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Running head: FACTORS OF COMPREHENSION AND PERCEPTIONS OF QTA 1

The case study of factors for retelling scores and perceptions of QtA

Young Yi. Lee

Sookmyung Women’s University MA TESOL

FACTORS OF COMPREHENSION AND PERCEPTIONS OF QTA 2

ChapterⅠIntroduction

1. Introduction

It cannot be emphasized enough that reading is one of the most important

skills in language learning. Reading comprehension includes reconstructing

an author’s message and constructing readers’ meaning from text by using

their schema (Hayes, 1991; Al-Issa, 2006). Constructing meanings means

readers create their new understandings based on an interaction between

knowledge readers already knew and knowledge that readers encounter on

text (Richardson, 2003). By constructing meanings, readers’ understanding is

stimulated (Harvey & Goudvis, 2000, as cited in Foong, Png, Raslinda &

Silver, 2009).

Unfortunately, not all readers build the meanings from text. In order to

help students connect their world knowledge and the text during the reading

process, Beck, McKeown, and Worthy (1993) suggested the idea of

Questioning the Author (from here on, QtA). It provides students with an

opportunity to find out and think about “what the ideas are behind an

author’s words” (Beck et al., 1993, p. 562) by using questions during the

reading process (Beck, McKeown, Hamilton, & Kucan, 1997). During QtA

lessons, students look closely into the authors’ intent with open-ended

questions, and then students finally try to negotiate the meaning by

integrating students’ background knowledge and the author’s words.


Many researchers have used QtA to examine how QtA works in

reading comprehension. McKeown, Sandora, Kucan, and Worthy (1996),

Sandora, Beck, and Mckeown (1999), Liu and Chu (2008), and Reichenberg

(2008) focused on the effect of QtA for L1 and L2 reading comprehension

and found that QtA helped students improve their reading comprehension.

However, no one has thought about the relations between QtA and other

factors in L1 setting as well as L2 or EFL settings.

Factors that may affect reading comprehension have been studied.

Calisir and Gurel (2003), Ozuru, Dempsey, and McNamara (2009), Tarchi

(2010) found that prior (world) knowledge contributed to reading

comprehension. However, Calisir and Gurel and Ozuru et al. (2009)

conducted with undergraduate and graduate students, and Tarchi put the

emphasis on the effect of world knowledge about history and science texts,

so other population of participants and other types of texts need using for the

future study.

Word knowledge was revealed as a factor that may affect reading

comprehension by Tannenbaum, Torgesen, and Wagner (2006), Zhang and

Annual (2008), and Ricketts, Nation, and Bishop (2007). However,

Tannenbaum et al. (2006) did with the third grade students, Ricketts et al.

(2007)’ study did not show why not all students with poor comprehension

showed their lack of vocabulary. Even though Zhang and Annual’s study was


done in L2 setting, similar study in Korea is needed.

In addition, Schiefele and Krapp (1996), ETIN (2010), and Boscolo

and Mason (2003) found that students’ interest play an important role in

reading comprehension, but Schiefele and Krapp and Boscolo and Mason’s

studies were conducted in L1 settings and ETIN used only one topic.

Therefore, various topics in L2 or EFL settings need using for the further

study.

The world knowledge, word knowledge, interest about topic and

stories come from students’ own capacity. In order to stimulate learning from

text, questioning is used (Cotton, 2003). Van den Broek, Tzeng, Risden,

Trabasso, and Basche (2001) agreed that teachers’ inferential questions work

as a factor for reading comprehension, and Erdogan and Campbell (2008),

and Zucker, Justice, Piasta, and Kaderavek (2010) found open-ended and

inferential questions were more used to promote students’ knowledge

construction. However, Van den Broek et al. (2001) study did not displayed

why inferential questions were challenging for less proficient students, and

Erdogan and Campbell, and Zucker et al. (2010)’s studies did not showed the

relation between teachers’ questions and reading comprehension.

With these results, I wondered why only one strategy and one factors

were examined in reading comprehension. According to McNeil (2012), L2

reading is so complicated that many factors might be encompassed, so it


might not be appropriate to examine the result of the one reading strategy or

one factor. It could be helpful for English reading teachers in Korea to know

how QtA works with other factors for their students’ reading comprehension

to help them build meanings from L2 text.

The purpose of this study is to investigate factors that may influence

students’ retelling scores after QtA and students’ perceptions of QtA.

Displaying students’ improvement of reading comprehension or making

them improve reading comprehension is not a focus of this study. Two

research questions have been posed:

RQ1. What factors affect students’ retelling scores in QtA?

RQ2. What are students’ perceptions of QtA?


Chapter Ⅱ Literature Review

This chapter includes theoretical perspective and literature reviews related to

this study.

2.1 Theoretical perspective

Theoretical perspective is based on schema theory, constructivist theory, and

the transactional reader-response theory to underpin this study.

2.1.1 Schema theory

For development of the theory perspective for this study about how students

use their world knowledge, the schema theory provides us with the process

that readers encounter new information and move the information into their

store of world knowledge to reconstruct another world knowledge. A text

only provides directions for readers about how they should retrieve or

construct meaning from their own, previously acquired knowledge, which is

called the readers’ world knowledge (Adams & Collins, 1977).

The world knowledge plays a role in language comprehension as schema

theory (Rummlhart, 1980, as cited in Carrell & Eisterhold, 1983). In an

important cognitive aspect, schema theory is that “how knowledge is

acquired, processed, and retrieved” (Al-Issa, 2006, p. 41). The act to

understand accompanies readers’ knowledge of the world, which bases on

schema theory. Schemata as one more schema are regarded as cognitive

constructs by which readers arrange information in long-term memory


meaningfully (Widdowson, 1983). The relationship among the schemata is

seen as a network of ideas.

The essence of schema theory is the idea that the text is comprehended in

terms of the readers’ idea of world knowledge and readers’ concept can be

changed when new information in print or discussion is met. Thus, while

readers share their understandings through the discussion, readers’ schemata

are often affected. Readers’ understandings rely on how much related schema

readers have while reading and taking about the story. As a result, readers’

failure to make sense of the text is triggered by “their lack of appropriate

schemata” (Al-Issa, 2006. p. 42). In QtA class, students discuss contents with

peers, teachers, and text to maximize the depth of comprehension. Through

discussion and questions that teachers throw, students’ schemata are rebuilt,

reconstructed or changed to fill the lack of their schemata.

To summarize, schemata shape interrelated ideas that are constructed and

reconstructed readers’ world knowledge to understand the text. QtA plays an

important role in constructing and reconstructing readers’ schemata by

interacting with texts, peers, and teachers to bring comprehension into deeper

understandings.

2.1.2 Constructivist theory

With respect to learning or meaning making with interaction, constructivist

theory is fit to show how students construct a meaningful representation


from the text by interacting with peers, teachers and the text. The sense of

constructivist theory is that readers shape their own new comprehensions

through interaction between “what they already know and believe ideas and

knowledge with which the come into contact” (Resnick, 1989, as cited in

Richardson, 2003, p. 1624).

According to Spivey (1987), constructivist theory depicts readers as

actively building a mental description by integrating new information or

knowledge from the text with already learned or acquired knowledge. In this

theory, the role of reader or learner is regarded as one of building and

transforming knowledge (Applefield, Huber, & Moallem, 2001). Readers

build meanings by organizing the content depending on the structure of the

text or depending on another structure in a cognitive store. Reading related to

text includes making connections of content. Although texts provide signs

for readers in making connections, readers use already learned or acquired

knowledge to form more connection through making inferences and

elaborations (Spivey, 1987). Due to limitation of memorizing information

from the text readers read, readers have to select the information by using

important principles.

In a view of the constructivist theory, “a constructivist classroom provides

students with opportunities to develop deep understandings of the material,

internalize it, comprehend the nature of knowledge development, and


develop complex cognitive maps that connect together bodies of knowledge

and understandings” (Richardson, 2003, p. 1628). Unfortunately, in current

English reading classes in Korea, many English teachers teach students how

to decode or translate text rather than how to build meaning from texts.

Therefore, QtA as a reading strategy allows students to use their world

knowledge, to build meaning, and to connect their knowledge with teachers

and peers’ understanding and texts. Through QtA, students organize content,

select content, and connect the content with discussion as consistent with

constructivist theory.

In summary, reading is the multiple process of constructing meaning from

the text in a point of constructivist theorists’ view. Readers employ their

acquired knowledge to bridge gaps in the message and integrate the different

pieces of information in the massage, which is the way that readers construct

the meanings (Anderson, Hiebert, Scott, & Wilkinson, 1985). QtA may help

students build meanings by teachers’ queries through discussion which

stimulate students’ schema.

2.1.3 Transactional reader-response theory

In terms of a theoretical perspective for studying creating meanings and

active engagement in group interactions, transactional reader-response theory

is helpful to explain the response to teachers’ questions in QtA class because

teachers’ questions work as a device to link students’ knowledge and


experiences to build meanings and to lead students to engage with the

discussion and text actively. Readers bring their own “personal linguistic-

experiential reservoir, the residue of past transactions in life and language”

(Rosenblatt, 1993, p. 381) to the transaction to build meanings while they are

reading texts and while they are sharing their responses in similar group

readings.

Reader-response theory was originated in literary critical field. This

theory focuses on the interpretation of text rather than the text itself.

According to Selden (1989), without considering readers efforts of the text,

readers cannot talk about the meaning of a text any more (as cited in Hirvela,

1996). Like this, reader-response theory stresses the creative role of the

reader. Readers gain the literary and aesthetic experience through “dialogue

between reader and text” (Carlisle, 2000, p. 12). The transactional reader-

response theory contains two readings: efferent and aesthetic readings

(Rosenblatt, 1993). When the reader’s attention is focused on acquiring

information from the text, this is called an efferent reading. On the other

hand, the aesthetic reading focuses on the emotion and readers’ experiences

during reading. Therefore, one text might show two different kinds of

readings and produce diverse interpretations based on readers’ experiences.

