Test Data; Monongah Elementary

(Standard 5)

Of the 120 students tested for Reading Proficiency, 26.66% of students tested Mastery or above. For Math, 33.33%. In Science, only 119 students were tested with scores being that 25.21% students being Mastery or above. Again, in Social Studies, 119 students were tested and of those students, 23.52% scored Mastery or above.

Instruction intervention- Think Aloud strategy; reading students explaining/thinking/talking aloud their thoughts about the reading passages.
Think-Alouds help students understand the mental processes readers engage in when constructing meaning from
texts. The teacher models this strategy as he or she reads a selection aloud, thus enabling students to observe what
skilled readers think about while reading.
(Standard 4)

Effective summarizing leads to an increase in student learning. Students who can effectively summarize learn to synthesize information, a higher-order thinking skill which includes analyzing information, identifying key concepts, and defining extraneous information.

Evidence-

•Reading comprehension increases when students learn how to incorporate "summary frames" as a tool for summarizing (Meyer & Freedle, 1984). Summary frames are a series of questions created by the teacher and designed to highlight critical passages of text. When students use this strategy, they are better able to understand what they are reading, identify key information, and provide a summary that helps them retain the information (Armbruster, Anderson, & Ostertag, 1987).

•Notes should be in both linguistic and nonlinguistic forms, including idea webs, sketches, informal outlines, and combinations of words and schematics; and, the more notes, the better (Nye, Crooks, Powlie, & Tripp, 1984).


•When students review and revise their own notes, the notes become more meaningful and useful (Anderson & Armbruster, 1986; Denner, 1986; Einstein, Morris, & Smith, 1985).


Question- When a teacher models summarizing, do students improve their reading comprehension?

Ways for teacher to model summarizing:
-Make predictions(e.g., “From what he’s said so far, I’ll bet that the author is going to give some examples of poor eating habits.”)

-Describe the mental pictures you see(e.g., “When the author talks about vegetables I should include in my diet, I can see our salad bowl at home filled with fresh, green spinach leaves.”)

-Create analogies(e.g., “That description of clogged arteries sounds like traffic clogging up the interstate
during rush hour.”)

-Varbalizing obstacles and fix up strategies (e.g., “Now what does ‘angiogram’ mean? Maybe if I reread that section, I’ll get the meaning from the other sentences around it. I know I can’t skip it because it’s in bold-faced print, so it must be important. If I still don’t understand, I know I can ask the teacher for help.”)