Road Map

Road Map: Boys and Literacy

Action Research Question
What are some promising strategies that could help third grade boys who are reluctant readers to be motivated in reading, and increase their stamina in reading?

Rationale of my research
One of the most memorable experiences that I have encountered in my teaching last year was the consistent challenge in encouraging and teaching two of my fourth grade students to read. Both of the students were male: one was a reluctant reader without individual education plan, and the other was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Both of them found that reading was boring, especially when reading fictional texts. Even though I separated them in my seating plan, having them to sit quietly and independent was almost impossible. Since they were both very close friends, at recess, they fed off each other by agreeing and confirming that they would never become a good reader. During reading time, they pretended they were reading by just picking up anything that was similar to a book, for instance, a dictionary, hoping they would get away.

It was the beginning of the school year when I noticed the two boys. Immediately, I had them pulled out individually and had a talk with them. I showed them their reading questionnaire sheet that they filled out, and asked them to tell me more about their reading experience and if they ever read at home with their parents or siblings. I investigated more by asking what genres of books they liked to read so that I could locate the books they liked from the school’s library or bookroom in order for them to access them. After that, I contacted their parents to get a deeper understanding of the boys’ behavior and family support at home.

The two boys had given me challenging time on a daily basis. I tried reading aloud stories that were more “boys’ interest”, and I encouraged them to read books about animals because that was what they liked to read. Some of the questions I have always had are: What are some effective approaches or specific genres that could arouse boys’ interest in reading? How do I encourage reluctant readers or students with ADHD/ ADD to read, and build stamina in reading? Having these questions in the back of my head, I have determined to find out the answers myself through an action research that consists of three cycles.

Blogging
My action research is broken down into three cycles. Each cycle includes a series of anecdotal observations and actions, such as minilesson, strategy lesson, read aloud, and one-on-one conference. My interpretations, implications, and reflection of these actions and students’ artifacts are documented in my blog site, http://www.jennykwokmarp.blogspot.com/. The printouts of the blog entries are in chronological order, and the exhibits are located in the back of the binder. At the end of each cycle, there is a PowerPoint slideshow that sums up the findings of the actions and observations conducted. As you are reading the blog or the printouts in the binder, you will find that some entries have been revised; they are marked as “Revised Entry”.

Revised Entries

Please note that the following dates have revised entries that can be found in the comment section. Please click "comment" on the link and view the revised entries:

Cycle 1:

- 2.12.2008: Field Notes and Reflection for February 12, 2008
- 2.15.2008: Finalizing my Focal Students, and Reflecting on their Reading Interviews
- 2.25.2008: Putting Strategy Lessons and Good Readers Checklist in ACTION!
- 2.27.2008: Field Notes and Reflection for February 27, 2008
- 3.01.2008: End of Cycle # 1

Cycle 2:

- The First Read Aloud for Cycle # 2
- 3.03.2008: Reading Conference with Jesse - Ruby Sings the Blues
- Reading Conference with Nathan - Curious George
- 3.06.2008: Independent Reading Observation
- 3.13.2008: Reflection for minilesson # 2

Cycle 3:

- 3.27.2008: Poetry Reading - Jesse
- 3.31.2008: Reflection - Shared Reading and Reading Aloud
- 4.08.2008: Creating Mental Images Through Envisioning
- 4.09.2008: Reflection

Final Thoughts and Reflection

The topic of boys and literacy has always been my interest when I first began teaching. Looking back at my critical incident paper that I wrote in November 2007, I strongly feel that my action research has come a long and inspirational way. The class readings and collegial discussions have been extremely helpful as part of my action research. Through different readings, sharing and critical thinking and reflecting, I have gained a lot of new and creative insights in examining this topic that I have always been interested in. Nonetheless, there were as well some rough times in this journey; as there were decisions that were made but did not work out the way I wanted. However, by looking at this more positively and for the benefits of my students and myself, I treat this part of the learning process. I value mistakes as much as I value helpful comments. This action research journey is indisputably a fruitful experience for my personal growth in teaching.
I remember in the beginning of the research, I have had a challenging time focusing on my research question. The original question was by far, too ambitious. Resistant reading and boys has always been my interest, and as I was eager to find out how I could implement strategies and activities that could elevate their critical thinking skills in reading. Having that thought in my mind, as I began observing and researching the students in my fieldwork school, the more I know about the group of students, the more difficult the task became. I then realized that the question I had was a succinct, and reasonable one, however, it was simply too ambitious for the group of students I had.

