Thesis Sample For Priti Dheevan

THE EFFECTS OF SUBSTITUTING RETELLING FOR BASAL READER
COMPREHENSION INSTRUCTION ON STUDENTS IN A SIXTH GRADE
READING PROGRAM
by
Donna M. Johnson
B.A., Southwest Minnesota State University, 1975
M.S., Minnesota State University, Mankato, 1984
A Dissertation Submitted in Parti a! Fulfillment of

The Requirements for the Degree of
Doctor of Education
Division of Curriculum and Instruction

In the Graduate School
The University of South Dakota
December 2008
UMI Number: 3351192
Copyright 2008 by
Johnson, Donna M.
All rights reserved.
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ABSTRACT
Donna M. Johnson, Ed.D., Curriculum and Instruction,

The University of South Dakota, 2008
The Effects of Substituting Retelling for Basal Reader Comprehension Instruction

on Students in a Sixth Grade Reading Program
Dissertation directed by Dr. Maurine V. Richardson
Teachers often assume that if a student is able to pronounce the words on a page,
comprehension of the text will follow automatically. This is not always the case, and
teachers struggle to find ways to effectively "teach" comprehension. Educational research
done in the 1980s and 1990s supported teaching strategies to help students actively
increase their own reading comprehension capabilities. Retelling was one of the
comprehension-fostering instructional strategies examined and recommended. Even
though the benefits of retelling were well-supported, its use in classrooms either did not
become established or has waned in recent years.
This experimental study was designed to examine the value and ease of use of
retelling in a contemporary classroom setting. Students in two intact sixth grade reading
groups, one made up of proficient readers and the other of less-proficient readers,
participated in the study.
The purpose of the study was twofold. First, it endeavored to determine if replacing
existing group comprehension instruction and individual comprehension workbook
assignments with retelling instruction and oral and written retelling practice would
significantly impact the reading comprehension achievement of middle school students,
and second, it sought to discover how retelling would affect the reading comprehension
in
achievement of students at different levels of reading capability (proficient and less-
proficient).
The retelling intervention lasted for five weeks with each group of students. Pre- and
post-test reading comprehension achievement data were collected using three
instruments: a standardized reading test, a curriculum-based measure, and a scale
evaluating the quality of written retellings. An analysis of the data revealed that retelling
was indeed an effective reading comprehension strategy. While statistical significance
was not reached on all measures used, effect sizes reflected the practical significance of
the retelling strategy. Both proficient and less-proficient readers benefited from the
retelling instruction. The effects observed are particularly important because the strategy
was implemented within an existing program without additional materials, costs, or
disruptions to the classroom schedule of either the students or the teachers.
This abstract of approximately 325 words is approved as to form and content. I
recommend its publication.
Signed /Vkj^^fuJ 7SjcAdJjUtM/t-J

Professor in Charge
iv
DOCTORAL COMMITTEE
The members of the committee appointed to examine the dissertation of Donna M.
Johnson find it satisfactory and recommend that it be approved.
Dr. Maurine V. RichaWson, Chair
Dr. Susan C. Gapp
rAris! M. Reed
Dr/tCristine
C,,.
i^x-^ t - V i / v ^ ^ ^^Mvk^y
Dr. Lisa A. Newland
v
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I thank my advisor, Dr. Maurine Richardson, for her assistance and encouragement
during the completion of this project. Throughout my program of study, she has always
done just the right thing at the right time to help me accomplish my goals.
The other members of my dissertation committee, Dr. Susan Gapp, Dr. Kristine
Reed, and Dr. Lisa Newland, have each mentored and supported me in class and during
my research and writing; I thank them.
My research could not have taken place without the permission and cooperation of
the school board, administration, teachers, students, and parents in the school district in
which I completed my study. I am grateful for their help.
My fellow students, Dr. Trudi Nelson, Dr. Penelope Smith, Mr. Bruce Brown, and
Mrs. Carla McMurry-Kozak, lent companionship, encouragement, and enjoyment to our
shared pursuit of advanced learning.
Dr. Linda Reetz and Mr. Gordon Reetz provided hospitality and friendship I greatly
appreciate.
My daughters, Mariel, Bethany, and Elsa, have encouraged me from their distant
locations at other schools of higher education. My husband, Chris, has been patiently
supporting me at home; he will welcome the repossession of his computer and office and
the increased levels of companionship and attention that will ensue with the completion
of this project.
VI
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Abstract iii
Doctoral Committee v
Acknowledgements , vi
List of Tables xi
Chapter
1. Introduction 1
Background of the Problem 3
Statement of the Problem 6
Purpose of the Study 6
Significance of the Study 7
Definition of Terms 9
Limitations of the Study 10
Delimitations of the Study 11
Organization of the Remainder of the Study 11
2. Review of Related Literature and Research 12
Introduction 12
Foundational Studies 13
Cognitive Psychology and the Development of
Reading Comprehension Models 14
Reading Comprehension Research in Educational Settings 17
vii
Retelling in Educational Settings 22
Using Retelling with Struggling Readers 32
Retelling in a Contemporary Middle School Setting 35
Summary 38
Organization of the Remainder of the Study 39
3. Methodology 40
Review of Related Literature 41
Population and Setting 42
Instrumentation 43
Standardized Pre-Post Test 43
Instructional Materials 44
Curriculum-Based Assessment 45
Written Retelling Assessment 46
Pilot Study 48
Intervention and Data Collection 49
Data Analysis , 51
Summary 53
4. Results... , 54
Introduction ...., 54
Research Questions 54
Demographic Data 55
Findings 56
vni
Questions One and Two 56
Questions Three and Four „ 59
Question Five 61
Summary 62
5. Summary 63
Purpose of the Study 63
Research Questions 63
Review of Related Literature and Research 64
Methodology and Procedures 66
Research Findings 67
Conclusions 68
Discussion 69
Recommendations 73
Summary 75
References 76
Appendices
A. USD Office of Human Subjects Protection Exempt

Review and Approval 91
B. Communication with School District: Presentation to School Board &
Permission to Conduct Study 93
C. USD Office of Human Subjects Protection Documentation:

Request for Parental Consent (English & Spanish) 96
D. USD Office of Human Subjects Protection Documentation:

Request for Student Assent 101
IX
E. Pro-Ed Inc. Test Use Permission/Agreement 103
F. Scott Foresman Leveled Readers Unit 5 105
G. Scott Foresman Leveled Readers Unit 6 107
H. Trade Books Used ., 109
I. Scott Foresman Unit Skills Test Validity/Reliability Information 110
J. Irwin-Mitchell Richness in Retelling Scale:

Permission to Use, Criteria, & Checklist 114
K. Oral Retelling Procedures 118
L. Written Retelling Procedures 120
x
LIST OF TABLES
Table Number Page
1. Reading Comprehension Pre, Post, and Change Scores

of Two Groups of Readers 57
2. Comparison of Pre/Post Scores on Two Comprehension

Tests for Two Groups of Readers 58
3. Comparison of Comprehension Change Scores of Control

and Experimental Groups , 59
4. Reading Comprehension Change Scores of Proficient and Less-

Proficient Retellers 60
5. Comparison of Comprehension Change Scores of Proficient and Less-
Proficient Readers 60
6. Means and Standard Deviations of Written Retelling Change Scores 61
7. Change Scores on Written Retellings 62
XI
1
CHAPTER 1
Introduction to the Study
Every day, children talk with each other about friends and family, experiences at
home and school, games and sports, and other daily events (Brown & Cambourne, 1987;
Goodman, 1982; Van Dongen, 1987). They use their own words to relate what they have
seen, heard, and experienced; in other words, they retell (Kalmbach, 1980; Martin, 1972).
Children are skilled at understanding and producing complex narratives (Paris & Paris,
2003). Both children and adults who enjoy reading stories often retell these to each other,
sometimes casually and other times more carefully (Caldwell & Leslie, 2005). Without
taking particular notice, most people retell to themselves in their minds when they review
their schedule for the day or continue a project at work or pick up the mystery novel on
the bed stand (Caldwell & Leslie, 2005; Rosen, 1986). Retelling, according to Britton
(1971) both depends upon and enhances memory:
Going over past events in our minds must occupy us for a great deal of our spare
time 'Memory' as we usually think of it, takes a narrative form. It may well be
that the stage at which narrative speech becomes possible to a child is the point at
which memory in this sense begins, (p. 71)
The ability to narrate a story, which is essential to memory and cognitive
development, is also believed to be critical for early literacy (Paris & Paris, 2003).
Engagement by children in the story-telling process enhances interest in and attention to
reading and writing. A child's use of personal narrative language and thought leads to
competence in these literary tasks (Van Dongen, 1987).

2
When teachers and researchers ask students to retell, they are asking for "as much of
the information in the text as possible" (Moss, 2004, p. 711). In response, children do not
recite back word for word what they have read or heard, nor do they articulate a neat,
organized summary. Rather, they elaborate, expand, and emphasize the bits most
important to them; when they repeat a text, they also change it and make it personal and
original (Rosen, 1986). Students choose what they consider to be the main points and
generate a retelling, which is then itself a newly-created story (Kalmbach, 1986a; Kintsch
& van Dijk, 1983; Rumelhart, 1975b; Steinruck, 1978).
Spoken or written retellings have been used for more than 80 years to "gather data in
an amazing range of language based inquiries" (Kalmbach, 1986a, p. 327), much of it
related to memory and comprehension. In 1926, Jean Piaget used retellings to investigate
children's ideas about time. In his classic 1932 study on the formation of memory, Sir
Frederic Bartlett asked participants to study a picture or story and then either draw or tell
it later. Bartlett found that memory is constructive, interpretative, and dependent upon
what he termed schemata: personal, conceptual memory patterns based on past
experiences.
Schema theory and other cognitive psychological concepts and processes related to
reading were greatly neglected during a half century of interest in behaviorism (Wittrock,
1981; Pearson, 1985). In the late 1950s and early 1960s, interest in cognitive psychology
re-emerged (Anderson, Wang, & Gaffney, 2006; Wittrock, 1981), and research focusing
on reading comprehension, verbal processes, imagery, perception, and memory became
prominent once again.

3
In 1967, O'Donnell, Griffin, and Norris asked elementary school children to watch
two silent cartoons and then narrate or write their retellings. In the 1970s and 1980s,
retellings were used to study the influence of story grammar on comprehension (Mandler
& Johnson, 1977; Stein & Glenn, 1979) and investigate and understand reader miscues
(Goodman, 1982; Goodman & Burke, 1972). In 1980 (Chafe), people from cultures
across the globe viewed a film of an elderly man picking pears and then narrated orally
what they had seen and heard; these retellings were analyzed to determine relationships
among culture, cognition, and language. Kintsch and van Dijk (1983) based their model
of text comprehension on data collected from retellings.
Background of the Problem
Both in research and in the classroom, retelling has most often been used as an
assessment of reading comprehension (Gambrell, Koskinen, & Kapinus, 1991; Gambrell,
Pfeiffer, & Wilson, 1985; Golden & Pappas, 1978; Morrow, 1985a). As evidence for the
value of retelling increased in the 1980s, researchers urged that it be used as an
instructional strategy and suggested ideas for practical classroom applications (Koskinen,
Gambrell, Kapinus, & Heathington, 1988). Teachers, however, continued to "assume that
retellings belong in the laboratory and not in the classroom" (Kalmbach, 1986a, p. 327);
in 1991, Gambrell et al. noted that the number of studies investigating retelling as an
instructional strategy were quite limited. Five years later, in 1996, Morrow emphasized
the importance of practicing retelling and suggested a variety of formats for classroom
retellings.
Retelling strategies have been used to build the reading comprehension ability of
delayed and struggling readers (Gillam & Carlile, 1997; Hansen, 1978; Houge, 2000;
4
Kuldanek, 1998; Rhodes & Milby, 2007; Wood & Jones, 1998) and second language
learners (Hu, 1995). In 1997 and 2004, Moss recommended using retelling with
expository as well as narrative texts. Retelling has been an assessment and
comprehension strategy recommended by educational organizations in the states of
Louisiana, Oregon, and Hawaii (Benson & Cummins, 2000; Early Literacy and
Assessment for Learning Series, 2005; Oregon State Department of Education,
1998/1999). Read and Retell: A Strategy for the Whole Language/Natural Learning
Classroom, written by Brown and Cambourne (1987), was one of the first retelling
resources to be widely used by classroom teachers; Brown's students created many
written texts. Other teacher resources, e.g. The Power of Retelling (Benson & Cummins,
2000) and Retelling Strategies to Improve Comprehension (Shaw, 2005) have since
become available.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has been used to assess
the academic achievement of American students since 1969. Reading scores for students
in grades 4, 8, and 12 have shown slight gains and losses over the years, but for the most
part, have "yielded a flat trend" (Taylor, Pearson, Garcia, Stahl, & Bauer, 2006). During
these same years, and in spite of what has been learned about developing children's
reading comprehension, there has been a consistent lack of comprehension instruction in
elementary classrooms (Durkin, 1978/1979; Pressley, Wharton-McDonald, Mistretta-
Hampston, & Echevarria, 1998; Taylor et al., 2006). New models of reading
comprehension instruction (including retelling) built on schema theory and the findings
of cognitive psychologists have not become established, due in part to political pressures
(Sarroub & Pearson, 1998). Both conservative and liberal groups objected to new forms
5
of instruction and assessment for a variety of reasons, including "utility issues (the new
approaches took too long and were too expensive and difficult to score), and equity
concerns (will minority students do any better or will they, in fact, do worse . . .?)"
(Sarroub & Pearson, p. 102).
Teachers also found the new comprehension strategy instruction difficult to
understand and teach (Hilden & Pressley, 2007). Many viewed retelling as difficult,
cumbersome, and time-consuming (Benson & Cummins, 2000; Gambrell et al., 1985;
Morrow, 1986); others felt they did not have the training or experience to teach their
students to retell (Benson & Cummins, 2000; Shaw, 2005). Retelling, in spite of its
recognized worth, has been and continues to be an infrequently used strategy for
improving reading comprehension (Caldwell & Leslie, 2005; D'Allessio, 1996; Gambrell
et al., 1985; Gambrell et al, 1991; Morrow, 1986; Morrow, 1996; Morrow et al., 1986;
Morrow, Tracey, Wood, & Pressley, 1999; Thompson, 1990). As is sometimes the case,
there is a contrast between what reading research has verified and how this knowledge
has been applied in classrooms.
More than twenty years have elapsed since American literacy researchers first
recommended the use of retelling as an instructional strategy to enhance students' reading
comprehension, but it is not currently receiving the attention it should by researchers or
educators (J, N. Mitchell, personal communication, February 4, 2008; Tucker, 2001).
While research is ongoing and change is constant in the field of education, the value of
retelling has never been discounted or denied. This study, therefore, re-examined the
effectiveness, usefulness, and practicality of retelling in a contemporary, conventional
classroom setting.
6
Statement of the Problem
This study examined the effects of using oral and written retelling as a reading
comprehension instructional strategy on the reading achievement of two groups of
students in the sixth grade.
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of the study was twofold. First, it endeavored to determine if replacing
existing group comprehension instruction and individual comprehension workbook
assignments with retelling instruction and oral and written retelling practice would
significantly impact the reading comprehension achievement of middle school students,
and second, it sought to discover whether the reading comprehension achievement of
students at different levels of reading capability (proficient and less-proficient) would be
affected equally. Specifically, the study answered the following questions:
1. Is there a difference in gains in reading achievement as measured by a
standardized reading test between students who engage in retelling and students who do
not?
curriculum-based unit test between students who engage in retelling and students who do
not?
standardized reading test between proficient and less-proficient readers who engage in
retelling?
7
curriculum-based unit test between proficient and less-proficient readers who engage in
retelling?
5. Is there a gain in reading achievement as measured by a comparison of the pre-
and post-assessments of written retellings of students who engage in retelling?
Significance of the Study
Retelling has been the subject of many studies. In the past, concerns have been raised
about the design and methodology of retelling research. Golden and Pappas (1990)
examined 81 retelling studies conducted between 1977 and 1986 and identified areas of
concern. They raised questions about the texts used in the studies, the varying
expectations of the researchers and the participants, and the procedures used to analyze
oral and written retellings.
This study included procedures that took into account the recommendations of
Golden and Pappas: all texts used were authentic and unaltered, participants most often
retold to naive listeners (other students who had not read the same text or portion of text),
and written retellings were analyzed by two raters using a valid, well-established retelling
scale. By addressing these issues, this study avoided some of the pitfalls of earlier
retelling research.
Most often, when retelling has been part of a study, it has been used to assess reading
comprehension (e.g. Goodman, 1982; John, Lui, & Tannock, 2003; O'Donnell, Griffin,
& Norris, 1967; Zimilies & Kuhns, 1976). Students with no experience retelling have
been asked to read and then tell or write everything they can recall. This is "not an easy
procedure for students, no matter what their ages" (Morrow, 1988, p. 129). It was while
8
using retelling to assess comprehension that researchers in the 1980s began to consider its
value as an instructional strategy (Morrow, 1988). In this study, retelling was a
comprehension-fostering strategy used every school day for a five-week intervention
period. Because retelling was compared directly to the use of workbook page completion
as comprehension instruction, it will interest reading teachers who wish to use strategies
that have been examined empirically.
Many previous examinations of retelling have taken place in lower and middle grade
elementary classrooms, or have examined retells of stories read to young pre-readers.
This study will add information about reading comprehension instruction that will be of
interest to teachers of middle school students, both students considered to be proficient
readers and those who struggle. The ability to comprehend what they read is of crucial
importance to students as they enter high school and take on the study of content area
subjects at advanced levels.
Finally, this study was designed to focus on practical as well as statistical
significance. "The practical significance of any intervention is dramatically improved if it
can be implemented under conditions approaching those of the normal classroom"
(Palincsar & Brown, 1984, p. 157). The study took place in a school setting with intact
groups of students, followed existing class schedules, and used regular curriculum
materials. The current study is unique in its emphasis on applying retelling to classroom
group instruction rather than in a more typical one-on-one researcher-to-student
arrangement. Reading teachers and curriculum directors will be interested in knowing
about the effectiveness of a strategy that can easily be incorporated into existing
classrooms and reading programs.

