Kylie's interpretation of Peter's house from the book, Peter's Chair by Ezra Jack Keats:
Discussion of findings
Reading aloud is a valued, and even special, instructional activity for most teachers of young children. It deserves that status so long as we continue to be thoughtful about the what's, whys, and how of it.
Teale (2003)
Method of Assessment:
Three methods were employed for this design and included teacher observations, a checklist and a language sample. Eight readings were completed each week. Three children were observed, recorded and interviewed during and after each reading. The interventions was randomly alternated between an interactive reading approach and a non interactive reading approach. Four books were read using an interactive approach which consisted of teacher lead discussions about the characters, plot, and vocabulary. Expansion techniques, open-ended questioning and paraphrasing techniques were employed. Four books were read with no discussions, questions or comments from the teacher. No base line data was collected.
Each reading was completed as part of the daily circle activities. Children were observed by one of two teaching assistants to note whether they were attending to the reading or were exhibiting off task behavior. After each reading, teacher observation notes were compiled that included teacher and assistant reflections on the reading for that day. During each reading, children's language was tape recorded as well as noted on paper. The number of utterances were tallied for each of the three children. After each reading, each of the three children were interviewed using the retelling checklist. This checklist was then scored based upon the number of correct answers, with the highest score a 10. The observations were recorded in weekly notes and included discussion of scores and language samples. The number of utterances for each child's language sample as well as each child's retelling score were plotted on a line graph.
Summary of Findings:
Based upon the observations, all children were noted to be on task during all readings. All were able to view the book easily and were noted to attend to each reading which lasted between 3-8 minutes.
The language samples taken, showed a range of 2-5 utterances during the first interactive reading and an average of 1-4 utterances during the first non interactive reading. The subsequent readings increased slightly (by 1 or 4 utterances) during the interactive reading and decreased slightly (by 1-2 utterances) during the non interactive readings. Ben totaled the most utterances across all readings and Kylie totaled the least. Increases were noted in comparing utterances from one week to the next when the two approaches were alternated consecutively, but an over all trend in increases in utterances could not be established for interactive readings for these three children.
The retelling checklist scores showed an increase after the first two readings. Ben's score increased from a 4.5 during an interactive reading to a 6 during a non interactive reading. Ben's responses about the concepts of print questions ( show me the top of the page, bottom) where inconsistent throughout all interviews. His ability to define or demonstrate knowledge of the vocabulary words were inconsistent as well. He did perform 2-3 points better during interactive read alouds. Kylie and Megan appeared to grasp the format of the questions and were consistent in their responses over the next 6 readings. After the first two readings, Megan consistently answered 9 out of 10 of the answers correctly with the exception of the last book, a non interactive reading. Kylie consistently answered at least 8 out of the 10 questions on the checklist. Her variations did not coincide with the different interventions.
The recorded retelling of the Rainbow Fish by Megan provides a snapshot of her ability to retell the story as measured on the retelling checklist. This story was read interactively with much discussion about the newly encountered vocabulary. In the recording, we can hear Megan's emerging understanding of some of the vocabulary words (cactus for corral, sea star for star fish) as well as her emerging ability to tell the story in sequence and describe some of the concepts introduced in the book (sharing, being nice to your friends). Megan was able to retell the story with minimal prompts and attained her highest score on a retelling, a 10.
Table of Language Sample, Book Titles and Retelling Checklist