Nonfiction Reading Skills Research Project -- 1 ABSTRACT Teaching nonfiction reading skills to 7th grade Social Studies students

will work to improve overall reading scores on Colorado state MAPS and TCAP/CSAP tests. The use of primary sources, posing questions, skimming text before reading, and the connect and apply method of reading were used to determine if 7th graders would improve overall reading skills. Research results suggest the majority of students showed an improvement in reading skills because reading was taught and emphasized in a core class outside of the daily, typical expectation for typical reading skills acquisition. The researcher used a short intervention period for this research study and the results support the initial suggestion of improvement to 7th grade reading skills, but continued work must occur to determine the true success of this intervention method.

Garrett D. Weekley University Of New England December 8, 2013 EDU-690 - 2013 Fall Term Nonfiction Reading Skills Research Project

TABLE OF CONTENTS: ABSTRACT INTRODUCTION Rationale for the Study Statement of the Problem Primary Research Questions Hypothesis Review of Literature METHODOLOGY Research Design Data Collection Plan Sample Selection Instruments RESULTS Findings Discussion Limitations of Study Further Research ACTION PLAN CONCLUSIONS REFERENCES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 1 Page 4 Page 4 Page 5 Page 5 Page 5 Page 6 Page 9 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 11 Page 11 Page 11 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 15 Page 16 Page 18

Nonfiction Reading Skills Research Project -- 4 INTRODUCTION Rationale for Study: For the past three-years, reading scores, at Campus Middle School, have decreased (3% overall on CSAP/TCAP) for 7th graders. The 7th grade teachers have been tasked to improve the reading scores for the 7th grade as a group. The expectation is for scores to improve, but no requirements have been placed on teachers in terms of how the reading scores will be improved. Teachers have been provided freedom and personal latitude to attempt to increase 7th grade reading scores. This openness is provided to allow administration the opportunity to view successful strategies by 7th grade teachers and to then translate those plans which do work across the entire grade level for future state reading assessments. Over the course of the past three-years, reading scores(Colorado Student Assessment Program - CSAP, Transitional Colorado Assessment Program - TCAP, and Measure of Academic Progress - MAPs - scores) have not met the appropriate and expected growth rate for Campus Middle School. The reading scores have dropped each school year from 2010 (i.e. Median Percentile Growth in READING scores for 2012/2013:

TCAP Reading Scores - Latino 2012/2013 70/69

Caucasian 90/90

Asian 93/91

African-American 71/68)

This researcher, saw an opportunity to implement non-fiction reading strategies into the everyday Social Studies curriculum with the intent of improving student reading abilities and student test scores on Colorado reading assessments.

Nonfiction Reading Skills Research Project -- 5 Statement of the Problem: 7th grade students have simply produced reading scores on state testing which show a slight reduction in overall reading abilities. There is no, as of yet, determined cause for this reduction in testing scores and student reading scores have dropped in a manner which does not cause great alarm to the administration and staff of this middle school. 7th grade students, generally, test very well (per building expectations as set by Campus Middle School administration) as 6th graders and show improvement for tested reading scores as 8th graders, but have a dip in tested abilities during the 7th grade school year. Primary Research Question: For the sake of this research project, the primary research question is: Will teaching 7th grade Social Studies students certain reading skills from the Common Core State Standards for English Language and Literacy improve overall 7th grade Social Studies student reading scores? Hypothesis: The hypothesis was that teaching students the use of primary reading , posing questions of the text while reading, skimming text before reading, and the connect and apply method of reading would increase overall 7th grade Social Studies reading abilities and result in improved and/or more students scoring at or above the norm score range. Instruction will be provided in a non-specialized or announced manner(so as not to unduly and negatively influence the research process and/or data), i.e. daily work, taking about 10minutes, integrated into the regular Social Studies curriculum, not announced as a new or specific reading tool or Language Arts specific reading practice, etc.

