Nature and Extent of the Student Challenge
My inquiry is concerned with reading; particularly with my students abilities to comprehend independently. So far I have considered the possible reasons that are preventing my students from fully comprehending new texts. I am now stepping back and reflecting on the extent of this challenge.
Last year I inquired into reading and found that some of my students struggled simply to summarise a text and consider what they had learnt from reading. I tackled this by increasing their mileage and reducing the amount of time they spent on comprehension activities. As a result, their reading progress was accelerated and they were more able to discuss texts.
However, when we removed the scaffolding of group discussion, these students did not perform so well. While I had taught them to discuss texts, to share their opinions and to summarise what they had read, I didn't teach them how to monitor their own reading. As such, in the PAT tests, many of them skimmed the texts and missed some plot points/ inferences.
I can see that my past methods were effective in many ways; their PAT scores did increase (although not as much as their reading age). Yet, I was clearly neglecting to teach my students to monitor their own understanding of a text, to question their own understanding and re-read.
This was when I had a brainwave:
A couple of years ago after receiving PD in reciprocal reading my PAT scores aligned more closely with my students reading age. Since then RT has become part of my teacher tool belt, but I mostly use it as a short intervention to teach the students how to discuss texts, chunk and summarise. I don't tend to focus as much on questioning or clarifying.
This might not be the answer: my students are making more accelerated progress now than then, but it is something to consider.
Last year I inquired into reading and found that some of my students struggled simply to summarise a text and consider what they had learnt from reading. I tackled this by increasing their mileage and reducing the amount of time they spent on comprehension activities. As a result, their reading progress was accelerated and they were more able to discuss texts.
However, when we removed the scaffolding of group discussion, these students did not perform so well. While I had taught them to discuss texts, to share their opinions and to summarise what they had read, I didn't teach them how to monitor their own reading. As such, in the PAT tests, many of them skimmed the texts and missed some plot points/ inferences.
I can see that my past methods were effective in many ways; their PAT scores did increase (although not as much as their reading age). Yet, I was clearly neglecting to teach my students to monitor their own understanding of a text, to question their own understanding and re-read.
This was when I had a brainwave:
A couple of years ago after receiving PD in reciprocal reading my PAT scores aligned more closely with my students reading age. Since then RT has become part of my teacher tool belt, but I mostly use it as a short intervention to teach the students how to discuss texts, chunk and summarise. I don't tend to focus as much on questioning or clarifying.
This might not be the answer: my students are making more accelerated progress now than then, but it is something to consider.
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