Also, reader-response theorists argue that “reading is based on collective

conventions and readers can share certain reading strategies, allowing for the


possibility of grouping similar readings and shared responses” (Scott, 1994,

p. 463).

Readers have to be critical readers who know how to select a possible

interpretation and decide the proper reading and go beyond the author’s point

of view to create meanings (Rosenblatt, 1993). Reading class should function

as a facilitator to encourage students to employ various interpretations and

become critical readers. Also, reading class should help students make a

connection between texts and the individual view. However, reading class

especially English reading class in Korea focus more on students’ getting

better score on the exam with this problem. QtA helps students go beyond

the author’s point of view. Even though the questions in QtA lessons are

asked students to answer the author’s intension, the questions are just

mediums that students interact with the text and the author to stimulate

comprehension. Also, students are exposed to multiple interpretations of the

same text through QtA class, so students are able to learn how to connect

comprehension with their experiences. Sharing their experiences and their

interpretations can activate students’ engagement of discussion in QtA. As a

reading strategy, QtA is suitable for students to encourage not only the

reader-text transaction, but also students’ active participation in class.

To sum up, reader-response theory is to have readers make a decision

about interpretations while they read the text. The decision may be changed


according to their intensions from grabbing information from the text,

through connecting their reading with their experiences, and to sharing their

understandings. QtA could provide the way to promote the theory for

students to become active and critical readers.

2.2 Literature review

This chapter involves literatures on the components that affect reading

comprehension first. Second, research studies about QtA for reading

comprehension are reviewed. After literature review, the research questions

of this study are presented.

2.2.1 Components of the influence on reading comprehension

To explain how students build their reading comprehension is very

complicate, but still many researchers try to distinguish what make students

comprehend the text well. There are many components that may influence

students’ reading comprehension, but in this section four factors that world

knowledge, word knowledge, students’ interest, and teachers’ questions will

be discussed.

2.2.1.1 World knowledge for reading comprehension

World knowledge helps readers understand many various subjects

(background knowledge) and domain, and world knowledge also helps

readers make a connection with one another for comprehension (McEwan,

2009). Moreover, world knowledge leads students to build the inferences on


the text, which accelerates students’ comprehension (Hirsch Jr, 2003). There

are researches which were carried out to examine the relationship between

world knowledge and reading comprehension.

Calisir and Gurel (2003) examined the influence the leaners’ prior

knowledge on reading comprehension with 30 graduate students who

composed knowledgeable and non-knowledgeable students proportionally.

This result showed knowledgeable students produced higher reading

comprehension scores than non-knowledgeable students’ scores. This

research explained that domain knowledge helped knowledgeable students

make sense of the text. However, Calisir and Gurel (2003) examined

graduate students’ comprehension at Istanbul Technical. The result could be

different with other participant populations.

Also, Ozuru, Dempsey, and McNamara (2009) examined how prior

knowledge was committed to reading comprehension with 108

undergraduate students who had similar reading skill with low and high

levels of biology knowledge. Ozuru et al. (2009) found that overall

comprehension was positively related to participants’ prior knowledge.

However, this study focused on quantitative data analysis, so this study did

not show how participants responded to the reading comprehension

questions. To figure out how participants’ prior knowledge works in their

reading comprehension, qualitative data analysis is needed.


Tarchi (2010) examined how prior knowledge about content

contributed to reading comprehension with 149 participants in grad 7 in Italy.

This result showed the prior knowledge works in reading comprehension

importantly. However, this study focused on science and history texts, so the

effect of prior knowledge should be studied in different subjects or genre to

get more extensive results.

Calisir and Gurel (2003), Ozuru et al. (2009), and Tarchi (2010)’s

studies supported that how important students’ prior knowledge and prior

knowledge (world knowledge) plays a central role in reading comprehension.

It is obvious that “the more facts the reader knows about a topic, the better

he/she will understand a text” (Tarchi, 2010, p. 419). However, three studies

focused on quantitative data analysis, so these did not show how the prior

knowledge works in the process of the comprehension.

2.2.1.2 Word knowledge for reading comprehension

Word knowledge means readers know about the meaning of words, the

correlation between words, and the knowledge about linguistic form to

comprehend the story (McEwan, 2009). Word knowledge is closely

connected with vocabulary knowledge which is closely connected with

reading comprehension ability for children and adults (Stahl, 2003; Davis,

1994).

Tannenbaum, Torgesen, and Wagner (2006) examined the relationships


between reading comprehension and breadth, depth in L1 setting with 203

third grade students. The result revealed that reading comprehension

increased when breadth of word knowledge increased. Tannenbaum et al.

(2006) confirmed that there was a strong relationship between vocabulary

and reading comprehension. However, this study conducted with the third

grade students. This study needs examining with high grade students because

high grade students would have a large amount of vocabulary capacity.

Zhang, and Anual (2008) explored how 37 secondary students’

vocabulary knowledge worked in Singapore. The result supported that depth

of vocabulary knowledge contributed to their reading comprehension. Even

though Zhang and Annual (2008) found the vocabulary knowledge is one of

central roles for reading comprehension, it is doubtable that similar results

was yielded in Korea because students in Singapore learn English in L2

setting but Korean students learn English in EFL setting.

Unlike Tannenbaum et al. (2006) and Zhang and Anual (2008)’s

studies, Ricketts, Nation, and Bishop (2007) conducted a study to examine

the relationships between oral vocabulary skills and reading comprehension

with 81 children aged 8 to 10 years in England. The result revealed that

children who had poor comprehension displayed their lack of oral

vocabulary and the relation between vocabulary and reading comprehension

seemed to be interactive. However, not all students with poor comprehension


showed the lack of the vocabulary. Even though this study revealed the role

of the vocabulary, this study did not examine what made students show their

poor comprehension except vocabulary skills. There might be other factors

that seem to affect students’ poor reading comprehension.

Tannenbaum et al. (2006), and Zhang, and Anual (2008) admitted

world knowledge plays a central role in reading comprehension, but a study

with other age group in EFL setting is needed. Also, Ricketts et al. (2007)

proved students’ oral vocabulary skill was related to their reading

comprehension but this study did not explain why not all students with poor

comprehension displayed their vocabulary deficiency.

2.2.1.3 Students’ interest for reading comprehension

Interest plays an important role in readers’ text processing (Hidi, 2001).

According to Schraw and Dennison (1994), readers’ interest comes from

readers’ own preferences for the text, and reader’s interest is likely to change

through “external manipulations under certain conditions” (p. 13). Many

researches have been conducted to examine the relationship between reader’s

interest and reading comprehension.

Schiefele and Krapp (1996) conducted a study to determine whether

the relations between topic interest and recall test could be separated from

prior knowledge and intelligence with 80 male first-semester university

students. The result showed that topic interest significantly affected students’


recall. Also, relations between interest and learning were not related to prior

knowledge and intelligence. Even though this study showed positive effect

of recall test with students’ interest, this study was conducted in L1 setting.

To get more wide data, this study would need to be conducted in L2 or EFL

settings.

Boscolo and Mason (2003) investigated to figure out the effects of

topic knowledge and topic interest on learning from text with 160 high

school students. The result revealed that students with high-knowledge and

high-interest in text performed well, and topic interest seemed related to the

amount of readers’ topic knowledge. Boscolo and Mason (2003) determined

that positive effects of topic knowledge and topic interest on reading

comprehension, but the researchers did not explain the relation between low

interest and topic knowledge. To get detailed data, the relation needs

studying.

ETIN (2010) examined the effects of topic interest and prior

knowledge on text recall with 54 proficient university students in Turkey.

The result showed that topic interest played a significant important role in

text recall, but prior knowledge did not. Also, readers with high topic interest

and high prior knowledge performed recall well. This study showed a

positive effect of topic interest on recall, but more researches would be

needed because this study carried out only one topic. With more topics, there


is a possibility that the result could be different.

Schiefele and Krapp (1996) and ETIN (2010) found that topic interest

is not related to prior knowledge. Schiefele and Krapp and ETIN determined

no relations between topic interest and prior knowledge, but with high topic

interest and high prior knowledge readers produced better results on recall as

Boscolo and Mason (2003) and ETIN (2010) showed. However, Schiefele

and Krapp (1996) and Boscolo and Mason (2003)’ studies were conducted in

L1 condition with one topic, so to know whether the research produces the

same result, the research in L2 or EFL settings with various topics is needed.

2.2.1.4 Teachers’ questioning

Questioning regards as an important tool for learners to stimulate learning.

Teachers have been encouraged “to use appropriate questions to activate

students’ prior knowledge, as well as to actively engage them in the

exploration and transformation of knowledge” (James & Carter, 2006, p. 1).

Van den Broek, Tzeng, Risden, Trabasso, and Basche (2001)

examined what the effects of inferential questioning on reading

comprehension of narrative texts from fourth-grade students, seventh-grade

students, and tenth-grade students. The study found that very proficient

students had a benefit from questioning during reading, but to the youngest

students, inferential questioning gave negative effects during reading.

However, this study did not examine the reason why inferential questions did


not work to less proficient students. To know about how the reason affect

less proficient students’ comprehension, another study would be needed.

Erdogan and Campbell (2008) examined the role of teachers’

questions in classroom with 22 K-12 teachers. The result revealed open-

ended questions were often used for teachers to help students build their

knowledge in harmony. Even though this study confirmed the role of

teacher’s questions, Erdogan and Campbell did not develop how teachers’

question could affect students’ reading comprehension.

To examine the relation between teachers’ inferential questioning and

children’s vocabulary outcomes, Zucker, Justice, Piasta, and Kaderavek

(2010) conducted the study with 25 preschool teachers and 159 four-year-old

children. Zucker et al. (2010) found the frequency and proportion of

teachers’ inferential questions did not affect children’s vocabulary growth.

Vocabulary is one of the factors that affect reading comprehension, so just

measuring vocabulary growth might not be appropriate for reading

comprehension.

