Summarizing, Retelling, and Paraphrasing for Comprehension Summarizing, Retelling, and Paraphrasing for Comprehension Problems with students

reading comprehension are very serious; reading is an important skill that must be mastered to effectively function throughout ones entire scholarly career. Reading comprehension issues can arise in many different categories of disabilities. It is extremely important to improve reading comprehension early; the focuses of most studies are on either elementary or middle school students. It is not limited towards these age groups, but it is most important to focus on students in earlier grades in order to make sure their ability to comprehend is up to par. By focusing on students with comprehension troubles earlier, teachers can help them for the rest of their academic careers. Summarizing, retelling, and paraphrasing are all interventions that can be used to help students improve on their reading comprehension. These interventions are similar, but they all have distinctions. According to Jintendra, Hoppes, and Xin, who utilized self monitoring in terms of summarization, similar studies were done as far back as 1986 by Graves (Jintendra, Hoppes, and Xin, 2000). Although there is no training required for students to be able to successfully summarize, teachers cannot assume that every student automatically knows how to do this. For example, if a student learned the basics of how to summarize in third grade, it does not necessarily mean that they have kept the skill.

Summarizing, Retelling, and Paraphrasing for Comprehension As the students get older, the texts that they read get more complex, so they need to learn new strategies in order to succeed at summarizing. This paper will briefly explain each of these interventions, and will proceed to show studies that prove the effectiveness of summarizing, retelling, and paraphrasing respectively. The paper will conclude with an evaluation of the literature, and its implications.

Out of all three interventions, summarization is the one that requires higher level thinking. Summarizing is the only one that requires this because it makes the students comprehend, analyze and produce ideas (Kissner, 2005). To do this, the reader must process the text they are reading, make judgments and opinions about it, and then restate the text in a different way. Summaries that students write should always be shorter than the original text, and should only include the main details, points and ideas (Kissner, 2005). Paraphrasing, on the other hand, is simply telling what the text was about in their own words and students can do this orally or written. When paraphrasing, students can choose to paraphrase a sentence, a set of sentences, or an entire text passage. The final intervention that is related to the previous two is retelling. Retelling is considered to be an oral event, although it can be a written event as well. It is very helpful for students because retelling the story out loud allows them to process the text they just read, and to further understand the events that took place and the characters (Kissner, 2005). The concepts are relatively simple and well known, but can be implemented in many different ways.

Summarizing, Retelling, and Paraphrasing for Comprehension According to Jitendra, Hoppes, and Xin from Lehigh University, main idea strategy instruction, by means of a self monitoring procedure, helped increase reading comprehension in students with high-incidence disabilities, such as learning and behavioral disabilities. Main idea comprehension strategy, which most basically involves the idea of summary, is thought to be simple yet applicable when it comes to narrative and expository works (Jitendra, Hoppes, Xin, 2000). A total of 33 students from grades six through eight were studied. Each student was receiving specialized instruction for reading deficits (Jitendra, Hoppes, Xin, 2000). The final group was composed of 18 students in the experimental group and 15 in the control group. Materials used include training passages, each three to five sentences. The experimental group received eight lessons throughout their training. Overall, the results were positive; scores from the experimental group had a mean of 13.76 and a standard deviation of 5.95 compared to the control groups mean of 8.0 and standard deviation of 3.98 (Jitendra, Hoppes, Xin, 2000). The post test experiments groups mean was 12.06, and the delayed posttest mean was 12.03 (Jitendra, Hoppes, Xin, 2000). Although some of the information was not maintained, it is clear that the summary skill intervention made a positive difference. Another technique related to summarizing that assists in comprehension is summarizing through drawing. Janine Elliot, a middle school teacher in Connecticut, implicated this strategy on her school by randomly selecting 78 sixth-grade students, 37 females and 41 males (Elliot, 2007). Splitting the students in half, she gave each separate group three articles, all at the same reading levels, and expected them to read and answer questions about each, testing their comprehension. The only difference was that one group would summarize what they had just read through pictures before answering the

Summarizing, Retelling, and Paraphrasing for Comprehension questions. After a session of six weeks, where one article was provided weekly, scores increased on average 8% (Elliot, 2007). In this case, summarizing through pictures seems like an efficient means of improving comprehension. Elliott states that she found that students admitted to reading more carefully when they knew they would have to draw (Elliot, 2007). Not only is summarizing through pictures expense-less, it gives students opportunities to visualize, reflect and process the material more easily. The results of this study are promising. As time goes on and education becomes more technologically based, it is possible that computer summarizations can assist students. Instead of drawing, perhaps students could pick from a general list of predetermined pictures to summarize a text. About 22 years before Elliots study, summarizing through pictures, although effective, was shown to be not best method out there. Linda Gambrell, Warren Pfeiffer, and Robert Wilson state that retelling is more efficient than illustrating. Using verbal language improves memory (Gambrell, Pfeiffer, Wilson, 1985). The authors specifically say that retelling indicates something about the reader's assimilation and reconstruction of text information and, therefore, reflects comprehension (Gambrell, Pfeiffer, Wilson, 1985). To test this, 93 fourth-grade subjects were to read similar short passages and then take a recall test. Before implementing these procedures, the students were separated into two groups, one to use recall and one to use illustration, and they then proceeded to engage each group in four sessions of training. In these sessions, the recall group was asked to determine important topics in their provided readings with less and less teacher involvement with every session (Gambrell, Pfeiffer, Wilson, 1985). After outlining the important points, students broke off into pairs and discussed the reading. In the

