Beyond The Text
Supporting Comprehension of Informational Text
Research Question
What are the effects that IRAs and close reading focused on text features have on first grade students’ reading comprehension of informational text?
Keywords: informational text, comprehension, text features, interactive read aloud, gradual release of responsibility, first grade
What prompted the research?
Early in my second grade daughter’s current school year, I volunteered in her class during the ELA block. Before releasing the students to work on creating a tri-fold brochure about solids, liquids, and gases, her teacher mentioned that the class had been struggling with text features and then proceeded to conduct yet another review of various text features. This interaction reminded me of when I taught second grade and my students also had difficulty understanding how and why text features can be used in informational text. I wondered if this was a common challenge for students in the primary grades. If so, why is it a challenge? I wanted to learn more.
I returned home and began a Google search: “Primary grade struggles with informational text + text features.” A great deal of the information I found cited an article by Nell Duke (2000) and it became the driving force behind my research. Duke (2000) found that first grade students were exposed to only 3.6 minutes of informational text each day within the displayed print in the classroom, the availability of text in the classroom library, and writing activities associated with informational text. A scarcity, indeed! There is little known research about if and how this scarcity has been resolved since Duke’s first findings. Either way, it is unlikely that the balance of instruction on narrative and informational text has been completely resolved.
Study Details
Schedule: Three 30-minute sessions with students for six weeks. The first and last weeks were dedicated to getting to know the students, and pre- and post-assessments. Four weeks of intervention occurred between the assessments.
Setting: In classroom of a suburban, year-round elementary school where I was not the teacher of record.
Intervention Strategies
The following research-based strategies were used consistently but accordingly during each intervention session.
- Gradual Release of Responsibility: The gradual release of responsibility (GRR) has been a best-practice in education for over thirty years (Maynes, Julien-Schultz & Dunn, 2010). GRR is a way of scaffolding student learning by actually taking away the supports to encourage students’ independent mastery of a skill or content. GRR is an effective model in literacy instruction as students develop their foundational and comprehension skills. In practice in the whole class or small group instructional setting, teachers and students follow the “I do it. We do it. You do it” process (McClure & Fullerton, 2017).
- IRA: Interactive Read-Aloud is an instructional strategy with a function and purpose as specific as the name. IRAs are a practice in modeling metacognitive and self-monitoring behaviors to students while talking about the text to make meaning. McLure and Fullerton (2017) ascertain that “A defining feature of interactive read-alouds is that the teacher and students have conversations about the text throughout the reading rather than saving conversations until after the entire text is read” (p. 52).
- Close / Repeated Reading: Close reading, “a careful and purposeful rereading of a complex text” (Fisher & Frey, 2014, p. 223), accomplishes both increased exposure and deep understanding of information critical for reading to learn. close reading is an effective strategy that encourages students to be “primary investigators” (Lapp, Grant, Moss & Johnson, 2013, p. 111) to explore the text’s format, structure, language, and meaning.
- Don't Skip It: Encourages the students to make a mental plan for reading a page, ensuring that they did not skip any written text, text features or graphics. This purposeful plan slows down the inattentive reader who may have a tendency to only focus on written text or graphics, but not both. The most important step in modeling this behavior is to convey the importance for the reader to ask themselves, before turning the page, if they have incorporated all of the information on the page to understand the text (Serravallo, 2015).
- Stop & Jot: Foreces the students to take time to monitor their comprehension of the text. Mahoney (2010) advises that, “We have to make our students aware that reading isn't just turning the pages! Readers need to be actively thinking as they read. Modeling strategies on how to monitor what you are reading by stopping and thinking is essential to building comprehension” (Web). For this intervention, students were given sentence frames like “I found _____ interesting because _____.” and “I didn’t know that _____.” Students then wrote responses on blank sheets of paper.
- Connected Writing: The researcher deliberately integrated writing and reading because it increases rigor and aligns with the curriculum of the CCSS (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010). The independent written response questions were similar to the anticipated learning outcomes of the mClass TRC written questions. The questions required students to cite textual evidence and build literal knowledge, while increasing in complexity to analysis and synthesis. However, the questions were very specific to the use of text features because the overall goal was for students to attend to both written text and graphics to navigate and comprehend informational text.
Intervention Schedule
- Preview the text and discuss the cover and the title.
- Read-aloud pre-selected section of 8 pages of the text with students listening.
- Teacher modeling to attend to all of the features on the page, beyond the text, in order to make sense of the content.
Wednesdays:
- Gradual Release of Responsibility
- Teacher repeated read-aloud of the selected text.
