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Allan HendershotEDE49424/1/16

Wondering/inquiry question

My focus student, I’ll call her Allison, is six years old and is considered an “average”

first grade student. This is her second year at Collins Elementary School. She lives with her

mother who takes an active role in her education, frequently reading to her and assisting her

academically whenever possible. Allison’s mother is also attending school, so she has limited

time to spend working with Allison at home.

As a student, Allison is very attentive. She is also quick to volunteer answers to prompts,

but seldom asks questions of her own. She is quite outgoing and is proud to show others her

hard work. Allison likes art and dogs. She also enjoys reading the Junie B. Jones series.

After spending a few days observing her in class and reviewing her DRA, running record,

writing samples, spelling inventory, and interview notes with her kindergarten teacher, I noticed

an interesting pattern. Her reading comprehension is quite high but she struggles with fluency. I

wonder what strategies could be employed to increase Allison’s fluency while maintaining or

improving her comprehension.

Reason/rationale for selecting the question.

I analyzed the following items while considering my wondering:

Running records, conducted by her teacher and myself. Her DRA, administered at the beginning of the year. The ERAS assessment. A spelling inventory administered by myself. Field notes and observations made during class time. Notes collected during an interview with her previous teacher.


My analysis of this data provided interesting insight. Allison’s Running Record

administered by her teacher at the beginning of the year shows that she is reading at level 14.

Out of 98 words, she made eight errors with one self-correction. According to her teacher

Allison reads haltingly and often stumbles on common sight words. She also has frequent issues

with single syllable long vowel patterns and cvc blends.

While Allison’s Oral Fluency scores as “Developing”, on her DRA her comprehension is

at or above grade level. This seems somewhat unusual, especially when considering her ERAS.

Her responses are quite varied, and she scores in the 32nd percentile for recreational reading.

However, her responses for academic reading are significantly more positive, putting her at the

58th percentile for academic reading and the 46th percentile overall. This positive attitude

towards academic reading may be due to the fact that most of the texts read in school are selected

for her and match her reading level more closely. She may be selecting recreational books that

are too challenging. Allison’s challenges with long vowel patterns are revealed on her spelling

inventory as well. Each error in spelling made was in the long vowel pattern category.

Field notes taken during class time and independent reading sessions show that she reads

slowly and carefully. She meticulously sounds out each word she is unfamiliar with before

moving on. When she is reading words she knows, she reads with some fluency and prosody.

She mostly stumbles on single and multi-syllable words with long vowels.

In addition to the data discussed above, I was also able to interview Allison’s

kindergarten teacher. One area of particular concern was whether or not certain elements of my

action plan were developmentally appropriate for Allison. Here is a sample from the interview

regarding my plan to introduce Allison to word studies.


Allan: I am considering doing word studies with Allison. I will be starting with some

basic word sorts that emphasize and contrast long and short vowels. Do you think this is

developmentally appropriate for Allison?

Ms. Robinson: I think so. We introduced these in Kindergarten. So she should be

aware of them. I do a book called circus vowels, if you want to take a look at that. So

she has been introduced to that concept. So I think you are right on target with where she

needs to be to go to the next level.

After analyzing all of the data, consulting with Allison’s current teacher, and

interviewing her previous teacher I feel confident that my wondering is authentic and my goal to

increase fluency through word study and scaffolded silent reading, discussed in detail later in the

brief, is developmentally appropriate. Further, Allison’s careful attention to detail and

methodical approach to reading prompts me to extend my wondering. If Allison is able to

develop fluency and prosody while reading, how much higher will her comprehension increase?

Summary of outside research

Below is a summary of each practitioner article I used when constructing my action plan.

A Focus on Fluency: How One Teacher Incorporated Fluency with Her Reading Curriculum

This article begins by defining fluency and why it is important, focusing on the idea that

reading requires the student to decode and comprehend what they are reading simultaneously.


The effort of decoding creates a cognitive load which in turn reduces comprehension. The

authors describe how one teacher, over the course of three school years, incorporated fluency

into her daily routines. The following strategies were introduced: Readers’ Theatre, writer's craft

passages, strategic partner reading, and use of timed readings for data collection. Data gathered

during this three year period was compared to that of previous years. The results indicate that

these strategies created more student engagement with reading and increased their reading ability

in various areas. The article gives concise details on how I could incorporate Readers’ Theatre

into my daily instruction.

Scaffolded Silent Reading: A Complement to Guided Repeated Oral Reading That Works!