9
Definition of Terms
The following definitions will be used in the study. In cases in which the definition
does not contain a citation, the term was defined by the researcher.
Comprehension: Comprehension is the active construction of meaning derived from
oral or written language. It is a complex process of reasoning which involves evaluation,
problem solving, and the development, elaboration, and integration of prior knowledge
(Johnston, 1983).
Retelling: A retelling is a post reading or post listening recall in which the reader or
listener retells in their own words what they remember from reading or listening to a text.
Retelling can be oral or written, and it can be used to assess or develop comprehension
(Morrow, 1996 p. 267; Morrow, 2005, p. 396).
Written retelling: A strategy that reflects a holistic concept in which children are
actively involved as they reconstruct a written retelling of the story they have read or
heard (Brown and Cambourne, 1987).
Guided retelling: Teacher use of interventions in the form of prompt questions.
These prompts are used when children have a difficult time moving through retellings on
their own (Glazer and Brown, 1993, p. 116).
Unguided retelling: Students retell without intervention from teachers, peers, or
other listeners (Glazer & Brown, 1993, p. 116).
Proficient reader: A proficient reader is able to comprehend the meaning of text at a
reading level equal to his age and/or grade.
Less-proficient reader: A less-proficient reader struggles to comprehend the meaning
of text at a reading level equal to his age and/or grade.

10
Story grammar: A description of the elements typically found in stories: setting,
characters, theme (problem), plot episodes (key events), and resolution (Marshall, 1983).
Limitations of the Study
This study has the following limitations:
1. The assignment (and the criteria used to determine the assignment) of the
participants to either the proficient or the less-proficient reading group was made by the
classroom teachers prior to the onset of the study. While the researcher did not participate
in this decision-making process, the assignment of students to groups appeared to be
appropriate.
2. Previously established schedules of participants in the experimental group
required their occasional absence from retelling instructional time (e.g. to attend band
lessons or to be kindergarten buddies during lunch time). When this happened, the
researcher attempted to meet with the student to make up the missed retelling activity so
that all students in the experimental group were exposed to the intervention in its entirety.
3. The classroom teachers planned all lessons and instructional activities for the
students in the control group throughout the duration of the study. The teachers were not
asked to make any changes in their usual literacy teaching procedures. To minimize
diffusion of treatment, the researcher did not consult with the classroom teachers about
either their lesson plans for the control group or her lesson plans for the experimental
group.
11
Delimitations of the Study
1. Because the participants in this study were a convenience sample of sixth-grade
students in a rural, Midwestern public school, any findings and results would most likely
apply to students of a similar age in a similar setting.
2. No students in special education were included in the study; these students
typically received their reading instruction in a resource room during the literacy
instruction hour each day. There was, however, a range of reading proficiency
represented by the study participants.
Organization of the Remainder of the Study
Chapter 1 outlined the background, purpose, and need for this study. A review of the
related literature will be provided in Chapter 2. The methods and procedures used to
implement the study and gather the data will be described in Chapter 3. The major
findings of the study will be reported in Chapter 4, along with data analyses for each of
the research questions. Chapter 5 will contain a summary of the study, major findings,
conclusions, discussion of the results, and recommendations for practice and further
study.
12
CHAPTER 2
Review of Related Literature and Research
Introduction
students in the sixth grade. The purpose of this study was, first of all, to determine if
replacing existing group comprehension instruction and individual comprehension
workbook assignments with retelling instruction and oral and written retelling practice
would significantly impact the reading comprehension achievement of middle school
students. Second, it sought to discover whether the reading comprehension achievement
of students at different levels of reading capability (proficient and less-proficient) would
be affected equally.
Five interrelated bodies of research informed and guided the study. The first of these
encompassed a small number of studies that took place in the early years of the 20th
century and established a foundation for later reading research. Three additional
complementary fields of reading research germane to the study developed concurrently in
the mid-to-latter years of the 20th century and were therefore reviewed. Finally, literature
relevant to the procedures and methodology of the study were examined.
This review of literature will therefore provide a discussion of: (1) early studies
foundational to research on memory and reading comprehension, (2) reading
comprehension models developed by cognitive psychologists, (3) reading comprehension
research in instructional settings, (4) retelling research in educational settings with both
13
proficient and struggling readers, and (5) issues related to investigating retelling in a
contemporary middle school setting.
Foundational Studies
The Psychology and Pedagogy of Reading, Huey's seminal work, was published in
1908; his insights into the reading process and the teaching of reading have stood the test
of time and are valued and respected a century later. In his studies, Huey examined the
physiological aspects of reading, particularly eye movements and eye fixations, but he
also studied the psychological processes involved in reading. Huey recognized that
comprehension is a holistic process that integrates information from the text with the
reader's previous experiences. He recommended that parents and teachers provide
children with excellent literature from the library rather than depend on readers published
as school textbooks. Huey observed children selecting favorite books and retelling the
stories to themselves.
Psychologist and educator E. L. Thorndike first studied animal behavior and then
became interested in human learning and psychology. In addition to developing a
behavioral theory which he called connectionism (learning defined as the formation of a
connection between stimulus and response), Thorndike was one of the first researchers to
understand the significance of the potential link between the fields of education and
cognitive psychology (Sears, 2007). In 1917, Thorndike wrote that reading depends on
three things: the meaning of the individual words, the meaning of the words in context,
and the reader's integration of the ideas of the text with prior knowledge and current
reading purpose. Reading is more than a "mechanical, passive, undiscriminating task, on
a totally different level from the task of evaluating or using what is read. . . . It is not a
14
small or unworthy task to learn 'what the book says'" (p. 332). Thorndike's definition of
"reading as reasoning" (p. 323) meant that reading could no longer be considered just the
pronunciation of letters and words; literacy education and the practices of literacy
instruction were irrevocably altered.
Bartlett was another of the forerunners in the field of cognitive psychology. The
conclusions he reached in his classic 1932 work on memory at the University of
Cambridge differed from accepted theories of the time (Stein & Glenn, 1979). Bartlett
asked his subjects to study a story or a picture and then later either reproduce or retell it.
Rather than recall a story exactly, participants blended, omitted, transformed, and
reconstructed the details within their impression of the story as a whole. Bartlett found
that memory is constructive, interpretative, and dependent upon what he termed
schemata: personal, conceptual memory patterns based on past experiences.
Cognitive Psychology and the Development of Reading Comprehension Models
For approximately 50 years, from about 1920 to 1970, educational psychology was
largely dominated by the behaviorist movement, which was more concerned with
external behavior than with what was happening in the mind to bring about the behavior
(Anderson, 1995; Sarroub & Pearson, 1998). Little research related to the cognitive
processes of reading was undertaken during this time (Wittrock, 1981). Modern cognitive
psychology emerged in the 1950s along with a renewed interest in linguistics and
research in computer science and artificial intelligence. By the mid-1950s, psychologists
were again studying and theorizing about reading and the reading comprehension process
(Pearson, 1985).
15
It is difficult to measure or define reading comprehension; the comprehension
process must always be mediated by a product (Johnston, 1983; Rhodes & Shanklin,
1993), but it is in fact a complex process that involves reasoning, problem solving, and
monitoring and correction strategies. "When we comprehend something, we know that
we have understood, but not how we managed to do so" (Mandler, 1984, p. 33). Several
cognitive psychologists have developed theories to explain this invisible process.
Rumelhart (1975a) revived the idea of schema that originated with Bartlett (1932)
and Piaget (1974) as the basis for his general theory of comprehension. Rumelhart (1984)
proposed "to develop the concept of a schema in its modern reincarnation to show why
this idea has seemed powerful, and to show how a schema theory can help make sense of
a number of cognitive processes" (p. 163) including comprehending, organizing, and
recalling story structure.
Other researchers followed Rumelhart and used his work as a base to further study
"story grammar," the term developed to refer to the key parts of a story. A story grammar
consists of the elements typically found in traditional folk stories and other stories:
setting (including characters), an initiating event, a series of episodes directed to
achieving a goal, the reactions of the characters to the events, and a final resolution
(Johnson & Mandler, 1980; Marshall, 1983). Because they possess a standard internal
structure, traditional stories were used for psychological study to evaluate the presence of
story schema in the minds of children (Mandler, 1984; Whaley, 1981). Story grammar
studies assumed that "comprehension is organized and that the closer the reader's
organization is to that of the text, the greater comprehension is likely to be" (Marshall, p.
517). Comprehension studies based on story grammar made universal use of retelling -
16
generally oral, but occasionally written - to collect data from participants (e.g.
Nezworski, Stein, & Trabasso, 1982; Pappas & Brown, 1987).
Another theory of the reading comprehension process, Wittrock's model of
generative learning, was proposed in 1974. According to this model, readers use complex
psychological processes to construct ("generate") meaning for printed texts. Three of the
several fundamental processes of reading comprehension are attention, encoding, and
memory. Good readers, in order to comprehend a text, attend to its meaning rather than to
surface characteristics; they also bring relevant background knowledge and past
experiences to the reading comprehension task. Underlining, note taking, adopting a
different perspective, drawing pictures while reading, and constructing mental images
while reading can all increase generative processing.
Wittrock and his colleagues conducted studies in schools to test their generative
learning theory. In each of two experiments conducted by Doctorow, Wittrock, & Marks
(1978) with nearly 500 children in grade six, comprehension and recall were
approximately doubled in the experimental conditions using generative learning tasks.
Later, Linden and Wittrock (1981) assigned students in a fifth grade class to one of four
groups. Following the treatment, comprehension tests were administered to all
participants; the two groups exposed to generative teaching procedures scored
significantly higher on reading comprehension.
The construction-integration (CI) model of text comprehension was first explained
by Kintsch and Van Dijk in 1983; over the years (Kintsch, 2005) they added to the CI
model to further describe the interaction between the top-down (memory and knowledge)
processes that direct comprehension and bottom-up (sensory input) processes that define
17
and limit it. "In the CI model, the words of the text are used to construct propositions;
these activate further propositions without top-down control and then ambiguities and
contradictions are resolved by an integration process" (Kintsch, 2005, p. 127). Retellings
were used as the principal data for Kintsch and van Dijk's model of discourse
comprehension because retellings revealed the story events readers selected during top-
down processing.
By the late 1970s and early 1980s, theoretical and experimental work on the
cognitive processes of comprehension supported a move away from the idea that
information is transferred directly during reading toward theories that recognize the
active, constructive role of the reader (Pearson, 1985: Rowe, 1986). The assumptions of
many educators that children would instinctively learn to comprehend as they learned to
decode (Snow, 2002) and that there was not much teachers could to do develop
comprehension skills (Pearson, 1985) had been called into question; it seemed well worth
the time and effort of teachers to focus their attention on reading comprehension
instruction. Researchers began to examine school settings to see if theory had begun to
inform and improve classroom practice.
Reading Comprehension Research in Educational Settings
In the classic study examining grade three-through-six reading and social studies
classrooms to determine how much time was spent teaching reading comprehension
strategies, Durkin (1978/1979) began with a search for the definition of "comprehension
instruction." Finding little help in existing literature, Durkin developed a list of categories
for teacher behavior that could be considered to be comprehension instruction. The major
finding of the study was that almost no comprehension instruction was taking place.
18
During almost 18,000 minutes of observation of social studies and reading lessons, only
45 minutes of time were spend on comprehension instruction. Instead, teachers "relied
heavily on workbooks and ditto sheets" (p. 525) and much attention was directed to
giving, completing, and checking the assignments in these materials. In a follow-up
study, Durkin (1981) examined the manuals of five basal reading programs; these teacher
editions also devoted generous amounts of space to literal-level questions and contained
only brief, infrequent instructions for teaching reading comprehension.
Durkin's (1978/1979, 1981) findings instigated further research into reading
comprehension (Pressley et al, 1998). In 1985, Shake and Allington observed reading
lessons in second grade classrooms to examine teachers' use of reading manuals. The
teachers in their study did not adhere to the comprehension questions in the manuals, but
rather used their own, which tended to be even simpler and less text-based than those
prescribed.
The common practice of assessing comprehension by asking a series of mainly literal
oral follow-up questions came under question by those researching reading
comprehension processes (Clark, 1982; Rhodes & Shanklin, 1993; Rosenshine &
Meister, 1994; Shake & Allington, 1985). A report sponsored by the National Institute of
Education (Anderson, Hiebert, Scott, & Wilkinson, 1985) and an article by Pappas and
Brown (1987) also warned against continued excessive use of workbooks and work
sheets during reading instruction time. New theories and conceptions of reading
comprehension had contributed to a "move away from information transfer theories of
reading comprehension and toward theories that acknowledge the active, constructive
role of the reader" (Rowe, 1986, p. 43, see also Meredith, Mitchell, & Hernandez-Miller,
19
1992). Children would benefit more from comprehension instructional tasks such as
asking purpose questions, using advance organizers, summarizing, dramatizing, and
retelling - strategies that had proven to be effective in improving reading comprehension
(Pearson, 1985; Rowe, 1986; Valencia & Pearson, 1987). Retellings, in particular,
demonstrated that readers expand what is written in the book and add from their own
schemas to "build a personal model of what the text means" (Pearson, 1985, p. 735).
As new reading comprehension instructional practices came into prominence,
reading comprehension assessment formats also changed (Sarroub and Pearson, 1998).
Formal systematic testing, which began around the time of World War I, had used short
answers, multiple choice, essays, and oral answers to discussion questions to determine
comprehension capabilities. Informal reading comprehension assessments began with
informal reading inventories in the 1940s and continued with reading miscue inventories
in the 1970s. During the 1980s and 1990s, the cognitive revolution in teaching reading
was closely followed by a sociocultural revolution brought on in part by the translation
and influence of the writings of Vygotsky (1986). One of the important advances in
comprehension during this period was the use of retelling to assess comprehension.
"Many scholars developed systems for evaluating the depth and breadth of students' text
understandings based on their attempts to retell or recall what they had read. . . . There
was a conscious attempt to take into account reader, text, and context factors" (Sarroub &
Pearson, 1998, p. 101).
Unfortunately, the advances made in reading comprehension theory, research, and
models of instructional practice during the 1980s did not become firmly established in
practical application. In the years just preceding the new millennium, "education
20
officials, in the name of holding schools and teachers responsible for student
performance,. .. created such a high-stakes environment that people end up 'teaching to
the test' in a way that narrows rather than expands curricular opportunities" (Sarroub &
Pearson, 1998, p. 97; see also Martinez & McGee, 2000). Some of the more promising
methods of fostering and monitoring reading comprehension had not been allowed to take
root, partially because of political constraints that led to a renewed emphasis on
beginning reading instruction (Paris & Paris, 2003).
Although there had been an opportunity to revolutionize comprehension instruction,
no such revolution had taken place (Pressley, 2001). Twenty years after Durkin's
(1978/1979) study alerted educators to the dire condition of reading comprehension
instruction, Pressley et al. (1998) studied literacy instruction in ten upper elementary
classrooms over the course of a year. Although the teachers reported that reading
comprehension strategies were important components of the curriculum, very little direct
comprehension strategy instruction occurred. One of the hypotheses developed from the
study was that "comprehension-strategies instruction appears to have made little progress
since Durkin (1978/1979) described it 20 years ago" (p. 186). Asking questions to assess
student comprehension continues to be a prevalent practice in classrooms (Caldwell &
Leslie, 2005). This lack of progress is detrimental to young readers facing an increasing
need to comprehend a variety of texts in the real world. Reading achievement scores of
young people (high school seniors) as reported by the National Assessment of
Educational Progress (NAEP) did not improve over a 30-year period, but rather revealed
a recent significant decline (Snow, 2002). According to Snow, "reading comprehension
instruction is often minimal or ineffective" (p. 5) and teachers were not well-prepared to
21
teach reading comprehension strategies or deal with different levels of reading
comprehension capability in their classrooms. One group of classroom teachers trying to
improve their reading strategy instruction (Villaume & Brabham, 2002) expressed
concern about student resistance and lack of motivation and also the possibility that
reading strategy instruction inhibits rather than enhances the reading of skillful readers.
In spite of the recent discouraging turn of events, the fact remains that cognitive
reading comprehension strategies developed and taught during the 1970s and 1980s were
credited with improving students' reading comprehension (Pressley, 2002; Rosenshine &
Meister, 1994; Taylor, Pearson et al., 2006). Much of the research on comprehension
strategies during those decades followed the pattern of assigning one group of students to
use a particular strategy while the control group did not. "In general, the students taught
to use the comprehension strategy outperformed the students not given the instructions"
(Pressley, 2002, p. 16). Some of the strategies which have been shown to be effective are
reciprocal teaching (Palincsar & Brown, 1984), relating text to prior knowledge, mental
imagery, questioning, and summarization (Pressley, 2002). As students practiced using
these strategies, they internalized them, and eventually began to use them on their own,
with the result that their memory for and comprehension of text improved (Pressley,
2001).
Researchers agreed that strategy instruction had been found to improve
comprehension; n o w they began to ask w h y this happened. It m a y have been that the
actual strategy was less important than the role the strategy played in engaging the reader
in interacting with the text (Rosenshine & Meister, 1994; Snow 2002). Shortly after the
National Reading Panel (2000) recommended using reading strategies, Taylor et al.
22
(2006) began an investigation to determine if the effectiveness of reading strategies was
due to the additional engagement with text the strategies required. "Somewhat ironically,
strategy instruction may not improve children's use of strategies but may encourage them
to look at text in a different manner, possibly increasing their cognitive engagement with
text, and through this increased engagement, become better at comprehending" (p. 307).
Retelling in Educational Settings
Retelling, which had long been used by cognitive researchers to study memory and
comprehension, became one of the strategies used for both reading comprehension
assessment and reading comprehension instruction beginning in the 1970s. At first, the
studies were few and far between; the bulk of retelling research was conducted in the
1980s and 1990s; this was followed by a decline in retelling research in the late 1990s
and the early years of the new century.
In an early study on retention and memory, Zimiles and Kuhns (1976) randomly
assigned six-to-eight-year-old children to one of three experimental groups and then
asked them to listen to a tape-recorded story. Immediately afterward, half the children
told the story back. Following an interval of either two days, two weeks, or two months,
each child was asked to retell the story and then prompted by a series of questions to
identify information remembered but not included in the initial spontaneous recall.
Zimiles and Kuhns noted that oral retellings do not include everything a child remembers.
The researchers found that retelling the story immediately after hearing it significantly
aided subsequent recall for all ages and all time intervals, and that the older children were
better at remembering and retelling. For ten years, Zimiles and Kuhn's study stood as the
23
only research that used retelling to improve, rather than to assess, comprehension
(Morrow, 1985b).
In 1980, Kalmbach asked sixth-grade students to read a story aloud and then retell
everything they could remember about it. The two stories used had been rewritten and
edited to be similar in readability, length, and narrative structure. The retellings were
analyzed by syntactical structure, narrative structure, and central events. Kalmbach
concluded that "a retelling . . . is not an attempt at verbatim recall, rather it is an attempt
to communicate an understanding of a story by selecting, organizing and emphasizing
certain events from the story" (p. 22). Retellings are transactions between the reader and
the text (Rosenblatt, 1978) rather than detail-for-detail repetitions of the original story.
In two subsequent articles, Kalmbach (1986a, 1986b) explained why and how
classroom teachers might use retelling. In the first article, Kalmbach (1986a) encouraged
teachers to use retelling for reading comprehension assessment. By analyzing student
retellings, teachers could evaluate the impact stories were having, as well as learn about
reader strengths and weaknesses. In the second article, Kalmbach (1986b) critiqued
methods of assessing retellings that were being used in classrooms and cautioned against
using complex analytic systems. Rather, Kalmbach suggested using an approach
combining a holistic score with an assessment of recall and an analysis of the student's
organizing strategy.
After having examined hundreds of student retellings for more than ten years,
Goodman (1982) concluded that while retellings cannot reveal everything a child
comprehends, they do provide valuable information about comprehension processing.
Stories that are relevant and predictable make comprehension easier. A child who reads
24
haltingly and with many miscues, may never-the-less have a good conceptual
understanding of what he has read and be able to provide an adequate retelling. No two
retellings will ever be the same because each child has a different set of experiences and
knowledge to bring to his reading. "Retelling a story is an opportunity for a reader to
present his or her ideas to the world and to . .. rehearse the story . . . and to integrate it,
modify it, and add to its comprehension" (p. 305). In 1987, Goodman, Watson, and
Burke recommended that a retelling, usually oral, be part of every reading miscue
analysis. A good retelling procedure included waiting patiently for the reader to retell,
asking open-ended questions without giving the reader information from the text, and not
taking "I don't know" for an answer. In 2000, Wilde recommended continued use of
miscue analysis and retelling procedures.
Irwin and Mitchell (1983) investigated the question: "Which retellings are superior -
those in which the reader restates the passage content in accurate, precise detail or those
in which the reader makes in-depth generalizations about life as s/he summarizes the text
content?" (p. 391). While evaluating the retellings of high school students, the authors
perceived a need to design a holistic rating system. Irwin and Mitchell's Richness in
Retelling Scale and its accompanying matrix-style checklist provided a new way to
evaluate reading comprehension by assessing retellings. The researchers concluded that
retellings of both narrative and expository texts could be scored holistically.
In 1985, Gambrell, Pfeiffer, and Wilson noted that while retelling was well-
established as an assessment tool in reading research, it was not being used in classrooms
as a strategy to improve reading comprehension. The researchers designed a study to
"investigate retelling as a learning strategy using procedures which would be acceptable

