RATIONALE

The History, Need, and Importance

History

My capstone project was designed to benefit my entire class of students by gaining a better understanding of reading. The instructional strategy I focused on was targeted questioning. The strategy could be implemented across all grade levels and subject areas. There were 237 students enrolled in our building as of 2018. The students in the building had an enrollment rate of 32% being a minority, mainly of Hispanic culture. In the school, 49% of the students participated in the free or reduced lunch program, with 34% of the school’s population receiving free lunch. Unfortunately, this likely meant that students did not have the resources for free reading outside of school hours. One student in my classroom mentioned that he did not own books at home. Another student’s parents did not graduate from high school, and he mentioned that his parents would never read with him. I gave my students a self-assessment before fall parent-teacher conferences in which one of the questions asked the students how often they read at home. Five students indicated they never read at home, which could also affect their reading ability and individual vocabulary. I taught the only full section of fourth-grade at my school, with 19 students in my class. The students in my classroom struggled with comprehension in reading, which affected them in all areas of their lives. The school used the Fountas & Pinnell Benchmark Assessment System and the Measures of Academic Progress testing to identify students who needed reading intervention. Out of 19 students, nine received a specialized reading program from a reading specialist. One other student received specialized intervention with the special education teacher. Both interventions made up 53% of my students receiving reading interventions. These interventions took place four days a week for 30 minutes each session.

Need

The data I collected from my students showed a need for improvement in answering questions about the text and beyond the text. Five students in my classroom scored below grade level expectations using the Fountas & Pinnell Benchmark Assessment System at the beginning of the year. The average accuracy of the class was 97%, with only one student reading at 92% accuracy. This statistic showed that the majority of students were able to successfully decode text in the passage but struggled with the comprehension portion of the Fountas & Pinnell leveling system. Students scored on average 5 out of 9 points on the comprehension portion of the assessment. Out of three points possible, questions that were within the text had an average of 2.1 points, but beyond the text questions averaged 1.5 points and about the text questions averaged 1.6 points at the beginning of the year. Students had the ability to recall the information within the text but struggled with questions such as author's purpose and theme. Both questions, about the text and beyond the text, were frequently missed by the students during the discussion after the reading. The difficulty with comprehension also showed during the students' weekly benchmark test scores. Ten of the nineteen students scored an average of ‘partial understanding’ or ‘needs support’ during their weekly comprehensive reading tests within the first quarter. All of these ten students scored below 80% average on all tests. Seven of the students in the class scored below average on the Fall Measures of Academic Progress Assessment (MAP) in the area of Reading. This showed that 37% of the class was below grade level in reading. The MAP Assessment produced a standard deviation of 16.3, which called for a need for differentiation since the core curriculum would not meet the diverse needs of all of my students. All test scores showed that there was a need for improvement of questioning during guided reading instruction. My students struggled to answer deeper level questions that required them to think about the text.

Importance

The information from the study was important because it allowed me to see how each individual student improved on their comprehension in reading and set the foundation for future reading comprehension questions. It allowed me to be able to assist my students in all areas of their schooling and future reading. The improvement of higher level questioning ensured that students could understand story problems in math and comprehensive text in subjects such as social studies and science. I altered the instruction to meet the needs of all students. I analyzed the students’ individual levels and structured questioning depending on where they individually needed to improve. As an educator, I wanted to improve guided reading instruction so students could gain skills to be a better reader for a lifetime. I wanted to phrase questioning in a way that challenged the students’ thinking but also was at a reachable level for the student. I wanted them to notice a growth within their scores, but also their ability to think about texts as they read them. I hoped my students would gain a positive attitude toward reading and thinking deeper about reading. I had the opportunity to utilize my resources such as the reading specialist, team members, principal, and special education teacher to become a well-rounded reading teacher. This showed me the importance of why I needed to utilize my internal stakeholders in future teaching to make well-constructed decisions for my students.