COMPREHENDING WITH GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS

COMPREHENDING INFORMATIONAL TEXT THROUGH THE USE OF COMPARE AND

CONTRAST GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS

A Research Project
Presented to the
Faculty of the School of Education
Viterbo University

Jennifer L. Wienke, PhD

Research Advisor

Susan R. Hughes, Ed. D.

Coordinator of Graduate Research in Education

In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
Master of Arts in Education
By

Laura Frericks
July 2017
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Comprehending Informational Text through the use of Compare and Contrast Graphic
Organizers

Introduction

This action research study sought to determine how the use of Compare and Contrast

graphic organizers impacted students informational text comprehension. The researcher included

the following components in this research proposal: a.) problem statement, b.) purpose statement,

c.) research questions d.) literature review, e.) research method and design, f.) research

participants, g.) research procedure, and h.) data analysis.

Problem Statement

Both the Common Core State Standards and the National Assessment of Educational

Progress (NAEP) have made claims that students must be engaging with a greater amount of

informational text. A majority of college level reading and career training requires students to

proficiently read and comprehend informational text (NationalGovernorsAssociationCenterfor

BestPractices,CouncilofChiefStateSchoolOfficers,2010).Based on the Standardized

Testing and Reporting 360 (STAR; Renaissance Learning, 2016) data from the 2015-2016 school

year, the researcher noticed that her elementary students were consistently performing lower on

informational text assessment questions than they were on literature assessment questions. Out

of the researchers 14 students, 12 of those students (86%) received minimal or basic scores

when answering questions related to informational text. The researcher found that she needed to

investigate better instructional practices to help students comprehend informational text. One of

the best practices she researched included the use of graphic organizers to comprehend

informational text (Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2001).

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Purpose Statement

The specific purpose of this action research study was to evaluate the effect of using

Compare and Contrast graphic organizers with elementary students, to impact the

comprehension of informational text. In addition, the researcher determined which specific

Compare and Contrast graphic organizer best influenced the students performance on

comprehension of informational text. Particularly she focused on the informational text structure

of Compare and Contrast. Through researching this text structure, she found three graphic

organizers that pertained to the Compare and Contrast informational text structure.

This study took place for six weeks at a Title 1, urban elementary school in the Midwest,

where the researcher teaches third grade. The subjects included 15 males and 15 females between

the ages of eight and nine.

Research Questions and Sub-Questions

Based on the problem identified in the researchers practice and her desire to improve

student achievement with informational text comprehension, the researcher designed a study that

addressed the following primary question: To what extent does using Compare and Contrast

graphic organizers as a reading strategy impact elementary students comprehension of

informational text, as measured by pretest and posttest assessments. In addition to the primary

question for the study, the researcher also identified the following sub-question: Which specific

Compare and Contrast graphic organizer showed the most impact on student understanding of

informational text?

Review of Literature

Introduction
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In a review of relevant scholarly literature, the researcher discovered studies completed

with elementary students through undergraduate students and from the United States to the

Middle East. Some studies lasted months, others a single day. The researcher compiled and

analyzed these studies and found three prominent themes for classroom learning: a.) the

importance of reading comprehension, b.) the need to teach more informational text, and c.) the

benefits of graphic organizers. These themes will be discussed in greater detail throughout the

remainder of this chapter.

Reading Comprehension

The results of the first three studies confirm that reading comprehension becomes more

difficult when students work with informational text and, as a result, direct interventions are

necessary (Bastug, 2014; Braten & Anmarkrud, 2013; Liebfreund & Conradi, 2016).

The text structure of informational text is more varied and, thus, more difficult than a

narrative text structure with its consistent plot pattern of rising action, climax, and resolution.

Students are comfortable with narrative structure since their first exposure to reading comes from

storybooks; they have less experience analyzing more complex text structures like compare and

contrast and cause and effect (Bastug, 2014). When students start working with more difficult

informational text structures, deeper-level strategies such as: a.) predicting upcoming text

content, b.) generating and asking questions, c.) constructing self-explanations and clarifications,

d.) capturing the gist of the text, e.) monitoring comprehension, and f.) formulating and solving

problems must be taught in order for meaningful reading comprehension to occur (Braten &

Anmarkrud, 2013). With this challenging task, the current researcher acknowledged the

importance of engagement by noting motivation played the largest role for lower readers and

decoding efficiency played the largest role for higher readers (Liebfreund & Conradi, 2016).
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Since, most informational text introduces new vocabulary to students, the current researcher

emphasized the role of vocabulary knowledge to significantly impact comprehension with both

high and low readers. Based on the information gathered, the current researcher determined the

best practices for reading comprehension center around a knowledge base of content vocabulary

as well as the use of deeper-level comprehension strategies.

Informational Text

Best practices for reading comprehension cannot be utilized without the implementation

of informational text in the classroom. Informational text instruction is continuing to be infused

into the elementary classroom. Teachers must be prepared to give students strategies and skills to

comprehend these more difficult text structures. Baker et al. (2011) found that simple

informational text exposure and infusion did not improve students comprehension of text.

McCown and Thomason (2014) challenged the hypothesis of Baker et al. (2011) when they

discovered that students participating in Collaborative Strategic Reading improved their

informational text comprehension. By using strategies such as activating prior knowledge, self-

monitoring, finding main ideas during reading, and generating questions after reading, McCown

and Thomason (2014) showed promising results for improving informational text

comprehension.

