EP- DRA

I chose my research because when the year started and we tookthe MAP test, I had 5 ESL students that scored extremely low. The ESL teacher told me that it is common because they have been home all summer and not around the English language so they regressed but they will show quick improvements. She pointed out two students that would be on grade level in no time, which did in fact happen. The other three did not. In my research I came across an article, Effects of adding multisensory components to a supplemental reading program on the decoding skills of treatment resisters, that I found interesting. On reason becasue I had never heard of this term, the other because it described my focus students almost exactly. The study focused on a small group of African American students that were considered "at-risk" because they had failed to aquire basic skills. The Orton Gillingham program (multisensory) was used. Campbell, Helf, & Cooke (2008) have researched that students like the ones in the study often encounter the Matthew Effect and continue to fall behind. An analogy to explain the Matthew Effect is “the rich get richer, the poor get poorer”, which is what I was afraid of for my struggling readers. I already knew that they were very low ESL students from discusssion with their last year's teacher and their testing data. They were reading on level C and D, which correlates to DRA 3 and 4. I have had an ESL student here and there, but never a group and never as far behind as these students. I felt like the research project would be a great way for us all to learn and improve. From the beginning of the year, EP has stood out to me. Just when I think I have her on track, she puts on the brakes. Thanks to my research, I have TONS of data. I am conferencing with mom about the options we have for EP to be successful, retain or refer. The fact that EP is an ESL student makes the decision much mroe difficult, but my gut(and data) tells me she needs more individualized instruction. I have serisouly lost sleep over this child!

EP
In January, EP read independently at DRA 10. I was impressed because BD and FP were at 8. She read with 95 percent accuracy. EP scores higher because she TALKS ALL THE TIME (and about everything under the sun). She made great predictions during the picture walk, she reflected and connected to the story which helped her comprehension score because her retell was very limited. She really would have been a solid 8. EP relies very much on pictures when she reads.
In March, I DRA'd EP at a level 12. Her accuracy level was "emergent" because she made 14 mistakes. At this point of the DRA, they recommend to stop and reassess with a lower text level. I have a hard time doing that because I always want to check comprehension. Again, her retell was very limited and the events were general. For example, the ending is "Robert decided he liked Maria and tells Mama he will help take care of Maria, too." After prompting "How does the story end?" She responds, "Robert was happy." So...EP is still at a DRA 10.
*Next steps: EP's errors were lazy errors, so we will review word reading strategies also, but focus more on sentence comprehension and asking "Does that make sense?" For example. "Robert want share he liked Maria." was what she read and she didn't stop to self correct.
I will also help her to rely less on pictures and more on context clues when reading. I think these things will help make her retell stronger with more specific details/events from the story.

BD and FP- DRA

I DRA'd my three focus students in January. I wasn't sure how much progress I would see in just a couple of months, but I was very pleased with the results.

BD
January's DRA was a level 8. He read with 95 percent accuaracy. He scored high in comprehension, but his retell took away a point. He didn't retell in order and he needed some prompting. He was able to make literal connections with the story. The story was about a dog doing tricks. His first connection was circus dogs, which I thought was funny. Then he started telling me all about his dog and that his dog doesn't do tricks.
Based on the running records from the ESL teacher and his phonics/sight word progress, I decided to test BD on level 12. He read with 93 percent accuracy, which is considered "developing". It would have been higher but he made a couple of silly errors like "mom" instead of "momma" and "is" instead of "was". When it was time for him to retell, he made a connection and said "She looks like my mom. She's going to have a baby." He is so excited to be a big brother. It's sweet. BD's retell was in order this time but I did need to prompt to get more details and the ending of the story. His comprehension scored just one point away from "independent" level.
*Next step: In the recent DRA, BD didn't use his word reading strategies. He stopped and asked what words were. I will definitely review those and make sure we practice in small groups.

FP
January's DRA level was 8 for FP. He read with 93 percent accuracy, which is developing. For "Duke" he would say "Duck" he asked how to read the word "shake", he said "back" instead of "black". Twice he left the "s" sound off of words. In small groups we practiced CVCe words and digraphs like crazy, so I was happy to see his accuracy rate improved in March to 96 percent on DRA level 12. He said "feeling" instead of "feeding". The other errors were me telling him the word. This just reinforced the fact that I MUST review word reading strategies. In January, FP retold the events in the middle of the story out of order with some prompting. In March, he retold the story in order  with one prompt. For comprehension, in January he was one point away from independent level, but his lack of reflection and connection to the story hurt him. The same with March's DRA.
*Next step: Not only do I need to work on word reading strategies, but for FP I need to help him think about the story and make connections.

Garfield Survey

I gave the Garifield survey again today. I did the first one whole group (students) so I thought I should do the post survey whole group too. Although, I am thinking I should have done it one-on-one in the fist place. Before I compare the scores, I want to point out in my first post about the survey's, I didn't feel like the students answered honestly. I also didn't think the students were mature enough to answer questions that deal with thinkings about thinking. (metacongnition, right?) Anyways the scores were interesting and somewhat unsettling, but I am going to use it as a learning tool and not take it personal :) (easier said than done)

Garfield Survey Results

 



                           1-28-13                                                                                  3-13-13

 

             recreational      academic        full scale              recreational        academic        full scale

              percentile        percentile                                     percentile           percentile      

 

EP            74                      46                    60                       50                       6                      18

 

FP            68                      78                    74                       44                       11                    20

 

BD           20                       67                    45                       37                        7                     15

 

 

I thought their attitude about reading would have improved, not drastically dropped! Am I pushing them too much and making them frustrated? I'm not sure how to use this data in my research. I wonder if they understood what I was asking better yesterday because they have a better understanding of the english language now.

