Teacher Researcher - Appalachian State University



Teacher ResearcherAmazing Things Happen With a Controlled Phonics Program RE 5040Loren Van De Griek12/3/2009Purpose: This study assessed the effects of implementing a controlled phonics program into a structured reading program in a 5th grade classroom. Method: Two groups of students in fifth grade received lessons in phonics, morphology, and orthography for six weeks. These lessons focused on increasing awareness of the morphological structure of words, with attention to several orthographic rules. Results: Students spelling, writing, and fluency improved.IntroductionOver the past couple of years, substantial attention has been paid to early intervention for struggling readers. My school, for example, just this year implemented RTI (response to intervention) to help those students who are reading below grade level. Well, to be quite frank, I believe that many children are being set up to fail, because they are moving right along in the elementary grades without the necessary tools to learn how to read and write (including spelling). Therefore, when these students reach the intermediate grades, they are still reading below grade level and their teacher has to play “catch up” using RTI. However, if these students were taught how to read using a linguistic approach, perhaps they would be set up to succeed instead.Teaching a child to learn how to read is a difficult task requiring knowledge, patience, and time. “In first grade, the challenge for children is to learn how to read. In fourth grade and up, it is taken for granted that they are capable …of reading to learn. This change in instructional focus makes it less likely that fourth-grade children will routinely be exposed to explicit instruction in reading” CITATION Bla04 \l 1033 (Blachman, et al., 2004). Hence, they fall further behind; however, if these children were taught how to read by decoding and how to spell by encoding using an “explicit and systematic reading instruction program that emphasizes the phonologic and orthographic connections in words,” CITATION Bla04 \l 1033 (Blachman, et al., 2004) then, maybe, RTI would not be needed. Research states that the coordination of four basic aspects of linguistic awareness including: morphological awareness; phonological awareness; orthographic awareness; and syntactic awareness allows the expression and comprehension of ideas, which is the purpose of reading and writing CITATION Kir09 \l 1033 (Kirk & Gillon, 2009).Literacy instruction in my 5th grade classroom was a huge obstacle for me, because this year was my first time departmentalizing (teaching only reading and social studies) and teaching to leveled groups. Although, having leveled groups meant more meaningful lessons it also meant more time on planning. On the other hand, I was excited to expand my lessons and be able to teach reading, writing, spelling, and language arts to the fullest instead of skimming over everything.Within the first couple of weeks, I noticed within both groups there were some serious spelling issues which led me to some serious concerns. In my experience as an educator as well as a student, I firmly believe and trust that spelling drives reading, so I was doubly concerned. If a person understands the phonetics of a word, the morphology of the word, and the orthographic make up of the word, chances are they will be able to read the word and comprehend the meaning of the word. Several of my students were not able to do this, because they did not have the tools, the understanding, nor the background knowledge to decode or encode the words. I knew then that I had a purpose for my research: I wanted to evaluate the effects of incorporating a strong spelling instruction program that included a linguistic awareness approach to my already strong reading program.In group A (my low group), there are several students whose spelling is poor, but this is understandable given the level of reading they are on. On the contrary, group D (my high group) has many great spellers and many great readers, but there are a couple of students, in particular, that stand out to me, because of their spelling. The way these particular students spell is not so out of the ordinary; I see it every year. In addition to low students, I see it in high students and in average students as well, and it makes me wonder if they have a complete handle on phonics. Were they taught the fundamentals of phonemic awareness in the primary grades? For example, some of their misspellings are: beging for beginning; lonly for lonely, and braging for bragging. This clearly shows that they do not understand the VCe syllable type or the doubling rule. One particular student’s mom, in group D, expressed some concerns regarding her daughter’s reading comprehension after she reads independently. However, when the story or passage is read and discussed orally, her understanding is more credible. Is there a correlation? These situations led me to my research question – What happens when a controlled phonics program is implemented into a structured reading program?Review of LiteratureComprehension is an umbrella. When it is open, there are many factors underneath that it needs to protect in order for it to be established. Spelling is one of those factors and is extremely important in the primary grades. Spelling (orthography) is the ability to encode (decipher the code) put letters together to make words. If a child cannot