What Difference Does Instruction Make? 1

What Difference Does Instruction Make? 2
What Difference Does Instruction Make?
Introduction:
In my 6 weeks in a 2 nd grade inclusion classroom at A.E.S, I was given the opportunity to build strong personal relationships with a group of wonderful, hard-working children who showed dedication and enthusiasm for learning on a daily basis. I found this particular field experience to be especially fulfilling because it constantly challenged me to adjust my teaching style, lessons, and methods of assessment to meet the demanding needs of some of my students, especially those diagnosed with learning disabilities. In my classroom of 25 students, 4 children received consistent Special Education services in Math and Reading in their own inclusion classroom
(their least restrictive environment), and 2 more students received occasional pull-out services in Speech and
Occupational Therapy.
Throughout this Junior Block experience at A.E.S., I was immersed in a classroom environment that not only showcased some of my strengths as a teacher, but also allowed me to recognize and strengthen some of weaknesses, as well. I was also given the opportunity to help administer curriculum based assessments and statewide standardized tests, and play a role in the subsequent planning of instruction required to improve students’ scores in specific areas of content. In consideration of the large role that assessment played in my field experience over the past 6 weeks, I decided to specifically hone in on an area of reading that required sufficient amount of improvement for my “What Difference Does Instruction Make” research project. Using previous assessment results to guide my instruction and research for this project, I made the satisfying discovery that instruction DOES in fact make a substantial difference in student understanding and performance.
In their careers, every educator may occasionally face the frustration of seeing disappointing assessment scores after a period of content instruction; these results often lead to periods of self-reflection and critique, wondering how we could have taught the concept differently to help make the infamous “light bulb” click for our students. In my first week of working in my 2 nd grade classroom at Asbury, it was made blatantly obvious that my cooperating teacher and some of the other 2 nd grade teachers were experiencing similar frustrations. The 2 nd graders had just finished a round of MAP (measurement of academic progress) computer based testing in their classrooms, and the results for some reading based content—specifically r-controlled vowels—was mind boggling

What Difference Does Instruction Make? 3 to the teachers. After attending an early morning TBT (Teacher Based Team) meeting that showed similar results across all of 2 nd grade at Asbury, I was asked to play a role in re-teaching the concept of r-controlled vowels to my classroom of students.
Pre-Instruction Data:
Using previous MAP assessment data results and r-controlled vowel spelling tests, it was easy to be able to differentiate between the students who struggled with the concept of r-controlled vowels, and those who did not. After examining the data, 12 students—nearly half of the class—missed several r-controlled vowel questions on their MAP assessment. Considering such a large majority of the class struggled with the concept, my cooperating teacher found it would be most beneficial to re-teach the concept in a whole group setting, rather than to just a few students in a small group.
However, despite the fact that the instruction occurred in a whole group setting, I decided to avoid the cumbersome task of evaluating an entire class of data by specifically honing in on the group of 12 students who scored in the lowest percentile when post-analyzing the scores. Due to the nature of the school’s curriculum for teaching reading concepts as well as the structure of the MAP assessment, most of the data collected throughout my research experience was strictly quantitative—numbers and scores based on spelling tests and the MAP achievement test. The chart below shows the pre-instruction data based on my class’s MAP scores:
MAP
Assessment
Student 1
Student 2
Student 3
Student 4
Student 5
Student 6
Student 7
Student 8
-ar- -er- -ir- -or- -ur-

What Difference Does Instruction Make? 4
Student 9
Student 10
Student 11
Student 12
Instruction:
The 2 nd grade teachers at A.E.S. follow a curriculum based on the structure of “Words Their Way” when teaching reading concepts to their students. With each new spelling pattern or reading concept introduced to the class, the students follow a relatively strictly regimented schedule that allows the children to transition through multiple means of exposure and practice with the new concept throughout the entire school week—before a final spelling test on Friday. Following my cooperating teacher’s suggestion, I adhered to the same structure the students were already accustomed to when re-teaching the concept of r-controlled vowels to the entire class.
The “Words Their Way” schedule is as follows:

Monday: Whole group instruction introduces the new concept to students

Tuesday: Students are given r-controlled vowel words on small flashcards to cut and then sort independently at their desks. Afterwards, they read each word to a teacher so we can check for understanding and proper pronunciation.