Nonfiction Reading Skills Research Project -- 6 Review of Literature: Students need instruction, but mostly they need opportunities to negotiate real texts for real purposes (Ivey & Fisher, 2). This statement does seem somewhat obvious to a teacher with any classroom experience. The more a student can read in a purposeful and necessary manner, the better the learning to be gained from the entire experience can be for the student. Learning how to approach new reading materials with strategies, tools for dealing with difficulties, and expected outcomes to be reached can motivate a student to work to improve literacy abilities and skills. The best teaching plans will be derailed by inappropriate (boring, uninteresting, far too difficult, etc.) reading material choices made by the teacher. A student wants interesting reading material (if a teacher is going to make a student read) and wants the material presented in a simple and clear manner. Although middle school students may not often choose to read in their leisure time, they value time to read in school (Ivey & Broaduss, 69). Again, a classroom teacher with any experience would be in agreement with this type of study finding. Students will improve in literacy skills if the skills are actually valued and practiced in a classroom setting. Students will show reading improvements when students have more time read. Not all of the middle schools in this district would be able to deliver the same level of instruction in the intervention because (a) not all schools have certified media specialists and, (b) the degree of experience and mastery of research skills in the certified media specialists is substantial (Angle, 30). For the sake of the Campus Middle School study, the reading specialist will be a 7th grade Social Studies teacher with almost 20-years of classroom experience, but no specialized degree in media, literacy skills, or

Nonfiction Reading Skills Research Project -- 7 generalized reading. The expectation is for the students to be able to improve in literacy skills even though the instructor is not specialized in the nuts and bolts of reading and reading and reading skills improvement, but the students will be instructed by a classroom teacher who has accumulated various approaches to teaching literacy skills even though there is not a specialty teacher in this subject (reading) area within the 7th grade Social Studies classroom. Having a specialist in the classroom would be ideal, but not required to improve the overall reading abilities, skills, and confidence of studied students. We believe that our student readers must continue to be nurtured (Hendricks & Lassiter, 20). Helping students to feel stronger as readers will assist in the improvement of personal literacy skills. Building a student up in terms of ability, personal confidence, and in a cheerleader capacity is a primary role of the classroom instructor to continue the success a student may have created in reading improvement and to further challenge the student to provide more opportunities for the student to have new and different and personal success in the area of personalized reading skills. For the sake of the Campus Middle School study, the classroom teacher will be the primary source of exterior, positive reinforcement and students will, hopefully, develop a personalized level of continued reinforcement to improve in this academic area and to continue to get better at this set literacy skills. Reading proficiency in adolescents requires that students be able to identify the words on the page accurately and fluently; that they have enough knowledge and thinking ability to understand the words, sentences and paragraphs; and that they be motivated and engaged enough to use their knowledge and thinking ability to

Nonfiction Reading Skills Research Project -- 8 understand and learn from the text (Torgesen et. al, 7). This statement rings very true for the purposes of the Campus Middle School study. Not only do students need to improve generalized reading skills, but these same students need to have a reason or reasons and an intended purpose for getting better at any literacy skill. Learning will improve for students when students work to improve and eventually improve in reading skills and personally realize their own abilities have improved and can be used for further educational purposes. Some students need a complete reading foundation set and built and some students will only need to patch-in missed areas of previous school learning to improve in the specialized area of reading improvement. Know what is being read and how it can be used in a productive manner will be a major accomplishment to the typical 7th grade Social Studies student and to the struggling learner in the same setting. Learning and learning how to be better at learning will only improve a student academically and personally. In spite of the solid research support for comprehension instruction, large-scale studies of classroom practices in elementary schools have indicated that, on the whole, teachers devote very little time to it(reading) (Kovalevs et. al, 2). If there were not problems in the area of teaching reading in the classroom setting, there would not be so many studies on the subject. Students do poorly in this academic area because not enough time is focused on the necessary skills and the needed time for the subject matter is not provided. The focus on math and writing skills has taken away from school-based reading time and many schools simply assume student know how to read when the school year starts and deal with students on a case-by-case basis when the assumption is proved incorrect on an individual basis by students who score below grade level or do not show

