Retellings

Tell us about your sample (students), Bert. Do you compare your treatment group to a control group? How have your designed the experiment?

How old are these kiddos? Are they reading stories selected at random, selected for interest reasons, selected because they are where the student is able to accurately read? Are there other strategies for skills like decoding, vocabulary, comprehension also taught? Are these students otherwise in special ed settings or is this a resource setting?

I do so passionately wish that many of the college students I work with had learned to “retell” what they read. They have learned an interesting array of strategies for answering multiple choice questions at the end of a passage, which unfortunately don’t lend themselves to figuring out the “main idea” of a passage (though finding the most-repeated long word and the sentence where that is the subject nearest the beginning works a little too often, even if you’re unable to say waht that long word is).

Sue

In response to your inquiries let me answer your questions by more fully describing my classes.

The retelling strategy is used in my Developmental (Cross-Categorical) Reading Skills classes. These classes typically have 12 to 16 students with disabilities ranging from mild LD to rather significant mental retardation. There are frequently students with behavior disabilities as well as physical disabilities (usually CP). Compounding the disability mix problem, all these classes have historically involved rather extreme age/grade mixing. It is not uncommon to find students ranging from freshman to senior status in the same class. It is this exceptional diversity of student population that lends significant validity and integrity to the findings.

During the first week of school, all students are given a standardized reading test to determine their current reading level. I have collected an extensive library of high interest fiction books in a very wide range of reading levels (from 3rd to 12th grade). All the books have color coded labels on their spins. Students are required to select their own reading material based on their interest. The only restriction is they must select books at or slightly above their tested level. Books significantly above or below their level are prohibited.

The students then proceed to read their selected books, stopping at the end of each page to write a one or two line summary of the story line. They keep these notes in a special notebook. I review their retelling notes each and every Friday. They receive a significant part of their weekly grade based on these notes. They receive extra credit if a parent has signed each page. When I review their work, I will initial each page and date the last entry. As a general guideline, the grading system provides a D- for 1 page, a C- for 4 pages, and so on up to an A+ for 12 pages of hand written notes. My review primarily looks for evidence of simple copying, a favorite means of doing notes without reading – and very easy to spot since none of my students can ever spell well. I do not dwell on or pay much attention to grammar. I am looking for storyline. In the beginning I usually explain that their assignment is to retell the story to a blind friend who lives up the Amazon River with his/her missionary parents and the phone charges are $12.00 per minute. They seem to understand that

I only allow one day of class per week for retelling note production. The rest of the week is spent on traditional efforts to teach comprehension and decoding skills. This forces the students to read and take notes out of class. Because most of my students will be assigned to my Reading Skills class multiple times, I try to vary the presentation each semester. There is always a ‘class novel’ we read out loud, and from which the students develop their own vocabulary lists. Obviously I spend time on sequencing, drawing conclusions and inference, cause and effect, context, dictionary skills, thesaurus skills in place of the dictionary (usually this proves more effective for the Special Education population), as well as attention to study skills ranging from outlining, to pictorial notes, SQ3R, skimming, graphic organizing, test taking (Pirates), etcetera. Because the syllabus varies from semester to semester, and my results are so constant, I am forced to conclude that there is no compounding variable to which the student’s progress can be attributed. The only constant is the “retelling” activity. The ‘control’ is simply that portion of each class who produce the fewest notes.

At the end of each semester, about a week before final exams, I give the students another standardized test. After sixteen semesters (this January will conclude the seventeenth), I have amassed a fairly huge pile of student retelling notebooks and accompanying pre and post test scores. I can say unequivocally, there is an obvious, demonstrated, 1:1 relationship between the amount of work produced by a student in the retelling task and the gain in reading comprehension levels over the semester. The more notes the student has produced the greater the reading skill gain as demonstrated by the test scores and the fewer notes produced the more likely the reading skill level test will show little or no measurable gain.

