Dewitz, P., Carr, E. M., & Patberg, J. P.
Gambrell, L. B., Koskinen, P. S., & Kapinus, B.A.
Ruddell, M. R., & Shearer, B. A
First Abstract
Baumann, J. F., & Hooten, H. (1999). Teaching comprehension through literature:A teacher - research project to develop fifth grader's reading strategies and motivation. Reading Teacher, 53 (1), 38 - 52.
Purpose:
The purpose of the study was to integrate comprehension strategy instruction into literature reading and response activities. Two research questions were posed: 1) What is the nature of fifth graders' reading comprehension development as a result of the literature strategies program? 2) What is the nature of fifth graders' attitudes toward reading and literature as a result of the literature strategies program?
Subjects and
Methodology:
The Case Elementary School was the location for this study and is located in a lower middle-class neighborhood in the southern U.S. There were two fifth grade classrooms that ran the study for the full year and had an average of 23 students per class. The school population, which is reflected in these two classrooms, was 61% African American, 35% European American, 3% Asian and 1% Hispanic. The income per household averaged at $16,000.
The methods that were chosen were based on teacher research and were practical and efficient for addressing the research questions and were selected or created for qualitative research methods for collecting and analyzing data. Videotapes of lessons and meetings, teacher-research journals, lesson plans, student journals and interviews, informal surveys, and various artifacts were used as ways of collecting data.
Three types of strategy lessons were introduced to the
students. They were labeled as Planned instruction (lessons that were created
in advanced and taught directly to students within the context of trade books)
and Unplanned instruction (on-the-spot lessons which allowed the teachers to
respond to teachable moments as they occurred with the literature
discussions). The first was called
Elaborated strategy lessons which were planned, teacher-directed lessons that
introduced a comprehension skill or strategy.
It was modeled, guided, and then became independent practice. The second was called Brief strategy lessons
that were planned review or extension lessons where previously taught
strategies were revisited and reinforced.
The last was called Impromptu strategy lessons that were unplanned
lessons in which the teachers seized the moment by engaging in on-the-spot
lessons that flowed from the discussion.
The literature strategies program consisted of 42 lessons that were organized into three phrases over a 17-week period of time. Lessons were fifty minutes long and occurred two to four times per week during each phase.
Phase One - strategy lesson trials - restricted to the broadly based, generic comprehension strategy of making and verifying predictions. It consisted of one Elaborated strategy lesson on predicting and verifying and was followed by several Brief lessons on the same strategy.
Phase Two - expansion of strategies lesson - now included six additional comprehension strategies. These strategies were: self-questioning, retelling, writing to construct meaning, summarizing, predicting and verifying information in the text, and story mapping.
Phase Three - refinement of strategy lessons - this was achieved by assigning novels to be read which helped to explore new comprehension topics while revisiting presently learned strategies.
Data Analysis and
Results:
Four steps were involved in analyzing the qualitative data. Compilations of data sources from notebooks, coded data by research question, examining and looking for evidence of strategic reading development and aesthetic reading growth, and testing the emerging themes against the data were used to gather the qualitative data.
The analysis was that the students did learn the comprehension strategies taught to them and these strategies were retained and transferred to other reading situations. Growth was noted in predicting and verifying, journal entries, and retelling and summarizing on a weekly basis. Evidence that students retained and transferred these strategies were present in future reading assignments that were done independently and were not prompted.
Students demonstrated that they valued reading more, which was reported in an informal survey. Time spent on independent reading went from 10-30 minutes per day at the beginning of the year to 30 minutes to 1 hour daily. Oral discussions and written comments supported the growth and were observed informally by the teachers. Students were motivated to seek out literature independently and to verbalize their thoughts through impromptu discussions.
Discussion:
The teachers learned that dedicating about one fifth of each period on explicit strategy instruction was sufficient to providing students insight into comprehension skills which were then applied to the remaining four fifths of the period. The teachers felt as if they had grown as teachers and researchers. Through cooperation and self-reflection they felt they were able to better develop and provide lessons for their students that were beneficial to their own learning. Each teacher appreciated and acknowledged the hard work it took to create, implement, fine-tune, and assess each lesson and seemed to benefit from student input to help teach effective comprehension strategies.
Chan, L.K.S. (1994). Relationship of motivation, strategic learning, and reading achievement in grades 5, 7, and 9. Journal of Experimental Education, 62 , 319 – 345.
Purpose:
This study was designed to examine the developmental pattern of attributional beliefs with respect to ability, effort, luck and strategy use and strategic learning of students with and without learning difficulties as they advance from upper primary grades to the intermediate years of high school. This study also explored the relationship among expectations of success, strategic learning and achievement in reading. The problem to be examined was when do strategy attributions become prominent in a student's motivational orientation? The researcher did make a prediction that strategy attribution may not emerge until the intermediate years of high school.
Subjects and
Methodology:
The location of this case study was in two primary and two high schools in the Hunter Region in New South Wales, Australia. The subjects were 104 fifth grade students, 133 seventh grade students, and 101 ninth grade students. The students in these schools were mainly from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds and support teachers in each school provide in-class support services for students with learning difficulties by team teaching with the regular classroom teacher.