Van den Broek et al. (2001)’s study support that teachers’ questions

affect reading comprehension, but Van den Broek et al did not explain the

relationship between inferential questions and less proficient students’

comprehension. In addition, Erdogan and Campbell (2008) yielded the

function of open-ended questions, but the study connected with reading


comprehension and the questions might be needed. In Zucker et al. (2010)’s

study, the result revealed that no relation with teacher’s inferential questions

and vocabulary growth. The purpose of reading books is not for growing the

vocabulary but for being critical readers, so measuring development of

comprehension would be helpful for further study.

2.2.2 Questioning the Author

QtA is a protocol of inquiries that students can make about the content they

are reading. This instructional strategy induces teachers pose open-ended

questions to make students think about text content. As students respond,

teachers encourage students to “elaborate, connect, and collaborate toward

building meaning” (Beck, & McKeown, 2006, p. 33). Students “had

internalized QtA queries as the way to approach text” (p. 34). In QtA

teachers are facilitators who lead students to active engagement with text.

Beck, McKeown, Sandora, Kucan, and Worthy (1996) examined

implementing QtA to analyze a year-long classroom implementation of QtA

and students perception of implementing QtA from 23 fourth graders and

two teachers. The results showed that teachers’ talk decreased in QtA while

the quality of students’ talk increased in QtA, and students’ talk became more

complex. Also teachers’ questions changed from retrieving information to

construction meaning. Students interacted more with each other, which

indicated that QtA may facilitate thinking. In addition, students showed their


confidence with their thinking. QtA lesson gave a fruitful result in L1 field;

however, Beck et al. (1996) could not show whether QtA was applicable in

L2 or EFL settings. The study of an application of QtA in L2 or EFL settings

is need to whether teachers’ questions affect students’ comprehension and

students’ perception of QtA in L2.

In order to compare the effect of the QtA approach with the Grate Books

approach, Sandora, Beck, and Mckeown (1999) conducted a study with 24

sixth graders using QtA approach and 25 seventh graders using the Great

books approach. The results yielded students who took QtA approach

showed high scores on recalls and responses to the open-ended questions. In

spite of positive results, this study focused more on the results of recalls and

open-ended questions. To know the relations between the results of recall

and teachers’ open-ended questions, a qualitative research is needed.

Reichenberg (2008) conducted a three year longitudinal study to examine

teachers’ questions, the changes of teachers’ questions, students’ responses,

and students’ participation in text talks according to types of questions and

answers with 36 Swedish 10.3 years old students. Reichenberg found that

normally teachers used factual questions that are easy for students to answer

with one word from the texts. Four teachers who taught experimental

students used QtA, and then they changed the type of questions from factual

questions to half-opened question and inference questions. Students’ answers


also changed from text to their own words. Also, experimental teachers were

more attentive to make students to participate in the discussion process. This

change was not found in the control groups. Although this study showed the

process of development of students’ answers and teachers’ questions,

Reichenberg (2008) did not consider how teachers’ questions could affect

students’ comprehension.

Liu and Chu (2008) examined the effect of QtA on the reading

comprehension with 62 ninth graders in Taiwan. The results showed the

experimental group with QtA was better on inferences and interpretive

questions. However, there was no significant difference between groups on

written recall. Recall is one of the tools to assess students’ reading

comprehensions, but Liu and Chu (2008) did not examine why students

showed no significant difference in recall. To solve this problem, researchers

need to investigate classroom situations and the development of students’

written recalls closely.

In summary, Beck et al. (1996), Sandora et al. (1999) and Reichenberg

(2008) showed the positive effects of using QtA in reading class, but Beck et

al., Sandora et al., and Reichenberg (2008)’s studies did not consider how

applicable QtA was in EFL setting. On the other hand, Liu and Chu (2008)

showed positive effects of using QtA lesson in L2, but this study did not

explain why there was no difference between students’ recall in QtA and


control group.

Many studies have confirmed QtA affected students’ reading

comprehension. I partly agree on these claims, but I doubt only QtA could

influence their reading comprehension. While I planned this study, I

hypothesized there might be other factors with QtA in reading

comprehension. To figure out this hypothesis after QtA students were asked

to write down retell immediately so as to analyze the factors that could

influence their retelling. Also, students’ perception of QtA was examined.

Here are two research questions as follows.

RQ1. What factors influence students’ retelling scores in QtA?

RQ2. What are students’ perceptions of QtA?


Chapter Ⅲ Methodology

The purpose of this chapter is to describe the methodology that was used in

this study. The investigator starts by describing participants, data collection

and data analysis. The goal of this study was to investigate main factors that

influence students’ retelling scores in QtA and students’ perception of QtA.

3.1 Participants

There were two participants who were a boy (SA) in grade 8 and a girl (SB)

in grade 7 in the same middle school that is located in one of new suburban

towns of Seoul and in which, participants take English three times a week for

50 minutes. Also, both participants graduated from the same elementary

school. Both were from upper middle-income families, and whose parents

graduated from the university, and they have not lived in English-speaking

countries.

Both participants’ English proficiency is lower than the average in their

school (see Table 3.1). The calculation method of English scores is displayed

in Appendix A

Table 3.1 Participants’ English scores in the second semester, 2013

ParticipantsEnglish scores in school (perfect score) / Average score

Test Listening Reading Writing

SA71 (100)/79

45(70) 9.5(10) 5(5) 11(15)SB 68 (100)/ 78


50(70) 10(10) 1(5) 7(15)

As Table 3.1 showed, two participants’ scores of English in their

school were below the average, but they got almost perfect scores on

listening test. However, on writing and reading test, student A got higher

scores than student B, but on test that consisted of midterm test and final test

proportionally student B got slightly higher scores than student A’s.

Participants have been studying English for over five years. Both

participants have taken an English private class with the researcher twice a

week for about two years. Each lesson is 100 minutes long. During the

private class, participants take grammar, listening, writing, and reading

lessons in Korean. In reading class, two participants are familiar with finding

unknown words in advance, translating the text into Koran, and taking the

comprehension questions that the text book provides as their homework.

Student A seems not to like learning English because he said he would not

travel abroad, and work for the company that asks him to use English

whenever he missed the English questions. Also, student A said he does not

like reading because it is boring, but he thinks that reading books is

necessary to improve his knowledge. In reading lesson, when he is asked to

read the book, he tends to read aloud. Once he feels familiar with a topic in

the book, he looks like he enjoys bragging about his knowledge about the

topic. Sometimes he tries to make an answer in English, but he usually


responds to the teachers’ questions in Korean. In grammar lesson, when a

teacher tries to correct his wrong answer, he refuses the teachers’ help and

tries correct on his own.

When student B was young, she used to want to be an English teacher,

but now she seems like she is not interested in English any more. Student B

sometimes says she does not understand why she has to learn English since

she lives in Korea, there are few chances to use English. Also, student B said

reading books is not fun, so it is unnecessary. In reading lesson, student B

reads English books so quietly, so student A and I have to listen carefully to

her voice. Also, she rarely shows her opinion on the English book. In

grammar lesson, student B needs more time to understand how to use the

rule of the grammar. However, once she understands the rule of grammar,

student B easily solves the grammar questions.

Participants tend to have an argument about the reading topic and the

grammar answer, so more attention is needed to control the class atmosphere.

3.2 Materials

The materials used in QtA class included six fiction and six non-fiction

stories from Reading A to Z (see Table 3.2).

Table 3.2 The information of books used in QtA

No. Title Text type / Genre Word

1 Baltic Rescue Nonfiction / Narrative 710


2 Barack Obama Nonfiction / Biography 805

3 Salt Rocks Nonfiction / Informational 938

4 Desert People Nonfiction / Informational 897

5 Summer Olympics Legends Nonfiction / Informational 748

6 Sonia Joins the Supreme Court Nonfiction / Biography 837

7 Rainy-Day Savings Fiction / Realistic 814

8 Goldilocks and the three bears Fiction / Fairy tale 862

9 The Footprint Fiction / Narrative 938

10 Mystery at Camp White Cloud Fiction / Mystery 1003

11 Pluto’s new friends Fiction / Fantasy 726

12 The backpack Tax Fiction / Realistic 843

There were 12 books chosen including narrative text, biography text,

informational, realistic text, fairy tale, mystery text, and fantasy text, and

some definitions of these books were found (See Appendix B). These books

were employed in accordance with school English education curriculum by

Ministry of Education, Science and Technology. The number of words used

in the materials consists of about 700 to 1000, which is specified in the

National Curriculum Information Center (2011) for 7th graders and 8th

graders.

3.3 Procedures

3.3.1 General procedures

This study that followed a case study format was conducted for 12 weeks

from October 23, 2013 to February 16, 2014 to examine the factors that may

affect retelling scores in QtA and perceptions of QtA. In the middle of this


research, the experiment was stopped for about one month from November

17, 2013 to December 18, 2013 because of two participants’ preparation for

their final exam. The sequential order in this study is as follows.

Table 3.3 Research Schedule

Procedure Date Methodology

Pre-survey Oct. 23, 2013 -Pre-survey with written structured questions was conducted to find out participants’ perception of reading books and their preference for choosing the books.

-The researcher introduced QtA to two participants (see Appendix C)

Experiments October 23, 2013 ~November 16, 2013

-QtA was carried out with four books.-QtA lessons were audio and video taped.-After QtA, each participant was interviewed about the book.

-Teacher wrote journals after each book.-An interview was done to figure out the perceptions of QtA every four weeks.

Break Time for the final examination

November 17, 2013~December 18, 2013

-Preparation for the final examination.

Experiments December 19, 2013 ~February 16, 2014

-QtA was carried out with eight books.-QtA lessons were audio and video taped.-After QtA, each participant was interviewed about the book.

-Teacher wrote journals after each book.


-An interview was done to figure out the perceptions of QtA every four weeks.

Post-interview February 16, 2014 -Participants were asked to grade the books as they liked.

Analysis February , 2014 ~April, 2014

-Collecting and transcribing, and analyzing data to answer research questions and to draw conclusions and implications.

