006). In fact, dialogic instruction was found to be superior tomonologically organized instruction (Skidmore, 2006). In sum,dialogic pedagogy is a socially constructed, emotionally caringinstructional context in which all participants contribute to thejoint construction of understandings. Most relevant to this dis-cussion is the idea that dialogic pedagogy provides children withdemonstrations of the teachers authentic responses to text, in-cluding empathetic response, perspective taking, and a more gen-eral inhabiting of the text as a reader, and it invites childrento make similar personal connections to the text world. These

connections are accepted, valued, and reflected upon by othersthrough discussion, providing a rich context for the developmentof understanding as well as each readers contribution to thoseunderstandings.

In this study, like Skidmore (2006), we regard dialogic in-struction as a pedagogic genre (Bakhtin, 1935/1981; 1953/1986)typified by a socially constructed pattern of discourse in whichroles and relationships are constructed and function as a frame-

work of how listeners and readers are to interpret what they reador hear, how to take up an utterance, what to do or make with it(Juzwik et al., 2008, p. 4). If texts provide a context within whichtransformation can occur by the movement of self within the textworld, then the teacher may both be providing guidance in thatactivity as well as serving as a model for how a reader may ac-tively inhabit the world of the text. In such pedagogy, the teacherandhis/her own relationship to the textas articulated in facial expres-sion, intonation, and language spoken aloud provide a physical,emotional, and social demonstration of the activity of the self whoreads.

The notion of internalization is of particular importance inconsidering the role of instruction as a context for the devel-opment of comprehension and social imagination in children(Vygotsky, 1978). Fernyhough (2008) articulates a Vygotskian ex-planation for the development of social imagination, in whichhe asserts that the dialogic exchangesor utterancesthat oc-

cur between people are internalized in whole as by those whoare engaged in the dialogue (Holquist, 1990; Vygotsky, 1978).These conversations, consisting of both self and other, representa simultaneity of difference (Bakhtin, 1935/1981), a complex



8/11/2019 02702711%2E2010%2E507589 (1)

19/49


intermingling of self and other that is both me and not me and istherefore inherently perspectival (Fernyhough, 2008). As Ferny-hough argues, the internalization of multiple perspectives as partof interaction may therefore account for growing awareness of thethoughts, feelings, and intentions of others, that is, the construc-tion of social imagination. As in ventriloquation, this notion ofinternalization does not imply mechanistic mimicry, rather a per-sonally shaped appropriation of otherness as an aspect of oneself.Applied to dialogic pedagogy, the teachers authentic responses totext and the questions generated for children to consider provideexamples, physically and linguistically rendered, of personal and

dialogic encounters with otherness and may therefore be power-ful resources for the development of social imagination of thechildren.

Study Hypotheses

Conceptual and case study work describe texts and instructionalapproaches that intend to support childrens socio-emotionalgrowth and social imagination (Doyle & Bramwell, 2006; Louie,2005; Zeece, 2004) and suggest that reading with children hasthe potential to enhance social imagination along with the under-standing of text. However, we know of no study that has used thisas a basis for a reading intervention. It remains unclear whetherthe systematic use of literature with purposeful instruction can

build capacity for relatedness, and if that capacity would mani-fest itself in childrens abilities to better understand text and toimagine the thoughts and feelings of others. Accordingly, we de-veloped and implemented a reading intervention with a focus onrelational capacities and made the following predictions. First,we expected that children referred to us because of difficultieswith reading comprehension and social relationships would doless well on measures of social imagination than peers without

these struggles. Second, we expected that children referred forthe study would improve significantly on measures of social imagi-nation and comprehension after 8 weeks of Relationally OrientedReading Instruction.



8/11/2019 02702711%2E2010%2E507589 (1)

20/49


Methods

Design

A mixed approach to methodology based on a pragmatic stancetoward knowledge claims, research purposes, and measures wasused in this study (Creswell, 2003). We were concerned with thepractical consequences of a notion (James, 1907/1991, p. 23)and sought to test the usefulness of the idea of relational ca-pacity by applying it to a reading intervention for children inneed. In order to achieve this both contextualized and decon-

textualized goal, assessments from both the developmental andliteracy literatures were used. With the use of a variety of kindsof data in a synergistic way, we would gain insights beyond whatcould be generated by a single kind of methodology or disci-plinary perspective (Day, Sammons, & Gu, 2008). In particular,data collected within literacy eventswordless picture book read-ings and response writingwere used to provide situated perfor-mances of social imagination, while pre- and post-developmental

assessments were used to assess the more enduring qualities of so-cial imagination as they occurred independently of the readingactivity.

