Getting Started

When I began teaching Grade Two three years ago, I started to explore the room for reading materials and found there was very little there. There were multiple copies of a reading series that was published in the 1960's and numerous picture books of various levels of difficulty. There was no teacher's guide to help me get started. I have a strong belief about using quality literature to teach children to read. Although the reading series I had was usable and could be used as a starting point, I chose instead to turn toward the books my own children loved at home.

I asked my students about their favourite books and I asked them if they had copies at home they would be willing to bring in and share. They were delighted to be asked and generously brought as many of the titles they had. Using the Ministry of Education curriculum expectations, ideas from First Steps Reading training, and past Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) tests I planned units based on these books. Every time I had bonus coupons from my monthly book order, I ordered multiple copies of books.

Fortunately at my school, Teeterville Public, I had the support of an enthusiastic and hard working Home and School Group. Each year, the group provided each teacher with $200.00 to use at her discretion to purchase materials for the classroom. I spent all my money on books. I brought copies of books from my own children's bookshelves at home and borrowed more books from the school and local libraries. Through these efforts I was able to compile a good collection of multiple copies to teach children to be enthusiastic readers.

The interest level of the children was high. I grouped the children according to ability level but for the most part I was expecting everyone to be able to read the same story, despite the fact that I had students in my room who were barely reading. I also had students who were reading beyond grade level. I felt I was on the right track but I had a long way to go if I wanted every child to be successful.

In 2000, I met Mary- Lynne Fick, who was the Early Literacy teacher at my school. Mary- Lynne helped me with many aspects of my Language Arts program and introduced me to the concept of Guided Reading. How important it is to meet someone who appreciates your desire to grow and learn in your profession! Mary- Lynne answered my multitude of questions and provided me with resources to charge ahead. Later she offered to be my critical friend for my action research and helped me prepare my timeline and research proposal.

In my early search for more information, many people supported my journey. My vice- principal,Dirk Matthys, gave me a half-day of release to meet with Mary- Lynne. Linda Miller, a personal friend and retired Junior consultant, taught my class so I could take time to learn more. I felt my desire to learn was strongly supported by my administration, my friends, my family and my collegues. It's so much easier to try something new when you feel the extra effort and time is acknowledged.

Mary- Lynne taught me how to level the books in my room and how to do running records. She showed me how to create activities for the class so when I was working with a Guided Reading group, the other students could be independently engaged in other worthwhile learning activities.

I went back to my classroom excited about giving it a try. My oldest son spent two Saturdays helping me to level my books. We put the books in tubs labelled by a letter to indicate the reading difficulty. We were not able to label them all because about half of them were not listed in any source for leveling books. I continued to group my students by reading ability, but now I provided them with books that were suited to their individual reading levels. I continued to support my guided reading lessons with other important components of a good reading program including: reading buddies, read alouds, Drop Everything And Read (DEAR), reader's theatre, author studies, direct phonics instruction, sight word review and more. During DEAR time, I encouraged my students to select books from tubs that corresponded with current reading levels. During other DEAR periods I allowed the students to choose any book, regardless of level.

Like anything new, I expected to hit some snags along the way. I found it very difficult to do running records. There was rarely a time that someone in the class didn't need me for something and I rarely had time to sit down one on one with a child unless it was to give him/her assistance with work. I was taking more than a preparation period a child to do a running record. I was falling behind and feeling frustrated.

I was taking Reading Part One at the time and was trying to meld what I was learning in class with my beliefs about teaching reading. About this time, my principal, Cathy Bauslaugh, asked for parent volunteers to begin leveling all the books in the classrooms of the school. Seeing the success of doing this in my own room, I felt heartened to know that other classroom teachers would begin to see the potential for learning by doing this. I don't feel I would have continued to pursue my research if I hadn't felt my administration supported me.

One day after school I was speaking to Joan Fallis, our Kindergarten teacher, and Cathy Bauslaugh about reading at Teeterville Public School. As a past primary consultant, Joan is very knowledgeable about guided reading and has been very helpful to me as well. We got talking about the possibility of applying for an Educational Change Fund Proposal to implement guided reading throughout the school. I mentioned at the time that I would be interested in conducting Action Research about guided reading in my classroom.

