Study of a high school reading class

Thesis (Education (Language and Literacy))--California State University, Sacramento, 2015.Struggling adolescent readers enter high school at a disadvantage and need support in order to advance their reading skills. The Reading Tutorial class, the focus of this study, can provide this support. This descriptive study presents information that helps determine the instructional needs of struggling adolescent readers. \ud This study described students??? literacy needs across five categories: overall reading comprehension, comprehension strategies and study skills, vocabulary and background knowledge, fluency, and motivation and attitudes towards reading. While some data was collected from all 21 students in the class, the study???s focus was on eight students, 7 freshmen, 1 sophomore, 5 males, and 3 females. Data collected derived from surveys of students??? knowledge and use of comprehension strategies as well as their attitudes toward reading and how they proceeded when faced with reading difficulties. In addition, students provided data through assessments of reading comprehension, vocabulary, and fluency. \ud Struggling adolescent readers need explicit instruction and practice in using comprehension strategies and study skills as is suggested by the research literature (Biancarosa & Snow, 2006; Boardman, Roberts, Vaughn, Wexler, Murray & Kosanovich, 2008; Shanahan, 2006). They also need direction in self-selection of reading materials as a motivational tool (Biancarosa & Snow, 2006; Torgesen, Houston, Rissman, Decker, Roberts, Vaughn, Wexler, Francis, Rivera, & Lesaux, 2007). These students can gain background knowledge and acquisition of vocabulary through immersion in general knowledge of the world (Hirsch, 2003). Promoting these skills will help develop better overall readers. This small study does not cover the complexities of differentiating instruction or involving other teachers in the support of advancing readers??? abilities, areas that are worthy of study.\ud The results that were obtained are listed as follows:\ud ??? There was variability in students??? literacy needs, suggesting that instruction in the Reading Tutorial class needs to be differentiated at least part of the time. In the area of vocabulary knowledge, 4 of the 8 students were below average (stanine 3) on a norm referenced assessment of vocabulary knowledge, while 3 were average (stanine 5) and one of the eight was above average (stanine 8).\ud ??? Across all 8 students there were significant numbers of comprehension and study strategies that students had never heard of. Some of these, such as setting a purpose for reading, activating background knowledge, questioning the text, and using a graphic organizer, are critical for understanding and studying academic text. On the other hand, there were some strategies that were known by 50% of the students, but just knowing and understanding a strategy did not mean that students used them. For example, half the students knew and understood the summarize strategy but only one student used it.\ud ??? Regarding attitudes toward reading and writing, 4 of 8 students felt excellent or good about themselves as readers while 3 felt fair and one felt poor, and as writers, 4 felt good, 3 felt fair, and one felt poor. Four of the 8 students rarely or never read at home, and although 3 students often read at school, the remaining 5 rarely or sometimes read at school.\ud ??? In general, it appeared that components of fluency (reading accuracy and rate) were not a problem except when limited vocabulary knowledge made it difficult for students to decode polysyllabic words.\ud ??? Some of the students??? needs initially could be addressed within the Reading Tutorial. For example, reading and study strategies could be introduced to students with the expectation that they would continue to use these strategies in their other classes. Other needs, such as building general vocabulary knowledge, need to be worked on across classes. A heavy emphasis on vocabulary within the Reading Tutorial is unlikely to change overall vocabulary knowledge because of the large number of words used in academic texts.Education (Language and Literacy