This article challenges the notion that traditional sustained silent reading is without

benefit; however, the implementation and underlying pedagogy of this technique must be

modified in order effectively increase fluency and reading skills. As an alternative to sustained

silent reading, scaffolded silent reading was implemented and modeled in a 3rd grade classroom

using strategies such as teacher guided instruction on student book selection, individual reading

conferences during independent reading, student monitored and directed goal setting, explicitly

teaching higher order questioning and thinking, read alouds, and book talks. Formative and

summative evidence was gathered throughout the implementation and shows that scaffolded

silent reading is an effective method for incorporating fluency into the curriculum and improving

silent reading skills. I plan on teaching my students how to select the appropriate text for their

developmental level.


Two Essential Ingredients: Phonics and Fluency Getting to Know Each Other

This article describes how phonics and fluency, often taught separately as disparate

elements of literacy, can be merged through the use of rhymes and word patterns. By explicitly

teaching word families in context with rhyming poetry, students can use their existing knowledge

to effortlessly decode and spell hundreds of unfamiliar words. The following strategies are

described in detail. First, identify the target word family. Next, have students brainstorm and

add new words over several days. Follow this up with teacher guided class and group discussion

about the words. Next, create or select poetry containing numerous examples from the word

family being taught. Then have students reread the poem utilizing different techniques to

practice fluency such as echo reading, choral reading, partner reading etc… Complete the word

family exercise with follow up activities such as word sorts and discussions about new or

interesting words. These techniques, supported by research, demonstrate how phonics and

fluency can be combined to increase accuracy, automaticity, and prosody in student reading.

Action plan outline

Below is my intended action plan. The main idea is to introduce the student to word

studies which focus on contrasting long and short vowel families. This strategy is coupled with

silent scaffolded reading. This entails teacher guided instruction on student book selection,

individual reading conferences during independent reading, student monitored and directed goal

setting, explicitly teaching higher order questioning and thinking, read alouds, and book talks.

Due to time constraints, I will not be able to implement all of the aforementioned approaches.

Instead, I will shift some of the focus to exercises which stress phonics and poetry.


Week 1Teacher Guided Closed Word Sort: fluency through knowledge of word families.

I will introduce the concept of word sorts to my focus student.

I will start with the following word families based on data gathered from the student’s DRA, running record, spelling inventory, and writing samples.

Short/long e A few selected oddball words.

Short ebest, left, neck, bell, bled, yet

Long e-e green, wheel, sheet, need, bleed, teeth, creep, speed

Long e-a mean, team, deal, reach, beach, steam, clean, bean

Oddball been, head

Initially I may switch back to short vowel word families. This will be determined by the student’s success and frustration level.

Follow up activity: Brainstorm with student to see if we can come up with more words that fit the families discussed this week.

Assessment: Will be obtained through informal field notes along with pictures of the student’s work.

Individual Readers Conference: fluency through silent scaffolded reading.

During independent reading time I will discuss and determine background knowledge of different literary genres such as fiction, nonfiction, informational texts, etc…

I will introduce the three finger rule; if there are more than three unfamiliar words on the page then the text is too difficult.


Assessment: The first assessment will be formative and obtained through informal field notes. Specifically, I will find out what types of books the student is reading and attempt to gauge the difficulty level she is comfortable with. This will inform my instruction for the following weeks, allowing me to explicitly teach book selection.

Week 2

Teacher Guided Closed Word Sort: fluency through knowledge of word families.

I will continue the word sort activity.

This week I will review how to do a word sort and introduce a new word family. Based on my notes from the previous week I will repeat one or more of the word families already covered.

Short/Long e

Short emess, rest, bell, kept, nest, shell, vest

Short e-ahead, dead, deaf, breath, death, dread, bread

Long e-aneat, meal, speak, meat, treat, sneak, heat

Follow up activity: I will have the student read several poems or selected text that focus on words used in the word sort.

Assessment: Will be obtained through informal field notes along with pictures of the student’s work. I will also do an informal running record while the student is reading the selected text.


During independent reading I will discuss the text the student is currently reading. We will focus on comprehension through questioning. According to the data from her DRA and running record, her comprehension is quite good but she struggles with fluency. Also, according to her


ERAS her attitude towards recreation reading is quite low for her grade. I want to increase her automaticity without diminishing her comprehension.

I will give the student sticky notes and encourage her to place question marks near passages that engage her interest in the book she is reading. I will model my thinking for the student via a read aloud.

Assessment: Assessment will occur through informal field notes and by gathering and discussing her questions during her next available independent reading time.