With the help of my colleagues and Grace, I refined my question. I focused on a focused topic – building reading motivation and reading stamina for resistant boy readers. Initially, I thought that this topic sounded or seemed somewhat “immature” to be a research question. However, by reading and learning more about “teachers as researchers”, I understand that the purpose of an action research is not to come up with “sophisticated” research questions and teaching models that are completely inventive, on the other hand, its true value is for teachers/researchers to examine at a day-to-day issue and approach it with professionalism; as mentioned by Caro-Bruce (2004), the research process should aim to elevate individual progress, student progress, knowledge production, and promote positive social change.
The process of the research and action seemed like a long journey (it lasted almost 7 months), yet, personally, it flew by like a rocket. Having to do the research in another teacher’s classroom was part of the challenge; this includes arranging schedules and working around fieldtrips and test dates. However, my host teacher and fieldwork supervisor have been very supportive in making the schedule and transition smooth. My host teacher is flexible in allowing me to teach lessons and work with students in small groups in order for me to implement my strategies and activities that were suitable for my research.

Throughout the research, I have been having a number of obstacles, such as deciding the next steps for actions, finding relevant resources, and mostly, getting my two focal students to be “cooperative” in the action process. Many nights I have asked myself, whether what I was doing is suitable and relevant to my research question. I was hoping that the series of implementations could work like magic, and Jesse and Nathan could accelerate their reading stamina and get motivated in due course. Realistically, I know that a successful research is an ongoing process, and results are not always satisfactory to the way we want them to be.

Having said that, timing and scheduling is critical to research, as it reflects the progress and results. In this Master Action Research Project, I have learned that a good research is all about management and commitment to long-term goals. It is also about maintaining your professionalism and flexibility to collaborate with other colleagues, as they could be a valuable asset to the research, and answers to your questions.

Next Steps

Reflecting back on previous cycles, I think that the boys are grasping a deeper understanding in reading through a series of individual conferences, coaching, strategy lessons, as well as some inspirational read alouds, exposure to a variety of reading materials, and the use of visual arts to stimulate their thinking as readers.

From the observation notes and data collected, Jesse has shown some obvious improvement in cycle #3. He was reading and working more independently without frequent prompting and reminders from teachers. This shows how much he was into reading poetry that are highly connected to his own life. From this, I could imply that Jesse enjoys reading materials that are generally shorter, and that do not have successive episodes like a chapter book, or a picture book. Reading poetry has allowed him to read many 'stories' in one seating that he unconsciously has not realized how much he has been reading on his own.

Nathan has been showing some improvement as well from cycle 1 to cycle 2, however the progress seems to be slowing down in cycle # 3. He did enjoy using artwork to help his reading, however, he did not seem to be as independent as he appeared in the second cycle. He required support and prompting more frequently than Jesse in cycle # 3.

In light of this, my next steps are to share this information and implication with Ms. Jane, as we continue to persevere our goals to help students grow through learning to read and write. Both boys will benefit greatly from ongoing individual conferences, coaching, and small group strategy lessons. Both of the need to have lessons that are tailored to them that gear towards a simple, but yet, explicit teaching point that they can focus on.

End of Cycle # 3

The following are Nathan's and Jesse's reading logs for the month of March to April. What the students have been doing is that they do not log the poetry reading; they log their independent fiction or nonfiction reading. Even though the reading logs do not display their poetry reading for the unit of study, they appear to me that both boys have increased their motivation and stamina in reading, whether at school or at home. I believe that in this poetry unit, the work that they have been doing really sets them up to become accountable and independent readers. Their purpose for reading was very clear to them; choosing poems they like, envisioning the images and illustrating them using visual arts. Both boys have increased their stamina and motivation in reading mainly because of the poetry work that they have been committed to, and this has led them to further prolong and endure their reading persistence when reading other types of texts.


