Final+Course+Reflection+-+5326

EDLD 5326: School Community Relations

During my career, with decoding and fluency making up a significant component of early literacy instruction, a major instructional strategy has dominated the landscape in developing fluency among early readers: repeated oral reading practice, including modeled, assisted, and guided reading of familiar content (Penner-Wilger, 2008). LeBerge and Samuels (1974) reveal automaticity in reading as a development of word-recognition fluency to a degree that the decoding process requires only minimal effort and attention. As a result, more cognitive capacity is available for a variety of other tasks, most importantly the derivation of meaning from the text, often evidenced through prosody, or the correct use of expression, phrasing, and tone (Rasinski, 2004). Melanie Kuhn and Steven Stahl (2003) found that repeated, guided reading reaped benefits in decoding, automaticity, and most significantly in prosodic reading quality. Students who are given as many opportunities as possible to work with a partner in decoding and automaticity are more likely to develop prosody and, in turn, comprehension of reading material. At the same time, another reality rises as an obstacle to this standard. Throughout my career, I have worked in schools with significant at-risk populations. What persists throughout these environments is a desperate need to develop reading readiness skills and increase print exposure among at-risk families (Cunningham, Stanovich, & West, 1994).

With clear research-based needs and highlights of the challenges at hand, I proposed our campus develop a formal “Reading Buddies” program that paired community volunteers with struggling K-2 readers for the purpose of increasing student opportunities for repeated oral reading practice. Because instructional time during the school day becomes ever more encumbered and as parents express greater and greater need for reading readiness and literacy guidance to use at home, the need for community involvement has never been more urgent or more practical. In this program, community members would work with struggling readers to build automaticity and prosody through reading over and over a familiar text, either in the form of modeling by the community volunteer, guided reading by the student with the volunteer acting as facilitator, or sight-word development through the use of flashcards and word-included text with the volunteer and the student. Certainly parental and community involvement stands as the critical component of this initiative. Not only would parents serve as excellent reading partners for our students, but the techniques that they develop can be transferred home to increase home reading time and quality, as well. Additionally, we have various community businesses, such as Bell Helicopter, First Rate, and American Airlines, along with various churches in the area that create a potential human resource pool. Teachers would play a part in developing this initiative along the lines of best teaching practices and district curriculum.

I presented this idea in stages, beginning with the Campus Leadership Team, which consists of teacher-leaders from all grade levels and special departments on campus. After initial approval of the program by the CLT, I moved on to seek final approval by the Campus Improvement Team (site-based leadership team). When both of those goals were met, and the program was given a green light, I asked the PTA Executive Board for time in the next meeting to present the program to parent stakeholders, and then asked various businesses in the community if I could bring my presentation to their location. I believe that for both faculty and parent stakeholders, the best approach is the most direct one, so my presentation approach displayed clearly where the data showed academic need, and how this program could address that need. I made available the research materials for any stakeholder who would like to take a deeper look; however, in the presentation I focused on the statements of need and outcomes. During presentation I focused on two prongs: our own assessment data, and research that supports the repeated, guided-reading approach: **//CAMPUS DATA -//** The data reveals and opportunity for reinforcement of repeated reading as a strategy to build fluency and, as a result, comprehension among our K-2 learners (Schellhorn, 2010).
 * Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) performance of the 2010 Kindergarten group declined from 89% mastery to 77% mastery as the 2011 First Grade group; according to district standards, first grade should have 90% of students attaining mastery level.
 * DIBELS performance of the 2010 First Grade group declined from 85% mastery to 83% mastery as the 2011 Second Grade group; according to district standards, second grade should have 95% of students attaining mastery level.