I went home and started to ask myself what I would hope to accomplish if I did research and I began to collect what I had gathered so far on this topic. Cathy set up a meeting for me to meet with my superintendent, Jackie Delong, to discuss the possibility of doing a research project. I prepared a proposal and met with Jackie. She asked me to state my research proposal as a question. She asked me to prepare a list of materials I would need to make my project a success. My research question became:

How can I increase students' reading ability using Guided Reading strategies?

Over the next months I met with Heather Knill-Griesser, the primary consultant at the Teacher Resource Centre (TRC) in Brantford, for help in getting my research started. She gave me information about Action Research, explained about using a journal, showed me Action Research videotapes and suggested others with whom I could network. That same day I also met James Elsworth, who provided me with a release form(Appendix 3) for parents to sign for permission to use audio, visual and work samples for my research.

Later in the summer I met with Ruth Mills, the principal of Lansdowne - Costain Public School in Brantford. The entire staff of Ruth's school conducts action research. She gave me several things to help me with my guided reading program and showed me her school's book room, where multiple copies of books are stored.

I also met with Allie Richardson, a grade one teacher at Lynndale Heights Public School in Simcoe, whom I had met through my reading course. I felt Allie and I shared many of the same beliefs about teaching and we had similar teaching styles. I wanted to get together with her to share ideas about our reading programs. She gave me ideas that I implemented when school began. I learned the importance of networking with others for support and ideas. How lucky I was that so many people were so giving of their time, expertise and enthusiasm.

The Process

I decided that I wanted my research to take place during the September 2001 to June 2002 schoolyear. During the summer prior to school commencing, I continued to prepare units to go along with the books I hoped to use in the upcoming year. I was only able to prepare things up to a point because I feel a good teacher must tailor her program to meet the needs of her current students. I needed to get to know my pupils to determine where we needed to begin together. With my class list in hand, I prepared testing packages for each child to discover current reading ability.

During the first week of school I trained and had three parent volunteers to conduct the following tests with each of my 22 students:

• alphabet letter recognition
• alphabet sound knowledge
• Grade One Dolch Sight Word Test
• Slosson Oral Reading Test

From these results I discovered that according to the Slosson Oral Reading Test (SORT), only six of the twenty-two students in my class were reading at grade level. I knew that diagnostic assessment would not give me the entire picture of the capabilities of my students. Not only must they have the skills and strategies to be good readers, they needed good comprehension skills as well. I refused to be discouraged. I reminded myself of my firm belief that each child develops at his/her own pace and that if I provided love, encouragement, quality materials and sound reading practices, we had nowhere to go but up.

In November and June I took the students to the gym and gave them ten minutes to print as many words as they could think of. I called this assessment the Ten Minute Word test. I looked to see if they used words from recent spelling lists and whether or not they made use of the word families I had taught to generate words for their pages. Of all the diagnostic tests I used, the students found this one the most difficult. I don't know if they felt they couldn't print fast enough for the time given, but I found they were feeling frustrated. I do not think I would use this test again. The children appeared too stressed for me to feel it was worthwhile.

I learned that using parent volunteers was a good idea for many reasons. I was able to get the testing results I needed so that I could group my children quickly and get started on my guided reading program. I found I needed to use the same parent volunteers when I did my follow up testing to ensure the accuracy of my results. Even though each parent received identical training, each person added her personality and testing beliefs to the situation.

Using parents for testing purposes was a learning process for the parents as well. One of the parents who helped me said that she was surprised by the testing results. She said that she expected each child to enter a grade with the necessary knowledge to begin. Since then, we have had many conversations about how children learn, about teaching practices and guided reading. The parents also mentioned that they had a better idea about how to help their children at home based on the time spent helping in the classroom.

I grouped my students by ability into four reading groups. Two of my pupils were repeating Grade Two but had been in my class the year before. Only two of the four groups were ready to read materials at grade level. The majority of the multiple copies I had accumulated were at reading levels J through M, which are the recommended levels for Grade 2 students. I needed to back track for my two weaker reading groups. I observed carefully in the first few days of class and reviewed the results from the testing the volunteers had done. I made lists of what my students knew and didn't know and made a plan to reteach key concepts.

I sent copies of the children's sight word testing home to the parents so they would be aware right away about their children's knowledge and I included my expectations for the term. I asked for their help to practise these words at home.

I matched my strong readers with weaker ones and called this pairing "Power ". I explained to the students that it was really important for them to master these words as they are the most common words in the books they would be reading and that we would work together to help everyone increase their knowledge.

