Revised Action Research Study
Due to several contributing factors, my site supervisor and
I have decided to go a different direction in terms of my action research
study. I have decided to implement a different research study that focuses on
one class’ reading level progress. It is actually quite interesting because I
have had the same group of students for two years in a row. This is because
beginning last school year, I started teaching both 3rd and 4th
grade Language Arts. This means that last year I taught a group of 18 bilingual
students as 3rd graders and currently, I’m teaching the same group
of students, only now they are 4th graders.
What sparked my interest in this new research study is that
we adopted a new way to assess our student’s reading levels in terms of
comprehension, vocabulary, and fluency. Because it is a computer program that
evaluates students, it is less subjective than the program we used in the past.
This Istation program not only evaluates students’ current level, it also
evaluates their progress each month. One component that makes this reading
inventory different from the one we used in the past is that it also provided
teachers with lessons specific to the needs of the students. Continuous
assessments enable teachers to quickly determine whether students are
responding to intervention and whether to intensify instruction when
appropriate. In the past, the reading inventory we used would only help us
identify our students’ reading level, but it wouldn’t give teachers a teaching
guide or tool, which left it up to teachers to decide how to improve students’
weaknesses. The problem was that every teacher ended up using whatever
resources she/ he had available. Although we have just started using this new
program thast promises success for our students, we are not being forced by our principal to use the prescribed lessons
that it provides for teachers. This is when I started wondering if Istation
would help me increase my students’ reading levels at a faster pace than the
DRA/ TPRI/Dibels program I used with these same students last year. In order
for the program to be effective, students should spend at least one 45 minute
session on the computer in addition to the lesson executed by the teacher twice
a week. These lessons should be taught in a small group environment in order to
be most effective. If I find that this program does increase my students’ reading
levels faster than they increased the year before, I will suggest to my principal
that her enforce the use of the prescribed lessons from Istation.
I’m excited to be working on this research study because I
will find out if Istation is more successful than the program we used in the
past.
Revised Action Research
Does Istation responsive instruction further increase
students’ reading levels when compared to data from previous year?
Will Istation decrease the number of students placed on RTI
level, Tier II?
Will the RTI documentation process be facilitated for
teachers when using Istation?
Goals/Objective
Increase students’ reading comprehension
Elevate students’ fluency
Exit students from RTI Tier II to Tier I