3.3.2 QtA classes and lesson procedure

There were 24 classes. Two participants took reading classes twice a

week. For two days participants used one book. Each class took about 25 to

35 minutes. The schedule and topics of the books were listed (see Appendix

D). In QtA, the teacher introduced the book and asked what they could see

and what the author would write this story by showing the cover and the

back cover. Then, one participant read one page of the book, and the teacher

asked questions of participants to check what they read and figure out the

author’s intentions. After QtA, participants took retelling tests and interviews

about the topics and their behaviors that they showed during QtA (see Table

3.4 Sample lesson plan).

Table 3.4 Sample lesson plan for one week

The first day


Class Activities Times

Questioning the Author 1

Teacher introduces the book showing the cover.

Participant reads one or two paragraphs voluntarily.

Teacher asks student about question that participants might be confused or not know about the author’s intent.

25 to 35

min.

The second day

Class Activities Times

Questioning the Author 2

Teacher asks what they learned the previous lesson.

Participant reads one or two paragraphs voluntarily.

Teacher asks student about question that participants might be confused or not know about the author’s intent.

After QtA, participants take retelling tests.

25 to 35

min.

3.4 Data collection

This study was conducted for 12 weeks with QtA in my private place. In

order to answer the first research question that what factors influence

students’ retelling scores in QtA, students took retelling tests after QtA.

Counting words, categorization of text types and the teacher’s questions,

taping video, recoding audio, survey, and interviews were investigated to

find out the correlation between their scores and those data. The second

research question that what are student perceptions of QtA was answered


through the data from interviews.

3.5 Data sources

To answer the research questions, retelling test, observation, interview,

teacher’s journal, and survey were used.

3.5.1 Retelling test

In QtA, teachers tend to focus on students’ thinking about the text deeply;

however, on traditional tests such as multiple-choice formats students seem

not to get higher scores (Beck & McKeown, 2006). Back and McKwown

(2006) suggested another assessment that may go beyond multiple-choice

tests such as students’ recalls, journal, and assessment of participation.

Retelling is one of the tools for checking reading comprehension.

Retelling asks readers to arrange the information that readers find from the

text to create reader’s own summary (Hoyt, 2009) “on a free recall basis”

(Kissner, 2006, p. 7). After QtA, participants were asked to write down the

text content such as main idea, key events, and characters as possible as they

remembered (see Appendix E and F). Both participants used their L1 to

lower the linguistic burden (Cotterall, 1990; Dashwood and Mangubhai,

1996, as cited in Fung, Wilkinson, & Moore, 2003). Students’ retellings were

measured by two raters according to the rubrics offered by Reading A to Z

(see Appendix G and H). All scores are 21 with four steps from three points

by completing retelling in seven sections to zero points with incorrect or


omitted retelling.

3.5.2 Observation

Classroom observation is used for collecting data during lessons “by

watching, listening, and recording” (Nunan and Bailey, 2009, p. 258).

The observation was conducted as means to analyze teacher’s questions by

taking video tapes and recording audio tapes.

Beck et al. (1996) and Reichenberg (2008) used the observation to

know about the impact of QtA lesson. The investigator took part as a teacher

to collect QtA lesson data for approximately 720 minutes. After each

observation, the investigator categorized the types of questions and examined

students’ responses to the questions. The camera was placed in front of the

students, and the recorder was placed in the middle of the desk.

3.5.3 Interview

Interviews are time-savers, so interviews enable researchers to collect a large

amount of data in shorter times than observation (Nunan and Bailey, 2009).

ETIN (2010) used a semi-structured interview to support the data

obtained from the analyses of the think-aloud protocols. McKeown et al.

(1996) interviewed students to investigate their views of QtA. Two studies

informed the interview is suitable to gather students’ perception and

thoughts.

The structured interview like a questionnaire and unstructured interviews


were employed to support students’ perceptions of QtA every four weeks and

to know about the difference between previous reading class and QtA and the

use of QtA in their own reading after QtA on an irregular basis. The

structured interview questions were three (see Table 3.5).

Table 3.5 Interview questions

No. Interview questions

1 Why does the teacher conduct QtA instead of the previous reading class?

2 Do you think QtA help you understand the English books better? Why?

3 What do you prefer discussing the content of the book or reading English

books alone? Why?

Also, unstructured interviews were conducted after QtA to know about their

interest in the topics and the reason their behaviors during QtA.

3.5.4Teacher’s journal

Journal is one of the introspective methods that other methods could not be

gathered. Journals are required us to remember the events, so reliability and

validity could be problematic. To resolve them, teachers have to keep writing

the journal consistently (Nunan and Bailey, 2009).

McKeown et al. (1996) used teachers’ journals to examine teachers’

perspectives in QtA. To examine the relation between students’ interest and

students’ behaviors during QtA, teacher’s journal was used. For this study,

the teacher as an observer wrote what happened and what participants did

during QtA.


3.5.5 Survey

This study employed survey to gain “a snapshot of conditions and attitudes at

a single point” (Nunan and Bailey, 2009, p. 125). There were seven questions

in the survey. Among seven questions, two questions were for students’

perception of reading books, and five questions were for their perception of

choosing the books.

Table 3.6 Questions in the survey

Categories Questions

Perception of

reading books

1. Do you like reading books? Why?

2. Do you think reading books is important? Why?

Perception of

choosing the books

3. When you choose the books, what do you consider?

4. What kinds of the stories do you like most?

5. Please write the reason.

6. Which genres of books do you like to read?

7. Please write the reason that you choose.

As shown on Table 3.4, the survey (see Appendix I in English and

Appendix J in Korean) consisted of four open-ended items asking students to

complete short answers and three closed items. The questions in the survey

were offered in Korean to make sure that participants answered the

questionnaire completely (Nunan and Bailey, 2009).

3.6 Data analysis

The data analysis in this study was conducted based on research questions.


To investigate the first research question of what factors may affect students’

retelling scores and the second research question of what are students’

perceptions of QtA, data were analyzed qualitatively.

3.6.1 Analyzing retelling scores with other data

Once students’ retelling scores were collected, the scores were examined to

determine whether their scores improved or not. If not, with other data, the

scores were investigated again.

During analyzing students’ interview, survey, teachers’ journal and

observation, four themes emerged: world knowledge, word knowledge, topic

interest, and teachers’ questions. Three themes that world knowledge, word

knowledge, and topic interest were subcategorized to get more detailed data

from other data sources such as ‘having world knowledge, word knowledge,

or students’ interest’ and ‘having less world knowledge, word knowledge, or

students’ interest’. Teachers’ questions were subcategorized into ‘literal

questions’ and ‘inference questions’ to investigate whether the types of

questions would affect the retelling scores (see Table 3.7). Inferential

questions ask students to get information that is not indicated directly but is

expressed indirectly in the text, which allows students make the

interpretation of feelings and ideas related to students’ experience (Morrow,

1984) while literal questions students to recall “facts, cause and effect

relationships, and the classification of information”(p. 275).


Table 3.7 The example of low and high inferential questions

Types of questions ExamplesLiteral question What can you know in this paragraph?

What was Sonia’s first dream? How many have women become justices? What can you learn in this sentence?

Inferential question Why does the author use ‘white men’ in this sentence?

What does the author want to say? Why does the author write doctor told her that she

should not be a detective? What if the only white make decision as a justice,

what would happen?

All these will be described in Chapter 4.

3.5.2 Analyzing students’ interview and survey of QtA

In order to answer the second research question (what are students’

perceptions of QtA), interviews are used to investigate how students perceive

QtA compared to previous reading classes they because interviews are a

good method to elicit students’ thoughts directly (Nunan and Bailey, 2009).

Trustworthiness

According to Dooley (2007), trustworthiness is related to a certainty that the

finding of the study comes from the respondents and their context.

“Prolonged engagement, persistent observation, triangulation, referential

adequacy materials, peer debriefing, and member checks” (p. 38) are used to

achieve a study’s trustworthiness.


To support trustworthiness in this study, the triangulation was used from

diverse data sources such as survey, interviews, journal, and observations of

data by recording and taping the classes.

Chapter Ⅳ Results

4. Results

This study was conducted to look into the factors that may affect students’

retelling scores in QtA and students’ perception of QtA with two participants.

4.1 Retelling scores on QtA

4.1.1 Comparison scores with types of books and preference of the books

Students produced better scores on nonfiction stories than those on fiction

stories, but it showed a different result of the survey.

Table 4.1 The average of scores on nonfiction and fiction stories

Types of the books A’s average B’s average Total average

Non-fiction stories scores 14.8/21 11.8/21 13.3/21

Fiction stories scores 12.8/21 10.8/21 11.8/21


Table 4.2 The result of the preference of types of the book

Types of the books Student A Student BNon-fiction stories - -Fiction stories 0 0

As Table 4.1 showed, student A and B produced higher scores on

nonfiction stories than those on fiction stories, but it sounded contradictive

compared to the result of their survey (see Table 4.2) because the result said

they liked fiction stories more than nonfiction stories. Also, in the middle of

the interviews, students said that they liked fiction stories more. In spite of

their preference for fiction stories, the result displayed different stories.

A type of genres seemed associated with students’ retelling scores, but

the scores were not likely to be in connection with the results of the survey

about their preference for types of the genres directly (see Table 4.3 and 4.4).

Table 4.3 The average of scores on different types of nonfictions

Types of the text A’s average B’s average Total average

Informational 11.0/21 9.7/21 10.3/21

Others 18.7/21 14.0/21 16.3/21

Table 4.4 The average of scores on different types of fictions

Types of the text A’s average B’s average Total average

Realistic 10.5/21 11.5/21 11.0/21

Fantasy and Fairy tale 15.0/21 14.0/21 14.5/21

Mystery and Narrative 13.0/21 7.0/21 10.0/21


According to Table 4.3 and 4.4, students got lower scores on

informational nonfiction stories that are ‘Salt Rock’, ‘Desert People’, and

‘Summer Olympics Legends’ than those on other stories, and student A and B

got lower scores on mystery and narrative fiction stories and realistic stories.