I realized that many of my students did not have the home support they needed to practise. The stronger readers took time every day to help their Power Word Buddies to practise their sight words. The weaker reader of the pair also helped the stronger reader practise his/her set of words. Every child had a personal collection of words to work on and progressed at his/her own speed. By the end of the school year my goal was for all of my students to be able to read the Grade One, Two and Three Dolch sight words (220 words in all).

Not only did I want students to learn these important words, I wanted to build the idea of working as a team and the importance of supporting one another to reach a goal. As I modelled encouraging behaviour, the students were learning to praise each others' efforts too.

I used these same sight words for the basis of my spelling program. It is a program I've written myself, using ideas from a few published spelling programs and what I feel my students need to know to be good readers and story writers. With each spelling list I also included a word family because through my reading course and my research I've learned that is how children learn best.

I wanted my students to use the strategy of making connections to become better readers. I encouraged them to look for small words inside bigger words as a way to figure out an unknown word.

These sight words were the words I put, a few at a time, on my classroom word wall. I used suggestions from a number of professional sources to reinforce these words. Once a word was part of my students' weekly spelling list, I expected it to be spelled correctly during seat work and story writing activities. I encouraged the children to make use of personal dictionaries and the word wall as much as possible.

Each day a different student in my class was our "Radical Reader". Every student got several opportunities throughout the year to have this special job. The Radical Reader read a book of his/her choice aloud to the rest of the class and could choose a friend or myself to help with unknown words. I encouraged the child to then take the same book overnight to read to someone at home. Everyone clapped and made encouraging comments when a Radical Reader finished reading aloud. The students learned that all efforts were valued.

When doing activities like Readers' Theatre, an oral reading/drama strategy, I often matched astronger reader with a weaker one. It was another opportunity for the stronger reader to take a leadership role to coach the other child with appropriate reading strategies.

Later in the year I implemented Patricia Cunningham's Systematic Sequential Phonics They Use program. I purchased magnetic cookie sheets for my students and used laminated, magnetized letters to help them build words and increase their word knowledge. I used an excellent video from the Bureau of Education and Research called " Making Words Strategies" to learn how to set up this part of my program.

About every two weeks I taught the class a new phonics rule. I let the parents know what I was teaching by sending home newsletters and asked them to talk about this new learning at home when their child was reading aloud. I always taught phonics in context and tried to avoid the work sheet method to reinforce learning. For example, I taught the "ar" sound when the students were reading Arthur books by Marc Brown.

I started each day with a morning message, written on my wipe off board. I used these brief, welcoming messages to teach a lot of reading strategies and rules. Often I had the children help me write these messages and used what they already knew to build on new learning. I used poems, songs and chants related to my current theme to teach reading rules and strategies as well.

I posted a large sign in the classroom called "What Do I Do if I Can't Read the Word?" Listed on this chart were strategies the children could try to figure out an unknown word. I systematically taught these strategies until the students could be heard coaching each other during reading time. I often heard comments like, "You can do it. Try again. It's got to make sense."

Throughout the month of September, my students learned my expectations for classroom reading instruction. I set up a rotation schedule so that I could meet with each of my four reading groups every day to hear each child read. These groups changed throughout the year based on the needs of the pupils. The children had an opportunity to silent read for one of these rotations and the other two activities they rotated through might be related to spelling, printing, math, story writing, art, science or a reading seat work activity. I used pictures to remind each group of the different tasks to be completed each day. As the activities changed, so did the pictures.

I used the gradual release of responsibility model to teach the children what to do. Whenever I tried to cut corners in modelling for the children, my instruction suffered. It took some time for them to learn to work quietly and independently enough so that I could concentrate on my guided reading groups. The students were highly motivated and willing to work hard. They learned to help each other when I couldn't be available to help.

In September, I attended my first Simcoe Action Research Network (SART) , session led by Paula Sue Rasokas. I felt very comfortable asking questions and found it interesting to listen to what other teachers were doing for their research projects. I found it encouraging to meet other colleagues who were striving to learn from their teaching strategies. I left the meeting feeling reenergized and empowered. I continued to attend these meetings throughout the year.

Also during the month of September, Jackie Delong came for lunch at my school. I met John Bryant, my new superintendent as well. Jackie took the time to ask how my research was going and came to my classroom. She asked me what I hoped to accomplish throughout the year and encouraged me to attend the Action Research Conference in December in Brantford.

