The Impact of Storytelling and Retelling on Oral Reading and Comprehension
University Collaborator
Sandra Murphy, Professor, Division of Education, UC Davis
K-12 Collaborators
Mary Lynne McGrath, Chapter One Resource Teacher, Sacramento City Unified, (retired)
Kathy Duren, Dorothy Pro, Joseph Bonnheim Elementary, Sacramento City Unified
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Funding
1997-98: $2,800 CRESS Mini-Grant
School Collaboration
1 Chapter One resource teacher, and 2 elementary teachers and two second grade classes from Joseph Bonnheim Elementary, Sacramento City Unified, Sacramento County
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Project Description
The collaborators in this research project investigated one question: do students who hear a story told in an engaging fashion, and who then practice retelling the story, comprehend more and read the same story with greater fluency than students who are not exposed to this prereading experience? Two groups of second grade students were matched on the basis of their scores on the Fall 97 reading section of the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. The children were part of the classes of Kathy Duren and Dorothy Pro, who assisted in the testing, communication with parents, ranking of students, scheduling of the storytelling module in the language arts curriculum, and selection of stories to be told.
Students in one class heard stories told by Ms. McGrath and then retold the stories to their parents, using a story-board, which was a student-drawn picture sequence of the story told. This sheet of paper was signed and returned by parents the following day and collected by the classroom teacher. This ensured that the children had retold the story before their reading performance was formally assessed the following day (or whenever the story was finished). In a second class, a matched group of students would read the same stories, but not participate in the retelling activity.
With teacher input, the students were ranked into five groups. Group One included students whose reading and comprehension were at or above grade level. Group Two included students who were close to grade level. Group Three consisted of students who were lower performing, but making progress. Group Four included students who were below grade level and struggling, and Group Five gathered the lowest performing students, ones who had major difficulties with reading. Recorded as well was information as to whether a student was receiving English Language Learners (ELL) or RSP services.
The study's design was altered when the teacher of the original control group of second graders was concerned that her students were not ready to progress past a review of first grade materials, which would put them behind the experimental group. Another control group was found, but unfortunately, that second grade group from Ms. Pro's class had already been tested with weekly comprehension tests on many of the stories that were going to be used in the research, and their scores had not been saved. The decision was made to compare the two groups of students using only one test, then, that of the sixth or last story in the series, and to use that data, along with the Spring 98 Iowa Test of Basic Skills reading scores, to evaluate the research design.
Ms. McGrath distributed consent forms for parents of the students in the experimental group, along with a letter describing what the parents' role would be as listeners to a retelling of the stories their daughters or sons would be hearing in class. Each week that a story used in the research study was to be read, Ms. McGrath told a story in the series to the students in the experimental group, and after the first week, collected the parent-signed story boards from the previous visit. She also telephoned parents of students who did not return the forms; on no week was there a 100% return of the forms. For these students, Ms. McGrath performed the part of listener. The story telling began on February 4, 1998, and ended on June 7, 1998.
Before the research project, the three teachers thought that an emphasis on difficult words in a teacher's telling and student retelling of a story was useful for purposes of student language acquisition and comprehension of the meaning of the story. But typically, the students in their retellings replaced words they weren't sure of with more familiar words or dropped them altogether. This practice may be reflected in the results of the study.
The research data consisted of the students' Spring 98 reading scores on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills and the Open Court Reading Program's comprehension test of the sixth story in the series. But when the data was analyzed on the basis of the matched pairs--those students who heard and retold the stories and those who did not--no significant statistical difference was found between the experimental and the control groups.
In light of this result, any future research design would include more subjects and a more definite plan to maintain the continuity of the retelling. Finally, as the stories for the study did not occur in a direct sequence in the Open Court series, Ms. McGrath matched her visits to the classes to the actual sequencing of the book. In effect, instead of a concentrated effort to work with students over six weeks' time, the research study was spread out over four months with large gaps between Ms. McGrath's visits. Therefore, any future design would include the creation of a system to evaluate the student retelling on a weekly basis.