teacher researcher - appalachian state university · web viewif a person understands the...

Teacher Researcher

Amazing Things Happen With a Controlled Phonics Program

RE 5040Loren Van De Griek

12/3/2009

Purpose: 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.

2

Teacher as researcher – Van De Griek

Introduction

Over 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” (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,”

(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

3


allows the expression and comprehension of ideas, which is the purpose of reading and

writing (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

4


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 Literature

Comprehension 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

5


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 (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 (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

6


awareness as an intervention tool to improve literacy (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

7


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 (Bloodgood & Pacifici, 2004).

METHODS

Subjects

My 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

8


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.

Procedures

For 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

9


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 words1), 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 1 Nonsense words (made up words) are words that follow the morphological patterns in spelling but do not have meaning

10


class the next day. Then, on Fridays, I gave the same spelling test. A typical week

included the following general format:

Pre-test

Review sounds by showing the letter and having students say sounds

Classification of long and short vowel sounds with picture sorts

Start word web and continue discussions throughout week

Word sorts with morphologically simple / complex words

Manipulate letters or syllables to spell real / nonsense words

Data

The 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 Analysis

At 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.

11


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 late

After six weeks of phonics lessons, the results were:

Within Word Pattern – 1 middle & 6 lateSyllables and Affixes – 2 early & 3 lateDerivational Relations – 2 middle

Out 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 late

After 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 middle

12


Out 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?

Discussion

My 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

13


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

14


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.

BibliographyBear, D., Invernizzi, M. J., & Templeton, S. (2004). Words Their Way. Prentice Hall.

15


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.

teacher researcher - appalachian state university · web viewif a person understands the...

Documents