**//RESEARCH -//** Because this is a labor-intensive program, I continually stressed the critical importance of participation by the adult stakeholders of the community, and the need for ongoing support of the program.
 * Automaticity in reading as a development of word-recognition fluency to a degree that the decoding process requires only minimal effort and attention. (LaBerge & Samuels, 1974)
 * As a result, more cognitive capacity is available for a variety of other tasks, most importantly the derivation of meaning from the text, often evidenced through prosody, or the correct use of expression, phrasing, and tone. (Rasinski, 2004)
 * Repeated, guided reading reaped benefits in decoding, automaticity, and most significantly in prosodic reading quality. Students who are given as many opportunities as possible to work with a partner in decoding and automaticity are more likely to develop prosody and, in turn, comprehension of reading material. (Kuhn & Stahl, 2003)

 I was pleased to receive approval to begin the project and a commitment from the team leaders of grades K-2 to provide necessary resources and scheduling alternatives to secure program success. The “Reading Buddies” program has gotten off to a promising start, and all parties involved seem to be responding positively to the systems and routines. I hoped for at least 25 volunteers at the outset of the program, with a goal of 45 volunteers committed by the second semester. Currently, we have 17 volunteers who have been trained and are currently working with students, and 15 more signed on to participate in training in November of this year. I am pleased by both the quality of effort on the part of our volunteers and the gains made by our participating students during the first months of the “Reading Buddies” program. The confidence of adults and children alike has increased dramatically over the course of the previous two months. We have traditionally struggled to maintain a healthy core of volunteerism on our campus, but the program has boasted a surprising and encouraging consistency among our parent and community participants. I find the most satisfaction in observing the willingness of participating parents to take on a more active role in working with their students at home on these skills. First six weeks’ parent surveys indicate a broadly positive attitude towards the parent/teacher relationship in working with the program and towards at-home benefits of participation in the program. Several parents have volunteered to join the program after hearing from fellow parents how much they had learned about guiding their students during at-home reading sessions and about monitoring their students’ progress in fluency. Our only current obstacle stems from the scheduling constraints of training volunteers for the program. Because the initiative has just been implemented, there is not a system of ongoing training for new participants. As we move forward, I would like to see more regular training sessions scheduled in order for volunteers to be phased in on a more regular basis.

Communications with participating teachers also provided glowing reviews for the fledgling program. Despite some initial concerns from teachers that volunteers might not be able to effectively provide feedback on their sessions, the staff has worked diligently to mentor volunteers as they learn the program and build relationships with their partner students. Teachers report that summary documentation from volunteer parents has been completed with fidelity according to the guidelines, providing a useful formative assessment for teachers to use as they develop targeted instruction and other intervention opportunities. Our first six weeks benchmark data shows statistically significant gains among students participating in the program in relation to students who have not received this intervention. This motivates me even more to expand the size of the program so that even more students can be supported with these efforts.

References:

<span style="color: #0f380f; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Cunningham, A. E., Stanovich, K. E., & West, R. F. (1994). Literacy environment and the development of children's cognitive skills. In E. Assink (Ed.), //Literacy acquisition and social context// (pp. 70-90). New York, NY: Harvester Wheatsheaf. <span style="color: #0f380f; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Kuhn, M., & Stahl, S. (2003). Fluency: A review of developmental and remedial practices. //Journal of Developmental Psychology// //, 95// (1), 1, 3-21. <span style="color: #0f380f; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">LaBerge, D., & Samuels, S. J. (1974). Toward a theory of automatic information processing in reading. //Cognitive Psychology// //, 6//, 293-323. <span style="color: #0f380f; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Penner-Wilger, M. (2008). //Reading fluency: A bridge from decoding to comprehension.// Ottowa, ON, Canada: Autoskill International. <span style="color: #0f380f; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Rasinski, T. (2004). //Assessing reading fluency.// Honolulu, HI: Pacific Resources for Education and Learning. <span style="color: #0f380f; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Schellhorn, C. (2010). //Comprehensive needs Assessment: Planning for student success in 2010-2011.// Hurst-Euless-Bedford ISD, Wilshire Elementary.