Design of Action Research

The school is located in Stoughton, a suburb located southeast of Boston. The district has six elementary schools, a middle school and a high school. The school that the research was conducted in has 486 students in grades Kindergarten through Five. The school is economically diverse with 12.9 % of the students receiving free or reduced lunch. Although the town has more wide spread racial diversity, the school only has 4.9 % African American students, 2.2 % Asian and 1.8 % Hispanic students enrolled in the school. The school performs well on the MCAS tests with the rating on performance being very high and on target in the improvement category for the English Language Arts assessment. In the past year, 2002, 85 students took the grade four English Language Arts test and 13 scored in the advanced category, 58 in the proficient, 22 in the high needs improvement, 7 in the warning/ failure category. The school has a full time Reading Specialist and a Title I Reading Teacher. The average class size is 20 students.

The research was conducted in one of the four kindergarten classrooms in the school. There has been a full day kindergarten program in the district for the past three years. This kindergarten class has 18 students, 11 boys and 7 girls. The classroom teacher has 11 years of experience and she was very open to learn more about read-alouds and its connection with story comprehension. She reads aloud to her students 3 times a day varying the genre and the purpose of her read-alouds. During the weeks that the research was conducted, the researcher would read the story and have a follow up activity for the whole class to do while three of the students would be retelling the story for the assessment piece of the research. These three students were chosen at random to be used as the sample size for the research to demonstrate whether or not the interventions help to improve the story comprehension of read-alouds. Since I was new to the school and I have no previous experience working with this particular population there was not any bias from me in choosing the students. This random selection insures objectivity from the observer. The students that were chosen were Nicholas, Brendan and Lisa.

At the time the research was conducted Nicholas was 5 years and 5 months old. He did attend preschool before coming to Kindergarten and he has been exposed to literature and loves going to the public library but he is not exposed to the community and the activities within the community. He does not participate in play dates and rarely plays outside. He has above average skills in letter/sound relationships, blending and sight word vocabulary but he does have difficulty in focusing and fine and gross motor skills.

Brendan was 6 years and 1 month old at the time the research began. Brendan attended preschool before entering Kindergarten and has a lot of exposure to travel and other advantages. He is hesitant to participate in language arts or phonics activities and had difficulty retaining letters and numbers after they are introduced. He has strong memory skills but is distractible. He is a typical boy who wants to play and socialize.

Lisa was 5 years and 6 months old when the research was conducted. She is part of a very large family and is the eleventh child out of 12 and has to share a bedroom which causes her to stay awake at night. She had no preschool experience before entering Kindergarten and had a difficult time during the transition period in the fall. There are few books and art supplies at home, but at times her older sister will play school with her. Laura is below average in her classroom but is retaining letter/sounds and numerals after they are introduced.

The action research was designed for nine classroom visits. The research was conducted after the Kindergarten lunch period. The routine that was used during the research process was that I would read the story, implement the interventions and then have an activity that connected with the story.  The activities were used so that the children would be doing a follow up activity while I was assessing the retellings of my subjects in my sample group. During the retelling assessment I would take one subject at a time out of the room and they would retell the story to me. They would retell the story into a tape recorder as I would transcribe their retellings. The first three visits would establish a baseline; the next three visits would include the intervention of having conversations or dialogues during the read-aloud. The last three visits would use the intervention of using a story glove that I designed to help the students retell the story. The texts that were selected were from a list generated by the leaders in the field of read-alouds. The researcher chose books that were selected from Jim Trelease's book The Read-Aloud Handbook (1979). The books came from his selection that was grouped Pre-School to Grade 2.