Exhibit 32 Jesse's Log Page 1

Jesse's Log Page 2


Exhibit 33 Nathan's Log Page 1


Nathan's Log Page 2

More Artwork by Jesse and Nathan

The following pieces are artwork created by Jesse and Nathan during their independent reading. I encouraged them to envision and make mental movies in their minds and draw what they 'see' on a piece of paper. When they were doing this activity, they were eager to pick poems that they loved. For instance, Nathan picked the poem, My Baby Brother because he could really relate the poet's message to his own life. The following is part of our conference transcript.

Me: What do you have here Nathan?
Nathan: Well I am writing this poem out because I love it so much.
Me: Really? What do you like about it?
Nathan: You know I have 2 younger brothers and 1 little sister right? Well, this poem reminds me of them. Except the author here is writing about his baby brother, and I only have a baby sister, and she is really not a baby any more.
Me: How old is she now?
Nathan: She is 2 years old now. But you know this part about chewing toes? She used to do that.
Me: (Smiled at him) That's cute! What else does this poem remind you of?
Nathan: A lot! Like the soft skin, and curly hair. My little sis have [has] that too!

Evidently, Nathan was indisputably into the reading process, where he re-read the poem over again, and then copied it down on a piece of paper, and drew out what the envisioned. Similarly, Jesse did the same thing with the poem, First Book, although his artwork does not really reflect the image of the poem, he had a strong engagement with this poem that made him copied it down for his own collection. He said to me, 'I want to write it out so that I can have my own collection of poems to read.' When I heard this comment, I immediately felt happy that Jesse was taking the initiative and showing passion for something that he enjoyed reading.

Exhibit 28
Exhibit 29
Exhibit 30
Exhibit 31

Visual Arts in Poetry

Exhibit 24
Exhibit 25
Exhibit 26

Exhibits 24, 25, and 26 display the visual arts work done by Jesse and Nathan. The activity we did here is based on the shared reading lesson on the poem City Child. We re-visited the poem again today, and we continued to work on the envisioning concept. In whole-class discussion, I led the students to think about how this poem could remind them of their lives by making connections. I then explained to them that they could also capture what they envision by drawing it on a piece of paper. As I modeled the strategy to them, I noticed that Jesse appeared to be very interested in the activity that he was about to do. I remember both Jesse and Nathan has told me before that art is one of their favorite subjects.

By looking at their art work, one can see that both of them have used their own imagination to create the setting of the poem. In the process of drawing these visual images, both boys were really focused. Nathan kept going back to the poem and re-read certain parts that he liked. On the other hand, although Jesse required more assistance in this task, he still held accountable for his work. Here is part of our conference transcription:

Me: I like what you are drawing here.
Jesse: Yeah, like this is the big sun peeping out. You know in my apartment, my room faces the sun so each morning it's sooo bright!
Me: Really? So which part of the poem reminds you of your room?
Jesse: Hmm... (pause, re-reading poem), right here. Look! Sometimes the great big sun
comes peeping round to see.
Me: I see. That's great. What else are you envisioning? What other images do you see when you read the poem?
Jesse: Well a lot! Look, I have a tree here. The guy (poet) here said the lamppost is his tree, but not me! I look out the window and there is a tree outside my apartment.
Me: I see. So you found something different. Would you like to have a tree or lamppost outside your house?
Jesse: A tree, sometimes people sit under the tree and talk.

In this part of the conference, Jesse is unquestionably into what he was reading and drawing because he could make connections and disconnections based on a poem that is 'authentic' and descriptive. He sat right through the reader's workshop, re-reading, writing, and drawing.

Nathan, was too, very concentrated in the process. He drew a picture for the poem City Child, he then asked me if he could do another one. I agreed. He picked another poem that he really liked; he re-read and envisioned. The following exhibit (27) is another piece of art work that he did, based on the poem, The Blue In Between.
Exhibit 27

Reflection

I thought this lesson worked very well for both Nathan and Jesse. When I asked them to envision the images of the poems that they were reading, they evidently displayed their engagement and enthusiasm in reading poetry and finding lines that evoke their schema. This activity definitely motivates them because they were taken the ownership of writing their favorite lines; there was simply no right or wrong in sharing their own thoughts.

