One reason that more children do not have the reading skills that they need is that experts in the field of reading have become locked in a senseless battle, which has generated much heat, little light, and even less improvement in the reading skills of children.
The battle is between advocates of the phonics method, which emphasizes learning sound-letter correspondences for various language patterns, and advocates of the whole-language method, which emphasizes reading whole texts in their natural context. The contrast between the two methods is a false dichotomy.
Today, many scholars recognize that good reading instruction integrates elements of the phonics method with elements of the whole-language method (Pressley, 1998). This synthesis represents a major step forward from simplistic notions that one system or another must be right. But it does not fully recognize that reading comprises a complex set of cognitive skills that can best be understood, taught, and assessed in the context of an integrated model of human cognition.
The Triarchic Model
We have proposed such a model, a triarchic theory of human cognition (Sternberg, 1997a, 1997b, 1999). We call it triarchic because it has three parts that correspond to analytical, creative, and practical cognitive skills. Teachers can apply this theory to any subject matter at any grade level (Sternberg & Grigorenko, 2000; Sternberg & Spear-Swerling, 1996).
Students think analytically when they judge, evaluate, compare and contrast, and critique. They think creatively when they invent, discover, imagine, and suppose. They think practically when they implement, use, apply, and put into practice what they have learned. This kind of teaching does not conflict with teaching for memory. One cannot analyze what one knows (analytical thinking), go beyond what one knows (creative thinking), or apply what one knows (practical thinking) if one does not know anything.
Past Findings
In previous research (Sternberg, Ferrari, Clinkenbeard, & Grigorenko, 1996; Sternberg, Grigorenko, Ferrari, & Clinkenbeard, 1999; Sternberg, Torff, & Grigorenko, 1998a ,1998b), we have shown that students who learn triarchically are at an advantage over students taught in a variety of other ways. For example, high school students who are taught at least part of the time in a way that matches their analytical, creative, and practical patterns of ability outperform students who are taught in ways that do not match their patterns of strength. We also have found that middle and high school students who approach social studies or science triarchically learn the material better than do students who are taught either just for analytical thinking or just for memory. Students who have studied triarchically excel in their performance not only on tests measuring analytical, creative, and practical achievement, but also on multiple-choice tests that require little more than memorizing the material. Moreover, students who formerly were not achieving at high levels start achieving at high levels when they are taught triarchically.
Why Triarchic Teaching Succeeds
Triarchic teaching means teaching not only to students' strengths, but also to their weaknesses (Sternberg, 1999), helping them capitalize on their strengths and compensate for or correct their weaknesses. Triarchic teaching also involves educating students to think about learning as a way to learn how to think. Teaching activities develop the three kinds of thinking skills both in isolation and in the integrated fashion that students use to solve everyday problems.
Why does triarchic teaching succeed? First, triarchic instruction involves teaching students to encode material in three different ways so that students are better able to retrieve and use the material. Quite simply, if students have more mental retrieval routes to gain access to the material that they have learned, they are more likely to be able to use the material. Second, triarchic instruction enables students to optimize their individual strengths. Because all students are taught in all three ways at least some of the time, individualizing instruction for each student's pattern of abilities is not necessary. Third, triarchic instruction makes the material more interesting and thereby motivates students to learn. Fourth, teaching triarchically is more enjoyable and rewarding to teachers, motivating them to teach more effectively.
Most teachers find that triarchic instruction is compatible with their past instructional experience. The triarchic model encourages teachers to balance activities that are analytical, creative, and practical, as well as memory-based, rather than to limit instruction to just one of these kinds of activities. It enables teachers to improve on what they already know how to do.
Introducing the Model
When we began applying the triarchic model to the teaching of reading in middle and high schools, our hypothesis was that applying a general theory of human cognition to the reading process would improve reading performance. After all, reading is part of cognition. Poor readers generally show a variety of problems in their cognitive processing of reading material (Spear-Swerling & Sternberg, 1996; Sternberg & Grigorenko, 1999).
We did not ask or expect the schools that we studied to adopt a new reading program. Most schools already have reading programs in which they have invested substantial amounts of time, effort, and money; they are interested in making their reading programs work better. Our goal was their goal: to show teachers how to use an existing program of instruction more effectively to improve student achievement in reading.
We conducted three studies in a district with a population that was predominantly at the lower to lower-middle socioeconomic level and with average student reading scores that were toward the bottom of the state's tests. The studies involved more than 1,200 middle and high school students who were diverse racially and ethnically; the majority were African American or Hispanic. All studies included an experimental group, who received reading instruction enhanced by the triarchic approach, and a control group, who received either no special intervention or reading instruction enhanced only by techniques designed to improve students' memory for what they learned. All students received a pretest as well as a post-test to measure their proficiency in vocabulary and reading-comprehension skills. Teachers in the experimental group received two days of inservice training on how to use triarchic methods with the material they already used to teach reading. Teachers in the control groups received either no new training or inservice training (of comparable length to the experimental group's teachers) on how to teach mnemonic techniques to improve reading.
Applying the Model to Reading Instruction
In our study of middle school (5th grade) students, we worked with the existing reading program, Light Up the Sky, a reading basal program (Farr & Strickland, 1993), from which we chose two stories as pretest units, two stories for intervention with the triarchic approach, and two stories for intervention and as the basis for the final post-test. We developed homework assignments, vocabulary and reading-comprehension assessments, and teachers' guides that showed how to teach the traditional language arts skills of vocabulary, reading comprehension, spelling, and writing in ways that develop students' analytical, creative, and practical skills.
