What was being implemented?
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For the purpose of this study, I implemented phonemic awareness through word study. Phonemic awareness is the study of phonics by looking at the framework of words. Phonics provides students with strategies to break apart words into parts. By doing so, students can problem solve by decoding, analogizing, prediction, or by reading words from memory or sight. By implementing word study, students received direct instruction on patterns and sounds that letters can make within the words. By providing students with the necessary skills and strategies to build a foundation of phonemic awareness through direct instruction, students were then able to reciprocate the skills and strategies into their daily reading.
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How and why was it being implemented?
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For this study, three main strategies were highlighted and utilized. These strategies were: word study, sight words, and small group instruction.
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Word Study
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Word study was chosen because my study encompasses phonemic awareness. By incorporating and implementing word study skills and strategies, students were getting direct instruction on phonics skills related to the text they were reading. Based on vowel patterns or blends that I would see in the text, I developed a short mini lesson on the sound it would make.
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Sight Words
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Small Group Instruction
Small group instruction was implemented when differentiating and incorporating both word study and sight words. The students were divided in guided reading groups based on reading ability. Their reading ability was determined off of guided reading levels that are lettered. The higher the letter in the alphabet, the higher the guided reading level. My study focused on one small guided reading group of 4 students that were all reading at the same guided reading level. This small group met for 15 to 20 minutes every school day. During the small group instruction was when the word study and sight word strategies were implemented to start each lesson.
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The strategies used were done during word study portions during guided reading groups. This portion took up the first 3-5 minutes of the guided reading group. For my guided reading groups, we were on a 3-day schedule. The first day involved a word study lesson and introducing a book to the students. The second day was a review of the phonics skills from the word study, and then a running record was done on one of the students. The third day was used as a guided writing time, where students wrote about their writing. With the guided writing, I implemented word study through involving sight words within their sentences.
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When was it implemented?
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How did this study meet the needs of my students?
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Based on my rationale, my students had an overall low achievement in reading. From taking anecdotal notes and daily observations in their reading abilities throughout the school year thus far, I could tell there was a need for phonics instruction. Students displayed struggles with vowel sounds, blends, and knowing how to decode words into parts. Based on this need, I determined what strategies would fit this need for my students. Incorporating and implementing word study provided students with knowledge on frameworks of words along with strategies on how to decode and find patterns within words. Sight words allowed students to apply strategies and build vocabulary to read and write. This was all done while targeting students at the same learning levels through small group instruction, which allowed me to meet individual needs and utilize optimal teaching time by using these strategies in their guided reading groups.
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Diverse learning needs were accounted for through differentiation. The students were divided into groups based on their diverse learning needs in reading. These groups are categorized based on their reading ability, which is determined and given a letter to represent this ability. The guided reading level first gets determined by using a benchmark system through Fountas and Pinnel. This benchmark system allows the educator to assess using a reading record to find the level that is best fit for the student. The reading record provides the accuracy percent based on the amount of errors made while reading and their level of comprehension. Once the students are benchmarked, they are given a guided reading level that matches. These students are then placed into groups of the same guided reading level to best meet the diverse learning needs of all students in my classroom. As students show progression and proficiency in reading based on the running records, they continue to move up in guided reading levels.
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The study also supported culturally responsive teaching by the use of sight word. Sight words lists are sent home for families to practice both reading and writing at home. Each week I would send out an email reminding parents what list we were on and the words within that list. This allowed parents to know what the students were doing in the classroom that they could also practice at home.
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Goals for the Students and Myself
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The overall goal of this study was for students to rise in guided reading levels. However, throughout the study we set goals for both students and myself to achieve every time we met as a group. When we met at a group, we would discuss the learning goal for our phonics lesson. This goal was stated to them so that they could continue to build and hear the phonics vocabulary and apply this goal into their learning and their reading. During this study, students also grew two guided reading levels. When we would start a new book at a different level, I would discuss why and how this book would be different from books we were reading and celebrate the success of moving up. Each time a group of mine went up in guided reading, we would celebrate with a Starburst. For sight words, we set the goal of wanting to be able to read all 100 sight words. This is why we would practice sight words on Day 3 of guided writing and by sending the list home. I wanted to give them optimal opportunities to practice to be able to reach this goal.
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As for myself, I set a goal during this study to better understand my students on a day to day basis. The point of this study was to help them achieve in reading levels, but I also wanted to help students simply grow as readers. This meant each day I had to reevaluate my teaching, take notes on what I was noticing while I read with students, and listen for areas of teaching that I could bring in the next day. By doing this, I wanted to help meet the needs of my students as a group, and individually. I wanted to develop strong, lifelong readers by understanding each student as a person, a learner, and a reader.
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Sight words are another strategy that was used within the study. Sight words are a list of words that students are required to master in both reading and writing. These sight words are chosen based on common words that students may see within text or words they use in writing. Sight words are not always the words that are the rule breakers in the English language. Educators can teach how the phonic relations apply to these words, rather than just telling students this is how the word is pronounced and ask the child to memorize the word. For my students, my district compiled a list of 100 words. At the start of the study, students were introduced to 80 of the 100 words. After four weeks into the study, they were introduced to all 100 words. On day three guided reading, which consisted of guided writing, I would involve the use of one or two sight words within their sentences to check for mastery on both reading and writing.
First Grade Sight Word List
Word study focuses on the framework of the words. By looking at the framework, students can find patterns and decode parts they find in the framework. This then allows them to take these patterns and relate the sounds to other words they read and write. This is where creating the mini lesson at the beginning of day one and day two guided reading provided students with optimal learning opportunities. They were able to be exposed to the word study and then use their new learning within their reading directly. The transfer and connections that were made helped the phonics skill stick by utilizing the skill after they learned the skill.
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During the word study portion of the guided reading group, the students and I would use various manipulatives to help understand the phonics lesson for this day. Some days we would use letter tiles to build words with the pattern. I would set the tiles out before and give them the letters needed to help mix and create. Other days, we would write on the table with dry erase markers. This was a favorite activity for the group, as they were engaged in the idea of being able to physically write on the table.
Another strategy we often used to help with phonics is the use of letter and sound boxes. Letter and sound boxes help students separate the letters and sounds they hear to decode a word into its respective parts. This helps students identify where the sounds are at in either the beginning, middle, or end and help to spell and decode the word in parts. The picture to the right shows the students first attempt at the r-controlled vowel word 'over'. We then used the boxes together to help break down the parts into what we are hearing and the order we heard them.
Sound and Letter Box Example
These are examples of their guided writing during day three of guided reading. The shows where sight words were used within their guided writing.
This study was implemented during guided reading groups. Each of my three guided reading groups meet daily for about 15 to 20 minutes. This study specifically focused on one guided reading group of 4 homogenous students reading at the same guided reading level. Word study and sight word strategies were implemented at the beginning of the small group instruction prior to reading the text to practice the phonics skills for that day.The study began on January 27th with a pretest and ended on March 6th with a post test. In-between, the days rotated between two days of phonics skills and one day of guided writing with sight words. The last went on for six weeks for a total of 27 days with direct instruction.
This study supports culturally responsive teaching through differentiated groups. These groups are differentiated based on the guided reading level abilities. This allows me to foster equitable teaching through grouping based on ability level. All students will be getting word study based on what they need as a group. The books chosen were based on common interests of students, and also common experiences. For example, three out of the four students had played soccer, so we read a book all about soccer to help them connect with the text and gain interest in reading the text. Within each book there is vocabulary to go over as a group. These words are highlighted within their text. Before reading the book on their own, I would preview these highlighted words to help make the text more accessible to them while reading independently.