The researcher used four different scales to obtain measures of motivation and metacognitive abilities and one test to measure reading achievement. The first scale, the Causal Attribution Scale, assessed students' tendency to attribute their school success and failure experiences to effort, ability, strategy use, and luck. Five items on the scale assessed success incidents and five items assessed failure incidents. The second scale, the Perceived Competence Scale, assessed self-perceptions that students have about their cognitive competence, social competence, physical competence, and general self-worth. The third scale, the Reading Strategies Scale, assessed students' knowledge and usage of specific cognitive strategies in reading. The fourth scale, the Learning Strategies Scale, assessed students' awareness and regulation of general learning strategies. The Tests of Reading Comprehension (TORCH) was a test given where the students were given 14 untimed graded reading tests that is used for grades 3 to 10. Each test consisted of a passage of 200 to 900 words where the students had to retell the passage in different words by filling in the gaps in one or more of their own words (similar to the Cloze procedure).
These four scales and comprehension test were given to the subjects in class in three separate sessions within two weeks. All items, except for the comprehension test, were read aloud to the class one by one, and students were required to mark in their responses.
Data Analysis and
Results:
Data was obtained on eight causal attribution variables, four perceived competence variables, two learning strategies variables, two reading strategies variables, and a measure of reading comprehension from students with and without learning difficulties. A comparison was made between grade levels and learning disabilities (LD) versus non-learning disabilities (non-LD). Gender was originally considered as a variable but was dropped when no significant findings were observed in all except the reading comprehension test.
For the reading comprehension test the mean results indicated that the LD group had much lower scores than the non-LD group, regardless of grade or gender. An interesting finding was that in the fifth grade the female students had higher scores than the males, but in grades seven and nine the male students outperformed the females (this was the only gender difference in the case study). In the Perceived Competence scale the results revealed that the LD group on the whole scored drastically lower than the non-LD group.
In the Causal Attributions scale the results showed for the Group x Attribution Type that the non-LD students tended to make greater discriminations between the various causes of success and failure than the LD group. The non-LD group attributed their success more to effort and strategy use than to other causes while the LD group had difficulties distinguishing the causes of failure and saw their success through luck and external or uncontrollable factors. The LD students overall showed little comprehension that these factors can be controlled personally. The results of the Grade x Attribution Type showed that only the seventh and ninth graders made clear differentiations among the causes of success and were more likely to attribute success to effort and strategy use than to ability and luck. Only the ninth graders were able to distinguish among the causes of failure. The fifth grade students attributed success to effort and ability, with little difference between ability and strategy use. In the case of failure, students in grades five and seven were more likely to make effort and strategy use attributions and less likely to make ability attributions. The findings from this test indicate that grade nine students were more likely to attribute both their successes and failures to effort and strategy use than to ability and luck; this shows that grade nine students have a better awareness of their own personal control over learning outcomes.
In the Reading and Learning Strategies scales both resulted in indicating that the LD group has less knowledge of strategy use than the non-LD students did. The results for grade levels showed that grade seven students were found to report greater usage of reading and learning strategies than grade nine students do.
The researcher went on to discuss how she ran several analyses to calculate the relative contribution of each set of motivation and strategic learning variables to explain reading achievement at the three grade levels. The results suggested that the motivation variables played a greater role than strategic learning variables in reading achievement in the lower grades, while both motivation and strategic learning variables were important in grade nine.
The researcher also examined the relationship among motivation, strategic learning and reading achievement. For ninth graders, the influence of the motivation variables is mediated through the strategic learning variables, which was not the case for the other two grade levels. In seventh graders, the attributional beliefs influenced use of reading strategies while perceived cognitive competence influenced reading strategies directly. In fifth graders, perceived cognitive competence influenced the two strategic learning variables separately, with no significant influence of the attributional belief variables on strategic learning observed.
Discussion:
The present study supported the findings that children do not fully differentiate effort from ability until early adolescence. Also that children do not make a distinction between strategy use and effort or ability until later in adolescence. This study indicated that only the grade nine students were able to distinguish among ability, effort and strategy attributions in both success and failure. The youngest group made some distinctions between ability and effort (especially with success) but little difference between effort and strategy. The study also revealed that grade nine students had greater beliefs in personal control over learning outcomes than the younger students did.
The study revealed that the LD students perceived themselves less competent, little belief that they controlled their success and failure, had little knowledge of strategic learning, and had lower levels of reading achievement. This confirmed the description of learned helplessness that many children with learning difficulties experience in the classroom.
The students (mostly in grades seven and nine) who believed that they had personal control over their learning outcomes, who were not helpless in their learning, and had high self-perceptions of cognitive competence were more likely to use strategies in their learning.
The implications from this study indicate that students who feel learned helplessness are more likely to be the students who have learning difficulties. Also that younger students feel as is they have less control over learning outcomes through effort and strategy use. The findings suggest a need for attributional retraining to promote functional motivational orientations. The final implication from this study is the need for teachers to teach students the use of cognitive strategies for their learning success and try to convince their students that their learning is attributable to the use of effective (and ineffective) strategies.
Dewitz, P., Carr, E. M., & Patberg, J. P. (1987). Effects of inference training on comprehension
and comprehension monitoring. Reading
Research Quarterly, 22 (1), 99-118.