Instructional activities. For example, "A Great Caravan on the National Road," a story set during Christmas in 1890, tells the story of the Bell children waiting for their relatives, who are traveling down the National Road. The National Road is both a part of American history, for it was the pioneers' route west from Maryland to Illinois, and a part of the Bells' family history, because that is where Papa lost his leg in an accident.
The teacher set up the context for the story on day one; worked on vocabulary and spelling during days two to four, combining analytical, practical, and creative activities to enhance decoding skills and vocabulary acquisition; focused on reading the story on day five; introduced analytical activities on day six, using graphic aids for analyzing characters, relationships, and events; initiated creative activities and the use of descriptive language on day seven; launched practical activities related to planning family gatherings on day eight; and encouraged students to connect the story to their personal lives on day nine.
Analytical. In one class session, for example, students first listed the characters in the story and then, after the teacher introduced the notion of a family tree, drew a diagram to show the blood relations among characters. The teacher then encouraged the students to think about the ways that characters felt about and interacted with one another. Throughout this group activity, the teachers elicited student responses by guided questioning and by directing students back to the appropriate passages in the text. Students also recalled the story's events and then drew a time line to organize the events chronologically.
- Describe what you hear. Use at least one onomatopoeic word. For example, if you were in a pet store, you might be surrounded by woofs and tweets.
- Describe what you smell. Write at least one exaggeration. For example, if you were in a gym, the air might smell like a million sweaty socks.
Practical. The story is about a family's Christmas celebration, so the teacher initiated a group brainstorming session about the practical preparations necessary for a family gathering that brings together several generations. In small groups, students listed the food and drinks that they would prepare, the activities that family members could take part in on that special day, and the gifts that they might give one another. The entire class then took part in solving everyday situations in which things go wrong. For example, "Suppose that your aunt and uncle were cooking the holiday meal in the kitchen and burned the main course. What would be the best thing to do?"
- Explain what Jason means when he says to Papa and Uncle Levi, "What true brothers you are!" (Comprehension/analytical)
- The local paper is printing an article about the Bell family's hundred-year history on the National Road. Think of a good, catchy headline for the article. (Comprehension/creative)
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- Suppose you have just spent a special holiday with your relatives and friends. Your favorite cousin could not be there because he is in the army and is stationed far away. Write your cousin a letter describing the big day so that he will feel as if he had been there. (Creative)
- In the story, the Bells have a large family gathering, full of food and different activities. It takes a lot of planning to put on such a big party. Pretend you are Jason's parents and you are hosting the event. Describe some things that you would do to prepare. (Practical)
- The story is in part about the Bells' family history—the good and bad times they have experienced living for generations along the National Road. Identify at least one good time and one bad time referred to in the story. As fully as possible, describe these events and explain their importance to the Bell family. (Analytical)
By using these activities and assessments, teachers combined several instructional approaches and addressed students' cognitive abilities in three different areas, whereas teachers in the control group used textbook activities that focused only on memory ("What is Uncle Levi's Christmas present to Papa?") or on analysis ("What are some of the things that made the Christmas of 1890 so memorable for Jason?").
What Did We Find?
Of the 708 students who completed the full set of pretest and post-test assessments, 450 were in the experimental (triarchic instruction) group, and 258 were in the control (regular instruction) group. The students in the control group received reading instruction enhanced by a study of mnemonic techniques.
Cognitive data. At the pretest, there were no significant differences between the two groups except somewhat higher analytical scores in the triarchic group (16.88 versus 15.90). At the post-test, however, students in the triarchic group significantly outperformed students in the control group on all three types of tasks: analytical (17.97 versus 15.58), creative (12.70 versus 10.60), and practical (19.44 versus 18.00). Moreover, pretest to post-test gains for all three kinds of tasks were significantly greater for the triarchic than for the regular-instruction group.
Affective data. On a 7-point scale where 1 is lowest and 7 is highest, teachers rated the program as interesting to themselves (6.3) and to their students (5.6). They felt the triarchic approach motivated them (6.1) and their students (5.7). In addition, the teachers thought that the triarchic teaching strategies addressed the needs of students with various levels of skills (6.0) and was inclusive of a wide range of children (5.9). As for students, we found that 36.4 percent liked the program very much, 44.4 percent liked it, 12.1 percent did not feel one way or another, and 7.1 percent disliked it.
Observational data. In a videotaped sequence from one of the 5th grade classrooms participating in our program, an experienced New Haven teacher explains how one student raised her spelling scores from F (less than 60 percent) to 82 percent after she learned spelling through multiple activities, including looking at the word, breaking it apart, visualizing it, saying it aloud in her own voice, and saying it and then spelling it in syllables before actually writing the word. The video further shows a student answering a question with a vocabulary word that had been taught two lessons before and a teacher pointing out that addressing different kinds of learning gives all students a chance to succeed.
We are currently applying our model to teaching 4th grade reading, mathematics, and science in a large-scale national study. Our goal, once again, is to examine the efficacy of instruction using the triarchic model compared with instruction using analytical thinking or other conventional approaches. Through such studies, we hope to show that we can develop interventions that can work in any school, in any subject matter, and at any grade level.