25
for use in the typical classroom setting" (p. 217). The participants were fourth-grade
students randomly assigned to one of two generative learning activity treatments, either
retelling or drawing. The retellers practiced by silently reading four passages, writing
down what they thought were the most important ideas, and then retelling them orally to
a partner. The children in the drawing group read the passages and drew pictures of what
they considered to be the important ideas in the stories.
For the testing session, the students met individually with a researcher, read a story
silently, and then immediately retold important information. Two days later, all
participants retold the story again and then answered 20 recall questions. The data
analysis showed that the reading comprehension of the children in the retelling group was
superior to the children in the drawing treatment group on all measures tested.
Further studies by Gambrell and her associates followed throughout the 1980s. In
1987, Kapinus, Gambrell, and Koskinen examined the effects of practice in retelling on
the reading comprehension of proficient and less-proficient readers in a fourth grade
class. Students in both groups demonstrated improved reading comprehension
performance. In 1988, Koskinen et al. used their previous work as a basis to help teachers
develop a methodology for using retelling to instruct less-proficient readers. Finally, in
1989, Koskinen, Gambrell, and Kapinus examined the effectiveness of combining
rereading with retelling under three experimental conditions with students in fourth
grade. Students in the read condition read a story silently and then retold it orally.
Students in the read/reread condition read the story twice and retold it. Students in the
read/retell/reread condition read the story silently and retold it orally and then repeated
the read/retell procedure a second time. The data analysis revealed that there were no
26
differences between the read and read/reread groups, but the read/retell/reread group
performed significantly better than the other two.
In the mid-1980s, Morrow carried out a series of studies to evaluate the efficacy of
using a retelling strategy with young children; comprehension, concept of story structure,
and oral language development were the dependent variables. Morrow (1985b) was
motivated in part by opinions about retelling expressed by teachers in response to a
survey; the teachers considered retelling to be "time consuming, difficult for children,
and without documented educational value" (p. 648). The participants in Morrow's
studies (1985a, 1985b, 1986) were children in kindergarten classrooms. Stories were read
to the children. Those in the experimental groups did oral retellings; in each study, the
retellers demonstrated significant gains in comprehension and oral language skills.
Two years later, Morrow (1988) reviewed the rapidly-accumulating literature
pertaining to retelling and described multiple uses of retelling for reading comprehension
assessment. Because retelling is a challenging task, children need time to practice before
they are asked to retell for assessment purposes. Students should also be told they will be
asked to retell, the purpose for the retell should be established, and in some cases, props
should be provided. Morrow also recommended retelling as an instructional strategy to
teach comprehension of both narrative and informational materials and lamented the
infrequent occurrence of its use.
B y 1996, M o r r o w had been researching and writing about retelling for over ten
years. Morrow observed:
Retelling indicates a reader's or listener's assimilation and reconstruction of text
information, and it reflects comprehension. Retelling allows a reader or listener to

27
structure responses according to personal and individual interpretations of text. It is
an active procedure. . . . Retelling encourages both integration and personalization of
content, helping children see how parts of the text interrelate and how they mesh
with their own experiences, (pp. 267-268)
In 2005, Morrow reiterated the benefits of retelling, e.g. the value of retelling for the
development of children's concepts of narrative and expository structures, for reading
comprehension, and for including past experience, original thinking, and organization of
thought with a literary experience. Morrow also emphasized the need for setting a
purpose for retelling and for providing opportunities to practice.
A retelling procedure developed by Brown and Cambourne (1987) was tested in
schools in New Zealand and endorsed as a comprehension strategy by the New Zealand
Department of Education in the late 1980s. For a number of days or weeks, children were
immersed in a topic and genre. The children then shared predictions before reading,
studied a text, and retold or rewrote it without referring to the original work. Cambourne
said that retelling demands that children focus on the meaning of a text, reflect on it, and
recreate it.
In 1990, Pappas and Golden undertook a meta-analysis of studies based on retelling.
For more than a decade, retelling had been used in research to examine cognitive
processes, including reading comprehension. "This retelling procedure was appealing to
researchers because it resulted in a text itself. . . [which] could then be studied
presumably to reveal insights into how subjects understand and remember various types
of written language" (p. 21). Golden and Pappas critically examined 81 oral retelling
research studies that had been conducted with preschool and elementary grade children
28
between 1977 and 1986. They looked at four areas: speaker-listener characteristics,
instructions given to the children, type of texts used, and ways in which the retellings
were analyzed. Concerns were identified in each of the areas examined. With regard to
speaker-listener characteristics, children were often asked to retell to examiners who had
just heard or read the passage. A child may not be inclined to provide a complete retelling
to a non-naive listener. In regard to instructions, the authors considered it possible that
instructions to "recall" or "retell" may mean different things to different people. In regard
to texts, most used in the studies were constructed or altered by the researchers so
specific factors could be controlled or isolated. In regard to text type, whether a text is
narrative or expository is likely to influence predictions, expectations, memory, and
recall. The fourth area of concern examined by Golden and Pappas were the analysis
schemes used to analyze the retellings. Oral and written recalls received very different
scores when they were evaluated using different systems. Some retellings were evaluated
holistically, some by propositions or structural elements, and some by a combination of
systems.
Golden and Pappas (1990) concluded by making suggestions for the designs of
future studies. Among other recommendations, the authors suggested that researchers use
"more complex, naturally occurring texts" (p. 37), that underlying theories of reader-text
interaction be reported in studies, that systems of analysis be considered in light of
assumptions about the reading process, and that the social, as well as the cognitive
context of retelling be considered. "There is no such thing as 'free recall'. . . since all
recall or retelling tasks are elicited through some social filter or context of situation" (p.
38).
29
Glazer and Brown (1993) described protocols and applications for two kinds of
retelling. For an unguided retelling, students received no prompts. Glazer and Brown
agreed with Morrow (1985b) and stated emphatically that "any prompts are instruction"
(p. 116). They also suggested that the best time to retell is immediately after the reading
of a text, and that it is best for children "not to look back to the book for information to
complete their retellings" (p. 124). Glazer and Brown used Morrow's (1988) scoring
system to assess retellings. They suggested that students learn to self-monitor written and
oral retellings and use retelling checklists as guides for written compositions.
In 1993, Rhodes and Shanklin discussed assessing reading comprehension as a
process rather than as a product. "We need to assess a student's process if we are to teach
the student to process text more effectively and thus improve the product" (p. 211). The
authors noted that comprehension cannot be directly observed and that it is personally
and socially constructed. Children make their own decisions about the parts of the text
they find to be important and the organization of their retellings. Retellings are superior
to more commonplace questioning methods of assessing comprehension, which provide
students clues about what the teacher hopes to discover.
Moss (1993) used data from an in-progress descriptive study to address the subject of
using retellings to assess children's comprehension of expository text. The children in the
study were in grades kindergarten through five. Three students each of high, average, and
low ability from each of the six grade levels participated. Each child met individually
with a researcher, listened to a read-aloud from an informational trade book, drew a
picture about the book, and then retold the book "as if telling it to a friend who had never
heard it before" (p. 4). Irwin and Mitchell's (1983) five-point scale was used to evaluate
30
the retellings. Results of the study suggested that children in the two higher ability groups
were well able to retell the content of the nonfiction trade books, while just half of the
low ability readers were able to do so. Most children in ail three groups were able to
identify main ideas and details and sequence and summarize the text; making inferences
and relating text to experience were more prevalent in the higher ability groups. Moss
suggested further research into the effect of background knowledge, the impact of the
structure of expository books, and the impact of practice on retelling of expository text.
In 1997, Moss undertook a qualitative study that continued her work with children's
retelling of expository text. Moss theorized that more could be learned about children's
understanding of informational text through retelling than by asking questions. To test the
theory, Moss had 20 research assistants individually read aloud a book to 20 children in a
first grade classroom. Following the read aloud, the children retold the story and then
answered four questions asked by the researcher. Half the children received a score of
three on their retellings and eight received a score of four or better (on a five-point scale).
An analysis of the follow-up questions revealed that young children are able to
summarize, identify important information, make inferences, and express opinions and
rationale to support their opinions.
Moss wrote about retelling in 2004: "Involving students in retelling information
trade books represents a promising means not only for engaging students with
outstanding literature but also for improving their understanding of expository text" (p.
710). Retellings are not short, succinct summaries, but holistic representations of a
student's understanding. Teachers can teach the retelling process by modeling, followed
by many opportunities for student practice.