Last semester (Spring 02), I went so far as to write down, prior to giving the test, my projections of who would show a full year or more of gain for the one semester based on the total number of pages turned in for the retelling assignment. I was off on only one student, an EMH student who scored only a gain of .5 years after filling two full notebooks with retelling notes.

Therefore, I cannot claim my wonderful teaching, of whatever reading skill of the moment I am coving, is impacting my students. It appears, rather, it is their hard and persistent work over a period of time that produces the dramatic results. I’m just that mean old man who forces them do all that hard work.

Hi Bert,

While is sounds like your students are certainly making nice progress in your classroom, I don’t believe you have yet isolated a variable. Retelling may be loosely defined in your model (or perhaps just this writing)—it appears that your students “retelling” vary from small summaries to those of more detail. Is it the “summary writing” helping their progress, the structure of the reading class, or the increased volume of reading itself? We don’t know based on your experimental design.

By the way, a control group receives no treatment of any kind—but does receive pre- and post-testing along with the treatment group.

Dr. K., or perhaps others, may have more to add on experimental design. (She is light years ahead of me on that topic.) Please don’t take me wrong, I’m pleased your students are doing well, but just am not sure what has caused the happy effect. Since correlates don’t show cause, we cannot use that portion of your post.

Again, I’m pleased your students are doing so well. Just reading increases reading ability, too!

Hello Bert,

I’m pleased that your students are doing so well and it seems that you’re a very dedicated teacher who offers many opportunities for growth. I agree with Susan though, that there are many variables here and your control group isn’t really a control group. I do want to clarify though, that a good control group DOES receive a treatment, just not the same treatment as the experimental group. The control group’s treatment needs to be equally interesting and exciting. If you don’t offer that, then there’s no way of knowing whether the experimental group performed better because of the treatment or because they were being offered something new and exciting, being given special attention, and being taught by a teacher who is enthusiastic about the curriculum.Whatever’s bringing about your terrific results—and it may be the retellings—your motivation and skill as a teacher are undoubtedly a part of it. Congratulations!

Control, schmontrol — I agree that the value of making students summarize and retell is underrated, though I suspect teachers may work it into what they do (either orally or written) without thinking much about it.
(But, considering experimental design, comparing students who have the same teacher, and therefore all that similar stuff, sounds more controlled than experiments in which the same treatment is offered — but with a different teacher, in a different classroom with different students. Then let’s just factor in the variation within our species…)
And again, every semester I watch a subset of students flounder miserably in college pre-English 101 largely because they really don’t know what it’s like to read something for the purpose of knowing what happened. They “read” it to complete an assignmnet — only in these classes, the assignments sorta require them to understand the story and do things like make critical responses to it and/or relate it to another reading. For some of them it’s an almost tangible epiphany when they realize that the same way they can tell you what happened in a movie or at last night’s social gathering, they can tell you what happened in hte novel they’re reading … and *then* it’s time to attempt that next step and make intelligent commentary on it.
You might want to put togehter a conference presentation…I’ll ask a couple of the teachers of these courses what they think, hwo knows, maybe they’ll be inspired to inflict a little more “retelling” on these guys (who can’t spell either, by the way). I think it represesnts a sophisticated synthesis of the skills you’re working on all those other days of the week.
And I’d love to see your classroom! Your studetns are lucky to have a mean old man like you… do take a peek at my site and see if there’s anything (especially under “Reading comprehension” ) that would save you a little lesson planning time - what are some of the novels you read?

As a parent, I am curious whether you think the writing down part of retellings is critical. I think it is an interesting strategy that could be adapted to home reading but without the writing. Any thoughts?

BTW, a lot of teaching is structuring the situation so that the students learn!!!

Beth

It is great to see a teacher looking for objective data. It is something we need to see more of.
Studies with control groups are difficult in the classroom setting. Such studies often require funding. It is important to look at the work you do and try to assess it in an objective manner. It doesn’t really matter what the work you do is!

You sound like a fantastic teacher!