Participants

This study took place in an elementary school in a midwesternAmerican city. The school population was approximately 680 stu-dents at the time of the study, with about 58% of those childrenbeing black, 25% white, 14% Hispanic, 1% Asian, and 8% mul-tiracial. Approximately 57% received free or reduced lunch ben-efits. All the children in the study were in the second or thirdgrade and came from multiple classrooms. Twelve children iden-tified by their teachers as being accomplished both in readingand in social situations were recruited to participate as controlsin phase one of the study. Twenty-two children identified by theirteachers as having both reading and social difficulties were re-

cruited from four classrooms for participation in the intervention.Children selected for the intervention ranged from one to threegrade levels below their peers in the area of reading. The Beaver



8/11/2019 02702711%2E2010%2E507589 (1)

21/49


Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA) was used by teach-ers to assess reading comprehension. The DRA is a commerciallyavailable field-tested assessment system field tested for reliabilityand validity. DRA scores were used to determine comprehensionlevels of all participants in relation to their grade-level placements.Teacher observations of student social skills and emotional well-being were used to select participants. Participants were of AfricanAmerican, Euro-American, and Hispanic descent. Two were En-glish language learners. Children already receiving counseling orspecial education services were excluded from the study.

Relationally Oriented Reading Instruction (RORI)

A framework for instruction informed by dialogism and dialogicpedagogy, as described earlier, was developed. In addition, thisframework was purposefully relational in orientation. Relation-ally Oriented Reading Instruction (RORI) group leaders focusedtheir personal responses to texts on interpreting the thoughts,feelings, beliefs, and intentions of characters.

In addition, other successful reading interventions that relyon the use of small groups and existing models of interactive anddialogic reading informed this framework (Wanzek, Vaughn, Kim,& Cavanaugh, 2006). Children were engaged in small group re-peated readings of picture books in interactive read-aloud ses-sions typified by regular teacher think-alouds about the texts(Barrentine, 1996; Doyle & Bramwell, 2006; Fisher, Flood, Lapp,& Frey, 2004). However, unlike more cognitively oriented think-aloud strategies, which focus on questioning, clarifying, summa-rizing, and predicting (Palincscar & Brown, 1984, 1986), RORIfocused on inferring or imagining the thoughts and feelings of oth-ers. In addition, consistent with dialogic pedagogy and caring re-lationships (Skidmore, 2006), time and activities were providedto promote a sense of mutuality, care, and trust within the smalllearning community of each group. During the first two ses-sions group leaders and children designed a group logo, cre-ated a group name, shared food, and talked about their favorite

books. Each child was given a binder, which they decorated withthe group name and logo, and a reading journal. Group lead-ers also kept binders and reading journals and engaged in thebook groups with a sense of mutual interest in the books and



8/11/2019 02702711%2E2010%2E507589 (1)

22/49

8/11/2019 02702711%2E2010%2E507589 (1)

23/49


personal life experiences, expressing empathy or sympathy for thecharacters and taking the perspective of the characters in a think-aloud style during the first session (Bereiter & Bird, 1985; Walker,2005). To develop these authentic responses, leaders individuallyread the picture books prior to the sessions and marked personalreactions to the texts with post-it notes while using connectionstems to generate meaningful responses and questions. As is com-mon in picture book reading, group leaders physically pointed toillustrations as they offered their responses, to support joint atten-tion to the visual information. In order to affirm and enhance thereadertext dialogue we asked children to make personal connec-

tions to feelings and events in their own lives by writing in theirreading journals at the end of the first session of each week. Evok-ing past events of personal life histories in language and connect-ing them with present language activity may facilitate integrationof new experiences within the conversations of the self (Bird &Reese, 2006; Lysaker, 2006).

