Jennifer Coffey - Appalachian State University



Read-Aloud Experiences in Preschool Settings:

Is There One Effective Method?

Jennifer Aune Coffey

RE 5040: Teacher as Researcher

Appalachian State University

March 25, 2007

Table of Contents

Page

Abstract 2

Introduction 3

Statement of the Problem 4

Review of Related Literature 5 Statement of the Hypothesis 9

Method 9

Participants 10

Instrument 10

Experimental Design 11

Procedure 11

Results 12

Discussion 15

References 17

Abstract

This qualitative study was designed to determine whether either of two read-aloud methods was more effective in encouraging student interest in the story and increasing comprehension of the story when used with a group of preschool children. Method A did not encourage children to spontaneously respond to the story during the first reading so they could soak up as much of the story as possible. But, the teacher asked questions and solicited responses from the children during the second and third readings. Method B encouraged children to ask questions and share ideas during each of the three readings. Each method was used for six days with two different books. The children and the reader were carefully observed during each of the twelve read-aloud sessions and two children were interviewed after each reading, totaling twenty-four interviews. The study showed that Method A was slightly more effective than Method B with this group of students.

Introduction

Reading aloud to students has long been considered a fundamental part of effective reading instruction in elementary schools. Research has also been conducted to determine the benefits children receive from being read to at home by a parent or caregiver prior to attending school. Teacher read-alouds are staples in most preschool and childcare settings as well because children learn to love literature from a very early age by hearing high-quality books read aloud. Children can also learn about concepts of print, story elements, and the relationship between spoken and printed words simply by having someone read aloud to them on a regular basis. Warren, Prater, and Griswold suggest, “Listening to children’s books also has positive effects on oral language development, both expressive and receptive” (1990). As I became more interested in the early reading process and the advantages children who have been read to have over those who have not been read to, I began to wonder if reading aloud in general was beneficial to students or if there was a specific method that was particularly effective. If reading aloud to children is valuable from birth on, then teachers need to know how to do this in a way that will produce the most gains for their students.

In my undergraduate coursework at Appalachian State University I learned a generic read aloud method that was widely used by elementary teachers. I will refer to this method as Method B from here forward. Method B involves asking students to look at the cover of a picture book and make predictions about the story based on the title and the cover art. Then, the teacher may lead the students on a “picture walk” through the book, asking them to make more predictions about the plot of the story. Throughout the reading, teachers stop frequently to ask carefully planned questions that help students stay focused and interested in the story. Repeated readings are conducted in much the same way, but the questions may encourage the children to use higher-order thinking skills such as summarizing and establishing cause-and-effect relationships.

Recently, I went to the state meeting of the North Carolina Association of Educators of Young Children. A workshop I attended taught another read-aloud method that seemed quite different from the other method I had been exposed to. I will refer to this method as Method A throughout this report. The method was designed around the premise that no two children have had the same life experiences, and therefore they do not have the same background knowledge. When children are encouraged to ask questions and share their thoughts and experiences during the first reading of a new story, their peers might become confused about the plot of the story. When using Method A, the teacher does not ask the students to make any predictions about the text based on the cover, nor does she ask any questions during the first reading of the story. The children are not encouraged to spontaneously offer comments. She does, however, define difficult vocabulary words casually as she reads to help children understand the text. On subsequent readings, more of the “traditional” questioning methods and discussion techniques are employed. The final reading is a time for retelling or role-playing to check for understanding.

Statement of the Problem

The purpose of this study is to determine whether Method A or Method B is more effective when conducting a read-aloud session with preschool students.

Review of Related Literature

Lev Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory says that knowledge is socially constructed (1978). In other words, children learn from each other by talking, playing, and interacting in social settings. Children’s prior knowledge shapes their learning and influences the way they process new information. When teachers ask questions that challenge students or provide missing background information the students need to have a complete understanding of the new concept, they are scaffolding (Vygotsky, 1978).

