ACTION RESEARCHFALL 2014

Ms. Bisese- 1st grade

Initial Meeting

Student C- This student was chosen because of his

significantly advanced reading ability. He is reading at a Level
K, which is well above his first grade classmates. Mrs.
Wiggins asked if I could pull him out to potentially work on
expression and phrasing and to give him the extra challenge
outside the classroom that she feels she is unable to give him
inside the classroom.
Student A- This student was also chosen because of her
advanced reading level. She is reading at a Level I. Mrs.
Wiggins had begun to notice that she had been getting into
more trouble than usual because she could breeze through
her work. I was asked to include Student A in my Action
Research group also in order to challenge her and increase
her expressive reading and or comprehension skills.
Email Correspondence Oct. 1st-8th, 2014

Metamorphosis of the Question

Initial Meeting with Mrs. Wiggins
Question 1: What are best practice strategies to increase
fluency in young readers?

First Meeting- Initial Assessment

Interest Inventory, WCPM, Multidimensional Fluency
Scale
Question 2: What are best practice strategies to improve
rate, expression and comprension in young readers?

Second & Third Meeting- Initial Assessment

WCPM, Oral Retelling Assessment and Self-Assessment
of Fluency
Question 3: What are best practice startegies to improve
student comprehension?

Fourth & Fifth Meeting- Final Question

Question 4: What are best practice strategies to expand
students' oral retelling skills thorugh narrative texts?

Initial Data

Session 1-Initial Assessment: (Three of Six)

Interest Inventory
WCPM timed passage test (1-2 of 3 per student)
Multidimensional Fluency Scale (MDFS)
Passages Used:

Student A: Getting to School Level I Fluency Passage

Student C Baseball Level K Fluency Passage

The Dinosaur Hunt Level I narrative text excerpt

Marleys Big Adventure Level K narrative text

Session 2 - Initial Assessment: (Two of Six)

Reassess WCPM (3 of 3 per student)

Oral Retelling Assessment (Reutzel & Cooter, 2012)

Passages Used:

Student A: Danny the Dinosaur narrative text except

Student C: Corduroy narrative text excerpt

Session 3 -Initial Assessment: (One of Six)

Objective: Students will identify which components of fluency they need to work on through a self-assessment of their
own fluency and will identify two fix it up strategies to be considered proficient.
Self-Assessment of Fluency
Passages:

Student A: One Smart Chick Level I narrative text

Student C: Corduroy Level K narrative text excerpt

Initial Data

WCPM Averages compared to Second Grade

Norms:
Average WCPM
120

106
100

80

92
76

79

60

40

20

Student A

Student C

2nd grade:
Student A- 75th
percentile at the
beginning of the
year Student C90th percentile at
the beginning of
the year

Screening, Diagnosing, and Progress Monitoring for Fluency: The Details. (n.d.). Retrieved December 5, 2014, from
http://www.readingrockets.org/article/screening-diagnosing-and-progress-monitoring-fluency-details

Initial Data

Session 4- Action Research Meeting: Story Structure through Oral

retelling

Objective: When given a sorting activity, students will accurately

categorize 13 out of 15 statements about the story Click Clack Moo; The
Cows that Type according to setting, characters, goal/problem, events,
and resolution. Students who sort 10 or less statements correctly will be
retaught.
Assessment: Click Clack Moo Story Structure Sort
Passage: Click Clack Moo; The Cows that Type narrative text

Session 5- Action Research Meeting: Cause and Effect

Objective: When given a matching activity, I will identify and describe

cause and effect relationships between events in the story Click Clack
Moo the Cows that Type with at least 4 our of 5 relationships matched
correctly.
Assessment: Click Clack Moo Story Structure Sort
Passage: Click Clack Moo; The Cows that Type narrative text

Final Question

What are best practice

strategies to expand
students oral retelling skills
through narrative texts?

What Research Says About

Improving Oral Retelling and
Comprehension:

One of the most effective processes for finding

out whether children understand what they read is
to ask them to retell it (Bernfeld et al., 2013; Brown &
Cambourne, 1987; Lapp, Fisher, & Johnson, 2010).

Oral Retelling is a highly effective strategy for

improving comprehension skills because it causes
the student to:
Utilize multiple comprehension strategies at once:
monitoring comprehension, identifying story structure,
asking and creating questions
Enhances sequencing, inferential, and summarization
skills
(Reutzel & Cooter, 2012).