Purpose:
The purpose of this case study was an investigation of
instructional techniques to improve comprehension and comprehension monitoring
by testing the relative importance of organizing information for readers versus
teaching them a specific strategy to improve inferential comprehension. This led to the question: "Which
technique would be more effective, the modified cloze procedure, the structured
overview, or the self-monitoring checklist, for improving inferential
comprehension?" This question led
to the follow-up question: "What teaching procedures provide the best
guides for helping students transfer these techniques to their own
learning?"
Subjects and Methodology:
The subjects of this experiment were 101 fifth-grade
students at a suburban elementary school. The students were grouped
heterogeneously in the classes but some students who were poor readers were
moved to different classes to equalize reading ability. The researchers used the Iowa Test of Basic
Skills as a measure of reading ability. The researchers had four groups for
treatment testing where three groups were given comprehension techniques and
the fourth group was the control group.
Each group had an equal number of above average, average, and below
average readers. Treatments were
applied during social studies time accompanying the assigned social studies
book for each group.
The first group was introduced to a structured overview that
helps readers to understand and organize ideas and transfer information in a
structured way. The second group was taught the cloze procedure, which is a
means of modeling the inferential process by focusing student attention on the
text and relating textual information to previous knowledge. This was then
followed up with the self-monitoring checklist which provides a means of
external monitoring for helping students internalize the cognitive procedures
important for transferring the strategy to other reading situations. The third
group was taught both the structured overview treatment and the cloze procedure
as a combination to test the strength of this association. The last group was
the control group that received no additional comprehension training.
The teachers received five 2-hour training sessions before
the study began. Each teacher was
observed regularly during the instruction and was given guidance when needed.
Students in the four groups were trained according to their treatment. The instruction took place for eight weeks
during 40-minute social studies class periods.
The structured overview treatment group was provided with a
structured overview of the text information to prompt discussion and activate
the students' prior knowledge as a way of assimilating information.
The cloze treatment group was taught the modified cloze
procedure as a way of helping to integrate previous background knowledge and
new text information to formulate inferences.
To crystallize the internal processing the teachers then directed the
students in a self-monitoring checklist that helped complete the cloze
procedure.
The structured overview/cloze treatment group was taught all
three strategies: structured overview, modified cloze procedure, and
application of a self-monitoring checklist. This group followed the same
procedures as the two separate groups in that related area but had the
advantage of learning all three strategies instead of just one or two.
The control treatment group did supplemental work such as
read social studies magazines or map skills.
This group also participated in the same reading assignments and
followed the same patterns as the other groups but were not taught the
strategies like the other groups were.
Data was collected from each treatment group through a
series of steps. To begin, the Iowa Test of Basic Skills determined each
student's reading ability. Next literal and inferential comprehension pretests
and metacognitive pretests designed by the administrators were given to
determine subjects' inference and monitoring ability. Posttests were given on comprehension and metacognition to
determine if the treatment improved the subjects' ability over that period of
time. Six weeks and six months after the treatments follow-up transfer tests
were administered to determine if the subjects were able to transfer the taught
skills to untaught material after an extended period of time. All of these
steps were tabulated using a weighted scoring system by which the three authors
evaluated the results independently.
Data Analysis and
Results:
The data in literal and inferential comprehension was
analyzed by using a covariance with pretest inferential or literal scores as
the covariate. The metacognitive pre- and
posttest scores were analyzed the same way as the comprehension except that the
metacognitive pretest score was the covariate.
Data from the metacognitive interview was tallied and the results were
presented in frequencies. The dependent
variable for the stepwise multiple regression analysis were the third
comprehension posttest and the near transfer test. The independent variables were reading ability, background
knowledge, treatment condition, and metacognitive awareness.
The results showed for inferential questions that the cloze
procedure group had a higher reading ability average than the other three
groups. Metacognitive scores were also
the highest with the cloze procedure group.
The results must be interpreted cautiously because the below-average
reading group, which had higher scores than any other below-average group, only
had a small number of subjects to test. The results overall showed that the
cloze procedure taught with or without another strategy had superior results.
Discussion:
The results of the study demonstrate that children can be
taught to increase their inferential comprehension of expository text. The study suggests that a treatment that
trains students to integrate text information with prior knowledge though the
use of strategies have greater inferential comprehension.
These findings indicate that treatment needs to be repeated
and practice is important for sustaining positive effects. To change a reading skill in students the
curriculum developers need to consider the length of the instructional lesson,
the amount of instruction per week, and the duration of the practice.
It is important to note that students may increase their
comprehension but not their metacognitive awareness. Students need to understand the importance of monitoring thie own
learning and understanding of text so that they may become more sensitive to
the source of knowledge needed to answer comprehension questions and in
justifying their answers.
Fourth Abstract
Durkin, D. (1978 - 1979). What classroom observations reveal about reading comprehension instruction. Reading Research Quarterly, 14 (4), 481 - 533.
Purpose:
The purpose of this study was to examine the classrooms of elementary grades and observe to find, describe and time the comprehension instruction taking place within the classrooms with content material.
Reading and social studies classes were the subjects chosen for the study. The purpose of the choice of social studies was based on the assumption that even though it is social studies class, comprehension of the material is major and difficult for learners.
