ABSTRACT
Chapter 5 discusses reading comprehension and meaning-making through the arts. Reading comprehension is the cognitive process of understanding and deriving meaning from written text. It involves actively engaging with text, extracting relevant information, interpreting it, and constructing an understanding of the author’s intended message or purpose. The ultimate goal of reading comprehension is to construct and make meaning for understanding. Research from the DREAM project is presented. DREAM research, along with the multiple programs that are ongoing throughout the country (and beyond), clearly show that stripping down the arts is counterproductive to the goal of raising learners’ academic achievement, and along with that, test scores. The DREAM results also serve as a poignant reminder of the limitations of traditional teaching in getting to the core of a learner’s capabilities. Chapter 5 concludes with a discussion of why arts-infused and arts-integrated pedagogy provides significant opportunities for literacy educators to re-engage with the art of educating, providing effective strategies to teach reading, and set the stage for learners to desire to learn, be more fully engaged and confident in learning, and feel an ownership of their learning.
