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.