If You're Angry and You Know it...

This week our focus was on the story,  If You're Angry and You Know It written by Cecily Raiber. If the title sounds familiar, that's because the pattern follows the song "If You're Happy and You Know It." A large part of my instruction is matching the familiar with the new. Students activate their background knowledge about the song and then use the familiar patterns to read the story. In order to make sure students are transferring their knowledge from the familiar to the new, we engage in lots of practice. This week we:

1) Introduced the book by listening to the song without any words. Once students listened a couple of times, they began to sing the familiar, "If You're Happy and You Know It."
2) I show students the book - we discuss how the title and some of the words are different. I read the book, pointing to the words as I read.
3) I write out the book on sentence strips and students practice chorally reading using a pointer finger. While the word pattern is still familiar, the removal of pictures provides students with the opportunity to think more about the words.
4) We practice word families that naturally occur in text. This week we talked about words that end in -ow and make the long /o/ sound (such as "know" and "show"). Students use magnet letters to make new words and then write the words down in a Word Family House. We also include words that don't belong in the house such as "how" and "now."
5) We practice sight words that naturally occur in text. Students point to words on the sentence strips and make their own flash cards for independent practice. Sight words are put onto the word wall after they have been introduced.
6) By the end of the week I want children to practice what they have learned through writing. Students may write a journal entry about the song or they may write their own version of the story. Many of the books I am using have multiple versions. This story also has a Jungle Edition.

In addition to these teacher led activities, students have ample opportunities for independent practice during center time. This week, I provided a computer center with a virtual keyboard where students can play the song on the computer. I printed out the sheet music for the song and then wrote the corresponding musical notes underneath. Although this new activity required teacher support, students were very motivated to create their own music!

So...How many of you are singing the song in your head right now?


This story is a version of the song "If You're Happy and You Know It" I thought this would be applicable since many of my students frequently deal with angry emtions.

Sheet music for the song - I provided notes in letter form so that students could play independently.

Virtual Keyboard website where students can play songs using the computer

Sentence Strips - Students take turns pointing to the words and reading chorally.

Word Family House for words ending in -ow

 



Adding Quantitative Data

This week I completed a running record with each student for our introductory story, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? (Martin, Jr., 1983). In order to determine what strategies the students were using, I removed the pictures by retyping the story in text format only. The attachment below shows the results.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/13GdiZNScUrvjO3x7c6dYt8Q5XXul3_SnVCmesTxOXFc/edit#

Overall, the results were positive. Most of the students began reading from memory but then stopped and used visual strategies to read the words correctly. Two of the students were able to read the text with few errors despite the removal of pictures. They also completed reading the entire story.  One student stopped toward the end because he was getting frustrated. I noticed him rubbing his eyes and I attributed this to his need for glasses (which he does not currently have). Another student seemed to have a difficult time tracking the smaller print. He asked to read the story from the book (with the pictures) and I allowed him to do this. He was able to complete the entire story using this method. The final student who could not finish the story seemed to be distracted by other activities going on in the room. This student was also absent twice since we began meeting.

Although this was our first week of instruction, I felt the students made some reading gains. The students were motivated to read the story independently and appeared to have confidence in their ability. The methods I used, which were based on Fischer and McDonald's (2001) research on using music to teach early literacy skills, may be the reason for these gains. My methods follow their recommendations for beginning a new story: 1) listen to the music, 2) teach the words, 3) have the children engage in word play to develop phonemic awareness.

Next week, I will introduce a new story using the same instructional method. Each week, the stories I choose will be at a slightly higher reading level to encourage reading growth. I am encouraged by the initial results and will keep you updated as I gather more results.

Trying to find the silver lining in all the clouds

Getting this group started has become quite the challenge. I am trying my best to establish routines but the constant disruptions have made this difficult. This week our group time has been interrupted by a field trip, an unplanned scheduling meeting and several emergency drills. We can add vision screenings and grandparents day to that list as well. I would love to just have five consecutive days where I see my entire group for the whole class time. Alas, I know the chances of this happening are not high.

