Alair Holoman

EDU 696: Action Research

Daniel Levin

American University

Spring 2010

Avoiding the “I Just Guessed” Syndrome: Helping Students Read Test Passages

Abstract: This action research project looks at three levers to getting students to actually

read the passages on standardized tests: investment, engagement, and comprehension.

Three interventions went into these categories: increasing student confidence, increasing

interest in daily reading, and increasing use of text annotation, respectively. With

strategies targeted to these three specific goals, students generally did show high levels of

success in all three categories.

Helping Students Read Test Passages
2
Though I am only in my second year of teaching, I am willing to hypothesize that every

English teacher wonders at one point or another how to get his or her students to read more.

Personally, I wonder this on a daily, perhaps even hourly, basis. Like many other urban teachers,

most of my 10th graders come to me reading on a middle school level and many below that. I

know that if they had been reading more as they grew up and went through their schooling, they

would not be in this situation. When my students come up against their standardized test in

April, it will include readings on a higher level than most of my students are prepared for. I

spend much of my year, particularly the 3rd quarter, preparing students for the DC-CAS reading

test. With the aforementioned problem of lack of reading skills in mind, my main concern is that

my students actually try to read the passages on the test. If I had a nickel for every time I asked a

student about his/her thinking on a particular question he/she missed on a practice drill and the

student replied, “I just didn’t read the passage,” or, “This was boring, I just guessed,” I could

retire on the money I would have. My students lack the patience and tenacity to deal with dry

testing passages that are in some cases above their comprehension level. In short, my action

research question is, how do I get my students to engage in reading passages so that they get test

questions right?

My exploration of this topic boils down to three major factors, which are the center of my

research. First, there is the component of the test itself. Students have varying attitudes toward

taking tests, and their investment in the test—whether or not they care about their results—is

critical to their success or failure, I think.

The second major component of reading test performance is comprehension. Students

must understand the reading if they are going to get the questions right.
Helping Students Read Test Passages
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The third and most all-encompassing factor is engagement in reading. Students must be

willing to read the test and interested, at least on some level, in what they are reading. It seems

likely that engagement feeds into comprehension—after all, if a student is so checked out of a

reading passage that he/she pays little attention to it, he/she will not do a good job

comprehending the passage either. Furthermore, investment in testing may be directly linked to

engagement in reading, so all three major components of my question come together through

engagement.

My research first delves into existing literature to show the basis for the interventions I

tried. Then I lay out the main concepts that drive my interventions, followed by the data from

the interventions themselves. I analyze much of the data as I explain it, but my findings and

discussion are also summarized at the end of my report.

Literature Review

Component 1: Testing

Interestingly, many researchers have focused on different aspects of test-taking and test-

making over the years. With a lens on education policy in particular, many authors and

researchers are looking at standardized testing—its effectiveness, its accuracy, its impact on

curriculum and teachers. While some of these studies are relevant to my question, most are

important on a broader scale. In other words, I need to know how to get individual students to

attack a particular test, not how testing is changing the way districts look at test preparation or

how states are changing standards to prepare more rigorous assessments. But from these articles

I can still glean some important information about test investment.

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Test fatigue is a fairly straightforward subject to pursue empirically, as Phillip Ackerman

and Ruth Kanfer do in their article “Test Length and Cognitive Fatigue: An Empirical

Examination of Effects on Performance and Test-Taker Reactions” (2009). Ackerman and

Kanfer find that self-reported cognitive fatigue is actually not related to overall test performance,

but it does correlate positively with self-reported effort. In other words, even if a student said

that he or she was feeling “overtested,” it would not necessarily indicate that he/she would get a

worse score, but rather that he/she stopped trying as hard on each question. This was an

unexpected result of the study. The more easily predictable result—that cognitive fatigue

increases with an increased duration in test time—was also confirmed. Another interesting

finding was that students are more likely to report cognitive fatigue if they have certain personal

dispositions or traits. Cognitive fatigue really is dependent on motivation and attitude. Student

with high anxiety are more likely to feel fatigued, and students with a high need for achievement

and a high desire to learn are less likely to feel fatigued. These findings have several important

consequences for my research: while I do not control how long each testing session will be, I can

try to improve students’ motivation and attitude toward the test, and that may actually keep them

from feeling fatigued.

Other studies have confirmed that fatigue and motivation both affect students’ test scores

(Doscher & Bruno, 1981), and a symposium held by ETS, the Educational Testing Service,

brought up the importance of other “noncognitive skills” in the framework of overall student

achievement. Motivation was highlighted among these skills, as were follow-through, critical

thinking, self-concept, enthusiasm, and dozens of others (Yaffe, Coley, & Pliskin, 2009). The

bottom line for my purposes is that there are a lot of factors that increase student scores on tests
Helping Students Read Test Passages
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that have nothing to do directly with testing or the testing environment, but rather a student’s

overall perception of him or herself as a test-taker.

In teacher Janet McClasky’s article “Who's Afraid of the Big, Bad TAAS? Rethinking

Our Response to Standardized Testing” (2001), the author describes her unwillingness to comply

with generic “test prep” curricula prescribed by her school. She highlights the fact that her

students pass the tests without practicing on canned worksheets designed for whole-class review.

She argues that by teaching novels, word parts and root words, and higher-order thinking, her

students, no matter their ability level, have always been able to cope with the state’s tests. Her

main point is that students must want to read books because they will never want to read tests.

Though she does not offer any quantitative data other than the assertion that all of her students

passed the test, her ideas are persuasive for their honesty. She has fifteen years of classroom

experience to add credence to her policies. McClasky’s observations are very important to my

understanding of test investment because she acknowledges a fundamental truth that I am

battling with: students will not be invested in reading passages on tests. Her assertion that if

students love to read, they will read the test anyway, is a powerful idea for moving forward in

my classroom. It takes the pressure off of investing students in the test passage reading and

places it instead on reading generally.

Component 2: Comprehension

Sometimes it feels like there are as many reading plans and strategies as there are

students to try them. For the purposes of my research, I will be looking at strategies that seem

particularly important to older students or to the testing environment, since that is the primary

focus of this question.

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One strategy with well-documented success is called PLAN (Caverly, Mandeville, &

Nicholson, 1995). I am particularly interested in this strategy because it specifically targets

informational texts, which are common on standardized tests. The PLAN strategy was

developed for college students, but has been successfully adapted for middle and high school

students as well. PLAN uses the idea that reading is an active process before, during, and after

the actual reading itself. Each letter stands for a step in a thinking and note-taking process that

students engage in while reading. Although I do not think it is necessary to draw a whole

concept map for each page-long reading the students will encounter on a standardized test, I do

think some of the elements could be used in a testing setting, namely the idea of recording

important concepts as during reading, not just after. Furthermore, the emphasis on reading

strategies to increase comprehension is important.

Another strategy-based approach to the issue of comprehension is Miriam Alfassi’s

(2004) research that shows that combining two specific strategies is best for secondary students’

comprehension: reciprocal teaching and direct explanation. Reciprocal teaching is when a group

reads a text together, focusing on four strategy-based tasks while they read: generating questions,

summarizing, clarifying confusion, and predicting. These tasks take place at a paragraph-by-

paragraph pace. At first the teacher must model these tasks, then gradually students can begin

leading each other in the reading (hence the term reciprocal teaching). Direct explanation is

another term for what some other teachers call a “think aloud”: when the teacher clearly explains

the comprehension strategies being used as they are happening throughout a reading passage.

This modeling and explicit explanation of strategies is followed by student practice. An earlier

study by Carl Bereiter and Marlene Bird (1985) emphasized the critical importance of explaining

the strategies rather than just modeling them, so the think aloud can be a time-consuming
Helping Students Read Test Passages
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practice, but both studies showed it to be effective. In implementing her studies on the use of

these two strategies, Alfassi found that high school students benefitted greatly from the strategies

when embedded in a curriculum with authentic texts.