Nonfiction Reading Skills Research Project -- 9 appropriate growth on state assessments. Students must be taught reading as a life skill and not as a testing requirement only. When reading can be translated to daily life and daily learning opportunities, then reading will be important to students. Improving the literacy achievement of todays and tomorrows youth requires keeping action balanced with research (Biancarosa & Snow, 13). Through the use of formative and summative assessments, the 7th grade Social Studies teacher will be able to monitor if reading strategies and practices are working for specific students and for the classroom groups as a whole. Did the plan work? What words were understood better with this reading than with previous readings? Where do students continue to struggle? -Are the kinds of questions seeking useful answers within the teaching of literacy skills and the assessment of these same literacy skills. METHODOLOGY Research Design: INTERNAL VALIDITY Will the teaching of Common Core Reading Standards to 7th grade Social Studies students improve student reading skills and individual student reading scores? CORRELATIONAL RESEARCH A collection of previous test data and current test data, teaching the reading skills, and correlating the changes, if any, in student created data. The researcher is a 7th grade Social Studies classroom teacher with the support of his school administration and the teacher created and taught reading lessons to be implemented in the classroom. Lessons covered text structure, authors purpose, identifying aspects of the text and determining the difference between fact and opinion in

Nonfiction Reading Skills Research Project -- 10 readings. Students and teacher used primary reading sources, posing questions of the text, skimming text before reading, and the connect and apply method of reading. The students were not informed of the additional reading practices before any of the class periods in which a nonfiction-based reading strategy occurred. Data Collection Plan: CSAP and MAPS test data were provided in an anonymous, disaggregated manner. Reading-based rubrics were to be collected on each student and processed by the researcher/teacher, used for the purpose of this research project and then kept/filed for student portfolios to show required student reading growth. The reading rubrics were later abandoned because the researcher/teacher determined there was not a manner in which to use this tool without a level of bias and because of this bias, whether personal(to the student and/or the teacher opinion of the students ability) and/or due to confusion of wording in the rubric, the rubric was dropped and not used for this research project. Quantitative data (test scores) will be analyzed and qualitative data (teachercreated rubric) will also be used to determine the success of this research project. Based upon anonymous test results from 6th grade MAPS testing and early MAPS testing for 7th grade results(also anonymous and the test was administered in September of 2013, roughly 4-weeks into the 2013-14 school year), this researcher and the Campus Middle School administrator in charge of school testing and test data met to discuss a target score for students taking the MAPS test in the November target dates for testing (11/15/13 11/22/13). A RIT score of 216 was set as the 7th grade level norm and target for all

Nonfiction Reading Skills Research Project -- 11 students involved in this research project. This norm was chosen because it represented expected growth for readers moving from the 6th grade to the 7th grade and from the start of 7th grade to a continuing state of education in the same grade. Students have already begun non-fiction reading skills (started 9/20/13) and will be provided a summative assessment before 10/16/13 and a formal assessments (using the rubric) before 11/4/13 and before 11/24/13. Instruments: MAPS tests score were the primary source (and eventually the only source) of collected data for this research project. Sample Selection: (113) 7th grade Social Studies students (61 female and 52 male) were the focus group for this research project. The students used in this research project were placed into fourdifferent class periods at the start of the school year during the 7th grade registration process and each class period included students who received special education services, gifted-talented services, and/or no additional services.

RESULTS Findings: The students were grouped by 7th grade Social Studies class periods and there were fourtested student groups.

Nonfiction Reading Skills Research Project -- 12 Group 1(1st period, 8:20AM-9:20AM), 26-students total, MEAN RIT score 221, MEDIAN RIT score 219, Standard Deviation 8, and number of students at or above norm score was 18. Group 2(2nd period, 9:25AM-10:25AM), 30-students total, MEAN RIT score 213, MEDIAN RIT score 217, Standard Deviation 15, and number of students at or above norm score was 16. Group 3(6th period, 12:55PM 1:55PM), 23-students total, MEAN RIT score 230, MEDIAN RIT score 230, Standard Deviation 6.6, and number of student at or above norm score was 22. Group 4(7th period, 2PM-3PM), 27-students total, MEAN RIT score 233, MEDIAN RIT score 231, Standard Deviation 6, and the number of students at or above the norm score was 27.