31
When statewide assessments began to use retelling to measure comprehension,
Benson and Cummins (2000) found that many classroom teachers struggled to teach their
students to retell. The retelling model devised by the authors was developmental, with
four hierarchical levels: pretelling, guided retelling, story map retelling, and written
retelling. "Pretelling" means thinking forward; Benson and Cummins stated that until
children have the cognitive ability to reason sequentially, they will find it difficult to
think back to retell a story. After they learn to pretell, children learn story structure
(guided retelling), how to arrange and represent a story using a graphic organizer (story
map retelling), and finally, how to produce written retellings.
Noting that not many studies have "investigated retellings as an instructional strategy
for writing development" (p. 109), Geist and Boydston (2002) also noted that the studies
that had been done yielded encouraging results. Geist and Boydston undertook a study to
examine the effect of using written retelling on student test performance on the Test of
Written Language (TOWL-2). In addition, interaction effects of teaching style and the
use of written retelling to teach grammar were measured.
The study participants were from eight second grade classrooms, four of which were
traditional and four of which used a writing workshop approach. The retelling
intervention was implemented in two traditional and two writing workshop classrooms;
the two remaining traditional classes and the two remaining workshop classes served as
controls. Twelve folk and fairy tales were selected for the written retellings. The data
analysis showed that the students in the traditional classrooms that used written retelling
did not score significantly better than the students in the traditional control group
classrooms. Children in the whole language classrooms that used written retelling did
32
show significant improvement over students in the control group writing workshop
classrooms.
Using Retelling with Struggling Learners
One of the first investigations into the story retells of students with learning
disabilities was conducted by Hansen (1978). The study compared average fifth- and
sixth-grade students with students in self-contained learning disabilities classrooms. All
the students practiced by reading a first-grade passage orally from a standardized
informal reading test and retelling the passage in their own words. They then read and
retold an additional passage and answered the comprehension questions provided with
the test. The analysis of the retellings revealed significant differences between the
comprehension scores and the retellings of the average students and those students with
learning disabilities. For both groups, there was a significant correlation between fluent
retelling and comprehension.
An investigation of the effects of retelling and visual imagery on the reading
comprehension of children with learning disabilities was conducted by Rose, Cundick,
and Higbee in 1983. Thirty elementary students identified as learning disabled were
assigned to one of three groups: a visual imagery treatment group, a retelling treatment
group, or an unaided instruction control group. The students in the retelling group paused
after reading a few sentences and retold aloud what they had read. The comprehension of
students in both treatment groups was significantly better than that of children in a
control group, with retelling proving to be more effective than visual imagery.
Griffith, Ripich, and Dastoli (1986) compared the story retellings of students with
learning disabilities to those of students who were not learning disabled across three age
33
levels (7 through 12 years) and three levels of story difficulty. All the participants
listened to, rather than read, the stories. Generally, the children with learning disabilities
recalled information and retold the stories as well as their peers without learning
disabilities. The authors speculated that "LD children may recall more information when
they do not have to read the material being presented" (p. 552). There were perceptible
developmental differences; older students in both groups recalled more story events.
Children with learning disabilities struggle to verbally organize and reconstruct
stories. Sisco (1992) examined the effects of retelling on story structure, listening
comprehension, and oral language with a group of young children identified as learning
disabled. Participants in the experimental group retold in an interactive, conversational
context with a supportive adult. These children made significant improvements in
listening comprehension and understanding and using story structure when compared to
the participants in the control group.
In a study designed to compare the oral reading and retelling of children with
specific language impairment (SLI) to that of children without SLI, Gillam and Carlile
(1997) examined four research questions: Do students with SLI and those without have
similar miscues when reading aloud? Are there group differences in the amount of
information retained from retellings? Are there group differences in the overall quality of
retellings? What is the relationship between the reading miscues and the retelling of the
students with SLI? Twelve students with SLI were matched with twelve students without
SLI who had similar single-word reading ability. Goodman, Watson, and Burke's (1987)
Reading Miscue Inventory procedures were used to collect and assess oral reading
samples from the participants. The analysis of the data showed that while the students
34
with SLI made significantly more miscues in their oral reading, they retained as much
information in their retellings as their reading-matched peers.
Ten students with learning disabilities in a self-contained classroom participated in a
study reported by Kuldanek (1998). The students ranged in age from six to seven years
and in reading ability from beginning first to beginning second grade level. A pre-test
consisting of a read-aloud story followed by a series of comprehension questions and an
oral retelling was given to all the participants. The treatment lasted for five weeks during
which all the students participated in a language arts unit built around a theme as
suggested by Brown and Cambourne (1987). The unit comprised ten stories about bears,
as well as bear poetry and bear projects. Story grammar and a retelling strategy were
directly taught to all the participants. The analysis of the pre- and post-test scores
revealed significant gains in both comprehension and awareness of the elements of story
structure. Kuldanek concluded that the Brown and Cambourne retelling procedure was
effective with the students in the study.
Flurkey and Goodman (2004) used a case study to illustrate how a struggling reader
managed the retelling of a complex text. A fourth-grade student read and retold one of the
Magic School Bus books. The books in this series use a format that combines a story and
pictures with substantial amounts of informational text related to a science topic. Often, a
struggling reader would not be encouraged to read such a text, even if he expressed an
interest in doing so. The researchers analyzed the student's reading miscues and his
retellings. They recommended that students' reading not be limited to leveled books that
"have no reference to the reader's knowledge, culture, or interest" (p. 243). Students are
35
willing and motivated to struggle with difficult texts that are of interest to them. In this
case, the child's retelling revealed that he understood the book's content.
After reviewing the value of retelling, Rhodes and Milby (2007) described a method
of creating e-books (using presentation software) to enhance the retellings of readers with
disabilities. The teacher began by reading a book to the class; after discussing the story,
the class retold it with the help of a graphic organizer. Text based on the student retelling
was incorporated into a slide show with digital photos and clip art. Finally, the students
recorded their narration into the e-book and each received a download on their desktop
computers. The authors found this to be "an effective instructional strategy for students
with disabilities" (p. 258).
Retelling in a Contemporary Middle School Setting
At first glance, retelling seems to be a simple procedure. In a school setting, a
student is asked to read or listen to a text and then tell or write everything he or she
remembers. Although retelling may be easy for a teacher to request, it is not necessarily
easy for children to produce (Morrow, 2005). Many children familiar with answering
questions are not familiar with the more holistic, complex task of retelling. Furthermore,
some teachers have found it difficult to teach their students to retell (Benson & Cummins,
2000).
Much of the research on retelling has taken place in schools, but not under typical
classroom conditions. Participants in retelling studies have often worked one-to-one with
a researcher in a setting outside the classroom for a limited number of sessions. As the
body of work on retelling began to accumulate and researchers recognized the value of
retelling as an instructional strategy, they made recommendations for using retelling in

36
classrooms. The read-and-retell procedure advocated by Brown and Cambourne (1986)
was based on several years of trials in classroom settings. Koskinen et al. (1988)
suggested a sequence which included teacher sharing of a rationale for retelling, teacher
modeling, and guided practice before students were asked to retell in a large group or
with a partner. Palincsar and Brown (1984) recognized the importance of evaluating
reading comprehension strategies with "naturally occurring groups within school
settings" (p. 157); the practical implications of this type of research are significantly
increased.
Research has suggested additional implications regarding the use of retelling in
classroom settings. Reading comprehension researchers in both theoretical and
educational settings have asked whether retelling capabilities improve with practice
(Moss, 1993; Shannon, Kameenui, & Baumann, 1988; Tucker, 2001). Repeatedly and
resoundingly, the answer has been "yes" (Caldwell & Leslie, 2005; Gambrell et al., 1985;
Morrow, 1985b, 1996). While no optimal time for a retelling intervention has been
suggested or recommended, the general consensus seems to be the longer the better.
Another consideration in retelling research is age difference as it relates to narrative
abilities. At what age do children understand story structure? Should classroom time be
devoted to instruction in story grammar, "the set of rules which classify the components
of a story" (Dreher & Singer, 1980, p. 262)? To find out, Dreher and Singer designed a
study to determine whether teaching story structure would help students in a fifth grade
class to recall a story. They concluded that middle level students do not need to be
formally taught the structures of a story grammar; other researchers have reached the
37
same conclusion (Goldman & Rakestraw, 2000; Griffith, Ripich, & Dastoli, 1986; John,
Lui, & Tannock, 2003; Marshall, 1983).
Many literacy researchers believe children do not need to adhere to the structure of a
story grammar when they retell (Britton, 1970). On the contrary, retellers construct their
own meaning using the text as a blueprint, but making decisions about the most important
aspects and how to organize them (Kalmbach, 1980; Kintsch &Van Dijk, 1983; Rhodes
& Shanklin, 1993; Wilson & Cleland 1985). Retellings have two components: the
information recalled from the original story and the unique, personal narrative created by
the reteller (Goodman, 1982; Koskinen et al., 1988; Tucker 2001). A retelling is not a
summary (Moss, 2004), but rather a natural, holistic view of a child's concept of a story.
According to Rosen (1988) children change stories, not because they forget, but
because they retell by taking into account their own experiences. Story telling is a
cognitive, social, emotional, and moral process. Telling and retelling require that children
pay close attention to the world, to the structures of genre, and to the way that a story's
meaning interconnects with their lives.
One issue Golden and Pappas (1990) raised in relation to retelling research was the
type of texts used: was the content from textbooks, trade books, or constructed by
researchers? Golden and Pappas found that many texts had been constructed by the
experimenters and were relatively short in length. They proposed that future research
make use of more complex, authentic texts. The recommendation of Golden and Pappas
concurs with the emphasis of psycholinguist theory on the value of using authentic texts.
Martinez and McGee (2000) pointed out "that teachers who work with older students will
38
increasingly choose to use complete works of literature rather than excerpts that are
currently found in basal readers" (p. 167).
Research has determined that there are many benefits to reading and retelling
engaging, authentic texts, both narrative and expository. Retelling supports the
development of language structures, comprehension, and organization of thought
(Morrow, 2005). When children read with a view to retell, their focus and attention
improve (Kuldanek, 1998). Retelling requires active involvement as a student listens to
the author's voice, as well as his own (Cooper, 2004) and provides a means of self-
checking for a child who has not read with understanding (Bromley, 1998). Retelling
brings about social interaction. When children read and interact with literature, they
connect with their own emotions, and with people and ideas from all the world's times
and places (Cooper, 2004; Martinez & McGee, 2000).
Summary
This chapter first reviewed literature related to the history, psychology, and theories
of reading comprehension and reading comprehension instruction. Views about reading
and reading comprehension shifted dramatically in the closing decades of the 20th century
and brought about many changes in educational research and practice. Strategies, such as
retelling, were developed and used, first to assess the process of reading and then as an
instructional tool to enhance and improve reading comprehension. Literature related to
retelling in educational settings with both proficient and struggling readers was reviewed,
as well as literature addressing specific issues related to retelling in a contemporary
middle school setting.

39
Taken together, these studies provided a basis for the current study of the effects of
retelling as an instructional strategy on the reading comprehension capabilities of two
groups of middle school students.
Organization of the Remainder of the Study
Chapter 2 provided a review of the literature related to the study. The methods and
procedures used to conduct the research will be described in Chapter 3, followed by the
data analyses for each of the research questions in Chapter 4. The summary, major
findings, conclusions, discussion, and recommendations for practice and further study
will be presented in Chapter 5.

40
Chapter 3
Methodology
This research was an experimental study designed to investigate the impact of
retelling as an instructional strategy on reading comprehension. The purpose of the study
was twofold. First, it endeavored to determine if replacing existing group comprehension
instruction and individual comprehension workbook assignments with retelling
instruction and oral and written retelling practice would significantly impact the reading
comprehension achievement of middle school students, and second, it sought to discover
whether the reading comprehension achievement of students at different levels of reading
capability (proficient and less-proficient) would be affected equally. Specifically, the
study answered the following questions:
not?
not?
retelling?
retelling?
41
The methodology and research procedures used to investigate these research
questions are described in Chapter 3. The chapter describes the process used to access
and review relevant research, the population and setting of the study, the tests and
instruments used to collect data, the pilot testing procedure, the intervention and data
collection process, and the data analysis procedures. The fifth edition of the Publication
Manual of the American Psychological Association (2001) was used as the style manual
for writing the dissertation.
Review of Related Research
Literature relevant to the relationship between retelling and reading comprehension
was located using the resources found at the I. D. Weeks Library on the campus of The
University of South Dakota in Vermillion, South Dakota. Additional topics researched
included: early studies of memory and reading comprehension; reading comprehension
models developed by cognitive psychologists; and issues, components, and processes of
retelling in a contemporary middle school setting. Databases searched included:
Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC), Dissertation Abstracts International
(DAI), EBSCO Megafile, ProQuest, Academic Search Premier, Education Research
Complete, EJS E-Journals, PsycARTICLES, Psychology and Behavioral Sciences
Collection, PsycINFO, and others. When necessary and possible, researchers and authors
were contacted via electronic mail to answer questions or assist with retrieval of articles
or publications not available through searches of the databases listed.

42
Population and Setting
The participants in this study were a convenience sample of students in two intact
sixth-grade classes in a public school in a small Midwestern city school district. The
families in the community represented a range of cultural groups and socioeconomic
levels; 52% of the children in the elementary school qualified to receive free or reduced-
price lunches (P. L. Anderson, personal communication, June 25, 2008).
Approval to conduct the study was granted by The University of South Dakota
Office of Human Subjects Protection (Appendix A). Permission to carry out the study
was given by the school district following a meeting with the principal and a presentation
to the school board (Appendix B). Letters were mailed by the researcher to the parents or
legal guardians of 38 students who received their primary reading instruction in the two
classrooms (Appendix C). After one week, the researcher telephoned families who had
not returned the letters to see if they had questions about the study and reminded them to
return the consent form. After two weeks, 33 parents or legal guardians had returned the
consent forms; 32 gave permission for their children to participate in the study and 1
parent declined. The students who received parental consent to be in the study received
an assent form and verbal description of the research and were invited to ask questions
(Appendix D). All 32 of the students agreed to participate.
The students in the study had previously been assigned by their teachers to one of
two groups for their literacy instruction each day. Twenty-three of the participating sixth-
graders, identified as proficient readers, were assigned to one of the sixth-grade teachers;
the remaining 9 participants, identified as less-proficient readers, were assigned to the

43
other sixth-grade teacher. All students in both groups covered the same material in their
basal reading series during each week's five one-hour-long reading lessons.
In each of the two reading groups (proficient and less-proficient), the participating
students were randomly assigned to either the experimental (retelling) or control
(workbook) group by matching an alphabetical list of their last names to a list of
computer-generated random numbers.
Instrumentation
Standardized Pre-Post Test
All students participating in the study were pre- and post-tested using the Test of
Reading Comprehension, third edition (TORC-3), published by Brown, Hammill, and
Wiederholt (1995) and used with permission (Appendix E). The four general
comprehension core subtests (general vocabulary, syntactic similarities, paragraph
reading, and sentence sequencing) of the TORC-3 were administered to all participants.
A standard score, grade and age equivalents, and a reading comprehension quotient
(RCQ) were calculated for each participant.
The TORC-3 is an untimed silent reading test for students from 7 to 18 years of age.
The TORC-3 manual states that the test is based on "a constructivist orientation that
focuses on holistic, cognitive and linguistic aspects of reading" (Brown, Hammill, and
Wiederholt, 1995, p. v). The normative data for the TORC-3 were collected in 1993-94; it
was normed on a sample of 1,962 children and young people from 19 states representing
all regions of the United States, both genders, urban and rural students, students with
disabilities, and children from diverse ethnic backgrounds.

44
Test-retest reliability for the TORC-3 ranges from .89 to .97, and internal
consistency reliabilities are generally over .90. Interrater reliabilities ranges from .87 to
.98. The publisher cites six studies as evidence of criterion validity and median point-
biserial correlations for each subtest at each age for content validity. A correlation of .81
between the TORC-3's Reading Comprehension Quotient and the Wechsler Intelligence
Scale for Children - Revised and mean scores from ten samples of students are given to
substantiate construct validity. Both reviewers in Buros Mental Measurements Yearbook
(Impara & Plake, 1998) suggested that the TORC-3 was appropriate for students of
middle school age, but may not be suitable for primary students because of the small size
of the norming population for children from ages seven to eight years and the floor
effects for scores for the younger age group.
Instructional Materials
Throughout the study, all students were instructed by their classroom reading
teachers or the researcher using reading curriculum materials published by Scott
Foresman (Afflerbach et al., 2004). Each student's materials comprised a hard-bound
reader and a soft cover Practice Book. The reader was divided into six five-selection
units. A week was devoted to each selection; a unit, therefore, was completed in a five-
week period, followed by a week between units for special projects, poetry study, and
unit testing. Each week, students completed 9 pages in their Practice Book: 1 vocabulary
page, 1 phonics/word study page, 2 research/study skills pages, 3 comprehension pages,
and a 2-page selection test.
During the study, students in the control (workbook) group continued to answer the
questions on all the workbook pages each week. Students in the experimental (retelling)
45
group completed the workbook pages designated for vocabulary, phonics/word study, and
research/study skills, as well as the selection test. During the intervention, the retelling
students were not required to complete the three weekly comprehension workbook pages;
rather, they did oral and written retelling.
Additional resources provided by the Scott Foresman curriculum (Afflerbach et al.,
2004) or suggested for supplemental use were available to the teachers and the
researcher. The classrooms contained 10-booklet sets of 16-page guided readers at three
levels for each weekly unit (Appendices F & G); the teacher's manual also listed a
suggested selection of easy, on-level, and challenge trade books to supplement each
week's lesson. The leveled readers were used selectively by both the classroom teachers
and the researcher. The researcher used eight of the suggested trade books during the
study (Appendix H). The classroom teachers did not make use of any of the
recommended trade books during the same interval.
Curriculum-Based Assessment
A Unit Skills Test, part of the Scott Foresman Reading Program for grade six, was
normally administered to all students in both reading groups at the end of each five-week
unit. The Unit Skills Test evaluated comprehension through 24 cued questions based on
one-page narrative and expository selections, and a study skills section of either five or
ten questions. Each of the Skills Tests also included six word analysis items and five
grammar items. The usual post-unit assessment procedure was continued for all
participants (retelling and workbook) in the study. Scores of the Unit Skills Test from the
previously-completed unit were used as a pre-test and compared to scores obtained at the
46
close of the intervention period to determine the change in reading achievement for each
student over the period of the study.
Pearson Scott Foresman was contacted early in the study via email and telephone to
ascertain information related to the reliability and validity of the Unit Skills Tests. When
no response was forthcoming, a letter sent to Pearson Scott Foresman's editorial offices
garnered a reply (Appendix I) stating that the tests "have not been subjected to statistical
studies, had reliability and validity measures run on them, or been normed using large
student populations" (R. Swensson, personal communication, July 15, 2008). Pearson
Scott Foresman considers their Unit Skills Tests to be valid because each skill taught
during a unit of study is linked to a question on the test. Because there is only one form of
each test, test/retest reliability has not been determined.
The Scott Foresman Unit Skills Tests were used in the study as a curriculum-based
assessment despite concerns about their reliability, validity, and content (assessment of
skills other than comprehension). One of the research questions called for an examination
of the effect of the intervention on a curriculum-based reading comprehension
assessment; the Scott Foresman Unit Skills Test was the best available instrument.
Written Retelling Assessment
All students assigned to the experimental group completed a written retelling of a
story before the intervention began and at the close of the unit. These retellings were
evaluated using the holistic, five-level Richness in Retelling Scale (RIR) developed by
Irwin and Mitchell (1983) and used with permission (Appendix J). There are two parts to
the RIR Scale: criteria describing each of the five levels and a checklist forjudging the
retellings (Appendix J). Written retellings at a Level 1 include details only (no
47
summarizing statement or major point) and are incomplete, lacking in coherence, and
difficult to comprehend. A written retelling judged to be at Level 5 includes a
summarizing statement and all major points as well as supporting details, and is
complete, comprehensible, and coherent. Levels 2 through 4 describe gradations in the
quality of retellings between the lowest and highest levels.
Irwin and Mitchell (1983) initially used their scale to rate student retellings of both
narrative and expository texts. The researchers validated their ratings by asking a group
of experienced teachers to rate the same retellings. After two sessions of instruction on
the use of the scale and exposure to rated samples, the agreement of the teachers with the
designers of the scale was 87.5%. The RIR Scale has since been used by teachers and
researchers for more than 20 years (Kalmbach, 1986b; Morrow, 1988; Morrow, et al.,
1986; Moss, 1993, 1997, 2004; Robnolt, 2004). Scores of oral retellings evaluated by the
RIR Scale have been shown by Robnolt to be significantly inter-correlated with scores of
retellings assessed by Morrow's (1988) story retelling scale, another measure with a
longstanding history of use as a retelling assessment (Sisco, 1992). The Richness in
Retelling Scale evaluates elements of story grammar, but also gives consideration to the
reteller's contribution. It is consistent with the purpose of a retell, which is not to recall a
story exactly, but to select, organize, and personalize the story content (Tucker, 2001).
To establish the validity of written retelling assessment scores in the present study,
an independent rater (an English teacher at the school in which the study took place) was
familiarized with the use of Irwin and Mitchell's scale. The pre and post written retellings
of each participant were scored independently by the researcher and the independent
rater. The interrater reliability, which was calculated by dividing agreements by

