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Inquiry in a Classroom Informational Text and Questioning

This inquiry-based research aims to identify effective strategies for teaching 5th-grade students to read and comprehend informational texts through written response questions. The study includes pre/post-testing and the implementation of specific comprehension strategies. Results demonstrate improved scores and enhanced questioning skills among students.

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Inquiry in a Classroom Informational Text and Questioning

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  1. Inquiry in a ClassroomInformational Text and Questioning By Stacy Price

  2. Research Question • What strategies can I teach my 5th grade students that will help them to read informational text and comprehend through written response questions. 

  3. Comprehension Skills • create mental pictures • use background knowledge • ask questions • make inferences • determine the most important ideas or themes • determine the meaning of unfamiliar words • synthesis information

  4. Informational Literacy Features • Found in science, social studies, as well as other textbooks, newspapers, and magazines. • Diagrams, charts, graphs, captions • Has index, table of contents, headings • Special vocabulary bold faced or italicized • Has a particular text structure

  5. Sample Lesson for Informational Text • Scavenger Hunt • Have students use an informational reading source (magazine, newspaper, textbook) to hunt for chapter headings, glossary, index, illustrations to develop comprehension of the text. • Students will gain an understanding of the purpose of informational text.

  6. Research Design • Week 1 • Conduct a pretest using a selection of informational text written response • Take note of student who use comprehension strategies • Week 2 • Teach specific comprehension strategy based on initial observations • Practice the strategy through informal interviewing and discussion • Week 3 • Teach a second comprehension strategy based on initial observation • Practice the strategy through informal interviewing and discussion • Discussion of type of informational text • Week 4 • Teach a third comprehension strategy based on initial observation • Practice use of strategy • Week 5 • Give a post test • Observe use of strategies • Have students answer a survey in regards to how they felt the strategies helped them

  7. Stats from Pre-test • Pre-test was a couple sentences about the solar system and a chart explaining the diameters of the planets. • Fifty-nine students took the mini-test. Of those 49% got both questions correct, 35% got one correct, and 15% got neither one correct.

  8. Inquiry ShiftInferential Questions • Through my practice in the classroom, students struggled with not the reading of informational text but the answering of inferential questions. • Students also refuse to go back in the text to find answers or concepts to help them.

  9. Simple Questions • Too often, the questioning process has been reduced to an oversimplified search for prepackaged answers. • Questions are intended to provoke thought and inspire reflection, but all too often the process is short circuited by the simple answer, the quick truth.

  10. What Does Inference Mean? • Making predictions or generalizations through deductive or inductive reasoning. • Deductive reasoning: start with a general statement and explain how specific details relate to it. • Inductive reasoning: investigate specific details in search of an underlying, unifying principle.

  11. Sample Lesson • Provide a selection of informational reading. • Ask questions • build on prior knowledge • develop the main idea • infer

  12. Sample Text

  13. Sample Questions • Where do we get the lumber we use for making buildings, paper and furniture? (prior knowledge) • How do some logging companies replace the trees they cut? (prior knowledge, infer) • How does clear-cutting affect a forest? (main idea) • How might the views of a person who catches fish for a living and a person who builds homes for a living differ? (infer)

  14. Conclusion • As we talked about and practiced the strategies, students needed to be using, their scores on these types of questions improved. • Having students write questions was also a neat way to have them explore the different types of questions. • Strong questioning skills fuel and steer the inventive process required to “cook up” something new. Without such skills, we and our students are prisoners of conventional wisdom and the trend or bandwagon of the day.

  15. Where do I go? • Increase the availability and exposure of informational text within my classroom. • Continue to use instructional strategies for comprehension of reading. • Continue to point out key features of informational text. • Continue to challenge my students with questions that are beyond rote memory and telling of the text.

  16. Resources • http://www.justreadnow.com/strategies/bloom.htm • http://www.ncsd.k12.pa.us/pssa/reading/reading.htm • http://web54.sd54.k12.il.us/schools/eisenhower/ISIP/Reading%20Strategies/Info%20Text/infotext.htm • http://teacher.scholastic.com/professional/literacypapers/duke.htm • http://teacher.scholastic.com/products/instructor/nov03_infotext.htm

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