Running head: INORMATIONAL TEXTS AND READ-ALOUDS 1

Implementing Read Alouds to Increase Comprehension of Informational Texts

Brittney Vargas

Franciscan University of Steubenville

INORMATIONAL TEXTS AND READ-ALOUDS 2

Introduction

Informational texts are books that have an immense amount of potential to engage

students in the physical, social and biological world around them. Brozo and Calo (2006) go so

far as to say the informational texts are the key to sparking curiosity and understanding the

world. However, in my experience in the classroom as a student and as a preservice teacher, I

have not seen them used to their fullest potential. Narrative texts are often used in the classroom

because they are easy to incorporate in English Language Arts instruction. To proceed we must

clarify the difference between an informational and narrative text. A narrative text is one that

tells a story and requires students to connect with characters with in the story (Hoffman, Collins,

& Schickedanz, 2015). An Informational text is a book that gives information and whose main

purpose is to inform students about a topic (Lynch-Brown, Tomlinson, & Short, 2011). The two

books are different in many ways, one of which is text structure. Informational texts have

external text factors that can aid in comprehension when used properly. As there are many

features that are unfamiliar to most primary grade students because of their lack of exposure to

informational texts, read alouds are a great way to introduce informational texts. Using the

strategy of a read-aloud, will increase the comprehension of the text (Chlapana, 2016). What

inspired my pursuit of this topic as an understanding that informational texts can help engage

students, but that there needed to be an effective way to introduce these texts to students in a way

that is guided but allows for interaction and comprehension of the material.

Purpose

Comprehension of material when reading is essential, and arguably, the essence of

reading itself. To comprehend informational texts, primary grade students must first learn how to

read informational texts. Students are accustomed to reading narrative texts and can typically
INORMATIONAL TEXTS AND READ-ALOUDS 3

easily comprehend the stories presented and relate to the characters and experiences. In

informational texts, the purpose is not to connect with a story or characters, but to inform the

reader. Teachers can model for students how to use all the features of an informational text

through the use of read-alouds. These thoughts led to my research question: What impact does

the integration of read-alouds have on the comprehension of concepts covered in informational

texts?

In my research, I hope to see the effectiveness of read-alouds on comprehension. I also

would like to become more familiar with the implementation of informational texts in the

classroom. My hope is that by evaluating this strategy, I can gain experience in using a strategy

that I could use in my future classroom. I will use the format of a case study to carryout this

research. I will arrange to meet with a student and conduct my research in two sessions. The first

as a control, and the second will be implementing a read-aloud.

I hypothesize that my research will show that read-alouds are an effective strategy to aid

in comprehension of informational texts. In the read-aloud, I plan to introduce the external text

features found in an informational book and how to use them. I will also prompt my student by

asking questions and draw on her prior knowledge to further aid in comprehension.

Review of Literature

An assumption can be made that using informational texts in a classroom is difficult and

lacks the potential to engage students in the material. McClure and Fullerton (2017) present an

example of interactive read-alouds using an informational text in a third-grade classroom by

taking the reader step-by-step through the process of the read-aloud. Read-alouds can be an

effective way to present informational text to a class while engaging students and facilitating
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discussion. There are several things to consider before using this approach in the classroom, one

of which is the needs of the students. As with any strategy that is used in the classroom, the

teacher must consider the needs of his or her students. McClure & Fullerton stress being

thoughtful at every stage of preparing a read-aloud. The main goal of a read-aloud in this article

is to model for students how they should approach an informational text, noticing all features of

the text and being thoughtful of all information that is provided to them, so that students may get

the most out of the text that is being read. Other than the thoughtful planning of the read-aloud,

the author presented the “I do-We do-You do” method. In this method, the goal is to take

students from being dependent on the teacher’s comments during a read-aloud, to being able to

be autonomous in their practice of the strategy. By implementing interactive read-alouds in the

classroom, teachers can create opportunities for students to engage in thoughtful discussion with

the text and with each other.

