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Action Plan
What I Implemented:
I implemented the use of graphic organizers during guided reading and whole group instruction with my 24 third grade students. The use of graphic organizers during reading aided my students in organizing their thoughts and ideas while reading and helped in the development of their comprehension skills. I planned the graphic organizers I used during my lessons in advance that focused on the weekly skills being taught through the McGraw-Hill Reading Wonders Curriculum for third grade students. The skills I focused on were: cause and effect with expository (nonfiction) texts, theme with Narrative and Free Verse poetry, and summarization with fairy tales and realistic fiction texts. These skills were chosen to focus on as they aligned with the weekly skills being taught for each week in the Wonders Curriculum. In addition to these skills, my students also worked on growing in their abilities to make predictions, summarize, and ask questions about texts as they read.
When teaching students how to use the Theme Graphic Organizer, I drew the organizer out on the board for students each day as we worked with determine the theme of a new poem.
The Summarizing Anchor Chart was made to serve as a reference for students to help write and tell summaries.
Please hover over the two images to learn more about how they were used in the classroom.
How I Implemented Graphic Organizers:
I chose to teach my students how to use different graphic organizers that correlated with our weekly comprehension skills from the Wonders Curriculum in both whole group and differentiated small group settings. The graphic organizers I selected to utilize during the study were: conceptual graphic organizers, sequential graphic organizers, and story maps.These graphic organizers were used as a manipulative to aid students with organizing their thoughts and information they gained while reading.
When teaching my students to use the graphic organizers shown above, I utilized an explicit instructional approach during both whole group and small group instruction. I adopted the “I do.. We do.. You do” instructional approach where lessons began with me modeling how to use the graphic organizer. Then the class practiced using the graphic organizer altogether. Finally, students practiced the skill being taught with the graphic organizer independently. I also took the time to directly explain to my students why, how, and when to use the different graphic organizers with the different genres we read throughout the six week action research study. I chose to utilize this form of instruction alongside the implementation of graphic organizers as it allowed students the opportunity to see how to use the graphic organizers and gave them multiple opportunities to practice using the different graphic organizers.
The Compare and Contrast Graphic Organizer from the Wonders Curriculum was used during the first week of the action research study. I implemented this graphic organizer alongside teaching students about expository (non-fiction) texts. I chose to use this graphic organizer as the class' weekly anthology story compared and contrasted different animals that lived in the Mojave Dessert.
Somebody, Wanted, But, So, Then (SWBST) Graphic Organizer used to help students summarize and was implemented the fifth and sixth week of the action research study. I chose to implement this graphic organizer as it assisted students with writing and telling a short summary of the text. Before implementing this organizer, my students wanted to tell every event that happened in the story. This helped them learn how to write and tell a simple summary of a story.
Why My Students Needed Graphic Organizers:
I chose to implement this action research plan because my students showed a diverse need in reading comprehension. Prior to starting my research, I gave my students a reading comprehension quiz using an on grade level passage and questions from the McGraw Hill Wonders Curriculum Benchmark Assessment Test Two as a pretest.
I chose to give my students this form of assessment for the pretest as the passage and questions focused on the weekly comprehension skills that were taught during the action research study. Out of the 24 students in my classroom, two students scored between 90-100%, three students scored between 80-89%, five students scored between 70-79%, three students scored between 60-69%, and 11 students scored less than 60%. While the majority of my students could read the passage aloud fluently, their lack of understanding of what they read and actions to go back into the passage to find the answers posed some concerns. Furthermore, my student who reads below grade level expectations and is allowed to have the passage read aloud scored particularly low on the pre-test. This data point supported my idea of implementing different graphic organizer to help increase students' reading comprehension skills as it exposed the struggles that my students experienced when answering comprehension questions over a passage.
Additionally, after conducting the Fountas and Pinnell (F & P) Benchmarking and looking over my students' responses on weekly Analytical Writing and Response pieces where students are given an essential question over the weekly story we are working on from the Wonders Curriculum; I noticed that many of my students were struggling with showing they understood what they read as they struggled with organizing the information from the text. While my above grade level reading students showed me they could understand what they read, they struggled with keeping their summaries concise and in their own words. On the other hand, my below level students showed me that it was difficult for them to organize all of the events in the texts that they read as they were overwhelmed by all the information presented to them. Because of this, I chose to focus on incorporating graphic organizers into both whole group and small group reading instruction at the third grade level because if students are not able to organize the information and story lines of the texts they will have difficulty when reading longer, higher level books as they get older and develop into a stronger reader. Finally, the implementation of graphic organizers is the best choice for my class population as graphic organizers support below level, on level, and above level readers, and any learner can get use out of using them in multiple subject areas.
