Design of an Exemplary Practice:
Read-alouds and their effect on
student's comprehension of a story
The problem: When students are retelling a story it is often out of sequence and missing many details. Since their retelling is not complete, the students may be missing the comprehension of the story also. This investigation will lead to answering the question: Does scaffolding and engaging in conversations throughout the reading of a story improve the student's retelling of that story thus enhancing the student's story comprehension as assessed through a retelling rubric?
The outcomes: With the scaffolding in place the students will be able to retell the story in more detail and in sequential order and thus lead to a greater understanding of the story.
Review of the Literature: click here to review of literature
Methods:
Materials: trade books, randomly selected from a list generated by leaders in the field, story glove, tape recorder, post it notes, activities connected to the story
Population: one Kindergarten class
Subjects: randomly selected children from the class. I chose 3 students to follow but will work with the whole class. This is a new school for me so I had no previous experience working with this population and there was not be any bias from me. Random selection insures unbiasness from observer.
Independent Variables: The conversations that occurred during the reading of the story and using a manipulative to help retell the story.
Dependent Variables: With the use of manipulatives and having conversations with the students, the student's overall score in the retelling will be higher than without the use of the interventions.
Design to be used: Multiple baseline design
Procedures: During weeks #1-3 I established the baseline. The procedure during the baseline weeks was that I read a story aloud straight through and only asked the question if they liked the story at the end. I did not stop during the story to acknowledge any points of interest or questions that students might have had. At the end of the reading I administered the Morrow 10 point Retelling assessment and plotted the data on a graph.
Intervention #1: during weeks #4-6 I asked questions to the students before we read the story. I had them predict what they thought the story was going to be about. I read the story stopping at certain parts to ask questions, check their predictions and answer any questions or comments that came up while I was reading. When the story was over I administered the Morrow 10 point Retelling assessment and plotted the data on a graph.
Intervention #2: during weeks #7-9 I followed the same procedure as I did in intervention #1 but I added the story glove, a visual manipulative to help them remember certain parts of the story structure. They were to wear the glove during their retelling and I recorded their retelling using the Morrow 10 point Retelling assessment and I plotted the data on a graph.
After 9 weeks I made comparisons on which intervention had the most effect on their scores for retelling the stories with the correct sequence and with more detail. I tape recorded and transcribed all the sessions and recorded them on a sheet at home. Since the research was planned to be used by a classroom teacher which was not currently my position, I scheduled the research to take place one day a week.
Assessments that are being used: Morrow 10 point Retelling scale, student surveys, observations and conversations with the classroom teacher.
The assessment is valid: The assessment tool was a valid measure because points were given in each category of the retelling. (setting, theme, plot episodes, resolution and sequence) The assessment was given to the students at the same time each day. The literature demonstrated that conversations and scaffolding helps the child understand the story more completely and the read-alouds allowed this experience to take place naturally.
Data was analyzed: The data was collected and plotted on a line graph weekly. The data can be analyzed visually to see if there had been any changes due to the interventions.
Results relate back to other work and theories: The results of this research will be related back to the theories and other work because if there is improvement in the scores after the first intervention then the researchers can see that modeling, scaffolding, predicting and previewing, and allowing conversations to happen naturally during the read-aloud will improve comprehension and the student's retelling of the story. If the scores improve after the second intervention than the modeling and the scaffolding and the use of the story glove, a visual manipulative, provided the support needed for students who need a more hands on approach to the retelling and giving more details in their retellings.
Limitations of this experiment: The results of this study were limited to the performance of the students at this time and at this place. There is a test-retest phenomenon where maturity is a factor because the students mature throughout the school year.