Module 1 Analysis: Evaluating an Observation Guide

American College of Education

LIT5343 Implementing Literacy in Context

Dr. Margie Aker

April 17th, 2022

 Evaluating an Observation Guide

Introduction

It is important for students to not only be able to read a story, but also comprehend what

they are reading. Students often need to be guided to increase their comprehension. To do this, it

is important to ask questions. “Good questioning is the result of an ongoing process of deep

thinking” (Ciardiello, 2013, p. 14). Teachers often want their students to think beyond the text,

and need those high level questions to help them do that. Creating a reading guide helps guide

students to find important details from the text to increase their comprehension. It also helps

them monitor to ensure they are understanding what they are reading. When they monitor

themselves through reading guides, it helps them “confirm how any new information either

supports or changes something they already believe, and considers multiple solutions to

problems” (Ciardiello, 2013, p. 14).

In this activity, students will read a two page news article called Stop This Bug

(Scholastic, 2022, p.2). While they are reading the article, they will answer four comprehension

questions along with finding the definition of two vocabulary words. Students will independently

read the text and answer the questions to allow the teacher to assess their comprehension.

Observation

Students in this classroom are familiar with reading various articles from Scholastic

News weekly. They were not excited to have to read two articles for the week as they had

previously already read one earlier in the week. After the teacher explained that they would be

reading about bugs, many of the students became excited. Therefore, students were eager to get

started. Many students commented on the appearance of the reading guide. This was a different
style than they were used to when reading articles in the past. One student even said that they

thought it looked easier than what they have done in the past.

Once students started working, it was evident that students were reading the questions on

the reading guide first before they began reading the article. The question that was answered the

most first, was the vocabulary words. When asking a student why they completed that box first,

they stated that they needed to know what those words meant before they could read the article.

After collecting the reading guides, it was evident that some students needed to go back and add

text evidence to support their answer.

Discussion

After the entire class completed the reading guide, a class discussion was held. The

questions and student answers are outlined in Table 1 below.

Table 1
Class Discussion Questions and Student Answers

Discussion Question Student Answer

1. How did this reading guide help you
understand the text?
● Based on the questions I had to
answer, I knew that those were going
to be important parts of the article.
● It made me think about what I was
reading and sometimes I had to go
back and reread a section to find the
answer.
● The questions were in the order of the
article so it was easier to find the
answers.

2. Why do we have a reading guide to ● It is to make sure that we are actually

use while reading? reading the article. Otherwise we
could just say that we read it but not
actually know what it is about.
● For the teacher to know if we
understand what we are reading.

3. What was the hardest question on the ● Summarizing the side section called
 reading guide? leave us alone was the hardest
question. It was difficult to ensure that
I included the most important
information about that section.
● It wasn’t really a question, but it was
hard to answer the questions with text
evidence. It really made me search for
the answer harder.

4. What would you change about this ● If I created the reading guide, I would
reading guide? have less questions.
● I needed more lines to write my
answers on. So maybe make the boxes
bigger.

The students were extremely honest with their opinions on the reading guide. When

teachers are making reading guides, they make them align with state standards and make them

engaging for students. However, hearing student feedback is important to see if there are areas

that could be improved upon.

Reflection

An ongoing skill that the students are working on is having text evidence that supports

their answers. As mentioned above, that was noted as not being done on several students’

reading guides. They were then asked to go back and find the supporting evidence. Many times

students are given assignments and sent on their way to complete it. However, with this the

teacher observed how the students were completing the assignment. It was interesting to see how

so many different students took a different approach to getting started. Whether that was

immediately reading the article or reading the questions on the reading guide. Students who did

read the questions first tended to not have to reread the article in order to find the answers.

“Concept-based literacy surpasses facts and skills because it includes a focus on the transfer of
the essential conceptual understandings of a discipline” (Brown, 2020, p. 40). Therefore, they

were applying test taking strategies that they have been taught in the past.

After the students completed their reading guide, it was eye opening to have a class

discussion about it. The students were completely honest in sharing their thoughts and opinions

on the reading guide. The number one positive thing about the reading guide was that the

questions were in order of how they appeared in the article. Also that it allowed the students to

monitor that they understood what they were reading. However, the negative that many of the

students had was that there was not enough room for the students to write their answers. Many

students had to continue their answers on the backside of the paper. The class noted though that

if they wrote small enough, that they could fit their answer in the boxes.

If this assignment was to be taught again in the future, the reading guide would allow for

more writing room. This would ensure that students can continue their thoughts in the same

space and not have to continue onto the back. A positive of having the reading guide was it made

the students truly read the assignment and comprehend what they were reading. Since they were

open ended questions, the students had to search for the evidence in the text to support their

answer. To further assess their comprehension skills, multiple choice questions could be added in

the future as well.

Conclusion

Creating a reading guide for students to use while reading a piece of text to help with

comprehension. Students were then able to input their own suggestions on how they thought the

reading guide went. It is important to hear student input to see what worked best for them and

ways to improve it for the future. Overall, students were able to use the reading guide to

successfully learn about the lanternflies and the potential risks they have to our community.
Students were able to apply previously taught literacy skills in the disciplinary area of social

science.
 References

Brown, T. (2020). WHO IS DOING THE THINKING? Moving beyond skills to conceptual

understanding and transfer. Literacy Today (2411-7862), 38(1), 40–41.

Ciardiello, A. V. (2013). Did You Ask a Good Common Core Question Today? The Cognitive

and Metacognitive Dimensions of Enhanced Inquiry Skills. Reading Today, 30(3), 14-16.

https://go.openathens.net/redirector/ace.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/trade-jo

urnals/did-you-ask-good-common-core-question-today/docview/1282856266/se-2?accou

ntid=31683

Scholastic News. (2022). Stop this bug. Scholastic.

https://sn4.scholastic.com/issues/2021-22/032822/stop-this-bug.html#On%20Level
Appendix A