Children’s Perceptions of Their Reading Ability and Epistemic Roles in Monologically and Dialogically Organized Bilingual Classrooms

Abstract

This study examines how bilingual second-grade students perceived of their reading competence and of the work of reading in two contrasting settings where texts were regularly discussed: a monologically organized classroom (MOC) and a dialogically organized classroom (DOC; as determined by prior analysis of classroom discourse). Interview data revealed that, while every student in the DOC came to describe herself or himself as a good reader by the end of the year, many low-achieving readers in the MOC no longer saw themselves as good readers. Findings further indicated that students in the two classrooms conceived of epistemic reading roles in contrasting ways. In the MOC, students viewed reading as about getting the text’s intended meaning and expressed concern about potentially giving wrong answers. They emphasized the teacher as a provider of information, placed importance on external achievement markers, and saw good reading as a matter of being smart. In the DOC, students saw themselves as agentive makers of meaning who generated ideas and questions. They spoke of a social responsibility to help others (including both peers and teacher) better understand the text. They saw discussion with peers as a way of helping further their own textual understandings, and the teacher as someone who sought to understand and learn from student textual perspectives. In light of existing self-efficacy literature, these findings suggest that student beliefs about epistemic roles, mediated by the predominant nature of classroom discourse, could play an important role in shaping students’ perceived reading competence.