In 1990, a nationwide survey of working parents whose three to five-year-old children were enrolled in Kinder-Care Centers was conducted by Warren, Prater, and Griswold to determine whether parents were reading aloud to their children, for how long, what types of books they were reading, and other factors. The researchers determined that most parents reported reading to their children several times a week. Parents indicated that their children were not familiar with many well-known storybook characters and said they purchased their children’s books from grocery and drug stores.

Arial and Albright were aware of the benefits reading aloud has on students, so they distributed a survey to 1,000 middle school teachers at a conference in Texas to determine how middle school teachers were using read-alouds in their classrooms (2006). They received 476 usable surveys back and found that many teachers in all subject areas were reading to their students on a regular basis. Those who were mostly likely to read aloud were women, English/language arts teachers, and those who taught at-risk students. The main reasons teachers gave for reading aloud to their classes were to promote a love of learning, to enhance the students’ levels of understanding about a subject, and to model fluent reading. A few teachers did not read aloud because they did not think it was appropriate for the subject they taught. Most teachers conducted a whole-class discussion following the read-aloud, but some discussed the text in small groups or had the students write journal entries about what they read.

In order to determine the effects different questioning styles had on three-year-old children’s abilities to acquire new vocabulary words, Walsh and Blewitt did a study where they assigned the students to three groups (2006). One group was asked vocabulary eliciting questions, one was asked non-vocabulary eliciting questions, and one was asked no questions at all. The researchers discovered that the type of question was not as important as the fact that questions were being asked. Novel vocabulary comprehension increased with children from both groups that were asked questions, but did not increase with students who were asked no questions.

In a study about encouraging students to become lifetime readers conducted by Sanacore, the goal was to find out how to promote a love of learning that would encourage students to want to read on a regular basis (2006). He suggests that a well-stocked and organized classroom library is the foundation for encouraging students to want to read. He also suggests that teachers should read aloud to students daily and that students should be allowed to read independently during school hours daily. Reading must be made a priority in the classroom on a daily basis.

A study that analyzed the level of spontaneous engagement exhibited by children in a Greek preschool as fictional, informational, expository, and narrative texts were read aloud to them was conducted by Moschovaki and Meadows in 2005. The children’s reactions were tape recorded and systematically analyzed to determine if their responses to the texts varied by genre. The researchers determined that there was more spontaneous chiming, recall, clarifying, evaluations, predictions, and personal response to the fictional stories. The comments children made during the reading of expository informational texts were about personal experience. The children also enjoyed the illustrations and initiated conversations about those. Children were equally interested in narrative and expository text in information books.

Another study by Moschovaki and Meadows involved twenty teachers teaching ten to twenty three-and-a-half year olds to five-and-a-half year olds on two Greek islands (2005). It investigated the relationship between teacher and student cognitive engagement during read-alouds in the classroom. The researchers looked at the level of cognitive engagement the students exhibited when they listened to books from different genres. The teachers read four books that the students had not previously been exposed to, two fictional books and two informational books. The researchers found that the discussions following the readings of informational books were of a higher level of cognitive demand than the discussions following the readings of the fictional books.

Lickteig and Russell (1993) did a study examining the read-aloud practices of 183 teachers who represented a cross-section of the teacher population in Omaha, Nebraska. The researchers wanted to find out why teachers thought reading aloud was important, how often the teachers were reading aloud, and what books the teachers were choosing to read. The research showed that the majority of teachers read aloud to students for twenty minutes a day, but that the number and length of read-aloud sessions decreased as students got older. Most of the teachers expected students to listen quietly as they read rather than doing other activities, and the teachers said they read to help their students learn to love reading and literature. The teachers chose quality books to read and clarified the purpose for reading aloud with the students before reading.