Summarizing, Retelling, and Paraphrasing for Comprehension illustration group, everything was the same up to the point where students conversed with a partner. In place of that, this group drew the important concepts. Once the training ended, tests were dispersed. Results showed that recalling improved comprehension abilities in comparison to illustrating; the retelling group had a standard deviation of 25.89 compared to the illustration groups standard deviation of 21.14 in the delayed recall session (Gambrell, Pfeiffer, Wilson, 1985). As opposed to summarizing, which is elaborating on main points, paraphrasing is restating what one has read in ones own words. Although this is very similar to summarizing, it is said to be an easier task for students to complete (Kletzien, 2009). Kletzien stresses the importance of reading comprehension, inferring that it is what makes somebody a good reader. Paraphrasing is a great method to use when working with special education students because it can be used to strengthen their abilities to summarize. In this case, it is clear that the procedures work cooperatively. According to Fisk and Hurst, paraphrasing is particularly helpful because it integrates the reader to learn a greater understanding of the text (Fisk and Hurst, 182). Sometimes it is difficult to keep the students actively engaged in the reading process, which leads to poor comprehension. Paraphrasing is particularly helpful because it integrates the reader to learn a greater understanding of the text (Fisk and Hurst, 2003). These two suggest four steps in their strategy to improve comprehension; an initial reading of a text and subsequent discussion, a second reading of the text with note taking, written paraphrasing, and finally the sharing of the written paraphrase (Fisk and Hurst, 2003). Although this is another relatively new article, Fisk and Hurst quote Shugarman and Hurst from 1986 in saying that paraphrasing is a powerful method that teachers can use

Summarizing, Retelling, and Paraphrasing for Comprehension to improve content understanding, learning, and interest while developing content, communication, and creative skills (Fisk and Hurst, 2003). Although paraphrasing seems highly regarded, one must question if it is actually effective in improving reading comprehension. Hagaman and Reid discus the RAP strategy of paraphrasing, which has students do three things: read a paragraph, a sk myself what was the main idea and two details, and put it into my own words (Hagaman and Reid, 2008). This strategy was formulated by Shumaker, Denton, and Deshler in 1984. Hagaman and Reid also reference the few other studies done with the RAP approach; Shumaker reported that students increased text recall from 48% to 84% (Hagaman and Reid, 2008). Ellis and Graves, in 1990, showed that the group of students who received RAP treatment fared much better than the control group (Hagaman and Reid, 2008). Lauterbach and Bender, in 1995, didnt have such clear results due to students already having high comprehension during the baseline (Hagaman and Reid, 2008). Katims and Harris, in 1997, showed mixed results for the RAP strategy; nondisabled students improved significantly, but students with learning disabilities did not (Hagaman and Reid, 2008). Hagaman and Reid themselves studied three sixth-grade students who were struggling with their schools Reading Enrichment program, which was specially for struggling readers (Hagaman and Reid, 2008). There were two dependant variables; percentages of text recalled and short answer question scores. Hagaman and Reid had the students be taught the mnemonic for RAP by means of self regulation (Hagaman and Reid, 2008). The results of the intervention were very positive; in terms of percentage of text recalled, the students went from a mean percentage of 9.6, 24.5, and 10.2 increased

Summarizing, Retelling, and Paraphrasing for Comprehension to 59.5, 47.5, and 85.25 respectively (Hagaman and Reid, 2008). These percentage means in a two week follow up session were 42, 41, and 59. In terms of short answer questions, the students increased from scores of 1.6, 0, and 1.4 to 4.75, 3.5, and 3.75 (Hagaman and Reid, 2008). The effects of the intervention were maintained again; scores at the two week period were 4, 3, and 4 respectively (Hagaman and Reid, 2008). While the results for this study were overwhelmingly positive, the sample was rather small. Overall, summarizing, retelling, and paraphrasing activities have been mainstream, effectively-proven tools to improve reading comprehension since the 1980s. Their effectiveness has lead to their continued support and study into the modern era. Teachers should definitely consider using these tools due to their simplistic and very effective nature. There seems to be definite support in terms of summarization. Paraphrasing, however, does not have the sheer quantity of current, clear studies with positive results out there to completely prove its superiority. One of the problems with these three interventions is the way they can be implemented; there is such a wide array of ways to utilize them that makes it somewhat confusing and varied as to determine the best ways. As time goes on, teachers could come up with innovative, personalized ways to carry out summarizing, retelling, and paraphrasing interventions. More research is necessary to determine the best specific way to implement these interventions. Until then, teachers can still work with the helpful interventions reviewable in the preexisting literature.

Summarizing, Retelling, and Paraphrasing for Comprehension References Elliot, J. (2007). Summarizing with drawings- a reading-comprehension strategy. Science Scope, 30(5), 23-27. Fisk, C., & Hurst, B. (2003). Paraphrasing for comprehension.Reading Teacher, 57(2), 182-185. Gambrell, L. B., Pfeiffer, W. R., & Wilson, R. (1985). The effects of retelling upon reading comprehension and recall of text information. Journal of Educational Research, 78(4), 216-220. Hagaman, J. L., & Reid, R. (2008). The effects of the paraphrasing strategy on the reading comprehension of middle school students at risk for failure in reading . Remedial and Special Education, 29(4), 222-234. Jitendra, A. K., Hoppes, M. K., & Xin, Y. P. (2000). Enhancing main idea comprehension for students with learning problems: the role of a summarization strategy and self-monitoring instruction. The Journal of Special Educaion,34(3), 127-139. Kissner, E. (2005). Summarizing, paraphrasing, and retelling skills for better reading, writing, and test taking. Portsmouth, NH: HEINEMANN. Kletzien, K. B. (2009). Paraphrasing: an effective comprehension strategy. The Reading Teacher,63(1), 73-77.