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Fall 2016
Lindsay Paul
Fall 2016
Table of Contents
Cycle of Inquiry
Lesson Plans
Benchmark Assessments
Pre-test
Lesson #1 Orthographic Mapping
Lesson #2 Write a Short Story
Lesson #3 Read Aloud
Lesson #4 Rhyming Words
Lesson #5 Differentiate Between the Correct Long-A Vowel Team
Lesson #6 Finding Words in Scrambled Letters
Post-test
Articles
Overall Reflection with In-Text Citations
Lindsay Paul
Fall 2016
1) Spelling Inventory
2) Collection of Weekly Spelling Tests
3) DIBELS
Explanation of
As I graphed data from a spelling inventory I conducted with
Analysis Process
all of the students in my class (a class of 16 students), I noticed
a lot of students fell under the Long Vowel Patterns column.
What this means, is that in their spelling they misidentified a lot
of the long vowel patterns such as /ai/, /ay/, /oa/ /a-e/, and /ow/.
Because of their lesser knowledge of long vowel sounds within
words, I realized that there are so many vowel teams that they
should be able to know when to use which ones. The
benchmark assessments used demonstrated their low scores,
giving me what I needed in order to select what I would be
focusing most on.
Targeted
CC.1.1.3.DKnow and apply grade level phonics and word
Instructional Need analysis skills in decoding words.
Standard
CC.1.4.3.FDemonstrate a grade appropriate command of the
conventions of standard English grammar and spelling.
Rationale for
The standards stated above were chosen because they
selecting this
aligned well with my overall spelling goal. These standards
standard
apply phonics, which is essential in sounding out vowel teams.
The students need to work on getting up to grade level in many
ELA areas, so working with these 3rd grade standards have set a
purpose them.
Identifying Goal
Goal:
Explanation of how
goal was selected &
why
Lindsay Paul
Fall 2016
Learning too many vowel teams at once can be too much for the
students, so I chose a specific vowel team letter that would be a
good starting point.
Pre-Test/Post-Test Development
Rationale for Goal
selection
2 References
(journals, textbook
series)
Explanation of what
was suggested from
references
Lindsay Paul
Lesson Plans
Reflection on each
lesson
Fall 2016
Pre-Test Results
Reflection on pretest results
Description of
rationale for lesson
Lindsay Paul
sequence
Fall 2016
Post-Test Results
Reflection on posttest results
Lindsay Paul
Analysis of Charts
(pre post)
Fall 2016
Findings
Analysis of results
Reflection on what
you learned
Lindsay Paul
Fall 2016
Final Reflection
Reflection of overall
process
Lindsay Paul
Fall 2016
SLO Lesson 1
Learning Goal:
Students will use orthographic mapping to spell out /ai/ and /ay/ vowel team words.
Standard:
CC.1.1.3.DKnow and apply grade level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words.
CC.1.4.3.FDemonstrate a grade appropriate command of the conventions of standard English
grammar and spelling.
Assessment:
Orthographic mapping on white boards.
Motivation:
Give students a blank box strip, 6 blue, 3 red, 3 green and 3 yellow circles.
Tell students which colors stand for what sound type.
Direct Instruction:
Blue circles are consonants, red circles are short vowels, green circles are long vowels, and
yellow circles are vowel teams.
Take the words: claim and crayon, and Sunday.
o C-l-ai-m blue, blue, yellow, blue.
o C-r-ay-o-n blue, blue, yellow, red, blue.
o S-u-n-d-ay blue, red, blue, blue, yellow.
You should sound out each sound within a word placing each circle on the strip of boxes.
Do this on top of a whiteboard; you will separate and underline each syllable, then write each
sound below the line.
Identify the long-a vowel team.
Guided Practice:
Work through a variety of words with the students with the colored circles.
Follow above directions.
Independent Practice:
Students will map out a series of /ai/ and /ay/ words using the orthographic method.
o Say, may, play, spray, display, crayon, crayfish.
o Tail, paid, claim, paint, restrain, entertain, monorail.
Review/Closure:
Students will each demonstrate a word correctly to their group members, explaining each step.
SLO Lesson 2
Learning Goal:
Students will be able to identify the correct spellings of /ai/ and /ay/ vowel team words.
They will be able to choose the correct long-a vowel team word to the corresponding pictures or
text.
Standard:
Lindsay Paul
Fall 2016
CC.1.1.3.DKnow and apply grade level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words.
CC.1.4.3.FDemonstrate a grade appropriate command of the conventions of standard English
grammar and spelling.
Assessment:
Write a short story using at least 3 /ai/ and/or /ay/ words.
Motivation:
Show long /ai/ and /ay/ vowel team cards; give a set to each student.
