Discussion of Findings
Discussion of Pretest and Posttest Change for Each Student
Subject A-Reading Comprehension
Subject A-Listening Comprehension
Subject A-Metacognition
Subject B-Reading Comprehension
Subject B-Listening Comprehension
Subject B-MetacognitionSubject A
Subject A demonstrated some improvement in reading comprehension after receiving 8 weeks of explicit instruction in metacognitive strategies before, during, and after reading. Quantitatively, the student demonstrated growth on tasks that assessed comprehension of fiction text on the oral retelling rubrics and the Informal Reading Inventory-7 (B/RIRI-7) (Roe and Burns, 2007) and of nonfiction text on all three assessments.
Subject A demonstrated a small improvement in reading comprehension on a short fiction third-grade reading passage and a short nonfiction fifth-grade reading passage taken from the Informal Reading Inventory (B/RIRI-7) (Roe and Burns, 2007). The change in score for fiction text was 10-points. The change in score for nonfiction text was 20-points. Fiction and nonfiction posttest scores revealed a greater ability to recall more literal and/or inferential information from the short passages that were read by the student.
Additionally, subject A showed a steady gain in reading comprehension, during guided reading groups, as demonstrated by the oral retelling rubrics that were collected weekly for either fiction or nonfiction texts throughout the study. From pre-intervention to post-intervention, subject A achieved a 2-point gain in score for fiction text and a 1-point gain in score for nonfiction text. The improved ability to retell information taken from fiction texts independently and nonfiction texts with adult prompting corroborated the findings on the Informal Reading Inventory-7, which revealed that subject A had made improvements in reading comprehension as indicated by the ability to recall more information and accurately retell the information in a logical sequence with decreasing adult support.
Performance on the Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA) revealed small gains in reading comprehension based on the pretest and posttest scores. Subject A achieved a 4-point gain on the posttest for nonfiction text. For nonfiction text, subject A scored 1-point higher on the prediction, literal comprehension, interpretation, and reflection subtests. The summary and metacognitive awareness scores remained constant. Scores on this test should be viewed with caution; however, due to the same nonfiction text being administered pre-intervention and post-intervention.
In summary, gains in reading comprehension were observed in retaining and retelling information. Subject A provided oral retellings for narratives that contained all required story grammar elements and provided some information about nonfiction texts with adult prompting. Subject A also was able to recall a greater amount of information and provide more appropriate responses, for literal and inferential question types, to a story after receiving the intervention. The results obtained on the posttest assessments supported the finding that subject A had made some improvements in reading comprehension.
The second part of the question posed to address the purpose of this study was whether a transfer effect occurred from reading comprehension to listening comprehension. Performance on the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-Fourth Edition: Understanding Spoken Paragraphs subtest revealed a 28-point increase in score from pretest to posttest. Prior to the intervention, subject A recalled 3 predictions, 3 details, and 1 inference. Following intervention, subject A recalled 8 details, 3 predictions, and 2 inferences. Overall, subject A demonstrated gains in the ability to attend to a short passage and retain the necessary information long enough to improve the accuracy of responses for literal and inferential types of questions from pre-intervention to post-intervention.
Subject A also demonstrated gains on posttest scores for the oral retelling rubrics that assessed listening comprehension of fiction and nonfiction texts. A 2-point gain, a 2 pre-intervention to a 4 post-intervention, was noted for narratives and a 1-point gain, 1 pre-intervention to a 2 post-intervention was noted for nonfiction texts. Subject A demonstrated improvements in the ability to recall information heard and retell that information for fiction and nonfiction texts. The progress in listening comprehension for both tasks mirrored progress in reading comprehension.
Performance on the Informal Reading Inventory-7 (B/RIRI-7) yielded variable results. Subject A demonstrated a decline of 25 points on the primer level post-intervention passage. Based on this finding, subject A did not demonstrate progress on the fictional passage of this test for listening comprehension. Subject A did achieve a 15-point increase in the ability to respond accurately to questions related to a 5th-grade level passage for nonfiction. Subject A demonstrated the ability to retain a greater amount of information about a nonfiction passage post-intervention.
Improvements in listening comprehension were supported for nonfiction texts on all three assessments administered, suggesting a transfer effect from the skills learned and achieved in reading comprehension to listening comprehension. Gains in listening comprehension were partially supported for fiction texts. Subject A achieved higher scores on 2 of the 3 assessments administered. Although improvements in listening comprehension were observed on the different assessments used during this study, the improvements were not achieved for both genres, indicating that a transfer effect was not strongly supported.
