Research
Impact
The information that will come from this study will allow me to see what areas my students need the most work from. It will also inform my instruction for all students in their reciprocity in reading and writing based on my research and implementation of effective strategies. As an educator I am committed to constantly learning and growing in my abilities to teach guided reading groups and small group writing. I want my 55 instructional minutes spent with them to be meaningful and beneficial for their learning. I hope that this will support my students’ growth in their reading and writing skills by having multiple strategies to help them solve words for reading and writing. I have access to my instructional coach who will answer questions, model lessons, and provide resources so I can learn how to be most effective in my practice.
Reading and writing are two of the foundational skills taught in our schools today. Over the last handful of decades extensive research has been done to see the correlation between the two. Reciprocity is defined as, “…the knowledge they have in writing flows to and informs their understandings in reading, and what they learn in reading can help them to learn more in writing” (Fried, 2006, p.5). It’s known that if a student struggles in reading that often they will also struggle in writing. In this literature review we will go through topics to help boost all students and grow their reciprocity between reading and writing. Reciprocity can easily be taught in small group reading and writing conferences due to the teacher being next to the student. During that time students will be taught a handful of strategies to help grow their reciprocity and create a tool box to use independently. Reciprocity, small group, and the strategies provided will then aid students in self-correction and monitoring while they independently read and write.
Research
The data I collected from my students showed that we needed to focus on bringing words to fluency within writing and reading. Many of my students could read the words, but when it came down to writing them they didn’t have the strategies to effectively write them. Out of my 25 students only 8 students could write all first grade high frequency words (100 words). After spending a quarter working on second grade words only seven students could spell their second grade words at a proficient standard (75 words).
When working with students at the table during guided writing or at their seats during writers workshop, many will start to give up because they can’t figure out the blends that they are hearing due to a high need of more phonemic awareness. Phonemic awareness is understanding the sounds that letters and blends make together. Knowing this need I would work on phonemic awareness with my entire class for two to three minutes during whole group reading time. This allowed students to have a better understanding of what letters combine together to create blends such as th-. This was important for students to know prior to introducing tools they would use during the study, specifically letter boxes and analogies.
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When looking through their assessments students were struggling with -er and silent -e endings. They also struggled with words that included th- or -ou within words. In August we took our Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) Test. In 2019 the state of Nebraska created a reading bill. This bill stated that if a child scores below a certain score in the area of reading they must be put into a reading intervention. The intervention is up to the district, school, and teaching staff to decide what would be most beneficial to the student. Students would only be required to stay in this intervention until the following testing sessions (Winter and Spring). If students scored out of the set scores the teaching staff could then decide if moving students out of the intervention would be beneficial. The data showed that five students qualified for the reading bill intervention, all five of these students are in one of the groups that will be participating in the study. The other four students that are apart of this study scored below 50% of other peers their age. Because of this they were put into a small group reading group that meets every day of the week, a spelling intervention, and the guided writing intervention that was based around this study.
Need
Purpose Statement
History
My capstone project will be centered around nine second grade students, but the instructional strategies being taught will be implemented for all students in the grade level. Three of the nine students are in speech for articulation. While reading they struggle to create -sh and th- sounds. This is also impacted in their writing and is a skill that is being targeted through guided writing. Another student is on an IEP for an emotional disturbance and behavior plan. All eight of the nine students are below level in reading and writing. Of these nine students, four are Caucasian, three are Hispanic, and two are African American. Our school has a high mobility rate of 18%, with these nine students three students are from a military family. Another student in this group has been to a new elementary school from Kindergarten, first grade, and second grade. Our school has 389 students enrolled with 75% of our student population being caucasian. When surveying the classroom, 13 students said that they have a limited home library or no library at home. Five of nine students in the study said that they had a limited library at home. For the 2019-2020 school year 15% of our students were receiving free and reduced lunch, three of my students qualify for free and reduced lunch, all three will be in the study.
The purpose of my study is to determine if using strategies to improve reciprocity will increase student’s reading and writing achievement.
