Action Research

1. What is the title of the project?
Using Readers Theater to Show Off Good Reading

2. What is the problem?
How can I effectively utilize readers theater to improve the fluency and reading comprehension skills of my students?

3. Describe the instructional intervention.
Readers Theater was used to help students with their fluency rate as well as comprehension skills.
4. What kind of strategy is the instructional intervention?
Simulations and Games because the students are creating a simulation of the story by reading out loud to the class and therefore increasing their fluency rate and comprehension skills.

5. What evidence is presented that the strategy will work?
•Games have been found to serve a range of functions in education including tutoring, exploring and practicing skills, and attitude change (Dempsey et al., 1994).
•Simulation environments and modeling have unique capabilities for enhancing learning (Gordin & Pea, 1995)
•Simulations can provide students engaging experiences towards learning crisis -management, communication and problem solving, data management, and collaboration (Gredler, 1994).

6. How will data be collected to determine if the strategy will work?
Fluency assessments from an informal reading inventory (level three) were administered at the start, and at the fourth week, eighth week and conclusion of the study to assess and monitor overall improvement of reading fluency skills including word recognition accuracy, reading rate, reading expression and comprehension.

Two surveys were administered—one at the start and one at the conclusion of the study—to assess changes in the reading habits and interests of the students.

Student performances of readers theater scripts were taped and analyzed weekly to monitor improvements in fluency. A rubric was utilized for the students to self-assess their own progress during the study

7. How was the data analyzed?
The data was analyzed in groups braking the data down into the four major groups - academically talented, general education, bilingual and special needs - represented in the classroom.

8. What were the results?
The results showed the academically talented group showed no gain because they were already fluent readers with great comprehension. It also showed the same percentage of gains in word recognition for the remaining groups. Overall comprehension was greater for the general education and special needs students than the bilingual students. Readers theater improved the students’ reading rate, word recognition accuracy and use of expression while reading as well as their attitudes toward reading. They benefited both from the multiple interactions with the text and with their peers, resulting in improved fluency and comprehension levels.