Subjects and
Methodology:
The researcher wanted to examine comprehension instruction from a variety of grade levels for different perspectives, so 3 substudies were done. The first substudy that concentrated on fourth grade was chosen because this is the first year that learning to read switches to reading to learn. Content material is also seriously introduced at this age. Class sizes ranged from 11 to 32 children and took place in 13 different school systems in Central Illinois. The second substudy concentrated on a study of schools, which observed grades three through six to see if individual schools differed in the amount of time spent on comprehension instruction, and looked at the various grade levels to examine the differences each spent on comprehension instruction. Class sizes ranged from 17 to 28 children and were three different schools than the first study. The schools were located in central Illinois. The third substudy examined individual children to see their perspective on comprehension training. For more extensive data, only 3 children were chosen and each was from a different grade (grades 3, 5, & 6). Each student was in a different class in a different city in central Illinois and were not part of either substudy 1 or substudy 2.
Each class for each substudy was visited on three successive days, began in September and continued until mid-May. There were three people in charge of observations and whenever each observed a teacher or a child, it was recorded in a thorough recording sheet. Each was looking for time spent on activity, description of the activity, the audience of the class, and a description of the source of the activity.
Data Analysis and Results:
The results for the study of the fourth grades showed that less than 1% of reading time was spent on comprehension instruction. There were no study skills instruction provided. Word meanings were an important part of the lessons. Assessment was predominant after reading from the text with little discussion of what was read and most of the assessment was literal. Most questions were taken right from basal readers. Workbooks and ditto worksheets were also common in the classrooms. No teachers saw the social studies period as time for help with reading. Social studies time showed a lack of preparation before reading the chapter and assessment reflected the same results as the reading observation.
The results for the second study looked at grades three through six and were being observed for differences in comprehension instruction. The majority of teachers were concentrating the class time on having the students finish class assignments and getting the answers right. Word meaning was a primary focus when reading aloud. Follow-up on the reading was worksheets that were literal questions. Very little time was spent on teaching comprehension instruction. Assignments were rushed and little time was given to allowing the students the opportunity to understand what they were doing. The social studies' classrooms showed the same results as substudy 1 - no time is given to reading comprehension.
The third substudy examined what the children did during the reading and social studies classes. The children were selected based on average reading ability, and were not aware that they were being observed. The overall results showed the students to be listeners and doers of assignments; very little reading went on in either reading or social studies except for the reading of assignments. Comprehension instruction still remained insignificant.
Discussion:
As can be seen in the results, there is no comprehension instruction seen through each substudy. Assessment was common and whether the answer was right or wrong was the major concern. The time spent by teachers giving, completing, and checking assignments consumed a large chunk of the observed periods. Social studies was not seen as a time to improve reading comprehension. Teachers are seen as "mentioners" and not thorough investigators of what the students should really understand. The research shows that teachers assign what is easy, especially in the form of worksheets and workbooks.
One suggestion for improvement is the need for further observational studies, not only from a researcher's viewpoint, but from a teacher's viewpoint also. It is crucially important to find out what classroom practices are the most beneficial and the identification of these practices need to be addressed so that they may become common practices.
Fifth
Abstract
Gambrell, L. B., Koskinen, P. S., & Kapinus, B.A. (1991). Retelling and the reading comprehension of proficient and less proficient readers. Journal of Educational Research, 84 (6), 356- 362.
Purpose:
The purpose for this study was to find out if children's retellings of text-acquired information would improve with repeated practice of this strategy. The researchers also wanted to investigate the effects that retellings have on reading comprehension performance for proficient and less-proficient readers.
Subjects and
Methodology:
The subjects for this study were 48 fourth grade students, 24 of them considered proficient readers and 24 less-proficient readers, based on scores from the California Achievement Test. The students were from four elementary schools in Maryland.
Eight narrative stories were selected from basal readers that were not part of the existing curriculum. Four of the stories were written at second grade level for the less-proficient readers and four of the stories were written at the fourth grade level for use with the proficient readers. The clear presence of the basic story elements of story structure was a major criterion for these selections. A cued-recall assessment that consisted of four text-explicit and four text-implicit questions were developed for each of the eight stories and a scoring system was developed as a text-based outline of the basic elements for the scoring of the retellings.
Students were randomly assigned to a story in their ability level. The proficient readers met individually with the researcher for four sessions during a two-week period. The students were each introduced to the stories with a brief motivational statement that included the title of the story and a little about the story. The students read the story silently, reflected for a minute or two about the story, and then gave a retelling of the story. Each student responded to eight orally administered comprehension questions at the end of the story they had read on sessions one and four. On sessions two and three each student was free of questioning so that they held no expectations that would influence the subsequent retellings. The less-proficient readers had the identical format that the proficient readers had with the only modification being that their reading level was more appropriate to their reading level.
Data Analysis and
Results:
Interrater reliability was established by randomly selecting 10% of the free-recall protocols and cued-recall tests. Only text-based propositions were scored and repetitions were not counted. Positive elaborations were scored as propositions that were not text based and negative intrusions were propositions that were inconsistent with the story line.
The researchers used t tests to determine any significant differences between sessions one and four regarding propositions recalled, and the number of cued-recall questions answered correctly in sessions two and three.
