Understanding How Teachers Listen in a Reading Enrichment Program

Abstract

Asking questions that invite students to access advanced thinking skills during classroom discourse is a key strategy for challenging and supporting high-ability middle school readers. This critical teaching practice requires careful teacher listening. However, empirical research around teachers’ listening orientations, or how teachers listen, is sparse. We investigated five middle school reading teachers’ listening orientations as they conducted differentiated reading conferences as part of their first year implementing the Schoolwide Enrichment Model–Reading Framework (SEM-R). Our qualitative analysis of multiple data sources revealed evidence of differing teacher listening orientations, including evaluative, interpretive, student oriented, teacher oriented, undetermined, and combinations of these. This exploratory study has important implications for understanding how teachers’ listening orientations contribute to classroom discourse. Specific implications pertaining to high-ability readers are highlighted in the article.