Exploring the Effects of Scaffolding on Reading Comprehension in a Kindergarten Classroom

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Exploring the Effects of Scaffolding on Reading
Comprehension in a Kindergarten Classroom

• Kim Borden
• April 19, 2006

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The research question is

• Which is the most effective way to enhance
  reading comprehension in kindergarten age
  students scaffolding before, during or after
  read-alouds?

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What is scaffolding?The theory

• Scaffolding is the provisional device that
  teachers use to promote students learning.
• The theory of scaffolding is embedded in
  Vygotskys social constructivism theory and his
  theory of proximal development.

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What is social constructivism?

• It is the premise that most children learn best
  when there is a dynamic interaction between a
  child and a more capable person.

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What is the zone of proximal development?

• The zone of proximal development is the idea that
  there is a span between what a child knows on his
  or her own and what a child can accomplish with
  a capable other.

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Proximal Development Scaffolding

• Scaffolding is the way in which teachers exploit
  a students zone of proximal development.
• It is the helping system that a teacher puts in
  place in order to assist students learning.

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Research Focus

• The focus of this research is based on the idea
  that proximal development and scaffolding can be
  used to enhance students interest in reading and
  increase their comprehension skills.

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Review of Literature

• Carr and Thompson (1996)
• Mosenthal, Lipson, Torncello, Russ, and Mekkelsen
  (2004)
• Liang, Peterson, and Graves (2005)
• Dieterich, Assel, Swank, Smith and Landry (2005)

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Carr and Thompson (1996)

• Studied the effect that prior knowledge has on
  reading comprehension in students with and
  without learning disabilities.
• They concluded that students with learning
  disabilities and those without performed better
  when they had prior knowledge of the subject
  matter.

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Mosenthal, Lipson, Torncello, Russ, and Mekkelsen
(2004)

• Cited the criteria present in schools whose
  students met the standard on statewide reading
  assessments.
• Lots of time for students to read and discuss
  books-
• Balance between literature and teaching skills-
• Extensive scaffolding to support student
  learning-

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Liang, Peterson, and Graves (2005)

• Looked at the effectiveness of scaffolding in
  fostering elementary students comprehension of
  literature.
• They concluded that scaffolding significantly
  enhanced reading comprehension performance.

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Dieterich, Assel, Swank, Smith and Landry (2005)

• Looked at the effect that early parental verbal
  scaffolding has on childrens later reading
  comprehension skills.
• They concluded that language rich in information
  promotes later reading competence.

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Narrow the focus

• I investigated three forms of scaffolding in a
  kindergarten classroom in order to determine
  which best assisted students reading
  comprehension skills scaffolding before, during
  or after read-alouds.
• I also examined the effects of scaffolding in
  general.

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Hypothesis

• I expected the reading comprehension scores to
  increase throughout the study.
• I expected the last treatment to produce a higher
  reading comprehension score than the first
  treatment.
• I expected the different scaffolding conditions
  to produce different scores.

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Research Design

• Participants
• Materials
• Procedure
• Data Analysis

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Participants

• 17 Kindergarteners in a small Title One school in
  Western North Carolina
• 7 Caucasian
• 7 Caucasian ESL
• 6 Hispanic
• 2 Ukrainian
• 3 African American

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Materials

• Six Read aloud Storybooks
• On-task behavior assessment
• Reading comprehension assessment
• Student opinion survey
• Prior knowledge question

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Read Alouds

• Madeline
• Click Clack Moo-Cows that Type
• Blueberries for Sal
• Where the Wild Things Are
• Knuffel Bunny
• Dont Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus

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On-task Behavior Assessment
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Reading Comprehension Assessment/Scaffolding
Information

• What was the title of the story?
• Who were the main characters in the story?
• What was the setting in the story?
• Did the setting change?
• What happened at the beginning of the story?
• What happened in the middle of the story?
• What happened at the end of the story?

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Student Opinion Survey

• Point to the face that best describes how much
  you liked the story.

A lot A little
Not at all
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Prior Knowledge Question
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Procedure

• A book was read to the students.
• The scaffolding condition was introduced.
• During the story an assistant filled out the
  on-task behavior chart.
• The students returned to their seats and drew a
  picture of the story.
• The students were called one at a time to answer
  the reading comprehension assessment, the student
  opinion survey, and the prior knowledge question.

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Research Schedule
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Data Analysis

• The mean of all the treatments was collected.
• The mean of the first treatment and the last
  treatment were compared using a t-test, to see if
  there was a positive change in the scores.
• The means of the 3 different scaffolding
  conditions were compared using an A-nova single
  factor analysis to see if there was a difference
  between the various scaffolding conditions.

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Reading Comprehension Scores

• The initial hypothesis was that as the students
  experienced the different scaffolding treatments
  their scores would improve.
• They did not!

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The t-Test

• The p values for the t-Test were greater than .05
  and therefore were insignificant.

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Comprehension scores between the different
scaffolding conditions

• The initial hypothesis was that the 3 scaffolding
  conditions would produce different scores. It
  was thought that 1 of the scaffolding conditions
  would prove more effective in increasing reading
  comprehension.
• They did not!

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Scaffolding Before, During and After Reading

• The number of correct answers between the
  different scaffolding conditions was compared in
  order to distinguish whether one condition
  produced a better reading comprehension score.
• There was a difference of 2 percent between the
  different conditions.
• However, the difference was not significant!