Interestingly, in student A’s survey, student A said he is interested in realistic

text and mystery text, but he produced lower scores on both types of the text

than those on fantasy and fairy tale text. On the other hand, student B

produced a high score on fantasy and fairy tale text. In student B’s survey,

student B said she likes fantasy text. Considering students’ preferences for

genres and the scores, the result of survey and the retelling scores seemed

different.

In summary, both students produced better scores on nonfiction

stories, but it was different from their previous survey. Also, in comparison

to genres and the scores, common ground was not found. Therefore, it is hard

to say that the types of texts or genres could affect students’ retelling scores.

There might be other factors.

4.1.2 Comparison scores with each book

Student A and B showed similar patterns on the scores in both

nonfiction stories and fiction stories, but in some books student A and B

showed contrary scores.


Baltic Rescue

Barack Obama

Salt Rocks Desert people

Summer Olympics Legends

Sonia Joins the Supreme

Court

13579

111315171921

Student AStudent B

Figure 4.1 The results of the retelling scores on nonfiction stories

As Figure 4.1 showed, student A and B showed high scores on ‘the

Baltic Rescue’, ‘Barack Obama’, and ‘Salt Rocks’, and students got low

scores on ‘Desert People’, and ‘Summer Olympics Legends’ among the

nonfiction stories. On other hand, student A got a higher score on ‘Sonia

Joins the Supreme Court’ than student B’s score.

In fiction stories, student A and B showed similar patterns of scores,

but on ‘The Footprint’, students produced opposite scores.

Average13.3


Rainy-Day Savings

Goldilocks and the three bears

The Footprint

Mystery at Camp

White Cloud

Pluto’s new

friends

The backpack

Tax

13579

111315171921

Student AStudent B

Av-erage11.83

Figure 4.2 The results of the retelling scores on fictions

Figure 4.2 shows the scores of the retelling on fiction stories displayed

similar patterns except ‘The Footprint’. Student A and B got high scores

compared to the average score on ‘Mystery at Camp White Cloud’, ‘Pluto’s

new friends’, and ‘The backpack Tax’ while they had low scores on ‘Rainy-

Day Savings’ and ‘Goldilocks and the three bears’. There was also an

opposite results between student A and B. Student A got a higher score on

‘The Footprint’ than student B did. Normally student A got high scores on

fiction stories, but in ‘The backpack Tax’ student B got high scores than

student A’s.

To sum up, student A and B had similar patterns on the scores on

nonfiction stories and fiction stories, but in some books, they showed


opposite patterns of the scores. It told both student A and B had something

different factor that would affect the scores.

4.1.3 Comparison scores with the number of words

No relationship was found between words in the book and the scores (see

Table 4.5 and 4.6). It means there may be other factors that could affect the

retelling scores.

Table 4.5 The results of scores on nonfiction retellings

Title Word A Retelling B Retelling

Baltic Rescue 710 20/21 14/21

Barack Obama 805 17/21 17/21

Salt Rocks 938 16/21 14/21

Desert People 897 12/21 13/21

Summer Olympics Legends 748 5/21 2/21

Sonia Joins the Supreme Court 837 19/21 11/21

As Table 4.4 showed, student A and B made the lowest scores on

‘Summer Olympics Legends’ even though the book consists of 748 words.

On the other hand, ‘Salt Rocks’ has 938 words, but both students produced a

bit high scores compared to the average score ‘13.3’.

There were similar results found in fiction stories like Table 4.5.

Table 4.6 The results of scores on the retelling fictions

Title Word A Retelling B Retelling

Rainy-Day Savings 814 2/21 2/21

Goldilocks and the three bears 862 10/21 10/21


The Footprint 938 12/21 2/21

Mystery at Camp White Cloud 1003 14/21 12/21

Pluto’s new friends 726 20/21 18/21

The backpack Tax 843 19/21 21/21

Among the fiction stories, student A and B earned the lowest scores on

‘Rainy-Day Savings’ that consists of 814 words while on ‘Mystery at Camp

White Could’ both students produced high scores that were 14 and 12

compared to the average score ‘11.8’. Also, on ‘The Footprint’ that has 938

words, student A got 12 score but student B got 2 score. It showed the

number of the words in the books seems not to correlate the retelling scores.

In short, no relationship between the number of the word and the

scores were found.

4.1.4 Comparison with the scores and the type of the teacher’s questions

Teacher’s inferential questions seemed to affect students’ retelling scores but

not all scores were affected (see Table 4.7 and 4.8).

Table 4.7 The types of questions and retelling scores on nonfictions

Title Literal question (%)

Inferential question (%)

A’s score

B’s score

Baltic Rescue 14(36.8) 24(63.2) 20/21 14/21

Barack Obama 27(45.8) 32(54.2) 17/21 17/21

Salt Rocks 19(40.4) 28(59.6) 16/21 14/21


Desert People 29(50.9) 28(49.1) 12/21 13/21

Summer Olympics Legends 34(63.0) 20(37.0) 5/21 2/21

Sonia Joins the Supreme Court 22(40.7) 32(59.3) 19/21 11/21

According to Table 4.7, the teacher asked students over 54% of the

inferential questions in ‘Baltic Rescue’, ‘Barack Obama’, and ‘Salt Rocks’.

Students produced high scores compared to the average score ‘13.3’.

However, when the teacher asked questions that accounted for almost similar

proportion of literal and inferential questions like ‘Desert People’, students

got the score around the average score. In ‘Summer Olympics Legends’, the

teacher focused more on literal questions that accounted for 34%. Students

made the lowest scores among nonfiction stories. Also, in student B case,

even though the teacher asked more inferential questions, student B got the

score below the average score. There might be another factor that could

affect the retelling scores on ‘Sonia Joins the Supreme Court’.

Table 4.8 The types of questions and retelling scores on fictions

Title Literal Inferential A’s B’s


question (%) question (%) score score

Rainy-Day Savings 17(40.5) 25(59.5) 2/21 2/21

Goldilocks and the three bears 26(48.1) 28(51.9) 10/21 10/21

The Footprint 16(37.2) 27(62.8) 12/21 2/21

Mystery at Camp White Cloud 19(40.4) 28(59.6) 14/21 12/21

Pluto’s new friends 21(42.0) 29(58.0) 20/21 18/21

The backpack Tax 17(38.6) 27(61.4) 19/21 21/21

Like Table 4.7, Table 4.8 showed the teachers’ inferential questions

would affect students’ retelling scores on fictions stories. Student A and B

got high score compared to the average of fiction score ‘11.8’ in ‘Mystery at

Camp White Cloud’, ‘Pluto’s new friends’, and ‘The backpack Tax’.

However, unlike Table 4.6, the teacher threw 59.5% of the inferential

questions, but both students produced the lowest scores on ‘Rainy-Day

Savings’ among fiction stories. Also, with 62.8% of inferential questions in

‘The Footprint’, student A made a high score compared to the average score,

but student B made the lowest score on ‘The Footprint’. As already


mentioned above, there might be another factor that could influence the

scores.

To sum up, the amount of inferential questions would be related to

students’ retelling scores, but some scores seemed not to be affected by the

teacher’s inferential questions.

4.2 Students’ contextual (world) knowledge with word knowledge

Students’ ample contextual (world) knowledge seemed to contribute to

understanding words within the context, which seemed to highly correlate

with students’ retelling scores.

In order to figure out the relations with students’ retelling scores, world

knowledge, students’ interviews were analyzed (see Table 4.9 and 4.10).

Table 4.9 Student A and B’s world knowledge with scores on nonfictions

Title

Student A Student B

World knowledge

Score World knowledge

Score

Baltic Rescue + 20/21 + 14/21

Barack Obama + 17/21 + 17/21

Salt Rocks + 16/21 + 14/21

Desert People - 12/21 + 13/21


Summer Olympics Legends - 5/21 - 2/21

Sonia Joins the Supreme Court + 19/21 - 11/21

Note. + = high, and – = low.

Considering the retelling scores and their interviews, there were some

similarities between student A and student B. Both student A and B said they

already had some knowledge about ‘Baltic Rescue’, ‘Barack Obama’, and

‘Salt Rocks’. On their interview about ‘Baltic Rescue’, both students agreed

that they felt familiar with the topic and structure (see Excerpt 4.1, 4.2).

Excerpt 4.1 Student A’ interview about Baltic Rescue (2013. 10. 26)

As soon as I read the title, I can imagine the story. The title gave me a lot of

information. Also, this book looked like a fiction story, so I can predict what

happened to the Baltic.

Student A was interviewed in Korean.

Excerpt 4.2 Student B’ interview about Baltic Rescue (2013. 10. 26)

At first, I did not know the meaning of word ‘Rescue’, but I could guess what was

wrong with the Baltic when I heard the meaning from student A in QtA. Also, this

book was similar with a novel, so I easily predicted the end of this story.

Student B was interviewed in Korean.

Both students showed their world knowledge about content and


structure. It seemed to contribute to getting high scores. Furthermore,

students’ world knowledge about Obama was seen in their interviews. Both

students said that they already read a biography that was ‘who was’ about

him in English in their interviews. As Table 4.11 showed, students produced

the scores over the average ‘13.3’ on nonfiction stories. By contrast, in their

interviews of ‘Summer Olympics Legends’, they said they had no idea about

this topic, so they hardly understood many words. They said even though

they knew each word, they could not make sense of the content with those

words, which played a part for both students to produce the lowest scores on

it.

The fiction stories have the similar pattern like Table 4.9 (see Table 4.10).

Table 4.10 Student A and B’s world knowledge with scores on fictions

Title

Student A Student B

World knowledge

Score World knowledge

Score

Rainy-Day Savings - 2/21 - 2/21

Goldilocks and the three bears + 10/21 + 10/21

The Footprint 12/21 2/21

Mystery at Camp White Cloud 14/21 12/21


Pluto’s new friends + 20/21 + 18/21

The backpack Tax + 19/21 + 21/21

Note. Space = students did not mention. + = high, and – = low.

Seemingly, students showed similar patterns like Table 4.11. When

students answered they had some contextual (world) knowledge about

‘Pluto’s new Friends’ and ‘The backpack Tax’, they got the high scores,

while they produced low scores when students had little contextual (world)

knowledge as 4.12 showed.

