<p> TELLS, Fact or Fiction (Idol-Maestas, 1985)</p><p>Background and Research Question Several approaches have been developed to help students get ready to read, such as previewing strategies, giving purpose-setting directions, and prereading to teach children to predict what will happen in stories. </p><p>Dr. Lorna Idol-Maestas conducted two experiments designed to evaluate the effectiveness of a strategy designed to help students decide what a story might be about before they read it. The TELLS, Fact or Fiction strategy improved the comprehension responses for all students and their performance on a standardized assessment of reading. The strategy also improved the listening comprehension of five of the six students. </p><p>Translating Research Into Practice The following plan outlines the steps used by Dr. Idol-Maestas in her study:</p><p>1. Do comprehension probing—TELLS, Fact or Fiction (15 minutes). Students read each step in the strategy prompt. Have the student answer both independently and orally. Provide teacher assistance for any items that the student is unable to answer correctly. </p><p>T Title What is the title? Does it give a clue as to what the story is about? E Examine Look through each page of the story. Skim for clues. L Look Look for important words. Talk about what they mean. L Look Look for hard words. Practice saying them and talk about what they mean. S Setting What is the setting of the story? When did it take place? Where did it take place? Fact or Fiction Is this story true? (fact) Or is this a pretend story? (fiction)</p><p>2. Read story orally (20 minutes). Students read a new selection each day at their instructional level.</p><p>3. Take timed sample (two minutes). After students have completed reading the passage, have them reread a portion of the text aloud for one minute in order to monitor their reading fluency. </p><p>4. Ask oral comprehension questions (five minutes). Prepare ten questions for each selections (five factual, two sequential, and three inferential). Factual questions include one of each of the five categories: who, what, where, how, and why. Sequential questions contain one of the following words: when, before, or after. Answers to both factual and sequential questions should be explicitly stated in the selection. Inferential questions are derived from information implied within the text but not explicitly stated. 5. Correct any reading errors from timed sample (three minutes). Have students practice the words they had read incorrectly during the timed sample. </p><p>6. Record data (two minutes). </p><p>Source Idol-Maestas, L. (1985). Getting ready to read: Guided probing for poor comprehenders. Learning Disability Quarterly, 8, 243–253.</p>