Educational Problem: The educational need in my wicked problem is to promote fluent literacy skills in the primary grade levels. Many students are below grade level expectations when it comes to reading fluency and comprehension. This puts them behind as they move on in their educations. Students that never fully develop their reading skills are more at risk to drop out of school. Struggling readers are best reached in the primary grades to prevent continual struggles throughout their education.
Technology Solution: I propose a three-step program to help increase literacy skills of struggling readers. The first technology tool to employ is audio books. Audio books are proven to increase both reading fluency and comprehension. Audio books allow students to replay specific passages multiple times, which eliminates the demand of a one on one instructor to practice fluency. But, audio books alone do not solve the wicked problem of struggling readers. To help create a purpose for reading and to test comprehension the full integration of the program Accelerated Reader(AR) is the next step in this proposal. This program offers online comprehension and vocabulary quizzes for students after completion of reading an audio book. Teachers need to include AR as a part of their daily routine, otherwise the students will not buy into the program and therefore it will not be as effective. The AR quizzes track student progress towards individual goals and also allows teachers to track students’ individual progress. The final technology step is to have students blog on comprehension prompts. This blogging will increase student motivation and will allow the student to make meaningful connections in order to promote real world learning. This is an alternative to paper and pencil responses, which aren’t as effective because they don’t allow easy student tracking of progress and instant peer feedback. All the above steps are reasonable approaches that are low to zero cost. Teachers are able to rent audio books for free from local libraries, many schools are enrolled in Accelerated Reader and student blogging is free.
TPACK Applicaitons: Blog Part B
Intended Audience: This presentation and solution was specifically designed for my fellow teachers at my school. I designed the solution with our resources in mind (such as AR). I also designed the PowerPoint presentation with our staff in mind. I gave specific instructions on accessing programs we use and standardized tests we administer. I think this program will help solve the problem of having many students below grade level. At my school we are expected to move students in reading ability, not matter what their intital scores are. Moving our lowest students is the most difficult. Although we have programs such as AR, we weren't provided with professional development to employ such programs. My Prezi legitimates the use of my program by discussing TPACK framework. But, more specifically, my PowerPoint presentation offers a guide for teachers to set up a reading intervention program in their classrooms. By hearing my Prezi, teachers will be convinced of the methods I have chosen for my program. By exploring my PowerPoint teachers will have a detailed plan to implement reading support in their classrooms.
Power Point Presentation:
Presentation Transcript: Do you ever worry about your students’ reading abilities? Do you worry that too many of your students are reading below grade level? Do you find it challenging to get your students engaged in reading? If you answered yes to any of these questions than this presentation is for you. You are not alone: Many students across the nation are below grade level expectations when it comes to reading fluency and comprehension. This puts our students behind as they move on in their educations. Students that never fully develop their reading skills are more at risk to drop out of school. Many educators would agree: This is what we call a wicked problem!
Intended Audience: This presentation and solution was specifically designed for my fellow teachers at my school. I designed the solution with our resources in mind (such as AR). I also designed the PowerPoint presentation with our staff in mind. I gave specific instructions on accessing programs we use and standardized tests we administer. I think this program will help solve the problem of having many students below grade level. At my school we are expected to move students in reading ability, not matter what their intital scores are. Moving our lowest students is the most difficult. Although we have programs such as AR, we weren't provided with professional development to employ such programs. My Prezi legitimates the use of my program by discussing TPACK framework. But, more specifically, my PowerPoint presentation offers a guide for teachers to set up a reading intervention program in their classrooms. By hearing my Prezi, teachers will be convinced of the methods I have chosen for my program. By exploring my PowerPoint teachers will have a detailed plan to implement reading support in their classrooms.
Power Point Presentation:
Presentation Transcript: Do you ever worry about your students’ reading abilities? Do you worry that too many of your students are reading below grade level? Do you find it challenging to get your students engaged in reading? If you answered yes to any of these questions than this presentation is for you. You are not alone: Many students across the nation are below grade level expectations when it comes to reading fluency and comprehension. This puts our students behind as they move on in their educations. Students that never fully develop their reading skills are more at risk to drop out of school. Many educators would agree: This is what we call a wicked problem!
So, what do we do about this wicked problem? I am proposing a three-step technology integrated program to help increase literacy skills of struggling readers. The first technology tool to employ is audio books. Audio books are proven to increase both reading fluency and comprehension. The next step in this proposal is the full integration of the program Accelerated Reader(AR). AR helps create a purpose for reading and to test comprehension skills. This program offers online comprehension and vocabulary quizzes for students after completion of reading a book. The final technology step is to have students blog on comprehension prompts. This blogging will increase student motivation and will allow the student to make meaningful connections in order to promote real world learning.