Judith Franzak (2006) takes a wide-ranging approach to finding the key to literacy; she

traces the development of the concept of literacy over the centuries and hones in on recent

pedagogical practices. She cites many current experts who are focusing on strategies that “good

readers” use to comprehend text. This is what she calls the “strategic reading approach” or the

“strategic-metacognitive model,” referring to the way students must be aware of the way they are

reading and thinking about reading. However, she notes (of critical importance to the current

analysis) “emphasizing reading strategies may have the unintended consequence of diminishing

engagement” (217). Franzak also emphasizes the importance of recognizing the political and

social aspects of reading instruction, and says teachers must not think of themselves as simply

teaching “reading” but rather what that practice means for the students as individuals. She notes

that reading is a socially situated activity, and many minority students, particularly African

Americans, may feel that reading is not part of their culture. She also says that studies have

shown that teens need a caring social relationship from their reading teachers and coaches to

become better. Similarly, they need to develop a purpose for reading and a reading identity,

especially those who have not found success with reading in the past. One way to do this is with

a reading workshop approach, where students choose their books. Franzak spends the end of her

paper discussing educational policy around literacy, and notes that standardized testing does

nothing to help literacy, since it neither truly assesses reading nor promotes its instruction. My

overall take-away from this extensive article is that literacy instruction to improve

comprehension needs to start with students seeing themselves as readers, and good readers at
Helping Students Read Test Passages
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that. My next steps, then, will tie in carefully to reading engagement, my next topic, and make

sure students have books that they will enjoy and actually read so that they will see themselves

as readers.

In her article “Beyond the Yellow Highlighter: Teaching Annotation Skills to Improve

Reading Comprehension,” Carol Porter-O’Donnell argues that when a text is difficult, students

must really buckle down and interact with it, asking questions and finding key points. She notes

that simply highlighting or underlining is not enough because many students will highlight

everything they read, not showing any signs of comprehension. Instead, annotation—making

notes in the margins or “a visible record of the thoughts that emerge while making sense of the

text” (p.82)—is a process that students can really see and do. This interaction with the text can

really help with comprehension because it aids students in metacognitively identifying areas they

need to clarify and going back through the text to find answers to their questions.

My overall impression of my review of the literature on comprehension is this: while

strategy instruction can be useful and needs to be implemented—especially when modeled and

explained—engagement in reading as a part of identity is also a key piece of getting students to

try to read and improve at reading and is therefore also critical to comprehension.

Component 3: Engagement

Reading engagement is a difficult topic to navigate because motivation and engagement

are self-reported phenomena. Many researchers have studied motivation in a general context and

more and more are beginning to look at reading motivation in particular. The following studies

are a sampling of this research.

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John T. Guthrie, one of the biggest names in the recent scholarship on reading

engagement, published an article in the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy in 1997, along

with his colleagues Solomon Alao and Jennifer Rinehart. Their research focuses on motivation,

since they recognize that students who are not motivated are unlikely to do anything well. They

find that most students spend so little time reading during their free time that they are not gaining

the reading skills they need to succeed in school. Interestingly, the researchers separate the

terms “motivation” and “engagement,” stating that engaged readers have motivational goals, like

reading for a purpose or believing in their ability to learn from the text and use their cognitive

skills to understand the reading. The way their study means to improve reading engagement in

the classroom is with Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI). The CORI theory states

that there are seven themes that lead to increased student motivation: real-world observation,

conceptual theory, strategy instruction, self-directed learning, collaboration, self-expression, and

coherence. The reason I find CORI most interesting is that the authors specifically say that

CORI is related to strategy instruction, but also increases the motivational factor around those

strategies. So above all, strategies must be taught in a context that connects them to the real

world and allows for collaboration, self-direction, and self-expression.

In an article geared specifically toward students with low academic motivation (Hidi &

Harackiewicz, 2000), one interesting point that the authors make is the distinction between

“catch” and “hold” in student interest—activities that seem “fun,” like puzzles and computer

programs, catch student attention, but only meaningfulness and involvement will really hold their

attention. Importantly, they distinguish between individual interest and situational interest.

Teachers cannot control what individuals are interested in, but they can try to create “situational

interest” in their subjects and in their classrooms; that is, teachers must find things in the material
Helping Students Read Test Passages
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that are most likely to connect with students and then allow them to interact with that material in

a way that will engage them, e.g. group work or peer collaboration. The authors then tie interest

into motivation, first noting that interest is an important part of intrinsic motivation. Then they

explain that though other studies have said that extrinsic rewards detract from intrinsic

motivation, they find that, especially in seemingly unmotivated students, some extrinsic

motivators are appropriate and helpful. Extrinsic motivation is especially helpful when it is not

on a small scale for short activities but tied into long-term engagement and useful feedback on

performance. Performance goals (based on markers of success like grades) may also help spark

interest in unmotivated students, though more highly motivated students may do better with

mastery goals (proficiency in a topic or subject). My work, then, must engage students in

reading, not just in the situation of the test; although, in the end, performance goals around the

test may also be useful.

Some research revolves around that elusive quality of intrinsic motivation. Studies seek

to discover what makes students intrinsically motivated and high-achieving. My purpose would

be to find out how to replicate these qualities in other students. Frank Pajares (2001) has found

(in correlation, not causation) that students with this internal drive are optimistic and self-

confident. While some students are naturally optimistic and self-confident, Pajares also stresses

the connection between positive psychology and motivation—making people happy will make

them motivated. This leads me to think I may have success in reading with some students if I

increase their confidence in their ability to succeed by providing a variety of books on different

levels and topics.

Conceptual Framework
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The way I see it so far, to make students motivated to read test passages and able to

comprehend test passages, I need to:

1) Get students engaged in reading overall

2) Encourage the use of comprehension strategies

3) Increase student investment in testing success by making them feel like

they will do well

At this point, I would like to take a moment to define the terms above that will be most

critical to the rest of my work on this project. Investment, engagement, and motivation are all

very closely related as far as I am concerned. The differences are as follows: investment is a

student’s “buy-in” or commitment to a particular subject or task. Engagement is active interest

in something, whereas motivation is more hypothetical—a student could be generally motivated

to succeed in my class but not engaged on a particular day. So, I want my students to be

motivated to read, invested in testing, and engaged in their activities on any given day.

Comprehension strategies are particular ways of reading or thinking about text that are

taught explicitly to students with the aim of having them better understand the text. A strategy

should attempt to clarify what “good readers” do at a conscious or subconscious level as they

read. My primary focus in strategy use will be on text annotation, which I will define as making

notes and marks in the text other than just underlining or highlighting.

Testing will refer to a situation where the students work individually and silently on a

formal assessment. Testing will be in the form of reading passages with multiple choice

questions and occasionally short responses. The test I am working towards is the District of

Columbia Comprehensive Assessment System (DC-CAS) and I will be working with materials
 Helping Students Read Test Passages
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that replicate its style and testing stems (McGraw-Hill, 2010). I also refer to the DC-BAS, which

is a practice test produced by Discovery Education to mimic the DC-CAS.

In many ways, motivation seems to be the key behind all three of my research

subcategories. Students need to motivated to read, motivated to test, and if they are, they will be

more likely to comprehend text—just reading the whole passage would increase their

comprehension, since many of them skim or skip passages. The three tenets of my research align

with expectancy-value theory of motivation. The article “Assessing Motivation to Read”

(Gambrell, Palmer, Codling, & Mazzoni, 1996) provides a nice summary of J. Eccles’s 1983

work on the theory. In short, Eccles argues that motivation is a combination of expectancy—if a

person expects to succeed—and value—how attractive the person considers the task. If I can get

students to believe that they are good readers, good test-takers, and capable of success on the

DC-CAS, half the battle will be won. I need to convince them that their work on this test is

worthwhile so that they value it even if they do not find it fun or amusing.