After all the visits were made, the data compiled from the assessment and the student surveys reviewed, the data was triangulated to see if one or both interventions helped with the student's retelling of the story and representing the student's comprehension of that story. The student's retelling of the story was used as a base to see if they understood the story. The retelling scale used was from Morrow's 10 Point Retelling scale. (click here to see the rubric) The student surveys were made by the researcher to learn how the students perceived their own retelling and what was easy or difficult about the retelling. Since the students were only in Kindergarten I asked the students the questions and recorded their responses. (click here to see a sample of the student surveys) I also made observational notes during the story reading and the students retelling. (click here to see a sample of the observational notes) When the research was complete and the data compiled I met with the classroom teacher to discuss my findings and observations and asked her for her input to the findings and which intervention she would be interested in using as part of her read-aloud routine or with other literacy activities.

While I was establishing the baseline I would read the story without any or very little interactions with the students. I did not ask any questions about the story and I answered very few questions about the story or what they were thinking and why.

The first week I read An Evening at Alfie's by Shirley Hughes (1984). I read the book and when I was done I explained the activity that the students would do while I was out of the room. (click here to view the activity) I took the subjects one at a time and had them retell the story to me.

The second week I read the story Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett (1978) and when I was done reading I explained the activity that they would be working on (click to see work sample) and I took the subjects out of the room to have them retell the story.

The third week I read the story The House on East 88^th Street by Bernard Waber (1962) and explained the activity that they would be doing (click to see work sample) while I was with the three subjects.

(Click here to view the books read during baseline weeks)

This intervention was set up to see if having teacher led or student led conversations while reading would help to improve their comprehension of the story and lead to a better retelling of the story when they are assessed. I would lead the discussion before we read, during the reading and at the end of the story. I also wanted the students to initiate conversations between themselves and not always be teacher to student directed.

The fourth week I read The Island of Skog by Steven Kellogg (1973). I asked questions to the students, had the students ask questions and clarified ideas further when I observing and listening to their responses. I had a set of questions that I wrote out on yellow post it notes placed throughout the text. I would read a section and ask the question that was on the page. As students came up with questions they were answered also. (click here to see the questions that led the dialogue in The Island of Skog). While I was assessing the sample group, the students worked on an activity. (Click here to see the activity)

The fifth week I read Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig (1969). In keeping with the same routine as in week 4 I again asked questions before, during and after reading, placing post it notes in the text in the places where I would ask the questions and start some dialoguing with the students. (click here to see the questions that were asked during this reading)  The students worked on an activity while I was assessing the sample group.  (Click here to see the activity)

The sixth week I read The Big Orange Splot by David Pinkwater (1977). In keeping with the two previous weeks I continued to ask questions before, during and after reading. (click here to see the  questions that were asked during this reading) An activity was planned while the sample group was retelling the story to the researcher. (Click here to see the activity)

After the three weeks of this intervention I compared the scores to see if having a dialogue before, during and after reading helped the students comprehend the story better.

(Click here to view the books read during the first intervention)

The story glove intervention was used to see if having a visual manipulative to use in their retelling would help the students to have a better comprehension of the story. The story glove was divided into five parts: setting, characters, and beginning, middle and end. (click to view a picture of the story glove)

The seventh week I read A Chair for My Mother by Vera Williams (1982). I introduced the story glove and discussed what the parts of the story that were needed during a retell. I instructed them to listen for characters, setting and beginning, middle and end while they were listening. After the read aloud was over, I handed out the story gloves and we discussed the parts of the book according to the glove. The reading and writing follow up activity was a flip book for the students to draw the beginning, middle and end of the story. (click to see a sample of the activity) I then had my three subjects retell the story to me as I transcribed their retelling.

The eighth week I read Doctor DeSoto by William Steig (1982). I reintroduced the story glove and discussed the story structure parts that are needed during the retelling. After the review I told the students to listen for the character names, the setting and what happened in the beginning, middle and at the end of the story. After I finished reading, I handed out the story gloves and we practiced retelling the story using the story gloves as a visual cue. When we had finished the retelling the students worked on a flip book to draws and write the beginning, middle and end as I assessed my three students. (click to view a sample of the activity)

The ninth week I read Harry the Dirty Dog by Gene Zion (1956). The story glove was introduced again and we reviewed the parts of the story structure. I read the story allowed and gave them the same purpose for listening to the story as the previous two weeks. When the read-aloud was complete, I passed out the story gloves and we practiced retelling the story. Afterwards the students did another flip book to draw and write the beginning, middle and end as I assessed the three students. (click to view a sample of the flip book activity)

After these three weeks I compared the scores of the story glove to the baseline scores and the dialoguing scores to see if there was an improvement with their retelling using this intervention.

