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Abstract
The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of Response Buddy, agraphic organizer created by the researcher and co-teacher, on the quality of writtenresponses to literature by first and second grade students considered to be at risk forliteracy problems. In this study, the quality of written response was predetermined byfour elements: a) inclusion of the title; b) inclusion of a connection; c) inclusion of thereason for the connection; and d) inclusion of an opinion. There were three phases in thismultiple probe across participants design (i.e., baseline, intervention, and maintenance).During baseline, the researcher read a story, and the students were given definitions andinstructions orally to write a response to the story. Intervention included three days ofmodeling and instruction on how to use Response Buddy to help students rememberimportant parts of writing responses to literature. The maintenance condition for eachstudent began approximately one week after he/she met the preset criterion (i.e., theinclusion of all four elements on three of four consecutive sessions). Social validity wasmeasured using participant surveys as well as rankings of writing samples by experiencedteachers. Evidence indicated a functional relation between the intervention of ResponseBuddy and the overall quality of written responses to literature with first and secondgrade students considered to be at risk for literacy problems. A discussion of the results, limitations of the study, ideas for future research, and classroom implications areincluded.