Sipe’s study of children’s expressive literary responses explores the nature of these responses and what they mean in terms of children’s understanding of the text (2002). One type of expressive engagement is dramatizing, which can be verbal or non-verbal, involves acting out scenes from the book and helps students feel as though they are a part of the story. Another type is “talking back”, which is when students spontaneously respond aloud to a character’s words or actions. This type of responses indicates that the children are starting to mix their own world with the literary world they are being exposed to in the story. Critiquing and controlling involves allowing students to make judgements about what the characters do or predict what they would do if they were in a character’s shoes. Inserting is when students take on the role of a character or involve their classmates in the story somehow. Finally, in “taking over”, students manipulate the text in various ways to express their own creativity or ideas. Sipe suggests ways teachers can encourage these types of expressive literary response because it enhances the read-aloud experience for children and makes them feel like they have control over the story and over their own learning.

In a study by Fisher, Flood, Lapp, and Frey, the goal was to determine if there was a set of common practices teachers employed when reading aloud to their students (2004). The researchers observed 25 “expert” teachers as well as 120 additional teachers. They discovered that teachers who read aloud successfully chose appropriate books, practiced the read-aloud ahead of time, established a clear purpose for reading aloud, modeled fluency, used expression, asked questions to focus the students, and made connections with independent reading and writing the students were doing.

Beck and McKeown did a study on the benefits reading aloud to students has on the students’ language development and comprehension abilities (2001). They observed kindergarten and first grade teachers as they read aloud to their classes and found out that most teachers were not having discussions about major story ideas after they read. They also found that the children often ignored the words of the story because they were focusing on the pictures. Other times, the students answered the teacher’s questions based on background knowledge they already had rather than answering the questions from the events in the actual story. The researchers go on to describe their approach to helping children get meaning from the stories they hear read-aloud, called “Text Talk”. In this method, teachers ask open-ended questions that require more than one word answers throughout the reading and ask students to tie their answers back to the text itself.

Statement of the Hypothesis

It was hypothesized that Method A and Method B would produce equal results with respect to children’s interest in the story and their comprehension of the story in a preschool setting.

Method

This study was conducted over a period of three weeks at a rural, non-profit daycare center in western North Carolina.

Participants

This study involved fifteen children two-and-a-half to five years of age. Several of these children come from families of a low-socioeconomic status. A few have chronic behavioral problems at home and at school and often do not focus well during group time. Additionally, because of their young age, most of these children do not have the ability to sit still and listen to a long story. Their attention spans, moods, and levels of cooperation vary from day to day and also at different times during a given day.

The children in this study were chosen out of convenience. Although I do not usually spend much time in the preschool room itself, I do teach in another room at this school, so the preschool children interact with me daily. I explained to them that I would be coming in every day for a few weeks to read stories to them. Prior to beginning my research, I visited the classroom during circle time to observe and interact casually with the children to gradually acclimate them to my presence.

Instrument

One data source for this report is the structured observations made by the classroom teacher that were recorded on a sheet I prepared for her. She did twelve observations in all. Another data source is interviews conducted with students after each of three readings of four different books. I collected data from twenty-four interviews total. After each read-aloud session I also took some brief notes on the behaviors I observed in the children as I was reading.

Experimental Design

This study is a qualitative study. It was designed this way because it took place in a classroom over a three-week period and the data was collected in the form of observational notes and interviews.

Procedure

Several weeks before I began reading to the preschool children, I met with their classroom teacher to discuss their classroom schedule, practices, and themes. I wanted to make my time in the classroom as beneficial and unobtrusive as possible. The classroom teacher and I chose a time for me to read every day and also selected books that went along with the classroom themes for each week. I explained that I was specifically looking at the children’s reactions to the two read-aloud methods to determine whether one was preferable to the other, and asked her to watch the children carefully as I read and record her observations on a sheet I would prepare for each day.

