Action Research Project
The purpose of this action research is to improve
the reading skill of struggling readers at my school. One of
the
fundamental pieces that
I see is that struggling readers start Kindergarten with little to no letter
and sound knowledge and must spend the rest of their elementary school years
attempting to close the gap and gain grade level skills. In order
for students to be successful in all content areas they must be able to read at
or above grade level expectations. In addition to reading students must also have proper
comprehension skills and be able to critically analyze text. This requires a
basic understanding of reading as well as knowledge and skills to problem solve
when unknown words or terms are used while reading. I have
found that many of my students are lacking these skills in Kindergarten and as I have
followed my students over the years, I see that these reading difficulties
continue. These students struggle with reading
and this difficulty seems to spill over to all over content areas. Strong
reading skills are necessary to be successful in school.
Teachers are faced with the struggle of teaching students with varying levels of reading ability
all
at the same time. One
of the biggest challenges
is
helping those students of lower ability master grade level content knowledge when they continue to lack basic skills. To
do this, teachers
must fill in where
gaps exist in order for students to gain basic knowledge. Teachers
must work one on one with students to close the gap in reading or solicit the help of other teachers on campus to help with
these students. Finding a way to improve the basic skills of students will allow students to
succeed in reading and
all other content areas.
In
this study, I am trying to discover how to improve the basic reading
skills of students at my school. To do this, I will look specifically for basic skills that are required by the district
for a student to be considered on grade level. I will also investigate what basic skills the students
think they lack, or find difficult and how they have compensated for these perceived deficiencies. Lastly, I am interested
in
finding out what interventions have been given
to the struggling students in attempt to get them to read on grade level.
In
order to investigate these questions, I will be using our
online district data resource. I will get help from my assistant principal to
access previous year data. I will also work with the current third grade
teachers to gather data on students’ current reading level and grade level
accountability rating. I will also have conversations with previous years’ teachers and the
intervention teachers and reading recovery teachers on my campus. All data and conversations will
be held securely and in confidence to preserve their integrity.
The central question of my action research
proposal is, how
do student that struggle with reading in Kindergarten perform in 3rd
grade on reading assessments. This question will be answered by collecting
and analyzing beginning, middle and end of year reading data for the students
while they were in kindergarten, first, second and third grade. I will also
have the opportunity to interview students and
teachers to discover what skills they lack, and what helps them learn
these skills best. To support the central
question, I will use interviews with students to discover what they have done themselves to become better readers. Also through interviews, with both students and teachers, I hope
to
answer the question of how
students feel about reading. I want to know if student success rates have an
impact on their desire to read for pleasure.
I look forward to this research providing me with options for how to improve the basic reading skills of my students. First, I hope
to pinpoint exactly what skills the students struggle with and/or
lack, and secondly I want
investigate how the students learn best and
what interventions have been most successful. Through this research, I hope
to
find the best way to help my students become successful readers.