(Click here to view the books read during the second intervention)

The assessment used was the Morrow Retelling Scale. (Gambrell & Almasi, 1996). It is a 10 point scale that looks at setting, theme, plot episodes, resolution and sequence to analyze a student's sense of story structure. (click to view the rubric) A retelling assessment was used because research has established that a student's retelling results in increased comprehension, understanding of story elements and oral language development. Retelling can also be valuable as an assessment tool and a great comprehension strategy to use in the classroom. (Teacherhelp, 2003)

The students were also given a survey to answer to see how they feel about their own retelling and to discuss whether or not they thought the retelling was easy or hard and their reasoning behind their answers. (click to view the student survey)

The retelling scales would also show the areas that are weak in the student's knowledge of story structure. These parts of the story are areas that the classroom teachers can focus their instruction on as part of their read-aloud time or part of their reading instruction. The scores were compiled in each area of the assessment to find areas of overall weaknesses. The student's scores also were separated into setting, theme, plot episodes, resolution and sequence.

The outcomes for the teacher researcher are to see that over time and practice the students can retell the story better and demonstrate a stronger comprehension of the story. The read-alouds that a teacher does within the context of their daily schedule would lead to a natural scaffolding of helping them understand the story better. After seeing the results of the interventions teachers would not be afraid but encouraged by the value of dialoguing while reading aloud. The dialogue should not only be teacher directed but also student led. It would also show the importance of reading aloud to children both at home and school. The second intervention might also see a rise in the retelling scores because students might need a visual reminder to include the setting, the characters and to retell the story in order from the beginning to the end.

After establishing a baseline I was not quite sure that this research would work because the scores were really low. They were much lower than I expected. After doing the three weeks of the first intervention I was excited to see how all the scores improved. Having conversations about the book before, during and after reading is such a natural way to extend the read-aloud further. It does not require any extra materials and the preparation needed for the activity is not too extensive. I was surprised about how much the scores had risen with the first intervention and it was important to see how valuable it is to interact with the text and to engage in conversations about the text which leads to a greater comprehension of the story.

Before the research began I thought that the story glove was going to show a greater improvement of the scores than the dialoguing intervention. After the research was completed I realized that it did show an improvement from the baseline scores but that dialoguing was more effective. I thought that the story glove could be a very useful tool for use in the classroom for other literacy activities as well as part of the read-aloud routine. The children were anxious and excited to use the story glove after it was first introduced.

The classroom teacher that I worked with was very excited about the research and the results. She saw a difference in the three student's literacy development with just the short time that I worked with them. She felt that it gave them confidence in tackling new challenges and feeling comfortable with new literacy skills that were being developed. Lisa had shown the most growth and feels that these interventions have opened the doors for her to succeed in school and maybe not with reading support that the classroom teacher thought she would need.

I felt that my research wasn't isolated into just one classroom. Teachers had seen my story glove and were interested in learning about it. I showed the story glove to the other Reading Specialist in the building and we brainstormed together different ways that the story glove could be used with different literacy activities and also as an assessment tool. I shared my results about dialoguing with the students while the teacher is reading to help increase story comprehension. I encouraged them to try it in class, that the results are very positive. I know that teachers were at first reluctant because they thought that the students would get distracted and off target but I encouraged them to try it out and see the difference when they are engaged with a text and when they are not. It does make a big difference because the teacher can see it in the eyes of the students when they really understand a story that is read to them.