How I incorporated Best Practice

Strategies:

Additional Research and Strategies in Handouts

Best Practice Strategies for Oral Retelling,
Fluency, Comprehension, and overall best
practice teaching strategies.
Multiple exposures of explicit teaching
Visual and Verbal Strategies- most effective
Turn & Talk
Higher Level Questioning
Text-Text/Self Connections
Graphic Organizers
Incorporated Meeting 7 & 8- Increase in student
success

Best Practice Strategies Incorporated Handouts:

Best Practice Strategies Incorporated Handouts:

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(Morrow,&2005)&
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<Teacher&
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Teaching&(NRP,&
2000)&&

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examples&and&
non<examples&
(Marzano,&
2001)&
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&

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X&

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X&

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X&

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X&

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X&

<Explicit&
Reviewed&
teaching&of&
story&
concepts&of:& structure&
setting,&
elements&
characters,&
<Explicit&
goal/problem,& teaching&
events,&and&
of&Cause&
resolution&
and&
&
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<Giving&
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the&story&of&
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Best Practice Strategies Incorporated Handouts:

How I Modified Instruction based

on Data:

Initial Assessment- Meetings 1-3: Transition

Fluency to Comprehension
Meetings 4-5: Refining Comprehension into Oral
retelling with focus on story structure elements
Meeting 7 + 8: Identifying Story Structure &
Summarization through Oral Retelling The Frog Prince
& The Three Snow Bears

Major difference when I began to understand how to

incorporate text to text/self connections, higher level them
questions, recorded examples on a graphic, and turn and
talk. Decided to continue these strategies.
Visual and verbal Strengths (graphic organizer, text
connections turn and talk)
Separate growth goals for the two students- beginning to
progress at different rates.

Student A Growth

Identifying Story Structure through Oral

Retelling:
94%
1

0.9
0.8

70%69%

0.7

83%
75%

80%

0.6
0.5

43%

Objective

0.4

Results

0.3
0.2
0.1

MidpointMeeting 6

Meeting 7

Meeting 8

FinalMeeting 9

Accuracy Levels based on Oral Retelling Coding Forms (Reutzel & Cooter, 2012).

Student C Growth

Identifying Story Structure through Oral Retelling:

1

94%
87%

0.9
0.8

70%
0.7

61%

0.6

70%

75%

58%

0.5

Objective

0.4

Results

0.3
0.2
0.1

0
0

MidpointMeeting 6

Meeting 7

Meeting 8

Final- Meeting
9

Accuracy Levels based on Oral Retelling Coding Forms (Reutzel & Cooter, 2012).

Student Progress Monitoring

Charts:

Final Reflection- What I did

well:

Learning how to find passages on a childs

level:
Lexile
Leveling

books
Analyzing books

Using assessment data to inform my

instruction
Finding the strengths of my students and
incorporating Visual and Verbal Strategies
Defining kid-friendly objectives

Reflection- What I would do

differently in the future:

Choose Assessment that is more clearly

measurable for first Oral Retelling Assessment
Record specific examples of each strategy in
each lesson
Consistently incorporate best practice
strategies overtime
Give less prompting to students & set higher
goals
Compare story elements between stories

Suggestions?
Do you have any experience or
successful strategies that could
contribute to the learning of these two
students in oral retelling/story
structure/comprehension?
Can you give any tips on making data
quantifiable?
What are the best places to find
resources for assessment and
practice?

References:
Bernfeld, L.E.S., Morrison, T.G., Sudweeks, R.R., & Wilcom, B.
(2013). Examining
reliability of reading comprehension
ratings of fifth grade students oral retellings. Literacy Research and
Instruction, 52(1) 65-86.
Brown, H., & Cambourne, B. (1987). Read and retell. Portsmouth, NH:
Heinemann.
Lapp, D., Fisher, D., & Johnson, K. (2010). Text mapping plus: Improving
comprehension through supported retellings. Journal of Adolescent & Adult
Literacy, 53(5), 423-426.
Morrow, L.M. (2005). Literacy development in the early years: Helping
children read and write (5th ed). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Reutzel & Cooter (2012). Teaching Children to Read: The Teacher Makes the
Difference (6th ed.). Childhood Education, 257-277.
Screening, Diagnosing, and Progress Monitoring for Fluency: The Details.
(n.d.). Retrieved December 5, 2014, from Screening, Diagnosing, and
Progress
Monitoring for Fluency: The Details. (n.d.).
http://www.readingrockets.org/
article/screening-diagnosing-andprogress-monitoring-fluency-details