Nonfiction Reading Skills Research Project -- 13 TABLE 1)

106-7th grade students completed the MAPS testing and 83-students were at or above the norm score of 216. 23(twenty-three)-students did not achieve the norm score for the MAPS test. 7(seven) students were not tested during this specific testing window due to absences from the school day situation. Discussion: The researcher/teacher used the first ten-minutes of (15)fifteen-class periods to teach different aspects of reading non-fiction materials and to introduce different reading methods and to also establish an expectation for students to improve in the area of reading

Nonfiction Reading Skills Research Project -- 14 in the Social Studies curriculum. The activities were generally centered around a news article related to a current events news item or from blogs/ web sources on the topic of food waste and teen pregnancies. The researcher/teacher planned to meet these goals with the teaching of non-fiction reading skills
1) Teaching students how to identify aspects of a text and how to distinguish fact from opinion will improve student reading ability and reading test scores. 2) Students being able to understand the authors purpose and analyzing the structure of the text will improve student reading ability and reading test scores. 3) Teaching nonfiction reading skills in a 7th grade Social Studies classroom setting will improve overall student reading ability and reading test scores.

The researcher/teacher believes the students achieved good reading growth and were taught non-fiction reading skills, but the results, as good as these appear on this project, do not seem to be showing the full potential of the teaching strategies and methods and/or the true learning level of all students in the area of non-fiction reading. The MAPS test reading assessment became the primary testing tool for this research project, but this test, by its nature and design, is a reading assessment the student body has seen and completed multiple times before the testing for this research project was completed. Any results gained from this test may simply be the result of the students having taken this test threetimes before the testing period for this research project. Limitations of Study: This test(MAPS test), though a major resource for the school and school district, seems to lack the necessary validity, to this researcher, because it is administered so often and it does not present new reading questions or desired reading test results like the

Nonfiction Reading Skills Research Project -- 15 TCAP/CSAP tests do. The students did improve in reading skills, but it has not been determined if this was this because of something the researcher/teacher did or because the students have taken the test so many times before this research project. The teacher created rubric (Figure 1) proved to be prone to teacher-bias and was rendered unusable and was abandoned for the purposes of this research project. Also, the researcher wanted to determine if students improved in reading simply because of any reading skills being taught in more than the everyday Language Arts class period (i.e. the daily Social Studies class period as well) or was any reading growth displayed because of the specific reading skills taught by the researcher/teacher. Further Research: The research time for this project was too short and to determine stronger and more reliable results, a timeframe for teaching and testing should be extended to include all state reading assessments given throughout a typical school year and should include teaching practices for the entire school year. Continuing the reading teaching and student progress monitoring (the use of the teacher created rubric is better served throughout the entire school year) will determine if student reading abilities and scores improve because of actual learned abilities and knowledge or because of test familiarity(specifically, the MAPS test). Action Plan:

Nonfiction Reading Skills Research Project -- 16 The researcher/teacher will continue to incorporate nonfiction reading skills into the everyday Social Studies class period in an attempt to reinforce the reading skills taught in the Language Arts class periods and to further support students in an attempt to improve individual reading ability and group reading scores on state reading assessment tests. Conclusion: Students need to have reading and reading skills presented every day and presented in purposeful and useful manners. The researcher/teacher did not complete this research project to just improve 7th grade student reading test scores. Reading will occur almost every school day in middle school and high school and students need to be best prepared when reading new materials. The new Colorado English standards promote nonfiction as a way to prepare students for the types of reading theyll encounter most in college and at work (Mader). Students must know how to read nonfiction and must be skilled at reading new materials and to do this skill without the assistance of a teacher. Students must be able to read complex texts in science, social studies, math, and other technical courses with independence and confidence. Having these skills will prepare them for the sophisticated nonfiction they will encounter in college and the workforce (Smekens). Students, with the proper teacher preparation, can and will improve in the area of reading because students know how to read nonfiction effectively.