48
agreements plus disagreements, was .85. After determining the correlation, the raters met
and reached a consensus on the written retellings that had been scored differently
(Pearman, 2008).
Pilot Study
Prior to the study, a small-scale pilot test was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of
the proposed oral and written retelling procedures (Appendices K and L). Three middle-
school students (two female and one male) from a neighboring school district were
selected to participate; two of these students were familiar with the Scott Foresman
curriculum, which was used in their reading class. The participants read selections from
the Scott Foresman Unit 4 Leveled Readers (162A, 164A, 163B, or 165B) and retold
what they had read. The oral retelling procedures evaluated were: Team Retelling (Hoyt,
1999), Paired Retelling (Koskinen et al., 1988), and Consecutive Retelling (Appendix K).
Each of these procedures proved to be satisfactory and no modifications were made.
Each of the three participants in the pilot study also attempted one of the written
retelling procedures (Appendix L): Plot Summary Maps (Hansen, 2004), Retelling
Journal Entries (Brown & Cambourne, 1987), or Retelling to an E-Pal (Shaw, 2005). The
first written retelling, using the Plot Summary Maps procedure, was handwritten; the
procedure worked well. The students attempting the second and third procedures used
word processors to record their retellings. Their retellings were satisfactory, but the pilot
work revealed that the students' poor keyboarding skills did not allow them to complete
their retellings in a timely manner. Therefore, it was determined that all written retellings
in the study would be handwritten.

49
Intervention and Data Collection
Data were collected over two six-week periods during the spring semester of the
2007-2008 school year. Each student in both groups of sixth graders was randomly
assigned to one of two groups: the retelling (experimental) group or the workbook
(control) group. Prior to the start of the treatment, each student's current reading
comprehension achievement was assessed using the Test of Reading Comprehension,
third edition. In addition, each student assigned to the first retelling group read an
assigned selection and then composed a written retelling based on the reading. The
students were instructed to write everything they could remember about the story; they
were also told that spelling, punctuation, grammar, and other conventions would not be
evaluated. A minimum of 15 minutes and a maximum of 25 minutes was allowed for
completion of the written retellings.
For the first five weeks of the study, the retelling intervention was used with the
reading group made up of students identified as proficient readers. The 11 students in the
randomly-determined workbook (control) group continued to receive reading instruction
from their regular reading teacher as usual. They also completed assignments and
activities according to the plans of their teacher.
The 12 readers randomly assigned to the retelling (experimental) group participated
in their regular reading class, taught by their regular teacher, for instruction related to
building background, vocabulary, word study, and study skills. The students in the
retelling group were exempt from activities and workbook pages specifically identified as
comprehension instruction by the publisher of the materials or by the classroom teacher.
For example, generalizing, fact and opinion, paraphrasing, and drawing conclusions were
50
designated comprehension topics. Rather than complete comprehension workbook pages
or participate in classroom comprehension instructional activities, students in the retelling
group met with the researcher for oral and written retelling instruction and practice.
Approximately 40% of weekly reading instructional time was customarily devoted to
reading comprehension instruction and assignment completion. Therefore, a total of 120
minutes of the weekly 5 hours of reading time was designated for the retelling
intervention: 20 minutes on Monday and Thursday, and 40 minutes on Tuesday and
Wednesday. The schedule was adjusted weekly as needed to accommodate changes in the
school calendar such as faculty in-service meetings, special events, field trips, vacation
days, and snow days; the proposed amount of retelling time per week was maintained
throughout the intervention period.
The first two retelling sessions each week were devoted to reading and orally
retelling the main selection for the week. Oral retelling procedures included: Team
Retelling (Hoyt, 1999), Paired Retelling (Koskinen et al., 1988), or Consecutive Retelling
(Appendix K). During the third retelling session of the week, work on the main selection
was completed and a new text from a leveled reader or a trade book was introduced.
During the final meeting of the week, each student composed a written retelling based on
the supplemental text. Weekly written retellings (Appendix L) were completed using one
of the written retelling procedures: Plot Summary Maps (Hansen, 2004), Retelling
Journal Entries (Brown & Cambourne, 1987), or SPOT the Story (Bos & Vaughn, 1994).
Retelling to an E-Pal (Shaw, 2005) was eliminated from use after the pilot study revealed
that students in sixth grade may not be proficient at word processing and when it was
51
determined that the students did not have access to email while at school. Oral and
written retellings generally took place after one reading of a text.
At the close of the five-week intervention period, the students in both the retelling
(experimental) and the workbook (control) groups were assessed using the Scott
Foresman Reading 6 Unit Skills Test. The students in the retelling (experimental) group
completed a post-test written retelling following the protocol used for the pre-test written
retelling collected prior to the intervention.
During the next five-week unit, the researcher worked with 5 students from the
group of less-proficient readers while the 4 students in the workbook group were
instructed by their reading teacher. The procedures used with the retelling (experimental)
group replicated those which had been used during the five-week intervention with
students from the proficient reading group. One male student in the workbook (control)
group was withdrawn from the study thereby reducing the number of students in the
workbook group to 3. At the close of the second unit of study, the 8 remaining students in
both groups of less-proficient readers were tested using the Scott Foresman Reading 6
Unit Skills Test. The students in the less-proficient retelling group followed the earlier
protocol for reading a story and generating a written retelling of the text.
At the close of both intervention periods, all participants in both the control and
experimental proficient and less-proficient reading groups were post-tested using the
TORC-3.
Data Analysis
The data collected in this study were analyzed descriptively and inferentially to
answer the research questions and test for differences in the means of the two groups or
52
the two tests being examined (control/experimental, experimental proficient/experimental
less-proficient, pre/post written retelling).
For questions one and two, a pre-test/post-test control group experimental design
was used to examine the effect of the independent variable (retelling as an instructional
strategy) on the dependent variable (reading comprehension achievement). The means
and standard deviations for the workbook (control) and retelling (experimental) groups
on the formal and informal measures of reading comprehension achievement were
computed, followed by a Student's paired samples t test for each of the measures for both
groups. The effect size for the difference between the mean test scores of the
experimental and control groups as measured on the TORC-3 was also calculated.
Means, standard deviations, and t tests for equality of means were used to analyze
the data for the comparison of the reading comprehension achievement of the proficient
and less-proficient readers in the retelling group (questions three and four).
Question five was addressed using a one group pre-test/post-test design to examine
the effect of the retelling intervention on reading comprehension as measured by an
assessment of the written retellings of the students in the experimental group. Data were
analyzed by computing means, standard deviations, and Student's t tests to determine if
there was a significant difference in the mean scores between the pre- and post-
assessments of the written retellings. The effect size for the difference between the mean
scores of the pre- and post-test scores was also calculated.
All statistical analyses were carried out using the statistical program SPSS 16.0
(Statistical Package for the Social Sciences).

53
Summary
In Chapter 3, the process used to access and review relevant research related to
retelling has been presented, as well as information about the population and setting of
the study, the tests and instruments used to collect data, the data collection process, and
the data analysis procedures. Chapter 4 reports the findings of the study. The summary,
major findings, conclusions, discussion, and recommendations for practice and further
study are presented in Chapter 5.

54
CHAPTER 4
Results
Introduction
comprehension instructional strategy with middle school students in a sixth grade
classroom. Both a standardized test {Test of Reading Comprehension, third edition) and a
curriculum-based measure (Scott Foresman Reading 6 Unit Skills Tests) were used to
compare change in the reading comprehension achievement of participants in the
workbook (control) group with change in the reading comprehension achievement of
participants in the retelling (experimental) group. The same measures were used to
compare the change in reading comprehension achievement of two subgroups within the
retelling (experimental) group: proficient readers and less-proficient readers. Finally,
change in the reading comprehension capability of students exposed to the intervention
was measured by assessing pre and post written retellings using the Richness in Retelling
Scale.
In this chapter, the research questions are stated, demographic information
describing the participants is reported, and findings obtained from the statistical analyses
of the data are presented.
Research Questions
not?
55
not?
retelling?
retelling?
Demographic Data
The participants in this study were a convenience sample of students in two intact
sixth-grade classes in a small, Midwestern public school. Fifteen of the 40 students (35%)
enrolled in the two classes at the time of the study were female and 25 of them (65%)
were male. Two of the forty students in the sixth grade received their reading instruction
in a special education resource room setting and were therefore not available to
participate in the study. Of the remaining 38 sixth-grade students, 24 were part of a
reading group for proficient readers instructed by the female sixth grade teacher.
Fourteen less-proficient readers received reading instruction in the second sixth grade
classroom and were taught by the male sixth grade teacher.
The parents/legal guardians of the 38 eligible students received a letter inviting them
to give consent for their children to participate in the study. Of these, 33 parents or legal
56
guardians (87%) returned the consent forms; 32 gave permission for their children to
participate in the study and 1 declined. All 32 of these students agreed to participate in
the study. One of the student's participation was discontinued when it was discovered he
had signed his mother's name on the consent form.
Of the 31 students completing the study, twelve (39%) were female and nineteen
(61%) were male. Twenty-three of the 24 students from the group for proficient readers
(96%) participated in the study; twelve of these were randomly assigned to the retelling
(experimental) group and 11 were randomly assigned to the workbook (control) group.
Consent letters for 10 of the 14 students (71%) in the group for less-proficient readers
were returned by their parents or guardians. One of these parents refused consent.
Initially, 5 of the students from the group for less-proficient readers had been randomly
assigned to the retelling (experimental) group, while 4 became part of the workbook
(control) group. The number of students in the less-proficient workbook group decreased
to 3 when one of the participants was dismissed.
When the study began, the students ranged in age from 11 years 10 months to 13
years 1 month with a mean age of 12 years 6 months. All participants were verbally
proficient English speakers, though some were from homes in which English was not the
primary spoken language. None of the students participating in the study were currently
enrolled in the school's program for English language learners.
Research Findings
Research Questions One and Two
Is there a difference in gains in reading achievement as measured by a standardized
reading test between students who engage in retelling and students who do not? Is there a
57
difference in gains in reading achievement as measured by a curriculum-based unit test
between students who engage in retelling and students who do not?
The Reading Comprehension Quotient (RCQ) of the Test of Reading
Comprehension, third edition (TORC-3), was used as a standardized measure of reading
comprehension. The Unit Skills Tests administered following the completion of each
five-week unit of the Scott Foresman Reading 6 (SF-6) program were used to obtain an
informal curriculum-based measure of comprehension; percentage of correct answers
achieved on the test given before and after the unit of study were compared. Table 1
presents the means and standard deviations for the pre- and post-tests, as well as the
change scores (post-test minus pre-test), for both treatment groups on the two measures
used to assess reading comprehension.
Table 1
Reading Comprehension Pre, Post, and Change Scores of Two Groups of Readers
Treatment Group
Retellers n = 17 Workbook n=\A
Test/Score Mean SD Mean SD

TORC-3 RCQ Pre-test 89.18 19.47 92.86 12.86
TORC-3 RCQ Post-test 96.76 15.18 94.43 10.40
TORC-3 RCQ Change 7.59 10.33 1.57 8.61
SF-6 Unit Skills Pre-test .68 .22 .72 .17
SF-6 Unit Skills Post-test .67 .18 .69 .16
SF-6 Unit Skills Test Change .01 .10 .03 .08

58
Comparison of the means of the pre- and post-tests for both comprehension measures
for both groups is presented in Table 2. The post-test scores for the TORC-3 of the
retelling (experimental) group differ significantly from the pre-test scores, t = 3.03,p =
.008. No other differences were statistically significant at the .05 level.
Table 2
Comparison of Pre/Post Scores on Two Comprehension Tests for Two Groups of Readers
Paired Sampl*JS T-tests
95% Confidence
Comprehension Test Mean Interval of the Sig.
& Group Difference SD Difference t value (2-tailed)
TORC Pre/Post Retellers 7.59 10.33 -2.28 12.90 3.03 .008*
TORC Pre/Post Workbook 1.57 8.61 -3.40 6.54 .68 .507
SF-6 Pre/Post Retellers .01 .10 -.04 .06 .44 .668
SF-6 Pre/Post Workbook .03 .08 -.18 .07 1.34 .203
*/?<.05,N= 17
Table 3 depicts the results of an independent samples t test to compare the difference
in means of the change scores of the TORC-3 between the retelling (experimental) group
(M= 7.59) and the workbook (control) group (M = 1.57). Although the difference in the
group means was not statistically significant at/? = .05 (t (29) = 1.74,/? = .093), the
calculated effect size (7.59 - 1.57)/9.96 (pooled SD of both groups) indicates a strong
practical significance (Bartz, 1998); the effect size was calculated to equal .60, which is
in the large range. The comprehension change score of the average student in the retelling
(experimental) group is therefore .60 standard deviations above the comprehension

59
change score of the average student in the workbook (control) group and exceeds the
change scores of 60% of the control group.
The difference between the means of the change scores of the Scott Foresman Unit
Skills Tests for the experimental (M= - 0.01) and control (M= - 0.03) groups was slight;
there was no statistically significant difference between the pre-test and the post-test
means, t (29) = .55,p = .590.
Table 3
Comparison of Comprehension Change Scores of Control and Experimental Groups
T-tests for Equality of Means
95% Confidence
Mean Interval of Sig.
Comprehension Test Difference the Difference t value (2-tailed)
TORC-3 RCQ Change 6.02 -1.07 13.10 1.74 .093
SF-6 Unit Test % Change .02 -.05 .09 .55 .590
Research Questions Three and Four
Is there a difference in gains in reading achievement as measured by a standardized
reading test between proficient and less-proficient readers who engage in retelling? Is
there a difference in gains in reading achievement as measured by a curriculum-based
unit test between proficient and less-proficient readers who engage in retelling?
Table 4 presents the means and standard deviations for the change scores (post-test
minus pre-test) on both measures used to assess reading comprehension for the two
subgroups of students that received the intervention.