Concept Map
Expectan
cy-value
Text
annotatio
Engagement: n
interest in and
willingness to read Comprehension: ability
to understand reading
Student
self- Testing investment
impacts engagement
percepti with passages
on as
reader
Testing: assessment,
with an emphasis on
reading

investme
nt
Helping Students Read Test Passages
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Research Context and Methods

At my school, 99% of students are black, and about 64% qualify for free or reduced

lunch. All of my students this year are black. Many students are from difficult neighborhoods or

household situations. Of my students, the average grade level equivalent for reading was 6.75 at

the beginning of this year. I teach 10th grade, so most of my students are 15 or 16 years old. By

January, the average reading level had increased to 7.45.

Having defined my categories of research, I will now give specifics on the interventions I

used to try to improve students’ reading of test passages. My engagement strategies include

using positive messages about student abilities and increasing student choice in non-test reading.

My comprehension strategy is working with students on text annotation and increasing their

engagement in it by incentivizing the use of annotation. The ideas for these strategies come from

various elements of the literature review, and lead into several research questions:

• What effect does engagement in independent reading have on test passage engagement?

• How does student confidence and good self-image affect success on tests?

• How does student interaction with a text affect scores on related questions?

The interventions I decided on were varied, then, to approach all of these factors individually.

After all, getting students to read is a very complicated issue and I do not think that one type of

intervention in isolation would have the impact I am hoping for.

Specifically, I rewarded students for using text annotation, I gave students various

positive messages about their abilities and successes, and I got student-friendly books for

independent reading. These interventions took place between late March and early April of

2010; the DC-CAS started on April 19th, so all data was complete about a week before that.
Helping Students Read Test Passages
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The first intervention I did was to begin a campaign of positivity and confidence boosting

for students about the test. My strategies included posters that read “You are brilliant!” and

“You are smart. You are prepared. Blast the CAS!” I also started writing notes at the bottom of

their weekly worksheets saying things like “smash the CAS!” and “I’m so proud of you!” I

spoke often in class about how the students were working hard and they were definitely ready for

the test. To gauge the effect of these messages, I took a student confidence survey that included

the following questions:

• Are you a good test-taker? Explain.

• Do you think Ms. Holoman believes you will pass the DC-CAS? Explain.

• On a scale of 1-10, how sure are you that you will pass the DC-CAS?

I triangulated the responses of these questions with other test data I have that shows whether the

students are typically successful test-takers.

My next intervention was targeted to engage students in independent reading. To show

data on providing high-interest independent reading books for the students, I got student input on

which books in particular they would want to read. I purchased a number of new books for the

classroom that were specifically of interest to my students. My data includes a list of available

books to document my attempt at securing interesting books. Other sources of data were

students’ reading journals, where they wrote daily reactions to their reading that day, and

interviews asking them if they are interested in their books and reading generally. I put a lot of

hope into to seeing a big impact here; several sources in the literature review (McClaskey,

Guthrie et al.) suggest that increasing engagement in real-world reading is the only way to get

students engaged in tested reading.

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The final intervention I worked on was incentivizing text annotation. I collected the

following kinds of data to support the effectiveness of this intervention: field notes of student

observations, the annotated papers themselves as artifacts, and the students’ scores on the

comprehension questions. The field notes and papers will serve as documentation of the

intervention, and cross-referencing the students’ amount of annotation with their scores and

survey answers will show its effectiveness. As an incentive for annotation, annotation is tied

into the students’ grade on the assignment. Students get half of their credit from answering the

questions and the other half from annotation. Thus students have an extrinsic reward and a

performance goal to motivate them to annotate the text, which I hoped would lead to increased

scores on the questions. My overall goal is that the students read the passage, and they cannot

accurately annotate if they do not read, so in theory incentivizing annotation would be effective

on their reading.

Data Collection

1. Student Confidence

After my campaign of positive messages as described in my research methods, to assess

student confidence, I gave a three-question survey (the questions are outlined above). I decided

their answers would be the best way to find out how they really felt about the upcoming test. I

note that there is a threat to validity in that students may have overstated their confidence levels,

knowing that I want them to be confident on the test and therefore trying to please me with the

“correct” answer. I do not have a specific way to address this threat, since self-report is the most

reliable way I know to find out how students feel. However, I did tell the students that the

surveys would not be graded in any way and I asked them to be honest, so that is one attempt to
Helping Students Read Test Passages
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address that threat. I would also like to dismiss the threat to a certain extent because in the end,

many students reported that they did not, in fact, consider themselves to be good test-takers. A

fuller analysis of this data follows.

Of all the survey responses, roughly half of the students (22 out of 52) reported that they

were good test-takers. The other half said “sometimes” or even just “no,” in almost all cases

citing various reasons. Interestingly, though, when asked about the DC-CAS specifically, almost

all the students seem relatively confident that they will succeed. On a scale of one to ten, only

one student responded with less than five to the question “how sure are you that you will pass the

DC-CAS?” (That student happens to be one of the most successful test-takers I have, and her

other answers on the survey were inconsistent with that answer, leading me to believe she may

have inverted the meaning of the scale.) Here is the full breakdown of the data on this question,

although the numbers do not total 52 since a few did not respond to the last question, perhaps for

lack of time.

Confidence, Number of
from 1-10, of students
passing the DC- reporting
CAS
5 2

6 4

7 9

8 16

9 5

10 11

12 1
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The table shows that the plurality of students is, in one way of describing it, 80%

confident in passing the DC-CAS. In fact, only fifteen students are less than 80% sure they will

pass! This is a remarkably high number for a group of which half see themselves as poor test-

takers.

The other question, whether the students think that I think they will pass the DC-CAS, is

most subject to the aforementioned “please the teacher” threat to validity, since it is about me.

All but one student replied with varying degrees of enthusiasm that yes, they think I believe they

will pass the DC-CAS. The one exception was a student who said, “I don’t know.” This

unanimity may be in part due to the desire to make me happy, but such overwhelming results

somewhat override that threat to validity.

So, one major finding from the student confidence survey seems to be that students are,

generally, confident about their upcoming reading test. However, the survey does not speak to

whether or not their confidence is justified. There are a lot of interesting conclusions that can

come from these answers compared to how students have typically done with practice tests like

the DC-BAS. Will students actually do as well as they think they will? I cross-referenced some

student answers with previous test scores. Though I hope that all the students will do better on

this test than they did on the practice test, it is interesting to see how their answers correlate with

previous performance. The practice test itself is not available for the appendix because it was

produced by a standardized company and the materials are not available to teachers. However,

the score data was released and has been very interesting to break down.

Some students are very accurate (based on past performance) in their self-perception.

Here are some examples of students who seem to know whether or not they are likely to pass

(Note: passing is generally known throughout the school as proficient or advanced):

Helping Students Read Test Passages
Student Student response: Are Student
Name you a good test-taker? response:
On a
scale of
1-10, how
sure are
you you
will pass?
Marie yes and no because I like 7
to use what I leanred
[sic] but then I’m a lazy
person
Kyle Yes I am an iteligent 9 Proficient
[sic] student
Tykia Sometimes I can be a 6 Basic
good test-taker and do
all the testing strategies,
but if the test is too long
and may get off task.
Janai Sure. I think I am a good 8
test-taker. But now &
days I have been getting
dumb. I try to take my
time. But sometimes I
rush when time is
running. But I read the
Q’s first to see what it is
& if the passage is not
long I would find the
answer to save time
Chris No because I don’t like 5 Basic
readg [sic] long passages
18
Score on Analysis
practice
test (below
basic,
basic,
proficient,
or
advanced)
Proficient Marie has gotten F’s for two
of the three quarters so far this
year because she does not do
her work, but if she takes the
time to read the test, she
probably will pass, so she is
right on target with her
responses.
Despite the irony of his
spelling of “iteligent,” Kyle is
a smart and successful student
generally and will most likely
pass the test.
Based on the results I have
seen this year, Tykia is
absolutely accurate in her self-
report. She will need to try
hard if she wants to pass.
Advanced Janai is actually a very smart
student, but the data shows
that she is experiencing a lack
of confidence about herself as
a person rather than a test-
taker. She will almost
certainly pass the test, and is
underselling herself a little
with the 8.
Chris is accurate in that his
test could really go either way.
He reads at a high enough
level to succeed, but needs to
try reading the passages if he
wants to do better than basic.
Helping Students Read Test Passages
19
Some students have seemingly inaccurate pictures of their own performance on tests. Whether

they are generally high-scoring and underestimate their abilities or generally low-scoring and yet

overly confident, some students have opinions of themselves that the other data do not support.

