Test Data

1. My PDS school is Monongah Elementary School. In Reading, 26.66% are achieving Mastery, 15.83% are Above Mastery, and 5% are Distinguished.

2. Only 47.49% of the students are proficient, 29.16% are novice, and only 5% are at the distinguished level. This school obviously needs an intervention for reading comprehension.

3. In order to address this learning need, I would use the Think Aloud Reading Strategy. In this strategy, students are actively engaged in constructing meaning from texts. Students learn how skilled readers think while reading. This way, they learn strategies on how to solve comphrension problems.

4. There is research on this strategy, that proves it will work. Reading comprehension increases when students learn how to incorporate "summary" frames as a tool for summarazing (Meyer and Freedle, 1984). Teacher prepared notes show students what is important and how ideas relate, and offer a model for how students should take notes themselves (Marzano et el, 2001). Students have to analyze information at a deep level in order to decide what information to delete, what to substitute, and what to keep when they are asked to give a summary (Hidi and Anderson, 1987).

5. How can using the Think Aloud Strategy increase student comprehension in reading?

6. In order to collect data, I would first give my students a pre-test. The pre-test would consist of various comphrension questions, so I would know what types of questions the students are struggling with the most. Then, I would implement the strategy into my lessons, so students would be given the chance to learn how good readers think while reading. I would have them practice summaring skills, where they would learn what types of information to look for, and what type of information can be deleted. They would learn how to decode words they are unfamiliar with. I would implement many graphic organizers into my lessons as well, so students would have a better understanding of the different parts of a story. Then, after implementing this strategy, I would give my students a post-test, which would be very similar to the pre-test. I would compare the test results, to see if this strategy is working. I would confirm the strategy worked, if test scores increased.