Using Elements of a Screenplay to Promote Visualization and Increase Reading Comprehension in Students With Disabilities and Striving Readers

Abstract

Improving reading comprehension for middle school students with disabilities and others who struggle with reading, referred to here as striving readers, is challenging. Formal reading instruction typically shifts from skills acquisition to application in middle and high school, providing inadequate support in the skills for comprehension (Chall, 1983; Klingner et al., 2007). Further, both students with disabilities and striving readers can have negative school experiences which impact their reader identities and cause them to become disengaged from learning. It is increasingly challenging for secondary teachers to provide interventions which explicitly teach and reinforce critical comprehension skills while sustaining student engagement. An experimental screenplay intervention designed by the researcher to increase visualization and promote reading comprehension was used. The intervention was based on research by Snyder (2005) identifying elements of a screenplay, similar to story grammar. Movies were used first as a novel way to engage learners; visual supports were gradually reduced as students transferred visualizing skills to texts of increasing complexity. The readers used plot diagrams to organize the elements graphically in support of their comprehension. Seven middle school students with high incidence disabilities and striving readers learned to identify seven elements of a screenplay in a 3-week online researcher-developed intervention. A mixed-methods case study design was used to identify reading-related outcomes and students’ experiences (attitudes and behaviors) of reading as they learned the intervention. Data were collected for reading comprehension, recognition of screenplay elements, and visualization skills. Reading behaviors, attitudes, identities, and motivation for reading were also assessed. Findings revealed whole-class mean score gains in passage and sentence level comprehension, pre-to-post. Students also learned the screenplay elements and were proficient in finding examples within a text. Further, the students reported greater details at post-test when reporting their visualizations and when describing elements. Case studies of three students representing three reading proficiency levels upon entrance to the study revealed distinct experiences for each. Implications for reading instruction are discussed.