encode, it is most likely that s/he will have trouble decoding (breaking the letters apart) which is the ability to read, another factor, as well. ?Many researchers agree on several issues regarding spelling including assessing the student, choosing the correct spelling words for the student, and spelling strategies that the student can use. Spelling is an important feature and must be taught to improve writing and reading. In order to do this, the teacher must teach on the students’ instructional level and continue to assess to notice growth and development CITATION Mor99 \l 1033 (Morris & Templeton, 1999).We do not spell words the way they sound, because our country is a melting pot. Nothing that we do is ours so why should spelling be any different. During our spelling lessons, the students are flabbergasted as to the way our language and spelling came about. They are always asking me, “Why is it spelled that way?” or “Why don’t we say it this way?” My favorite lesson was in dialect while we studied homophones. They could not get through their heads that there are only two ways to spell – ( /s/ /e/ /l/) cell and sell. They wanted to add sale, and I kept telling them that they say sell like sale because of their accent. We all had a blast! Because students learn to spell developmentally as well as through sounds and patterns, the words students should learn to spell should be selected and organized accordingly. The levels of the students differ greatly from classroom to classroom and vary greatly from student to student. These levels are found by administering a qualitative spelling inventory CITATION Mor99 \l 1033 (Morris & Templeton, 1999). I did this at the beginning of the year and was amazed to see the huge differentiation in my 5th grade classroom. Once the level is found then different instructional activities can be used including explicit instruction in phonics as well as teacher-directed discovery learning using morphology. Research shows that to improve reading and spelling, teachers need to use lessons that focus on developing morphological awareness skills in tandem with other forms of linguistic analysis. This was proven in a study that integrated morphological awareness as an intervention tool to improve literacy CITATION Kir09 \l 1033 (Kirk & Gillon, 2009). In this particular study, two types of orthographic patterns were the focus of the intervention:Patterns in morphologically simple words where vowel length determined the spelling of the final sound in the word: magic e (cute, cut), -ke and –ck (bake, back), -ch and –tch(peach, patch), and –g, -ge, and –dge(hug, huge, hedge).Patterns in morphologically complex words that involved modification to spelling of the base word when a suffix was added: consonant doubling (slopping), e-drop (sloping), y to i (funniest). These modifications to the base words were used with the following suffixes: -er, -est, -ing, -y, -ed, -iest, -ier, -ly, -ish, -en, and –ened.As a result, identifying patterns in words and using word sorts to teach by discovery are two great ways to gain students’ interest in spelling which will lead to gained improvements in spelling and in reading.Word study (phonology and morphology) is extremely important and should be an integral part of every teacher’s lessons. It helps develop vocabulary and spelling which helps improve reading and writing skills. Many teachers understand the significance of word study; however they are afraid to implement it because of lack of knowledge or lack of time or lack of permission from district. Word studies can be implemented into daily classroom lessons with ease. A study published by Janet Bloodgood and Linda Pacifici showed educators word study units that can easily be implemented into lessons. These lessons do not have to be hour long lessons; they can be taught incidentally. For example, daily root activities involve creating a list of words derived from a specific Greek or Latin root. The root is placed on the board at the beginning of the day and students can add words to the list throughout the day. The next day students can discuss their hypotheses about the root’s meaning based on the words they have listed and their commonalities. Word sorting, word hunts and word games are other easy examples of word studies. These involve looking for patterns within words and can include homophones, and homographs.Word study is a complex, multileveled process requiring time and practice to grasp its various aspects. Teachers need a network of instructional as well as mutually respectful support to implement word study into their already full schedule. However, this does not have to be an all or nothing endeavor. Teachers can create unit based word-knowledge programs and expand on them each year, or they can do incidental word studies. Once teachers and students start word study they quickly become hooked and are excited about language, which promotes continued exploration and discovery CITATION Blo04 \l 1033 (Bloodgood & Pacifici, 2004).METHODS SubjectsMy two groups are diverse and come from varied socioeconomic backgrounds totaling forty students. My first group is my “high” group (Group D) made up of AIG (academically / intellectually gifted) students as well as above average students with a class average of 5.2 reading level. Group D has twenty five students; among them two are identified as AIG in ELA; three in math; and seven in both. I have a total of 5 boys and 7 girls identified