If 1:1 with a student, oral retelling is nice. Dialogues are always better than monologues. :-) For some students, writing helps memory—for others oral is much better for their thinking. Practice at writing thoughts down is good, too. One tends not to get as much information in writing as opposed to orally. (Generally—there are exceptions.)

Teachers often have students write so that the teacher can read the summaries on planning time or after students have left for the day. Students may read and write while teacher is doing a small group activity, or working with students 1:1 (such as in a Reader’s Workshop format).

Many parents also like to receive things in writing from their student. For some parents, it seems to verify that the child is accomplishing something in reading class. It also may create conversational cues for some families when they read what the child has written. (Often, as you know, children w/LD come home with a “Good” for your “How was school today?” and a “nothin’ ” or “I don’t know” for your “What did you do in reading class today?”

So, there is no magic in the writing part. It just depends on classroom management needs and what learning objectives are in focus.

Linda,
I agree with Susan Long’s response for the most part. There are no single majic bullets for the teaching of comprehension. While I personally prefer written retellings over oral dialogues, you must remember two things.

One, students can produce written material with out direct continuous supervision/teaching. The amount of work they can produce is independent of classroom time or teacher contact time. I am convinced that time on task (reading or any other task) is an essential element in the learning process. Since no teacher, not even a parent/homeschooling teacher can or even should spend 100% of a student’s learning time in the company of the student, tasks which force the student to be what we call an ‘active’ learner are always best. Taking retelling notes is far more ‘active’ than reading alone.

Second, writing for most students is far more intense, demanding task than talking. The more intense the effort - the more gain can be had. I liken it to body building. The more effort - the bigger, badder muscle you develope. More and more, we are in fact, recognizing greater and greater similarity between the brain tissue and muscles tissue. We exercise the muscles before we ask our body to perform at its best (watch any college or pro ball player before the game starts). The same is true of prereading activities (or pre-learning activites) used by so many successful educators.

Please do not think I don’t value oral activities. I use oral teaching strategies of many types from my basket of metohdologies. The greatest problem with them is the time they require to get around to every student. Verbal rehearsal is actually my personal favorite way to study (when I have to learn something myself!) I teach my students verbal rehearsal methods which we practice in a group setting. Students love all talking at the same time! All teacher use oral questioning, dialoque, queing, and on and on.

I guess to answer your inquiry, yes - I believe that the writing part of retelling is very important. And, yes - of course you could adapt it to home reading. BUT, NO -no activity, method, technic should ever be used to the exclusion of others. The oral component must be provided for, both as rehearsal and dialoque. I guess we tend to forget that all teaching takes place within a framework of language that includes both oral/spoken and written elements which conversely have listening and reading as their opposites.

That which is tougher, reading over listening and writing over speaking, in my veiw need a little more time in the teaching process.

In my sons current class not only do they do retelling they also do rereading. My son has been struggling with reading for a long time and he is now making significant progress. What his teacher does to help with retelling is mapping the story. The child also has to reread the story until they can read it fluently on their own and answer comprehension questions. I thought this would lead to story memorization and they would not recognize the word if they saw it somewhere else. Tonight I picked up a story I know my son has not read yet and was surprised at how many new words he knew. I used repeated readings with Kens Great Leaps at home and thought he was just memorizing. Not only has his ability to recognize words grown but his vocabulary also.

Lisa,

Happy to hear your son is making noteworthy progress. The concept of rereading goes along with the concept of over-learning, a slow but fruitful methodology.

Story mapping is valuable because it gets into graphic organizing and pictorial representation. The human brain remembers and process pictures or images far better then it processes words. Try remembering the first scene of the movie Star Wars – now tell me what are the first lines of dialogue in that film? Chances are you remember the galactic cruiser over taking the little freighter, but you have no idea what the first words might have been.

The old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words is oh so true. Pictures are valuable aids to writing, reading, and almost all your study needs. The comic book is easier to understand AND remember than a picture less book.. The great films of our day, for the most part, started as cartoon ‘story boards”. Graphic organizing of study notes is one of the recognized best ways to study difficult material.

