Here at STEM we use a multitude of learning strategies. One of these strategies is a comprehension strategy called RAHA. RAHA stands for Read, Annotate, Highlight, and Answer. To RAHA something you need a highlighter, a pen or pencil, and a reading over something you need to know about. First you read through the whole entire reading one time. Then you reread the passage, but while doing this you take notes or draw pictures about each section of the text. Once you finish that you go through the reading again and highlight the main idea of each section, you also answer any questions that the text asks.  Once done with your page should look a little messy, but all the important parts of the text should be highlighted or noted on the page. Now when you study the text you only have to read the important parts and you can now get a better grade.  Over the course of my 7th grade year I have grown in “RAHAing” text and comprehending them.

At the beginning of 2nd quarter I started to forget how to RAHA properly and this was taking a toll my science grade. After every reading we are assigned to RAHA, we take a quiz over that reading the next day in science. One of my worst test grades was over a reading in our chemistry unit. We were assigned Reading” 8.3-What are the Many Ways of representing Any Chemical Reaction?” to RAHA overnight. When I RAHA’d this reading I didn’t do a very good job. All I did was underline a few main ideas, but not many, and answered the questions, but not to my best ability. For example, when it was talking about how to show a visual model of representing atoms in a chemical reaction, all I did was underline “they have combined in new ways” and this was not the main idea of this section. The main idea of the section was to show that when hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen are in a chemical reaction they rearrange into new chemical compounds. So, what the reading was trying to get across was that, in a chemical reaction, atoms interact with each other to form new chemical compounds, creating new substances. This RAHA was reflected in my test grade because on this test I got a 10 out of 13 points. This is one of my worst tests of the second quarter. One of the things I got wrong on this test was when the quiz asked what the two chemical reactants were when the chemical reaction ‘burning’ occurs. My answer was the reactant is whatever is being burned. On my test, I lost one point and it had a note saying “and what else?” The answer I was missing was oxygen. So, the correct answer would be that the two chemical reactants when the chemical reaction ‘burning’ occurs are whatever is being burned and the oxygen around it. The other thing I missed on my quiz was when it asked about what the formula was for what chemical reaction occurs when methane is burned. What I wrote down was “6 CH4+2 O2 -> 6 CD + 12 H20.” The correct answer was “CH4 + 2 O2 -> CO2 + 2 H2O.” This means that I lost two points for getting one of the reactants and one of the products wrong. This shows that I needed to grow in annotating, highlighting main ideas and answering questions to my fullest ability. I was not satisfied with this quiz grade. This is when I decided I really needed to put a lot of effort into my RAHAs

One of my recent RAHA readings and reading quizzes have a much better score and quality of work. We were assigned the Reading 9.2 – Batteries and Hydrogen Cells to RAHA overnight. So, the effort and quality put into RAHAing this passage was much greater than that for Reading 8.3. You can see that I took the time to draw small pictures telling me what insulators and conductors are. For example, since conductors are materials that allow electrons to move easily through them, such as metals, I drew a picture of a gold and copper wire and put a little note of the definition of what a conductor was. I also did the same for insulators by drawing little pictures and labeling them with the definition. I also highlighted the multiple main ideas of the section “Where Does Electricity Come From?” This is because when we were assigned this reading, I put a note at the top of what Ms. Lydy told us the reading quiz was going to be over and what to focus on. Another spot you can tell I put a lot of effort into annotating and answering is on pages 100 and 101. On page 100, I drew what the factors of a closed circuit were and what the definition of a dead battery was along with another picture. You can tell I improved on answering questions on page 101 with the question “What are the similarities and differences between a battery and hydrogen cell?” I put a lot of detail and effort into creating a Venn diagram to compare and contrast batteries and hydrogen cells. The quality of my RAHA reflected on my Reading Quiz 9.2. You can tell that drawing the pictures of what conductors and insulators were because I got both of those questions correct on my reading quiz. You can also tell that drawing pictures helped me understand what a “dead battery” is. You can see this because I explained in detail what a dead battery was on the question “What is happening when a battery is dead?” was asked. I got a 4 out of 4 points on this reading quiz, making it the highest score you could possibly get. I was really pleased with this grade and it is giving me motivation to RAHA all of my readings like this so I get 100% every time on my reading quizzes This shows growth because when I did a quality job of RAHAing, it helped me comprehend the text or content better than when I did a poor job RAHAing.

. The reason I started putting a lot of effort in to my RAHAs and test is because I wasn’t satisfied with my quizzes grade at the end of 2nd quarter. I had a 78% or a “C” as my average quiz score. Once I started putting effort into RAHAing my quiz grades started going up. Right now I have 3 days left of the grading quarter and my average quiz score 92% or an “A”. This shows that me working harder on my RAHAs brought my quiz scores up 2 whole letter grades. RAHAing and comprehending long and complex readings will help me when I’m in college. In college, you have to read lengthy and detailed passages, and then you’re quizzed over what you have read. RAHAing would help a lot because right before I take my quiz I could look at all of the main ideas and know exactly what the reading was about without having to reread the whole text.