The results for the proficient readers at the fourth session showed that the students recalled significantly more propositions than they did in session one. There were no significant differences between sessions one and four with negative intrusions. The proficient readers also answered more cued-recall questions correctly at the end of the four sessions. The less-proficient readers showed statistically significant differences for propositions recalled with no significant differences for positive elaborations and negative intrusions. The less-proficient readers answered significantly more cued-recall questions at the end of the four sessions and there was a significant difference for implicit questions, but not as much for explicit questions.
Discussion:
This study shows the effects of practice in retellings upon the reading comprehension of proficient and less-proficient readers across the four practice sessions. The quantity and quality of the retellings is of particular importance for the study results. The students' results showed an improvement in reading comprehension performance for both types of readers. This provides beneficial evidence that retellings may be an effective instructional strategy for improving the reading comprehension for both proficient and less-proficient readers and that engaging the verbal reconstruction of silently read text leads to the process of organizing and the memory of text-acquired information of individual students. Repetition primarily adds more information to memory through the retelling process, which should affect how much and what is learned. The study also shows the importance of having students read material that is reading-level appropriate for success.
Sixth
Abstract
Ivey, G. (1999). A multicase study in the middle school: Complexities among young adolescent readers. Reading Research Quarterly, 34 (2), 172 – 193.
Purpose:
The purpose of this case study was to develop in-depth, detailed portraits of individual middle school learners and focused on the reading performance and the reading dispositions of three middle school students. Instead of focusing on specific types of learners like disabled or reluctant readers, this study examined the students in a variety of real classroom contexts and the texts that were self – selected and teacher – selected. It also emphasized the interactions between various factors that influence the skill and desire to read.
The researcher for this case study believed that middle school students, when given appropriate instruction (like comprehension strategies) and interesting literature would become successful, motivated readers. The researcher also believed that the matching of reading tasks and texts to students' interests and instructional levels leads to increased skill and motivation to read.
Subjects and
Methodology:
The location of the case study was a rural southeastern community at the Woodland Middle School in the classrooms of two sixth-grade teachers, Ms. Brooks and Ms. Maguire, who constituted one of the three sixth-grade teams in the building (names of the teachers, students and school are pseudonyms throughout the article). The middle school consists of grades 6 through 8 and was recently constructed the year the study began. The study began during the 1996 - 1997 school year and lasted for five months. The population of the school contains 580 students with the students being 90% European American, 9% African American, and 1% other racial or ethnic groups. More than half the school qualified for free or reduced lunches.
Three students were picked for the study based on Patton's (1990) purposive sampling. Criteria established by the researcher was to choose students who were willing to share information about themselves as readers and to choose students of varying levels of reading success. After a two week observational period the researcher chose the following three students. Casey was chosen because she was a highly motivated and successful independent reader. Allison was a struggling reader who hated to read due to fluency and accuracy difficulties with oral reading. She hoped the researcher would help her to become a better reader. Ryan was chosen for his moderate amount of success with reading.
Data was collected from September to January and was gathered from four major sources. The first source was multiple observations being made of each participant in a wide range of instructional settings. The researcher visited the three participants three to four times a week for approximately four hours each visit. Each visit was recorded in the form of field notes. The second source was a series of structured and unstructured interviews with each participant. The third source was a series of one-on-one reading experiences where the students discussed their reading assignments and materials. Lastly the researcher kept a journal that recorded each interaction with the students for an overall perception of their reading abilities.
Data Analysis and
Results:
The analysis of the data was a method constructed by Glaser & Stauss (1967) called the constant comparative method. There were three phases: Phase I the researcher identified prevailing patterns of reading behaviors and recorded informal narratives of her impressions. Phase II was a rereading of the patterns from Phase I that was then coded. Additional patterns were then identified. Phase III was a counting of frequencies for each pattern that was then organized into clusters according to similarities. While additional data was gathered, a new cycle of the three – phrase analysis began again. Credibility was established through Kidder's (1981) negative-case analysis.
The results for Casey: The researcher evaluated Casey as a motivated and skilled reader. Her reading performance and disposititions showed her to be a proficient reader due to her ability to read fluently and read strategically. Some strategies she exhibited were purpose setting, monitoring, self-correcting and clarifying for better comprehension, and to summarize aloud as she read. She had a strong concept of what a good reader should do that was reflected in her confidence level and pride in reading. She is an active reader in and outside of school and knows exactly what she wants to read and sets purposes for herself while reading. The combination of all these abilities contributes to Casey's success in reading.
The results of Allison: The researcher evaluated Allison early on as an unskilled and unmotivated reader, when in actuality her reading performance and dispositions were more complex than that. Although she did have problems with word identification that made it more difficult for her to read independently, she tended to use appropriate strategies for material that was read orally for her. She also became less hesitant to read in small group settings as compared to one-on-one and whole class settings. She showed
definite motivation in reading books that interested her and although she was unable to discuss a large number of books, the small number of books she liked and knew well showed a consistent reading preference. Allison read for pleasure but felt unsuccessful as a reader in the classroom setting due to the difficulties she had and the fact that her independence level was at the third grade range.
