Developing Comprehension Skills

  Author: Julie Johnson

Comprehension is arguably the most important part of reading; it is the point after all. If you don’t understand what you’ve read, what was the point of reading it in the first place? As such, learning comprehension skills are critical to beginning readers. There are many strategies that have research-based evidence supporting them, but I have chosen to focus on story mapping for the purpose of this paper. I hypothesize that the use of story mapping in the classroom will significantly benefit ESL and other special needs learners in their ability to comprehend narrative texts.  

To support my research into this hypothesis I propose the following questions to drive inquiry;  (1) How does story mapping help improve comprehension? (2) How has story mapping been used effectively with ESL students? (3) What were the results of using story mapping with students who have learning disabilities? (4) What other skills does story mapping help develop?

A story map is a type of graphic organizer and a good way for readers to visualize the different elements of a narrative story. It helps students identify and answer important questions about the story like, Who are the main characters?, What is the setting?, What is the main problem or conflict?, How are these things related?, and What is the sequence of the plot? (Adler, C.R., n.d.). Story mapping is a comprehension intervention strategy that has a lot of researched based evidence to support its effectiveness. For the purposes of this paper, I focused on five articles that discuss story mapping in relation to ESL and other special needs learners.

In the article, The Effect of Using the Story-Mapping Technique on Developing Tenth Grade Student’s Short Story Writing Skills in EFL, Salem Saleh Kaleh Ibnian confirmed several key thoughts about story mapping. Though his study was mostly about using story mapping to develop writing skills, he reiterated that story mapping has a profound impact on helping the students identify elements of stories like the beginning, middle, end, characters and interactions and the like, subsequently increasing their ability to understand and comprehend the story. He purported that ESL learners need the additional scaffolding that story mapping provides to help them with content and organization of the stories (Ibnian, S. K., 2010).

A Review of Story Mapping Instruction for Secondary Students with LD by Richard T. Boon et al, discussed how story mapping can be used to improve the reading comprehension skills of students in grades 6 to 12 who have learning disabilities. The results of his study indicated that story mapping is a very effective intervention that significantly increased comprehension in students with learning disabilities, and also that those students were able to maintain their improved comprehension skills over time (Boon, R. r., Paal, M., Hintz, A., & Cornelius-Freyre, M., 2015).

Improving Reading Comprehension for Elementary Students With Learning Disabilities: UDL Enhanced Story Mapping by Drue Narkon and Jenny Wells also studied how story mapping can be used to help students with learning disabilities. Narkon and Wells suggested ways to design lessons and instruction as to best improve comprehension. They gave evidence that using story mapping in conjunction with UDL, universal design for learning, allows students to maximize their interaction with the story, remain engaged, and be accessible to students of all levels (Narkon, D. n., & Wells, J. C., 2013).

The article Using Concept Mapping to Teach Young EFL Learners Reading Skills by Adeline Teo et al discussed how story mapping could be useful to EFL learner’s development of many different reading skills. Teo suggests that EFL readers are often poor readers due to lack of vocabulary and insufficient knowledge of reading strategies. Story maps can help those students overcome their difficulties by using concept maps to help them visualize and apply their knowledge. Her research shows that story maps benefit all areas of ESL reading development including comprehension, vocabulary, and language development. The article also gave several practical examples of how to actually use story maps in lessons (Teo, A., Shaw, Y. F., Chen, J., & Wang, D., 2016).

In Graphic organizers and other visual strategies to improve young ELLs' reading comprehension by Yanhui Pang, graphic organizers, including story maps, were listed as one of the main strategies that ELL students can use to improve their comprehension. The article suggests several strategies to improve comprehension with visualization being the common thread. Pang suggests that teachers modify their instruction with visual elements including story maps to help accommodate the specific needs of ELL learners, namely the need to expand their vocabulary (Pang, Y., 2013).