McClure & Fullerton brought up some practical approaches for implementing interactive

read-alouds in the classroom. It was easy to see how this strategy can be effectively implemented

in the classroom. One aspect of the article that was very interesting was the emphasis of being

intentional with selection and implementation. With the use of the “I do-We do-You do”

strategy, students are able to not only practice their reading comprehension skills, but they are

practicing taking ownership of their own learning. Educators are meant to be facilitators, not

dispensers, of knowledge, this particular strategy lends itself nicely to achieving this. The “Take

Action” section of the text is an excellent resource to have when planning an interactive read-

aloud for a classroom, it takes the information from the article and lays it out step-by-step for the

educator. A suggestion for future research on this subject would be to see the effectiveness of

this strategy across the content areas or to see the effectiveness of this strategy in the increase of
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learner autonomy. Overall, the implementation of this strategy is an easy way to guide students

through an informational text and a great way to promote student engagement with informational

texts.

In their study, Hoffman, Collins, & Schickedanz (2015) seek to integrate literacy

instruction in science instruction through the use of informational texts. Changes in the focus of

curriculum that shift attention to literacy instruction, encourage teachers to incorporate science

and social studies instruction to be text based. One way that researchers have accomplished this

task is using informational texts. Researchers suggest presenting informational texts using read-

alouds. Informational texts tend to be more complex for students to understand, they have a

unique text structure and content specific vocabulary that is not typically heard in everyday

language. Read-alouds are an effective way to introduce this material in a controlled way. When

the teacher is reading the text with students, he or she is able to highlight certain text features,

activate prior knowledge, ask reflection questions, and connect content in the book to content in

standards. Teachers should be thoughtful and selective when looking for an informational text to

share with their class in the same way that they should be selective with the strategies that they

choose to implement. Hoffman, Collins and Schickedanz provide a very detailed chart with

points that educators should consider when selecting a text for their students. Researchers

provide four main points for teachers to consider when using this method in their classroom. The

first is to select high-quality literature that connects to the content. Second, give students the

tools to properly absorb and use the material presented. Third, aid students in making

connections to content and prior knowledge. Lastly, deepen their own knowledge of the content

to be better able to serve students.

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A point that researchers brought up in this article that is of the utmost importance for

informational texts is selecting high-quality material. This is a point that has not been addressed

in other literature on the subject of the use of informational texts for read-alouds. The

information provided in the article was easy to understand and thoroughly explained. The clarity

provided on the subject would make it easy for educators to implement this strategy in their

classrooms. Another feature of this article that was not included in other literature was the

difference between informational texts and narrative texts. This point is important in highlighting

the difference between the two, and how they are both effective in different ways. This article is

relevant because it illustrates the practicality of integrating literacy instruction into various

content areas by means of informational texts. A suggestion for future research would be looking

at creating a formal rubric for educators to evaluate informational texts before they use them as

part of their lessons. If there is a standardized rubric, every student will be receiving quality

literature if their teacher chooses to use this method of instruction.

Santoro et al. (2016), follows the teacher Mr. Alexander as he implements read-alouds for

his first-grade special education students as they prepare for a general education lesson on

insects. Mr. Alexander uses small group instruction to carry out the read-aloud. Along with the

read-aloud, Mr. Alexander also uses a K-W-L chart. The article stresses the importance of being

thoughtful in selecting a text and intentional in the questions that you plan to ask students. The

goal of using a read-aloud in this setting is to expose students to concepts they will be learning

about, to introduce vocabulary, and to improve reading comprehension. Another aim of this

strategy is to get students comfortable with informational texts, by guiding them through the text

pointing out components that are important for comprehension.

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The implementation of read-alouds in small group instruction can benefit all students, not

just students with exceptionalities. An advantage of small groups is there are less people, which

can help students engage more with peers and the text if they would be too shy to in whole group

instruction. In this article, what was helpful was the emphasis on the importance of exposing

students to a variety of informational texts. Additionally, it gave a practical approach to guiding

students through the comprehension of the text. A direction that I would like to see research go is

to explore the idea of implementing this approach in a general education classroom. It would be

difficult but incorporating the small group instruction can be part of a center’s activity. Overall,

researchers do an excellent job of explaining the importance of informational texts, along with a

practical approach to present them in a special education small group.