In QtA of ‘Rainy-Day Savings’, both students showed their poor

contextual (world) knowledge, which seemed to affect their interpretation of

the context.

Excerpt 4.3 QtA of Rainy-Day Savings (2013. 12. 21)

Transcription comment

SB

T

SA

T

It also showed how much interest, or

additional money, her savings had earned.

What can you know about Anita?

Ah, interest, show interest (to her).

So, Anita finally…? What?

SB reads one sentence.

T checks SS’s

comprehension.

SA answers.

T checks SS’s

comprehension again.


SA

T

SA

T

SA

T

SB

T

SA

T

SB

T

SB

She earns her money.

Why did the bank send an email to her?

To show how much money she has.

And?

How much interesting

Do you know the word of interest?

Interest is interesting.

It is a different meaning in the bank.

Ok, if you read it more, you can know the

meaning of the interest, ok?

Why are they giving me interest? Anita asked

her dad.

Ok, what does the author put in this sentence?

Interest!

So, after this sentence, what does the author

say?

(The author will say) Why banks give

interest.

SA answers.

T asks a question to check

whether SS know about

‘interest’ exactly.

SA answers.

T asks more.

SA answers.

T asks a question.

SB answers.

T gives a hint.

T encourages SS to

inference the meaning.

SA read sentences.

T asks a question.

SB answers correctly.

T tries to let SS infer next.

SB answers.

*Bolds are spoken in L1 (Korean).

In this book, students used the word ‘interest’ as the meaning of

making a sentence such as something is interesting or someone is interested

in something at first even if they noticed the word ‘interest’ was used in a

different way in this book.

On the contrary to ‘Rainy-Day Savings’, both students showed high

world knowledge about ‘Pluto’s new friends’, which affect their retelling


scores (see Excerpt 4.4).

Excerpt 4.4 Teacher’s journal in Pluto’s new friends (2014. 2. 6)

I thought students feel difficult with this book because there are many planet names

and science terms. However, during QtA, they looked familiar with them and looked

interested in this topic, and they explained why Pluto was kicked away from the solar

system. Also, student A corrected student B’s pronunciation several times. I was

surprised. Both students answered my questions very well. The looked confident

about this topic. After QtA, I asked what happed to them. They answered they

already learned this in their school. Maybe, their knowledge led them to understand

this book easily.

In the middle of QtA of ‘Pluto’s new friends’ both students told the

reason why Pluto was kicked out of the solar system. Also, they knew about

many terms concerning the solar system. Those seemed to correlate their

scores that student A had the highest score and student B got the second high

score.

On the other hand, in their interviews about ‘Goldilocks and the three

bears’, both students answered they already knew about the story

‘Goldilocks and the three bears’, but they got the scores below the average

‘11.8’. It indicated not all world knowledge would not be related to the

retelling scores.

In short, the presumption is that world knowledge would correlate the


retelling scores, but not all world knowledge was related to the scores. Also,

students with high world knowledge seemed to know about more words than

students with low world knowledge did. Presumably, contextual or world

knowledge is likely to correlate word knowledge.

4.3 Students’ interest in the topic

Allowing for the survey result that they said they consider the topic first

when they choose a book, students’ interest about the topic might affect

students’ retelling scores. By comparison with the retelling scores, the rating

of the interest in topic that students determined seemed to have in common.

After QtA, students were interviewed to investigate what topic students are

interested in, and students made a list as they liked (see Table 4.11 and 4.12).

Table 4.11 Student A and B’s rating interest in the topic among nonfictions

A Title B Title

1 Baltic Rescue 1 Baltic Rescue

2 Sonia Joins the Supreme Court 2 Desert People

3 Salt Rocks 3 Salt Rocks

4 Desert People 4 Sonia Joins the Supreme Court

5 Barack Obama 5 Barack Obama


5 Summer Olympics Legends 5 Summer Olympics Legends

Table 4.12 Student A and B’s rating interest in the topic among nonfictions

A Title B Title

1 Pluto’s new friends 1 Pluto’s new friends

2 Goldilocks and the three bears 2 The backpack Tax

3 Mystery at Camp White Cloud 3 Mystery at Camp White Cloud

4 The backpack Tax 4 Goldilocks and the three bears

5 The Footprint 4 The Footprint

6 Rainy-Day Savings 6 Rainy-Day Savings

Interestingly, both student A and B determined the ranking in similar ways.

Both students were interested in ‘Baltic Rescue’ most, but they were not

interested in ‘Summer Olympics Legends’ and ‘Barack Obama’ least in

fiction stories. Also, student A and B prioritized ‘Pluto’s new friends’ was the


most interesting topic and ‘Rainy-Day savings’ was the least interesting topic

among the fiction stories. In addition, students produced high scores on

‘Baltic Rescue’ and ‘Pluto’s new friends’ that they regarded as the most

interesting books.

On the other hand, students got the lowest scores on ‘Summer

Olympics Legends’ and ‘Rainy-Day savings’ that were put on the least

interesting story. The teacher wrote students’ behaviors in QtA of ‘Summer

Olympics Legends’. Students’ less interest in the story was observed during

QtA in the teacher’s journal (see Excerpt 4.5).

Excerpt 4.5 Students’ little interest in Summer Olympics Legends

(2014. 1. 19)

Student A could not answer my questions. He looked tired so he could not

concentrate on this class. Student B looked bored, and she checked the number of the

pages of this book. Also, she touched her hair and her arm. Student A and B seemed

less interested in this book. Moreover, both students hardly remember what they

learn two days ago. I have doubts about keeping conducting my research. Also, I

wonder how many scores they would produce.

As the teacher wrote, both students produced the lowest scores ‘2’ on

‘Summer Olympics Legends’.

However, both students put ‘Barack Obama’ in the last place, but

student A got the third higher score and student B got the highest score on

nonfictions stories. With these results, it is obvious that students’ interest in


the topic would be somewhat connected to students’ retelling scores.

In summary, students’ interest in the topic and story were likely to

influence their retelling scores, but in some books, there was not relationship

between their interest and scores.

4.3 Students’ perception of QtA

The interview questions consist of three parts: the role of QtA in reading

class, the preferences between QtA and previous reading class, and the

degree of the help in using QtA.

4.3.1 Students’ understanding the role of QtA

One question was asked about the reason why the teacher conducts QtA

instead of the previous reading class. Student A and B answered to improve

their reading comprehension and English reading skills in every interview.

However, in student A case, he added more in his interview. Student A said

QtA helps him to develop his English skill, especially speaking skill. Finally,

in the last interview, he said that QtA makes him improve overall English

skills such as speaking and writing.

To sum up, both understood the teacher used QtA to help them develop

their reading comprehension. In addition, QtA would make them have better

English skill.

4.3.2 Students’ preferring QtA to the previous reading class

Student A and B said QtA is much more interesting than the previous reading


class. About the first question of why QtA helps them understand the English

better compared to the previous class, student A was interviewed (see

Excerpt 4.6).

Excerpt 4.6 Student A’s interview about QtA (2013. 11. 10)

I like reading class that I am taking now. Previous reading class seems robotic, for

example, as soon as I read an English book, I had to translate it into Korean, but now

I do not need to translate. What I need to do is to understand the story.

Now, this class encourages me to think about the meaning and to tell about my

thinking in front of my teacher and my peer. It makes me digest the content of the

story. If I continue this class, I think my reading skill could increase and I can read

English books by myself.

Student A answered in Korean.

Likewise, student A showed his preference on QtA to the previous reading

class because as he mentioned, QtA helped him comprehend the content.

Student B also agreed that QtA helped her check her thinking about the

content compared to the previous reading class. Student B’s interview is as

follows (see Excerpt 4.7).

Excerpt 4.7 Student B’s interview about QtA (2013. 11. 10)

I prefer this class to the previous reading class because it is helpful. When I did my

reading homework including finding unknown words and solving comprehension

questions, I was confused if the meaning of the words I found was suitable in this

story. However, through my peer’s talk and the teacher’s talk in QtA, I can


understand the content even though the teacher speaks English. In the previous class

I would find unknown words with a dictionary to grab the gist of the book, but I

sometimes have a different opinion about the book. However, there was no way to

check whether my opinion was correct or not, but in QtA I can confirm my thinking

and compare it with others. That is why I like QtA more.

Student B answered in Korean.

About the second question that which you like more, talking about

English books with peers or reading English book alone, student A answered

he liked talking about the story more because he can learned what he did not

know by listening the peer’s and the teacher’s thought and questions, which

made him foster his thinking power. Also, student B answered while she

talked about the story with her peer and the teacher, she felt confident.

Student B said she seemed to improve her thinking power, understood the

story well, and learn new words she did not know during QtA.

4.3.3 Students’ thinking of using QtA

In order to figure out students’ thinking of using QtA for their future reading,

one question was given to students.

About the question that how you will use this QtA in your own

reading, both students answered QtA will be helpful to pick up the main idea

and the author’s intent to understand the text better. Student A said that he

tried to think about the reason why the author wrote book in Korean essay

class. It helped him understand the context. On the other hand, student B said


she does not like reading books, so she is not sure of using QtA in her own

reading. However, student B agreed if she thought of the author’s purpose in

the book, student B could understand well.

Both students showed positive perceptions of using QtA and both students

agreed it helps them comprehend the context better than before.

To sum up, students considered QtA a helper for their improvement of

comprehension and English skill and both students preferred QtA class to the

previous reading class because they could concentrate on the content of the

story. With discussion they could reduce the gap between their understanding

and the content that the author really wanted to say. Also, both agreed that if

they use QtA in their reading, their comprehension would be developed.

ChapterⅤDiscussion

5. Discussion

The central purposes of this study were 1) to figure out the factors may

influence students’ retelling scores in QtA and 2) to know students’

perception of QtA. The results will be discussed to deal with two purposes.


5.1 Research Question 1

What factors may influence students’ retelling scores?

