The assessment section explains how the students will be assessed to determine whether or not they possess the prerequisite skills. If students do not possess the neces-sary skills, the skills will need to be taught or accommodations made. Accommodations for the SCROL strategy could be texts at the students’ independent reading level or premarked text, texts that have the headings, subheadings, and important points high-lighted. Accommodations should help the students to use the strategy independently;
however, accommodations should be gradually faded as students reach mastery. Assess-ments of prerequisite skills can be done for each of the skills individually, or students can be given an overall assessment of skills. An example of this would be an informal student survey. Figure 4.1 provides an example of an informal survey for the SCROL strategy. An TABLE 4.1. Example of Task Breakdown for the SCROL Strategy
Strategy Skills Assessment
Basic reading skills Ability to read content material with sufficient fluency
Informal reading assessment
Survey the headings Knowledge of and ability to identify headings and subheadings
Students will be provided with a text and asked to identify the headings and subheadings.
Knowledge of topics and how they are sometimes presented in texts
Given a short text, students will be asked to identify and explain the major topics in the text and how they knew what those topics were.
Ability to generalize information and make predictions or inferences
Students will be given a short text and asked to verbally summarize what they have read, and make any predictions or inferences that they can from the given text.
Connections Ability to identify connecting words
Students will be given a list of words and asked to identify words that are often connecting words.
Read the text Ability to identify key words or phrases as they relate to the topic
Given a passage, the student will be asked to underline key words or phrases related to the given topic.
Ability to check for understanding
Students will be given a short passage to read aloud and periodically stopped and asked to explain what the passage is about.
Outline Knowledge of outlines Given a simple text, students will be asked to outline that text using standard outline form.
Look back Ability to proofread Students will be given a passage with spelling and grammatical errors and asked to find and correct those errors.
Ability to compare original text with the outline for accuracy of information
Students will be asked to compare the outline that they produced earlier to the text for accuracy of information.
Name: Date:
1 = Strongly agree 2 = Agree 3 = Not sure 4 = Disagree 5 = Strongly disagree
1. I am able to read and understand my textbooks.
1 2 3 4 5
2. I can pick out headings and subheadings in my textbooks.
1 2 3 4 5
3. I can pick out the topic or main idea in the passages of my textbooks.
1 2 3 4 5
4. When I am done reading I can paraphrase information from my textbooks.
1 2 3 4 5
5. I am able to identify key words or phrases as they relate to the topic.
1 2 3 4 5
6. I know if I understand what I have read or not.
1 2 3 4 5
7. I am able to recall information that I have read.
1 2 3 4 5
8. I am able to put my thoughts about text that I read into writing.
1 2 3 4 5
9. I am able to create an outline.
1 2 3 4 5
10. I am able to compare original text material with my outline to make sure it is right.
1 2 3 4 5
11. I am able to proofread my own work.
1 2 3 4 5
FIGURE 4.1. Sample survey for SCROL.
From Robert Reid and Torri Ortiz Lienemann (2006). Copyright by The Guilford Press. Permission to photo-copy this figure is granted to purchasers of this book for personal use only (see photo-copyright page for details).
informal survey gives students an opportunity to evaluate their own mastery of neces-sary skills. Giving students an informal survey can be an effective way to gather informa-tion quickly. This kind of assessment can provide valuable insight into how students view their own learning and skills, although this should not be the sole means of evaluation. It is also necessary to acquire some data on the students’ performance; this data can also serve as a baseline prior to implementation of the strategy. An example of data a teacher might collect would be worksheets or homework that involved responding to questions from a text. This information can also be used in the next stage to establish a need for the strategy. Following the survey, teachers’ observations, and any other information collect-ing necessary to determine if there are any deficits, instruction should be given to ensure the students’ mastery of prerequisite skills.
Stage 2: Discussing the Strategy
This is the first stage in “initiating” the strategy. As discussed in Chapter 3, this stage requires more than merely going through the steps in the strategy. Students need to take ownership of the strategy. They need to recognize the value of the strategy and want to use it. The teacher must “sell” the strategy and get the students to “buy in.” If students do not want to use the strategy they are not likely to use it. Teachers must be excited, committed, and energetic throughout the whole process.
In practice, it is not difficult to sell a strategy to most students. The strategy should sell itself with the payoff of improved academic performance. However, that may not be enough for some students. It is often necessary to find out what motivates the stu-dents. When do they see reading a text, understanding, and remembering it as impor-tant? It may be beneficial to brainstorm with students on situations where reading texts accurately are important. Teachers may want to come up with a “pitch” to the sell the students, providing examples of current performance, or examples of students who have been successful with the strategy in the past. Finding out when students view comprehending text as important is a good place to start. The teacher may pose a ques-tion such as “When would it be important for you to read a text accurately?” The teacher should have in mind a few responses, in case the students are reluctant to share or do not mention important times.
Here are some examples:
• For a test
• For an assignment
• Making an informed decision
• Learning more about something of interest to you
• Assembling something
• Operating equipment
As a last resort the teacher may draw up a behavioral contract, where the student tries the strategy and gets reinforcement.
It is important for students to understand the purpose of a strategy. When discuss-ing the purpose of the strategy, it is necessary to point out situations where the students
would need to understand and remember information that they read in a variety of source books. This helps students understand when, where, and why to use the strat-egy. This type of knowledge is very important for students with LD. It is also necessary to point out the obvious problems that could arise if they were not accurate in reading certain texts. For example, if students did not read a text accurately they would do poorly on a test. Another practical example would be following directions to put some-thing together. If students did not read accurately, it is not likely that they would be very successful.
During the discussion stage, it is also necessary to discuss students’ current perfor-mance. One way to do this is to chart performance on completed tasks. Using charts and graphs can also help with motivation because students can see progress. Using the SCROL strategy will help students read their textbooks, take notes, and remember what they have read. The strategy will also help them later. If they have a good grasp of the material being read the first time they go through it, they will have to spend less time studying later. The outline and notes can serve as a quick review of the informa-tion. The outline highlights all important information in the text, and the notes explain that information, providing a nice overview of the information.
As we noted in the previous chapter, one important task in the discussion stage (Stage 2) is to get students to buy into using the strategy. For this reason, it is often use-ful for the teacher to prepare for selling the strategy. Here’s an example of a teacher
“selling” the SCROL strategy:
“We just came up with a list of situations when it would be important to read a text accurately [brainstorming]. There are several times that we decided this was important. Someone mentioned when learning and remembering infor-mation for a test. Let’s take a look at some of our recent test scores [providing graphic representation of test scores would be a way for students to quickly examine their current performance]. It is obvious that we are doing some things well, but there is definitely room for improvement. I have a trick that we can use to boost those test scores and help us remember texts that we have read. It is a strategy called SCROL. The SCROL strategy can help us to remem-ber what we should do when we are reading text for information. . . . ”
It is important to remember that students should make the commitment to learn and use the strategy. In practice, this isn’t usually hard. Students want to do well. But remember also that there is often a history of failure that must be overcome.
The final step in this stage is introducing the strategy steps. Students are encour-aged to take notes and express any ideas they have regarding the strategy. Note that teachers should be sensitive to student input. Students can offer many helpful insights.
Remember that strategy instruction is a dialogue, not a monologue (Harris & Pressley, 1991). While explaining the strategy, it is important to begin any necessary attribution training, and to stress that improved performance is due to increased effort and strat-egy use. The stratstrat-egy is just a tool to use to improve academic performance. The steps of the strategy are illustrated in Figure 4.2. These steps can be placed on a wall chart to help students with the initial usage of the strategy.