- Teacher modeling of behaviors previously practiced to ensure that students had a clear understanding of how the text features were used to navigate the text Repeated modeling of the. Teacher also modeled using the anchor chart.
- Don’t Skip It: Students made tally marks on the page to try to catch me skipping text features before turning the page.
- Stop and jot to encourage the students to take time to monitor their comprehension of the text.
Thursdays:
- Gradual Release of Responsibility
- Students repeated reading the selected text.
- Students used anchor chart to understand the unique text features and their purpose.
- Students participated in connected writing (see below) with limited teacher support.
Connected Writing Questions
Findings & Conclusions
The study was impacted due to inclement weather school cancellations. After 3 weeks and 1 day of intervention sessions, I made the following conclusions.
- When accessed, students use but confuse index and glossary. At the beginning of the four-week intervention, I observed the students’ indifference about accessing the glossary or the index without being prompted. During the very first group intervention session, I asked the students if they knew what a glossary was or what it is used for. None of the students knew what a glossary was or how to use it. It was at that point that the researcher made a concerted effort to model using the glossary in every read-aloud. By the end of the intervention, students did not consistently use the glossary to define unfamiliar terms.
- Students rely more heavily on pictures and visual graphics. The students were observed attending to pictures, photographs, and other visual graphics, like clipart text boxes, frequently during the intervention study. They accessed these features more often than text-heavy text features like captions and charts. All of the students were observed on multiple occasions to be fixed on the pictures.
- Students demonstrate greater confidence in attending to text features when supported by an anchor chart. Early in the intervention, I created a graphic anchor chart to support students in effectively understanding the purpose of each unique text feature in order to make meaning of the text. I noticed that they were having difficulty remembering the purpose of the unique features and combined that concern with their tendency to attend to graphics. Additionally, the purpose of the anchor chart was to reinforce the practice of concentrating on the features outside of the text. The anchor chart includes nine common text features, their purpose, and a visual example of the feature (see below).
What else can teachers learn from this study?
- Introduce graphics first. I would suggest for other teachers to begin such an intervention by first introducing visual text features, like pictures and photographs. It has been determined that emerging readers are taught to connect pictures in the text to decode unfamiliar vocabulary. As students learn to read, teachers often ask, “How can the picture help you understand the story or figure out a word?” Students’ comprehension of informational text can benefit from this ingrained reliance on visuals with exclusive instruction on these features first to build the foundation of how to best use text features to navigate the text.
- Use anchor charts early and often. The use of the anchor chart, yet another visual aid, was effective in supporting students in this study. As teachers incorporate anchor charts in a number of areas of study within the curriculum, I would suggest the continued use of anchor charts for the instruction of text features. By providing students with an individual copy that explains the purpose of the text feature and displays a visual example, students’ learning is scaffolded even without immediate direction from the teacher. Students can independently access the chart as needed when they may be confused about a text feature and its purpose. Thus, responsibility is released to the student and they gain confidence in using the features independently.
About the researcher
Research
Duke, N. K. (2000). 3.6 minutes per day: The scarcity of informational texts in first grade. Reading Research Quarterly, 35(2), 202-224.
Fisher, D., & Frey, N. (2014). Close reading informational texts in the primary grades. The Reading Teacher, 68(3), 222-227.
K-3 Literacy Division of the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. (2016). North Carolina formative, diagnostic reading assessment: Reading 3D frequently asked questions.
Retrieved from http://www.dpi.state.nc.us/docs/k-3literacy/achieve/reading3d/faq.pdf
Lapp, D., Grant, M., Moss, B., & Johnson, K. (2013). Students’ close reading of science texts. The Reading Teacher, 67(2), p. 109-119.
Mahoney, D. (2010, September 14). Reading and critical thinking: Stop and think, then jot! [Web log post]. Retrieved from https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/blog-posts/danielle-mahoney/reading-and-critical-thinking-stop-and-think-then-jot/
Maynes, N., Julien-Schultz, L., & Dunn, C. (2010). Modeling and the gradual release of responsibility: What does it look like in the classroom? Brock Education: a Journal of Educational Research and Practice, 19(2), p. 65-77.
McClure, E. L., & Fullerton, S. K. (2017). Instructional interactions: Supporting students’ reading development through interactive read-alouds of informational texts. The Reading Teacher, 71(1), 51-59.
National Governors Association for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers. (2010). Common Core State Standards for English language arts and literacy in history/social studies, science, and technical subjects. Washington, DC; Authors.
Serravallo, J. (2015) The reading strategies book: Your everything guide to developing skilled readers. Portsmouth: Heinemann.