Results

Unfortunately I have not been able to run my stats so I do not have any official results at this time.  I have, however, looked at the numbers comparing how my ELs did at the beginning of the year compared to the end of the year.  These students made good progress in phonemic awareness activities.  

My plan once I find someone to help me with my stats is to run a number of different tests.  I want to compare how my ELs did in comparison with the rest of the class.  I also want to compare my class from 2007-2008 with my class from 2006-2007 so that I have a control group.  When I look at the numbers it seems that my class as a whole from 2006-2007 did better on these skills, but they had been doing better since the beginning of the year.  I am curious to see if I have any statistically significant data.

Poetry

My school hires a poet every year to come work with the students and give teachers new ideas. This was my first year participating because kindergarteners do not participate.

This was a great experience.  Most of my students were able to write what they wanted to write with a little bit of help.  I learned that a few of my students are really creative and I had not allowed them to show this before.  I will be doing this poetry lesson again soon.

The poet played a CD of instrumental music and had students doodle and draw designs for about 5-10 minutes.  When this was done she had them write about their picture.  They either had to start with "I am" or "I see."  This was a really great experience for some of my students.  I think that one of my students realized that being an author is a real option for a job and I think this really inspired her.

Writing

Thanks for the feedback on writing tips!

About a month ago I decided to take a writing sample from each child, put it on construction paper, laminate it and I made it into a book.  The students LOVE it!  They fight over who gets to read it all the time.  Since then I have made three more books.  I just finished a Halloween book, which they were even more excited about.  For some students the just like seeing their work in a book.  For other students this is exciting because this is a book that they can actually read because they wrote one of the pages.

I have found that on days that I tell students we are writing to make a new book they really try a lot harder to write words correctly, include punctuation, and have a matching picture.  These are all part of the first grade writing rubric.  If only I had realized this before our writing test... I guess now I can focus on growth for the next test.

Frustrations

I guess I'm just to the point of the school year where I am feeling a little overwhelmed.  Even though I have settled into teaching 1st grade I still feel like I am constantly working to keep up with my lesson planning because it is all new to me.  We had our first round of testing last week and my students did poorly on the writing because I had not prepared them since I did not know we had a writing test.  This is something that I have started to spend more time on but it is hard to fit it all into a day.

I am also stressed out about completing my action research project.  I have made progress on my first two chapters but I have not done any work on chapters 3 and 4.  I collected my test results and inputed the data into excel but I have forgotten completely what to do now.  I emailed my advisor who sent my info to Dr. Tracz who ran my stats but now I am not able to open the file...

So, I am hoping that it all comes together somehow over the next month so that I can finish on time.

All about my research questions

How can teachers help all students learn these skills in a way that will be beneficial to all students?

I have found that some students are able to quickly learn new skills like blending and rhyming while some students have a lot of trouble learning these skills.  I know that I need to continue practicing these skills with my students but I want to do it in a way that is fun.

I think that using partners makes it more fun and also allows students to help each other learn.

I also am curious to know if English learners (especially Spanish speakers) progress through the same stages of pre-reading and reading.  In my experience my Spanish speakers have a hard time learning how to rhyme.  When I asked a coworker who is bilingual she told me that rhyming is less common in Spanish and that there are not many rhyming book like there are in English.  I think that English-speaking children grow up listening to rhyming stories and songs and this makes rhyming easier when these students get to school.

This information gives me an excuse to do more read alouds in class.  I make sure to choose some rhyming books when I am reading aloud to students.

focus on social justice and multicultural curriculum

My project focuses on social justice because I am trying to find a way to teach both English learners and native English speakers.  I do not want to give lots of extra attention to one specific group of students; I want to find a method of teaching that will help all of my students.

On a side note.  

Last year all of my students were Hispanic so I focused on Hispanic and American culture though the year.  This year I have 5 Filipino students.  One of these students does not speak much English so I have a Filipino woman who works in my class a few hours a day to tutor this boy.  I am hoping to have her help me teach about the Filipino culture since I have such a large percentage of Filipino students this year.  This will also be an opportunity for me to learn more about the Filipino culture.

How will your study influence your future practice?

Even though I am not teaching kindergarten this year I will still use some of the techniques that I used during my action research. The most important is that I will continue using partners. I learned that partners help my teaching in a number of ways:

1. I have half as many people to call on (I have 10 groups instead of 20 students).
2. I can listen is while they are whispering with partners so that I know which students in each pair are understanding and which students are not.
3. Students are able to help each other.
4. Shy students only have to whisper to one student instead of speaking up in front of the whole class.
5. Students get to know each other. I change partners about once every six weeks so students get to know a number of different classmates throughout the year.

New Principal

So, this year we have a new principal. Over the past three years I have had two different principals, one good and one not so good. I was a little apprehensive coming into this school year since I had not yet met my new principal.
I'm happy to say that I think my new principal is reasonable and fair. She follows the rules laid down by the district since she is new this year but her goal is to provide the best learning environment possible for our students. She also wants to make the teachers happy in any way she can. She actually comes around to do informal observations, she has already had goal-setting meetings with all of the teachers and she has brought back our staff leadership team. All of these are things that my last principal did not do.

The new school year

The beginning of this school year was stressful. I was notified at the end of last school year that I might get moved to 1st grade this year because the enrollment of kindergarteners was low. The week before school started I checked with my new principal to see if she knew what grade I would be teaching and she said she was not sure yet. The day before school started she told me that if enough kindergarteners enrolled during the first week of school I would be moved from 1st grade to kindergarten. I told her that I would prefer to stay in 1st grade if that is where I was starting the year but she could not make any guarantees.

I started the year with a class of 1st graders but I did not have any of the 1st grade curriculum. I had to make copies of worksheets and busy work for the first three days of school until they agreed that I would be staying in 1st grade and could finally deliver the curriculum. After two and a half weeks things are finally settling down and I am starting to figure out 1st grade. I am enjoying my students and I am getting familiar with the curriculum.

• What is the context for your action research? What are your research questions and why did
you decide to investigate them?

I want to know how I can help students learn phonemic awareness (PA). PA is a set of skills in which a student learned to manipute spoken sounds to make words. These skills help students to learn to read and write. I chose this topic because I have a few students every year who have a difficult time learning these skills and these students are usually English learners.

• The MAT focuses on social justice and multicultural curriculum. How is your research
related to these?

Since it seems that English learners have a difficult time learning these skills I want to help them learn but I do not want to give these students a lot of extra attention if it will take away from teaching my other students. Through my research I learned that most students will benefit from these PA activities, even if they already have a basic understanding of PA.

• What results have you found from your study? Did they surprise you? Why do you think they
did or didn’t?

In my class last year I gave all students a PA partner. I would give students a task (i.e. what are the sounds in the word cat?) and they would whisper with their partner. When they were ready with an answer they would raise their hands together. I always made sure to match an English learner with a native English speaker so that the EL could have a model. When they students were whispering I was able to listen to hear if one or both of the students in each partner were participating and whether or not they were giving a correct answer. My students from this class performed better on their end of the year PA test than my class the year before. This did not surprise me because this was my goal.

• How will your study influence your future practice?

I will continue to use partners for different activities in my class. It not only helped my students learn but it also helped me observe students when they were whispering. I will continue to use partners for PA in my 1st grade class since some of my students still need help with these skills and it is good practice for my other students.