It appears as though the lack of routine is exacerbating the behavior problems I am having with this group. The daily trend seems to be that at least one student has a difficult time following directions which then becomes a "domino effect" that causes at least one other student to become off task. Some days, I feel like we could spend the entire 30 minutes discussing behavior. I knew when I put this group together that they were a lively bunch, but I didn't imagine we would spend so little time on actual instruction.

Although I am not a huge fan of giving students tangible rewards for making appropriate behavior choices, because things were so out of control, I decided this was something I would try for this group. I began to give out "Wildcat Tickets" to students who were making good choices. This is a school wide system so students already have an understanding of how it works. Once a student earns a ticket, he or she will put it into a collective jar where I will randomly select two students who will receive a prize (such as pencils, candy, etc.) at the end of each week. So far, all this has done is cause the students who are not receiving tickets to become angrier and students who are receiving tickets to become anxious about getting a prize. Since we have yet to meet on a Friday, I plan to wait until the end of next week to see if this starts working better. If not, I will adjust my behavior plan and try something else. I will say that a couple of students really do respond well to verbal praise and this is something that I am trying to use more of.

One thing that seems to work well is allowing students to have center time at the beginning of class. In past years, I have always reserved center time for the end of class resulting in only those students who finish work early getting to go to centers. This year, I am committed to all of my students feeling successful and so I am beginning the lesson with student directed activity (with guidance on my part). This also ensures that I am getting some individual time with students during centers. Last week, I videotaped my class. My intention was to have a video record of the assessment I was administering to two students. What happened instead was that I was able to hear what was actually happening in the learning centers. Students were actively engaged in reading and listening to the book that I had read earlier (Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see? by Bill Martin, Jr). What I had thought sounded like random laughing and general fooling around was actually students talking about the book, laughing together and singing the words. Yes, there is a silver lining somewhere in those clouds -engaged students who are actively participating and being responsible for their own learning! Here's hoping that's a continuing trend.

Getting Ready for Instruction

Thick Descriptions, Part Deux

There's an old saying that goes, "Man makes plans and God laughs." Well I can definitely relate to that adage this week. Looking back at my carefully constructed lesson plans, I wonder how I ever thought it would all work out.

This is my first week to meet with my students as a group. On Monday, I thought I would spend a few minutes allowing students to explore the room and then play a name game with them. The first activity was to have students put the letters of their first name in order using letter tiles, then glue them onto a folder. I thought to myself, "they're second graders, how hard could it be." Then I remembered why they come to me. Okay - let's start at putting letters in order from left to right...As you might have figured out, we never even got to the game.

I also have some unexpected behaviors in my class this year. Since I had a good knowledge base of five out of six students from last year, I thought behavior issues would be minimal, but apparently, they learned some new ones over the summer. Because of this, I had to create a behavior chart for the first time. Of course, since this was something new, the interest was more tuned in to who was getting on yellow than what was going on in the lesson.

The good news is, putting on music seems to be having the desired calming effect. On Monday, when one particular student was very "energetic," I put on some classical music and he seemed to relax pretty quickly - even though it was only for about five minutes. The other students also calmed down and became more earnest about working. We were able to complete the letter tile activity without any further major interruptions.

On Tuesday, I pretty much tossed my plans aside and went on instinct. Since I knew the calm music had a desired effect, I tried it again - this time with the music to our first book, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see? by Bill Martin, Jr. I put the song on as soon as the students entered the room and asked them to listen to see if they recognized the song. All of the students began to listen intently and I saw some smiles of recognition appear on their faces.Although my little energetic friend chose to segregate himself at a work table away from the group, I noticed him singing away as he busied himself with some letter sound manipulatives. The rest of the lesson went pretty well until I tried to administer the initial assessment. I asked the students to spread out around the room and gave clipboards to a couple of students who were not at a table. Bad idea! This was definitely too much freedom and resulted in way too much off task behavior ("How come she has a clipboard?", "I want to sit over there." "I'm moving!")  to the point that I had to abandon the assessment and have another chat about behavior expectations.

