Abstract
This research explores the impacts of implementing a reading intervention to improve students' reading comprehension skills by fostering critical compassion using the formative and design experiments approach to design a Phase One and Two reading intervention that fosters critical compassion and reading comprehension. In this study, I define critical compassion in reading comprehension as the ability to name or identify the main character's suffering, understand the main character's suffering (empathy), and take action to help alleviate the character's suffering to show an act of compassion. Compassion is "the feeling that arises in witnessing another's suffering, and that motivates a subsequent desire to help" (Goetz & Simon-Thomas, 2010, p. 351). The study involved two second-grade classes in the Yolo County area; one participated in the intervention compassion group, and the other, a bilingual class, served as the control group. Quantitative data was collected before, during, and after the reading intervention by conducting a summative assessment after each phase of the reading intervention and the Gray Silent Reading Test (GSRT) reading assessment. The GSRT was used to establish a baseline and measure the student’s reading comprehension before and after the reading intervention. Qualitative data was also collected throughout the reading intervention, which consisted of class and group discussions, observations, student artifacts, and audio recording transcriptions. Quantitative and Qualitative data were collected to analyze how justice-oriented narratives can foster students' understanding of critical compassion and reading comprehension to provide rigorous and high-quality instruction for students with or without learning challenges. The results revealed a more significant increase in the compassion group's reading comprehension scores than in the control group. These findings underscore the efficacy of the reading intervention in improving students reading comprehension by fostering critical compassion. Further research is recommended to validate and enhance these findings, utilizing the principles of formative and design experiments.