60
Table 4
Reading Comprehension Change Scores of Proficient and Less-Proficient Retellers
Experimental (Retelling) Subgroup
Proficient N = 12 Less-proficient N = 5
Comprehension Test Mean SD Mean SD

TORC-3 RCQ Change 7.75 10.90 7.20 10.01
SF-6 Unit Skills Test Change -.05 .09 .08 .06
As shown on Table 5, an independent samples t test indicated that the difference in
means of the change scores of the TORC-3 between the retelling (experimental) students
in the proficient reading group (M= 7.75) and the less-proficient group (M = 7.20) was
not significant, t (15) = 0A0,p = .955. The means of the change scores of the Scott
Foresman Unit Skills Tests for the proficient readers (M= - 0.05) and the less-proficient
readers (M= 0.08) groups were significantly different, /(15)= 3.04,p = .008.
Table 5
Comparison of Comprehension Change Scores of Proficient and Less-Proficient Readers
T-tests for Equality of Means
95% Confidence
Mean Interval Sig.
Comprehension Test Difference of the Difference lvalue (2-tailed)
TORC-3 RCQ Change .55 -11.55 12.65 .10 .955
SF-6 Unit Skills Test Change .13 .04 .22 3.04 .008*
*p<.05,N=l7
61
Research Question Five
Is there a gain in reading achievement as measured by a comparison of the pre- and
post- assessments of written retellings of students who engage in retelling?
All students in the retelling (control) group were pre- and post-tested using the
Richness in Retelling Scale, a holistic 5-point measure with values ranging from 1 to 5
(low to high). The means and standards deviations for the change scores (post-test minus
pre-test) of the students in the retelling (control) group are presented on Table 6. On
average, the students improved the scores on their final written retellings by an average
of almost one point on the 5-point scale (M = .94).
Table 6
Means and Standard Deviations of Written Retelling Change Scores
Participants N Mean SD
All Retellers 17 0.94 1.14
Table 7 presents the results of a paired samples t test comparing the pre- and post-test
scores on the Richness in Retelling Scale for all students in the experimental group. The
pre-post reading comprehension change was statistically significant, t (16) - 3.39,
p - .004, and practically significant: the effect size (2.76-1.82)/.93 (pooled SD of both
scores) for the improvement on the written retelling measure was calculated to equal
1.01. The average comprehension score on the written retelling measure increased one
standard deviation.
62
Table 7
Change Scores on Written Retellings
Paired Samples T-tests ___^

95% Confidence
Mean Interval of the Sig.
Comparison Difference Difference /value (2-tailed)
Pre-and Post-Tests of All Retellers 0.19 0.07 0.31 3.39 .004*
*/?<.05,A r =17
Summary
Chapter 4 began with demographic data describing the participants in the study. This
information was followed with the data and statistical analyses used to answer each of the
research questions. A summary of the study, the findings, a discussion of the findings,
and recommendations for practice and future study will be presented in Chapter 5.
63
CHAPTER 5
Summary
This chapter provides a summary of the study, a report of the findings based on the
analysis of the data, the conclusions drawn from the findings, a discussion of the results
and conclusions, and recommendations for practice and future study.
Purpose of the Study
students in the sixth grade. Its purpose was twofold: first, to determine whether replacing
existing group comprehension instruction and individual workbook assignments with
retelling instruction and oral and written retelling practice would significantly impact the
reading comprehension achievement of middle school students, and second, to discover
whether the reading comprehension achievement of students at different levels of reading
capability (proficient and less-proficient) would be affected equally.
Research Questions
not?
not?
64
retelling?
retelling?
Review of Related Literature and Research
Early in the 20th century, Huey (1908), Thorndike (1917), and Bartlett (1932)
conducted studies foundational to research and practice in American education; in part,
their work examined the psychology of reading, memory, and reading comprehension.
Many of their ideas lay dormant for almost 50 years, during which time educational
psychology and classroom practice was dominated by behaviorism (Anderson, 1995;
Sarroub & Pearson, 1998).
In the 1950s and 1960s, modern cognitive psychology emerged with a renewed
interest in the study of reading. Rumelhart (1975a), Wittrock (1974), and Kintsch and
Van Dijk (1983) theorized models of text comprehension to explain what might be
happening in the mind of a reader. Data collected from story retellings informed their
work. Mandler (1984) and other researchers built on Rumelhart's work to further study
story structure and its relationship to comprehension. Studies of story grammar, as it
came to be called, also relied heavily on retelling to gather data.

65
Eventually, interest in theories of reading comprehension translated into questions
about reading comprehension instruction in American classrooms. Durkin (1978/1979)
observed 300 hours of reading and social studies lessons in classroom settings and found
that almost no time was devoted to reading comprehension instruction. Many teachers
used workbooks and worksheets to "teach" comprehension and assumed that
comprehension and understanding of text automatically followed a child's acquisition of
beginning reading skills (Snow, 2002).
Durkin's study (1978/1979) prompted additional research into teaching and learning
about reading comprehension. Researchers recommended that teachers spend less time on
workbooks and literal-level questioning and more time on teaching comprehension
fostering strategies such as summarizing, dramatizing, and using advance organizers
(Pearson, 1985).
As researchers delved more deeply into the ways in which children make sense of
printed text, they often asked children to retell what they had read. Goodman (1982), for
example, examined children's retellings for many years beginning in the mid-1970s.
Frequent use of retelling as an assessment tool led to the realization that retelling might
also foster reading comprehension. Kalmbach (1980) studied retells he had elicited from
a group of students in sixth grade and began to encourage teachers to use retellings in
their classrooms. In the mid-1980s, Morrow (1982, 1985a, 1985b, 1986, 1988) completed
a series of retelling studies with young children and found that retelling helped them gain
oral language and comprehension skills. Gambrell and associates (1985) examined the
effectiveness of retelling as a reading comprehension strategy with children in the upper
elementary grades.
66
During the 1980s and 1990s, retelling became a commonly recommended reading
instructional strategy in the United States and in other countries (e.g. Brown and
Cambourne, 1987, in New Zealand). Moss (1993) recommended that retelling be used to
foster the comprehension of expository as well as narrative texts. Researchers found that
retelling was an effective strategy with struggling readers (e.g. Gillam & Carlile, 1997).
Unfortunately, in spite of the historic, scientific, and educational evidence supporting
the use of retelling as a comprehension instructional strategy, its use declined, and it is
not commonly used in present-day classrooms (Caldwell & Leslie, 2005). In an era of
accountability and high-stakes testing, many schools and teachers emphasize a basic
reading skills approach to the instruction of reading comprehension. New evidence is
needed to demonstrate the efficacy and practicality of retelling.
Methodology and Procedures
Reading comprehension achievement data were collected from 31 students in two
sixth-grade classrooms to evaluate the efficacy of an instructional intervention called
retelling. The students, stratified according to level of reading proficiency, were
randomly assigned to either the control (workbook) or the experimental (retelling) group.
Pre-test data were collected from all students using both a standardized {Test of Reading
Comprehension, third edition) and a curriculum-based measure (Scott Foresman Unit
Skills Test). Written retellings of the students in the experimental group were pre-
assessed using an additional measure of reading comprehension capability (Irwin and
Mitchell's Richness in Retelling Scale).
During the five-week intervention period, the control group (workbook) students'
reading instruction continued as usual. The students in the experimental (retelling) group
67
also carried on as usual except for the substitution of oral and written retelling instruction
and practice which replaced the customary comprehension instruction and workbook
assignments. Forty per cent of the weekly five hours of classroom reading instructional
time was allocated to the retelling intervention for students in the experimental group.
At the close of the intervention period, all students were post-tested using the TORC-
3 and the Scott Foresman Unit Test; the students in the experimental group also
completed a post-test written retelling which was evaluated using the Richness in
Retelling Scale.
T tests were used to determine whether there were statistically significant differences
between the reading comprehension achievement of the students in the control and
experimental groups following the intervention, whether there were statistically
significant differences between the achievement of the students in the proficient and less-
proficient reading groups, and whether the reading comprehension achievement of the
retelling students changed significantly as measured by their pre and post written
retellings. Findings were based on analyses of the data using a statistical significance
level of/? < .05. Effect sizes were calculated to determine the practical significance of the
retelling intervention.
Research Findings
The primary purpose of the study was to examine the efficacy of retelling as a
reading instructional strategy. Formal and informal reading and writing assessments were
used to measure the reading achievement of proficient and less-proficient readers, some
of whom used the retelling strategy and others of whom did not. Five research questions
guided the study. The following findings emerged from the analyses of the data collected:
68
1. On a standardized measure of reading comprehension, the difference in the mean
change score of the experimental group over the control group represented a medium
high effect size, and approached, but did not reach, statistical significance.
2. The difference in the mean change scores of the experimental and control groups
as measured by the curriculum-based unit test was not significant.
3. There were no statistically significant differences in gains in reading achievement
as measured on the standardized reading test between the proficient and less-proficient
retellers; the reading comprehension of both groups improved.
4. On the curriculum-based unit test, the less-proficient students in the experimental
group demonstrated a statistically significant gain in reading achievement over the
proficient readers in the experimental group.
5. Reading comprehension gains of the students in the experimental (retelling) group
as measured by a comparison of the pre- and post-assessments of their written retellings
showed statistical significance and a very large effect size.
Conclusions
The findings of the study led to a number of conclusions about the usefulness and
effectiveness of retelling as a strategy for teaching reading comprehension.
Generally, results from the Test of Reading Comprehension, third edition (TORC-3),
the standard measure of reading comprehension, indicate that retelling is an effective
reading comprehension strategy. When pre- and post-test scores are compared, retellers
show significant improvement while students in the workbook group do not. When the
mean change scores of the two groups are compared, the difference approaches, but does
not reach statistical significance. This difference does, however, reflect a large effect size.
69
The students in the retelling group gained, on average, approximately six-tenths of a
standard deviation more than their counterparts in the workbook group.
Retelling instruction did not improve the reading comprehension capabilities of the
retellers as measured on the Scott Foresman Reading Skills Test, the curriculum-based
assessment. On average, scores for both the retelling and the workbook groups decreased
on the Unit Skills post-test. The decrease was not statistically significant for either group,
nor was there a statistically significant difference when the change scores of the two
groups were compared.
Retelling is a beneficial reading instructional strategy for less-proficient readers.
There was no significant difference, as measured on the TORC-3, between the reading
achievement of the proficient and less-proficient retellers. The reading achievement of
both groups improved: M = 7.20 for the less-proficient readers and M= 7.75 for the
readers in the proficient group. Interestingly, the less-proficient readers in the retelling
group were the only students in the study whose scores improved on the Scott Foresman
Reading Skills Unit Test; following the intervention, the change in the scores differed
significantly (p = .008) from the proficient retellers.
Finally, the improvement in the scores of the students in the retelling group as
measured on the Richness in Retelling Scale indicate strongly that retelling is an effective
reading comprehension strategy. The mean change in the scores of the written retellings
were both statistically (p = .004) and practically (effect size = 1.01) significant.
Discussion
Retelling is a reading strategy that benefits children by improving their ability to
comprehend what they read. Students may be able to complete some workbook pages
70
purported to teach comprehension even if they have not read the associated text. They
cannot, however, retell what they do not know. In a few short, busy weeks during a
spring semester in a sixth grade classroom, students who learned about and practiced oral
and written retelling made significant and remarkable gains in reading comprehension.
Although it tells part of the story, a dispassionate analysis of the data does not reveal
the enthusiasm and eagerness the students demonstrated during the retelling intervention.
A student who missed a retelling session to go to a band lesson voluntarily returned later
to find out what she had missed; a boy who rarely borrows books from the school library
asked if The Phantom Tollbooth (Juster, 2005) might be available to be checked out.
After reading and retelling the first two chapters in class, he wanted to read the rest of the
story. Two weeks later, this same student recommended the book to a friend. The
students in the less-proficient retelling group loved the plot of the Mozart opera The
Magic Flute retold in a beautifully-illustrated picture book (Gatti, 2005). While writing
their retellings on a Friday morning, they listened to a sound recording of the opera and
repeatedly asked that the volume be increased.
The value of retelling as a classroom instructional strategy has been well
documented. Retelling has proven to be helpful to children in kindergarten (Morrow,
1985b), students in special education (Gillam & Carlile, 1997), and college
undergraduates (Hu, 1995). This study supports previous research that recommends
retelling as a comprehension instructional strategy. Teachers, however, sometimes find
retelling difficult and time-consuming to implement (Benson & Cummins, 2000;
Morrow, 1986). This study was specifically designed to examine whether retelling could
be applied in an existing classroom without the use of additional specialized materials or

71
techniques. This proved to be the case. The intervention did not disturb the ongoing
classroom routine, increase the cost of education, or require extra effort or time on the
part of the students. In many past studies, retelling as assessment or instruction has
utilized a one-to-one teacher-student arrangement (e.g. Gambrell, Pfeiffer, & Wilson,
1985; Moss, 1993), a structure which is not often available in classroom settings. In this
study, the retelling was done with a group of students who especially enjoyed the social
aspects of the intervention.
The study yielded many positive results and some that were unexpected. It was
encouraging to find that even though the improvement in test scores of the retellers did
not differ significantly from the workbook group on the standardized test, the effect size
was strong. In education, an inexpensive, easily-implemented intervention that raises
achievement by even a small effect size is considered to be of value (Coe, 2002). In this
case, the effect was large, and the improvement benefited students at different levels of
reading proficiency.
The retelling students' reading comprehension improvement, especially as assessed
by their written retellings, was noteworthy. It might therefore be expected that a similar
improvement would be evidenced by scores on the curriculum-based assessment. The
study did not show, however, that the increase in reading achievement generalized to the
classroom setting as measured by the Scott Foresman Unit Skills Test used to assess the
students at the close of the intervention period. The mean scores of students in both the
retelling and the workbook group decreased on the Unit Skills Test given after the
completion of the five-week unit.

72
It can be noted that students in the control group who participated in all classroom
reading comprehension instruction and completed all reading comprehension workbook
pages did no better on the unit test than their peers in the retelling group who were
exempt from the regular comprehension instruction and activities. While missing out on
the regular classroom comprehension instruction did not adversely affect the scores of the
retellers on the curriculum-based measure when compared to the control (workbook)
group, being part of the retelling group did not seem to help them either. A reading
strategy is of little value if it does not transfer to other applications or assessments of
reading comprehension (Anderson, 1992; Pressley et al., 1992).
The use of the Scott Foresman Unit Skills Tests was problematic. Validity and
reliability data are not available for the assessments. In addition, the tests, though made
up largely of comprehension questions, also assessed word attack and grammar skills. It
should be noted that the less-proficient retellers did improve on the Unit Test and their
improvement was significant when compared to the proficient retellers. This result is
encouraging, but in light of the problems associated with the curriculum-based
assessment, the result is also suspect. While it would be nice to think that the
improvement in the scores of the less-proficient retellers was due to the retelling
intervention, that conclusion cannot be stated with any certainty.
Whatever the shortcomings of the assessment tool, however, it is important for
students to transfer what they have learned to other settings. The lack of transfer and poor
performance on the Scott Foresman Test may perhaps be explained. On the assent form
presented to them before the study began, the students were told that their Unit Test
Scores would be part of the data collected during the study. There was little done during
73
the five-week intervention period, however, to promote the transfer of the retelling
strategy to other settings, in particular to the Unit Test, and the students received no
feedback from the researcher in regard to their test performance. Direct instruction may
be needed to help students learn to apply what they have learned about retelling to other
settings.
Reading comprehension and the teaching of strategies to increase comprehension are
important and enduring issues in literacy education. In 1941, Paul McKee recommended
that schools spend more time on the "thinking side of reading,. . . helping pupils . . .
understand clearly and correctly what they attempt to read" (p. 224). The current study
supports the use of retelling, an instructional strategy that does just that.
Recommendations
Given the limitations of the study, a number of implications can reasonably be
proposed.
Recommendations for Practice
1. Teachers of middle school students may begin to incorporate oral retelling into
their current reading instruction. Previous retelling experience on the part of the students
is not necessary, nor is it necessary to use specific materials, methods, or procedures.
2. Teachers of middle school students may also wish to implement written retellings.
In the current study, just one weekly written retelling over a period of five-weeks
significantly increased students' comprehension of story content and their written
reproduction of ideas and details from the stories they read.
3. Struggling readers should be included in oral and written retelling instruction and
assignments. There were no significant differences between the proficient and less-
74
proficient readers on the standardized comprehension test or the written retelling
assessment; on the curriculum-based evaluation, the less-proficient readers' scores were
significantly higher than their peers in the proficient reading group.
Recommendations for Further Study
1. The written retelling procedure used in the study was effective for both the
proficient and less-proficient readers in the retelling group. In the design of the current
study, there was no control group with which to compare the performance of the students
completing written retellings. A study with that additional element is recommended.
2. In future studies of retelling with middle school students, an effort should be
made to instruct participants to apply the strategy to other settings. The success of the
instruction should then be evaluated.
3. The study could be replicated with additional attention to the quality, validity, and
reliability of the curriculum-based comprehension measure. The validity of the current
study would have been improved if just the items directly measuring reading
comprehension had been considered in the data analysis.
4. A current topic in reading comprehension research is the importance of
motivation and attitude to success in reading (Block, Gambrell, & Pressley, 2002; Block
& Parris, 2008). Given the interesting observations of the motivation and enthusiastic
participation of individual students in the retelling group, it is recommended that case
studies of the effects of retelling on individual student's attitudes and reading
comprehension achievement be undertaken.
5. Nearly all texts used for oral and written retelling in the current study were
narrative. While there are articles recommending retelling as a strategy with

