Using Action Research
To Empower North Carolina Educators
A Race to the Top Initiative
NC Department of Public Instruction
Educator Effectiveness Division
Comprehension in the K-2 Classroom
Ashley Smith
District: Pitt County
Wintergreen Primary
What is Action Research?
Systematic inquiry conducted by teachers and
other educators to find solutions for critical,
challenging, relevant issues in their classrooms and
schools.
Mills, Geoffrey E, Action Research: A Guide for the Teacher Researcher,
2014
What is Action Research?
Main Goals Include:
•Positively impact student outcomes
•Identify and promote effective instructional
practices
•Create opportunities for teachers to become
reflective practitioners
•Share research results with other educators
Mills, Geoffrey E, Action Research: A Guide for the Teacher Researcher,
2014
What is Action Research?
A systematic research process to:
● Identify an area of focus (critical, challenging
issue)
●
●
Develop an action research plan
Implement action research plan in
classroom/school
●
Collect, analyze, and interpret data
●
Share findings to inform practice
Mills, Geoffrey E, Action Research: A Guide for the Teacher Researcher, 2014
Comprehension in the K-2
Classroom
•To Accelerate our students ability to comprehend
across the curriculum verbally and in written
form.
•This research benefits all k-5 teachers across all
content areas.
•This innovation will allow students to make their
thinking visible and to respond to any content in
both written and oral form.
Do my students adequately
comprehend text? Can they respond
to literature across the curriculum in
both oral and written form?
Think Puzzle Explore
• What do you THINK you know about this topic?
• What questions or PUZZLES do you have?
• How can you EXPLORE this topic?
What Does Peer-Reviewed
Research say about my focus
area?
•
Good thinking is not only a matter of skills, but also a matter of dispositions.
Open- mindedness, curiosity, attention to evidence, skepticism, and
imaginativeness all make for good thinking (Perkins & Ritchhart, 2004;
Perkins, Tishman, Ritchhart, Donis, & Andrade, 2000).
•
We have identified eight forces that shape classroom culture: (1) classroom
routines and structures for learning, (2) language and conversational
patterns, (3) implicit and explicit expectations, (4) time allocation, (5)
modeling by teachers and others, (6) the physical environment, (7)
relationships and patterns of interaction, and (8) the creation of
opportunities. Depending on their form, these forces can support or
undermine the rhythm of thoughtful learning (Ritchhart, 2002, 2007).
Based on the Research…
In your classroom...
•
•
•
•
What’s going on?
What do you see that makes you say that?
Share with your table.
Share with the group.
Make Knowledge Public
Analyze/Interpret Data
The purpose of my research is to increase
students’ capacity to comprehend text in both
oral and written form. I plan to use direct
instruction to formally teach 6 components of
comprehension using concrete experiences.
The acquisition of these skills will hopefully
apply across the curriculum giving students
valuable ways of responding and interacting
with both fiction and non-fiction text.
Collect Data
•
Innovation/Intervention
Action Research Plan
Focus Statement
Make Knowledge Public
Analyze/Interpret Data
Collect Data
I chose this topic of study as more than 90% of
our students, when using Mclass benchmarks,
score lower on written comprehension than
they do on oral comprehension questions. This
is holding them stagnate in their learning across
the curriculum. I wanted to give them a way to
tap into their own thinking and use it to
accelerate their own learning.
Innovation/Intervention
Action Research Plan
Purpose of the Study
Make Knowledge Public
Analyze/Interpret Data
Collect Data
• 22 first grade students of
varying cognitive levels. This
group of students incudes 11
girls and 11 boys, 5 African
Americans, 2 Hispanics, 1
Asian, 2 biracial, and 12
Caucasians. There is one EC
student, 1 student with
ADDHD, and 2 ESL students.
There are 6 students in the
class who are at risk because of
low socioeconomic factors.
Innovation/Intervention
Action Research Plan
Study Participants
Make Knowledge Public
Analyze/Interpret Data
Collect Data
• Student participation
• Student comprehension
levels as documented by
mClass data
• Direct Instruction of 6
comprehension strategies
• mClass / amplify
Innovation/Intervention
Action Research Plan
Study Variables
Can’t the direct instruction of comprehension
strategies provide a set of strategies that will
affect the interaction between text and
student on a deeper level stimulating higher
order responses?
Make Knowledge Public
Analyze/Interpret Data
Are there specific strategies that can enhance
a child’s ability to comprehend text at a
deeper level and be applied across the content
areas?
Collect Data
Can explicitly teaching the 6 components of
comprehension using concrete experiences
increase a student’s ability to respond to
literature both orally and through written
response?
Innovation/Intervention
Action Research Plan
Research Questions
Make Knowledge Public
Analyze/Interpret Data
• Teaching 6 components of
comprehension directly using
concrete experiences.
• Applying these 6 components
across the curriculum.
• Accelerating students written
comprehension skills through
the use of visible thinking.
