The dialogic highway: Transforming reading comprehension through collaborative sense-making

There is increasing recognition that the underachievement and disengagement of students, particularly Māori and Pasifika, in New Zealand schools is in large part a result of systematic factors that disadvantage these students. In response to the urgent need for change in our classrooms, the dialogic highway is a research-based approach to reading comprehension involving culturally sustaining pedagogical practices that reflect the principles of high expectation teaching. Positioning text exploration as a shared, collaborative process places students at the centre of their learning. Through the explicit teaching of discussion vocabulary and regular opportunities to practise dialogic talk, students developed the skills needed for meaningful, back-and forth discussions about texts. Emerging findings suggest that this pedagogical shift brought a range of benefits for students in comprehension, engagement in reading, and social interactions.