At the same time, the staff of Teeterville Public School had received the Educational Change Funding to implement guided reading K-Gr.6. Our librarian, Donna Hudson, compiled a master list of all the multiple copies of books in the school. With the help of parents and teachers she began setting up the multiple copy Literacy Room. This room was very helpful for me because I was able to find books at any level I wanted to meet the needs of all the pupils in my class. Joan Fallis compiled a list of all the big books in the school to facilitate sharing of resources.

As a primary division, the teachers decided that we wanted to prepare units to go with the multiple copy books. The six primary teachers decided to write four units each to be compiled in a binder for the Literacy Room. Our Resource teacher, Lori Rodgers, was asked to contribute units to support the books she was using with her students in the resource room. We also decided to share our testing resources and keep a binder in the literacy room with samples of the tests we used with our students. Christie Bradacs, the Grade 2/3 teacher, developed a computer template for us to use to publish our units. Throughout the year we tried our newly created units in our classrooms with great success. As a division we met regularly to share ideas for guided reading and working with words.

Data Collection and Analysis

I had never used a journal before to record insights about my teaching. I found it to be a very useful tool. It helped me to remember key things I noticed in my research and reminded me to write down what people said before I forgot. It helped me to formulate what I wanted to try next and where my teaching was going. It made me realize what was working well and what wasn't. Using a journal helped me to remember people I could call upon to support me when I was feeling discouraged. I also used it to make note of resources.

I began to take digital photos of the students in action. I thinks it's really true that a picture is worth a thousand words. I've taken these pictures to several of the teachers within my networking system to share with them and give them ideas. I shared a few of them when I presented at the November P.D. day. I shared these photos on my school web page and in newsletters sent to parents.

I purchased an audiotape for each of my students and several times throughout the year I asked each child to read on tape. This gave the children and myself another example of their reading growth as the year passed. I also videotaped a few of my guided reading lessons to help me observe how I presented reading material to my pupils and to watch their responses to my teaching strategies. At first I found this somewhat intimidating, but came to view this as another useful tool.

My principal gave me an extra prep period a cycle to use for research purposes. This helped me to keep up with my record keeping and reflection. I did a lot of professional reading to help me with my research. A quote from the book Conversations by Regie Routman expresses what I tried to do throughout the year:

"Being an effective teacher is not about having the right program and activities in place. Effective teachers lay a foundation of the basics and integrate a variety of approaches while being constantly responsive to the students they are teaching."

I kept an assessment package for each child which was updated once a term. Children kept work samples related to reading in their personal portfolios. I kept a tracking page for each student with a list of the books they had read and their corresponding level. After a child had read six to eight books at a certain level, I used a running record to find out if the child was ready to move onto the next level. Running records were also kept in each child's package.

I made a planning sheet each week for what I wanted to accomplish with each guided reading group and the other activities I wanted them to accomplish during my daily reading time. I found that several of my students hit a learning plateau as they practised new skills (see November results in Appendix 1). I didn't see steady, constant improvement. There were spurts of growth at times and some students actually regressed as "learned embeddedness"(First Steps, 1994) was occurring. I thought back to my First Steps training and remembered a concept called PEWIT. PEWIT teaches that everyone has a working memory. When we are learning something new our working memory becomes overloaded and we tend to regress. I needed to give the students lots of time to practise the new skills and spend a lot of time on comprehension strategies . Initially I found I had to do a lot of prompting for the pupils to put what I had taught into practice. Independence came later with heightened self esteem, risk taking and learned skills. More and more students were becoming competent enough to really get into a story and gain the desire to read more and more. The motivation to read was switching from me presenting materials during guided reading lessons to students choosing to read throughout the school day without my involvement.

Guided Reading really promotes comprehension development. At the beginning of each guided reading lesson, I spent time introducing the text by doing a picture walk through the book, introducing unknown words, asking the children to share what they knew about the book topic etc. I used the book Strategies That Work to help me build comprehension with my students. Before reading activities and during reading activities were emphasized more than after reading activities. Because the child is reading at a suitable level of difficulty he/she doesn't lose interest and doesn't become frustrated.

Meeting Jack Whitehead, University of Bath, in person also helped me to take a good look at how my research was progressing. Jack stressed being able to support my claims about my research. He also said that the quality of my relationship with my students was just as important an influence on their progress as the strategies I was using to teach. This is something I've always believed but it was great to hear it voiced in a research setting.