75
informational texts (Moss, Leone & Dipillo, 1997) and some research in this area has
been conducted, future additional studies should focus on expository texts and the
application of retelling procedures in content-area classes.
6. Pressley (2001) noted that reading comprehension strategies have "consistent and
striking benefits" when they are taught and practiced for a semester or an entire school
year. It is therefore recommended that additional retelling research using longer
intervention periods be undertaken. In addition, studies with larger groups of students in
diverse settings would add information about the efficacy of retelling as an instructional
strategy.
7. While retelling research has addressed students at various levels of age and
ability, there is little research using retelling as an instructional strategy with English
language learners. Such studies are needed and encouraged.
Summary
This chapter reviewed the purposes of the study, the related literature, the
methodology and procedures, and the major findings. It also presented conclusions, a
discussion of the findings and conclusions, and recommendations for practice and further
study.
"Reading is comprehension" (Cambourne, 1988, p. 158). Reading comprehension
strategies, including retelling, are important instructional elements in literacy teaching
and learning. Retelling is an effective way to help children increase their reading
comprehension capability.
76
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91
Appendix A
USD Office of Human Subjects Protection Exempt Review and Approval

92
From • "Langstraat. Deb L" <Deb.Langstraat@usd.edii>

Sent Friday, February 22, 2008 4:14 pm
To Donna.Johnson(a),usd.edu , "Richardson. Maurine" <Maurine.Richaidson(a>usd.edu>
Cc
Bcc
Subject IRB Letter Richardson-Johnson
Project Title: 2008.018-The Effects of Substituting Retelling for the Basal

Reader Comprehension Instruction on Students in a Sixth Grade
Reading Program
PI: Maurine Richardson Student PI: Donna Johnson
Level of Review: Exempt 1&2 Risk: No More than Minimal
Date Approved: 2/22/2008
The proposal referenced above has received an Exempt review and approval via the
procedures of the University of South Dakota Institutional Review Board 01.
Annual Continuing Review is not required for the above Exempt study. However, when
this study is completed you must submit a Closure Form to the IRB. You may close your
study when you no longer have contact with the subject.
Prior to initiation, promptly report to the IRB, any proposed changes or additions (e.g.,
protocol amendments/revised informed consents/ site changes, etc.) in previously
approved human subject research activities.
The forms to assist you in filing your: project closure, continuation,

adverse/unanticipated event, project updates /amendments, etc. can be accessed at
http://www.usd.edu/oorsch/compliance/applicationforms.cfm.
This e-mail serves as your official IRB response. If you have any questions, please
contact: deb.lanqstraat@usd.edu or lisa.korcuska@usd.edu or (605) 677-6184.
Sincerely,
Deb Langstraat, IRB Coordinator

Office of Human Subjects Protection
AAHRPP Full Accreditation since 2005
http://www.usd.edu/oorsch/compliance/
Ph: 605.677.6184
Fax: 605.677.3134
93
Appendix B
Communication with School District:
Presentation to School Board
& Permission to Conduct Study

94
January 29, 2008
Board of Education
Xx Xxxx Public School
XXX XXth St., P.O. Box XXX
Xx Xxxx, XX XXXXX
RE: READING RESEARCH PROJECT
Dear Member of the Board of Education:
I am pleased to present information about my reading research project. I

have enjoyed working with your faculty, students, and staff in the past and
look forward to interacting with the sixth grade students and their teachers in
the upcoming weeks.
In every school I visit, I see great concern about effective reading

instruction. Much time and effort is given to ensure that each child learns to
read. My research project is directed at answering questions I have about the
best ways to help children comprehend what they read.
Teaching reading and encouraging children to become life-long readers is my

passion as an educator. To that end, I am continuing my education at The
University of South Dakota. I have recently completed the coursework
needed to become a reading specialist. The study of reading comprehension I
complete with the help of your sixth grade teachers and students will be the
basis for my doctoral dissertation.
If you require further information or have questions concerning this study,

you may contact my advisor, Dr. Maurine Richardson (605-677-6221), or the
Institutional Review Board (605-677-6184) at The University of South
Dakota.
Sincerely,
Donna M.Johnson
806 Highland Road
Windom, MN 56101
95
Xxxxxxxx Xxxx Public Schools

• Superintendent /7-12 Principal - Xxxx Xxxxx
• E-6 Principal - Xxxxxx Xxxxxxxx
• 7-12 Dean of Students - Xxxx Xxxxxxxxxxx
• K-12 Counselor - Xxxx Xxxx
Phone: (xxx) xxx-xxxx

Fax: (xxx) xxx-xxxx Elementary
Fax: (xxx) xxx-xxxxx High School
XXX XXth Street, P. O. Box XXX

Xxxxxxxx Xxxxx, XX XXXXX
February 4, 2008
Donna M. Johnson
806 Highland Road
Windom,MN 56101
Dear Ms. Johnson:
This letter is in reference to your request to conduct a research study at the Xxxxxxxx
Xxxx Public Elementary School.
After discussing it with the Superintendent, Xxxx Xxxxx, and informing the School
Board members at the January 2008 meeting, it is with great pleasure that the Xxxxxxxx
Xxxx Public Elementary School accepts your request to pursue your research within our
sixth grade classes.
We look forward to an informative and enjoyable experience.
Sincerely,
Xxxxxx Xxxxxxxx
Principal
XXX:xx
96
Appendix C
USD Office of Human Subjects Protection Documentation:
Request for Parental Consent (English & Spanish)

97
Informed Parental Consent for Child's Participation in Research
Title: The Effects of Substituting Retelling for the Basal Reader Comprehension
Instruction on Students in a Sixth Grade Reading Program
Project Directors: Dr. Maurine Richardson, Mrs. Donna Johnson

School of Education: Curriculum & Instruction
Telephone: 605-677-6221
Dear Parent/Legal Guardian,
Your child is invited to be part of a research study comparing ways of teaching reading
comprehension. He/she was selected as a possible participant because she/he is in one
of the sixth grade reading classes at the Mt. Lake Public School.
WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THIS STUDY?

The purpose of this study is to see how using a reading comprehension strategy called
retelling compares to the current comprehension instruction being used by the sixth
grade reading groups.
HOW LONG WILL MY CHILD BE IN THIS STUDY?

Your child's participation in the study will last for five weeks. All the students in both sixth
grade reading groups (approximately 40 students) are being invited to participate in the
study which will take place for ten weeks (five weeks for each reading group) during the
2007-2008 spring semester.
WHAT WILL HAPPEN DURING THIS STUDY?

The students in your child's reading group will be randomly divided into two groups. If
your child is in the regular reading group, there will be no change in his/her reading
instruction. If your child is in the retelling group, he/she will receive his/her regular reading
instruction from the classroom teacher except for reading comprehension activities. For
approximately 20 minutes four days a week, the retelling students will participate in
retelling activities in the computer room adjacent to the sixth grade classrooms. Mrs.
Johnson will be the teacher for the retelling activities.
Most of the retelling activities will be oral. For example, the students may be asked to
retell the story from their reading book to a partner, describe the main problem in the
story and say how it was solved, or tell how the story reminds them of another story.
Some retellings will be written. For example, the students may be asked to write a letter
from one character in the story to another character, or write an email to a friend telling
them about the story,
The scores from the unit reading tests as well as a group pre- and post-test will be used in
the study.
There are no foreseeable risks to the participants of the study. Your child will not
necessarily benefit from being in this study, but the information gathered may benefit
teachers and students in the future. There will be no cost to the participants. The
University of South Dakota and the research team are receiving no payments from other
agencies, organizations, or companies to conduct this research study.
If you and your child choose not to participate in the study, your child's reading
instruction will continue as usual throughout the spring semester.
98
WILL INFORMATION ABOUT MY CHILD BE KEPT CONFIDENTIAL?
The records of this study will be kept private to the extent permitted by law. If a report
about this study is published, no participants will be identified. Your child's study record
may be reviewed by government agencies, USD's Research Compliance Office, and
The University of South Dakota Institutional Review Board (IRB). An IRB is a group of people
who review the research to protect the rights and welfare of you and your child.
Any information that is obtained in connection with this study and that can be identified
with your child will remain confidential and will be disclosed only with your permission or
as required by law. Confidentiality will be maintained by means of random numbers
assigned to e a c h participating student; names will not be used. The numbers and
associated student names will be kept in a secured location separate from the data that
is collected.
Your child's participation is voluntary. Your child may choose not to participate or may
discontinue participation at any time without penalty. The decision whether or not to
participate will not affect you or your child's current or future relations with the Mt. Lake
Public School or The University of South Dakota.
WHAT IF I HAVE QUESTIONS?

You may ask any questions you have now or later. The researchers conducting this study
are: Dr. Maurine Richardson (605-677-6221) and Mrs. Donna Johnson (507-831-2157). You
may call these numbers if you have questions, concerns, or complaints about the
research.
If you have questions regarding your rights as a research subject, you may contact The
University of South Dakota Institutional Review Board (IRB) at (605) 677-6184. You may also
call this number about any problems, complaints, or concerns you have about this
research study, if you cannot reach research staff, or if you wish to talk with someone
who is independent of the research team. General information about being a research
subject c a n be found by clicking "Information for Research Participants" on the web site:
http://www.usd.edu/oorsch/compliance/participants.cfm.
Please initial, sign, and return this letter to the school in the enclosed envelope:
Yes, I give permission for my child to participate in the reading comprehension
study.
No, I do not give permission for my child to participate in the reading
comprehension
study.
Your signature indicates that this research study has been explained to you, that your
questions have been answered, and that you voluntarily agree to permit your child to
take part in this study. You will receive a copy of this form.
Child's Name:
Signature of Person Authorized to Provide Permission for the Child Date

99
Consentimiento informado paternal para la participacion del nino

en la investigacion La Universidad d e Dakota del Sur
Tftulo: Los Efectos de Sustituir Contar Otra Vez por la Instruction de la Comprension del
Lector Basal en los Estudiantes en un Programa de la Lectura del Nivel de Sexto Grado
Directoras del proyecto: La Dra. Maurine Richardson, La Sra. Donna Jonson
Departemento de la Educacion: Curfculo e Instruccion Telefono: 605-677-6221
Querido Padre/Guardian Legal,

Se invita a su niho/a que este en un estudio de la investigacion comparando los
metodos de la ensenanza de la comprension de la lectura. Seleccionaron a su nino/a
como participante posiPle porque su nino/a es alumno/a en uno de las closes de la
lectura del sexto grado en la escuela Mt. Lake Public School.
eCUAL ES EL PROPOSITO DE ESTA INVESTIGACION?
El proposito de esta investigacion es para comparar la estrategia de la comprension de
la lectura que se llama "contar otra vez" con Id instruccion de la comprension de la
lectura que actualmente se realiza en los grupos de la lectura del sexto grado.
j-CUANTO TIEMPO ESTARA Ml NINO EN LA INVESTIGACION?
La participacion de su niho/a sera cinco semanas. Se invitan a todos los alumnos en los
dos grupos de la lectura del sexto grado (aproximadamente cuarenta alumnos) para
participar en la investigacion que durard por diez semanas (cinco semanas para c a d a
grupo de la lectura) durante el semestre de la primavera en el ano escolar 2007 a 2008.
2QUE PASARA DURANTE LA INVESTIGACION?
Se dividirdn en dos grupos al azar a los alumnos en el grupo de la lectura de su niho/a.
Si se selecciona a su niho/a estar en el grupo normal de la lectura, no habra cambio de
ia instruccion de la lectura para el/ella. Si se selecciona a su niho/a estar en el grupo de
la lectura de contar otra vez, el/ella recibird sus instrucciones de la lectura como
siempre del maestro de la clase a menos que para las actividades de la comprension
de la lectura. Por aproximadamente veinte minutos por cuatro dfas a la semana, los
alumnos seleccionados para contar otra vez participardn en las actividades de contar
otra vez en el aula designada para computes, la cual que queda al lado de las aulas
del sexto grado. La Sehora Johnson sera la maestra para las actividades de contar otra
vez.
La mayoria de las actividades de contar otra vez serdn oral. Por ejemplo, se piden a los
alumnos de contar otra vez el cuento de su libro de la lectura a su compahero,
describiendo el problema principal del cuento y diciendo c o m o se resolvio, o decir
como el cuento se le hace recordar otro cuento. Algunas veces contaran otra vez en
una forma escrita. Por ejemplo, daran instrucciones a los alumnos para escribir una
carta de uno de los personajes del cuento al otro personaje, o quizds escribir una carta
electronica a un amigo contdndole cosas del cuento. Las notas de los exdmenes de la
unidad de la lectura tal como los exdmenes antes y despues de la unidad se usardn
para calcular las notas en la investigacion.
No se ve ningun riesgo a los participantes de esta investigacion. Su niho/a no
necesariamente beneficiard de estar en esta investigacion, pero la informacion y los
datos acumulados beneficiaran a los maestros y a los alumnos del future No habrd
costo ninguno a los participantes. La Universidad de Dakota del Sur y el equipo de la
investigacion no recibira ningun beneficio economico sea de otras agendas, otras
organizaciones, ni de las compahfas para realizar esta investigacion.
100
Si listed y/o su nino/a elige no participar en esta investigacion, la instruccidn de la
lectura de su nino/a continuard como normal durante el semestre de la primavera.
gSE MANTIENE PRIVADO LA INFORMACION DE Ml NINO/A?
Los expedientes de este estudio serdn conservados privados hasta lo permitida por la
ley. En ningun informe sobre este estudio que pueda ser publicado, a su nino/a no
identificardn. El expediente del estudio de su nino/a se puede repasar por las agencias
del gobiemo, los USD de la investigacion de la oficina de la conformidad, y la
universidad de los comites examinadores Dakota-lnstitucionales de Sur. El comite
examinador es un grupo de personas quienes revisan las investigaciones para asegurar
la proteccion de las derechas y el bienestar de usted y de su niho/a.
Cualquier informacion que se obtenga con respeto a este estudio y que se pueda
identificar con su nino/a seguira siendo confidencial y sera divulgada solamente con su
permiso o segun los requisitos de la ley. La confidencialidad sera conservada por
medio de un numero escogido al azar asignado a c a d a alumno que participa. Usar
este metodo significa que no hay nombres implicados. Los nombres y los numeros del
estudiante serdn bloqueados guardado adentro asegurado en localizaciones
separadas.
La participacion de su nino/a es voluntaria. Su nino puede elegir no participar o puede
elegir descontinuar participar en cualquier momento sin penalidad. La decision si o no
participar no le afectara relaciones actuales ni futuras con la Mt. Lake Public School ni la
Universidad de Dakota del Sur.
gQUE HAGO SI TENGO PREGUNTAS?
Usted puede hacer cualquier pregunta que usted tenga ahora o mas adelante. Los
investigadoras que conducen esta investigacion son: La Dra. Maurine Richardson (605-
677-6221) y la Sra. Donna Jonson (507-831-2157). Usted puede llamar estos numeros si
usted tiene preguntas, preocupaciones, o quejas sobre la investigacion.
Si usted tiene preguntas con respeto a sus derechas como personas que participan en
el estudio de la investigacion, usted puede entrar en contacto con la universidad del
comite examinador Dakota-lnstitucional del Sur (IRB) en (605) 677-6184. Usted puede
tambien llamar este numero para decirles sobre cualquier problema, quejas, o
preocupacion que usted tenga sobre este proyecto de la investigacion, si usted no
puede comunicar con nadie del equipo de la investigacion, o si usted quiere hablar con
alguien que sea independiente del equipo de la investigacion. Informacion general
sobre ser participante en una investigacion se puede encontrar al seleccionar
"Information for Research Participants" (La informacion para los participantes de la
investigacion) en la direccion de la red:
http://www.usd.edu/oorsch/compliance/participants.cfm.
Por favor firme y devuelva esta carta a la escuela en el sobre proveido:
Sf, Yo doy permiso para que mi nino/a participe en las investigaciones de la
comprension de la lectura.
No, Yo no doy permiso para que mi nino/a no participe en las investigaciones de
la comprension de la lectura.
Su firma indica que este estudio de la investigacion se ha explicado a usted, que se nan
contestado sus preguntas, y que usted acuerda voluntariamente permitir que su nino/a
participe en este estudio. Usted recibira una fotocopia de esta forma.
Nombre del Niho/a
firma de padre/madre/curaduria fecha

101
Appendix D
USD Office of Human Subjects Protection Documentation:
Request for Student Assent

102
Informed Assent for Student's Participation in Research
Title: The Effects of Substituting Retelling for the Basal Reader Comprehension Instruction
on Students in a Sixth Grade Reading Program
Project Directors: Dr. Maurine Richardson, Mrs. Donna Johnson