For the first six days I read to the children, the classroom theme was fairytales. In keeping with this theme, I read The Princess and the Pea by Lauren Child for three days using Method A. Then, I read The Three Spinning Fairies by The Brothers Grimm, illustrated by Lisa Campbell Ernst, for three days using Method B. As I read, the classroom teacher observed systematically and recorded her findings. At the end of each reading, I randomly chose two students to interview by pulling popsicle sticks labeled with the student’s names from a cup. I did not interview the same child more than once during the readings of a single book. I used my prepared interview sheet and asked the children questions about the plot and characters in the story. I also asked them to tell me about their favorite and least favorite parts of the story.

Over the next three days, I read Peter’s Chair by Ezra Jack Keats using Method A. Then, I read Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes using Method B. As before, the teacher observed as I read and I interviewed two students after each of three readings.

During the course of my research I planned to determine whether Method B, a more traditional approach to reading aloud where the teacher invoked background knowledge, asked questions throughout each reading of the text, and conducted a follow-up discussion with the students, was more, less, or equally as effective as Method A, which differed only on the first reading of a new text because the teacher did not encourage students to spontaneously participate, but, rather, to listen quietly and absorb the story information. My hypothesis was that each method would produce the same result in terms of student interest, involvement, and comprehension.

Results

I analyzed the data I collected by making use of Anslem Strauss’ Constant Comparison/Grounded Theory which was developed the 1960’s. I first sorted the observation sheets into two groups: Method A and Method B. I looked over the notes the observer had taken for Method A and sorted those sheets over again based on the first question: “Were the students interested in the story and how can you tell?” I repeated this activity for Method B as well. I kept tallies of whether the students seemed interested or not during each of the twelve book readings. My goal was to determine if the method and/or the book I read made a difference in whether or not the students seemed interested in the story. Then I put the papers back in their original groups and resorted each stack based on the second question: “Were the students listening to the story and how can you tell?” I kept a tally of whether or not the students were listening for each of the twelve book readings as well. I also carefully analyzed the observer’s notes about how she could tell whether the students were interested or listening to see if her conclusions were valid. To do this, I studied the specific language she used to indicate what the children were doing, their facial expressions, and their body positions. Then, I repeated this categorizing activity for the remainder of the questions on my observation sheet, tallying the results as I went.

Next I repeated essentially the same activity for the twenty-four student interviews I conducted. I sorted and categorized by read-aloud method and then by responses to each of the five questions I asked in the interviews.

After analyzing my data, I found that during the implementation of Methods A and B, half of the time the group of students appeared to be listening to the story while half of the time they were engaged in other activities, such as touching nearby toys, looking around, playing with their shoes, or talking to their neighbor. The students who appeared to be listening were looking at the reader, asking questions, and answering questions. The extent to which they were listening or paying attention was revealed later in individual student interviews, which will be discussed shortly.

During the readings using Method A, the children appeared to be interested during one-third of the readings, but seemed disinterested during one-sixth of the readings. When Method B was used, the students seemed interested during five-twelfths of the readings and only disinterested during one-twelfth of the readings.

The student interviews provided a lot of insight into the recall and comprehension abilities as well as the thought processes of two-and-a-half to five year old children. The research revealed that when books were read using Method A, five-twelfths of the students were able to provide detailed summaries of the events of the story, one-third were not able to summarize the story sufficiently, and one-fourth summarized the story somewhat successfully. When Method B was used, one-half of the students were able to summarize the story well, one-third could not summarize it sufficiently, and one-sixth of the children summarized the story somewhat, but left out important details. I then asked the students two comprehension questions for each story. Examples of the questions asked are: “What did the princess lie to the queen about?”, “Why is Chrysanthemum so unhappy when she gets to school?”, and “What does the queen do to see if the princess who comes to her castle is a ‘real’ princess?” When the story had been read using Method A, the students were able to answer the questions correctly one-half of the time. When the story was read using Method B, the results were exactly the same. The children answered one-half of the questions correctly.