Chlapana (2016), looks at implementing strategies to increase the cognitive involvement

and comprehension when reading informational texts. The researcher defines cognitive

involvement as being able to answer and ask questions about the text. Comprehension skills were

defined as the ability to predict, utilize previous knowledge, analyze, and summarize important

information in the text. Research was conducted for two months using a kindergarten classroom

in a rural area of Greece. The program implemented was integrated as part of the teachers

everyday teaching, the teacher received training from the researcher on how to effectively

implement strategies. There were four phases included in the program created by the researcher.

Phase one included introducing what informational texts are, and how to use them, being sure to

explain special text features that are not included in narrative texts. Phase two was the reciprocal

teaching phase. In this phase the teacher modeled the following elements: predicting, clarifying,

questioning and summarizing. It is at this stage that the teacher used the read aloud strategy to

practice the elements listed above. Phase three included utilizing a KWL chart, and phase four is
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dialogic reading. Dialogic reading as described by the researcher could be considered an

interactive read-aloud. Dialogic reading is where students can show their understanding of the

comprehension strategies that were taught and demonstrate them in an explicit way to the

teacher. The researcher reported that through the implementation of this program, students had a

deeper understanding of the material read, and showed that they had a better understanding of

informational text features. Towards the end of the research, students were making use of the

special text features that were included such as the table of contents and glossary. The findings

of this study show that with the use of multiple strategies that were implemented, kindergarteners

are able to comprehend informational texts and make use of them to practice their

comprehension skills.

The research presented by Chlapana, shows that informational texts can and should be

used starting in the primary grades. It also shows that when using the multiple strategies outlined

by the researcher, students will have a deeper understanding of the informational text being

presented. The method used was a combination of a few strategies, while read-alouds were not

explicitly stated as one of the strategies, the explanation of reciprocal teaching and dialogic

reading given by the researcher fit that of a read aloud and an interactive read-aloud. The

research conducted demonstrates that informational texts can be used in the classroom in an

effective way by younger readers. When first reading this article, it was difficult to follow the

phases outlined by the researcher. After rereading the methodology, it became clear why each

phase was placed where it was. A possible future direction for research would be implementing

this program for a longer amount of time. Another suggestion would be having a pre-assessment

of student’s knowledge of informational text to have something to compare the end result to.

Also, looking at whole group instruction compared to small group instruction when
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implementing this method. The emphasis on external text features and the process of introducing

these texts is something that I will look to do in the current research. When students understand

how to use informational texts, they are able to further comprehend what they are reading.

Methodology

The participant in this research is a six-year-old first grader in the Ohio Valley from a

low-income area. I work with this student for Success for All (SFA) tutoring. I have been

working with this student for the entirety of this semester. She began the semester at a very basic

level of understanding in reading. Through focused and data driven instruction, this student has

made progress. This student has been given the Dynamic Indicator of Basic Early Literacy Skills

(DIBELS) and scored below benchmark in her composite score. I was aware of her ability before

selecting her for my research. The participant could be categorized in a population which

includes underperforming students in low income areas. She is not representative of the

population of the whole. The sample used for this research is a convenience sample.

The first process of my research was planning on which texts to select, and a method of

assessment. I went to the campus library to select texts to present to my participant. For my

assessment, I adapted an oral retelling checklist that can be found on page 273 of Teaching

Children to Read: The Teacher Makes the Difference. I selected From Seed to Plant by Gail

Gibbons for my control session. This text contains striking visuals that are clear, in addition to a

very descriptive style of writing. For my control, I read the book without any additional

comments or questions. However, if the participant were to ask a question about the text or point

out something in a diagram, I would address the question. In the first session, I began by saying

that we were going to be reading a book together and I wanted her to pay extra attention because

I was going to ask her to tell me what we talked about. During the session, the participant was
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engaged in the reading and did ask questions about the pictures in the book that labeled the parts

of a flower. When finished with the book, she asked if I could go back a few pages. She was

interested in the engagement activity that shows how to grow seeds at home. She asked me if I

had ever grown seeds, I answered, she did not ask any further questions. I then took out the

checklist of big ideas and asked the participant to tell me everything she could about the story.