Wednesday: Students sort their words independently again, reading each word to themselves this time.
Afterwards, they browse books from their personal book boxes or the classroom library for words that contain r-controlled vowels.

Thursday: Students alphabetize their r-controlled vowel words, choose 10 words, and then write them appropriately in a sentence. For homework, students write their words independently, 3 times.

Friday: Students glue their sort and practice/study their words one more time. During “Daily 5” time, the students are given their final spelling assessment.

What Difference Does Instruction Make? 5
Although a large majority of the reinforcement for each reading concept at A.E.S. is placed on the students in independent practice, I was given the opportunity to introduce the concept on the first day in a whole group instruction setting. To prepare for the lesson, I chose multiple different r-controlled vowel words and set them up as a word sort using the Smart Board Exchange program on the computer. Considering the fact that many of my students also show enthusiasm and interest in Shel Silverstein’s silly poetry, I also made copies of two different
Silverstein poems that contained a large majority of r-controlled vowel words so the students could use the poem as a concrete example when participating in a word search.
To begin the lesson, I pronounced each r-controlled vowel—ar, er, ir, or, and ur—asking the students to first echo read, and then read them chorally along with me. I then asked the students to share a few r-controlled vowel words that they may already know, and then students were called up individually to read and sort a word under the appropriate column on the Smart Board. After I was confident that the students could recognize and read words with r-controlled vowels, I passed out highlighters and the Silverstein examples and asked the students to follow along while I read each poem to the class to help accommodate for the many students in my class with lower reading capabilities. The students were then asked to independently read and search for rcontrolled vowels in the poems. At the end of the lesson, the students shared the words that they discovered, and
I helped them document any words that they may have missed.
When planning my lesson, I put forth an effort to structure the instruction of r-controlled vowels in a way that catered to the many different learning styles and interests evident throughout my classroom of 2 nd graders.
Students who learn better visually were able to learn through the Smart Board sort and word search activity, and those with audio learning styles gained an understanding by echo and choral reading each vowel sound and by listening to the Shel Silverstein poem being read aloud to the class. Finally, students who prefer a more tactile approach to learning were able to manipulate words on the Smart Board, and use a highlighter to differentiate rcontrolled vowel words in the poems they were given—for some reason, using a highlighter is deemed an exciting privilege to 2 nd graders, because they were all excited to have the brief opportunity to ditch their boring pencils!
Throughout the entire lesson, my students all seemed highly engaged and interested in the concept—

What Difference Does Instruction Make? 6 participation levels were consistently high and I was confident by the end of the lesson that my students could differentiate between each word pattern in a variety of different contexts.
Post Instruction Data:
After teaching this whole group lesson to introduce the concept, the students followed their traditional schedule and gained additional reinforcement through independent word sorts, writing, and word searches for rcontrolled vowel words while reading. Throughout the week, the students with reading disabilities or those with lower reading levels were pulled to gain more one-on-one reinforcement of r-controlled vowels in a small group setting. By the end of the week, the students were not only given their traditional spelling test, but the 12 students in the lowest MAP score percentile were also asked to retake the r-controlled vowel section of the test so that I could post-assess the effect my instruction had on their understanding. The new results showed a significant improvement in scores, so I am confident the additional reinforcement through instruction had a substantial effect on their understanding of the concept. The chart below clearly depicts the post-instruction data alongside the pre-instruction data so you can see the difference:
Student 1
Student 2
Student 3
-ar- -er- -ir- -or- -ur-
Student 4
Student 5
Student 6
Student 7
Student 8
Student 9
Student 10