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Scaffolding Before, During and After Reading
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Scaffolding Before, During and After Reading

• The p-values of the A-nova single-factor test
  were greater than .05 and therefore were
  insignificant.

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Other factors

• On-task Behavior Chart
• Student Opinion Survey
• Prior Knowledge Survey

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Student Opinion Survey
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Analysis and Discussion

• Evaluating the books
• Evaluating the Scaffolding Technique
• Impact of Intervention Strategy
• Future implications for research

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Evaluating the books

• Each story followed a traditional story
  structure there was a clear beginning, middle
  and end.
• Each story contained strong main characters, a
  clear problem, and concluded with a clear
  solution.
• All of the books were either Caldecott winners or
  Caldecott Honor books.

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Evaluating the books

• The students generally liked all six of the
  stories and most of them had never heard them
  before.
• There was no significant difference between the
  reading comprehension scores of any of the books.
• There is no apparent reason why the same six
  books could not be used in a future study.

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Evaluating the Scaffolding Technique

• Verbal scaffolding was chosen for this research
  because of an earlier study that linked early
  parental verbal scaffolding to increased reading
  comprehension scores.
• These results led me to propose that there would
  be a positive link between teachers verbal
  scaffolding and comprehension scores.

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Evaluating the Scaffolding Technique

• There was no such link!
• This does not imply that teachers should not
  verbally scaffold for their students.
• However, it does indicate a need to go beyond
  verbal scaffolding.

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Evaluating the Scaffolding Technique

• This study also showed that the difference in
  comprehension scores between scaffolding
  conditions was not significant.
• This outcome may also be due to the scaffolding
  technique used in the study.
• A different scaffolding technique may have
  indicated whether the time when scaffolding
  occurs affects comprehension scores.

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Different Scaffolding Techniques

• Readers theatre
• Self to text connections

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Readers Theatre

• Readers theatre has been shown to increase
  comprehension scores by increasing fluency, (as
  cited in Tompkins, 2005)
• Having students act out the story may have been a
  more meaningful form of scaffolding than simply
  giving verbal cues.

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Self to text connections

• Debbie Miller (2002) reports that when students
  are able to connect personally to the main idea
  of a story they are better able to remember the
  details of the story.
• Having students form personal connections to the
  story may have been a more effective form of
  scaffolding than simply giving verbal cues.

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Impact of Intervention Strategy

• I speculate that verbal scaffolding by itself is
  not effective in increasing reading comprehension
  scores in kindergarten age students.
• This is significant!
• It is important for teachers to know which
  scaffolding techniques produce the best results
  in reading comprehension and which do not.

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Future implications for research

• The next step in this research should focus on
  scaffolding methods in general not when
  scaffolding occurs.
• Once a scaffolding method is shown to be
  effective in increasing kindergarten reading
  comprehension scores then an investigation into
  scaffolding order would be appropriate.

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A great big thank you to

• My cooperating teacher, Terri Bayles
• My teaching assistant, Meredith Hammond
• All of the kindergarten students in my classroom
• Dr. Brown, for her endless patience
• And of course, Dr. Cole for allowing me to come
  and present!

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References

• Carr, S., Thompson B. (1996). The effects of
  prior knowledge and schema activation strategies
  on the inferential reading comprehension of
  children with and without learning disabilities.
  Learning Disability Quarterly, 19, 48-61.
• Clark, K., Graves, M. (2005). Scaffolding
  students comprehension of text. Reading
  Teacher,
• 58(6), 570 -580.
• Dieterich, S., Assel, M., Swank, P., Smith, K.,
  Landry, S. (2005). The impact of early maternal
  scaffolding and child language abilities on later
  decoding and reading comprehension skills.
  Journal of School Psychology, 43, 481-495.
• Gunning, T. G. (2005). Creating literacy
  instruction for all students. Boston, MA
  Pearson Education Inc.
• Liang, A., Peterson, C., Graves, M. (2005).
  Investigating two approaches to fostering
  childrens comprehension of literature. Reading
  Psychology, 26, 387-400.
• Maxim, G. W. (2006). Dynamic social studies for
  constructivist classrooms. Upper Saddle River,
  NJ Pearson Prentice Hall.
• Miller, D. (2002). Reading with Meaning
  Teaching Comprehension in the Primary Grades.
  Portland, Maine Stenhouse Publishers.
• Mosenthal, J., Lipson, M., Torncello, S., Russ
  B., Mekkelsen, J. (2004). Contexts and
  practices of six schools successful in obtaining
  reading achievement. The Elementary School
  Journal, 104, 343-367.
• Taylor, B., Peterson, D., Pearson, P.,
  Rodriguez, M. (2002). Looking inside classrooms
  Reflecting on the how as well as the what in
  effective reading instruction. The Reading
  Teacher, 56, 270-279.
• Tomkins, G. E. (2003). Literacy for the twenty
  first century. Boston, MA Pearson Education
  Inc.
• Tomkins, G.E. (2005). Language Arts, Patterns of
  Practice. Upper Saddle river, NJ Pearson
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• Woolfolk, A. (2004). Educational psychology.
  Boston, MA Pearson Education Inc.
• Google images

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Are there any questions?