Since there was no control group, the amount of the influence of each factor

could not be measured. By comparing the retelling scores with observation,

students’ interviews, and teacher’s journal, the data will be explained with

other researches. The finding of this study is not clear, but there is some

evidence that students would be affected by some factors.

This research hypothesis is that students’ world knowledge, word

knowledge, interest, and teachers’ questions are related to students’ retelling

scores. Like Calisir and Gurel (2003), Ozuru et al. (2009), Tarch (2010)’s

findings, students world (prior, domain, or contextual) knowledge seemed

closely connected to students’ retelling scores. In students’ interviews,

student A and B showed they already had world knowledge about Pluto and

Barack Obama. It made students get the high scores. On the other hand, as

students already interviewed, they did not know about some events of the

Olympics and the athletes’ name and terms about economy such as interest,

so it occurred they got the lowest scores.

What’s more, their ample world knowledge was likely to lead students

to understand the words in the text accordingly, but students showed students

had difficulties using and understanding words in the text in inappropriate

ways when their lack of world knowledge in the text such as interest. This


finding is opposite to Tannenbaum et al. (2006)’s finding that breadth of

word knowledge that has regarded as the quantity or number of words

(Nation, 2001, as cited in Nassaji, 2004) was strongly connected with

reading comprehension. In that case, in QtA students showed their thinking

and responded to teachers’ questions. When the teacher asked a definition of

the word, one of students answered it. Also, as students asked the teacher

about the definition of the word, the teacher threw an inferential question to

let student guess the meaning or gave an explanation of the meaning directly

or indirectly. Therefore, breath of word knowledge did not seem a problem in

QtA, but depth of word knowledge which “how well the learner knows a

word” (Meara, 1996; Read, 1993, 2000, as cited in Nassaji, 2004, p. 112)

seemed to matter. When students read text, they not only know the meaning,

but also students “expect in light of what they already know about a concept”

(Seidenberg, 1982 as cited in Sáenz & Fuchs, 2002, p. 33) in accordance

with schema theory.

In addition, this study showed when they had difficulty understanding

the words inappropriately, students produced poor retelling scores. It means

students with poor word knowledge possibly get low scores on reading

comprehension as Tannenbaum et al. (2006), Zhang and Annual (2008), and

Rictetts et al. (2007)’ findings that reading comprehension is highly

correlated with word knowledge. In students’ interviews, students with


abundant world knowledge had enough word knowledge on ‘Baltic Rescue’

and ‘Pluto’s new friends’ directly or indirectly through QtA, which helped

students produce high retelling scores.

On interviews, students A and B displayed they were less interested in

‘Barack Obama’, but they got the high scores. Also, students already knew

about the story of ‘Goldilocks and the three bears’, but they produced the

scores below average. Those are explained by Schiefele and Krapp (1996),

ETIN (2010)’s finding that readers’ interest was independent of readers’

world knowledge. However, it is obvious that students with high interest and

high world knowledge produce high retelling scores as ETIN (2010) and

Boscolo and Mason (2003) found. Student A and B graded ‘Pluto’s new

friends’ as the most interesting fiction story, and they had world knowledge

about Pluto. Both readers’ interest and world knowledge made better scores.

It could be said topic interest seemed related to the amount of readers’ world

knowledge (Boscolo and Mason, 2003). Also, as students determined the

ranking about the topic, students got the high or low scores except ‘Barack

Obama’. This finding is similar to Schiefele and Krapp (1996)’s finding that

topic interest was highly related to students’ recall.

As far as students’ world, word, and interest are concerned, this study

has in common. When students had high interest, ample world knowledge,

and word knowledge, they made high scores while students with low


interest, poor world knowledge, and poor word knowledge produced low

scores. It presumes that students’ world knowledge, word knowledge, and

interest are closely connected with their reading comprehension scores.

In QtA, it is expected that teacher would use inferential questions for

students to construct their knowledge and to find out the author’s intent. This

study showed the inferential questions seems to affect students to build their

knowledge and it seems to affect their retelling scores as Erdogan and

Campbell (2008)’s study, and Van den Broek et al. (2001)’s finding that

students had a benefit from inferential questions. However, in Van den Broek

et al. (2001)’s study, it was not proven that why inferential questions did not

work to less proficient students. In this study, students showed they got the

low scores on some texts even though the teacher asked many inferential

questions. With student’s interviews, the scores had overlapped points. The

lowest scores on nonfiction and fiction story showed students had low

interest, world knowledge, and word knowledge about them. Considering

students’ world knowledge is strongly related to word knowledge, maybe

world knowledge would be a main factor to prevent students from

constructing their knowledge. In light of the constructivist theory, students

used the world knowledge that they already acquired to build meanings by

inferring the meaning from text and integrating new world knowledge with

world knowledge they had (Applefield et al., 2001; Spivey, 1987). As


Rosenblatt (l993) mentioned, students produce diverse interpretation of text

by inferential questions. Also, as reader-response theorists claimed, students

can share their responses with peers (Scott, 1994). However, because of both

students’ lack of world knowledge, students could not build meanings and

create their interpretation of text with the teachers’ inferential questions.

Therefore, another hypothesis would be deduced from this study that without

world knowledge, teachers’ inferential questions do not work to students’

reading comprehension. World knowledge plays a significant part, as it

allows readers to create inferences to comprehend the text (Pressley, 2006 as

cited in Fan, 2010).

In conclusion, students’ world knowledge, word knowledge, interest,

and teachers’ inferential questions seem to play central roles in retelling

scores. When it comes to word knowledge, it is likely connected with

students’ world knowledge. With regard to teachers’ inferential questions

when students have world knowledge, the inferential questions make

students build meanings and create interpretation of text by going beyond the

author’s intent. Therefore, world knowledge seems to work to students’

retelling scores mainly.

5.2 Research Question 2

What are students’ perceptions of QtA?

Finding out an author’s intent or purpose is one of basic skills for


comprehension in reading (Davis, 1944). QtA might is appropriate for it.

Most of the researches conducted with QtA have focused on development of

readers’ comprehension (McKeown et al., 1996; Sandora et al,. 1999;

Reichenberg, 20009; Liu and Chu, 2008). Among them, only McKeown et

al., (1996)’s study examined students’ perception of QtA. This study also

focuses on students’ perceptions of QtA and comparison QtA and previous

reading class for future students’ reading classes.

The interviews were conducted to demonstrate how students think about

QtA, how students prefer QtA to previous reading class, and students will

use QtA for their reading. The results of interviews were quiet positive.

What is remarkable for the findings of this study is that students were in

favor of QtA. Students answered QtA is one of tools to help them for

improvement of reading comprehension and overall English skills.

Also, for preference between QtA and the previous reading class,

students thought the previous reading class was robotic and mechanical.

They just found new words with their dictionaries and translate English into

Korean mechanically, so students felt bored. Even they could not know

whether they understood the content or not. However, they could check their

understanding with peers and the teacher during QtA, which lets students

have confidence about their reading. This result was similar with McKeown

et al., (1996)’s finding that students had confidence about their thinking.


Also, they did not need to focus on translation, but students had to focus on

understanding the content. In a transactional reader-response theory point of

view, students come up with their idea by constructing their world

knowledge in their schema. Through teachers’ questions, students themselves

fill a gap by creating answers with their acquired knowledge (Anderson et

al., 1985). In the previous reading class, students did not think about the

author’s intent but they just thought about the surface information for their

grade of the school test. The previous reading class may helpful for their

grade, but it was not a real purpose of reading class that become critical

readers who go beyond the author’s point of view to create meanings

(Rosenblatt, 1993).

For using QtA for their reading, students answered that it would be

useful to think about the author’s intent when they read a book. One student

already used QtA in his essay class. Student A said QtA led him to

understand the content more. Student B also answered positively, but it is

doubtable whether student B uses QtA in her reading because she said she

does not like reading books.

To sum, both students have positive perception about QtA compared to

the previous reading class. They showed their interest in using QtA and their

preference on QtA compared to the previous reading class.


Chapter Ⅵ Conclusion

6. Conclusion

6.1 Conclusion of this study

This study was conducted to investigate the factors that would influence the


retelling scores and the perception of QtA. The reason why the researcher

investigate the factors was that many researches that teach reading

comprehension strategies have focused on how successful the training or

teaching reading strategies. However, it is questionable that only the strategy

affects students’ reading comprehension or the result, so this study was

planned to figure out what factor would affect the result by using QtA.

Firstly, according to the findings of study, students’ world knowledge,

word knowledge, and interest were significantly related to students’ retelling

scores. Students’ world knowledge and their interest seemed work as

independent factors, but students’ world knowledge and word knowledge

were regarded as dependent factors. What’ more, teacher’s inferential

questions seemed strongly related to students’ world knowledge which

would affect students’ retelling scores. Students with high interest, world

knowledge, word knowledge, and the number of inferential questions

produced high scores while students with low interest, world knowledge, and

word knowledge got low scores regardless of the number of inferential

questions. Therefore, although students’ world knowledge, word knowledge,

interest, and teacher’s inferential questions could influence students’ reading

comprehension, but the main prerequisite to successful reading

comprehension is students’ word knowledge among factors.

Secondly, unlike the previous reading class, QtA may offer an opportunity


to build the meaning from the text. Also, QtA may offer students an

opportunity to focus on thinking of the authors’ intent and the content, so it

might lead students to build the meaning from the text with high level

questions. Finally, students could use it in their own reading and become

critical readers as the purpose of reading books.

6.2 Implication

The findings of this study offer some pedagogical implications for Korean

teachers in EFL reading context. First, world knowledge is important for

students not only to build the meaning from the text for their comprehension

in reading but also to learn contextual words from text. However, without

teachers’ guiding to comprehension and using the words appropriately,

students may lose their point and interest in reading. Second, QtA is a good

tool for students to share their world knowledge, word knowledge in reading

class and draw students’ attention to reading. By talking about the author’s

intent and main ideas from the text with peers and teachers, students could

learn their word and world knowledge, which helps students construct the

meanings. Third, in order to forest students’ reading comprehension, teachers

need to focus on asking inferential questions more than literal questions.