School of Education: Curriculum & Instruction
Telephone: 605-677-6221
Dear Student,
We are doing a research study. A research study is a special way to find out about something.
We are trying to find out if retelling what they read helps middle school students with their reading
comprehension.
If you want to be in this study, we will ask you to do several things:
1. Be assigned to one of two groups for reading comprehension lessons during reading
class. If you are randomly assigned to be in Group 1, your reading lessons for Unit 5 will
be the same as they always are. If you are randomly, assigned to Group 2, your lessons
will be the same, except you won't do any of the regular reading comprehensions
workbook pages or worksheets. Instead, you and others in your group will do oral and
written retellings of your stories with Mrs. Johnson.
2. Your test scores on the Unit Test you usually take will be used for the study.
3. Everyone in the study will take a pre and post-test called the Tesf of Reading
Comprehension-3 (TORC-3) and the scores will be used in the study. The TORC-3 is a
group test and takes about an hour.
4. If you are in Group 2, scores from two of your written retellings will be used in the study.
We hope that by doing this study, teachers and students in the future will know more about
reading comprehension and how to teach it. You may or may not benefit from being in the study.
When we are done with the study, we will write a report about what we learned. We will not use
your name in the report.
You do not have to be in this study. It is up to you. If you decide to be in the study, but change
your mind, you can stop being in the study.
If you have any questions about this, you may ask them now or at any other time.
If you want to be in this study, please sign your name. If you do not nwant to be in the study, don't
sign your name. Just hand the sheet back.
Your name (printing is OK) Date
I certify that this study and the procedures involved have been explained in terms the child could
understand and that he/she freely assented to participate in this study.
103
Appendix E
Pro-Ed Inc. Test Use Permission/Agreement

8700 Shoal Creek Blvd.
Austin, TX 78757-6897
(800)897-3202
(800) 397-7633 FAX
www.proedtnc.com
PRO-ED Inc.
An Internationa! Publisher
Attn: Darci Mundfrom (darci@proedinc.com) Date 0 i'/«> &/ JOGf^
Data and Materials Manager
Test Development
Free Tea* K3t Request Form

Eligible for Use in Completion of a Master's Thesis or Doctoral Dissertation (*)
Thank you for your recent request to use the ' / ORG' O for your
master's thesis or dissertation research. Please complete the following information, tax (or mail) it to us,
and we will be happy to supply you with one free copy of the test. By completing and submitting this form,
this becomes a binding agreement that you will use this instrument for your research project, and in return
you will supply us with a copy of your paper upon project completion. Please allow at least 3 weeks for the
shipment of your tree test kit We will contact you within one month of your completion date to make
mailing arrangements of your paper.
Test Requested (Name and Acronym included):
Student's Full Name _£h,r\f}a M - ^ l k n f / r n
Estimated Completion Date (Month/Year) oft / ^aofj
Address 8ob •tii'akta#iA Qo&A

316
C% _ V _ _ ± _ _ _ _ _ _ _ St frl/V Zip Code ^ t p j Country g<A
( ]
Phone .557 £3/ ~-^57 Fax < 6~t'7 > 83/-5,65/
Email Don.no., TT^ivvx&^rtig. u(,A. eAu
Student's Signature AJcrvr^-jQl
wOrvr^&JFY) >JHn!y-j»rv
S^JHXKJ'ZMJ
(7 1
Advisor's Full Name ,V)r. Maorine. "Kic k a r r i S*m
School/Dept^%f. llni\"e>*>ihi , 4 - _ Y ^ 4 f e ! ) A k a ^ . / b l u ^
Address fy\^^'skC$sxA<Sbtji:ibeheil^!MciiC*\ feft-fer, •ko^yn^fTk'
c
City \fprrtui{wr\ State £?b Zip Code 57(>b t Country j(S,4-
)
Phone '- b6S f-,11' ClJ-1 Fax J ]
,
Email hAaarme.. R<cKar<g/^gy>fl, UsA.eAtj
Advisor's Signature Ot, lT)MimjJ(3^MkJdfi^
(*) Ffee Test Kit Offer applicable to PRO-ED, Inc. published tests only, and must be in-print at the date of request.
105
Appendix F
Scott Foresman Leveled Readers Unit 5

Scott Foresman Grade Six Leveled Readers
Unit 5 Into the Unknown
Easy
171A The Reindeer People
172A Hedwig 's Journey to America
173 A Junior Space Patrol
174A The Main Street of America: Route 66
175 A The Last Mile
On-Level
171B The Race to the South Pole
172B Baby Windy
173B The Story of the London Bridge
174B Mountain Climb
175B Volcanoes and Giant Tarantulas
Challenge
5C Into the Unknown

107
Appendix G
Scott Foresman Leveled Readers Unit 6

108
Scott Foresman Grade Six Leveled Readers
Unit 6 I've Got It!
Easy
176A Happy Lu
Ml A Too Close for Comfort
178A The Mystery of the Gold Pen
179A The Boat That Went on Both Land and Water
180 A Towers of Stone
On-Level
176B Paper Projects
177B Hot Gobs! The Art of Glass Blowing
178B MargaretBourke-White, Photographer
179B Aliens in Ancient Egypt
180B Eye to Eye with an Artist
Challenge
6C I've Got It!

109
Appendix H
Trade Books Used

110
Unit 5
Trapped by the Ice: Shackleton 's Amazing Arctic Adventure
by Michael McCurdy
Grandfather's Journey by Allen Say
Starry Messenger by Peter Sis
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norman Juster
Unit 6
Mailing May by Michael O. Tunnell
A Picture Book of Louis Braille by David A. Adler
One Grain of Rice by Demi
The Magic Flute by Anne Gatti

Ill
Appendix I
Scott Foresman Unit Skills Test Validity/Reliability Information

112
DONNA M. JOHNSON
806 Highland Road 507-831-2157
Windom, MN 56101 Donna.Johnson@usd.edu
Pearson Scott Foresman

Editorial Offices
1900 East Lake Avenue
Glenview, IL 60025-2055
To whom it may concern:
I am a graduate student at The University of South Dakota working on the research for
my doctoral dissertation. I am using the 2004 Scott Foresman Reading Grade 6
curriculum in my study of reading comprehension in two sixth grade classrooms. Scores
from the Unit Skills Tests (ISBN 0-673-62457-9) will be part of the data I collect.
Would you please send me information about the reliability of the Scott Foresman
Reading Grade 6 Skills Tests and also information about the content, criterion-related,
and construct validity of the test results? The reliability and validity information is not
included in the Teacher's Manual for the Unit and End-of-Year Skills Tests booklet.
If you need additional information, please contact me. I thank you for your help.
Sincerely,
Donna M. Johnson
113
From • "Swensson, Rochelle" <rochelle.swenssonrgjPearson.com>

Sent Tuesday, July 15, 2008 2:38 pm
To Donna. Johnson(g) usd.edu
Cc
Bcc
Subject Scott Foresman Reading
Donna:
Our Editorial Director for Elementary Basal Reading has provided the following response
to the questions posed in your recent letter:
The Scott Foresman Reading grade 6 Unit Skills Tests have not been subjected to
statistical studies, had reliability and validity measures run on them, or been normed
using large student populations. That is not their intent. Their purpose is to give a
snapshot of how well a student is reading overall in relation to what has been taught in a
unit in Scott Foresman Reading. In that sense, they are valid-they do test what Scott
Foresman Reading has taught. We can link a skill and/or strategy with each question,
and these are all skills the student has been taught during the course of the unit. Further,
we could say that the Unit Skills Tests have been user-validated because teachers who
have given these grade 6 Unit Skills Tests over the years have not reported to us
problems involving inaccurate or odd results. As for reliability, the tests are in one form
only; they do not come in different forms, and so there can be no test/retest reliability
studies done on them.
Rochelle
Rochelle Swensson
Pearson Elementary Product Specialist
Reading & Language Arts
rocheUe.swensson@pearson.com
800-848-9500 x 835
jjjFj Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail

114
Appendix J
Irwin-Mitchell Richness in Retelling Scale:
Permission to Use, Criteria, & Checklist

115
From • "Mitchell. Judy Nichols" <judym@wsu.edu>
Sent Wednesday, January 30, 2008 6:30 pm
To Donna M Johnson <Donna.Johnson(g),usd.edu>
Cc
Bcc
Subject RE: Request to use Retelling Evaluation Scale
Thanks Donna. Pi Irwin and I would be delighted to have you use the Richness in Retellings
scale. Let us know how your research goes - thanks
judymitchell
From: Donna M Johnson [mailto:DonnaJohnson@usd.edu]

Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2008 1:57 PM
To: Mitchell, Judy Nichols
Subject: Request to use Retelling Evaluation Scale
Dear Dr. Mitchell,
I am a graduate student at the University of South Dakota working on the research for my
doctoral dissertation.
With your permission, I would like to use the 5-point scale you developed with Dr. Pi A.
Irwin to assess the written retellings of the sixth grade students who will be participating
in my study.
Thank you for considering my request.
Donna M.
Johnson
605-321-0741
116
Richness in Retellings Scale

Level Criteria for Establishing Level
Student generalizes beyond text: includes thesis (summarizing statement), all
major points, and appropriate supporting details; includes relevant
5 supplementations; shows high degree of coherence, completeness,
comprehensibility.
Student includes thesis (summarizing statement), all major points, and
4 appropriate supporting details; includes relevant supplementations; shows
high degree of coherence, completeness, comprehensibility.
Student relates major ideas; includes appropriate supporting details and
3 relevant supplementations; shows adequate coherence, completeness,
comprehensibility.
Student relates a few major ideas and some supporting details; includes
2 irrelevant supplementations; shows some degree of coherence, some
completeness; the whole is somewhat comprehensible.
Student relates details only; irrelevant supplementations or none; low degree
1
of coherence, incomplete; incomprehensible.
*From Irwin, P. A. & Mitchell, J.N. (1983). A procedure for assessing the richness of retellings. Journal of
Reading, 26(5), 391-396.
117
Richness in Retellings Scale
Checklist forjudging richness of retelling
5 4 3 2 1
Generalizes
beyond text X
Thesis
(summarizing) X X
statement
Major points X X X ? ?
Supporting details X X X X ?
Supplementations Relevant Relevant Relevant Irrelevant Irrelevant
Coherence High Good Adequate Some Poor
Completeness High Good Adequate Some Poor
Comprehensibility High Good Adequate Some Poor
*From Irwin, P.A. & Mitchell, J.N. (1983). A procedure for assessing the richness of retellings. Journal of
Reading, 26(5), 391-396.
118
Appendix K
Oral Retelling Procedures

119
Oral Retelling Procedures
1. Team Retelling (Hoyt, 1999)
Following the reading of an assigned narrative or expository text, groups of students
will orally retell in their own words. A purpose or focus for the retelling may be
determined beforehand; for example, the students may be asked to retell a part that seems
to them to be most important, interesting, funny, or sad. The group might be arranged so
that team members focus on specific story elements (e.g. problem, solution, and
resolution) or expository text structures (e.g. description, items in a sequence, comparison
and contrast). The researcher may use open-ended prompts to encourage and aid the
students. In some cases, students may be asked to connect their retellings to personal
experiences, prior knowledge, or other texts.
2. Consecutive Retelling (Developed by the researcher)
Following the reading of an assigned narrative or informational text, the first student
will retell the first episode or point in his own words with as much detail as possible. The
second student will summarize the first point and add the next main point, including as
much detail as possible. The third reader will summarize the retellings of the first two
students and add a third episode and so on until the entire story or article is retold.
3. Paired Retelling (Koskinen, Gambrell, Kapinus, & Heathington, 1988)
Students silently read a story or portion of a text and then team up with a partner for
retelling. "One partner becomes the 'storyteller' who tries to retell everything that is
important about the story, while the other partner is the 'listener' " (p. 893). Then the
partners reverse roles and read and retell another part of the text.
120
Appendix L
Written Retelling Procedures

121
Written Retelling Procedures
1. Retelling Journal Entries (Brown & Cambourne, 1987)
Entries written in retelling journals will follow a teacher read aloud or a student
silent reading. In either case, the each student will have his own copy of the text so that it
can be read as many times as the student wishes. The following points will be
emphasized:
a. The text should be read as many times as needed so the student feels "confident
and comfortable with the meanings in it" (Brown & Cambourne, 1987, p. 33).
b. Rereadings are done to gain understanding, not to achieve rote memory.
c. Any specific purpose for the retelling should be shared beforehand. For
example, the written retelling may be for the purpose of sharing a story with
someone who has never read it before, or to explain and summarize the main
points.
Instructions for the written retellings will be as follows:
a. Close the book you have been reading and don't look back at the story.
b. Neatness and spelling don't count. Just be sure you can read what you write.
c. Remember and write as quickly as you can.
In some instances, the written retellings may be shared with a partner to discuss how
they differ or are similar, to determine whether meaning is preserved, and to discuss word
choice.
2. Plot Summary Maps (Hansen, 2004)
After hearing or reading a story, students fill out a graphic organizer called a Plot
Summary Map. The organizer has spaces to record the main character's goal, the obstacle
faced by the character, the attempts made to overcome the obstacle, the outcomes of the
attempts, the resolution of the problem, and the ending. Using the completed Plot
Summary Map as a model, students write a detailed written retelling of the story using
complete sentences.
3. Electronic Retelling. (Shaw, 2005)
Students use computer applications to enhance or communicate their written
retellings. They will be expected to follow school policies regarding computer and
Internet use.
a. Students write a brief email message to a friend telling the setting, character,
and initial event from a story they have read. They tell the story so that their friend will
be interested in finding out more about it.
b. Students type (or scan) one of their retellings, attach it to an email, send it to a
partner who has read the same text, and ask for comments and reactions.
c. Students use presentation software to add clip art or photos to a retelling of a
narrative or expository text and share it with a friend or a group.
4. SPOT the Story (Bos & Vaughn, 1994).
After hearing or reading a story, students fill in four sections of a graphic organizer:
Setting - Who, what, when, and were
Problem - What is the problem to be solved or the goal to be reached?
Order of Action - What events happen to solve the problem or attain the goal?
Tail End - What happened at the end of the story? How is the problem resolved?
Students then use the information on the SPOT graphic organizer and write
everything they can about the story that was heard or read.

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THE EFFECTS OF SUBSTITUTING RETELLING FOR BASAL READER

COMPREHENSION INSTRUCTION ON STUDENTS IN A SIXTH GRADE

B.A., Southwest Minnesota State University, 1975

M.S., Minnesota State University, Mankato, 1984

A Dissertation Submitted in Parti a! Fulfillment of

Division of Curriculum and Instruction

All rights reserved.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Donna M. Johnson, Ed.D., Curriculum and Instruction,

The Effects of Substituting Retelling for Basal Reader Comprehension Instruction

Dissertation directed by Dr. Maurine V. Richardson

teachers struggle to find ways to effectively "teach" comprehension. Educational research

comprehension-fostering instructional strategies examined and recommended. Even

become established or has waned in recent years.

participated in the study.

existing group comprehension instruction and individual comprehension workbook

significantly impact the reading comprehension achievement of middle school students,

post-test reading comprehension achievement data were collected using three

instruments: a standardized reading test, a curriculum-based measure, and a scale

was indeed an effective reading comprehension strategy. While statistical significance

was implemented within an existing program without additional materials, costs, or

disruptions to the classroom schedule of either the students or the teachers.

This abstract of approximately 325 words is approved as to form and content. I

recommend its publication.

Signed /Vkj^^fuJ 7SjcAdJjUtM/t-J

The members of the committee appointed to examine the dissertation of Donna M.

Johnson find it satisfactory and recommend that it be approved.

Dr. Maurine V. RichaWson, Chair

Dr. Susan C. Gapp

my research and writing; I thank them.

which I completed my study. I am grateful for their help.

Mrs. Carla McMurry-Kozak, lent companionship, encouragement, and enjoyment to our

shared pursuit of advanced learning.

Background of the Problem 3

Statement of the Problem 6

Purpose of the Study 6

Significance of the Study 7

Limitations of the Study 10

Delimitations of the Study 11

Organization of the Remainder of the Study 11

2. Review of Related Literature and Research 12

Cognitive Psychology and the Development of

Reading Comprehension Models 14

Reading Comprehension Research in Educational Settings 17

Using Retelling with Struggling Readers 32

Retelling in a Contemporary Middle School Setting 35

Organization of the Remainder of the Study 39

Review of Related Literature 41

Population and Setting 42

Standardized Pre-Post Test 43

Written Retelling Assessment 46

Intervention and Data Collection 49

Questions Three and Four „ 59

Purpose of the Study 63

Review of Related Literature and Research 64

Methodology and Procedures 66

A. USD Office of Human Subjects Protection Exempt

C. USD Office of Human Subjects Protection Documentation:

D. USD Office of Human Subjects Protection Documentation:

F. Scott Foresman Leveled Readers Unit 5 105

G. Scott Foresman Leveled Readers Unit 6 107

H. Trade Books Used ., 109