I. General Information
School Name: Fraser Lake Elementary Secondary
School District: SD#91 Nechako Lakes
Inquiry Team Members: arideout@sd91.bc.ca, vshtybel@sd91.bc.ca, pplowman@sd91.bc.ca
Inquiry Team Contact Email: arideout@sd91.bc.ca
II. Inquiry Project Information
Type of Inquiry: NOIIE Case Study
Grade Levels Addressed Through Inquiry: Secondary (8-12)
Curricular Areas Addressed: Language Arts – Literacy, Language Arts – Oral Language, Language Arts – Reading, Language Arts – Writing
Focus Addressed: Literacy
In one sentence, what was your focus for the year? Transferring phonemic knowledge into reading and writing.
III. Spirals of Inquiry Details
Scanning: Students in Grades 4-6 are missing letter sound knowledge. Students’ ability levels are diverse with a wide range of reading and spelling skills. There are learners who are non-readers and students who are reading at high levels. Class composition includes up to three-quarters of the students struggling and one-quarter at grade level or stronger.
The seven OECD Principles of Learning were intertwined throughout our Inquiry. Learners were always placed at the center, they worked in organized groups, we were sensitive to individual differences and emotions, we had high expectations for learners and held them accountable for their learning, students received meaningful, timely assessment, and skill use was encouraged across the curriculum.
First Peoples Principles of Learning that were embedded in our work are: Learning is holistic, reflexive, reflective, experiential, and relational; and Learning involves patience and time.
Focus: Last year we used Structured Literacy to increase phonemic knowledge because we had many learners who did not know their letters or letter sounds in grades 4-6. Although students have retained this knowledge in isolation and made some improvements in their reading levels, this knowledge has not transferred to their writing/spelling, and they still struggle with blending when reading. We needed to adjust how we were approaching these interventions to better support writing/spelling.
Hunch: What has led to this problem:
1) Attendance: high absentee rates since Covid
2) University programs are not explicitly teaching how to teach reading, specifically decoding and comprehension
3) Lack of consistency in language, strategy, methods, etc. across classrooms and schools
4) Technology: exposure to books, language, and literacy at a young age is not happening because of technology. Also there seems to be less time spent reading physical books alone or with an adult.
5) Intermediate teachers did not traditionally have to teach reading and now we do!
New Professional Learning: In the first year, we needed to understand how to teach reading, how to run groups effectively in the classroom, and how to meet kids where they were at. We did this by taking the Structured Literacy course, working as a team to create a structure for the groups and to plan the sequence of lessons and activities.
During the second year, we continued to build our skills with teaching Structured Literacy and incorporating Blended Structure and Style. We began to research ways to transfer phonemic knowledge into other areas, such as reading, writing, and spelling.
Taking Action:
1) We had a weekly planning meeting to run through the scanning process for each group: What do we need to focus on? What’s next? What worked? What didn’t? We realized we were working through the whole Inquiry Process each week!
2) Ongoing Pro-d with Stephanie Lindstrom for Structured Literacy for the past two years
3) Commitment to our team: We have been able to sustain this by doing it together to manage the amount of prep. We met for two lunches per week – one for planning and one for sharing prepped materials.
4) 19 weeks of two ninety-minute sessions covering: 67 phonogram lessons, 6 sight word lessons, 12 syllable lessons, 11 spelling rule lessons, decoding, comprehension, parts of speech, sentence structure, paragraph structure, and book clubs.
5) Opening doors and involving others: opportunities for others to get the training, inviting groups from other classes; Reading Club in the afternoons supported by administration; sharing about how we run our Structured Literacy groups with others and having them come in to observe our groups.
Checking: We have made a difference in students’ phonemic knowledge, reading (confidence and levels), spelling (confidence and abilities).
1) Data: Surveyed students – 93.5% felt their reading improved and 95.5% felt their spelling improved.
2) Weekly Checking-in – At our weekly meetings we checked in with each other on how the lessons went and whether we could continue with the next planned lesson or if we needed to practice something longer, etc.
3) Year-end assessments:
a. Spelling assessments showed that 88% improved their spelling skills. (Words Their Way Developmental Spelling Inventory) Students that needed a lot of support now know all the letter sounds for the consonants and their blends. They are also firm on their short vowel sounds.
b. Writing skills also saw significant improvement. Students are writing complete sentences, have better paragraph formation, use more transition words, and have more sentence variety.
c. Decoding skills have improved significantly and students’ reading levels have increased.
Reflections/Advice: As we were reflecting, we realized that our starting point each year is shifting because of the Structured Literacy program. Students do not seem to lose a lot over the summer, so we are able to start off with a short review and then keep moving forward.
Our advice if other teachers choose to embark on a similar endeavor is:
1) Have a team of three.
2) Share the workload.
3) Spend the time to set up a structure and schedule at the beginning
4) Know that it is not an overnight fix, be ready to commit for the long haul.