Action Research Comes to a Close

“Action research is used by teachers as a process to facilitate change in their work as a professional. Not only does action research foster opportunities for teachers to make important evidence-based changes in their practice, but it also serves as validation of practices that work.”

       I whole-heartedly believe in the basic thinking of action research.  It is my hope that I never become a “stale” teacher because when you stop changing and improving to meet the needs of your students you should no longer be in the classroom.  My biggest fear with finishing my master’s degree is the idea that I will not have a constant incoming flow of new knowledge at my fingertips.  That scares me because I want to continue to stay on top of things and how I can always change and improve to get better and be better for my students. 

       Action research is what good teachers have to continually do to get better.  If something is not working for your students, then you must seek out an alternative and try that out.  Monitoring how students are doing and what is and is not working for them is essential to help student continue to grow.  This is exactly what is asked that teachers do in the RTI process as well.  They are asked to try things and give them a fair try. If they don’t work, then they are asked to change it and try something new until they find something that does work.  Action research is essential and I will continue to change and find new things to do in the future to help all of my students succeed.

       However, I do feel like some of the aspects of action research are not essential.  I don’t always think that teacher have to talk about whether what they are doing is working or not.  Teachers who know their kids and know them well immediately know when things are working or not most of the time.  I could tell instantly in other “mini” action research projects that things were going to work or if they weren’t going to work.  I do believe in giving things a fair try too.  Also, the written aspect of action research in my case felt a little unimportant because I wanted to know what worked best for my kids. But, what works best for my kids, may not be what is best for other kids in other classrooms.  I hope that the one thing that will others may take away from my action research is that the process of change and action research is essential.  While change is not always comfortable, it is necessary for students to be successful.  Overall, I am in support of action research and am happy to have had the opportunity to participate and experience it.

Coming to the End of the Year!

Wow!  I know that I mentioned this in my last post, but oh my goodness the end of the school year is CRAZY!!!!  We are continuing learning between field trips, track meets, and other "stuff".  The Words Their Way process in continuing but any routine that we had in any way is completely gone (and not just for Words Their Way)! I think that the students are still enjoying the Words Their Way even though it has to feel as random to me as it does to them when I say "take out your words". 

I still think that the most powerful aspect to the Words Their Way program is how students start to recognize their patterns in other places.  Even though our schedule is basically non existent, they will come up to me and say "hey, look I found my word pattern in this book".  This is so powerful to me because before I never heard students talking about words in any way because they all had different words and the words were essentially random in pattern.

It's scary to think that my first year of teaching is almost over! But, I am so looking forward to the summer where I will be able to take some time to set up games to play with Words Their Way and other activities to help create this routine early.   While I feel like I am getting good data to compare to what we were doing before, I am excited to see what a whole year of the Words Their Way program can do to help students with their spelling and maybe other areas of literacy as well.

So, the spelling program has continued.  The students are still enjoying this format much better than they were previously.  I am seeing a fair amount of growth.  It has not been as scheduled and regular as I had originally hoped because of the craziness of spring.  However, we are still working to do the sorts daily and to continue gathering data. 
I was hoping to incorporate some of the games that are available to go with Words Their Way that I found in both the book and others that I have found online.  However, the time in the day to teach new games and play them is most often not there.  I am hopeful that should we get to continue to use this program in the future that I can create, teacher, and use these games earlier in the year.  As a first year teacher, I had heard about how crazy spring time in the schools is, but had never witnessed it.  Well, I am living it currently and it is more crazy that I had ever imagined.  Regardless, I am impressed with the students willingness to continue with this program.  We continue to do the sorts if different manners because they are quick to teach and complete.  I have also been very excited to see students bringing their books and other reading materials to me in order to show me words from their sort or with the same pattern in their sorts.

The Journey Continues

We have continued our new spelling program this week.  The kids are still enjoying the different work and the change in not having to study words at home every night in preparation for our tests on Wednesday.  I introduced speed sorts this week.  The students are enjoying the challenge of racing other students to complete their sorts.  I feel like even though I am only spending a few minutes with each student at most, but I feel like I am teaching him or her so much more spelling than I did previously.  Before, all students had a differentiated sort that they studied on their own independently.  Their lists were taken from pre tests and then directly from their writing. This did not allow me to work on patterns with them at all in any capacity.  They are working hard and recognizing the patterns in spelling that they are working on.

            I worked with two students the following day on a blind sort.  This has students paired up with another student.  The students do not have to have the same sort.  The students switch sorts.  Student 1 reads the words to Student 2 from Student 2’s sort.  Student 2 writes the words under the headings in which they belong.  The students then switch words and repeat for the other student.  I worked mainly with two students during this time.  It was fantastic to see how much the students have already learned after completing their sort only about five times in different ways.  I am excited to see what they will continue doing as they get new sorts on Monday. 