Nonfiction Reading Skills Research Project -- 17 Figure 1

Reading - Analyzing Information : Non-Fiction Reading Skills

Teacher Name: Mr. Weekley

Student Name:

________________________________________

CATEGORY Identifies facts

4
Student accurately locates facts in the reading and gives a clear explanation of why these are facts, rather than opinions. Student accurately locates opinions in the reading and gives a clear explanation of why these are opinions, rather than facts. Student correctly identifies all aspects of the text, including point of view, purpose, loaded language, and inclusion/exclusion of facts. Student accurately analyzed the structure the author used to organized the text - including how major sections contribute to the whole and to the understanding of the topic. Student determined the author\'s purpose and provided enough examples to support this belief beyond a shadow of a doubt.

3
Student accurately locates facts in the reading and gives a reasonable explanation of why they are facts, rather than opinions. Student accurately locates opinions in the reading and gives a reasonable explanation of why these are opinions, rather than facts. Student correctly identifies most aspects of the text, including point of view, purpose, loaded language, and inclusion/exclusion of facts. Student was mostly accurately analyzed the structure the author used to organized the text including how major sections contribute to the whole and to the understanding of the topic. Student may have determined the author\'s purpose and provided some examples to support this belief.

2
Student may accurately locate facts in the reading. Explanation is weak.

1
Student has difficulty locating facts in a reading.

Identifies opinions

Student may accurately locate opinions in the reading. Explanation is weak.

Student has difficulty locating opinions in an reading.

Aspects of the Text

Student correctly identifies some aspects of the text, including point of view, purpose, loaded language, and inclusion/exclusion of facts. Student was somewhat accurately analyzed the structure the author used to organized the text - including how major sections contribute to the whole and to the understanding of the topic. Student possibly determined some or part of the author\'s purpose and may have provided examples to support this belief.

Student did not correctly complete this section of the rubric.

Analyze Structure

Student did not accurately complete this section of the rubric.

Author\'s Purpose

Student did not sufficiently complete this section of the rubric.

Nonfiction Reading Skills Research Project -- 18

References

Angle, S. (2009). An Applied Dissertation Submitted to the Fischler School of Education and Human Services in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Education:Impact of FINDS: A Research Process Model on the Reading of Nonfiction Materials by Middle School Students. Retrieved from http://accountability.leeschools.net/research_projects/pdf/SandraAgle.pdf Biancarosa, G., & Scow, C. F. (2004). Reading Next: A Vision for Action and Research in Middle School and High School Literacy. Retrieved from Alliance for Excellent Education website: http://www.ode.state.or.us/teachlearn/subjects/elarts/reading/curriculum/readingnext.pdf Hendricks, M. E., & Lassiter, D. L. (2009). Improving Student Reading Skills by Developing a Culture of Reading - A Quality Enhancement Plan Proposal. Retrieved from Methodist University website: http://www.methodist.edu/academics/pdfs/qep.pdf Ivey, G., & Broaddus, K. (2000). Tailoring the Fit: Reading Instruction and Middle School Readers. The Reading Teacher, 54(1), 68-78. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/20204879 Ivey, G., & Fisher, D. (2005). Learning From What Doesn't Work. Reading Comprehension,63(2), 8-15. Kovalevs, K., Dewsbury, A., & Rice, M. (2009). Making Connections - Reading Comprehension Skills and Strategies (1). EPS - Educators Publishing Service.

Nonfiction Reading Skills Research Project 19 References Continued Mader, J. (2013, October 15). Ready or not, new standards hit Colorado schools | Hechinger Report. Retrieved October 15, 2013, from http://hechingerreport.org/content/ready-or-notnew-standards-hit-colorado-schools_13375/ Smekens Education Solutions, Inc. (2013). Summarization Skills. Retrieved October 15, 2013, from http://www.smekenseducation.com/scaffold-summarization-skills.html Torgesen, J., Houston, D., & Rissman, L. (2007). IMPROVING LITERACY INSTRUCTION IN MIDDLE AND HIGH SCHOOLS - A Guide for Principals. Retrieved from Florida Center for Reading Research - Florida State University website: http://www.fcrr.org/interventions/pdf/principals%20guide-secondary.pdf