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The K-W-L Strategy:
Helping Struggling Readers Build Evidence of Their Learning
Susan Szabo
When I was an Intermediate Reading Specialist, I worked with eighth-grade struggling readers on a daily basis. The school building was the eighth-grade center for the School District. All 66 eighth-grade students (38 female; 28 male) placed in my reading classes for one of their elective courses were struggling readers. All had been evaluated as being at least three years behind grade level, according to a reading placement test given to them by the district at the end of their seventh grade year. In the group that I report on here, 54 (82%) were Caucasian, 6 (9%) were African American, 5 (8%) were Native American, and 1 (1%) was Asian American.
As I was working in a designated reading classroom, I had flexibility in how I taught reading. Most of my students displayed negative attitudes toward reading and were unenthusiastic about having to devote one of their elective courses to a reading class. These students had become very good at using coping skills to just get by and to keep them out of the limelight. Unfortunately, their coping skills also caused them to believe that they were "dumb." Thus, they easily gave up or did not try at all. This pattern of behavior has been documented by research (Ganske, Monroe, & Strickland, 2003; Harmon & Keehn, 2004; Headley & Dunston, 2000; Ruddell, 1999). Thus, I needed to find a way to help motivate my students, improve their self-esteem, and improve their literacy skills. I was tired of hearing my students say they were dumb, or that they could not do something, or that they would just do it wrong anyway.
The purpose
Reflecting on how to help these eighth-grade students, I revisited strategies that not only promoted content learning, but also could be used to help build students' self-esteem. I decided to use the proven K-W-L (Ogle, 1986) comprehension strategy in a different manner, as a way to provide concrete evidence to my students that they could become strategic readers. This article describes the results of my action research using the K-W-L as a vehicle to demonstrate to these struggling readers that their understanding of the topics being studied was broadened through their day-to-day interactions with text. My goal was to counter their feelings of being "dumb" and to help them build a visual record of their learning.
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The K-W-L Strategy