            I also had the opportunity to help another teacher get the Words Their Way program up and going in her classroom.  She decided she would like to give the program a try in her class as well.  She was very excited at the different ways students could practice and how she could also start to help students with understanding the patterns.  She was pleasantly surprised that many of her first grade students were in fact on track with where they needed to be for first grade!  I am excited to see the outcomes that she sees in her classroom.  I am also wanting to see if this helps some of her struggling readers any as they learn new and more patterns.

Getting it Going

Hi there!

                So the Words Their Way madness continues!  My kids really like the program so far.  It has been weird for them not to have a definite list every week like they are used to having.  Some of them have asked me if they have a new list of words this week.  They are all still working on their first sort, but some will get their new sorts starting this week after taking their tests.  We are a little behind schedule on new sorts and their tests at the end of these tests because of snow days and days off because of basketball games.  However, I am extremely pleased with the progress that my students are already making. 

                The tests that follow each word sort were taken by students early last week.  These tests are helpful, but not as helpful as working with students as they are completing the word sorts.  I wish that I could see and work with all students as they work through the sorts because I learned so much more about how the students are doing with these word patterns.  I do think however, that students who are able to quickly complete their sorts are doing alright and are not students who I need to help as much with their sorts, so I am able to help many of the students who are struggling with their sorts still.  I am interested to see how many different directions I am pulled when some students get new sorts while other students keep their sorts because they are still not proficient at their sorts.  I am worried that more students than just a few will need support.  I am so excited to see how it goes.  I am nervous because I am behind on moving students along because training them how to work with the sorts and use them has been a longer process than I thought.  But, I will keep going. 

                On another note, I wanted to share that there are some rumors floating around my school that other teachers want to implement the Words Their Way program and I am excited to see how they make it work with their kids and the kind of results that they see.  Who knows, maybe next year we will all be doing the program if we see good results with the kids right now!

The Madness Begins!

So, the Words Their Way is under way in my classroom.  It took longer to get it up and going than I expected.  The testing of the students went well, but then placing them in the right sort was time consuming and at times a bit confusing.  However, with the help of my AWESOME aid, we got the program up and going in my classroom.  I am excited to see the students’ excitement with this new program.  I am not sure if this is excitement because it is something new and different or because of the mini light bulbs that are going off in their minds.

Regardless of why students are excited, I am thrilled that they are excited.  The most difficult part of initially introducing the sorts to students from the program was giving everyone their mini lesson.  In an effort to save time I gave all of the students their sorts to begin cutting out and then went to each students (again with the help of my AWESOME aid) and did a brief mini lesson about the sort with each student as they were cutting apart their sorts.  This worked will for most of my students and I knew instantly the students who were still struggling with their sort and the concept of sorting their words and will focus more intently on them tomorrow and the days to come as they complete their sort again. 

Another aspect of the program that I was extremely pleased with is the time it took to complete the activity.  On the first day, when students are cutting out their sorts, it does take more time, but once the sorts are cut out it takes most students about 3 minutes maximum to complete their sort.  I am excited that the students are all working on what they need to become better spellers at their level, and that it only takes a matter of minutes to them to work with the words.  Now, I just need to wait for the data collection to continue in determine who this program is affecting and who it is not helping. 

The best part of the program at this point is that when I told my students that we were going to be working on reading I didn’t get the “uhhh, do we have to” reaction that usually comes from the my announcements regarding spelling!

Hi! My name is Neelly and I am completely new to the whole blogs, but am excited to give it a try.  I am running head first into this blog because I am currently working on my master degree through Western State Colorado University.  I graduated from high school a few years ago.  I immediately knew that I wanted to become a teacher.  I worked hard to get through my undergraduate in four years.  I had a few horrible experiences in my undergraduate the made me rethink becoming a teacher a few times.  However, the kids always brought me right back to it.

 Once I graduated from my undergraduate program, I decided that maybe I wasn’t ready to have my own classroom, yet I knew I still wanted to be working in the school and with kids.  This is how I found the master’s program at Western. I did an internship in special education in Gypsum, Colorado while working on adding my special education endorsement through the coursework.  Through my internship, I applied for, interviewed, and received the opportunity to work as a paraprofessional one on one with a student.  This was a challenging assignment, but one that I fully enjoyed.  The best part of this job was having the opportunity to go back and visit this particular student this year and seeing his successes continue.  From that experience, I knew that I immediately wanted to get a job where I could spend an entire year working with students.  I am now teaching 5^th and 6^th grade students in a small school in eastern Colorado.  I love these students although, the job can be challenging some days.

I am constantly looking for new ways to help my students.  I have a passion for finding something that helps each and every student.  I want them all to be as successful as possible.  Because of this, I was lead to my action research project.  I have chosen to look at the different aspects of spelling that could help or prevent students from achieving.  I noticed that some of my students are still struggling with spelling, often other areas of literacy too, even the most basic of words going into 5^th and 6^th grade.  This made me wonder how effective our spelling program was for these students as this is what they are accustomed to. This is where I will be focusing my attention for the next few months.