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Introduction of Topic
When New York State adopted the Common Core Standards in 2010, the school district where
I work adopted the EngageNY Math and English Language Arts modules. At that time, the
administration mandated that teachers use the modules in their entirety as the Math and ELA
curriculum. To enforce the use of the NYS ELA and Math Modules across district, administration put a
policy in place where all teachers were required to use the modules in their entirety. Administration
did not ask for input in the decision to use the modules nor was there professional development
provided on the use of the modules before the administration implemented them as the new
curriculum. Because of these drastic changes in curriculum, there was major push back from
educators, especially from teachers working with the ELA modules. The ELA modules proposed more
difficulties because of the rigorous nonfiction texts, lack of variety in the texts, and length of each
lesson and units which impeded the ability for teachers to teach all the material. Now, 7 years later,
the district has a new Superintendent and Assistant Superintendent for Instruction and is in search of
a new Kindergarten-5th grade ELA curriculum. At the end of the 2016-2017 school year with new
administration, the Superintendent sent out an updated policy stating that teachers are not required
to use the modules as their primary ELA curriculum. The district is considering a phonics and
phonemic awareness based curriculum for K-5 because of the extensive brain research that links
reading to phonemic awareness (Nelson, 2008). According to Nelson (2008), “we are in an era where
non-education disciplines, such as neuroscience and language pathology, help us explore how the
brain works when reading” (p. 46). Scientists can use MRI’s to see how the brain works while in the
Erika Newton Fall 2017
process of reading. The study checked for brain activation patterns during reading tasks that required
phonological analysis (Nelson, 2008). Therefore, I want to know, how will a phonemic awareness
English Language Arts reading program backed by brain research increase the number of students
How will a phonemic awareness English Language Arts reading program backed by brain research
increase the number of students reading on or above grade level and produce a love for reading?
My name is Erika Newton and I am a 5th grade teacher. I am in my third year of teaching 5th
grade. In my school, we departmentalize and I am required to teach all fifth graders Reading, Writing,
and Science. We have two sections of 5th grade, one homeroom has 21 students and the other has
22 students. In district, I also coach JV field hockey and am on the Elementary Reading Committee.
The Elementary Reading Committee has met 3 times, once during the spring of 2017 and twice
throughout summer 2017. Throughout fall 2017, the committee met three other times, the first time
to narrow down the rubric that will be used to score the vendors presenting their reading programs,
the second time to meet with vendors and a third time to meet with one vendor for a full day
workshop. The rubric includes information that the committee decided as a whole should be present
in the new program. The committee is looking for a program that is highly engaging, is reproducible,
has an RTI program, is appropriate for students with disabilities, is research based, and aligns to the
NYS Common Core Standards. Each of these characteristics are included in the rubric. The second
time the committee met they met with five different vendors. Vendors had an hour to present and
Erika Newton Fall 2017
the committee used the rubric to score them. From there, the committee decided they wanted to
learn more about the program SuperKids published by Zaner-Bloser which is only a K-2 program
("Superkids Reading Program"). All K-2 teachers on the committee, principals, and assistant
superintendent for instruction met with Superkids for a full day presentation and workday. The
committee as a whole consists of teachers (K-5), elementary principals and the assistant
superintendent of instruction. There are 16 professionals on the committee. As our timeline stands,
I am also in my final year of SUNY Cortland’s Teaching Students with Disabilities graduate
program and will graduate with a Master’s Degree in May 2018. In addition, I completed my
undergraduate work from SUNY Cortland in 2014 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Early Childhood and
Childhood Education.
Throughout the past couple of years teaching, my philosophy has become more teacher
centered with student input, opposed to being extremely student centered when I was in college. I
believe my philosophy has changed because of being in the classroom; I have learned students learn
best through a gradual release of responsibility theory (Fisher & Frey, 2014). The gradual release of
responsibility shifts the cognitive instruction from the teacher, to joint responsibility of teacher and
learner to independent practice and then application by the student (Fisher & Frey, 2014). As for a
reading program, I do not believe the reading program itself can change a child’s ability to read, I
believe that it is the teacher showing students a love for reading, writing, and a commitment to
learning. I hope the new reading program will be engaging, cover all the bases of literature and allow
teachers to sprinkle in their own creativity along with having appropriate supports for students with
disabilities. Teaching is an art. It should not matter how teachers get students to read, it matters that
A literacy curriculum can improve the amount of students reading on grade level with explicit
instruction, phonemic awareness and summer reading. When a child is able to make sense of literacy
and engage in reading, writing, listening and speaking, the child is literate in a language, even children
who cannot speak are literate (Alber, 2010). Often, a reading intervention program, which is
supplementary to an existing literacy curriculum, provides students with additional, explicit, and
Initially, researchers investigate how literacy curriculum with an intervention program can
increase the number of students reading on grade level. An extensive amount of research further
focuses on how an intervention of a reading program increases students with a disability ability to
read on grade level. Research has shown that three things are particularly important, phonemic
awareness, explicit instruction, and summer reading. These major components, phonemic awareness,
explicit instruction, and summer reading lay the foundation for a successful literacy curriculum.