Results for Ryan: At the beginning of the study Ryan seemed to be a moderately successful reader but was nonfluent with his reading. He demonstrated minimal interest in reading for his own purpose. However, after working closely with Ryan throughout the five month span the researcher observed that Ryan used effective comprehension strategies when he read material that was familiar to him. Also, his fluency of reading increased throughout the sessions due to a great deal of practice, which the classroom teacher constantly worked on. He was motivated to read material that he found relevant and interesting to him, especially when he was the one to choose the material himself. His experience with teacher - selected material were not quite so meaningful and he continued to be unenthusiastic with these types of reading materials.
Discussion:
Some limitations that arise are 1) the researcher acknowledges that these findings are specific only for the three students and cannot be applicable to other students; 2) that her presence in the classroom may have influenced the students' reading skills and habits and 3) that the investigation was conceptualized, implemented, and interpreted by the researcher according to her own subjectivity. She acknowledges that these three factors are not typical in all sixth grade classrooms and should be regarded by the reader of the investigation for its credibility and usefulness.
This study offers a new perspective on the literacy development of middle school students as being complex and multidimensional. The instruction and schooling that students receive may be either positive or negative and can influence the potential for improvement. This study also showed the various levels of abilities and the skills used and needed for success at reading.
Reading instruction in the middle school needs to take into account the role of preference and choice in reading material. Also that most students' book choices are not usually cognitively demanding. Teachers should therefore consider this when taking into account selections to add to the literature that it is important to present some forms of light reading and books with predictable plots. More attention needs to be focused on the importance of student - centered purposes and authentic reasons for a reading activity. These suggestions make reading more meaningful for students while also being a motivating factor.
This case study illustrates the importance for more examinations on students' actual reading performances and dispositions toward reading. The complexities of middle school readers can be addressed and understood when teachers come to know individual students through observations, listening, and interacting with them in the context of meaningful literature.
Katims, D. S., & Harris, S. (1997). Improving the reading comprehension of middle school students in inclusive classrooms. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 41 (2), 116 - 123.
Purpose:
The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of the comprehension strategy of paraphrasing within an inclusion classroom. The researches wanted to work with a heterogeneous group of students to observe the effects of the paraphrasing strategy within a multilevel reading class of students with and without learning disabilities.
Subjects and
Methodology:
The participants of this study were middle school students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and were a mix of Mexican American, Anglo, and African American heritages. Ten parallel classrooms of seventh-grade students were selected and 207 students took part in the study. There were 25 students who were identified as learning disabled.
Students were randomly divided into two groups - experimental and control - based on intact classes. The control group received the district-mandated reading program, Reading Workshop. In addition the control group participated in a pretest of reading comprehension of expository texts and a posttest at the project's completion. Both the pretest and posttest consisted of 400-word passages with 10 multiple choice comprehension questions involving both recall and overall understanding of the text. Posttests were used as the dependent variable. The experimental group used expository passages for all instruction and practice in the cognitive strategy to keep the project consistent. Every other school day the groups met for 90 minutes and were administered identical pre- and post- tests. For 6 weeks the experimental group was instructed by the teacher in the strategy of paraphrasing for 20 minutes (total of 15 sessions). Reading Workshop took up the remaining 70 minutes of class.
For the experiment the experimental group was taught the RAP strategy, which is a metacognitive technique common to the Strategic Instruction Model (SIM). RAP is a paraphrasing strategy that is divided into three parts: read the paragraph, ask yourself questions about the main idea and details, and put the main ideas and details into your own words using complete sentences. Throughout the study the experimental group was introduced to the strategy, had the strategy modeled for them by the teacher, verbally rehearsed the strategy until they could fluently recite it and gradually used the strategy independently. Feedback was supplied for the students after the practice of expository passages.
Data Analysis and
Results:
To examine the effects of the instructional treatments on the students' comprehension performance the pretests were used as the covariates and the posttest scores were the
dependent variables in the study. A statistical analysis was done and pre- and posttest scores were represented by proportions of the correct answers on the ten comprehension questions.
The results of the study showed that the exposure to the cognitive strategy increased comprehension performance in the experimental group at the posttest as compared to the control group. A separate t-test was done on the learning disabled population from both groups for both the pre- and posttest. There was no significant difference in the pretest between the learning disabled in both groups but better improvement in the experimental group on the posttest. Students in the experimental group gained 17% in scoring from start to finish while the control group had a 3.5% gain. Students with learning disabilities in the experimental group gained 22% in scoring from start to finish and the learning disabled in the control group had an 11% gain.
Discussion:
The implications from this study show that the cognitive strategy of paraphrasing (RAP) did improve reading comprehension scores for all students in the experimental group, both non-learning disabled and learning disabled.
A challenge for teachers who choose to use the RAP paraphrasing strategy is the selection of expository reading materials. Teachers may wish to vary the expository texts they decide to use to teach their students the RAP procedure in order to verify the benefits of using this strategy.
Teachers need to create a classroom curriculum that benefits all the students in the classroom to help in the growth of cognitive and behavioral elements of learning.
Eighth
Abstract
Nolte, R. Y., & Singer, H. (1985). Active comprehension: Teaching a process of reading comprehension and its effects on reading achievement. The Reading Teacher, 39 (1), 24 –31.
