Bridge Study

Well, the fourth-grade students have taken the STARR, but first we were told we wouldn't know students test scores until January 2013.  I received an email this week that stated that the state is going to use a  Bridge Study, and we will know if we made AYP in June, but we still won't know about individual student's scores until January.  I know that my group of students did their best and worked really hard, so all I can do is hope that it's enough.    

Poetry

This past week we've been working on poetry with my fourth-grade  group.  They seemed to catch on quickly.  I received help on teaching poetry from our ESL reading specialist whom used to teach fourth grade.  This week we are going to start on Drama.  Then the next week they will take the STARR test in reading.  I'm disappointed that we might not know how our students preformed until January 2013.  Since I'm comparing TAKS data to STARR data, I'm starting to believe that my research project will be invalid.

Personal Narrative Writing

We've been working on personal narrative writing this week, which was easier for them.  This week the biggest issue was they weren't writing enough.  I know they must narrow down their thoughts because they only have one page, but they wrote five sentences total.  They are still struggling with transition words and forgot them last week.  Next week, I going to demonstrate a personal narrative and stop and have them use a list of transition words and tell me what to use. I hope this is helpful for the students.  I can't believe that they take the writing test on Tuesday.

School Community Relations 5326 Post-Web Conference

I was assigned to reflect over my web conference experience for my School Community Relations course.  I learned that I need to take the ILD test and found out when region 10 offers training, which I was unaware of this test and didn't know what this was until this web-conference. I also find out the name of a good book to buy before taking the principals exam it's called "Passing the  Principal TEXES Exam" by Elaine Wilmore.   It was helpful having students at different levels in their programs, because they were great at giving us information about whats to come. 

Aftermath for the Mock STARR reading

Well, are students took a Mock STARR test and after reviewing the data we have to throw out 12 out of 42 questions because the questions were bad and most didn't offer a correct answer choice.  We got the tests from region 10 or Scope, but it was horrible and the students felt really defeated.  I've been working on writing these last few weeks because that test is coming up. We started off by cutting up an expository story and placing the center idea on the top, after that the translation words went over the boxes that we drew and then the main idea of the paragraph was next.  Finally, we glued the closing down, and we talked about how the closing needs to restate the prompt. The students are much faster now on using the one-sided  flow map which we are using on the Expository writing to brainstorm.  We've been talking about which type of transition words to use with the different types of writing.  I will continue to work on writing after spring break.   

I haven't worked with the students in two weeks

I haven't been able to work with my group of students in several weeks.  The first week I was gone to region 10, for workshops and then later that week I had an RTI meeting during my planning time.  This passed week I did work with my group on Monday; we worked on editing and revising writing.  The rest of the week they were doing the MOCK STARR writing test.  I'll get to work with my group on Thursday of this week, because on Tuesday and Wednesday, they are taking the MOCK STARR for reading and math.  I'm going to try to meet with the teachers on Friday about the results.  This data should help us focus on the needs of the targeted population.

A few weeks into the Action Research Project

Well, I gave the fourth-grade students some second-grade  reading passages with questions to see what strategies they already know, plus I want to build their confidence.  After giving them the passages, we read the story jointly and checked their answers together.  I had them highlight where they found their answers, if had been taking a grade on this, I would have four out of the five fail. The next day we read  all the questions first, and then we read another second-grade  passage together and highlight where we found the answers it seemed to be the minor details that they are missing.  I also gave some reading benchmarks again checking for fluency.  Their fluency increased  a little.  They did perform better the next time that we did reading passages with questions, only two failed this time.  I also gave them some second grade vocabulary with pictures to help them understand.  They did tell me that sometimes they don't understand what different words mean.  I'm going to give them a vocabulary sheet everyday starting with second grade then moving to third and finally fourth. This next week we are going to work on editing and revising. 
   I'm going to have the fourth-grade teachers current test data that they just gave and see what TEKS the students struggled with.