I decided to see how many hits I could find for struggling readers in Academic Search Complete. When I typed in struggling AND readers OR reader AND elementary, there were 79hits.
Entry selected:
I like this strategy because it is very simple to do and I like being able to use all of the facets that I can think of. I like how someone can use Boolean logic to combine all of the terms that are needed for the search.
Successive Fraction Approach
I used ERIC as my database and typed in the reader OR readers. I got 27,022 hits. To narrow my search considerably, I added struggling to the search and received 528 hits. Finally, I added library in my search and I then got 12 hits.
My entry that I chose in ERIC:
This search allowed me to narrow my search down to make it a more managable number of hits. I liked seeing how adding the different facets made a difference in how many hits I received.
Snowballing Approach a.k.a. The Citation Pearl-Growing Approach
Using this approach in the Library Literature database, I first typed in struggling readers AND media AND school library because I was looking for an article that I was already familiar with (a known item). Upon finding it, I then looked at the document to see if there were other searches that I could do based off of it. I decided to add reading AND difficulties to the search to see if it would expand the search. It did, for a total of 16 hits.
Entry chosen in Library Literature:
This search was ok, but it is not my favorite. It would be very helpful if I already had a "known item" because then I could look and see what other terms I could use to add to my search. However, if someone doesn't already have a "known item" it makes it hard to expand the search.
The Most Specific Facet First Approach
The fourth and final database that I searched in was World Cat. I decided this was the statement I was wanting to research: helping struggling readers in the library The keywords are library, at-risk children, struggling, reading. I decided that the most specific facet was "struggling readers library"
When I typed that in World Cat, I had 51 hits. When I added the word helping, I had only two hits.
Database Entry:
I do like the specific facet first approach because it helps you get at the meat of what you are searching for, rather than having to dig through lots of information to finally discover what you want.
