Students Questions: From “Speakers of Text” to “Comprehenders of Text” By: Nate Stierhoff EDU /24/11

Focus Statement This research examined ways to promote comprehension through developing students and understanding how questioning leads to comprehension. The researcher searched for ways to encourage students do less “speaking” of the text and do more “thinking” about the ideas of the text.

Review of Literature: QAR In The BookIn My Head Right There -Answer is in the text Author and You -Answer NOT in the story Think and Search -Put it together On My Own -Don’t even have to read the story (Cortese, 2003)

Review of Literature: Cortese Emma Cortese (2003) has created a great program to help students who struggle with reading comprehension and do not benefit from the regular text based QAR. The program suggested using picture books with very detailed illustrations to help students begin to grasp the idea of plot prediction and character issues. The teacher for example may use the QAR technique of having student look at the front cover of a book and begin to discuss what they believe the story is about based on the Own My Own QAR.

Review of Literature: Kinniburgh Implementing QAR vocabulary (such as In the Book, Right There, Etc) in the classroom can greatly help students who struggle with reading comprehension. In a regular classroom you may have students who when confronted with a question may say they cannot find the answer and give up. The fact is that these students’ problems are not that they can’t find the answer because of their ability; it is because they do not know where to look for the answer. (Kinniburgh, 2010).

Research Questions The first question I planned to answer was if 1st grade students understood the definition/importance of reading comprehension. The next question I wanted to answer was if my cooperating teacher was familiar with the QAR strategy, and if they were how do they try and use the QAR theories in teaching reading comprehension. The final question that I wanted to answer was what techniques do1st grade students use to answer reading comprehension questions.

Description of Participants, Location, Environment My data was collecting from a 1st grade classroom as I spent 3 hours 3 times week observing the classroom during their SFA reading period. (SFA: Success For All) The school I was observing at was a very rural school in a farming community. The classroom I observed consisted of 12 students all of which at equal or similar reading levels

Results I spent each day working with a different group of students as they answered reading comprehension questions in their daily reading manual and I recorded how students told me they came to the answers. “I remembered it from the story” 7 “I went back and found the answer” 3 “I just already knew it”1 “My partner helped me figure it out” 1

Results Six of the 12 students gave a reasonable definition of what reading comprehension was and the other half seemed to be completely unfamiliar with the word other than it was on the cover of their daily reading manual. Of the 6 who knew what reading comprehension was I was interested to find that all had the same answer to what the importance of reading comprehension was other than one students. “It is important so you can answer questions about the book” “It is important so you can learn from what you read and gain knowledge”

Results As my CT graduated from Wilmington College she had some familiarity with the QAR strategy and she even wrote out a diagram similar to Figure 1. She explained that she was familiar with the QAR strategy for reading comprehension but she did not get to implement its strategies or language in her classroom as she is handcuffed by the curriculum she is given.

References Cortese, Emma. "The Application of Question-Answer Relationship Strategies to Pictures." International Reading Association 57.4 (2003): Print. Kinniburgh, Leah. "Question Answer Relationships in the primary grades: Laying the foundation for reading comprehension." International Journal of Early Childhood Special Education 2.1 (2010): Print. Raphael, Taffy. "QAR: Enchancing comprehension and test taking across grades and content areas." The Reading Teacher 59.3 (2005): Print.