The Effects of the Use of Retellings on the Listening Comprehension of First Grade Students

Abstract

This study examined the effects of direct teaching of the use of retellings on the listening comprehension of twenty-two first grade students from a public elementary school in Western New York. The examiner administered the listening comprehension portion of The Bader Reading and Language Inventory to determine the students' listening comprehension levels prior to completing the treatment. The students were also asked to do a retelling, which was recorded on audiotape, prior to the treatment. Each student spent two months participating in the direct instruction of the use of retellings. The procedure was modeled and the students were given many opportunities for practice doing their own retellings. At the conclusion of the two months the students' listening comprehension was tested again to obtain posttest scores. The students were also recorded doing a second retelling to be compared with the first in order to examine their use of the story parts in their retellings. An independent t test for independent means at the .05 level of significance was used to determine the effects of the direct teaching of the use of retellings on the students' listening comprehension. The results revealed that the direct teaching of the use of retellings significantly increased students' listening comprehension. The findings, consistent with previous research, support the claim that the teaching and use or retellings in the classroom facilitate comprehension of text.