Purpose:
The purpose of this study was to find out whether teaching
active comprehension, a process of generating questions throughout reading,
would improve 9 and 10 year olds' reading ability.
The goals of the study were to determine whether instructing fourth and fifth graders in active comprehension would result in better results than a control group and to determine whether the transfer of this process was possible to other text passages.
Subjects and
Methodology:
Forty subjects from two fourth and fifth grade classrooms were randomly assigned to two instructional groups, one group was the treatment group and consisted of 19 subject while the other was the control group and consisted of 21 subjects. Instruction took place over 10 consecutive school days. Each class period was 40 minutes long.
The treatment group received training in active comprehension from the first day. Discussion began on story grammar and how important it is to ask questions that are appropriate for the text before, during and after reading. The teacher modeled the question generation as an introduction for 20 of the 40 minutes then had the students continue independently. After the students were given a 15 item multiple choice test. A four-step procedure of phasing out the teacher followed the introduction. The teacher worked with the whole group on question generation for 3 days, then the next 3 days the teacher divided the class into 6 people and the group elicited questions from each other. The students worked next in pairs asking each other questions which led to students finally working independently asking their own questions. Each day they were given a follow-up comprehension test.
The control group was given little direct instruction for comprehension and teachers devoted the majority of the time on assessment by posing questions on the text to check whether answers were wrong or right. New vocabulary was reviewed by saying the words aloud after writing them on the chalkboard. Students were asked a question or two before the story, then read silently and were evaluated on their reading with a follow-up comprehension test.
Both groups were given a transfer test after the experiment. Each group had no additional instruction prior to this test and was given 30 minutes to read a story and complete a 20-item test.
Data Analysis and Results:
The data found throughout the experiment showed that the treatment group and the control group, at the beginning of the study, were equal in readability levels but that the treatment group overall by the end of the study had a steady increase over the control group. The ten tests showed the treatment group as having a significant difference over the control group. For the transfer test the average mean for the treatment group was 12.28 correct with the control group averaging 9.9 correct.
Discussion:
Little emphasis in previous research was put on direct instruction of a process of comprehension. This study shows the importance of teaching a process of comprehension by having the teacher model the questioning process at pertinent points in the story and then phase out the teacher until students take over and initiate their own self-questioning. This self-questioning should be a process that is done before, during and after reading. It enables the reader to become an independent learner.
This processing of information facilitates the transfer of information into long-term memory. Therefore, students are more likely to remember and use the information they gain from the text. Students are also able to become an active participant in their own learning by understanding the importance of their own thought processing. This will help them regulate and monitor their cognitive processes and evaluate their own outcomes.
Ninth
Abstract
Raphael, T.E., & McKinney, J. (1983). An examination of fifth and eighth grade children's question-answer behavior: An instructional study in metacognition. Journal of Reading Behavior, 15 (3), 67-86.
Purpose:
The purpose of the case study was to examine age-related differences in training students about sources of information using the QAR (question-answer relationships) and to then examine the effects of the QAR task on the children's ability to answer questions. The case study also examined the effects of the QAR training that occurred to observe how teachers conducted their lessons with minimal supervision by researchers.
Subjects and
Methodology:
The location of the case study was in a Salt Lake City suburb with two hundred seventeen students from the fifth and eighth grades of four equivalent schools. The students were selected randomly based on standardized test scores and teacher ratings. The students were also chosen based on who were present for all relevant training and test days.
The materials used in the case study were training materials and test passages. The treatment group was given training materials that consisted of three experimenter-created booklets. The first booklet introduced the students to the three QARs (Right There, Think and Search, On My Own) through teacher explanation, diagrams, and brief word passages. Each passage was followed by a question from each of the three QAR categories. In the second booklet QARs were practiced more using longer passages with up to five questions following each passage. The three QAR categories were balanced throughout the booklet and not by individual stories. The third booklet was one basal length passage separated into four sections. Each section had six follow-up questions, with two questions from each QAR category. The testing materials consisted of three passages on familiar topics with parallel versions constructed at both the fifth and eight grade levels. For each passage eighteen comprehension questions were developed with six questions from each QAR category.
The procedure for the case study consisted of a teacher inservice and student training. This was only provided for those people participating in the treatment group. Teachers were given a half day training and students participating in the treatment group were trained for a period of two weeks with six maintenance follow-up lessons. The control group teachers and students were given no instructions prior to testing. Students participating in the control group continued with their normal school curricula.
Data collected on student training in the treatment group was anecdotal and based on journals kept by the teachers. Two consecutive days of testing followed the training period. All students from the treatment and control groups answered questions with no prompting on the first day. On the second day the control students received a brief orientation to QARs and all students read one of the three passages followed by questions and the QAR task.
Data Analysis and
Results:
The researchers analyzed the data by examining three dependent measures that were created from students' responses to the questions with and without the QAR task. The three measures were response quality (the only measure evaluated regardless of the presence of the QAR task), hits correctly identifying the QAR category, and matches concerning the internal consistency between QAR identification and response location. Three researchers judged the responses and differences were reconciled based on majority opinion.
The findings indicated that in the fifth grade, the presence of the QAR task appeared to improve trained students' performances while the control group performances were reduced. In contrast, the eighth grade performances of the trained group appeared to be reduced by the task while the control group performances showed no differences in results.
