Best Practices: Comparing Reading

Check MethodsTE804 Inquiry Project

My Classroom

I am placed in Holt Senior High School I teach ELA11 I have 24 students, and about 5 struggling readers I taught Honors ELA11 during our Maus unit & will refer to them in this inquiry

Context We use reading checks in our classroom in the form of quizzes and question packets I have used a question packet and a reading log to check reading

Reading logs were modeled after our PCW Activity logs for ENG408Also used Burke’s activity suggestions

There were two versions for the reading logs: V1: Structured V2: Multimodal

My Inquiry FocusI wanted to check which reading check would:

Produce higher completion rates Lead to higher-order thinking Facilitate Discussions Be preferable to my students

How It Was DoneDuring our Of Mice & Men unit I gave students a question packet

They submitted their answer on a separate piece of paper for each chapter they read

During our Maus I unit I gave students V.1 of our reading logs

They submitted a log for each chapter they read

How It Was Done

Our Honors class used V.1 & V.2 of our reading logs

They also submitted a log for each chapter they read

Completion Rates

Completion rates are higher for reading logs (62.5%)

Submission rates may be tied to text or workload

Higher-Order Thinking Logs produced many instances of higher-order thinking Question packets did not Possibly due to the type of questions:

Open vs. closed My Interpretation vs. Text based Student-led vs. Teacher-led

Facilitates Discussions? Both facilitate discussion by providing a frameworkLogs provided a flexible, student-led formathowever…

More students preferred using question packets, because:

Easier and familiar Focuses on important events

Facilitates Discussions? Still, some students preferred logs, because:

Helps form an opinion Freedom to share own thoughts Allowed them to discuss feelings not just facts

Most Honors students cited freedom as the reason behind the log being helpful

Student Preferences Students liked the question packet because:

They were easy to answer (skim for answers) Prepared them to take a test on the text

Student Preferences Students liked the reading logs because:

No wrong answer Easy to fill as you read Allowed them to share what they felt

Honors students preferred it overwhelmingly

Discuss what they wanted!

Recommendations Either format:

Supports comprehension Can be used to prepare students for discussions Ensure students actually complete reading

My results show: Most students prefer reading logs Complete them more often They support a more dialogic and free-form student-led discussions

Don’t discount reading packets!

My Recommendation: Thinking About Your Class

Use a reading log if you: Want a more reflective approach to reading Have enough time to grade potentially longer writing Have stronger readers who have time to complete a daily task

Other Considerations: Single sentence answers may occur! If you intend to quiz students about specific events, make sure to include in activities

My Recommendation: Thinking About Your Class

Use a question packet if you: Have many preps If your students value and need structure To point to specific events in the novel Guide struggling readers*

To improve question packets, consider: Including higher order thinking questions Submission frequency

Final Thoughts…

My question packet was problematic: It didn’t include enough higher-order thinking questions Submitted too often?

Our discussion progressively became more dialogic Logs facilitated that!

Motivation could have been increased by using logs: They were free to choose a response Were always “right” Focused on their understanding of events

Highly recommend using with Honor students!

Currently…As we are reading The Catcher In The Ryewe are using an online discussion forum as our reading log

Completion rates are in the 95% We are using CollaborizeClassroom.com Our discussions are based solely on their forum responses