Examples of these inconsistent responses follow.

Student Student response: Are Student Score on Analysis

Name you a good test-taker? response: practice
On a test (below
scale of basic,
1-10, how basic,
sure are proficient,
you you or
will pass? advanced)
TarJee Not a reading test 9 Advanced TarJee will almost certainly
because I can’t read long pass the test. Her statement
stories that she is not good at reading
tests is inaccurate; she reads
on grade level and has been
proficient or better for the past
three years (according to
school data.)
Eryk Yes i am a good test- I am Below I think it is great that Eryk has
taker because i use some positive basic gotten the positive messaging
of the test-taking that I will that I have been sending, but
strategies i know pass the he reads at a 6th grade level
DC-CAS and has not scored above
basic in the past three years
(according to school data). It
will be a stretch for him to
pass, so he is overly confident.
India No, because I don’t like 8 Basic India’s answers are hard to
test [sic] and sometimes interpret; on the one hand, she
I forget what I’ve does not think she is a good
learned test-taker, but in the interview
I did with her she talked about
good testing strategies she
uses. On the other hand, she
put 8 out of 10 that she will
pass, but she did not pass the
practice test. It will be
interesting to see if she passes,
but she reads on a 5th grade
level, so it may be difficult for
Helping Students Read Test Passages
20
her.

Some students, like TarJee, have gotten the message that they can pass this particular test,

but they have not changed their opinions about themselves as people. Statements like “I’m bad

at reading” take a lot of work to correct, and hopefully if students continue to have encouraging

teachers they will change their minds.

2. Independent reading

One of the factors I was trying to increase was investment in reading overall rather than

specifically test passages. For evidence of whether students were enjoying reading, I took

several student interviews. While I was concerned about validity because students might not

want to tell the truth when speaking with me directly, I am able to triangulate some of this data

with their book selections and independent reading journals.

The first part of this intervention was to introduce new books into the classroom library

to attempt to engage more students with the new material. I polled the students for titles,

authors, or genres of books they would like me to get for the independent reading library. I just

did this by asking for suggestions verbally or written down, and recorded the suggestions that

they called out immediately. Many were interested in more urban fiction (“books about people

like me,” one student said); others requested easier books; some wanted sports books; a few

wanted another book in the Clique series by Lisi Harrison. I then went to the bookstore and got a

wide variety of new titles and reading levels. For a full list of new titles, see the appendix. Were

I to repeat this experiment, I would take data on which of these books were picked up most often

(perhaps the number of times it was read throughout the week); however, I can say anecdotally

that most of the new books were read by one student in at least one block every day. The most
Helping Students Read Test Passages
21
popular books were Precious, the Sharon Draper books, and The Outsiders. I even had to buy

another copy of Precious because I had a student who could not bear to wait to read it. On these

anecdotal notes, I claim that making sure students get a say in what reading material is available

to them as well as providing new, fresh material is definitely effective in engaging students in

reading.

To triangulate this assertion, I also have samples from the students’ reading journals. I

took a selection of students from my first block class and copied what they wrote in their daily

reading journals. One day they responded to the prompt, “Write a one to two sentence critique

of your book,” (this was in conjunction with our lesson on the difference between summary and

critique) and another day they were to write a short summary of what was happening currently in

their book. I take the critique as evidence of the students’ like or dislike of their book and the

summary as evidence of their engagement with it; while neither piece of evidence is foolproof, it

is unlikely that students lie in their reading journals because they are fairly personal records and

not graded for content or accuracy but rather completion, and students who are engaged in their

books are able to write summaries while students who are not really reading during reading time

generally have only vague ideas of what their books are about. Generally, it seems that the

students were reading the new books. Out of the nine journals I sampled, only two were not

reading new books. However, I do not think that having a new book automatically leads to

engagement—one of the students (Benjamin) reading a new graphic novel the first day dropped

it to read a sports magazine the next day instead. In spite of this, all nine students said they liked

their independent reading books, so at least at some point they felt engaged with them.

Meanwhile, it seems fairly clear to me that Khadijah, for example, was not reading her book very

carefully or at all the second day because she failed to complete her summary journal entry. All
Helping Students Read Test Passages
22
the other students included some details in their summaries, ranging from the more vague and

questionable—Arnice wrote “Theres [sic] drama and a lot of commotion. The friends are

turning on each other. Her bf is lying to her”—to the specific details that indicate definite

engagement, like Jasmin’s “In today’s reading, Kiara takes Andy’s lil brother Monty to her

school cookout to get the death of Andy of [sic] their minds. They played games, grilled foods

(hamburgers and hot dogs) and had fun.” The rest of the students’ entries are in the appendix.

Overall, this data indicates that students were engaging with their books, though it was less

dependent on whether the book was new or not than on other factors like general interest level.

To further triangulate student feelings on reading engagement, I took student volunteers

to record an interview about their independent reading experience. A potential threat to validity

is that students who are not engage might be less likely to volunteer, and I cannot disagree with

that. However, not all the students who I did interview were overwhelmingly positive about

their experience, so this convinces me that students feel comfortable speaking honestly with me

and that the interviews still provide good data. One person I spoke with was India, who stated in

her confidence survey that she does not like tests. She scored basic on the practice test and reads

at a 5th grade level. She had been reading one of the new books in the library (Who Am I Without

Him by Sharon G. Flake), and I wanted to find out if it increased her engagement in reading. She

said that, yes, she liked it, and proceeded to give a detailed account of what she had read. (For a

full transcript of all the interviews, see the appendix.) I take the fact that she was able to recall

many details as evidence that she was, in fact, engaged in the text because I cannot monitor all

students’ reading at the same time, so if a student is not engaged, he or she is most likely just

staring at the book and not really reading it. A threat to the validity of my interventions is that

she could usually be engaged in reading, so her engagement would not be any comment on my
Helping Students Read Test Passages
23
interventions. To combat this threat, I asked India when she did most of her reading to try to

ascertain if the classroom strategies were helping her. Our interchange went as follows:

Me: Ok. Um, and when do you, do you usually read, when do you usually read
the most? Like, in class or—
India: In class.
Me: --outside class…In class?
India: I don’t read at home.
Me: Why not?
India: (pause) I don’t know. I be tired of school when I get home.

I take this as evidence that the books I have provided and structured reading time I enforce are

important components of making India more engaged in reading overall. Here is an example of

another student in a similar situation as India. I have trouble finding books Joe likes, and he

scored basic on the practice test.

Me: Do you usually read every day?

Joe: Um, not til I got in Ms. Holoman class.

Joe is not a consistent reader, and though I think he was trying to make me sound good (knowing

I was taping the interview), he does read in class, so he is more engaged because of my

interventions than he might be otherwise.

Other students, like Janai, who scored advanced on the practice test and reads on grade

level, are also engaged in reading but are more likely to have been engaged in reading in the first

place. Students who enjoyed reading before they got to my class also seem to appreciate the new

book selection. Here are examples of conversations with some of these students:

Me: Good. And, um, do you feel like reading in class helps your reading level?
Janai: Yes. Because they say that if you read 15 minutes a day, something like
that, you’ll get smarter, or you could read better.
Me: Ok. And…generally, do you like to read?
Janai: Yes.