Direct Instruction:
Students will read their short stories to their classmates within the group.
Group will give positive feedback about the short stories.
SLO Lesson 3
Learning Goal:
Students will be able to correctly sound out vowel team /ai/ and /ay/ words in context.
Standard:
CC.1.1.3.DKnow and apply grade level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words.
CC.1.4.3.FDemonstrate a grade appropriate command of the conventions of standard English
grammar and spelling.
Assessment:
Fluency and accuracy of read aloud passages.
Motivation:
Lindsay Paul
Fall 2016
Discuss /ai/ and /ay/ from previous day. What rules do they remember?
Direct Instruction:
Students will read short story to me. I will mark off words they said incorrectly, and listen
carefully for pronunciation of ai and ay vowel team words.
Independent Practice:
Students will go through passages identifying (circling) /ai/ and /ay/ vowel team words.
Review/Closure:
Ask students to tell what they noticed about the /ai/ and /ay/ vowel team words in the short
passages.
SLO Lesson 4
Learning Goal:
Students will apply their knowledge of the long-a sound to identify rhyming words when given a
different long-a vowel team word.
Standard:
CC.1.1.3.DKnow and apply grade level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words.
CC.1.4.3.FDemonstrate a grade appropriate command of the conventions of standard English
grammar and spelling.
Assessment:
Recording sheet with correctly-spelled rhyming /ai/ and /ay/ vowel team words.
Motivation:
Introduce the Get the Sheet to the Jeep trail sheet; read and explain directions.
Give example of a word that rhymes with a word on the sheetpray, stay (they rhyme and have
/ay/).
Direct Instruction:
Students will take turns rolling the dice; roll 5, land on maid. Played rhymes, but is using a
different vowel team. Laid works because it rhymes, and uses the correct vowel team.
Continue until somebody lands on the jeep at the end of the board.
Lindsay Paul
Fall 2016
Independent Practice:
Students will write correctly-spelled rhyming words on their recording sheets as they go through
the trail to the jeep.
Review/Closure:
Students will cross out any words on their recording sheets that they may have misspelled;
compare results with group members.
SLO Lesson 5
Learning Goal:
Students will be able to differentiate between the vowel teams, /ai/ and /ay/, when looking at a list
of words with blank spaces.
Standard:
CC.1.1.3.DKnow and apply grade level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words.
CC.1.4.3.FDemonstrate a grade appropriate command of the conventions of standard English
grammar and spelling.
Assessment:
Cut and glue /ai/ and /ay/ the correct vowel team words to their matching team paper.
Motivation:
Introduce the 40 /ai/ and /ay/ words, and explain that each word is either /ai/ or /ay/; theyre not
interchangeable.
Direct Instruction:
Students will go through the 40 vocabulary words, and per the /ai/ and /ay/ vowel team rule,
they will write in which vowel team belongs in the blanks.
They will cut these out and glue them on their /ai/ or /ay/ papers.
Review/Closure:
Lindsay Paul
Fall 2016
Students will check each other for accuracy as they go through words and explain why they put
certain words with certain vowel teams.
SLO Lesson 6
Learning Goal:
Using what they know about vowel teams, students will be able to identify real words when
connecting letters to the /ai/ and /ay/ vowel teams.
Students will be able to find words with more than 4 letters.
Standard:
CC.1.1.3.DKnow and apply grade level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words.
CC.1.4.3.FDemonstrate a grade appropriate command of the conventions of standard English
grammar and spelling.
Assessment:
List of words identified as having ai or ay vowel team from a table of scrambled letters.
Motivation:
Working from scrambled letters to form words with ai and ay vowel teams.
Direct Instruction:
Students will identify words with /ai/ and /ay/ vowel teams in a scrambled square (similar to the
game, Boggle).
Review/Closure:
Students will tell their group members the words they found, and point them out.
Lindsay Paul
Fall 2016
Lesson Reflections
Pre-Test
For my pre-test on long-a sound vowel teams, I gave my small group of students a 20word spelling test with all /ai/ and /ay/ vowel team words. Out of the 5 students I am working
with, only 2 students spelled more than half of the words correctly, and the other 3 scored 25%
and below. With these low scores, I could see which students need more help than others,
especially which need more one-on-one assistance. Throughout my lessons, I am hoping to see
an understanding of how to appropriately use long-a vowel teams, and to see an increase of at
least 3 more words by each student on the post-test.
