Strategies That Work To Increase Students’ Reading

By Sandra TaylorPresented by Gerardo Vazquez

Research QuestionWhat strategies work to increase students’ reading?

RationaleWhen Sandra was a young girl she struggled through

reading classes. It wasn’t until 10th grade that she met someone who introduced her to ghost stories. As she began to love reading:

Her comprehension grew.She had conversations that helped her with

clarification of the material.She gained strategies to help her with other types

of texts.When she started her assignment at Leroy F. Greene

Middle School in Sacramento, she saw that many of her students could not comprehend, and could not communicate with others about what they read.

She conducted a study using different strategies to help motivate readers.

Research Methodology

For the study, Sandra decided to encourage reading, and to collect data she would:

Create a reading-rich environmentGive the students a Time Investment SurveyTake the students on visits to the libraryDivide the students into literature circlesGive a pretest and posttestGive a Reading Interest Survey

Creating a Reading-Rich EnvironmentThey had in class books shares. They would look at

the front book cover, the summary on the back, and share information about the author as a class.

She would allow students to talk to each other about books they have read.

The only requirement for the classroom library was that she had to have read the book. This was so that she could recommend and discuss the books with the students.

The students generated a bulletin board listing their favorite books.

There were newspapers available for the students to read on their spare time

Time Investment SurveyThe Time Investment Survey was a daily record

sheet of all of the students specific activities, every half hour, including:

When they did homework, and what it wasWhen they watched TV, and what they

watchedWhen and what they ateWhen and what they read

Library VisitsDuring visits to the library Sandra would: Record time and task behaviors of the

students in a journalLimit the areas the students could go toLimit the books they could choose from

Literature CirclesEach literature circle:Was divided into groups of 4 or 5Picked a different book Member got the same bookDecided on how many pages to read each dayAssigned jobs to each otherSandra also kept track of the individual

behavior of each student during literature circle time.

Pretest and PosttestEach students was tested for fluency and

vocabulary at the beginning and end of the study.The students were given a grade appropriate text

and a red pen.The student read silently for 2 minutes and then

circled the word they finished on.Then they started at the circled word and

repeated these steps four other times, for a total of 10 minutes read.

Then they calculated the number of words per minute read.

Pretest and PosttestTo test for vocabulary the students were

given a list of 150 words.100 hundred of the words were real, and 50

words were made-up.The students then read the words and circled

“know” if they knew the words or “don’t know” if they didn’t know the word.

They were scored with one point for each word they knew that was correct, and had two points subtracted for each made-up word that they “know.”

Reading Interest SurveyAll of the students were given a Reading

Interest Survey.The purpose of the survey was to get

information on the students’ reading habits, movie and TV habits, the types of books they read, and if their parents read.

The following slides are some results of the survey

Is a Newspaper Delivered to your home?

Lower Level Middle Level GATE Level0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

YesNo

This Chart shows that only 60% of Lower level students had a paper delivered to their home compared to 80% of Gate students.

Amount of Time Watching TV

Lower Level Middle Level

GATE Level0%

10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

100%

1-2 hours a day3-4 hours a day5 or more hours a day

Approximately 90% of lower level students. 85 % of middle level students, and 35% of GATE level students watch more than 2 hours of TV a day.

How often do you go to the movies?

once per week

once every two

weeks

once a month

3-4 times

per year

never0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Lower LevelMiddle LevelGATE Level

Lower Level students go to the movies more often than Middle Level and Gate Level students.

Observing Parent Reading

Lower Level Middle Level GATE Level0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

FrequentlySeldomNot at all

Middle Level students observe their parents reading more frequently than both Lower Level and GATE Level students.

Results

Results for the Time Investment Survey:Correlation of Survey and observations in

class indicated that after in-class book shares casual reading increased.

When students chose their own books for the group to read, television viewing decreased.

ResultsResults for Library visitsIn the beginning of the study, many students

were observed being off task in the library.At the end of the study, all of the students but

one displayed appropriate behavior and were on task.

The amount of time it took students to choose a book and go to their seats decreased from 45 minutes to 15 minutes.

ResultsResults for the Literature circles were:The Lower Level students had an increase of

7% of on task behaviors, the Middle Level had an increase of 24%, and the GATE Level had an increase of 12%.

The teacher observed more students on task when they had the option of what to read.

The comprehension score of the overall class increased by 23%.

ResultsFrom the Pretest to the Posttest their was an

increase in both fluency and vocabulary.There was a gain of 17% for both the Middle

Level and Lower Level students in fluency, and an increase of 15% for the GATE Level.

For vocabulary, the scores of the Lower Level and Middle Level groups increased 16%. Whereas the GATE Level increased 7%

ConclusionAll of the methods of reading engagement

that were used (creating a rich reading environment, using literature circles, limiting books in the library, and creating a dialogue about literature) showed that they were successful in getting students to read.

In order for students to read for pleasure, they need to be “hooked” on the idea.

Application to my classroomI have always had trouble motivating some of my

students to read on their own. I always have a few who read without being told, but the majority of my class always seems to pay attention anything else, except for their book. Sandra Taylor gave several strategies of how to encourage students to read. Taylor also saw an improvement in reading fluency and vocabulary knowledge in her students. As a Social Justice educator, anything that I can do to help my students close the “achievement gap” is helpful. As I try this in my own class, I’d like to see if the same strategies would help my EL students learn and become familiar with more words, as assessed by the vocabulary test given by Taylor.

References

There was no supporting Literature used.There are no references given.