Annotation Strategy for Reading Comprehension
Introduction
Students need to have someone who supports them to improve and develop their reading skills, especially students with learning disabilities. Every teacher, even content area teachers, need to use some methods to help their students with reading comprehension, because if the students lack the knowledge of reading comprehensions, their performance deteriorates. There are different methods that teachers can use to help students in reading comprehensions. These methods include GIST, annotation, and a technique that found by Aulls, which uses four rules (Mary, Robyn, Marie, & Peter, 2013). The GIST technique involves summarizing of a text in fifteen words only while the four-rule technique involves identifying of the main ideas in a text. These two methods are not widely used because they require readers to identify the main idea in a text. Critics of these methods argue that different ideas in a text may differ depending on the individual reading the story. The critics suggest annotation as the best method because it requires readers to identify all the essential ideas in a text (Daniels & Steineke, 2011). Annotation is a technique where teachers ask students to read comprehensions and write down the critical points; the learners write as they read. The method is said to be the best because the reader has to concentrate in order to extract essential points (Kasim, Mustafa & Seyit, 2011).
The annotation strategy is the great way to develop and improve reading comprehension for middle and high school students. Many students have increased their reading skills by listening to the teacher, reading aloud and having students annotate, especially when they are first learning annotation skills (Carol,2004). These methods are not preferred in the modern curricula because most of the times, the student’s level of concentration decreases; this happens because these methods do not engage the student completely. According to Mary, Robyn, Marie and Peter, the annotation technique changes how students read comprehensions; for example, it slows the students reading, improves the students writing skills, increases the level of understanding of difficult texts, and increases concentration. Sarah, Lindsay, Eason, Goldberg, Katherine, Young, and Megan (2012) conducted a study to find out how different texts and question influence cognitive skills needed for reading comprehension. The researchers studied a class of children aged between ten and fourteen years. The researchers chose students from the class by conducting a telephone screening; the examiners assigned tests to the learners who passed the screening stage (Daniels & Steineke, 2011). The examiners used SDRT-4 to assess the reading capability of every student. The test found out that differences that existed in text difficulty between various levels was insignificant. The capability of reading comprehension went down as the tests became harder; this was the case from the lower to the higher classes (Kasim, Mustafa & Seyit, 2011).
Christina and Pamela (2013) conducted the second study. The research aimed at investigating whether contrasting text structure helps students with autism spectrum disorder to comprehend scientific text. Three middle school students with high functioning autism and their teacher participated in the study. All the students received occupational therapy and language pathology services; the study used comprehension questions. The results showed that all the three students increased comprehension with the instructional support. After the study, the researchers recommended that individual with ASD should have access to instructions; this is because directions enable learners to access content that improves their social learning and academic performance.
Carol (2004) carried out a study in Teaching Annotation Skills to Improve Reading Comprehension. The students read a short story with a transparency of the annotating text bookmark, with some different symbols to use with comments. The class that used this strategy showed increases in the students understanding; this strategy also helped learners to become more active when reading.
Intervention Implementation:
Pretest/Posttest
The teacher gives students a short story to read; the lecturer then asks students to read the passage and mark up the text, and write what they think will help them to increase their level of understanding. This test also includes comprehension questions to evaluate the student’s initial reading level. There are two types of comprehension questions; these are inferential and literal questions. A lecturer uses literal questions to check whether students remember the content of the text. Inferential question, on the other hand, test whether students can relate information in the text with real life situations. These questions also test the students’ capability of relating different parts of the comprehension. After that, the teacher checks if the students know how to annotate by checking their notes and ensuring that they follow all the essential steps of the technique (Cutting & Scarborough, 2006). The professor gives the students the same test in the last semester, to see how much this strategy helps students to improve their reading comprehension. The professor compares the first test with the final test; if students perform better in the final test than in the first test, the lecturer concludes that students are learning annotation successfully (Cutting & Scarborough, 2006). When the lecturer discovers that, the performance in the final tests poorer that the previous test he or she repeats the technique in the following semester.