SLO Lesson #1
My first lesson on the long-a sound vowel teams went well. I asked students to tell me
what they knew about the long-a sounds, and introduced the goal we will be working towards
over the course of the next lessons. For my first lesson, I showed the students how to map
orthographically. I gave each student different colored chips (red, blue, green, and yellow), a
strip of paper with blank boxes, and a list of words to map out. The students had to sound out
words by each sound, and put the corresponding colored chip. The chips each symbolized a letter
type; consonants were blue, short vowels were red, long vowels were green, and vowel teams
were yellow. The students enjoyed using the colorful chips, though it got confusing at times for
them to remember which color to use and when. They knew that blue chips were consonants, but
differentiating between long vowel, short vowel, and vowel team colors was part of where they
struggled. Being a low group of students, they often need assistance remembering which are the
vowels, and which are consonants, so I wrote all the vowels down in front of them for reference.
The students seemed to enjoy the mapping, and understood how to map quickly. I was happy to
see them enjoy it, and thought that it was good way to introduce my SLO topic to them.
SLO Lesson #2
Given a series of task cards involving /ai/ and /ay/ sound vowel teams, the students were
engaged. We discussed what sounds the vowel teams make, when each one appears within a
word, and how to say them correctly. When they saw a picture of rain, they recognized the word;
they saw the r in the word choices, and knew that it couldnt have been the other options. The
students individually moved through the task cards filling in the blanks within sentences, and
choosing the correct spellings of words. On a separate sheet, they wrote each of the answers from
the task cards, and then were to incorporate those words into a story. Because many of these
students struggle with reading and writing, I modified the lesson on the spot so that they would
just write sentences using the words, rather than telling a story. Each of the students followed
directions well, and successfully identified and used the long-a vowel teams correctly. Next, the
students will be reading short passages incorporating multiple /ai/ and /ay/ vowel team words.
Lindsay Paul
Fall 2016
SLO Lesson #3
I worked on this lesson individually with each student. Because the students were being
asked to read a passage, I pulled each student one-by-one to read to me; I did not want them
listening to the person before them reading. If they would have heard the passage before they
read it on their own, I feel that the accuracy in their reading would have been different since they
would have an idea of what to expect. I had a short review session with each student about the
long-a vowel team rule prior to them reading to me. I gave the students 2 different short passages
to read as I followed along with a copy of the passages, marking off errors that they made while
reading. They were careful to read long-a vowel team words correctly, although sometimes
forgot about the rule and gave the word a short vowel sound. Most of the inaccuracies in their
readings were corrected when they realized the word in context didnt make any sense. The
students know to self-correct while reading, and were careful (most of the time) to reread the
parts of the text that maybe did not make sense to them the first time they read it.
SLO Lesson #4
My group of 5 students was split into two groups, 1 group of 2, and 1 group of 3. The
students worked together sounding out /ai/ and /ay/ vowel team words, and came up with words
that rhymed with them and included the same vowel team. The words that the students had to
identify a rhyming word for were on a board gamethis was not a game activity; the game
board was just full of words to use in a different way. The game board was there so that they
could roll a dice, land on a word, and identify a word that rhymes. I could have had the students
go down a list to rhyme words with, but the game board made the activity more engaging and
attention-grabbing to the students. The groups worked well together, and collaboratively came up
with good lists of rhyming words.
SLO Lesson #5
This lesson differentiated between the long-a vowel team /ai/ and /ay/ words. Each
student was given 40 words with blanks where the vowel teams would be. They were told to say
// where the blanks were in order to sound out the word. From there, they could separate the
words by sound, deciding which long-a vowel team to use. The students know that the /ai/ team
can only be used in the middle of a sound, and that the /ay/ team must end a sound. This helped
them to decide which vowel team to use in each of the 40 given words. When they were done
filling in the blanks, I went over the answers with each student individually. For those words
they chose the incorrect vowel team, I discussed why it was wrong, and why the other vowel
team is the right answer. The students cut out each of the words, and glued them on their correct
paper. One paper was titled /ai/, and the other was titled /ay/. They glued each word on their
correct vowel team page; even if they did not correct the spelling of the word in writing, they
made sure to at least glue it onto the correct page. I feel that the students being able to identify
the correct vowel team for most of the words was helpful for continuing to build the necessary
skills to understand vowel sounds and vowel teams.
Lindsay Paul
Fall 2016
SLO Lesson #6
The students final lesson looked much like a game of Boggle. Out of a textbook given to
me by one of the reading specialists at the school, I found a 3x3 box of letters, one box
containing the /ai/ vowel team and another 3x3 box of letters where a box contained the /ay/
team. The students had to look within the 9 squares, and see what words they could find that
used the vowel team. I thought that this would be a good way to wrap up my series of SLO
lessons, because it was the only one where they werent given a list of words, but had to come up
with one themselves. They would not have been able to do this in the beginning, but after long-a
vowel team practice, the students were easily able to pick out words that they recognized. When
I found this activity, I knew it would be a good way to end my SLO in a way the students would
enjoy. I demonstrated how to find words within the boxes, but they didnt need much help after
that. I found one word for them, and they came up with a nice list from there. This was another
successful long-a vowel team lesson where I feel that the students were able to grasp the spelling
rule, and apply it when necessary.