What Difference Does Instruction Make? 7
Student 11
Student 12
= Wrong on the 1 st test = Correct on the 2 nd test
Data Analysis:
The improvement in understanding among this specific group of 12 students is clearly revealed from the qualitative data collected from the second adminsitration of the MAP assessment. However, my 2 nd graders were not the only students who benefited from additional instruction with this particular reading concept. When I followed up and contributed in the 2 nd grade TBT (teacher based team) meeting two weeks later, I discovered that there were significant improvements in understanding of r-controlled vowels among all of the 2 nd graders at
A.E.S.; although I was not present to witness the nature of the instruction in the other classrooms, the other data showed it made difference in other classrooms, as well.
When closely reviewing the data, it is obvious that several of the students made significant strides in their scores—they managed to correctly answer many of the answers that were previously marked incorrect, which reveals an improvement in understanding. Some of the students consistently missed the same question on both test administrations, which could be attritubeted to a wide variety of different factors such as a potential misleading or confusing nature of the question, or the students’ prior knowledge of the content of the question.
Also, the one or two students who remained relatively stagnant in their scores are on IEP’s for reading, so they probably required more extended reinforcement than what we could provide for them in just a week’s time.
Implications:
Whenever a teacher is incorporating standardized testing as a form of assessment to check for student understanding, there is always going to be at least a few implications that need to be considered. Some of the flaws of standardized testing are already readily apparent to educators; they don’t accommodate for different learning or test-taking styles, they are often administered in a high stress environment, the questions are often structured to be misleading or confusing, etc. Some of my less visually inclined students may perform at their best using different means of assessment, such as through audio, tactile, or kinesthetic means. Although standardized

What Difference Does Instruction Make? 8 or curriculum based test results can sometimes be a useful means of gaining a snapshot of student understanding, it is always beneficial to allow for multiple means of representation and alternative forms of assessment when checking for student understanding of content.
The MAP test results were a convenient form of formal quantitiative data for my research, but I would have liked to allow students to show their understanding using a wider variety of avenues. Considering the fact that my cooperating teacher helped to guide my research project to suit her students’ needs, I was somewhat limited in incorporating many other alternative means of assessment. Although my students were informally assessed through class participation in the whole group lesson and in their independent understanding of the concept through sorting, writing, and reading throughout the week, I would have liked to have been able to implement another form of formal assessment other than the MAP to compare data.
Also, while observing the students as they retook the MAP assessment, I noticed that many of the questions were structured in a way that made it difficult to differentiate between the r-controlled vowel pattern without feeling confident in the spelling of the word. For example, sometimes the test would show a picture of an r-controlled vowel word such as “herd,” and then ask the students to choose the r-controlled vowel pattern that belonged in the word. However, if the student had no prior knowledge of what a “herd” was, then they would have been confused as what the picture was symbolizing and would certainly not know how to spell it and be able to differentiate between the “er” sound in –ir, -er, and –ur. Similar complications also arose at the end of the week with the spelling test, as students sometimes struggled with differentiating between the –ir, -er, and –ur in their words, considering all three patterns sound exactly the same.
Conclusion:
Like most educators, I personally strive to genuinely “make a difference” in the lives of the students I teach—both personally and in the realm of education, as well. The experiences I encountered while conducting this particular research project in my 2 nd grade field placement at A.E.S. have taught me that teaching is a continuous, malleable process that requires consistent self-reflection, feedback, and flexibility. As a teacher, I will undoubtedly encounter moments of frustration where unimpressive assessment scores may lead me to think I am

What Difference Does Instruction Make? 9 failing my students; however, the qualititative data I have collected proves that goals can still be achieved with some curriculum restructuring and additional reinforcement for the students who need it.
As education textbooks and collegiate level classroom lectures and discussions have constantly reiterated, students vary in their learning styles as well as the pace it takes some to get that “lightbulb” to spark. Although it may seem an overwhelming task, it is our job as teachers to meet each student’s needs, instead of expecting our students’ to conform to us. In the end, there is nothing more personally rewarding or invigorating than seeing the impact your instruction can make on the lives of your students!