I have presented a few elements for this plan. Now lets talk about the logistics of this plan. This program will need to be used on a daily basis with quarterly tracking of progress. The program can be implemented as a workshop where pairs of students take turns using computers for audio books while other students read independently. Another computer can be used for AR quizzes and comprehension blogging. The program will be most effective in 2nd-5th grade classrooms, where students are still developing reading skills. Teachers will need to implement this plan throughout the entire year. This will allow students to meet quarterly AR goals, move up in reading levels due to audio book support, and track their personal growth of blogging responses. I have created a detailed step by step power point that outlines the set up and implementation of this plan. By clicking this last photo you will be able to access a link to the powerpoint.
You may have already noticed, each step of this program integrates the use of technology. It’s important that we employ technology into education for many reasons. We need to prepare our students for the 21st century and for their future careers. Technology offers alternative learning strategies to meet Universal Design for Learning principles, which help us meet the needs of ALL learners. I would like to take some time to talk about how this program meets the need of a concept called TPACK. TPACK refers to the concept of fusing technology, pedagogy and content together. In other words, how teachers can teach with technology to support their content, rather than simply adding technology into a lesson.
Audio books might seem like a simple tool, but if you look more closely you’ll discover how audio books supports the TPACK framework. First, let’s discuss how audio books support technological pedagogy knowledge. By using audio books, readers are able to hear audio books being read to them. Auditory reading is proven to be a key element in learning to read. An additional element that audio books offers is that it takes away the stress and anxiety that struggling readers often experience. Eventually, students are able to see that they can have success with reading and later down the road become more competent independent readers. Audio books also support technological content knowledge. This program also encourages new representations of content by way of technology. Audio books offer an audio version of books, which is a new approach compared to independent reading. This representation variety correlates directly with the UDL framework, as it offers variety in order to meet the needs of ALL learners.
Audio books also support pedagogical content knowledge. In this program, students experience literacy in a variety of ways. Audio books allow students to experience the literature in an auditory sense. Students are set on their own self-guided tour, so to speak. They experience the success of comprehending the books and passing quizzes with the assistance of audio books.
Let’s move onto to looking at how Accelerated Reader meets TPACK requirements. Comprehension quizzes through AR correlated with Technological Pedagogical Knowledge. Testing our students understanding of what they read is essential. This program offers quizzes on almost any current book, so it therefore provides variety. Variety means differentiation. AR is designed so that students are reading the right books, and are moving up in their reading ability as time goes on. Making sure our students are reading the correct level literature is key pedagogical practice, and these above mentioned technology methods directly meet this need. This program also allows student to pick books that interest them within their level, which meets the UDL principle of providing individual choice.
AR offers online quizzes that provide instant feedback, which ties into Technological Content Knowledge. The instant feedback is a positive representational change for both the teacher and the student. Lastly, AR also connects to Pedagogical Content Knowledge. The pedagogical choices in this program correspond with producing fluent readers. As mentioned before, in this program, students experience literacy in a variety of ways. AR specifically allows the students to experience the literature by completing interactive comprehension quizzes. The AR tool gives students assurance and evidence that they comprehend the literature they are reading.
Blogging is the final element within this program. Blogging also corresponds closely with the TPACK framework. Blogging connects to Technological Pedagogical Knowledge because it allows for personal responses using technology. Having students blog about their reading helps to build comprehension skills. It is important that we allow our students to speak to what they are reading, so that they can make authentic connections. Although this can be done with pencil and paper, the online blogging experience offers so much more. With online blogging students can organize their work overtime, it provides a progression of progress and most importantly it provides an easy source for discussion and feedback.
Blogging also connects to Technological Content Knowledge: Student blogging also offers a representational change: Students are now able to keep an online journal of their responses and refer back to comments and feedback. Lastly, blogging also correlates with Pedagogical Content Knowledge: As I keep mentioning students experience literature in a variety of ways in this program: But blogging in particular allows them the benefit of writing about their reading. With blogging, students they are able to express their excitement pertaining to their comprehension of literature. Blogging also allows students to express their pride as a result of experiencing success with reading. This is an example of self-regulation, which applies to the UDL framework.
This program allows students to experience the process of learning to become a fluent reader in a positive, differentiated manner. With this program, students wont lag in their reading experiences; instead, this TPACK integrated solution will allow all students to prosper in their reading.
Great problem and solution. I agree that fluency and just reading in general is a problem, especially the older the students. I had my 8th graders do SSR (Sustained Silent Reading) for 20 minutes every Friday, and it was absolute torture for about 80% of them. It's definitely something that most kids seem to struggle with. I'm not sure if it's because they aren't good at it, they are used to being distracted by tech tools, they need music, etc. or a combination.
ReplyDeleteRegardless, I love how you focus on really making the students feel successful by color coding your books so students choose books they can read and won't be frustrated and how you integrate AR into your classroom. My kids LOVED AR and I found they were much more engaged and willing to read when they had AR quizzes to earn points.
Great job! :)