Date of Award
Master of Arts in Education
Comadena, Mary Jean
The purpose of the study was twofold. First, it describes two research-based instructional strategies that have been effective in increasing reading comprehension (reciprocal teaching and using readers' response journals). Second, a quasi-experimental research design was created to determine the educational impact of these two strategies on the reading comprehension levels of elementary-aged English Language Learners (ELLs). The data was collected from a low socioeconomic elementary school, specifically looking at a second grade classroom. The classroom demographic included eighteen students, ten of which were English Language Learners. Both informal and formal assessments were used to determine growth across time. The overall findings gleaned from the formal assessments revealed that the ELLs significantly increased their reading comprehension scores by 12%. Using both strategies has demonstrated not only the increase in reading comprehension with non-English speaking students but also with English-speaking students.
Benosa, Kathlyn Garcia, "Increasing comprehension strategies through reciprocal teaching" (2006). Theses Digitization Project. 3174.