 

I used the "Mid-year percentile ranks by grade and scale" to analyze both surveys. From the information of have on the survey that is the only sclae to use, right? I was a little confused if there was a different one since it says "Mid-year".

Running Records

As I looked over my running records from the ESL teacher, I am left confused. One of my students (EP) is showing the least amount of progress on the phonics assessment, but is making steady progress, equivalent to her peers, with the ESL teacher with running records. So when I expressed my concern with the ESL teacher, she was surprised she hasn't done better. At first, it was hard for me to feel like I was doing something wrong. In another discussion I had with the ESL teacher, I learned that the running record is from a text they have read and discussed duirng the week. Of course her assessments are showing more progress than mine. I am using DRA (cold reads) and phonics assessments to measure progress. I looked over the running record again with a new focus. If she has read and discussed this story during the week, then I would expect less mistakes.
Her mistakes were: (Level F)
says- should have said

climbs- crawls
big- dig
mother- many
flips-fills
to swim- for swimming
under-inside
climb- come
shlecks-shells

compared to FP (level G)

something- sometimes

The difference between the two students is extreme. FP is reading a level ahead and only makes one mistake. The mistake is more reasonable because the similarity in the two words. When you look at EP's mistakes most of them are very unreasonable showing that she does not decode. She looks at the first sound and guesses a word. Then she doesn't even stop to think if it makes sense.

My next steps for EP is to pull her in the mornings and review segementing and blending to help her decode words.

Hallelujah!

I am beginning to update my major assessments that I am using to measure progress. One is the Literacy First Phonics Assessment test. BD has made so much progress! He only has 6 more sections to master! They are *beginning consonant digraphs *vowel dipthongs *closed multisyllabic words
*open multisyllabic words * List B and C

There are a total of 22 sections. BD started the year not knowing his long or short vowel sounds and of course struggled reading CVC words!

FP has made more progress than the Lit First test shows. He would have more of the test mastered if it wasn't for those nonsence words. He just can't seem to apply the skills when the words don't make sense. My old reading coach works at Rusell Cave where they have a very high Spansih speaking population and she said they adapted the test and took out the nonsense words. I know it is important for them to be able to apply the phonics skills but ESL students struggle to understand REAL words, let along NONSENSE words.

EP just hasn't made much progress. The ESL teacher and I are discussing our next steps for her.  :(

I feel safe to say that BP and FP have benefited from multisensory learning. In an article I read for this research, Learning Styles vs. Multiple Intelligences (MI) Two Concepts for Enhancing Learning and Teaching, Prashnig (2005) explains that learning styles (LS) “can be defined as the way human beings prefer to concentrate on, store and remember new and/or difficult information” and MI as “a theoretical frame work for defining/ understanding/assessing/developing people’s different intelligence factors”. (p. 8) LS is the input of information being taught and MI is the output of what was learned. When these two concepts are understood and used correctly in the classroom, Prashnig (2005)  says, “teaching strategies become more useful and effective and learning becomes more enjoyable for students who struggle in traditional classrooms”. (p. 9)

Sight Word Check

It's Friday, so this morning I updated the students' sight word lists. EP didn't seem very excited about reading through the list. She complained and said, "That's a lot of words." She was suppoed to start List B, but didn't really want to. When she realized another student in the group started the list she asked how they did (because she is nosy like that) and said she would try List B. I put the list in front of her and she said,"These look hard!" She read 53/100 of the list.

While updating BD's list, he said, "I don't know this word. It's not in my Wikki Stix list." I explained because they are new words because he was starting List B. He was excited. He read 64/100 words from the list correctly.

While updating the lists, I realized I needed to have the students continue to practice the words they've mastered because they are missing some words they knew the week before. I will make a couple of sets of List A and List B sight words tot he students to practice when they finish work.

Letter Tiles Take 2

After reflecting on my "letter tiles gone bad" lesson, I only put the letter tiles they needed to make their spelling words in their individual baggy. Today EP is absent. The group was so much more focused. EP tends to talk A LOT and get the whole group off track. Students got out their tiles and made sure they were all facing up. We practiced making spelling words again (ui,ue, and ew word families). This time they did not have the spelling list to look off of. I said a word aloud and the students needed to make the word.  BD was the first to make the words first. About half of the time he was correct. HS was consistantly one of the last ones to make words and he was looking around at what the other students were doing. All of the students made "glue" and "blue" correctly. "Fruit" and "suit" were also spelled correctly by almost the whole group. "Clue", "threw" and "knew" were the most missed.

• Clue was spelled as "klue", "clui", and "cluew".

This let me know that it would be helpful to review the different sounds "c" makes. It also shows that on Wednesday, the students have not practiced enough to remember which vowel pair goes with each word. Maybe 3 word families was too much,

• Threw was spelled as "thui", "thrue", "thru", and "thrui".

The student that spelled "thui" often leaved out important sounds when spelling words. They have been working with "th" sounds with the ESL teacher so I was glad to see that they all made the digrah correctly.

• Knew was spelled "new".

This would be a good time to go over multiple meaning words again with this group. (threw also). I also need to expose them to more silent "k" words.

At the end of the lesson, all the students said they had a lot of fun. I was hoping spelling test scores would have been better than they were. the scores ranged from 2/10 to 6/10. They usually have higher scores, but the words were more difficult this week.