The findings also showed that the performance of high ability students on both hits and response quality were far more superior to the average students, while the average students were far more superior to the low ability group. The older children performed at a higher level than the younger children did on hits and response quality also.
Implicit questioning had the greatest difference than any other situation in the test results between low ability students in the treatment and control groups. Training helped the treatment group overall with implicit questioning in all ability levels and grade levels but did not show an overall difference between training and orientation with explicit questions. Lastly, training did appear to enhance performance on script-based questions more so than does orientation.
Discussion:
This study concluded that training facilitated performance more so than a brief orientation or nothing at all, but the findings were tempered by the additional influences of ability, grade, presence of QAR tasks, and question types. Training was more beneficial to average or low ability students, particularly with implicit questioning. Identifying the task showed an increase in performance in fifth graders but depressed the performance of eighth graders. Overall though the training caused superior results for both grade levels, especially with the implicit questions. Orientation served its purpose with explicit questions but for more effective implicit questioning training was essential.
In conclusion the researchers suggest that for a strategy to be of any value it is necessary to first learn the strategy correctly as an end in of itself for appropriate effectiveness.
Tenth Abstract
Ruddell, M. R., & Shearer, B. A. (2002). "Extrodinary, tremendous, exhilarating, magnificent": Middle school at-risk students become avid word learners with theVocabulary Self-Collection Strategy (VSS). Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy,
45 (5), 352 - 363.
Purpose:
The researchers of this study created the strategy Vocabulary Self-Collection Strategy (VSS) for students as a way of choosing their own spelling and vocabulary words. This was introduced so that students are more motivated to decide on the words that needed to be defined and this will help the students remember the definitions and spellings better since it was a choice, not an assignment. The purpose of this study was to observe how VSS improved and increased students' word awareness and strategic abilities while independently learning.
Subjects and
Methodology:
The students chosen for this study consisted of one group of six students in seventh grade, one group of five students in eighth grade, and one group of six students from another eighth grade. These three middle school classrooms were enrolled in an intensive 45-minute daily reading intervention program and all the students within the study were reading 2 to 4 years below grade level. The study examined the vocabulary development of these students as they engaged in the Vocabulary Self-Collection Strategy as one component of the intervention.
The students selected one word per week on Mondays to study and nominate to the class list. The students could choose their choices from any content area, academic or recreational, that seemed to be important to them. The students explained where they found the word, what they thought it meant, and why it should be in their class list. The teacher also supplied a word and explained why it was nominated. The list was finalized as a class, defined and recorded in their vocabulary journals. Most week's lists consisted of seven words.
Vocabulary review during the week consisted of discussion, semantic mapping, semantic feature analysis, and interactive word activities. Students were tested on Fridays on the spelling, definition, and correct use of the word in a sentence. Every three weeks the class devoted part of its instructional time to reviewing previous lists and were then tested on five words randomly selected from other weekly lists.
Data Analysis and
Results:
Data was collected from four sources. One source was the analysis of the list of words collected each week for vocabulary study. Lists were analyzed for their selection, ties to content area, level of difficulty and patterns that emerged. Another source was the test results at the end of the week and every 3-week interval. This helped establish the short term and long term retention. The third source of data was collected through journal entries that reflected reactions, responses and self-evaluation to the vocabulary approach. The last source was a comparison of the VSS words and test scores with weekly language arts spelling words and test scores. Word lists that made up the seventh- and eighth-grade spelling curriculum were obtained along with 9 weeks of spelling test scores for each student.
Analysis of the data found the word choices for the 9 weeks to be great accomplishments for these students who were typically labeled at risk. A majority of the words were content-based from science and social studies. This shows a development as strategic readers and writers. The VSS activity brought about the ability to locate words and understand that these words are confusing and need to be explained for comprehension to take place. Other places and activities were noted as sources for the new words, which stresses the fact that there are many definitions of what literacy is. The motivation factor was key in these findings and helped to create an environment where the students were actively involved in their own learning and were aware that their thoughts and reasons were important to learning.
Test results yielded a 94% mean score throughout the intervention. Test data supported the anecdotal evidence that students were achieving well above their usual level on test scores by using the VSS approach.
Journal analysis was evaluated through a single-code, forced choice model. Through evaluation the students showed a growing development as strategic, independent word learners. Students noted in their journals a transfer of this strategy into other areas and an increase in their intrinsic interest in vocabulary acquisition.
Students performed statistically significantly better on VSS scores than the language arts test scores. The weekly spelling tests that are traditionally given yielded a 76% mean score that could be explained by the presence of 20 words as compared to the 7 given during the VSS training. The conclusion that can be drawn from this is that it is much better to give students 7 or 8 words because it is more manageable and that when choice is given that the words are more meaningful to the learner than words chosen by the teacher.
Discussion:
This study shows the importance of choice in a student's learning environment. When students are given the opportunity to select their own words they will consistently choose words that are challenging and interesting to learn. The teacher's role with guiding a student's acquisition of words is vital for the transactions and experiences supporting student learning. VSS creates a structure for teachers to develop vocabulary learning that builds on language interactions and peer talking in classrooms.