Laura McCormick

Impact on Student Learning Study

The student learning project I conducted over the course of this
semester was with two students. My project was created to help these
students increase their sight word capacity. Each child was chosen for a
specific reason. These two students are in a third grade special education
classroom. Leigha comes from a family where she is the oldest out of four
girls. Her parents work full time and Leigha has to take care of her sisters
when they are all home alone. When Leigha does her homework, it is usually
in front of a TV at night with the whole family busy doing other things around
her. Leigha does not have a quiet area to study on her own.

Leigha is

classified with having dyslexia. She has an extremely hard time reading
words and at a third grade level she is struggling reading words that she
should really know. The second student, Nathan was chosen because he
transferred into the class from a general education setting and we needed a
background check to see what his strengths and needs were. My co-op
suggested that he take part in my study to not only help with my project but
to also help her with understanding what he needs help in. Nathan is an only
child living at home with both of his parents. His parents push him in school
and expect him to perform at his best. He is encouraged at home with
objects in order for him to perform at this best in school.

The objective of my project was to increase their performance of

reading sight words and to be able to memorize these sight words for the
future. Sight words are words that students need to be able to read correctly
when looking at them without a problem. The common core standard that
pairs with this area is CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.K.3.C Read common highfrequency words by sight (e.g., the, of, to, you, she, my, is, are, do, does).
This is the standard in Kindergarten and students are expected to keep
performing during other school years. These two students struggle in this
area. These students tend to forget over time if they do not practice enough.
These two students were perfect candidates for my project and I knew that I
would be able to help them improve in this area. For this project we used a
list of words from Dultch titled, Early Emergent High-Frequency Words Quick
Check. Third grade students should be able to read all of these words before
entering forth grade. This list contained over 200 words. After conducting
the pre-test, it gave me a bases of where these two students were and what I
need to focus on with them. When working with them, I worked with them
individually each time I met with them. For Leighas pre-test, she was able to
read 137 words out of 203. She had a difficult time with 66 words. For
Nathans pre-test, he was able to read 170 words out of 203. He had a
difficult time with 33 words. Any word that was not read clearly or if they
paused before reading it, was marked to be added to the list of words they
will practice. Before testing them on these words I explained to them how his
is a project for my class but that these activities are going to help you

improve your vocabulary. They were both very excited to be working with
me.
I met with each student three times a week at the same time on
Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. A daily lesson plan was used to carry out
the project. This plan was adjusted according to the students needs on a
particular day. I carried around an index card holder with all of their words
that they were not able to say during the pretest marked accordingly for
each student. Each student was given a ring of ten cards to start with. These
were the first ten words that were not said correctly when tested. I held on to
the rest of the cards. The students took these cards home with them every
night and in their agenda, I wrote that they needed to practice these every
night. Over the course of these months, I kept track of how long it took for
them to read the word without pausing or having a difficult time. I also kept
track of the time it took the students to read all ten cards. The timing aspect
was more for the students because they thought of it as a game and it made
the practice more enjoyable. The timing was not interfering, however about
a month into the project, the students began to compete to try to beat their
previous time and I found that it was taking away from their performance
when reading the sight words. I decided to take the time away for a while to
see if their level of performance would increase or decrease. Without
question, it increased their performance because they were not worrying
about trying to beat their time. They were only focusing on getting to their
new cards.

Each time I met with them I first asked if they practiced for homework.
They were always honest and told me they did practice or they forgot. This
was okay for me because I was not trying to get them in trouble, but I
wanted a better understand of if they were practicing to see if it was helping
with their performance. Each time I met with them, we practice with all the
cards on the table two times and then once on the ring before putting it back
in their folder. The first two times, we laid the cards flat out and the student
would flip over one card at a time and say the word. While they were doing
this, I was writing down the words that they said incorrectly. Before trying
again, I would point to the words they said wrong and ask them what that
word was. If they still did not know then I would tell them for the next round.
Again during the second round I was recoding what words they said wrong.
It was very interesting when they said a word wrong during the first time, I
corrected them before the second round, and then again they said it wrong
on that second round. This made me realize that when they are flipping over
the cards, they are sometimes guessing. This was happening a lot when
they were being timed which was another reason why I took the time away.
Even though I said I was not timing them anymore, I kept time without them
knowing so that they could focus on the words. After testing them twice on
their cards, if they said the word clearly each time, those words were placed
back into the box and new cards came out to go home with them. Each
student only had ten cards at a time. If they still had difficulty with certain
words, those words stayed on the ring until they could read them easily.

Once each student went through all their words, I then brought back the old
words to see if they remembered them and could read them easily. I was
surprised when I showed them earlier words and they remembered them. As
you can see in the results attached, each student improved drastically with
their recognition of sight words.
When looking back on this project, I would have done a couple things
different if I had the chance to do it again. One idea is to come up with other
activities and strategies to help the students with their sight words. Luckily
the ring of cards were not boring the students and they enjoyed it very
much, however maybe if I was too add other strategies, it would have
provided more feedback for my project. Another part I would adjust would
be to not wait till the end to check if they remember the sight words from the
beginning of the project. Although that was the goal and they did a great job
with this, I think it would have been beneficial is I came back to words sooner
than later so that the students are getting constant repetition with the words.
The last thing that I would change next time would be the timing aspect.
The students did enjoy this part, but it took away from the object of the
lesson. Something that I picked up on towards the end was that Leigha
would sometimes just guess when seeing the words, and I did not figure out
till the end of the project how to change this. I had her say the first sound of
the word and then say the full word. If I knew this ahead of time I would
have had her start off with this in the beginning of the project and then have

her ease her way off of it because sight words are words that we need to
know just by looking at them.
Over all, I am extremely happy with the progress that these two
students made. Even though I could have done some things differently, the
students performed excellent and made great jumps in their vocabulary.
Leigha went from getting 66 words wrong to only 3 words wrong out of 203.
Nathan when from getting 33 words wrong to none. If this improvement was
to continue, these two students need to constantly be practicing their sight
words daily.

Box or preset index cards of all the sight words that were incorrect
during the pre-test.

Ring of index cards the students took home every night and brought
back to practice.

Leighas Pre-test

Leighas Post-test

Nathans Pre-test

Nathans Post-test