Strategies and materials teachers can use to help resent immigrant students to read, improve fluency and comprehension in less than a year

Strategies and materials teachers can use to help resent immigrant students to read, improve fluency and comprehension in less than a year.

Rosa H. Roque

Dr. Américo Paredes Elementary

Needs Assessment

                           The contexts of my school, as well as many other schools in the district, are receiving many students from Mexico in the last years.  The reason is that we are located close to the Rio Grande River and many people are coming due the social insecurities that exist in Mexico today. We have 756 students, where as 99% Hispanic, 90% at risk. In addition, many of those students can not read fluently or at all.  According with the Act No Child Left Behind no student is exempt from STAAR and TELPAS test; therefore, some of these students have never gone to school in Mexico. Academically they are low but they are placed in a grade level according with their age.

Objectives and vision of the action research project

                           The purpose of this action research is to investigate how teachers can give the appropriate help to close learning gaps to students from Mexico in less than a year.  Also, this action research project is to gather effective materials and strategies from other teachers that help students to reach their grade level academically.

Review the Literature and Action Research Strategy

                           The need to help recent immigrant students to close reading learning gaps is urgent. With the Act 2001 No Child Left Behind, all students have the same rights to be educated with high standards. In addition, all students need to take the new STAAR test and there are not wavers for any student. Nevertheless, teachers that have recent immigrant students with learning gaps feel that they are alone.  According with Beth Lewis today teachers are having pressure from all sides and that is true. We feel pressure from the state, the district and principals because students are expected to pass their STAAR and TELPAS tests.  Teachers are afraid because it is difficult for them to work with 10% of the class 2 or 3 grade levels. In addition to this, there is no Spanish reading strategist to get extra help for those students. Moreover, this cause frustration to those grade teachers because how can they help those students to learn to read, reach their academical level, and don’t stay behind with their regular class?

Articulate the Vision

                           I met with my administrators, 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th teachers and explained them my action research project. We spoke about the necessity to make an action research project about how we can help recent immigrant students to close reading gaps. They were all agree and supportive and were looking forward to the results. Also we met with parents and students looking for support at home and collaboration.

Manage the organization

                           I met with administrators and teachers to discuss the action research project to implement it. First of all, we agree to use the TORF (Test of Reading Fluency) to determine the reading fluency and gave us a true picture of how well the students are reading at grade level. We also discuss dates and made charts to monitor reading. I am responsible for supervise charts, analyze materials, give feed back and support to teachers. 

Manage operations

                           We all agree to meet biweekly after each reading monitoring to discuss the progress. After the reading placement and fluency test and according with the results we discuss the necessity of a Spanish reading strategist. She will pull up lower students at least half an hour every day. Teachers are good implementing reading fluency every two weeks. Students keep track of their reading with the help of a reading chart, this help to motivate them to advance every time they take the reading fluency test. We also met and discuss students’ exams DMAC results every six weeks. Teachers that get best results, share strategies with the others teachers and some times they go to observe them working. 

Respond to Community Interest and Needs

                           I will post all my findings in my blog to help those who want to follow along. I know that there could be many teachers having the same problem and I need more data collection and analysis to help teachers and students that are bilingual. In addition, recent immigrant students are going to receive the appropriate help because teachers are going to be prepared. Such Aida Walki said in her article Strategies for Success: Engaging Immigrant Students in Secondary Schools, teachers need to be prepared to understand and help recent immigrant students and programs must be compassionate. This project has been a key to learn that we are not along, there are many people conducting researches. I am sure that identifying effective strategies and materials that bilingual teachers can use will improve the reading achievement of recent immigrant students.

References

Lewis Beth. (2012). The Buildup of Standardized Testing Pressure. Retrieve from                            http://k6educators.about.com/cs/professionaldevel/a/standtests.htm

Walki Aida. (2010). Strategies for Success: Engaging Immigrant Students in Secondary Schools.           Retrieve from http://www.cal.org/resources/digest/0003strategies.html

Wikipedia. The free encyclopedia. (2012). No Child Left Behind Act. Retrieve from                            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Child_Left_Behind_Act#Children_with_disabi                           lities_in_No_Child_Left_Behind.