In June I completed DRA assessments with my pupils. As a primary staff each teacher prepared a one page summary of the all diagnostic test scores for all the students in her class. This summary was passed on to the teacher who would have these students during the next school year. I sent a letter to parents asking for their input about my reading program. Included below are some of their responses:

"Lisa has come a long way with her reading in the past school year with lots of support and help at school and extra reading at home. She has been able to gain more confidence in reading."

"Hayden's interest in books has greatly expanded. At the beginning of the year he had to be convinced that he could read. He would hesitate with each word and found no great joy in his accomplishments. Frustration was almost forcing him to stop reading. Hayden has made great strides since September. He enjoys reading out loud to us(including his brother and sister). His comprehension is good. He now adds expression to his voice and when he comes across an unknown word, he can use strategies to figure it out."

"Caitie's reading has improved greatly. She uses the strategies she has beentaught on any word she doesn't know. When she reads aloud to me it is much smoother and she tries to use the correct expression the author tries to convey. She shows interest in chapter books and likes to read on her own and aloud to me. She has started to read without prompting."

"A definite improvement! The level of books he reads is more difficult. He seems to understand stories better...He read all his birthday cards this year before he opened his presents. This was very impressive."

Findings

Appendix 1 -- Dolch Sight Reading Scores

Appendix 2 -- Parent Survey

Appendix 3 -- Permission Form to video, take photos and display work

Utilizing end of the year Dolch Sight Word testing(Appendix 1), I found students improved on average by 100 words from September until May. One of my students was able to read 3 words as he was working on learning English. Taking into account that I wanted my Grade Two students to not only be able to read all the Grade One and Two sight words but the Grade Three words as well, I was pleased with their achievements.

On the Slosson Oral Reading Test students improved on average 2.1 years. Instead of 16 students reading below grade level, as shown at the beginning of the school year, only 5 students were not yet scoring at a grade level 3.0 or above. Of the five students not yet reading at grade level, 4 out of the 5 demonstrated an increase of at least one year and six months of reading improvement. The other student in this group of five was my E.S.L. student, who was beginning to learn the alphabet. Using the ten minute word test, the majority of students did not make significant gains. However, the students became proficient at using sight words and word families correctly in all aspects of their written work.

Conclusion and Next Steps

I feel confident that my research improved my students' reading ability. Not only that, it improved my teaching practices. My diagnostic testing showed that all of my students made gains, both in reading skills and comprehension. My observation showed me that each child's attitude toward reading was a positive one. I feel teaching children to read is one of my greatest joys. I am proud that I introduced my pupils to many wonderful authors and fantastic stories, through my use of quality fiction and non-fiction. I hope as my students leave my classroom they will remember all the wonderful books we shared together and that I have set them on the path to becoming lifelong readers who cherish the value of a good book.

I will continue to refine my methods for using guided reading in my classroom and continue to share what I learned and what worked for me with my colleagues. I don't feel guided reading is something that can be perfected in just a year, but needs to be continued as I grow as a professional. I am a firm believer that these methods are successful for teaching reading.

I will also continue to engage Action Research. It has been too worthwhile to do only once and I have lots of other ideas to explore!

References

Calkins, Lucy McCormick. (2001). The Art of Teaching Reading. New York: Addison-Wesley

Delong, J.(ed). (2001). Passion in Professional Practice, Brantford: Grand Erie District School Board.

Education Department of Western Australia. (1994). First Steps: Reading Resource Book. Melbourne: Addison-Wesley.

Fountas, Irene and Pinnell, Gay Sue. (1996). Guided Reading: Good First Teaching for all Children. Portsmouth NH: Heineman.

Grand Erie District School Board. (2002). Strategies for Early Literacy. Brantford.

Harvey, Stephanie and Goudvis, Anne. (2000). Strategies That Work. Maine:Stenhouse Publishers.

McNiff, Jean. (1998). Action Research for Professional Development. Mississauga: Ontario Public School Teachers' Federation.

Routman. Regie. (2000). Conversations. Portsmouth NH: Heineman.

Schulman, Mary Browning and Payne, Carleen DaCruz. (2000). Guided Reading: Making it Work. New York: Scholastic.

Taberski, Sharon. (2000). On Solid Ground. Portsmouth NH: Heineman.