Phonemic Awareness
Using a phonemic based approach shows positive results in student growth. Researchers study how
the McGraw-Hill Phonemic Awareness program evaluates the effects of an intervention on the
phonemic awareness skills of children with developmental disabilities (Isakson, Marchand-Martella, &
Martella, 2011). Phonemic awareness requires listeners to hear, identify, and manipulate phonemes,
Erika Newton Fall 2017
which are the smallest units of sound that have meaning. In the McGraw-Hill intervention, the
program has a progress monitoring tool which measures child performance before, during, and after
the program. The study focuses on five preschool children with developmental disabilities. The study
conducted for 2.5 hours, 4 days a week, for 5 months. The participants have developmental and
communication delays and evidence shows that all 5 participants in the McGraw-Hill summer
intervention program (2011) show improvements in phonemic awareness skills when comparing each
Another finding shows that with more studies on literacy curriculum and explicit instruction,
general education and special education teacher can play a more active role in intervention
implementation. (Lane, Little, Redding-Rhodes, Phillips, & Welsh, 2007). According to Rodriguez
(2007), research shows that a well-utilized literacy curriculum or intervention will directly affect state
test scores. In a middle school in California, researchers tracked the Accelerated Readers Program
(ARP) test scores of 180 students. Findings to support the claim of increased test scores includes that
high Accelerated Reading (AR) participation plays a role in improving California state Test ELA reading
comprehension cluster scores (Rodriguez, 2007). Through reading proactively, students who engaged
in high AR participation were able to outperform a group of high reading levels with less AR
participation (Rodriguez, 2007). Rodriguez’s results showed that high AR participation plays a role in
Explicit Instruction
Positive outcomes are more likely when educators provide explicit instruction (Dardenne, et
al., 2013). Perhaps, if one goal is to improve vocabulary outcomes, interventions should implement
Erika Newton Fall 2017
explicit instruction of high utility words (Kim & Quinn, 2013). When teacher instruction and skills of
the child matches, children can make the most reading progress because of the explicit instruction.
Vernon-Feagans, et al., (2010) found that it is important to match teacher instruction to the skills of
Summer Reading
conducted. Through the evaluation of classroom or home based reading intervention, effects of a
size (Kim & Quinn, 2013). The study included 41 classroom in a home-based summer reading
intervention for students in grades K-8. Evidence shows an increase of literacy achievement in
children’s results after the intervention. Summer reading interventions have larger benefits for
children from low-income families than with children from a mix or high income (Kim & Quinn, 2013).
Evidence from the, Kim and Quinn (2013) study proves that positively impacted classrooms were
because of the home based summer reading intervention. Furthermore, students living in low-income
residents showed an increase in reading comprehension development. Even though this study proves
that children of low socioeconomic background show improvement when provided with a summer
reading intervention program, more research should focus on understanding how and why student
Although the literature review presented findings in quantitative data collection, I began my
data collection using a qualitative measure, an interview. I conducted a structured formal interview
as part of the data collection efforts (Mills, 2018). I interviewed my school district's Assistant
Superintendent for Instruction because she is the head of the current reading committee seeking a
new reading program for our district. Interviewing M. Smith (pseudonym) will help to answer the
research question, “How can a literacy curriculum increase the number of students reading on grade
level?,” Throughout the formal interview, an audio recorder captured the interview responses in her
office, a private place. The interview was one-on-one notes taken during the interview were recorded
on paper as well as a voice recorder. I began this research topic with the goal of becoming more
knowledgeable and fluent in understanding what the important parts of a successful literacy
curriculum are. The structured interview format asked the participant the same series of questions
and in the future, additional data will be collected as the same series of questions will be used to
interview other members of the reading committee. The data collected will help in the analysis of this
study.