 

 

To really get an idea of the effectiveness of story mapping in the classroom, I wanted to see it in action. I had a lot of difficulty finding videos showing teachers actually using story mapping, however, there were hundreds of ‘how to’ videos. I did find a few good ones of actual practice during lessons and several other well made videos giving advice and directions on how to use and implement story mapping. The first video was called ‘Story Map Lesson’ by Caroline Ingle. In this video you could see the teacher, instructing how to use a story map to her class. She taught the children how to fill in a story map to help them comprehend different parts of the book they were reading during class (Ingle, C., 2010). This video really emphasized how the visualization aspect that Pang discussed in her article. Story maps can be used to check for understanding during reading and organizing thoughts after reading and this was shown during the video (Pang, 2013). The students seemed to enjoy the lesson and the story map was a useful tool to help them understand.

The second video was ‘2nd Grade Lesson The Hen and the Apple Tree 1’ by Jacquelyn Jenkins. In this video the teacher used story mapping as a small  part of a larger lesson on the story ‘The Hen and the Apple Tree’. While the class was reading the book the teacher in this lesson used a story map to draw attention to specific parts of the story (Jenkins, J. ,2013). Story mapping was used in this lessons to highlight key events in the story and guide the readers toward identifying the important information (Bolineau, et al., 2004).  This strategy seemed to really help the students understand the main idea of the Hen and the Apple tree and they were able to draw deeper meaning from the story due because of the story map. The students who appeared to be struggling were definitely helped by organizing their thoughts on the map. 

The third video was ‘First Grade Lesson – Giraffes Can’t Dance’ by Jacquelyn Jenkins.  In this video the teacher used story mapping as a small part of a larger lesson on the story ‘Giraffes Can’t Dance’. In this video you could see how the teacher used story mapping as a tool for comprehension (Jenkins, J. ,2012). The teacher used the story map to show how to organize and sequence the story by identifying the beginning, middle, and end (Bolineau et al., 2004). The students in this lesson were very young and were excited to contribute their thoughts on how to organize the sequence of events using the story map after reading the book.

The fourth video was ‘Erin’s Story Telling Lesson’ by Erin Klein. In this video the teacher, Mrs. Klein used story mapping as a part of a story lesson in her 2nd grade class. After watching the video it was clear that her students were already familiar with the story mapping strategy. While she read the story aloud, the children followed along and completed the story map identifying plot events, main characters and the key problem (Klein, E., n.d.).. It was clear the use of story mapping help the students to remain engaged in the lesson (Narkon, et al., 2013).

The last video I found was a video that was specific to using story mapping in an ESL Classroom. S.L. George’s video showed an example of story mapping in action in an ESL Classroom. This video was very closely connected to Teo’s article. They both noted that ESL students can fall behind in reading due to lack of vocabulary and the absence of a strategy to comprehend text while reading. They both suggested that story mapping was a good way to help ESL student identify and connect what they were reading to things they already know in their first language (Teo, et al., 2016). This video showed the students using story mapping as a tool to organize their thoughts. They filled in a story map based on identifying the characters, settings, events, and sequence (George, S. L., n.d.). 

I think story mapping is a suitable strategy for all tiers of student learning and has proven benefits for all learners. It is a flexible enough concept that it can easily be differentiated to suit all levels of students. That being said, I believe that story mapping can provide the most benefits to younger students just learning to read and older Tier 3 students. Story mapping should be taught as a strategy to young readers learning how to draw meaning from stories. As those students make progress in their abilities, the supports are gradually withdrawn and the learners can apply those strategies to their reading independently. For Tier 3 students, story mapping is a useful intervention. Story maps provide visual prompts and reminders of what the struggling readers should be looking for as they read a story. As the learners develop their skill and independent utilization of the strategy, the scaffolding can be withdrawn (Gersten, R., Compton, D., Connor, C.M., Dimino, J., Santoro, L., Linan-Thompson, S., and Tilly, W.D., 2008).  For example, readers who are really struggling to understand can be given a story map template with some key items already filled in. As they progress, the template will be blank and only indicate the categories, and finally the students will identify all the elements of the ‘template’ of the story map that they need to fill out and can independently create the map on a blank paper. The articles discussed within this paper all support the use of story mapping by Tier 3 learners as evidenced by the success of story mapping amongst ESL learners and students with disabilities. 