Me: …Can you tell me a little bit about [the new book you started]?
Helping Students Read Test Passages
24
Kierra: Um…it’s about a little boy named Gabe—Gabriel? I don’t know. But I
call him G. And his mother used to be a prostitute and one day his mother left
him in the house, and he was playing with matches, and the house caught on fire.
So his mother went to jail, and he started living with his aunt, and he called the
aunt Queen, but then the aunt had, the mother got out of jail, and never told the
boy his mother got out of jail, til recently when she died, and then the boy live
with his mother now, and he ain’t want to. It was his little sister Angel, and his
mother, and his mother boyfriend named Jordan used to molest his little sister
Angel.
Me: Oh my.
Kierra: And the little sister Angel wouldn’t never tell nobody, cause the man
Jordan used to always threaten he would kill everybody in the family. But G
found out what happened, and he told another man but then told [indecipherable]
but then the man [indecipherable] G convince the police the man Jordan did
something wrong. Recently I just read the police locked Jordan up. Now the
mother in denial, she don’t want to believe her kids, and now she in there yelling
at her kids.
Me: Very interesting. So you like this book?
Kierra: Uh huh. [affirmative]
Me: On a scale of one to ten what would you give it?
Kierra: Right now it’s like a seven but I didn’t finish reading yet, so I don’t
know.

Like India, Kierra also spent a long time describing details of her book, which I take as evidence

of her engagement with it. However, Kierra is a voracious reader, so I think just having a lot of

student-friendly books in the classroom is the best way to keep her engaged.

3. Text annotation

My last intervention was to incentivize annotation of text. The literature said that

annotation ensures that students read and interact with the text. For my intervention, I wanted to

give them a good reason to annotate and see if that helped with reading the whole passage, so I

gave them a practice passage and I told the students that half of their grade on the assignment

would be a result of their efforts with annotation and the other half would be for getting the

answers correct. The obvious threat to validity here is that some students may not be motivated

by their grades. Anecdotally, I can say that most of my students are very concerned with their
Helping Students Read Test Passages
25
grades, at least to the point that they want to pass, which would have to be more than 50% on the

assignment. Of course, some are not, and that is a concern that I cannot really address with this

particular intervention. However, I saw a range of reactions to the assignment, so I think it was

an effective motivator for some students. For example, here is a piece of a student conversation

that occurred just as the students were starting the activity. I quickly typed it up at that time so

that I would have their exact words.

Daytonia: Do we have to annotate?

Jazmine: You don’t have to…
Me: You do if you want to get a 100.
Quinn: Oh, well I’m about to get my 100. (begins annotating)
--March 2, 2010, 10:30 a.m.

Quinn is a clear example of a student for whom the grade was an effective incentive for

annotation and, subsequently, engagement in the text.

One key point of this intervention is that I am taking the students’ success on the test

questions and their annotations as evidence that they did read the text. Since one question

involved details from the text and the other involved the main idea, students would have had to

read the paragraph with the details and the whole passage to get both questions right. While they

could have guessed, making the data less reliable, I find it more likely that when students

annotated and then got the questions right, they were genuinely interacting with the text as they

read.

To judge the effectiveness of annotation, I will just describe the annotations I saw; for

examples, see the scans of their work in the appendix. There were two questions with the

reading. By “no annotation,” I mean that there was no marking in the text or at best one sentence

with underlining. “Annotation” refers to multiple examples of underlining, note-taking, circling,

etc. within the body of the text.

Helping Students Read Test Passages
26
Number of questions correct Number of students in this Average reading level of

and use of annotation category students in this category

2, annotation 25 8.3
2, no annotation 3 8.7
1, annotation 14 7.8
1, no annotation 0 n/a
0, annotation 3 5.1
0, no annotation 4 6.45

Interestingly, the annotation seemed to be an effective strategy for many students. But I

cannot truly judge its effectiveness because some students would have gotten both questions

right even without annotating. The students who used the annotation varied widely in reading

level.

Some students did not annotate the text and did not get the questions right. This is a

logical result based on the point of the intervention. Those students read on a level that is, on

average, lower than that of their peers, so their lack of annotation may have occurred because

they did not understand the text, but it could also be due to unwillingness to use more effort on

the assignment or lack of motivation.

Some students did appropriate annotation but still got the questions wrong. This is

obviously disappointing, but not completely unexpected; people will always make mistakes.

Interestingly, these students read on an even lower level than their peers who did not annotate

and did not get the questions right; perhaps their level is so low that no strategy will really help

them read a text that is fundamentally above their level.

Some students got both questions right but did not annotate very much. These students

generally have high reading levels—on average, higher than any of their peers, even those who

got both questions right and did use annotation. This leads me to an interesting conclusion—that

perhaps students with high reading levels should not be forced to try strategies that might distract
Helping Students Read Test Passages
27
them from using the reading and comprehension talents they have already developed. This

would require more differentiation of activities in the classroom. I find it strange that more of

these students were not motivated by the grade attached to the assignment, but I suppose that

since this was the first time I graded an assignment in this way perhaps they did not understand

the extent to which I would value annotations.

Some students did a lot of annotating and got both questions right. Whether this was

causation or these students just wanted the grade for annotation but could have gotten the

questions right without it is impossible to say. But the more of these students that fall into this

last category, the better, and if causation is a factor as the literature leads me to believe, then I

think the intervention was effective.

An alternate way to interpret the data, though, is to say that since the vast majority of

students who got both questions right did use annotation, forcing students to annotate is effective

and appropriate. I think by including the students’ reading levels in the comparison, though, my

analysis is actually more refined and helpful to individual students.

Findings

I had three major goals in this research project, and I will discuss my findings for each

separately. They were:

• Increase student confidence so that they will engage in reading the test passages

• Increase student engagement with reading in other contexts so that the reading on the test

will seem easier

• Increase student use of reading strategies so that they will be more likely to engage in

reading the test passages

Helping Students Read Test Passages
28
Overall, I cannot speak very much on whether or not students are actually going to read the

whole passages on the test. One flaw in this proposal is that I cannot judge how students will

react to the test before they actually take the test, which is after the deadline for this paper. No

practice scenario has the gravitas of the real testing day.

Another major regret I have about my findings is that I did not foresee the need for a

specific type of data that would lead me more solidly to my conclusions. In retrospect, I know

that I should have created a reading passage with questions that could help assess whether or not

students actually were reading the whole thing. At the very least, I should have done more

interviews or surveys asking students if they read the entire passage on specific assignments.

However, when I designed this project I focused more on how to implement and measure the

intervention strategies than how to measure their results. Were I to do this research again, I

would make sure to design these two aspects to work together. So instead of trying to draw

conclusions about whether or not my students will read the testing passages, which would be no

more than predictions, I will analyze the success of the implementation of each of the

aforementioned interventions and trust to the literature that inspired them that they will have a

positive effect when testing day finally arrives.

Intervention 1: Increase student confidence so that they will engage in reading the test

passages

With all the practicing we did and all the positive messaging I was giving the students in

class, I think this was an effective intervention. On the student confidence survey, nearly all the

students were at least an 8 on the scale of 1 to 10 for confidence they would pass the DC-CAS.

Since most students are confident, they are more likely to read passages and pass tests. While
Helping Students Read Test Passages
29
this intervention was not entirely successful in changing students’ ideas about themselves as test-

takers generally (rather than for this test specifically) and students were not always entirely

accurate in their self-perception as compared to past successes, the point got across that I believe

in them and that they are ready for this test. If the literature on test fatigue and test investment is

reliable, this will be a successful intervention.

