Action Plan
What I Implemented
Over the course of six weeks I implemented different reading strategies, such as text coding, guided questioning, and text tagging to increase my 23 students’ reading comprehension. Using the Fountas and Pinnell Benchmarking System, I was able to assess students' reading levels and their comprehension. Based on their reading level, as well as their reading MAP scores, I divided my students into four groups for guided reading. Questions that were asked during small group sessions included about the text questions, within the text, and beyond the text questions. I also referred to them as “in my head” questions or “in the book” questions. Teaching them the different types helped students identify which type of questions they are writing and constructing when asking questions, as well as help me develop preplanned questions. My questions were differentiated among my four guided reading groups to meet the needs of my different levels of readers. Group 1 is below reading level, groups 2 and 3 at reading level and group 4 above reading level. Each text that they were reading during small group instruction was based off their reading level, meaning there were four different texts being read. I shared a Fountas and Pinnelll bookmark with each child during guided reading that has example questions of what I was asking, and it was sorted by fiction and nonfiction questions. When I asked the questions, they were able to identify if it was within the text, beyond the text or about the text and then answer the question I asked.
How I Implemented This:
Students who understand why they are reading a text often comprehend it in a deeper manner. While text tagging and coding, students identified different elements of their story, such as main idea and author’s purpose. I chose to focus on guided questioning because incorporating differentiated questions during reading instruction will increase students’ reading comprehension. When using guided questioning there should be an equal balance to the types of questions being asked. Therefore, during my study, I asked lower level thinking comprehension questions and high level comprehension questions. Skills such as identifying author’s purpose, summarizing, main idea/theme, making predictions, making connections, cause and effect relationships, and compare and contrast were developed through the use of guided questioning. Throughout my practices of planning questions in advance, having the students identify the question level, and using wait time, student reading comprehension was able to improve.
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Data Collection:
Students used the leveled reader to complete an Accelerated Reader (AR) test weekly. These were 5 points and were showing their comprehension from that week's story. Each leveled reader was marked with their text tags that they wrote and created. They were encouraged to use them on their tests. Students also took a weekly 5-10 question online comprehension test based on a cold read to determine if they could use their skills of text coding and tagging to answer questions. Lastly, the text tags they completed were tracked and observed to accuracy.
Why I Implemented
Although some students demonstrated a higher need of improvement in the area of reading comprehension, all of my students had room for growth in the area. Reading comprehension is also a skill that translates across content areas, students will need to understand text they read in math, science, social studies, and writing. Reading comprehension is a lifelong skill my students will need and use throughout their education and professional lives. Being able to decode and read texts is important, being able to understand and recall what you have read is equally as important, especially as students progress through grade levels. Many of my students were showing lack of interest while reading their weekly leveled readers. Research showed that text tagging would increase student engagement. This also provided a meaningful purpose for what they were reading. As students improved their reading comprehension during guided reading, they also improved in other content areas as they are able to translate those comprehension skills to other contents. I wanted to find the connection between types of questioning and increased reading comprehension skills. Although I knew that text tagging would prove to be beneficial, I wanted to be sure to guide my students appropriately with strong intent and purpose. Therefore, alongside text tagging, I also wanted to find the connection between types of questioning and increased reading comprehension skills.
When my study took place
Text Coding and Tagging System:
​Each color of sticky note represented a different skill:
Yellow: Making Predictions
Blue: Summarizing
Orange: Ask Questions
Green: Visualize
Pink: Making Connections
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Culturally Responsive Practices
In order to be a culturally responsive educator I created a reading survey in order to get to know my students and understand their feelings and attitudes about reading. Specific to reading, I provided an alternative reading source (EPIC!) for my students that are at a lower reading level because those books are read to them. My classroom library has a large variety of genres, topics, and reading levels. I was also careful when I chose books to ensure they included experiences and interests all of my students were able to connect with. Overall, my main focus was keeping our classroom student centered. I assessed student needs and learning styles during whole group, small group, and one-on-one instruction, pulled from student interests, and encouraged students to choose things based on their interests. I applied these strategies to my instruction to keep our classroom student centered.
Collaboration
I collaborated with several internal stakeholders who supported my study including my building principal, grade-level team members, and CADRE associate. My building principal observed my guided reading instruction and supported me as an educator by providing me with instructional ideas and both positive feedback and constructive feedback. My grade-level team supported my study through planning together, allowed me to observe them teaching guided reading, and shared their instructional activities and expertise.
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Additionally, I worked with external stakeholders during my research study. My CADRE associate, CADRE cohort, former classmates and professors supported me throughout my study to become more efficient in the teaching of reading. My CADRE associate took the time to teach me strategies of text tagging as well as providing me with in depth guided questioning prompts.
Meeting the Needs of Diverse Learning
The students within my classroom were very goal driven. With that being said, they each set a personal goal of how often they wanted to text tag during each guided reading session. Since we only would read a few pages a day, I suggested under five. Many adjusted their goals after seeing what text tags were. They tracked this on a sticky note on the front of their books themselves by simply writing a number each day.
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There were many other things that I did to help students learn how to text tag as well as help them through the entire comprehension process. For example, I chose the skill to work on based on what my students needed to work on. This corresponded with what sticky note color they were using. See the text coding system above for more examples.
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Other ways I was able to meet the needs of all my learners; using prewritten sticky notes to match the pages where the event can be found when summarizing, shortening the amount of writing, scribing sticky notes for students, and limiting the amount of text tags necessary for completion.
Sample Lesson
Each day when the students would come to the guided reading table, there would be sticky notes set out for them. This set the stage for what they were going to complete that day. As they came to the table they quickly set a goal for themselves on how many text tags they were going to complete. Depending on the type of text, we predicted what the story was going to be about. As they read aloud, I asked questions from the prompting guide below. Based on my questions they verbally responded which I tracked on the data sheet (see the photo to the right). More often than not, the text tags were then created by the students based on my prompted question. For my lower students, I asked a question at the beginning of our time, their job was to hunt for the answer as we read. Overall, these two tools provided an opportunity to have a role during guided reading which enhanced comprehension and engagement.