For the second session, I selected the text Sunshine by Gail Saunders-Smith. I also

created a checklist for this text that outlined the book for assessing the oral retell. In this session,

I started by noting the features of the text, table of contents and glossary. We then took a few

moments to read through the glossary together before beginning the read-aloud. In the read-

aloud, I incorporated questions, observations and visuals to deepen understanding of the

material. On the day of the second session, the participant noted that she was feeling tired and

placed her head down on the desk at several points during the read-aloud. When she would

engage in this behavior, I would redirect her to the activity.

The space where I conducted research contained many environmental distractions, but

due to limited space at the school, I was unable to change locations. There is a box of puppets in

the room, during the second session the participant kept going in the box and wanting to take out

all the puppets. At first, I discouraged this behavior. When the participant persisted, I allowed

her to pick one puppet to read to. My thought process behind this was to lean into the distraction

by making it a source of motivation for the student. This was effective for a total of two minutes.

After the two minutes, the penguin puppet was telling the participant that she “did not need to

answer the questions anymore.” The participant then asked if she could grab a drink, I allowed

her to and I put the puppet back in the box, as it was becoming more of a distraction. When the

participant returned the box was not accessible and I said that our friend was feeling tired and
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needed to go to sleep. Despite the distractions, she was engaged in the read-aloud and did answer

prompts.

Findings

As the participant is in the first grade and is below benchmark in her early literacy skills,

I knew that there could be some variations in my results. The checklist used for the oral retell

was organized into big ideas and details. For the first text there were three big ideas and 15

details. Of the three big ideas, she was able to recall one. She was able to recall that plants come

from seeds. After a number of prompts, she was able to recall four details that were pre-written,

and she stated one additional detail that was not on the check list. From the pictures in the book,

the participant was able to state that humans also aid in seed distribution because they sell seeds

at the store to plant at home. I expected her to recall more from the story, but considering her

achievement level, she did recall an adequate amount of information from the text.

In the second session, a checklist was made that contained four big ideas and 16 details.

The participant was able to recall three of the big ideas and 5 details as outlined on the checklist.

The student needed to be prompted several times before she engaged in the retelling of

information. When she would state a big idea, I would ask her if she remembered anything else,

often using the words from the glossary to try and jumpstart her thinking, this was not as

effective as I hoped. These results are better than the previous session, but do not accurately

reflect the student’s ability. In this session, the participant was off task frequently and was

distracted by several environmental factors, which included her penguin friend.

Comparing the two results, there was little to no difference at all. In the first session,

33% of the big ideas were recalled and 33% of the details were recalled. In the second session,
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the participant was able to recall 75% of the main ideas and 31% of the details. Looking at the

numbers, she performed better in the second session, for the big ideas. For the details, the

percentages show that she performed better in the first session. However, she recalled the same

number of details for each. The second session had one additional detail listed on the checklist

which made the overall score lower, though the same number or details were recalled.

My research question was answered in the affirmative, though the results were not as

definitive as I had hoped. The results show a similar performance in the sessions, but I would say

the session two, the read-aloud, slightly outperformed the first session. Though the results are

marginal, they do support the prior research. Based on the research conducted, there is value in

read-alouds in aiding comprehension of informational texts.

Recommendations

Should this research continue, I would like to have more participants and cover a wider

variety of material. Some limitations of my study were the small sample size and the poor

environment for conducting research. I had planned to have more participants, but when I

conducted my research, the student was absent every time I went to the school. This was a factor

that was out of my control, but it did not stop me from conducting my research. Because of the

reduced sample size, my results do not have the same weight behind them and was a contributing

factor to the marginal results. Some additional steps that can be taken are conducting the study

with a larger sample size, informational texts that go beyond the content area of science and

incorporating a session that exclusively looks at how to use informational texts. I would have

also like to have a questioner for the teacher to gauge the amount of exposure that my participant

had to informational text before this research was conducted. Furthering the use of informational

texts in the classroom is easier than some teachers would imagine, if they have the proper
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strategies to introduce the texts. Students should have exposure to this type of literature because

they will encounter it throughout their academic careers. If from a young age they are taught how

to use the external text features and comprehension strategies are modeled for them, I believe

they will be better able to comprehend concepts being taught.

