Will Istation Further Facilitate the Reading Intervention Process for Teachers and Students at Judson ISD?

Julie Meneses

Lamar University

Action Research Project Draft

Action Research Title

Will Istation further facilitate the reading intervention process for both teachers and students at Judson ISD?

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? Will the RTI documentation process be facilitated for teachers when using Istation?

These are the questions that Hopkins’ teachers currently do not have the answers to.

Needs Assessment

There were several factors that contributed to my interest in this research study.

I’m a fourth grade bilingual teacher at Hopkins Elementary, a school located in San Antonio, Texas. My class is comprised of 19 students, of which 18 are English Language Learners. Five of them have been on RTI for the past 3 years due to low reading comprehension and fluency.  Four of these students are male and one student is female. All five of them are ELLs.

Fortunately, I was their teacher last year, when they were in 3rd grade. This is due to a looping system in which another teacher and I teach both third and fourth graders. I teach ELA and the other teacher, Math and Science. The five students mentioned above have shown progress in their reading skills but not as much as I would like. Sadly, our district doesn’t currently have an intervention tool that teachers use consistently across the district. The district does however, have a new program. In 2012, Judson ISD adopted a new way to assess our student’s reading levels in terms of comprehension, vocabulary, and fluency. The intervention program is called Istation. It has two components: the mandatory component is the one that teachers use to identify students’ reading level. The component that is not mandatory is the prescribed lessons that it provides for teachers to intervene.

Because it is a computer program that evaluates students, it is supposed to be 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 prescribed 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. Currently, Istation’s prescribed lessons are not mandatory. One of the biggest issues in education today is inconsistency in delivery of instruction. Our district is not using a specific intervention with these students. If Istation and its prescribed lessons work, then we should all be using it.

Therefore, 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 on  RTI should spend 60 minutes on the computer program, 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 this program and its prescribed interventions do increase my students’ reading levels faster than they increased the year before, all Hopkins teachers should implement the program. It will be suggested to my principal that he enforce the use of the prescribed lessons from Istation.

If indeed, Istation does prove to increase students comprehension and fluency, Hopkins teachers and elementary teachers all throughout the district will not waste time looking for intervention lessons anymore. Teachers will use their time executing the intervention, and in turn our students will be successful in exiting RTI.

Objectives and Vision of the Action Research Project

At Hopkins our vision is to increase students’ reading comprehension and fluency, therefore exiting students from RTI. We expect to be consistent with the type of intervention being used across the district, while easing the process of documentation for teachers.

Review of the Literature and Action Research Strategy

As a bilingual teacher, it is imperative that I take into consideration my students’ background and experience. The five students participating in my research study are sequential bilinguals and at-risk for their ELL status. They are all second-generation Hispanics. With sequential bilinguals,  the stronger or more developed L1 is before learning L2, the better the developmental process will be for both languages (August & Hakuta, 1997; August & Shanahan, 2006). Fortunately, these students have received reading instruction in their dominant language, Spanish, from kinder until second grade. In third grade, students reviewed Language Arts instruction 50% of the time in English and Spanish. Now that these students are in fourth grade, they have transitioned into English 100%. Therefore, they are receiving sheltered instruction in English. Research shows that bilingual students who have made a transition into their L2 and native English speakers can be screened with the same progress monitors and both show documented effectiveness (Klingner, Artiles, & Bareletta, 2006; Vanderwood & Nam, 2008). This indicates that if the prescribed lessons from Istation indeed improve my students’ reading comprehension and fluency, all students in our district can benefit from the intervention. This would make it an easy process for teachers, bilingual or not. What we need is consistency, professional development, and school wide commitment to improving assessment and instruction. I believe it is necessary to help develop teachers’ knowledge and provide the support needed for them to implement these procedures effectively. Teachers must have the time, resources, and support—both in training and collaboration time—to implement RTI effectively to improve student outcomes.

In the past, when we used DRA  as a universal screening at the beginning, middle, and end of year, each teacher was responsible for finding research based interventions. The result was inconsistency across the district. To make matters worse, teachers had a difficult time assessing true progress because other teachers didn’t necessarily use the same progress monitor or intervention tool. So what should teachers use to intervene? Could Istation fluency lessons improve overall comprehension?

