Throughout my action research, I aimed to consistently and accurately measure and monitor my student’s writing summarizing skills and strategies. I utilized three specific forms of data collection methods to measure my students’ growth throughout my study's journey. These data points were graphic organizers, exit tickets, and anecdotal notes from small group sessions.
The first piece of data collected was a pre- and post-test. This was a reliable piece of data that explicitly showed the growth, or the lack of growth, among the thirteen students in my study before and after the implementation of targeted summarizing strategies. The pre- and post-tests were assessed using the same rubric. There were two sections to the rubric: Main Idea and Supporting Details.
Within our small groups, students read short informational passages (we read texts from the Sleuth Skills book provided by the Reading Street curriculum, NewsELA current events articles, and Readworks informational passages) and completed graphic organizers that assisted students with summarizing the main idea of the text. These assessments took place once a week for on-grade-level and above-grade-level students, and twice a week for below-grade-level students. I assessed the students' performance on the graphic organizers with the same rubric as the pre- and post-test in order to score each data piece consistently.
Students completed a weekly exit ticket that outlined the main idea and key details within our reading stories each week from the Reading Street curriculum.
I kept anecdotal notes daily during my small group reading sessions. These notes detailed each individual student’s progress with summarizing, and helped to inform my future instruction moving forward with the action research. I also used my anecdotal notes to observe and record students' comments and attitudes towards the activities.
These data collection methods were selected for several reasons. First, they were different from each other in order for my data to have depth and breadth over time. I believe the data chosen presents a well-rounded picture of student learning. Second, each of these data collection methods are familiar to my students. Exit tickets and graphic organizers are activities that my students are comfortable with, and they did not require any pre-teaching in order for students to understand their task. This ease of use provided me with more time to support students with completing the task of finding the supporting details and main idea, rather than explaining the organizer or exit ticket format. Finally, I included anecdotal notes as a major form of data because I believe that the discussions my students had with their peers and myself during our small groups showcased their learning just as well as the paper/pencil assessments.