Intervention 2: Increase student engagement with reading in other contexts so that the reading

on the test will seem easier

This intervention was somewhat successful. Though all the students I interviewed said

they were enjoying their independent reading books, classroom experience tells me that not

every student will be engaged in reading every day. The key take-away from this intervention,

as far as I am concerned, is that getting new books is one way to mix up reading in class. The

new books may increase the overall number of students who are engaged in their books. And the

more students that are engaged in reading on a day-to-day basis, the more students will read on

test day because they are familiar with the habit.

Intervention 3: Increase student use of reading strategies so that they will be more likely to

engage in reading the test passages

While text annotation correlated with success on test questions (which I take as evidence

of having read the text) for some students, others were able to read and answer the questions

correctly without this intervention. So my finding is that it would be most effective to pretest the

students, allow those who score high without annotation to do other enrichment activities, and

work with the rest on specific annotation strategies. The incentivizing of annotation by including

it in the grade was fairly effective, but I would also suggest trying other incentives—perhaps

immediate ones like candy or stickers so that students feel rewarded for the work of annotation.
Helping Students Read Test Passages
30

Conclusions and Implications

Through all of the interventions I tried with this research, along with the multitude of

other test preparation materials I prepared and taught, my biggest realization is that getting

students to care about and pass a standardized test is a mammoth undertaking and cannot be

approached in one single way. My favorite part of this project was that I got to try a variety of

strategies to get students ready for the test. I learned that I really enjoy talking one-on-one with

students about what they are learning, and that it can be very informative for my teaching. I

think that small group or individual tutoring outside of class would be an excellent strategy to

focus on next year. Students could be grouped homogenously according to their needs and those

small groups could learn strategies or content or both. I wish that I had spent more time trying to

differentiate my approach with the test-taking strategies for different students. I am glad that I

was able to get such a variety of new books and see students of all reading levels and interests

pick up those books.

In many ways, this study confirmed what I already knew, which is that the more students

are invested in the test, the better they will do on it. Investment is a key lever of success in any

class and on any assignment, so of course the same applies to the practice exercises I used in my

research. My biggest surprise of the research was how highly confident students are that they

will pass the DC-CAS. I would have thought that past data I have given them (practice test

scores, class scores) would have discouraged them, because I have been pushing them pretty

hard this year. So I was happily surprised to see the positive results of my intervention—that

most of the students were fairly certain they would pass this test.
Helping Students Read Test Passages
31
Since one of my biggest areas of concern is the use of reading strategies, I think one

question that went unanswered and would be interesting to pursue is, what strategies are actually

the most effective in getting students to understand the reading passage? Moreover, are these the

same strategies that would get students the most engaged in the reading passage? For example,

if a student writes text-to-self connections in the margins of the passage, she might be engaged in

the text, but does that necessarily mean that she understands it? I would like to know the values

of the various reading strategies that I encourage my students to use. This goes hand in hand

with the biggest part of my project that I did not have time to take on—what methods are best for

teaching reading strategies? I wanted to use the teacher models and group practice methods

described in some of the literature I read, but I had already taught my students the basics of the

strategies I wanted to reinforce and my test preparation schedule did not allow for repetition of

strategy mini-lessons. But I would like to see the effect of certain ways of learning to annotate

or use the other strategies mentioned in the literature.

In the end, I cannot make any great claims about how to get students to read test

passages, but I can say my students are enjoying reading more than they used to, they are

engaging in text more than they used to, and they feel confident about their upcoming test. With

a group of kids who came in more than three years under grade level in reading, I would say they

have a fighting chance on this test, and that’s a success for me.
Helping Students Read Test Passages
32
Works Cited

Ackerman, P. L., & Kanfer, R. (2009). Test Length and Cognitive Fatigue: An Empirical

Examination of Effects on Performance and Test-Taker Reactions. Journal of

Experimental Psychology .

Alfassi, M. (2004). Reading to Learn: Effects of Combined Strategy Instruction on High School

Students. The Journal of Education Research , 171-184.

Bereiter, C., & Bird, M. (1985). Use of Thinking Aloud in Identification and Teaching of

Reading Comprehension Strategies . Cognition and Instruction , 131-156.

Caverly, D., Mandeville, T., & Nicholson, S. (1995). Plan: A Study-Reading Strategy for

Informational Text. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy , 190-199.

Doscher, M.-L., & Bruno, J. E. (1981). Simulation of Inner-City Standardized Testing Behavior:

Implications for Instructional Evaluation. American Educational Research Journal , 475-

489.

Franzak, J. K. (2006). Zoom: A Review of the Literature on Marginalized Adolescent Readers,

Literacy Theory, and Policy Implications. Review of Educational Research , 209-248.

Gambrell, L. B., Palmer, B. M., Codling, R. M., & Mazzoni, S. A. (1996). Assessing Motivation

to Read. The Reading Teacher , 518-533.

Guthrie, J. T., Alao, S., & Rinehart, J. M. (1997). Literacy Issues in Focus: Engagement in

Reading for Young Adolescents. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy , 438-446 .

Hidi, S., & Harackiewicz, J. M. (2000). Motivating the Academically Unmotivated: A Critical

Issue for the 21st Century. Review of Educational Research , 151-179.

McClaskey, J. (2001, September). Who's Afraid of the Big, Bad TAAS? Rethinking Our

Response to Standardized Testing. The English Journal , 88-96.

Helping Students Read Test Passages
33
McGraw-Hill. (2010). District of Columbia Comprehensive Assessment System Resource Guide:

2010. Retrieved February 22, 2010, from OSSE Web site:

http://osse.dc.gov/seo/frames.asp?doc=/seo/lib/seo/2010_DCCAS_Resource_Guide.pdf

Pajares, F. (2001). Toward a Positive Psychology of Academic Motivation. The Journal of

Educational Research , 27-35.

Porter-O’Donnell, Carol. (2004). Beyond the Yellow Highlighter: Teaching Annotation Skills to

Improve Reading Comprehension. The English Journal, 82-89.

Yaffe, D., Coley, R. J., & Pliskin, R. E. (2009). Addressing Achievement Gaps: Educational

Testing in America: State Assessments, Achievement Gaps, National Policy and

Innovations. Princeton: Educational Testing Service.

Helping Students Read Test Passages
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Appendix A

List of newly acquired independent reading books and their reading levels

Title Author Genre Lexile score*

Tears of a Tiger Sharon Draper Young adult fiction 700

Forged By Fire Sharon Draper Young adult fiction 780

Darkness Before Sharon Draper Young adult fiction 670

Dawn

Push Sapphire Fiction No data available

The Outsiders S.E. Hinton Young adult fiction 750

The Ear, The Eye, Nancy Farmer Young adult 660

and The Arm fiction/adventure

The Lion, the C.S. Lewis Fantasy 940

Witch, and the
Wardrobe

Michael Jordan Nicholas Edwards Sports 810

Shaquille O’Neal Richard Brenner Sports 950

20th Century Naoki Urasawa Graphic novel No data available

Boys

Milkweed Jerry Spinelli Historical fiction 510

The Amber Phillip Pullman Fantasy 950

Spyglass

In Odd We Trust Dean Koontz Graphic novel 440

Angelfish Laurence Yep Young adult fiction 570

Hit and Run Lurlene McDaniel Young adult fiction 610

Stone Virgin Barry Unsworth Adult fiction No data available

It’s Not Easy Lisi Harrison Young adult fiction 770

Being Mean

Project UFO R.A. Montgomery Choose your 650

adventure

Happy Birthday, Valerie Tripp American Girl 640

Helping Students Read Test Passages
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Samantha

Fast Food Nation Eric Schlosser Adult non-fiction 1240

Shooting Stars LeBron James and Sports No data available

Buzz Bissinger

Captain Kidd and Robert C. Richie History No data available

the War against
the Pirates

Make the Bob Greene and Self-help 950

Connection Oprah Winfrey

Who Am I Sharon G. Flake Young adult 650

Without Him? fiction/short stories

*The Lexile of a book is a measure of its difficulty. See the table below for grade
level equivalencies, from www.lexile.com.