In the second session, leaders prompted childrens personaland authentic responses through questioning strategies and dis-

cussion. Consistent with dialogic pedagogy, group leaders bothhonored and probed childrens initial responses to the text. Forexample, group leaders would say things such as Yes. That is inter-esting; I wonder why you thought about it that way. In addition,group leaders led the discussions in such a way that children wereable to reflect on their own reactions through contrast with thereactions of others. For example, group leaders would make suchcomments as, I can see how you are getting that feeling from thepicture, but its different than what Giles noticed. What do youthink about that? At the end of this session, children were askedto write a lettertoa particular character or froma particular char-acters perspective (Brill, 2004) in order to give them the opportu-nity to make some aspect of their relation to the characters morepermanent. Because these children struggled with independentwriting, group leaders often supported children in the mechanicsof the writing tasks. All sessions were observed by the principal in-vestigator, and debriefing conversations were held after each ses-

sion, during which fidelity to the framework was addressed, andproblem solving occurred.



8/11/2019 02702711%2E2010%2E507589 (1)

24/49


TABLE 1 Data Sources

Assessment Purpose Scoring

Eyes Test Pre/post measureof SI

Number of times childidentifies emotion in eyescorrectly from choices readaloud

Faux Pas Test Pre/post measureof SI

Number of stories about whichchild can successfully answera set of questions regardingsocial understanding

Listeningcomprehension

Pre/post measureof comprehension

Total score of questionsanswered correctly

Wordless bookreading

Pre/post measureof SI andnarrativecompetence

Instances of SI countedNCNarrative competence

assessment modified fromParis and Paris (2003)

Writing samples Assessment ofdeveloping SI

Constant comparative analysisresulting in eight conceptualcategories of response thenindependent coding of

participants letters with 91%interrater agreement.

SI = Social imagination.NC = Narrative competence.

Data Sources and Approach to Analysis

Given assumptions about the relation between understandingtexts and understanding others, assessments of both social imag-ination and comprehension were conducted (See Table 1). Chil-dren completed three assessments of social imagination beforeand after the intervention: The Eyes Test (Baron-Cohen, 2001)and Faux Pas Test (Baron-Cohen & ORiordan, 1999), and a word-less picture book reading (WPBR). In addition children com-pleted two assessments of comprehension before and after the in-tervention: a modified Informal Reading Interview (Roe & Burns,2002) and an assessment of Narrative Competence (Paris & Paris,

2003). Assessments were conducted individually by graduate stu-dents and supervised by the first author. Usually the assessmentswere done in two sessions. The two comprehension measures,the modified IRI and the wordless picture book reading, were



8/11/2019 02702711%2E2010%2E507589 (1)

25/49


conducted blind to the results of the tasks of social imagination.The Faux Pas task, which contains British English, was modifiedslightly in language to accommodate American English speakingchildren.

Social Imagination Assessments

EYES TEST FOR CHILDREN

The Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test for children (Baron-Cohen, 2001) consists of 28 photographically rendered sets ofeyes, which assess the ability to correctly infer the emotional states

of others, or what is often referred to as Theory of Mind. As thechildren look at each set of eyes, the assessor reads and pointsto the words surrounding them. These words, such as excited,and pleased, represent a range of different emotions. The childthen chooses the emotion that he/she thinks best describes whatthe person is thinking or feeling. The sum of correct items yieldsthe childs score. The Eyes Test is most often used to assess chil-dren who have autism spectrum disorders. However, is it widely

accepted that the ability to read faces develops along a contin-uum like many other human capacities, from less developed tohighly developed, and therefore is a useful tool to assess this abil-ity in a variety of populations.

FAUX PAS TEST FOR CHILDREN

The Faux Pas test (Baron-Cohen, 1999) is designed for 7- to11-year-old children and consists of a set of 10 stories that assesschildrens sensitivity to social situations. Each story contains a fauxpas, a social situation in which someone says something withoutconsideration for what the listener might want to hear or know(Baron-Cohen, 1999, p. 5). These short paragraph-long storieswere read aloud to the children individually. Then four questionswere asked as provided in the assessment protocol. The first ques-tion asks the child to recognize the presence of a faux pas, andthe second question asks the child to identify what the faux pasactually is. The third question is a straightforward comprehension

question to make sure the child comprehends the story in general.The fourth question checks that the child understands that thefaux pas is a result of the speakers false belief and not meanness.For example, if Sandra says that she hates truck drivers in a group



8/11/2019 02702711%2E2010%2E507589 (1)

26/49


where one of her friends Mom is a truck driver, she is eithermaking a faux pas or being mean. A score of zero is given if thechild answers any of these questions incorrectly. All questions areread aloud to the participants at the end of each story. A sumof the scores for each story results in the childs total Faux Passcore.