Subject A’s score on the Metacomprehension Strategy Index (MSI) increased by 46 points from pre-intervention to post-intervention, revealing greater knowledge of strategies before, during, and after instruction was provided. However, the ability to apply these strategies independently had not yet been achieved, as indicated by the lack of change in the metacognitive awareness score of the DRA for nonfiction texts pre-intervention to post-intervention.
Subject B
After receiving explicit metacognitive strategies instruction for 8 weeks, subject B showed gains in reading comprehension for fiction and nonfiction texts on all 3 assessments administered prior to and following intervention.
The oral retelling rubrics indicated that, with support, subject B was able to retain and recall more information taken from fiction and nonfiction texts during guided reading groups. The 1-point increase in scores on fiction (2 pre-intervention, 3 post-intervention) and nonfiction (2 pre-intervention, 3 post-intervention) texts revealed that subject B is able to recall more information from both text types. However, the student continued to require support to retain information taken from texts and to retell information that had been discussed during guided reading groups.
Subject B also demonstrated improvements in the ability to recall information from short third-grade fictional passages taken from the Informal Reading Inventory-7 (B/RIRI-7) as indicated by the 30-point increase from pre-intervention to post-intervention. For short fifth-grade nonfiction passages, subject B demonstrated a 20-point increase in score when comparing scores prior to and following intervention. The increase in scores for fiction and nonfiction texts from the B/RIRI-7 corroborated the findings on the informal oral retelling rubrics.
Performance on the DRA following intervention further supported subject B’s improvements in reading stories and comprehending literal and inferential information. Subject B demonstrated a 2-point increase in comprehension on the posttest score for fiction text. For nonfiction text, subject B made a 1-point gain in comprehension on the posttest score. Subject B demonstrated growth in the ability to make predictions, summarize information in written form, and answer interpretive questions for narratives. For expository text, improvements were noted in the areas of prediction making and answering interpretive questions. These findings further supported subject B’s small increase in the ability to comprehend fiction and nonfiction texts.
As a whole, the post-intervention results on all 3 assessments revealed that with the instruction, subject B was able to recall and retell more information from fiction and nonfiction stories and improve the frequency and types of questions answered correctly on the different types of assessments.
Subject B exhibited improvements on 2 out of 3 of the assessments administered to assess listening comprehension for both fiction and nonfiction texts. The improvements in listening comprehension for a majority of the assessments revealed some improvement in listening comprehension; however, a transfer effect was not strongly supported for either text type.
Subject B demonstrated a small gain in listening comprehension when asked to listen to a short fiction or nonfiction paragraph and answer closed-ended questions on the CELF-4. Prior to intervention, subject A recalled 3 predictions, 8 details, and 1 inference. Following intervention, subject A recalled 3 predictions, 9 details, and 1 inferences. A 12-point gain was reported from pre-intervention to post-intervention.
On the Informal Reading Inventory, subject B demonstrated some growth in the ability to answer closed-ended questions on a fifth-grade expository passage. Subject B achieved a 20-point change in score. No change in performance was observed on the narrative listening passage pre-intervention to post-intervention.
On the contrary, the oral retelling rubric for narrative texts revealed a 2-point increase in listening comprehension skills from pre-intervention to post-intervention. This change in score was greater than what was achieved on the reading comprehension oral retelling rubric assessment. The expository retelling rubric revealed no change in performance from pre-intervention to post-intervention. This was inconsistent with the 1-point increase in performance on the reading comprehension oral retelling rubric assessment for expository text.
In summary, the data suggested that subject B was able to retain some information taken from fiction and nonfiction texts that was read aloud; however, the ability to recall the information was not as consistent as had been observed on the reading comprehension tests. Since the results were not as consistent and were not supported using the triangulation of assessments, it did not provide strong evidence for a transfer effect.
Performance on the Metacomprehension Strategies Index (MSI) taken from Harp (2006) revealed marginal gains in the knowledge and awareness of strategies before, during, and after reading a text with only a 4-point increase in score following intervention. Independent application of these strategies on the DRA was not observed for the metacognitive awareness subtest. This indicated that the small gains in awareness did not carry-over to independent reading tasks.