• Creating self directed learners
Collect Data
Innovation/Intervention
Action Research Plan
Innovation/Intervention
Innovation/Intervention
Action Research Plan
•Share photos, anecdotal
notes, video clips, student
work samples
Make Knowledge Public
Analyze/Interpret Data
Collect Data
Implementation in the
Classroom
6 Comprehensions Strategies
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Metacognition
Schema
Inferring
Questioning
Determining Importance
Visualizing
Synthesizing
Metacognition
Metacognition Map
*Reading Salad
*Modeling with Picture Books
*Color sheets
Schema Posters
Infer : Who wears this shirt?
Inference
Evidence
Inferring with Music and Art
“Cat’s In the Cradle”
Henry Chapin
“The Best Gift” Barbara Streisand
Chrysanthemum ~ Kevin Henkes
Horace Pippin
Christmas Morning
Breakfast
Children need to consider point of view.
Questioning
Directly teach children how to ask a question
and see the importance of how it bridges
deeper meaning than just an answer….
The Question Game...
There is a cabin in the woods. It is on fire. There is a man
inside dead. What happened?
Wordless Books of David Weisner
Determine Importance
● Purse Game
● Use a Flashlight
Determining Importance
Thinking Stems
Visualizing
While reading poetry, stories with rich details, or listening to
music have the students create a visual image based on
what they are hearing. Compare them to the real thing.
Visualizing
Here is an example of a student listening to a story and creating a
visual representation of a chapter.
Take it to a higher level and have students
create a visual representation of a critical
event during history.
ex. pilgrim women
Synthesizing
“Change Over Time”
“A mind stretched to a new idea never goes back to its original dimensions.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes
“Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it.” ~ Norman
Maclean
Visualizing Thinking Stems
Synthesis
Much cooler than a worksheet!
Do a synthesis spiral. As you read you record
your thinking. This is a great way to see that
you thinking gets much “bigger” the more you
read and the more the author reveals to you.
This way of building off of metacognition and
schema is how we want our students thinking as
they interact with the text. This a good visual to help
them buy into how this can work for them.
Synthesizing
How could these dolls represent our
thinking?
Synthesis
6 Picture or 6 Word Synthesis Activity
Introduce “Graphic Novels”
http://www.albertwhitman.com/content.cfm/bookdetails/Bicycle-Mystery-A-Graphic-Novel-Boxcar-Children-Graphic-Novels-17
Using Graphic Novels is a great way to support synthesis. New information is
presented in almost all pages allowing the the reader the opportunity to
synthesize their thinking. This is a skill needed in all content areas.
Synthesis Thinking Stems
Synthesizing Thinking Stems (changing your
thinking along the way)
o Now I understand why …
o I’m changing my mind about …
o I used to think ___________, but now I
think …
o My new thinking is …
Putting It All Together
• 100% of students grew at a minimum of
3 levels.
• The highest recorded growth was 11
levels.
• This is a very powerful finding based on
previous levels of proficiency.
• Each sub group grew.
• I was able to see correlation in math
cumulative tests at MOY where students
were being asked to articulate their
thought process.
Make Knowledge Public
Analyze/Interpret Data
Collect Data
Innovation/Intervention
Action Research Plan
Findings
•
•
•
•
Implement direct teaching of 6
comprehension strategies with concrete
experiences.
Implement an interactive notebook to create
a visual representation of thinking for a
resource to apply across the curriculum
Meet with parents before, during, and after
the teaching to ensure parents are using the
same language at home.
Allow students to grade their own written
responses and then compare to the rubric to
ensure ownership of learning and self
directed thinking. (perhaps data notebook)
Make Knowledge Public
Analyze/Interpret Data
Collect Data
Innovation/Intervention
Action Research Plan
Recommendations
References
Rothstein, Dan, Santana, Luz (2011). Teaching Students to Ask Their Own Questions.
Harvard Education Letter, 27(5).
Bryce, N. (2011). Meeting the Reading Challenges of Science Textbooks in the Primary
Grades. Reading Teacher, 64(7), 474-485.
Ritchhart, R. (2008). Making Thinking Visible. Educational Leadership, 65(5), 57.
Perkins, David. "School of Education at Johns Hopkins University-Making Thinking
Visible." School of Education at Johns Hopkins University-Making Thinking Visible. N.p.,
Dec. 2003. Web. 10 Aug. 2014.
Stahl, K. "Proof, Practice, and Promise: Comprehension Strategy Instruction in the
Primary Grades." Reading Teacher 57.7 (2004): 598-609.
Conclusion of Presentation
•Thank you for your participation.
Contact Information:
Name: Ashley Smith
School/District: Wintergreen Primary Pitt County
Phone: 252-353-5270
Email: smitha1@pitt.k12.nc.us
Website: https://sites.google.com/a/pitt.k12.nc.us/ashleysmith-ic/
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