Meeting Diverse Learning Needs:
To account for the diverse learning needs of my students, I have chosen to implement multiple types of graphic organizers that allow my students the opportunity to learn how to organize the information they read in different formats using story maps, sequential graphic organizers, and conceptual graphic organizers. With the graphic organizers I implemented, students were given the opportunity to use the graphic organizers with different comprehension skills as they chose a graphic organizer that lays out information in a way that makes the most sense to them for our weekly comprehension skill checks. The student on an Individualized Reading Intervention Plan (IRIP) also received additional support and guidance when learning how to use graphic organizers while reading, specifically when working with literary texts. Finally, if I saw certain students who struggled with comprehension skills for the week, a student who struggled with using the graphic organizer, or a student who struggled with both of these items; I was able to pull these students for reteaching and additional practice with the comprehension strategy and graphic organizer.
Ultimately, my goal for all of my students was to feel comfortable and confident enough to fill out an empty graphic organizer on their own while reading a text. However, because my students learn at different paces, I had to set goals based on their reading level. Because of this, for my two above level small groups (Blue Group and Green Group) my goal was to get them to work on going back into the text with the graphic organizer to support their answers. These students were already great at comprehending what they read, but would lose points on comprehension quizzes for not going back and double checking their work. For my on level reading group (Orange Group), my goal was for students to use the graphic organizer to help gain a better understanding of the story as the majority of the students in this group could also read fluently, but struggled with understanding what they read and mixed up when events took place. For my below level group (Purple Group), my goal was for students to be able to grow in their conversations about what we were reading by using our discussions together to complete the organizers that were partially filled out for them or done altogether. While the use of graphic organizers and getting students to use them was my hope for student, what was more important to me was that they grew in their reading comprehension abilities. Because of this, the main goal I set for all of my students was to improve on their weekly comprehension quizzes each week.
Culturally Responsive Practices:
In order to be a culturally responsive educator, I fostered equality and accessibility as my students were always allowed to work at their own pace in order to promote and encourage them to become active, independent readers. When working with small groups, other students were given the opportunity to work at their own pace on a weekly checklist that reviewed our weekly skills. Students were given access to graphic organizers they could pick and choose to use when reading independently. Students pulled from class to receive additional reading support missed independent work time. However, it was more beneficial for these students to receive one-on-one support in order to grow as a reader. I also implemented surveys at the beginning and end of the week in order to get to know how my students felt when it came to using each graphic organizer and their ability to comprehend a text they read. Additionally, I worked with below-level readers on activating their prior knowledge by doing picture walks and helping them build background knowledge of a text before reading in order to help promote connections to the text.
I also made contact with my students’ families and sent home weekly parent plans that outlined the skills we were working on in reading in order to make student learning accessible to their families. While I made students’ learning accessible to families, there was no guarantee that students had the opportunity to work with a family member at home. Because of this, students were given time during the day to complete work and given time to read both independently and aloud to an adult during the day while practicing using a graphic organizer to organize their thoughts. I provided my students with the opportunity to have books read aloud to them by having headphones and audiobooks accessible to my students to use on laptops.
I incorporated multiple perspectives of learning and teaching into both whole group and small groups by encouraging my students to actively participate and share their ideas and strategies with one another. I valued different perspectives of professionals and how they taught comprehension strategies as well as how they taught guided reading, including the perspectives from the reading specialist in my building, my cadre associate, team members, and other educators both within and outside of my school building in order to find what worked best for my students.
Collaboration:
While implementing my action research study, I collaborated with other professionals and community members to ensure I chose the best items to help improve my students' overall reading comprehension. The internal stakeholders within this project consisted of a multitude of people. My third-grade team, school reading specialist, and principal worked with me to help me find strategies and tools that would help improve student learning, as well as answered my questions when I needed some guidance. They also helped me find resources and provided me with professional development books on reading comprehension. Moreover, my team members also implemented the use of graphic organizers into their classrooms to help give me feedback on areas I could change to improve the graphic organizers and explicit instructional approach to learning.
Additionally, I worked with external stakeholders during my action research study. My cadre associate, cadre cohort, former classmates, and university professors supported me throughout my study to become a more effective and confident educator in reading comprehension. My cadre associate took the time to observe my whole group and small group instructions during the study. She also met with me weekly to discuss areas that I could improve on or change to enhance the learning environment for students. To help with this, my cadre associate would also record my lessons for me to go back and reflect on so I could also see what I needed to change in my instruction. For example, from the observations my cadre associate saw when giving students an oral, whole group comprehension check points on the weekly whole group anthology story, she was able to suggest and guide me to make the decision to change these comprehension check points into a paper and pencil short answer quiz that students completed independently in order to gain a better level of understanding where each student is at. Collaborating with my cadre cohort and former classmates from my undergraduate program was also beneficial during my action research study. Through the conversations and interaction I had with my peers, I was able to brainstorm and jump ideas off of educators in a similar position. Knowing my teaching style and goals I had for my students, they helped me to find a strategy to implement that fit alongside my philosophy of education. These teachers also helped me to problem-solve and see growth in my students' reading comprehension abilities when I was unsure that they were growing. Finally, my university professors from both my undergraduate and graduate programs guided me during my journey to become a more effective educator in reading comprehension. My professors provided me with ample strategies to implement throughout my classroom, and were also there for words of encouragement. Their knowledge and insights in addition to the information I gained throughout their courses, provided me with the necessary tools to take back into my classroom and use to help my students' needs in reading comprehension.
