Guided Reading Strategies to Improve Students - Dr. Stirling ...

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the chapter, students illustrated a scene from it (see Appendix 4a: Imagery withOwls in the Family). The novel was brought to life. Students enjoyed illustrating anevent from the chapter, and the book became very real to them. Every student wasable to complete this task; artistic ability did not matter. As visualizing continuedthroughout the year, students became very adept at making pictures in theirminds. It was a valuable reading comprehension strategy to make the written wordbecome real.Figure 2. Visualizing poster used by the researchers.After seeing the leveled books available through subscriptions from the web site,Reading a-z, used for Guided Reading, the Grade Three researcher used thestories, lesson plans, worksheets including story maps, and the Reader QuickCheck with the Grade Three class as a whole, instead of using them with smallgroups. An Educational Assistant helped prepare the materials. The students foundthe books and the variety of accompanying activities interesting and fun to do.Students completed these activities easily and independently. The Reader QuickCheck was an excellent instrument for assessing reading comprehension includinghigher level thinking skills such as inferencing and synthesizing. These printablebooks and teaching materials were a very successful addition to a folktale unit.14 RESEARCH REPORT: Guided Reading Strategies to Improve Students’ Critical Thinking Skills in Grades Three, Four and Five
THE TEACHING APPROACH IN GRADE FOURDirect Guided Reading instruction was the focus for a novel study on Stone fox byJohn Reynolds Gardiner (1980). Students participated in a variety of activitiesdesigned to promote higher level thinking skills from Literature and criticalthinking, Book 1 by John Carratello. Students read up to Chapters 5 and 6, andthen did an activity about being a responsible person. In the novel, they learnedthat the main character had many responsibilities so then the students had toconnect the book to their own lives. Students had to think of how and in whatways they were responsible. They also had to write if they thought they could carefor their Grandpa like the character Little Willy had to and answer why or why not.Then they had to think of five ways that they could earn $500, like Little Willy. Theideas had to be real ways and not “make-believe.” The students also had to writea prediction of whom they thought would win the big race, and what theythought would happen. Then they read the book to find out. Afterwards, theywatched the video, Stone Fox. Students recorded the similarities and differencesbetween the book and the video.Students reading the novel, Stone Fox, Grade 4.After reading, the Grade Four students filled in a Literature Log. This pageincluded the following stems: the best part was…, the worst part was…, the mainproblem was…, problem was solved when…, my favorite character was…, my leastfavorite character was…, I laughed when…, and I cried when….Following the novel study, the Grade Four students’ comprehension levels wereassessed on the computer in a variety of ways. Students did an Accelerated Readerquiz with ten questions on the novel to help measure their basic comprehensionskills. Then they did a Vocabulary quiz, and something new – a Literacy Skills quiz.The Vocabulary test had five multiple-choice type questions on the meaning of avariety of words from the novel. On the Literacy skills quiz, students were askedto answer 12 questions. There were four categories on the Stone Fox Literacy Skillsquiz, each with three questions:1) initial understanding,2) literacy analysis,3) inferential comprehension, and4) constructing meaning.RESEARCH REPORT: Guided Reading Strategies to Improve Students’ Critical Thinking Skills in Grades Three, Four and Five15
Page 7: IntroductionTHE RESEARCHERSFour tea
Page 10: Research QuestionHow can Guided Rea
Page 15 and 16: The researcher discovered that “[
Page 17 and 18: • a poem, on one side - what the
Page 19: • word sorts, and• anticipation
Page 23 and 24: HOW WOULD STUDENTS REACT TO BEING G
Page 25 and 26: • identifying the main idea of ea
Page 27 and 28: Summary of DataSTUDENT INTERVIEWSWH
Page 29 and 30: In November, with the support of re
Page 31 and 32: Grade Five students read one inform
Page 33 and 34: • Teaching a small class of 11 st
Page 35 and 36: LimitationsThe research was not wit
Page 37 and 38: ReferencesAssessment ToolsAlberta E
Page 39 and 40: Ketch, A. (2005). Conversation the
Page 41 and 42: Appendix 2: Release FormRelease For
Page 43 and 44: Appendix 4: Student Work SamplesA)
Page 45 and 46: Appendix 4: Student Work SamplesC)
Page 47 and 48: 3. Did writing or drawing in your A
Page 49 and 50: RESEARCH REPORT: Guided Reading Str
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