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Bibliography

Brozo, W., & Calo, K. (2006). Teaching with informational text to engage young learners:

Making our thinking explicit. Thinking Classroom, 7(2), 47–48.

Chlapana, E. (2016) An intervention programme for enhancing kindergarteners’ cognitive

engagement and comprehension skills through reading informational texts. Literacy,

50(3), 125-132.

Hoffman, J. L., Collins, M. F., & Schickedanz, J. A. (2015). Instructional challenges in

developing young children’s science concepts: Using informational text read-alouds. The

Reading Teacher, 68(5), 363–372. DOI: 10.1002/trtr.1325

Lynch-Brown, C., Tomilson, C. M., & Short, K. G. (2011) Essentials of children’s literature (7th

ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education.

McClure, E. L. & Fullerton, S. K. (2017). Instructional interactions: Supporting students’

reading development through interactive read-alouds of informational text. The Reading

Teacher, 71(1), 51-59. DOI:10.1002/trtr.1576

Pavri, S. (2012). Effective assessment of students: Determining responsiveness to instruction.

Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.

Reutzel, D. R., & Cooter, R. B., Jr. (2012) Teaching children to read: The teacher makes the

difference. Boston, MA: Pearson Education.

INORMATIONAL TEXTS AND READ-ALOUDS 15

Santoro, L. E., Baker, S. K., Flen, H., Smith, J. L. M., & Chard, D. J. (2016) Using read-alouds

to help struggling readers access and comprehend complex, informational text.

TEACHING Exceptional Children, 48(6) 282 –292. DOI: 10.1177/0040059916650634

INORMATIONAL TEXTS AND READ-ALOUDS 16

Appendix

Oral Informational Text Retelling:

From Seed to Plant
____ Big Idea: Plants start as seeds.
____Detail: Seeds come in different shapes, sizes and colors.
____Detail: Seeds grow into the same plant that they came from.
____Detail: Seeds grow in flowers.
____Detail: Seeds grow in the ground
____Detail: Seeds need water and sun to grow.
____ Big Idea: Many Plants grow flowers.
____Detail: Flowers are where seeds begin.
____Detail: Flowers have different parts.
____Detail: For a seed to develop, pollen must land on the stigma.
____Detail: Pollination can happen in different ways( animals, wind).
____Detail: Pollen must come from the same type of flower for seeds to grow.
____Detail: Fruit/ Pod protects seeds.
____ Big Idea: Seed distribution
____Detail: Fall on the ground
____Detail: Animals
____Detail: Water (streams, ponds, rivers, ocean)
____Detail: Wind

____/3 Big Ideas ____/15 Details ____ # of Prompts

Sequentially Retold? YES NO

Were text features used? YES NO

Other Ideas Recalled including Inferences:

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Oral Informational Text Retelling:

Sunshine
____ Big Idea: What sunshine is
____Detail: Light from the sun
____Detail: Travels to earth in rays

____ Big Idea: Heating the earth

____Detail: The rays heat the atmosphere
____Detail: Atmosphere is the air around the earth
____Detail: Day on one half of the earth at a time
____Detail: Equator is where the top & bottom of the earth meet
____Detail: Sun makes the air near the equator warmer
____Detail: Weaker sun rays at the top & bottom of the earth (cold)

____ Big Idea: Seasons

____Detail: Sunshine makes the season on earth
____Detail: When the top of the earth points toward the sun it is summer in the north
____Detail: When the bottom of the earth points toward the sun it is summer in the
south

____ Big Idea: Weather

____Detail: The sun heats some pockets of the atmosphere more than others
____Detail: The pockets move and make wind
____Detail: Sunshine heats water evaporates
____Detail: Water in the air makes clouds
____Detail: Clouds carry water around the earth

____/4 Big Ideas ____/16 Details ____ # of Prompts

Sequentially Retold? YES NO

Were text features used? YES NO

Other Ideas Recalled including Inferences:

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