Students who can decode text accurately, read at an acceptable rate, and read aloud with appropriate expression are said to be fluent readers (National Reading Panel, 2000). Research indicates that readers become more fluent when they are given lots of opportunities to practice their reading—either independently or with guidance and assistance from a more accomplished reader. Reading-fluency interventions can pay surprising dividends: not only do these strategies help children to read more fluently, but they also improve readers’ accuracy and reading comprehension (National Reading Panel, 2000).

Istation prescribed lessons contain running records which lend themselves for assisted reading, paired reading, and echo reading.

Articulating the Vision

I have informed parents of my action research project by conferencing with them at the beginning of the school year. When placing students on RTI, parents become part of the process. In addition, parents fill out appropriate RTI documentation in which they list their observation, concerns and goals and recommendations for their child. During the conference, I discuss with them my vision and how I plan to execute my research. I explain to parents that once again I will be tutoring their child as I had done before when their child was in third grade. I reiterate that this year, I will be using the prescribed lessons from the Istation intervention program. I show them an example of the running records that Istation prescribed for their child. I also create a newsletter for them to keep at home in which I include tips and strategies for them to use with their child.

Manage the Organization

Twice a week, I work with students in small groups while other students are reading independently. The only materials I use are those prescribed by the individual lessons from Istation. Usually, all I need is an easel, dry erase markers, a journal for each student, highlighters, pencils, and chart paper. When tutoring my students after school, I provide them with snacks and a drink. The same materials are needed during after school tutoring which takes place on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2:45 to 3:45. During this time, I work on fluency with them so that I can work on comprehension during class time. Istation prescribes a different intervention lesson for fluency than it does for comprehension.

Manage Operations

Because this research project only requires of my students participation, managing the operation is a simple task. It is however, imperative that I work with students for the same amount of time each week which can pose a challenge if a student is absent. In that case, I work with that student at a different time, to make up for the missed instruction. The time missed on the computer also has to be made-up when the child is absent.  Communication is important. I communicate progress with students on a weekly basis verbally and in their notebooks, as well as through telephone when necessary to speak with their parents. In addition to the Istation assessment, I also provide parents with other assessments used in the classroom. These are assessments that the entire class is tested with. They give me and the parent an idea of the student’s progress when tested on a basic fourth grade level reading passage. I like to see how a student scores in comparison to students who are not on an RTI tier. This gives me the opportunity to identify true progress.

Respond to Community Interest and Needs

In order to fulfill our school mission, which is to produce excellence and enable all students to become successful in a global society, we must take into consideration that all students are different. While many of our students are successful and reading on grade level, many of them are not. This is hindering them in all content areas. By increasing students’ reading levels, we increase their potential across the board. This action research will not only serve students on RTI, but also students in Special Education. This action research allows and fascilitates teachers to differentiate instruction in the classroom. To differentiate instruction is to recognize students' varying background knowledge, readiness, language, preferences in learning and interests; and to react responsively. Differentiated instruction is a process to teaching and learning for students of differing abilities in the same classroom. The purpose of differentiating instruction is to maximize each student's growth and individual success by meeting each student where he or she is and assisting in the learning process. One form of differentiation is language. Istation is available in both English and Spanish, which is rare to find. If it is proven to work, Istation would not only increase student comprehension, fluency, and vocabulary, but also lessen the workload of every elementary teacher in the district. In addition, students on RTI who move from one school in the district to another would make a smooth transition in terms of RTI paperwork and delivery of instruction. Consistency among the district would exist while student benefit in their learning. If Istation doesn’t prove to be effective, our campus can keep searching for a program that does.

References

August, D. & Hakuta, K. (1997). Improving schooling for language- minority children.         Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.

Klingner, J. K., Artiles, A. J., & Bareletta, L. M. (2006). English language learners who struggle with reading: Language acquisition or LD? Journal of Learning Disabilities, 39, 108–128.

National Reading Panel. (2000). Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction. (NIH Publication No. 00-4754). Washington, DC: National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

Rasinski, T.V. (1990). Effects of repeated reading and listening-while-reading on reading  fluency. Journal of Educational Research, 83(3), 147-150.