Week 3

Teacher Guided Closed Word Sort: fluency through knowledge of word families.


Short/long i A few selected oddball words

Short idish, chip, king, whip, twin, miss, pink, rich

Long i-ehike, hide, ripe, nice, white, dime, fine, life

Oddballgive, live

Follow up activity: We will brainstorm for new words and review previous word sorts. We will write a poem using some of the selected words.

Assessment: Will be obtained through informal field notes along with pictures of the student’s work and assessment of poem.



We will review last week’s discussion regarding questioning while reading. We will discuss making predictions while reading. I will model and instruct her to place a P on a sticky note near text where she made a prediction while reading. This can occur either during independent reading or during teacher assigned reading.

Assessment: Assessment will occur through informal field notes and by gathering and discussing her predictions and questions during her next available independent reading time.

Week 4


Short/Long i A few selected oddball words

Short iClip, win, trick, gift, list, mitt, thick, swim

Long i-eMine, price, spine, lime, wife, vine, five

Long i/yTry, fly, shy, why, sky, dry

OddballEye, buy, bye

Follow up activity: We will brainstorm for new words and review previous word sorts. I will introduce the concept of a word hunt. We will select a text that the student is familiar with and hunt for selected words. I will model this activity by showing her how to hunt for long i/y in words like try. These will be easy to spot and should be fairly common.

Assessment: Will be obtained through informal field notes along with pictures of the student’s work. Additionally I will observe the student as she starts her word hunt. This is to inform instruction for future comprehension activities. I need to determine how well she can skim a familiar text for specific data.



We will review previous lessons on questioning while reading and making predictions. We will discuss questions and predictions. I will introduce higher order thinking questions.

What makes you think that? Why do you say that?

Can you elaborate on that? (note: may have to explain “elaborate”) Can you tell me more about your thinking? (emphasis on this question as these

conferences are meant to focus on metacognition) How did you come up with that?

Assessment: Assessment will occur through informal field notes and by gathering and discussing her predictions and questions during independent reading time. This purpose of this is to inform instruction for the next meeting. As the student has a liking for paired or buddy reading, I intend to group her with a student who is above grade level in reading to model fluency and practice predictions and questioning while reading.

Data collection methods used

I used several data collection modes throughout my action plan. Each week focused on a

word study based on a particular word family. During each of these sessions I allowed Allison to

sort and categorize the words as she saw fit, only offering the occasional suggestion. I took field

notes during and after each lesson. I also photographed her work. I also administered an

informal running record before one of her word sort activates. The text used was a poem I

created which contained all of the words she would be studying in the upcoming lesson. The

purpose was to determine if her fluency with these word increased after the word study. I will be

administering another running record using the same words but with a different poem in the

coming weeks.

Left: An analysis of the running record. Right: A photograph of a word study performed by the

student.


I also collected data in the form of observation notes. One of my peers observed while I

administered a word study and discussed how to select just right books with the student.

Left: Field notes. Right: Peer observation notes.

I also collected the following data.

DRA. The ERAS assessment. Spelling inventory. Interviews with current and previous teacher.


Main claims from inquiry:

I make two claims. First I believe that Allison’s fluency and prosody have increased.

Second, I believe she has gained greater phonological awareness through word study. My

second claim strays from my original wondering in that it focuses on phonological awareness

rather than comprehension. Two factors influenced this decision. First, time constraints in the

classroom reduced the amount of time we were able to allocate to comprehension strategies.

Second, my analysis of the data collected thus far indicated that I should shift my focus towards

phonological awareness.


Much of my assessment is formative and was recorded in the form of field notes and

informal running records. I recently administered a running record based on Allison’s current

reading level. The results are as follows: her current reading level is 14, she read a total of 98

words, her total number of self-corrections was 1, her error rate was 1:10 and her accuracy rate

was 90%. These results are very close to what she scored at the beginning of the year. At first

glance it would seem that she has not advanced. Her reading level has not changed and her error

rate is the same, but I have been observing her reading and recording notes over the past 12

weeks. My notes are extensive so I will summarize.

During the first few weeks I noted that she read quite slowly, often stopping to sound out

each word. This occurred most often with words that were single syllable and contained a long

vowel. As we progressed through the word studies, I noticed that this began to change. She

would read several words fluently and with prosody and then stop on a certain word. Instead of

simply trying to phonetically decipher a word such as hike, in this case she would say hik

followed by a short e sound. She would stop and look at the word and point out that it has an e at

the end and pronounce the word correctly after a few tries. Using strategies in this manner ties in

closely with my first two claims. She is reading with more confidence because she has a strategy

to use when she encounters unfamiliar words. Her experiences with word study, focused

specifically on sorting and thinking about how words relate to each other, has changed the way

she thinks about words.

