Pictures of Our Word Sorts

Here are some pictures of our word sorts to better explain what we are doing.

This is a three day process.  Day 1 I introduce the sort by calling small groups down to the carpet.  We read the words together, then I tell them the categories for sorting.  We sort some of the words as a group, then I send them back to their tables to sort independently.  In these pictures, we were sorting by long vowel sounds, so we had five categories.  Some of the students were finished in 5 minutes with 100% correct.  Others took more time and got confused, especially on the long u sound.  These students had a hard time distinguishing between sorting for the sound and looking at the spelling.  For example, they wanted to put the word "pool" with the words, "sold, and hold" because those words had the letters o and l.  Pool should have actually gone with the long u group because long u says it's name like in mute, but also says /oo/ like in school.

Day 2 we sort independently again and then record our words in the correct categories in our word study journals.  I also encourage the kids to think of other words to go in these categories that were not in our sort.  Surprisingly, the kids were really motivated and most wrote more than the required amount in their journals.  Understanding of the sorts seem to be a lot more consistent on this day as well.  I think repetition is the key.

On Day 3, we will get with a partner and have a blind sort.  This is when one partner reads the word and the other partner has to indicate which category it will go it without looking at the word.  We may also choose to sort our words in a different way on this day as well.

Starting Word Sorts

So this week we started our word sorting routine.  These are activities which involve sorting words based on their category, sound, spelling, etc. to get students familiar with spelling and phonics conventions.  There are many different sorting activities that you can do.  The first day was a disaster.  I didn't really have a plan for implementation, organization, and introducing the process to my students.  Needless to say, the students didn't learn anything, were bored, and we wasted 30 min. of reading instruction time.  Upon reflection here is what I did wrong:

• No clear goals/objectives for the lesson
• No organizational plan
• No plan for the structure of instruction (scaffolding)

That night, I went home and consulted my Words Their Way book for more strategies.  Today, I came back with a plan and it went great!!  I started the sort in a small group and modeled for them.  We were sorting the /ow/, /ou/ word patterns.  The students helped me do a few then I sent them to their seats to do their own independent sort.  After all the words were sorted, the students recorded them in their word study journals.  I will have a picture soon.  Tomorrow, we will work with the same words and do a partner activity called a blind sort.  Yesterday aside, I saw the wheels turning in many students during this activity.  The students were really reading the words and noticing the patterns within the spelling.  During reading groups, students were reading and decoding words with this spelling pattern.  I could tell the students were actively engaged in this word study and through interactive practice and manipulation, the students learned more and retained more than by simply doing a page in their phonics book. 

My Timeline

In an effort to organize my thoughts and make the most of my research and time I have attempted to create a timeline for my action research project.
Click here for my timeline

A Picture of My Class

Just to give you a little background on my unique teaching situation: 
I teach first graders in a Christian school located in rural Kentucky.  The school is very new and only has 90 students from preschool to grade 5.  In my class, there are 10 students, 6 boys and 4 girls.  All of the students but one were in the same kindergarten class at this Christian school.  The other student was homeschooled prior to first grade.  Although the school teaches Christian concepts and relates to the Bible across content areas, not all of the students are actively attending church.  Academically speaking, 5 out of the 10 students are above first grade reading level while 3 are at grade level and 2 are slightly below grade level.  The school has adopted a very strict, traditional curriculum which contains a very systematic phonics-based approach to reading instruction.  My classroom setting is a bit different than public schools in a sense that we are only in session three days a week.  We have a combined private and home-school setting.  Teachers guide the instruction, but we rely heavily on the parents to compliment our in-class instruction.  We have strong parental support, but the parents' level of comfort with instruction is minimal in comparison with an educator.  This leads to worksheet practice in the homes of my students during the home-school portion of the school week.  This is not the way I want to teach my students to read.  Nor is it effective, so I am conducting research on various hands-on phonics strategies to see if these will have a positive impact on the reading fluency of my students.

Research Question

As a first grade teacher, phonics instruction is a major component of my literacy block.  Through interactions and seven years of experience, I have noted that some students "get" the phonics concepts I explicitly teach them, yet some of my students have a much harder time with this.  I was on a quest to find answers as to why this may be and it led me to examine my own instructional strategies.  Was I addressing all learning styles and differentiating my instruction to meet the needs of all my students?  If I have students who are struggling to become more fluent readers due to a lack of phonics skills, the answer would be no.  I realized I had a lot to learn about best practices in phonics instruction, so I came up the with this research question:  How do various phonics instructional strategies help my students to become more proficient readers?  This blog will be evidence of my journey in search of the answer to this question.