Describe The Strategy:
Annotation strategy is one of useful ways to help students understand the text especially, in ELA and Social studies classes; this is because the students write while reading. Students write what they understand in the text, and they relate the comprehension with real situations. Students answer questions that help them in the annotation process. According to Carol (2004), “Annotating helps readers reach a deeper level of engagement and promotes active reading.” The teacher trains students about the strategy and gives them a handout that contains the instructions. The purpose of using this strategy and the essential tools is contained in sticky notes or highlighter tape. The teacher will also create a poster about how students can annotate.
Model:
The teacher explains to students the purpose of the strategy, the steps, and the fact that learners are expected to use this strategy in class. After that, the teacher will have a poster about short story; the professor reads the story aloud to the learners. The lecturer divides the story into parts; he or she reads the different parts separately. This helps to reduce boredom and increase the student’s attentiveness (Daaniel, & Steineke, 2011). The teacher uses this strategy while reading by writing questions, noting unfamiliar words, and any other useful information. The teacher writes the essential ideas separately; the lecturer writes any information that is related to each idea below that point. Students are motivated to apply this technique when they observe the teacher; the learners then start using the strategy. Learners read the text and draw useful points; this takes place with the help of the teacher. The professor helps the students to identify essential points in the comprehension; this is done by identifying the reason why the story cannot make sense without that point (Sarah, Lindsay, Young & Megan, 2012).
Verbal Practice:
After teaching, the teacher asks students to explain the strategy to each other and write what they understand. After that, the teacher requests the students to repeat the steps of the strategy to make sure they all understand, and that they do not miss any step. If professor finds out that learners do not understand clearly, he or she teaches the technique again. When this step ends, the instructor asks students to write down the essential steps of the technique, and the impact that the step makes on their understanding.
Controlled and advanced practice:
In this stage, the teacher reviews the annotation strategy with students and asks students questions about the strategy. The teacher gives students a short story and asks them to do just two pages of the story. The professor gives the students a paper of the annotation symbols; this list acts as a guide to annotating the story.
In the next step, the teacher asks the class to discuss their notes with classmates and then share the notes with the whole class.
Generalization:
The teacher discusses the strategy with the students, and they talk about how they can use it with other classes; the professor then collaborates with content area teachers (Daaniel, & Steineke, 2011). The professor encourages students to use annotation in science and social studies as well as English. After two weeks of using this strategy, the teacher asks the students to write a reflection about the technique.
Conclusion:
Reading comprehension is an essential skill for children in school settings and beyond. A broad range of tasks requires children to comprehend written text, particularly as children progress in school and as the learners are expected to learn more independently (Sarah, Lindsay, Young & Megan, 2012). Annotation is one strategy that encourages students to read closely, ask questions, and look deep into texts to make meaning. The technique benefits students with learning disabilities an all schools should adopt the strategy.
References:
Mary, H., Robyn, B., Marie, M. & Peter, F. (2013). Three important words: students choose vocabulary to build comprehension of informational text. Illinois reading council journal (41) 3. 1-11
Kasim, Y., Mustafa, Y. & Seyit, A. (2011). Is vocabulary a strong variable predicting reading comprehension and does the prediction degree of vocabulary vary according to text types. Educational sciences theory and practice (11)3. 1541- 1547
Corol, P. (2004). Beyond the yellow highlighter: teaching annotation skills to improve reading comprehension. English journal (93) 5.82-89
Sarah, H.E., Lindsay, F.G., Young, M.K., & Megan, C.G. (2012). Reader text interactions-how differential texts and question types influence cognitive skills needed for reading comprehension. Journal of educational psychology (104) 3. 515-528
Christina, R.C., & Pamela, S.W. (2013). Does compare-contrast text structure help students with autism spectrum disorder comprehend science text? Exceptional children (79) 3. 347-363
Cutting, L.E., & Scarborough, H.S. (2006). Prediction of reading comprehension: relative contributions of word recognition, language proficiency, and other cognitive skills can depend on how cognition is measured.scientific studies of reading (10) 1. 277-299
Daniels, H., & Steineke, N. (2011). Texts and lessons for content-area reading. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
