Reflection
How did collaboration play a role in action research?
A partnership with the University of Nebraska at Omaha and the CADRE Master's program led to fruitful and purposeful action research. Resources and ideas were gathered from self-guided online research, as well as colleague provided research. A CADRE mentor helped field daily questions and guided research. CADRE professors gave consistent and comprehensive feedback throughout the process of action research. An interview with a district reading specialist helped shape the activities and structure of phonics spelling instruction within the classroom. The support surrounding this research played a large role in the success.
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What were challenges along the way?
Some challenges were maintaining a steady schedule to incorporate the study procedures as well as uphold district requirements. Our small groups met during guided reading time, which has allotted 15 minutes per group. At first, phonics instruction was taking 10 minutes, leaving very little time for reading and comprehension conversations during guided reading. It was also challenging to keep absent students up to date with instruction and testing. I didn't want them to begin learning a new phonics skill before being tested over the previous week's. Lastly, it was challenging to teach the phonics rules when there weren't specific patterns. For example, some weeks taught different ways to spell the same sound, but there weren't noticeable patterns that gave hints as to when to use which spelling.
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What were successes along the way?
There were many successes throughout the action research process. One being watching weekly pre- and post-test scores improvement every single week. The quantitative data was simple to calculate, and fun to see the results of. A long struggle of time-management was present throughout the study, but when it finally dissipated, there were three wonderful weeks of full and meaningful instruction in phonics that still allowed time for district curriculum reading and comprehension conversations to take place. Next was an idea that sprouted a few weeks into action research. On closed word sorts during small group instruction students were asked one day to highlight the phoneme of each word that made the targeted sound. This ended up being a great way for students to visualize where the sound was happening in a word and relate that to which spelling pattern was to be used, as well as a way for me to observe and give feedback to students who were unable to break down words into phonemes and identify the parts of the word we were studying. Lastly, the light-bulb moments when students would finally figure out a rhyme or reason to a phonics spelling pattern was always considered a success.
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How did research impacting teaching?
Action research has impacted my teaching so that planning and execution of lesson plans is intentional and consistent .The fact that data is being gathered motivates me to teach more precisely than if I were teaching phonics skills without the continual quantitative data.
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How did research impacting learning?
Research played a very large role in how students learned about phonics. Because of research, my approach to phonics instruction took a complete turn from what the students were used to learning from me. Students were constantly looking for patterns in the English language. Students understand how to analyze a word to look for patterns that can be associated with other like words. Because of researched strategies, students developed phonemic awareness that carries beyond the six weeks of studied skills, beyond spelling, and beyond second grade.
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Changes for the Future?
In the future I would like to include highlighting phonics sounds throughout phonics studying. This strategy provided many insights for me as a teacher and for the students as learners. I would also like to ask my students the same questions from qualitative data of, "How do you feel about spelling?" and "What helps you learn to spell the best?" before and after instruction. This would be interesting to compare before and after results. Lastly, I would like to incorporate flexible grouping with students. If a student performs well or needs extra help, flexible grouping would allow for the best differentiation for each student.
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Impact for the Future?
After reading research about the best practices in spelling instruction and conducting my own action research, I have seen and facilitated a structure to teach spelling that has yielded great results. The routines and rationale behind instruction are now easily manageable and I will continue to use the same format for years to come. I will continue to teach with an emphasis in phonemic awareness during whole group and small group instruction. I will also continue to use the structure of direct instruction, multiple practices, and direct feedback. Lastly, I will continue to look ahead at instruction to investigate designated phonics spelling patterns before teaching to ensure quality instruction.
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