WORDLESS PICTURE BOOK READING

Both the Eyes Test and the Faux Pas Test were used becausethey are established valid and reliable assessments of social imag-

ination. However, given our theoretical perspective on languageand self-development, we were interested in childrens perfor-mance of social imagination and understanding of text within lan-guage events. To assess this, children were asked to read the samewordless picture book before and after the intervention. Word-less picture book reading has a rich history in literacy researchas a means by which to see capacities and processes of a readernot bound to decoding (Lysaker, 2006; Paris & Paris, 2003; Sulzby,

1985), as well as in developmental research for assessing socialimagination (Pelletier & Astington, 2004). We reasoned that suchreading events would allow us to view the childrens capacity forsocial imagination as they appropriated the characters positions,thoughts, and feelings during the reading of the story (Lysaker,2006).

The bookI Had Measles, part of a wordless book series calledWright Way Home, published by the Wright Group, was chosenbecause of the number and familiarity of the characters, and the

use of childhood illness as the central problem. These qualities ofthe book we thought afforded many possibilities for children tomake personal connections to the story, enhancing the possibilityfor relating to one or more characters. Before the child beganreading, we read the title to the child and explained that measlesused to be a common disease, similar to chicken pox.

Using the definition of social imagination as the ability to un-derstand the thoughts, feeling, beliefs, and intentions of another, a con-

ceptually based coding scheme was developed so that we couldidentify the presence of this relational capacity within the narra-tives produced during the picture book reading and note patternsin childrens responses in the two readings (see Table 2). Datawere quantified in order to be able to determine the degree to



8/11/2019 02702711%2E2010%2E507589 (1)

27/49


TABLE 2 Conceptually Derived Codes for Social Imagination Within theWordless Picture Book Reading Event

Code Definition ExampleT = Thoughts Inhabits the character and

voices thoughts ofcharacter, or reflects onthe thoughts of acharacter from narratorposition

Oh no, Im in bed today.Get off me cousin, Imtrying to take a nap.(Inhabiting)

Mom came in and checkedmy face. You got themeasles. (Inhabiting)

Do you feel alright?(Inhabiting)

His dog wanted to knowwhat was wrong with him.(Reflecting)

F = Feelings Inhabits the character andvoices feelings of thecharacter or reflects onthe feelings of thecharacter from narratorposition

Readers statementdemonstrates theattribution of feelings to acharacter

I love you dad she said.(Inhabiting)

Shes getting up in themorning for a goodmood, and shes not in agood mood. (Reflecting)

She was still in the houselooking sad. (Reflecting)All they wanted to do was

play with him.(Reflecting)

I = Intention Readers statementdemonstrates theattribution of intention toa character action.

The boy was trying to makehis sister feel better.

One day a kid was sick andhis little brother was atrying to wake him up.

His little brother waschecking on him.

which childrens readings changed over time in terms of socialimagination, as represented in their reading performance. Word-less book readings were analyzed for the number of instances ofsocial imagination present in the reading. Instances were deter-mined by counting the number of times the child demonstrated

an understanding of thoughts, feelings, or intentions of charac-ters as she/he told the story. One point was assigned if the childeither voiced the thought of a character through dialogue or re-flected on the thoughts of a character from the narrator position.



8/11/2019 02702711%2E2010%2E507589 (1)

28/49


Similarly, one point was assigned if the child voiced the feelingsof a character or attributed feelings or intentions to charactersthough narration. The interrater reliability for this was assessedby two raters blindly rating one third of the WPBR for instancesof social imagination. Intraclass correlations revealed a significantamount of interrater agreement (r= 0.95,F(1, 19) = 21.75,p

02702711%2e2010%2e507589 (1)

Documents