The story mapping strategies shown in the videos definitely help to support my hypothesis that the use of story mapping in the classroom will significantly benefit ESL and other special needs learners in their ability to comprehend narrative texts. The strategies shown in the videos support the hypothesis by showing engaged, motivated students who comprehended the content of the stories they were reading. The children were creating their own story maps and helping to fill in outlines created by the teacher, and they were interacting with the story in a thorough manner. The children were shown asking and answering questions about the plot, the story lines, the different characters and their interaction with each other, and identifying the different parts of the story in sequence. The engagement and understanding of the lessons was due in large part to the use of story mapping. You could see that it was a good way to help the students visually organize their thoughts about what they were reading or had just read.

 Story mapping is a comprehension strategy that should be taught to beginning readers and encouraged for independent use. It is also a useful intervention for readers struggling with comprehension issues and can be easily differentiated for different level of students to suit their individual needs. I will certainly teach and utilize story mapping in my classroom in the future. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

Adler, C.R., (n.d.). Seven Strategies to Teach Students Text Comprehension. Retrieved 7 June 2016 from http://www.readingrockets.org/article/seven-strategies-teach-students-text-comprehension.

Boon, R. r., Paal, M., Hintz, A., & Cornelius-Freyre, M. (2015). A Review of Story Mapping Instruction for Secondary Students with LD. Learning Disabilities -- A Contemporary Journal13(2), 117-140.

Boulineau, T., Fore, C., Hagan-Burke, S., & Burke, M. (2004). Use of story-mapping to increase the story-grammar text comprehension of elementary students with learning disabilities. Learning Disability Quarterly, 27(2), 105-121 

George, S. L. (n.d.). ESOL Strategy – Story Mapping. Retrieved 8 June 2016 from http://www.schooltube.com/video/9720deb541e9445db8f4/ESOL-strategy-Story-Mapping.

Gersten, R., Compton, D., Connor, C.M., Dimino, J., Santoro, L., Linan-Thompson, S., and Tilly, W.D. (2008). Assisting students struggling with reading: Response to Intervention and multi-tier intervention for reading in the primary grades. A practice guide. Retrieved 6 June 2016 from http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/publications/practiceguides/.

Ibnian, S. K. (2010). The Effect of Using the Story-Mapping Technique on Developing Tenth Grade Students' Short Story Writing Skills in EFL. English Language Teaching3(4), 181-194.

Ingle, C. (2010). Story Map Lesson. Retrieved 8 June 2016 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqp9KTGrCM8.

Jenkins, J. (2012). 1st Grade Lesson – Giraffes Can’t Dance. Retrieved 8 June 2016 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0mbAv97xKg.

Jenkins, J. (2013). 2nd Grade Lesson The Hen and The Apple Tree 1. Retrieved 8 June 2016 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRzwyTa936c.

Klein, E. (n.d.). Erin’s Story Telling Lesson. Retrieved 8 June 2016 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrlsPpyhYY.

Narkon, D. n., & Wells, J. C. (2013). Improving Reading Comprehension for Elementary Students With Learning Disabilities: UDL Enhanced Story Mapping. Preventing School Failure57(4), 231-239. doi:10.1080/1045988X.2012.726286 

Pang, Y. (2013). Graphic organizers and other visual strategies to improve young ELLs' reading comprehension. New England Reading Association Journal, 48(2), 52-58.

Riebli, Z. (2010). Balanced Literacy Mini-Lesson. Retrieved 8 June 2016 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtMorsCKqVg

Teo, A., Shaw, Y. F., Chen, J., & Wang, D. (2016). Using Concept Mapping to Teach Young EFL Learners Reading Skills. English Teaching Forum: A Journal For The Teacher Of English Outside The United States54(2), 20.

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