as AIG. My second group is my “low” group (Group A) made up of EC (exceptional children) students as well as below average students with class average of a 3.5 reading level. Group A (low) has fourteen students; among them seven are EC with several different “labels” including low in fluency, other health impaired, and learning disabled. Group D consists of 10 boys and 15 girls total, and group A consists of 5 boys and 9 girls total. The majority of both groups are Caucasian with one Hispanic boy (mom and dad speak Spanish with little English) in Group D and two Hmong boys (not sure about level of English in the home) in group A. ProceduresFor this study, I used both of my groups, because I really wanted to see the difference in the students’ spelling and comprehension after I incorporated a carefully planned phonics program into my structured reading lessons. However, due to the levels of these groups, the instruction, homework, and lessons were different. All students received one hour lessons on phonics three days a week. These lessons focused on increasing awareness of morphological structure of words, with close attention to the orthographic rules that apply when suffixes are added to the base word and the phonological awareness of the sounds in words and how they are spelled. Before my study, each student was tested on their spelling skills using the Words Their Way Spelling Inventory – Group D, I used the upper elementary inventory and for Group A, I used the elementary inventory (not primary), tested both groups on the Dolch list words. I also gave each group an overall letter sound/recognition test orally by holding up a letter card and asking for the sound(s) it makes.The focus of my lessons was for my students to master the orthographic patterns in words and not just for them to learn to read and spell a list of words. My goal was for my students to recognize rules or patterns in words, to acknowledge the different sounds letters make, and to generalize everything they learned and put it to practice with all words they read and spell. As I said previously, the lessons varied for both groups. For Group A, I concentrated on letter sounds and their patterns plus the first two syllable types. The letter sounds and patterns we studied were: (a) soft and hard c & g as in cat, city, gas, and gym; (b) the spelling of the sound of k (/k)/ as in back, kite, kitten. We also studied closed syllable and silent e syllable as in on, fun, hit and cute, sale, ride as well as “rabbit” words (vccv) that are two closed syllables and reptile words (vccv) that are a closed syllable and a silent e syllable. For Group D, first, I taught the six syllable types: (a) closed, (b) open, (c) silent e, (d) r-control, (e) vowel team, and (f) consonant le. Second, I concentrated on the morphologically complex words that involved adjustments to the base word when a suffix was added: (a) the doubling rule (trap = trapped, trapping); (b) the e-drop rule (stripe = striping); (c) change y to i (sleepy = sleepiest). These rules were taught in conjunction with the following suffixes: ed, er, est, and ing. On Mondays, I gave each group a pre-test on words that followed the specific morphology of the lesson. Throughout the week, my students did several activities based on the lesson from Monday’s words including word / picture sorts, hands on activities (manipulating letters and/or syllables to form real / nonsense words), and word webs that followed the particular lesson. Some of the activities were done in the classroom while some were done for homework and then we would go over them in class the next day. Then, on Fridays, I gave the same spelling test. A typical week included the following general format:Pre-testReview sounds by showing the letter and having students say soundsClassification of long and short vowel sounds with picture sortsStart word web and continue discussions throughout weekWord sorts with morphologically simple / complex wordsManipulate letters or syllables to spell real / nonsense wordsDataThe data I collected during the study was the same for each group. The most important piece of data was the spelling inventories by Words Their Way. The first one that I gave at the beginning of the study and the final one I gave after the six weeks of lessons. I also collected the pre and post spelling tests for each student. Throughout the study, I took anecdotal notes on my observations and interviewed several students. Data AnalysisAt the end of the six weeks, I carefully went through all of the data I collected and examined it thoroughly. I organized the information according to relevance; I was looking for results in a positive manner. I then sorted my notes into two different categories: progress and no progress. I sorted the test scores into two piles: improvement and no improvement. I also went back and read my interviews very conscientiously making sure I did not show any bias. Finally, I compared the first spelling inventory with the second and made a chart.Results?For Group A, at the beginning of the year the results were:Within Word Pattern –2 early & 3 middle & 6 lateSyllables and Affixes 1 early & 2 lateAfter six weeks of phonics lessons, the results were:Within Word Pattern – 1 middle & 6 lateSyllables and Affixes – 2 early & 3 lateDerivational Relations – 2 middleOut of fourteen students, five students remained in the same stage. On the other hand, everyone’s overall total points improved. As far as