Typical Reader and Text Measures, by Grade

Text Measures
Reader Measures
(from the Lexile
(Interquartile Range, Mid-
Grade Map)
Year)
25th-75th
25th-75th percentile
percentile

1 Up to 300L 200L to 400L

2 140L to 500L 300L to 500L

3 330L to 700L 500L to 700L

4 445L to 810L 650L to 850L

5 565L to 910L 750L to 950L

6 665L to 1000L 850L to 1050L

7 735L to 1065L 950L to 1075L

8 805L to 1100L 1000L to 1100L

9 855L to 1165L 1050L to 1150L

10 905L to 1195L 1100L to 1200L

11 and
940L to 1210L 1100L to 1300L
12
Helping Students Read Test Passages
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Appendix B

Full transcripts of interviews with students about their independent reading experiences

Me: India, what’s your book called?

India: Who Am I…Who Am I Without Him.

Me: And who’s it by?

India: Sharon G. Flake.

Me: And when did you start reading it?

India: Yesterday.

Me: And do you like it so far?

India: Yes.

Me: Can you tell me a little about it?

India: Um. The first book was about the girl, and she [indecipherable] and she had a boyfriend,
everybody likin’ him cause he was on the basketball team and he was the cutest boy in school.
And then, it was some quiet girls at the bus stop with her. And they, they ain’t never say nothing
to her, but one of them liked her boyfriend. And then she got on the bus, her boyfriend made her
get on the bus. The quiet girl got on the bus first, and she slipped out the back door and got off
the bus with the girl’s boyfriend.

Me: Ooh!

India: And that’s when the girl, um, the girl wanted to fight her. She just went to school and the
boy had a test in the next class, and she told the teacher he was sick. She didn’t think he wanted
to break up with her.

Me: Good! Um…So you read all that yesterday? How many pages do you think that was? You
can guess.

India: It was like four pages…five pages…cause it’s like short stories in here.

Me: Ok. Um, and when do you, do you usually read, when do you usually read the most? Like,
in class or—

India: In class.

Me: --outside class…In class?

Helping Students Read Test Passages
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India: I don’t read at home.

Me: Why not?

India: (pause) I don’t know. I be tired of school when I get home.

Me: Ok. That’s fair. Thank you. So when you get to class are you ready to read? Do you
usually like to read?

India: If I like the book, but if I don’t like the book, if it’s not interesting, I don’t want to read it.

Me: Ok. And, uh, not talking about independent reading, but, on, like, the DC-CAS and stuff, do
you usually read the whole passage?

India: Yeah, cause I gotta understand what’s going on.

Me: Do you use any, like, strategies or anything while you read it?

India: Yeah, I underline the…the most important stuff, like that I need to remember, and that I
think would be in the questions.

Me: I’ve seen that, you do do that. Well, that’s good. Do you think that reading in class, like,
affects the way you take the DC-CAS at all?

India: Yeah, it help us out…it help us practice reading in class…so that we could, um, read, do
the stories on the DC-CAS.

Me: That’s great. Alright, thanks, India.

Helping Students Read Test Passages
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Me: So, Janai, what kind of books have you been reading in this class this year?

Janai: Most of the time I read books related to my life experiences. Like, more fictional books.

Me: Ok. Do you remember any of the titles?

Janai: Yeah, it’s like, Black and White, Chasing Destiny, the…um…what’s that book called?
The Eli man?

Me: Night? [by Elie Wiesel]

Janai: Night. That one wasn’t really about my life, but…[laughs]

Me: Yeah, that’s about the Holocaust, but… [laughs]

Janai: I like books like that. But, uh, it was one of the Blue…Hill…what was the name of…?

Me: Oh. Um…the Bluford books? [the Bluford High Series]

Janai: Yeah. I read some of those.

Me: Good. And, um, do you feel like reading in class helps your reading level?

Janai: Yes. Because they say that if you read 15 minutes a day, something like that, you’ll get
smarter, or you could read better.

Me: Ok. And…generally, do you like to read?

Janai: Yes.

Me: Yeah? Do you read outside of class ever?

Janai: Sometimes. Like if I find a good novel I like I’ll read it.

Me: Ok. Um…and the books you’ve been reading in class, have they come from my library or
have you brought them in yourself?

Janai: Both. Most of the time I bring books in myself, because I don’t like what everybody else
like, I like what I like.

Me: Ok. Um…and, like on a scale of one to ten, how much do you feel like you’re focused on
reading during independent reading time?

Janai: If I like the book, probably around like an eight to a nine.

Me: What if you don’t like the book?

Helping Students Read Test Passages
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Janai: It was more like a six…or something.

[indecipherable for about one minute]

Me: So when you are reading on a test passage or a reading passage we do, do you usually read
the whole thing?

Janai: If it’s long, then I look at the questions first and then see, cause sometimes it say like in
paragraph 3, some questions are like that, so…

Me: Questions about a certain paragraph, mmhm. Ok, thank you!

Helping Students Read Test Passages
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Me: Joe, um, how do you feel about independent reading generally?

Joe: I mean, you know, it really helps us out a lot, you know, um…it keeps you focused…and
um, yeah it helps you with your reading skills a lot for the DC-CAS

Me: (chuckles) Do you usually read every day?

Joe: Um, not til I got in Ms. Holoman class.

Me: Oy. Um, what book are you reading right now?

Joe: I’m reading LeBron documentary.

Me: Ok. About LeBron James. Do you like that book?

Joe: Yes. And you know, it expand me as a basketball player, you know?

Me: So when you read that book you feel like you’re interested in it?

Joe: Yes. Because I’m an athlete myself, you know….If it’s basketball, that’s what I’m most
interested in.

Me: So are there other books you would want to read for independent reading besides that one?

Joe: Um…there’s not any pacific [specific] books but I’m open to try new books.

Me: Ok. And on a different note, when you take the DC-CAS or when you do practice passages
in class, do you usually read the whole passage?

Joe: No, I read the questions first, and then I go and then I skim through and look for the
answers.

Me: Ok, so you usually skim it?

Joe: Yes.

Me: Do you skim the whole thing?

Joe: Yes.

Me: Ok, cool. Thanks, Joe.

Helping Students Read Test Passages
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Me: Kierra, what book are you reading?

Kierra: Tears of Fire [she is actually reading Forged By Fire, the sequel to Tears of a Tiger]

Me: When did you start reading that book?

Kierra: Um, like three weeks ago, before spring break.

Me: And that’s when the book was new to class?

Kierra: Yes. No. It wasn’t new, it was old, but I started reading it after I read the first one.

Me: Oh, ok, so this was like, we had the new books, and you read a new book then too, right?

Kierra: Yes. Hit and Run.

Me: Did you like Hit and Run?

Kierra: Yes.

Me: So you finished that and then you started Forged by Fire?

Kierra: Yes.

Me: Did you check it out of the library ever?

Kierra: Yes. I read most of it out of class.

Me: Have you checked out Forged by Fire at all?

Kierra: No.

Me: So you’re reading that mostly in class?

Kierra: Yes.

Me: Ok. And how’s that going for you? Can you tell me a little bit about that book?

Kierra: Um…it’s about a little boy named Gabe—Gabriel? I don’t know. But I call him G.
And his mother used to be a prostitute and one day his mother left him in the house, and he was
playing with matches, and the house caught on fire. So his mother went to jail, and he started
living with his aunt, and he called the aunt Queen, but then the aunt had, the mother got out of
jail, and never told the boy his mother got out of jail, til recently when she died, and then the boy
live with his mother now, and he ain’t want to. It was his little sister Angel, and his mother, and
his mother boyfriend named Jordan used to molest his little sister Angel.
Helping Students Read Test Passages
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Me: Oh my.