The next step is to allow them to use visual arts to illustrate the poems that they are reading. Miller (2002) suggested that this is a type of 'artistic response', it allows readers to create visual images to form their own personal interpretations. This strategy can further promote reading motivation and stamina, as Ediger (2003)said, it is important for teachers to give their students an explicit task in which they understand the purpose for reading. In this case, I am going to encourage Nathan and Jesse to use visual arts to illustrate their interpretation of the poems they read.

Creating Mental Images Through Envisioning

As Miller (2002) mentioned, one way to deepen students' understanding of texts or to get them more involved in reading is using the strategy of making mental images. This strategy is significantly important especially when children are studying poetry. Poetry is generally a more abstract piece of literature that requires readers to be imaginative and creative in making their own interpretation in which the poem is illustrating.
In one of Miller's lessons, she read aloud several poems to her students, and asking them to "listen carefully and think about which poem creates the most vivid mental images" (pp. 80). In this activity, Miller was offering an opportunity for her students to envision the images that were created by poets, and based on their personal interpretations, they took a copy of the poem that they chose and drew a picture that went along with the poem. The whole group debriefed afterwards, as they sat closely together on the rug and shared their images and talked about their interpretations. Notice that this activity was highly subjective; there was not right or wrong in what the students have chosen or said. This activity is valuable because it fostered students to envision and construct meaning while they listen or read.

Exhibit 21
In light of this, I conducted a similar activity for the whole class. We did a shared reading on the poem called Dog, by Valerie Worth. As I finished reading aloud to the students, they read aloud back. We then stopped and discussed our favorite parts of the poem (see exhibit 23). As most students raised their hands wanting to share their thoughts, I observed that Jesse was being quiet and perhaps actively thinking about his favorite part, while Nathan was again, being more passive in the situation. Jesse then raised his hands and said, 'yeah, I think the poet is right about dogs. That's what dogs are like, cuz I have a dog too, and he drools and sleeps and does all the tricks and all.' It is evident that Jesse is relating his personal experiences and knowledge as he listened to the poem and read it on chart paper.

To continue with this lesson, I modeled a new task that they had to complete. I shared with my students about this one line that I really liked a particular line in the poem, Rope Rhyme. I said, 'This line right here, Listen to that clappety-slappedy sound, I love it. When I read this line, and then I close my eyes, it's like I am seeing and hearing kids jumping rope in front of me. And the way she describes the sound of the rope, is just so real to me. I am hearing the clappety and slappedy sound as the rope touches the ground. This kind of work is called envisioning. I am making a mental movie in my mind by thinking about the words that the poet used. I am going to write this line that I really love on this strip of paper.' As I jot down the line on the strip paper, some students got excited about this task as they raised their hands, hoping to share what they liked about the poem. I continued, 'So when you are reading today, you can do the same thing. You can envision by making a mental movie in your mind. You can do that by closing your eyes and picture what you read in your mind.'

Ediger (2003) mentioned that teachers should raise salient questions that help arouse students' interest in reading, that these questions or discussions should lead to students in developing "their feeling and aesthetic dimension of learning", as well as "providing intrinsic motivation for students to do more reading of diverse kinds of poems" (pp. 165). In the aforementioned lesson that I taught, students were given an opportunity to talk about the poem that we have learned from shared reading, then they applied the strategy of making a mental movie in their minds by envisioning to their own practice during independent reading.

