Throughout my research collection, I have come to many realizations as a first year teacher. The main thing I have taken away from this experience is to constantly reflect and ask for help. At the start of my data collection I realized that I could be doing a better job of reaching my students and their needs. I recognized that I need to take a step back and ask for support on how to move on. I decided to change up the format of my study and focus more on using the LLI program. I sought out extra help from my CADRE associate and other resources so that I was able to set up my intervention to better meet my students at their ability level. I was able to reach my students more at their reading level and help them better understand what they were reading using prompts and guides from the program. I feel that my students made bigger gains in their reading and reading comprehension abilities because of my study.
By changing up my intervention study, I also made modifications to my reading rotation format. I feel that all of my students are reading more at their level and are getting better instruction from me. I also have added more strategies for my students to help them dive into the text and engage them during our rotation. I feel that the students became better readers because of the changes I made and I owe it to my capstone project. I tested all of the students in my reading class and found that many of them had gained levels as well since I changed up my instruction. Some students began at a level H and ended on a level N or O. It was great to see the growth my students had in just one year.
By using research to drive instruction, I can honestly say that I feel more confident in my teaching reading abilities. I have realized that it is so very important that best practices are being used throughout the school day and that I am working to meet the needs of my students. My research correlates to best teaching practices for many reasons. One reason is that my students received additional exposure to a leveled book each week that they read, reflected on, and wrote about. They also were assessed each week to make sure that they were still receiving instruction at their level. I also continued to reflect as their teacher and made sure that the students were being challenged, but still learning at their own ability. I also focused on all of the five core propositions as I taught my strategy. I am committed to my students and their learning. I am managing and motoring their learning with assessments and leveled books. I also prepared lessons that I know will benefit my students. I also incorporated the 21st Century skill of critical thinking and communication. The students were asked to dig deep into the text and analyze characters or find the main idea. These types of questions require critical thinking abilities from them. Reading comprehension is also a skill that requires communication between the students and me. I often asked my students questions about what they read, leaving it up to the student to adequately communicate with me and share what they know.
Going to into next year, I will be setting up my reading rotations like I had them throughout my capstone. I feel that by giving students more independent practice and a purpose for their reading, they will become better readers. I am planning to continue using LLI in my classroom for intervention as well. Some questions that I am left with after completing my capstone are: what would have happened if I had implemented this at the beginning of the year...would there be greater progress? I feel that there would be more progress if I had set up both my intervention classroom and guided reading the way I did during my data collection. I feel that most of my students would have moved up more levels with the change in my lesson set-up. I would also like to see what might happen if I completed this intervention strategy with all students, some at or on grade level to see if there was as much impact. Based on my experience with students who are below level and after seeing how much growth they would have had, I can only predict that would be the same with on grade level and above grade level students. I think it would be interesting to see how deep higher level students can dive into the text. I think I would have focused more on abstract comprehension skills and possibly would have incorporated novel projects.