Since teachers’ questions play a role of connecting students’ world

knowledge with the text, students’ reading comprehension would be

developed.


6.3 Limitations and suggestions

There were several limitations in this study. First, it was difficult to

generalize the result of this study because the participants were not randomly

chosen, due to the researchers’ condition participants were just the students

that the researcher taught together in the same time and the number of

participants was relatively small. If this study had been conducted with a lot

of participants, the results could be different. Second, 12 weeks’ short

duration of this study was not enough to draw a conclusion from this study.

Third, there was a break for about one month because of students’ finial test,

which might affect their retelling scores. Fourth, there was one grader who

scored participants’ retelling scores. Two or more graders would be more

appropriate to get more reliable scores. Five, this study aimed at finding out

the factors that would affect participants’ retelling scores, so participants

were not encouraged to use English in their reading class.

In order to resolve these limitations for further study, it is essential that

the study be conducted with more participants by randomly choosing them.

Also, a prolonged study and consecutive study are needed to generalize the

findings. To get reliable scores, co-graders are needed. In addition, so as to

know about whether QtA would influence students’ English skills, the

researchers ask participants to use English as possible as they can.


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Zucker, T. A., Justice, L. M., Piasta, S. B., & Kaderavek, J. N. (2010).

Preschool teachers’ literal and inferential questions and children's

responses during whole-class shared reading. Early Childhood

Research Quarterly, 25(1), 65-83.

http://repository.nie.edu.sg/jspui/handle/10497/19


Appendix A

The way used to calculate students’ English scores in participants’ middle

school.

Test scores: Those scores consist of mid-term and final tests. Each test

accounts for 35 from 70. If students get perfect scores in each test, they get

70.

Listening scores: Students take an English listening comprehension test

which consists of 20 questions every semester. The test result accounts for

10.

Reading scores: There is a system that students have to read the certain

number of books that have a certain point. The book points that students read

have to reach 200 points. To get the point, students should log in a reading

gate cite, and they need to take a comprehension test. If students reach 200

points, they can get 5 for reading score.

Writing scores: The middle school appoints an English trade book for


writing test. Students have to read the book by the reading test. English

teachers allocate a question differently, and then students have to write it on

the paper in English. The perfect score is 15. The book that was designated

for the second grade students (SA) was ‘Number the stars’ and was

appointed for the first grade students (SB) was ‘Charlotte’s web’.

Appendix B

Definitions of types of text

Adventure: stories that include elements of the unknown, danger,

risk, or excitement

Biography: nonfiction texts about the facts and events of a real

person's life

Fables: folktales with animals that have a moral

Fairy Tales: folktales that contain magic and conflict between good

and evil

General Folktales: stories that may contain elements from different

types of folktales, including fables, fairy tales, legends, pourquoi

tales, and tall tales

Interview: written accounts of conversations between two or more

individuals through direct quotes

Legends: folktales that explain events in the world after its creation;

includes stories about the supernatural and adventures of real heroes

Mysteries: suspenseful stories about a crime or other event, the

writing of which involves the process of solving a puzzle

Persuasive: texts that attempt to convince readers to embrace a

particular point of view


Pourquoi Tales: folktales that explain the origins of a characteristic

or feature, often within nature

Tall Tales: folktales about characters with exaggerated adventures

and abilities for a dramatic and/or humorous effect

This definitions are provided by reading a to z.

Appendix C

Introduction for Questioning the Author Strategy We are going to be learning a new strategy to help our comprehension

called “Questioning the Author.” What do you think we might be doing?

How could we question the author? For what reason would a reader question

the author?

Well, many readers have found that sometimes the author thinks they

know more about a subject already than they really do. Therefore, the author

may think he or she is being clear, when the reader is missing some

important information that would help them read and understand better. So,

if we ask ourselves what the author is doing or why the author is telling us

something, we might better comprehend or understand what is meant.

Sometimes, the author leaves clues in the text to help us keep a track of the

authors’ intents that is really important such as main idea or massage.

There are two types of stories non-fictions and fictions. In non-fiction

stories, there are more facts and information that is presented. It might be the

order of what happened, which consists of the cause and effect of some

actions or the comparison and contrast of different ideas. Fiction stories are

what we are most used to. It is the story from with a setting, characters, a

problem, attempts to solve it and a resolution. We will learn how to ask the


author and ourselves questions to understand both kinds of writing. This

strategy should help us do our best.

2002 Adaptation of introduction of QtA written by Patricia Antoinette

McHale Flynn from Dialogic approaches toward developing third graders'

comprehension using Questioning the Author and its influence on teacher

change (Doctoral dissertation). ETD Collection for Fordham University.

Appendix D

The schedule and topics of the books

Week Classes Date Times Participants

1 Baltic Rescue1 Oct. 23th 25 min.

(each)Two(One girl in grad 7 and one boy in grade 8)

2 Oct. 26th

2 Barack Obama1 Oct. 30th

35 min.(each)

2 Nov. 2nd

3 Salt Rocks1 Nov. 6th2 Nov. 9th

4 Desert People1 Nov. 13th2 Nov. 16th

5 Rainy-Day Savings1 Dec. 19th2 Dec. 22th

6Goldilocks and the three bears

1 Dec. 26th 25 min.(each)2 Dec. 29th

7 The Footprint1 Jan. 2nd

30 min.(each)

2 Jan. 5th

8Mystery at Camp White Cloud

1 Jan. 9th2 Jan. 12th

9 Summer Olympics Legends1 Jan. 16th 35 min.

(each)2 Jan. 19th10 Sonia Joins the Supreme

Court1 Jan. 23th 30 min.

(each)2 Jan. 26th


11 Pluto’s new friends1 Feb. 6th

25 min.(each)

2 Feb. 9th

12 The backpack Tax1 Feb. 13th2 Feb. 16th

Appendix E

RetellingYou will read and write retellings for one story. After we have

finished reading, return the story to me. You may not use the story book to help you with your retelling. I will give you a sheet of lined paper. Write a retelling of the story you just read, including all the important facts and details to the best of your ability. When you are finishing writing your retelling, turn it in to me.


Appendix F

Retelling

여러분은 책을 읽고 retelling 을 해야 합니다. 리딩 수업이 끝난 후, 책을 선생님께

돌려드리세요. 여러분은 retelling 을 위해서 책을 다시 읽을 수 없습니다. 이 종이에

이 책에 대한 가장 중요했던 사실들을 세부사항과 함께 retelling 을 하시기 바랍니다.

쓰기가 끝난 후, 이 종이를 선생님께 제출하시기 바랍니다

Appendix G


Assessment: Fiction retelling (Scoring rubric)Student’ s name:Date:Title:Reviewer:This assessment is completed by

Rubric for Scoring Individual Story Elements

Complete, detailed 3 points

Partial 2 points

Fragmentary (sketchy) 1 points

Inaccurate or not included 0 points

Key

Elements

Prompts 0 1 2 3

Beginning How does the story begin?

Setting Where does the story occur?

Characters Who are the main characters?

Which was most important? Why?


Problem What is one important problem in the story?

Sequence What important things happened in the story?

What was the order of events?

Resolution How is the problem solved?

How does the story end?

Level of prompting: high (1), medium (2), none (3)

Total points :

Total points 15-21: Skilled, 8-14: Developing, 0-7: Needs work

This rubric is adopted from reading a to z.

Appendix H

Assessment: Nonfiction retelling (Scoring rubric)Student’ s name:Date:Title:Reviewer:This assessment is completed by

Rubric for Scoring Individual Story Elements

Complete, detailed 3 points

Partial 2 points


Fragmentary (sketchy) 1 points

Inaccurate or not included 0 points

Key Elements Prompts 0 1 2 3

Topic(understands the topic)

What is this book about?

Main idea(s) What are the main ideas of the book (sections)?

Details(recalls details linked to main ideas)

Name the supporting details of each main idea.

Organization(knows how the book is organized)

How is the information in the book organized?(e.g., chronological, classification, randomly)

Command ofvocabulary(uses key vocabulary from story)

What are some of the key terms presented in the book?

Accuracy(retells facts accurately)

How is the problem solved?How does the story end?

Level of prompting: high (1), medium (2), none (3)


Total points :

Total points 15-21: Skilled, 8-14: Developing, 0-7: Needs work

This rubric is adopted from reading a to z.

Appendix I

The survey of students’ perception of reading and choosing the books

1. Do you like reading books? Why or why not?

2. Do you think reading is important? Why?

3. When you choose a book, what do you consider?

1) Topic 2) Cover 3) Page 4) Pictures in the book 5) No matter

4. What kinds of the stories do you like most?

1) Fiction narrative story 2) Non-fiction expository story

5. What kinds of fiction or nonfiction story do you like most?

6. Which genres of books do you like to read or listen to? (check all that you

like)

_____ nonfiction/informational _____ adventure

_____ biography/autobiography _____ poetry

_____ realistic fiction _____ mystery/suspense

_____ historical fiction _____ series

_____ science fiction _____ other

_____ fantasy


7. Why do you choose the genre?

Appendix J

책 선호도 조사

1. 책 읽는 것을 좋아합니까? 이유를 쓰세요.

2. 책 읽는 것이 중요하다고 생각합니까? 이유를 쓰세요.

3. 책을 선택할 때, 무엇을 주로 생각하며 고릅니까?1) 주제 2) 표지 3) 책 페이지수 4) 책속의 그림등 5) 상관없다.

4. 어떤 종류의 책을 좋아합니까?1) 소설종류 2) 설명문과 같은 종류

5. 4 번 질문에서 1 번 혹은 2 번을 선택한 이유를 쓰세요.

6. 어떤 장르의 책을 좋아하는지 표시하세요. _____ 실화 바탕의 책/ 정보가 많은 책 _____ 모험 이야기_____ 전기 혹은 자서전 _____ 시집_____ 현실과 비슷한 소설 _____ 미스터리 이야기_____ 역사 소설 _____ 시리즈류_____ 과학 소설 _____ 기타_____ 판타지

7. 왜 위의 책들을 선택했는지 이유를 쓰세요.

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