Since Jesse has been more competent in the poetry unit that he has been showing more initiative in participating in shared reading, I decided to work with Nathan in a one-on-one conference. In exhibit 24, it shows that as soon as Nathan sat down at his desk, he started flipping through pages trying to skim through each poem to look for 'beautiful lines' to write. I then stopped him and explained it to him that this was not a ‘smart’ way to read poetry, because often poets use special words, or structure to convey their messages; so skimming through was not the best way to assimilate the essence of poetic writing. As we read together, Nathan gradually accepted the pace that I wanted him to read. We paused between verses and I asked him open-ended questions like ‘why do you think the poet is describing Grandpa this way?’, ‘how does this sentence make you feel? Do you like it?’ In this process, he began to think more critically and at one point was debating whether the particular line was worth jotting or not. As we continued the reading, he grew more interest in reading the poems with a more critical lens. He wrote a few quotes on post-its:

"Don't roar like a lion, act lamb-ly."
"Tunneling up his ears."

At the end of the lesson, we did a whole class share; students raised their hands to share their favorite lines. Nathan and Jesse raised their hands and shared their favorite lines that they envisioned and created a mental movie.

Shared Reading Poems

These three poems are the ones that are most frequently read in shared reading. What I have been doing with these shared reading is that I read aloud them to the students twice, and then I allow them to read aloud as a class. We then looked at the features of the text more carefully. For example, in Rope Rhyme, we looked at how the poet used rhyming words to make the poem more fun to read. We also worked on envisioning it by making a mental movie in our minds - thinking about what it is like to jump rope. In Good Night Juma, we examined the poet's use of line breaks, and punctuations, which creates a dialogue between the father and the son. In City Child, we discussed what life is like living in a city and made comparison and connections between their lives and the poet's interpretation.

Exhibit 20

By analyzing the observation notes (exhibit 20), one will notice that Jesse was consistently repeating the lines on his own, and tapping the desk to follow the rhythmic pattern of the poem. Throughout the shared reading, Jesse continued to mouth words quietly on his own without disturbing others. On the other hand, Nathan seemed somewhat unmotivated. He was looking at the chart paper with concentration, however, he did not seem to be in the 'flow' of it like Jesse. I am implicating that shared reading may be more of an abstract task for Nathan because the structure of shared reading seems to be more of a 'free flow' and that it is not like a read aloud where he is being read to. In this learning process, Nathan appears to be a more passive learner; as he was not sure when and how to get involved in this type of reading/learning process. My next step with Nathan is to provide him with more frequent one-on-one coaching during readers' workshop, thus allow both of us to read to each other in order to get him more comfortable in reading aloud and understanding the structure of shared reading.

Rope Rhyme – Eloise Greenfield

Get set, ready now, jump right in
Bounce and kick and giggle and spin
Listen to the rope when it hits the ground
Listen to that clappety-slappedy sound
Jump right up when it tells you to
Come back down, whatever you do
Count to a hundred, count by ten
Start to count all over again
That’s what jumping is all about
Get set, ready now jump right out!

Good Night, Juma – Eloise Greenfield

Go to bed Juma
Just one more game?
Go to bed Juma
Just one more show?
Go to bed Juma
Just one more minute?
Juma, go to bed
I said.
Just –
No.
– a hug?
Oh. You bet
Good night, Daddy?
Good night, Juma.

City Child – Louis Lensko

The sidewalk is my yard
The lamppost is my tree,
Up three long flights of stairs,
My home is 4C.

The fire escape is my porch
Where my clothes hang out to dry
All day the noise and rush,
All night the trains go by.

Tall buildings all around
Reach up and shadow me,
Sometimes the great big sun,
Comes peeping round to see.

All day the people pass
They hurry as they go
But when they are my friends,
They stop and say hello.

A Series of Shared Reading

The poetry unit that Ms. Jane and I are teacher has been moving smoothly. We have been taking turns to do shared reading with the whole class, and we also work with students in one-on-one conferring, and coaching on a daily basis. As I continue to work alongside with Jesse and Nathan, I noticed that both of them have been growing immense interest in reading poetry. From time to time, I have been re-visiting the poem, Things, by Eloise Greenfield, as a morning 'warm up'. Since this is a familiar poem that all of them know, whenever we read it together on the rug, it serves as an invitation for every single student to become readers. Here is a list of other poems that I have been reading in shared reading:

1. Things by Eloise Greenfield
2. City Child by Louis Lensko
3. Good night Juma By Eloise Greenfield
4. Rope Rhyme by Eloise Greenfield
5. Rhino by Anonymous