ACTION

RESEARCH
Abigail Hancock
Second Grade

Choosing My Students
Background on my classroom
Meeting with teacher
Identified students
Talked about the needs of students A, K, and S
I was given a text
Creating a research question
What are best practices for improving nonfiction
Comprehension in higher level reading students?

The Importance of Nonfiction

Nonfiction is often overlooked in the classroom
Common Core Standards place more emphasis on nonfiction
Increases background knowledge
(Goodwin & Miller 2013)
Giving students more time to read nonfiction is not sufficient
(Topping et al., 2008)
Leads to questioning the world around them
(Ghiso, 2013)

Best Practice Research

Strategies
Sticky notes for asking questions and interesting information
Engages students in the text
The teacher should model making connections
Graphic organizers
Writing down questions before reading (Harvey & Goudvis)
Board = Paper (Lemov, 2010)

Focus
Nonfiction text features
Picking out important information
Answering questions from the text

Assessments
Text Features Assessment
Bye-Bye, Fly Reading Comprehension Assessment
Animals with Parachutes Reading Comprehension Assessment

Text Features

Bye-Bye, Fly

http://www.cnusd.k12.ca.us/cms/lib/CA01001152/Centricity/Domain/1403/grades

Animals with Parachutes

http://www.cnusd.k12.ca.us/cms/lib/CA01001152/Centricity/Domain/1403/grades

Progress Monitoring

Overview of Meetings
Sessions

What we did

Notes

Pre-session (Oct. Met with teacher

1)
1 (Oct. 14)

Initial Assessments

Happy to complete

2 (Oct. 15)

Initial Assessments Cont.

3 (Oct. 21)

Teaching Nonfiction Text

Features
- Sticky Notes
- Poster for reference

Loved this, very engaged and

worked together

4. (Oct. 27)

Noting new information

- Sticky Notes

Talked about their prior

experiences

5 (Oct. 29)

Graphic Organizer with Rocks

book

Talked about their prior

experiences

6 (Nov. 3)

Mid-Point Assessment

Ran out of time for one

assessment

7 (Nov. 5)

Remediation: Text Features File

Folder

Loved this, collaborated

together

8 (Nov. 19)

Final Assessment

Tired of reading the same

Sample of Work

Assessment Results
Text Features Assessment

"Bye-Bye, Fly" Comprehension Assessment

8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0

5
4
3
2
1
0

Student K

Student A

Student K

Student S

Student S

Total Possible Points

Student A

Total Possible Points

"Animals with Parachutes" Comprehension Assessment

4
3.5
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0

Pre-Assessment Mid-Point Assessment Post-Assessment

Student K

Student S

Student A

Total Possible Points

Reflection
I wish I had individualize this more
Student K was clearly ahead of the others
I would have liked to have been able to focus more on explicitly
answering questions from the text
Thought they needed to note important information first
Helped with locating answers

I was unable to do all of the Mid-Point Assessments

Although I was hesitant at first, this makes me excited to continue to
learn more as I become a teacher
Seeing student improvement is worth it

Questions and Suggestions

What other things could I have done better?
What suggestions do you have for individualizing the instruction?

Resources
Ghiso, M. P. (2013). Playing with/through Non-Fiction Texts: Young Children
Authoring Their
Relationships with History. Journal Of Early Childhood Literacy, 13(1), 26-51.
Goodwin, B., & Miller, K. (2013, Jan). Research Says/Nonfiction Reading
Promotes Student
Success. Received from http://www.ascd.org/publications/educationalleadership/dec12/vol70/num04/Nonfiction-Reading-Promotes-StudentSuccess.aspx.
Harvey, S., & Goudvis, A. (2007). Strategies that Work: Teaching
Comprehension for
Understanding and Engagement. Stenhouse Publishers.
Lemov, D. (2010). Teach Like a Champion: 49 Techniques that put Students on
thePath to
College. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc Pub.
Miller, D. (2013). The Dazzling World of Nonfiction. Educational Leadership,