Post-Test
I was proud to see such improvement from the pre-test to the post-test! My highest
scoring student from the pre-test improved by getting 2 more words correct, putting him at a
95%. My lowest student got a 35% on the post-test, but was a definite improvement from his
20% pre-test score. With all students improving from one test to the other, I feel confident that
they are on their way to understanding spelling rules, such as vowel teams, better. We only went
over a couple of vowel teams, and there are many more that the students need to learn. But with
basic knowledge and recent improvement, I am confident that they will catch up and eventually
be where they should.
Lindsay Paul
Fall 2016
Lindsay Paul
Fall 2016
identify long-a vowel teams, so I began with something called orthographic mapping.
Orthographic mapping has the students use different colors to identify letter-sound types.
Application of their knowledge regularly occurring vowel phonologicalorthographic
representations; with increased application comes increased automaticity (Johnson Donnell, W).
They needed to sound out each letter-sound in words that they were given; consonants were a
color, short-vowel and long-vowel sounds were two different colors, and vowel teams were their
own color as well. The students had to stop to think which color to use, and realize when a vowel
team was present. Color-coding letter-sounds was the best way to begin this SLO because it was
the basis of everything they would see in the following lessons.
The remaining lessons after orthographic mapping went well with my students. They
tested several important skills for the students through linguistic best practices, all of which the
students enjoyed because I made them seem like games. These students needed to stay motivated
all-while being engaged. At times implementing these lessons was a challenge because one
student in particular needs to be tricked into learning; once you get him excited about an activity
that may at first seem dull, theres no stopping him. Students were provided with a series of taskcards each to correctly identify the spellings of /ai/ and /ay/ vowel team words, and asked to
come with a story using said words. Other lessons included students being able to accurately
pronounce long-a vowel team words verbally through a read aloud passage, rhyming words
including the same vowel teams, differentiating between /ai/ and /ay/, and searching for words
through a series of scrambled letters; these lessons were overall thoroughly enjoyed by the
students.
After all lessons were complete, I gave out the post-spelling test which was like the
preliminary-test: a series of 20 words dictated to them to spell correctly while identifying the
Lindsay Paul
Fall 2016
correct vowel teams. I saw results that I was both happy, yet surprised to see. I know that being
coached and scaffolded through lessons showed positive lesson-results, but I saw positive posttest results as well! No student got less than a 35% on their post-test, when the lowest
preliminary-test result was 20%; an increase of 15% was more than I expected to see. This shows
me that the students took something away from this SLO which was huge for them, and crucial
for beginning to learn similar but different skills.
The students worked well together, which I know can sometimes be tough when working
on something difficult to understand; Communicative and social capabilities are known to be of
primary developmental importance to all children and often present a particular difficulty for
children (Weeks, K) This journal that mostly discussed practical singing strategies with
students to help them learn skills, but also demonstrates how different results can be from having
students work in a setting forcing them to use social cues that they may not yet possess. That is
something that really made me think about which students I paired together in my small-group.
Different pairs could have definitely altered my end results.
In a short period, I learned so much from a small-group of students; having worked on
and implemented this type of data collection and research-based inquiry has helped grow my
understanding in the basic needs of a diverse group. Working with a single skill was more
influential than if I had gone with my overall plan of teaching all vowel teams, rather than just
focusing on long-a vowel teams. This narrow focus I can easily tell showed better results than
looking at all five vowels, and even more teams. Walking away from this SLO has taught me so
much about the focus on an individual skill; the importance is more clear. The opportunity to
reflect through showing my data and hard work to my peers and professors who have helped me
Lindsay Paul
Fall 2016
grow over the past semesters was also a great experience. It has shown me a welcome view on
my own professional growth readying me even more for my near-future career as an educator.
Works Cited
Johnson Donnell, W. (2007). The effects of multisensory vowel instruction during word study for
third-grade students. Wiley, International Literacy Association 42 (4): 468-471. JSTOR.
Web. 8 Nov. 2016.
Knight-McKenna, M. (2008). Syllable types: a strategy for reading multisyllabic words.
TEACHING Exceptional Children 40: 18-24. Educational Resources Information Center.
Web. 8 Nov. 2016.
Weeks, K. (2015). Vowels--sonic gems of emotion for social communication: practical singing
strategies for non-musician teachers with developmentally diverse young children. Early
Childhood Education 43: 515-22. Educational Resources Information Center. Web. 8
Nov. 2016.