Interview Questions
3. Can we start at the decision that was made to change the Elementary Literacy Curriculum?
4. Can you walk me through how you found brain research and reading important?
5. I am interested in the phonemic awareness approach and why we are leaning towards a
6. Are there things that a community likes or dislikes when a new program is introduced?
Erika Newton Fall 2017
7. What is your hope for this new reading program in regards to higher student achievement?
8. I am going to switch gears to focus on students with disability. Can you talk to me about
Qualitative data analysis, “is potentially the most important step in the action research
process as we try to understand what we have learned through our investigations” (Mills, 2017,
p.134). When analyzing an interview, researchers should analyze a transcript from the audio
recording of the interview. An annotated interview between the researcher and interviewee will
present data for the researcher. The researcher can analyze and find themes or commonalities that
emerge in the data collection (Mills, 2017). Action researchers should then look for patterns and
meaning in the themes through the interview transcripts. According to Mills (2017), an “in-depth
intimate knowledge and examination of the data allows teacher researchers to categorize themes
and ideas that will contribute to their understanding of the phenomenon under investigation (p. 137).
At this point, the research suggests that, in the end it does not matter which literacy
curriculum is used, but what does matter are the components of the curriculum: explicit instruction,
phonemic awareness and summer reading. Based upon the literature review, the researchers should
continue to study and analyzing findings especially in brain research. The findings were explicit
instruction, phonemic awareness, and summer reading all show success in student reading
Erika Newton Fall 2017
achievement. There was not significant research on any particular literacy program; however,
programs with high explicit or direct instruction, a focus on phonemic awareness, and
own data collection and analysis, there is discussion of the connection between student readability
and brain research. Therefore, recommendations are to conduct further research on the connection
between reading and brain research. I also found myself asking, should we have grade levels based
on age or have grade levels based on student ability? Why do we move children along on a school
wide scale based on their age especially when we know that all children develop at different speeds.
As the district continues to search for a reading curriculum, our main focus has been on how can we
get more students reading on grade level, but I do not believe that we should have grade levels based
on age. Maybe school should has grade levels more based on ability. Furthermore, the findings
presented that it is not the program, or script, or magic reading pill that gets children to read on
grade level, it is the teacher and the environment the child is in. Teaching a child to read can be done
with direct instruction in phonics, and high engagement materials, intervention programs, and
summer reading, but a child needs someone to foster their love for reading to have them be a
lifelong reader.
I enjoyed the data collection and analysis part of the research process. It was interesting
hearing another person's point of view on the topic and I am interested in asking more participants
the same questions and finding commonalities between their answers. I look forward to the second
Erika Newton Fall 2017
research course as I am leaving this class with many unanswered questions. I am excited to connect
more scholarly information on brain research and the ability to learn to read.
Erika Newton Fall 2017
References
Alber, R. (2010, August 04). How Important is Teaching Literacy in All Content Areas? Retrieved
https://www.edutopia.org/blog/literacy-instruction-across-curriculum-importance
Dardenne, C., Barnes, D. G., Hightower, E. S., Lamason, P. R., Mason, M., Patterson, P. C., . . .
Erickson, K. A. (2013). PLCs In Action: Innovative Teaching for Struggling Grade 3-5
http://classroom.synonym.com/definition-reading-intervention-6166835.html
Fisher, D., & Frey, N. (2014). Better learning through structured teaching: a framework for the
Kim, J. S., & Quinn, D. M. (2013). The Effects of Summer Reading on Low Income Children's
Literacy Achievement from Kindergarten to Grade 8: A Meta Analysis of Classroom and Home
http://libproxy.cortland.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&
db=
eric&AN=EJ1104660&site=eds-live
Erika Newton Fall 2017
Isakson, L., Marchand-Martella, N., & Martella, R. C. (2011). Assessing the Effects of the McGraw
Hill Phonemic Awareness Program with Preschool Children with Developmental Delays: A
Lane, K. L., Little, M. A., Redding-Rhodes, J., Phillips, A., & Welsh, M. T. (2007). Outcomes of a
Teacher-Led Reading Intervention for Elementary Students at Risk for Behavioral Disorders.
Mills, G. E. (2018). Action research: a guide for the teacher researcher. NY, NY: Pearson.
Nelson, A. H. (2008). Reading and Brain Research. Journal Of Reading Education, 33(2), 45-47.
http://libproxy.cortland.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eue
&AN=508026029&site=eds-live
Rodriguez, S. (2007). The Accelerated Reader Program's Relationship to Student Achievement on the
http://www.superkidsreading.org/
Vernon-Feagans, L., Gallagher, K., Ginsberg, M. C., Amendum, S., Kainz, K., Rose, J., & Burchinal,
Readers in Early Elementary School. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 25(4),
183-193. doi:10.1111/j.1540-5826.2010.00316.x