I also made a point of tracking the length of time each word study required as we moved

through my action plan. Again I am summarizing my field notes. The first session was quite

slow and it took close to 45 minutes to complete. I noted that she was able to separate the words


into separate categories with some prompting. The second word study took slightly less time to

complete likely because she had a better grasp on how to create each word category.

It was not until week 4 that things began to improve. It only took 10 minutes for her to

complete the word study from a cold start. Interestingly she was unfamiliar with many of these

words and we had to spend some time going over definitions and pronunciation. The final word

study was quite successful. She was able to identify the long and short vowels right away. She

was categorizing by the sound of the word, and by the short and long vowel pattern within the

word. I have not yet completed my final assessment which is to administer a running record

based on the words used in our four word studies.

Conclusion: What did you learn about yourself as a teacher? What questions are you left with?

This experience has been invaluable. I learned that things do not always go according to

plan. For instance, I was unable to spend as much time working on comprehension as I would

have liked. Allison was fascinated with the word study and seemed very focused, so most of

allotted time was spent working on that rather than discussing just right books, or explicitly

teaching appropriate book selection.

I have also learned that teaching is more than just a string of lesson plans. One can

survive in a classroom that way, just working day to day and meeting the requirements of the

curriculum. I’ve seen it done, but it looks pretty unfulfilling from my perspective. I’ve learned

that you actually have to talk to these kids, not just analyze the data, place them in a category and

hope they succeed.


Working with Allison has to some extent changed the way I look at teaching. When I

began my action plan I thought I was prepared. I knew her attitude towards academic reading

was better than her attitude towards recreational reading. I assumed this was because she had not

learned appropriate strategies for book selection. I labored under this assumption for weeks until

we had a discussion about Dr. Seuss. She said she loved One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue

Fish. I asked why she had not brought it in as one of her just right books. She stated that she did

not like to bring baby books to class. Later that day I looked back through my notes and

discovered that all the books she was reading were informational. There were not any

nonfiction, poetry, or picture books.

Because of this one brief dialog with my student I had to reevaluate my assumptions and

change my plans. Instead of worrying about the three finger rule I asked a few of her classmates

to share what they were reading with Allison. Fortunately the variety of books they were reading

was sufficient unto the moment and my point was made. I explained that there are no such

things as “baby books” and that reading should be enjoyable. I told her to read what she likes as

much as she likes. I can only hope she understood.

I do have some lingering questions. I wonder if the work we completed on word study

will make a difference in the long run. My notes and observations indicate that she has gained a

new understanding of word patterns. I wonder if she will be able to take what she has learned

and apply it to other word families that we did not have time to study.

I also wonder how I can take the strategies I have used with Allison and apply them to an

entire class. This was my first exposure to word studies and I believe they can be used

effectively for almost any student. Differentiation is easy as well, as it is a simple matter of


changing the complexity of the words used to match the level of the student. I find myself

thinking about how I would incorporate this into the everyday routine of my own classroom.


References

AlphaKids Reading Assessment Kit, Grades K-2. (2002). How to Take Running Records. Scholastic Canada Ltd.

Bear, D., & Invernizzi, M. (2012). Word Study for Phonics, Vocabulary, and Spelling Instruction (5th ed.). Boston: Pearson/Allyn and Bacon.

Griffith, L. W. & Rasinski, T. V. (2004, October). A focus on fluency: How one teacher incorporated fluency with her reading curriculum. The Reading Teacher, 58(2), p. 126–137. doi:10.1598/RT.58.2.1

Harvey, S., & Goudvis, A. (2007). Strategies that work teaching comprehension for understanding and engagement (2nd ed.). Portland, Me.: Stenhouse ;.

McKenna, M.C. & Kear, D.J. (1990, May). Measuring attitude toward reading: A new tool for teachers. The Reading Teacher, 43(8), 626-693. http://dx.doi.org/10:1598/RT.43.8.3

Rasinski, T. V., Rupley, W. H., & Nichols, W. D. (2008, November). Two essential ingredients: Phonics and fluency getting to know each other. The Reading Teacher, 62(3), p. 257-260. doi: 10.1598/RT.62.3.7

http://dx.doi.org/10:1598/RT.43.8.3

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