test results, for the vast majority the grades increased in value, but I really cannot determine a main factor for this result due to too many variables – maybe their parents helped them study or maybe they were not feeling well on test day. However, my notes were helpful. For example, I remember one day when a student came up to me and said, “Look Mrs. Van De Griek, this is a rabbit word.” I asked her how she knew that and she explained the whole rule to me and gave me more examples. She was so excited and loved how she discovered that rule within a book she was reading. Group D’s spelling inventory results were not quite as impressive as Group A. Group D, at the beginning of the year were:Within Word Pattern – 2 middle & 5 lateSyllables and Affixes – 11 middle & 7 lateAfter six weeks of phonics lessons, the results were (one girl was absent on day of test):Within Word Pattern – 1 middle & 3 lateSyllables and Affixes – 1 early & 5 middle & 9 lateDerivational Relations – 3 early & 2 middleOut of my twenty four students who took two tests, thirteen students remained the same. On the other hand, most students either improved or stayed the same in their overall total points. Again, as far as test results go, they were inconclusive due to the too many variables. The test grades did increase, but I cannot be sure it was due to the phonics lessons or help from home. Student interviews were extremely helpful, because my questions were answered enthusiastically. The interviews led to further discussions including: where words came from; why words sound the way they do; and why are words spelled the way they are? DiscussionMy research question, what happens when a controlled phonics program is implemented into a structured reading program, was answered clearly during this study. As a matter of fact, while doing my research, several things jumped out at me. First, I found that my students really enjoyed working with words. They absolutely loved finding the patterns in words and coming up with many more new words to fit the pattern. I also noticed an excitement towards spelling especially from the ones that normally groaned when I said, “OK, clear your desks for a spelling test,” or when they would ask me, “ how do you spell ____,” and I would tell them to try it on their own. This led to an improvement in overall spelling which led to an improvement in writing. Finally, I discovered an increase in fluency with many of my students in just a short time. It is evident that a phonics program which focuses on teaching students to be aware of the morphological patterns in words in conjunction with orthographic awareness when incorporated into a reading program improves literacy skills. An important note, not only did the below average learners improve, but so did the above average learners. As an educator, this was great news to me. Using phonics in the upper elementary grades is not a waste, in fact, it is essential. A controlled phonics program within a structured reading program improves learning in everyone.There was, however, very little or no improvement in comprehension. This was not surprising given the short amount of time. I will continue my lessons the same way and feel wholeheartedly that I will see improvement in comprehension. Nevertheless, I cannot guarantee the improvement will be from the phonics program.Teachers should take into account the fact that lessons focused on developing morphological awareness together with orthographic awareness will improve literacy skills in all children. In fact, I highly believe this type of program will have the maximum results if all classroom teachers, primary and upper elementary, use it in their daily lessons. Just take a minute to: imagine the results it could bring. Imagine the joy of reading and writing it could bring. Imagine the decrease in heartache for the teachers and students it could bring. Kirk and Gillon stated is best when they said that understanding the linguistic strategies that influence how children learn to read and spell makes it possible to develop effective practices for literacy lessons (2009). One word in the above statement can set a positive or a negative reaction – understanding. My study proved the positive aspect of the above statement, because I understand the linguistic strategies and can implement them alone. Yet, some teachers may not understand or even remember phonics, therefore carrying out strategies may be difficult. It does take time and some effort to relearn phonics, but there are plenty of resources out there. I challenge you to implement just one type of linguistic strategy into your next lesson.Bibliography BIBLIOGRAPHY Bear, D., Invernizzi, M. J., & Templeton, S. (2004). Words Their Way. Prentice Hall.Blachman, B. A., Clonan, S. M., Fletcher, J. M., Francis, D. J., Schatschneider, C., Shaywitz, B., et al. (2004). Effects of Intensive Reading Remediation for Second and Third Graders and a 1-year Follow-Up. Journal of Educational Psychology , 444-461.Bloodgood, J. W., & Pacifici, L. C. (2004). Bringing word study to intermediate classrooms. The Reading Teacher , 250-263.Kirk, C., & Gillon, G. T. (2009). Integrated Morphological Awareness Intervention as a Tool for Improving Literacy. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools , 341-351.Morris, D., & Templeton, S. (1999). Questions teachers ask about spelling. Reading Research Quarterly , 102-112. ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download