Work Sample – Dictation Strategy Sheet

Each student completed the work sample below during the sessions to support the multisensory strategies for writing and editing sentences that are the focus of the research project.  The work sample provides experience initially with segmenting and writing words that illustrating the current phonetic pattern or phoneme.  Following the writing of the segmented sounds, the students rewrite the words independently after they check their work with the teacher model of the word.  This builds student editing at the word level.  The second step of the strategy sheet requires students to “pound out” words to segment sentences with their fists on the table.  Students repeat the sentence while touching the individual lines for each word in the sentence – supporting sentence segmentation.  The sentence is written as a group while “tapping out” phonetic words with their fingers and tapping on their arms to segment the letter names of sight words.  Each of these strategies has a strong, neurological research basis.  The third piece of the strategy sheet requires that following the writing of each sentence, the students use the “COPS” strategy, along with visuals, to edit their sentence, first as a group, then independently.

Students required additional support and live scoring of the sheets to support their independent use of the editing and writing strategies.  At the end of the intervention, students were strong in writing sentences but seemed to get too excited about the reinforcement following the group and failed to complete their edits before marking their completion at the bottom of the sheet. 

During the sentence-writing piece, the segmented sentence is written together and checked together.  Following this choral process, students rewrite the sentence and check their work independently to generalize the strategy.  This step proved difficult for some students.

Observation and Reflection of Timeline Adjustment

To get all ten instructional sessions in and have time to complete analysis of the post assessments prior to the due date for the project, I had to double up my last two sessions.  Most students accepted that they would complete two strategy sheets in one sitting but some required motivation in the form of additional reward time and tangible rewards following the session to keep them engaged.  This allowed me to complete the sessions and instruction in on the timeline I posed initially.  I feel that this may negatively affect the ability of students to generalize the skills into their journal by decreasing the amount of time between the sessions focusing on different phonetic skills.  The focus of the study, however, is movement of students through the writing stages using the strategy so this may not affect the study as much as I assume. 

This is one of various modifications to instruction needed by the students to participate effectively in the action research project.  This adjustment is a part of Action Research in the classroom due the cyclical nature of the research approach.

Coding Thick Description

This was my first attempt at coding observational data and it was an interesting experience.  The most difficult part was deciding on my categories and I am still not sure they will be beneficial to the research project.  I used seven categories: student movement (SM), independent writing (IW), independent reading (IR), class resources (CR), teacher interactions (TI), visual supports (VS), and explicit instruction (EI).  The picture below shows my line-by –line coding of the thick description of Classroom B.  This was the most time consuming part of the process and I had difficulty deciding which category to place some observations in.  I was careful not to “double code” any data to ensure validity but this made it more difficult to decide on a category. 

The next photograph shows the sheet and organization I will use to collect coding data from my eight samples including three thick descriptions, two teacher interviews, and three material culture observations.  This analysis showed that the majority of observations in the classroom were concerning “teacher interaction.”  I found this interesting, especially during a mostly independent work time.  I also noticed that I have little observations concerning explicit instruction until I pulled a few students to the treatment instructional group.  Looking at this observation it seems that the teacher did not use much explicit instruction; however, she was working with a small group of students at the back of the classroom the entire time, I just did not observe this closely.  This made me think of how the biases and interests of the observer can affect the outcome of qualitative data; this is something to be careful of as a researcher.

Material Culture/Observation: Raw Data Sample 3

The following photographs were taken on October 1, 2012 in “Third Grade Class A”

This wall hanging in the classroom is part of the “material culture” of the reading program.  This is a visual that was created in collaboration with students.  First the teacher has asked the student to define what a question is.  They then explain why readers ask questions.  Lastly the class contemplates “How does asking questions help you become a better reader.”  This type of explanation of the need to ask questions, increases student motivation and engagement in the task.  This could provide strong support for students to refer to when reading independently in the classroom. 

The photograph below illustrates an independent writing activity created by the teacher in class A. This is an engaging activity where students are able to write their own comic strip after reading a mentor text to support the writing.  The activity sheet blow encourages students to “visualize” the story as they read to support their drawing of the student.  The students choose six events and make a comic strip.  This is an engaging activity that promotes independence and motivation in the classroom. 

This independent writing task prompts students to think while they read by recalling story elements and plot events during the reading process.  The title of the sheet, “Leaving Tracks of My Thinking While Reading Fiction,” leads on to think of leaving tracks when walking in the forest or on sand.  This is a great visualization to encourage in students to support their understanding of the need to remember where one came from.  Instruction here could go further by prompting students to reflect on what why someone would use tracks that they have seen in the wild (i.e. to track when hunting, to find lost people, to find your way back where you were, to lead someone where you have been, etc.). This would further the visualization and justification for “Leaving Tracks” while reading.