I have decided that I will try to assess students two at a time instead of all six at once. Although this will put me a little behind on my timeline, I think it will provide me with more accurate data. I'll keep you posted and let you know how it goes!

Thick Descriptions

I am a natural puzzle solver and so I love thinking about the "why" of things. This week I began collecting data with my small group in the form of reading benchmark assessments and a music attitude survey. As I collected the data, I kept thinking about the possible reasons why a student would respond in one way or another. While administering my music attitude survey I had a lot more happy faces than sad faces (40 to 6). Hmm - is it because 2nd graders prefer happy faces over sad faces or did they genuinely agree with the question?

As I look back at the data, I see one student has answered with all happy faces. Although I prefaced each question with the statement that there was no right or wrong answer, I wonder if this student thought the happy face was correct? This was also the only student with whom I did not have a previous relationship. I wonder if she was trying to please me? Since I could not see my own face during the survey I also wonder if my facial expressions were swaying her answers.

I would say that most of the students who were surveyed were able to justify their answers (with some prompting on my part) - at least, in the manner that second graders do that. Some examples of responses include phrases such as, "it makes me happy," "it's fun," and "because I can." Unsurprisingly, a couple of my more familiar students went on to make some good connections between their reasoning and their personal experience.

I would also say that environment plays a role in the data. My room is in a new place this year and I have added in some new elements as well. Even though most of my students were familiar with me, the room was new and, therefore, students were curious about it. I began each survey by telling students they would have a chance to explore after they completed the survey. Looking back, I think I may have gotten better attention results had I allowed students to explore first.Time of day also played a role. Four of the six students were surveyed in the morning and two were surveyed toward the end of the day. The students who met with me at the end of the day exhibited more fidgety behaviors and required redirection several times. Since all six of these students are natural movers, I have to conclude that the end of the day was not the ideal time to conduct a survey. Fortunately, when I begin my actual instruction, I will be meeting with these students at 10:00 each day.

Okay, enough of my pontificating - here are the survey results:

All six students like listening to quiet music (this is something I like also!)

Five out of six students enjoy: singing with friends, moving while singing and feel like they can easily remember words to songs.

Four out of six students like books with music, sitting and listening to music and singing alone.

Three out of six students like popular music (there were some very strong reactions to this question)

Two out of six students like silly songs and loud music (but I LOVE silly songs!)

One final thought - When I consider the home environment of most of my students, it is not surprising to me that they like quieter music. Many of them live in chaotic households with people coming and going at all times. Most students like the feeling of calm that they get when things are quiet and consistent. As I begin the instruction phase of my project, I will definitely try to keep this information in the back of my mind as I plan for their success.

Week Two - Reflection

This week my focus was on observing my chosen students in their regular classroom. My purpose was to look for behaviors that would indicate that these students would be a good match for my action research project. Because my project incorporates music and movement, I felt that students who had a natural tendancy to move around would be good candidates. It appears that at least five of these students are having difficulty sitting still, especially during whole group instruction.

I also noticed a prevailing theme in that many of these students are having difficulty getting themselves started on independent work. Some of my first thoughts are that the work is too difficult for them and/or it is unmotivating.

Next week, my primary goal is to join classroom teachers while they administer running records. As we both listen to the targeted students read, we will be able to compare our data and discuss possible reasons behind the observed reading behaviors. Additionally, I will be seeing the targeted students one at a time to administer the music interest survey (see attachment from previous post). My goal for this is to determine if these targeted students already share an enjoyment of music.

Music Survey

The link attached is the music attitude survey that I will be administering this week. Look for results posts next week. I am anxious to see what my students attitudes about learning through music are!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/14ifavGGtYArH6RRg6LY4-vo66xVOAkDV-5fY853S1Ik/edit