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 3^rd and 4^th grade Language Arts. This means that last year I taught a group of 18 bilingual students as 3^rd graders and currently, I’m teaching the same group of students, only now they are 4^th 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