Graphic Organizers

Bringing these strategies to students in an engaging way is key to the students

independent implementation of them. Research in this review made it clear that graphic

organizers are a beneficial tool for reading comprehension. Two of the research studies, Ozmen

(2011) and Shaw, Nihalani, Mayrath, and Robinson (2012), found that students benefited most

when graphic organizers were shown after reading text. Ropic and Abersek (2012), Carnahan and
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Williamson (2013), Elmianvari and Kheirabadi (2013) and Scott and Dreher (2016) all studied

the effect of explicit informational text structure instruction on students reading comprehension

in conjunction with graphic organizers. Lastly, Rahmani and Sadeghi (2011), Grunke, Wilbert,

and Stegemann (2013), Ponce, Mayer, and Lopez (2013) and Ciullo, Falcomata, and Vaughn

(2015) argued that explicit instruction must include how to use graphic organizers. In all studies,

graphic organizers made it possible for students to increase their scores on post assessments. All

studies showed clear benefits from organizing information as a way to comprehend it.

Conclusion

Based on the analysis of the previous research, the current researcher continued to look at

the effects of specific types of graphic organizers to benefit the comprehension of informational

text. Research has shown that informational text comprehension is historically more challenging

than narrative text comprehension. Graphic organizers have shown most beneficial when shown

after a text has been read. Graphic organizers also help students to understand the content and

text structure of informational texts (Carnahan & Williamson, 2013; Elmianvari & Kheirabadi,

2013; Ozmen, 2011; Ropic & Abersek, 2012; Scott & Dreher (2016); Shaw, Nihalani, Mayrath &

Robinson (2012).

Methods

Participants

This study took place at an urban elementary school in the upper Midwest. The school

was made up of approximately 742 subjects a.) 75% Hispanic, b.) 16% African-American, c.)

7% Caucasian, d.) 1% American Indian/Alaskan Native and, e.) 1% Asian/Pacific Islander. At the

school, 94% of the subjects came from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. Subjects tested

included 30 third grade students, 15 males and 15 females, all between the ages of eight and
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nine. In the study sample, nine subjects had individualized education plans (IEPs) that included

reading and/or writing goals.

Procedure

This intervention took place from September through October of 2016. Each Compare

and Contrast graphic organizer: a.) Venn-diagram, b.) bubble map, and c.) chart organizer were

taught in two week increments, with a pre and posttest at the beginning and end of each two

weeks. To begin the process, the researcher first needed to collect baseline data. After

introducing and discussing the baseline text, subjects were given a writing prompt asking them to

compare and contrast the information from the text. To create a sound study, graphic organizers

were not presented or explicitly taught during the baseline. After the subjects completed the

writing prompt, rubrics created by the researcher were then used to assess student answers.

The four-step, three phase intervention began right after the baseline assessment. In the

first phase, the researcher introduced, read aloud and discussed, an informational text with the

subjects. Second, subjects were introduced to the first graphic organizer, a Venn-diagram

Compare and Contrast worksheet. Daily explicit instruction and practice was used for two

weeks on how to complete this specific Compare and Contrast graphic organizer. At the end of

the week, a different informational text was introduced and read aloud. Students were then asked

to complete their own Venn-diagram Compare and Contrast graphic organizer based on the

explicit instruction they received. Last, subjects were given a researcher created writing prompt

that required them to compare and contrast the informational text they were given (see Appendix

B). Once completed, the written responses were graded using a Standards-Based grading system.

The following two phases, each lasting for two-weeks, were designed similarly to the

first two-week phase. Subjects were introduced to an informational text and a new graphic
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organizer. Daily explicit instruction was given on how to use the graphic organizer. Lastly,

subjects were given a text and asked to answer the Compare and Contrast comprehension

question. At the end of every two-week cycle, the researcher collected the subjects Compare

and Contrast writing prompts to gauge if explicit instruction using graphic organizers was

improving their abilities to compare and contrast informational text, based on the researchers

created rubric.

The culminating assessment was given after all three Compare and Contrast graphic

organizers were explicitly taught and worked with by the subjects. The researcher chose a new

informational text to read-aloud to the subjects. The subjects were then given the same writing

prompt they received from the past six-weeks, asking them to compare and contrast the

information from the text. To answer the researchers sub-question, an additional worksheet

(Appendix C) was given to the subjects to allow them to create any one of the three graphic

organizers they learned about.

Research Design

The researcher crafted this quantitative descriptive design study to evaluate the effect of

using Compare and Contrast graphic organizers, to impact the comprehension of informational

text. The main instruments used throughout this study included writing prompts and current

research-created rubrics. The writing prompts given, provided pre and post assessment data to

monitor the effectiveness of using graphic organizers when working with informational text. The

researcher-created rubrics attached to those prompts provided subjects with clear expectations on

how to earn a minimal, basic, proficient, or advanced score (see Appendix A).

Data Analysis
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A baseline writing prompt was given at the beginning and an overall posttest was given at

the end. During each two-week phase, students were pretested and post-tested using the

correlating graphic organizer: a.) phase one-Venn-diagram, b.) phase two-bubble map, c.) phase

three-chart organizer. Aside from the starting baseline and ending posttest, students completed

three pre-tests and 3 posttests. The current researcher compared the pre and posttest results to

note if the use of graphic organizers improved the comprehension of informational text, as well

as noting if one graphic organizer in particular improved the subjects comprehension. The

statistical analyses were performed on the pre and posttests.