Try having your son dream of a story, scene by scene. Then have him sketch/draw pictures like a comic book to express his story. Finally, after he has a wordless full story, have him write descriptions of the scenes. Chances are, he will have a much easier (more successful) time at his creative writing endeavor as opposed to sitting in front of a blank sheet of paper and being told to create a good short story.

Opps!
Sorry about that, I seem to have addressed that wrong. That last message was for Beth from FL. Not a response to Linda.

Thanks! I needed that schmontrol.

I was just looking for other’s experiences with retelling.

While I appreciate the scholarly commentary on scientific method, the use of control groups, the identification of compounding variables, and the like, I am primarily interested in validating a documented phenomenon observed over sixteen consecutive semesters.

‘I’ am the same teacher, semester after semester. That variable has not changed.

The methods, materials, techniques, subject mater emphasis, specific reading skills taught, etcetera all change each semester, leaving no consistent factor (variable) to which the gains of ‘some’ class members (and not others) can be attributed, EXCEPT for the retelling assignment. The retellings are the only identifiable variant.

Each and every semester, those students who produced the greatest number of pages of retelling notes scored the greatest gains on the standardized test at the end of the semester.

Each and every semester, those students who produced the fewest retelling notes scored the least gain on same standardized tests.

Do the ‘retellers’ read more? Obviously! Does extra reading time lead to higher reading scores, of course. Do students who read less gain less? Sure.

Bottom line:
If a student scores a an A or B for his retelling work there is a near 100% chance his/her standardized reading scores will be up a full year or MORE at the end of one semester.

If a student scores a C or D (or lower) for his/her retelling effort there is a near 100% chance that he/she will score only .5 years gain or LESS at the end of a semester.

There is no other identifiable common factor in the data. Not subject matter, not disability, not age, not grade, not family size, not a thing that I can find.

Now, of course, the quesiton is what’s behind that “a or b” in retelling? Is it an ability these kiddos are bringing to the task at hand, or is it their willingness to work at it (does it get progressively harder to get that good grade) that matters? And how can we *teach* the “retelling” ability?

I told the head of the English dept. at the college about your observation (and about mine) — and it made her re-think her temptation to do less structured “critical responses” to reading passages. So I’m glad you brought this up :)

Umm — I LIKE retelling and use it along with other comprehension strategies. Good idea.

However, what you are reporting here is a classic circular argument. The students who have the most retelling notes get the highest grades. Do they get the highest grades because of the exercise in retelling — or do they get the highest grades because they were already better readers to start with and as better readers they do better on the retelling assignment?

This is exactly the logic allowed “whole-language” to take over the schools, so be careful of this kind of argument.

much of the reason it took decades to figure out *why* we were losing 20% of readers. Many teachers don’t like schmontrol because it takes the “feeling” out of things. As so we go on swinging the instructional penduluum based on what we think is working or not working.

I like anecdotal evidence—case studies—as well as the next person. I just don’t call it research because it isn’t replicable. As indicated earlier, I enjoyed your case studies, Bert, but you have not identified all your variables. It’s a tough thing to do in a classroom setting. Nearly impossible after-the-fact.

Thanks Bert, that is a wonderful idea for writing. Your students are lucky to have you even if you are “mean.”

Great comment! Am I simply looking at the (assumed) predisposition of higher functioning students to perform better? Must give me pause. You really have a point worth reviewing.

I vividly remember a number of students with Mentally Retarded (EMH) labels who produced astounding numbers of retelling notes and who made extraordinary reading level gains. I can just as easily remember higher functioning students who did little work and made little, if any, significant gain. But, antidotal recollections are not what we need here.

Let me spend some time writing a few IF statements for my spreadsheets, inputting the data, and extracting what I can.

Give me a week or so. NO, its Christmas time. I haven’t done my shopping. Better ignore that time frame. I’ll get back with the real numbers as soon as I can.

Spell antidotal –- anecdotal.

thanks