Finally, I asked the students to identify their favorite and least favorite parts of the story. When the story was read using Method A, three-fourths of the children stated their favorite part, while one-fourth could not name a part they really enjoyed or just chose not to respond to the question at all. Five-twelfths of the children identified their least favorite part of the story, but one-third chose not to answer the question or could not identify a part they did not like. One-fourth stated that they did not have a least favorite part, because they liked the whole story. When Method B was used, seven-twelfths of the children shared their favorite part of the story while five-twelfths declined to share a favorite part. Only one-sixth of the children identified their least favorite part of the book while two-thirds did not identify their least favorite part. One-sixth also said they liked the whole book and did not have a least favorite part.

The interviews revealed that Method B produced a slightly better ability to summarize the events of the story. Methods A and B were equally effective when it came to students’ abilities to answer specific comprehension questions, none of which could be answered with a one-word or few-word answer. Method A allowed students to identify their most and least favorite parts much more readily than did Method B. Although the results were very close, this study reveals that overall, Method A produced better results for this group of students with respect to interest and comprehension. This disproved my original hypothesis that the results of the two methods would be the same.

Discussion

The results I found are specific to the group of students I worked with and the implications cannot necessarily be generalized to other groups of preschool students. However, I was able to gain insight into the needs of this group of children and draw conclusions about what seems to work well for them during read-alouds. To begin, based on my analysis of the observations made by the classroom teacher, I can conclude that the children were slightly more interested in the stories that were read using Method B. This could be due to the differences in the methods, because during two of the twelve readings when Method A was being used, the children were not encouraged to share comments, ask questions, or participate verbally, they were simply asked to listen quietly and soak up information.

Further exploration of the students’ abilities to listen and their interest level revealed several things. First, the students listened better and were more interested in books three (Method A) and four (Method B) than they were in books one (Method A) and two (Method B). Books one and two were selected because the class was studying Fairy Tales that week, and those books ended up being longer, containing more details, and containing harder vocabulary words than books three and four. Also, it just happened to work out that more students were absent from preschool when books three and four were read, so the smaller group size may have affected the students’ abilities to listen to and become interested in the stories. The information that I gathered in this research project will be shared with the classroom teacher and can be used to guide future classroom read-alouds for these preschool students.

References

Arial, M. & Albright, L.K. (2006). A Survey of Teachers’ Read-Aloud Practices in

Middle Schools. Reading Research and Instruction, 45 (2), 68-89.

Beck, I.L. & McKeown, M.G. (2001). Text talk: Capturing the benefits of read-aloud

experiences for young children. The Reading Teacher, 55 (1), 1-11.

Fisher, D., Flood, J., Lapp, D., & Frey, N. (2004). Interactive read-alouds: Is there a

common set of implementation practices? Reading Teacher, 58 (1), 8-17.

Lickteig, M.J. & Russell, J.F. (1993). Elementary Teachers’ Read-Aloud Practices.

Reading Improvement, 20, 202-208.

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Classroom Book Reading: Differences According to Book, Text Genre, and Study

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during Classroom Book Reading: Differences According to Various Types of

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Sanacore, Joseph (2006). Nurturing Lifetime Readers. Childhood Education, 83 (1), 33-

37.

Sipe, L.R. (2002). Talking back and taking over: Young children’s expressive

engagement during storybook read-alouds. The Reading Teacher, 55 (5), 476-

482.

Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind and society: The development of higher mental processes.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Walsh, B.A. & Blewitt, P. (2006). The Effects of Questioning Style During Storybook

Reading on Novel Vocabulary Acquisition of Preschoolers. Early Childhood Education Journal, 33 (4), 273-278.

Warren, J.S., Prater, N.J., & Griswold, D. L. (1990). Parental Practices of Reading Aloud

to Preschool Children. Reading Improvement, 27, 41-45.

Yang, L. & Wilson, K. (2006). Second Language Classroom Reading: A Social

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