Kierra: And the little sister Angel wouldn’t never tell nobody, cause the man Jordan used to
always threaten he would kill everybody in the family. But G found out what happened, and he
told another man but then told [indecipherable] but then the man [indecipherable] G convince the
police the man Jordan did something wrong. Recently I just read the police locked Jordan up.
Now the mother in denial, she don’t want to believe her kids, and now she in there yelling at her
kids.

Me: Very interesting. So you like this book?

Kierra: Uh huh. [affirmative]

Me: On a scale of one to ten what would you give it?

Kierra: Right now it’s like a seven but I didn’t finish reading yet, so I don’t know.

Me: You usually like books more or less when you finish them?

Kierra: More.

Me: Ok. So on a completely different note, on the DC-CAS or a testing passage, do you usually
read the whole passage?

Kierra: I, um, underline what I think important.

Me: How do you choose what’s important?

Kierra: I’ll like…some quotes…I don’t know, it just pop out to me.

Me: And do you read the whole passage while you underline, or—

Kierra: Yeah.

Me: --jump around?

Kierra: I read the whole passage.

Me: Ok. And do you think that reading in class has any effect on whether or not you read
what’s on the test?

Kierra: Yeah.

Me: Why?

Kierra: Because reading in class, we had a time limit to read in class, it made me read more
faster. And by me reading more faster, it made me get my information more quicker, and I don’t
gotta go back to reread, unless I absolutely have to.
Helping Students Read Test Passages
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Me: Interesting. Ok, thanks a lot, Kierra.
Helping Students Read Test Passages
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Me: So Raymond, what are some of the books you’ve read for this class during independent
reading time?

R: Um, a book called Black and White, I read a book on Michael Jordan, LeBron James, and a
book called uh…what’s that book…

Me: You read—

In unison: Tears of a Tiger.

Me: And what book are you reading now?

R: Shaquille O’Neal.

Me: And when’d you start that book?

R: About five minutes ago.

Me: [laughing] Alright, so it’s new to you today. And that’s cause that’s a new book to our
class, right?

R: Yes ma’am.

Me: What do you think about getting new books? Does that help you?

R: Yes, cause I really didn’t like some of the books in here, I mostly like sports books and people
be stealin the sports books.

Me: That’s true, we’ve had some theft issues. So when you read a sports book, that makes you
more interested in it?

R: Yes.

Me: Why do you think that is?

R: Cause I’m a sports guy, I like all sports.

Me: Ok. So, on a scale of one to ten, how interested are you in independent reading time do you
think? (pause) Like how much do you like it, how much do you focus, that kind of thing.

R: Bout a six?

Me: Ok. Why?

R: Cause sometimes when I read I get headaches because of a previous incident I had last year.
I had a concussion and ever since then when I read I catch headaches and my eyes start hurting.
Helping Students Read Test Passages
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Me: Mmhm. Um, I noticed that this book has a little larger print, does that help you or does that
not really make a difference?

R: Either (indecipherable).

Me: Ok, so it’s any size text? (He nods) Ok. So on a slightly different note, when you read for
the DC-CAS or a reading passage we do in class or anything like that, do you usually read the
whole passage?

R: No.

Me: What do you do?

R: I read the questions first, then I just look at the passage and see what I need to look for.

Me: So when you’re looking at the passage, are you, like, starting at the beginning and going
through it? Or do you kinda jump around? What do you usually do?

R: Jump around. Like, in the passage, if it’s asking a question like, what does this word mean, I
don’t read the passage, I just look around in the passage for that one word, and read probably a
sentence or two before and a sentence or two after the word.

Me: Ok. And do you think when we do independent reading in class, that changes the way you
take a test? Or has an effect in any way?

R: No.

Me: No? Ok. Thanks, Raymond.

Helping Students Read Test Passages
46
Appendix C

Student’s reading journal prompts in response to two days’ questions:

• Write a one or two sentence critique of your book.

• Summarize what is happening in your book currently.

Demel—Tears of a Tiger

• So far this book is pretty good. I like how there are so many details, but I think it is a
little below my reading level.

• There was an accident that caused Robbie to die and Andy is taking this really hard.

Khadijah—House on Mango Street

• My book is good. Two of the characters is just going through some things right now.

• No entry

Chris—Captain Kidd and the War Against the Pirates

• My book is like a 4 star book. It grabs your attention but then it get a little boring.

• So far I have read about how captian kidd died and how he became a legend

Antonio—Shooting Stars

• The book is very good and a inspiring story for youth such as myself.

• Lebron shot a 35 footer and bounce in then out. Leaving the team in despair.

Arnice—Clique book (Revenge of the Wannabes)

• My book is a very good book and I like it and want to continue reading all the volumes

• Theres drama and a lot of commotion. The friends are turning on each other. Her bf is
lying to her.

Cierra—Clique book (It’s Not Easy Being Mean)

• The book is good although it could be more interesting

• So far in my book Massie Alicia Dylan Kristen and Claire are asking boys questions so
that they can find the key first to help their reputation. [I have no idea what this means]

Benjamin—20th century boys

Helping Students Read Test Passages
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• I think my book is good

• I read about the NBA and how college students put up good stats [This is about Sports
Illustrated, which he picked over his book that day]

Kierra—Forged by Fire

• Forged by Fire is a really interesting book that gives us great details

• My book starts off with a young girl name Robin how was physically abused by her
father. Robin is now in therapy and she dealing with what happen.

Jasmin—Darkness before dawn

• I began a new book today. So far I like the book. From 1-10 I would give it a 10. It
makes me just want to keep reading and get lost in the details.

• In today’s reading, Kiara takes Andy’s lil brother Monty to her school cookout to get the
death of Andy of [sic] their minds. They played games, grilled foods (hamburgers and
hot dogs) and had fun.
Helping Students Read Test Passages
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Appendix D

Scans of samples of student annotation on the practice passage Claw Lock

Helping Students Read Test Passages
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Helping Students Read Test Passages
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Helping Students Read Test Passages
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Appendix E

Students’ scores and amount of annotation on the practice passage Claw Lock correlated with

their reading levels

Both questions right, substantial annotation (25 total, 51%)

Nate 4.9
Theron 4.9
Briana 4.9
Brittany 10
Jerome 11
Breyuanna 5.7
Ericka 10.5
Quinn 10.8
Brianna 10.5
Malencia 5.4
PreAnn 4.9
Dante 4.9
Javae 12.9
Raheim 7.7
Jamelle 6
Damante 12.7
Alicia 12.5
Rickia 5.6
Yesmina 8.7
Joe 6.8
Chris 8.3
Tykia 6.2
Kyle 10
Janai 12
Cierra 10.8
Average
reading level 8.344

Both questions right, no annotation (3 total, 6%)

Jasmin 11.2
Ben 7.5
Eric 7.4
Helping Students Read Test Passages
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Avera
ge
readin
g level 8.7

One question right, substantial annotation (14 total, 29%)

Demel 12
Khadijah 7.5
Brian 9.3
Bryana 3.9
Brittney 4.9
Mykell 7.8
Derquacia 4.9
Dashon 8
Lorenzo 5.4
Chris 8.3
Eddie 9
Duyania 11.2
Jasmine 7.8
Monshaniq
ue 8.6
Average
reading 7.7571
level 43

One question right, no annotation—No students

Zero questions right, substantial annotation (3 total, 6%)

Keivie
t 4.9
Chani
ce 4.9
Arnice 5.6
Avera
ge
readin 5.1333
g level 33

Zero questions right, no annotation (4 total, 8%)

Helping Students Read Test Passages
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Larry 5.9
Antoni
o 7
Eryk 5.9
Alonzo 7
Avera
ge
readin
g level 6.45