DOCUMENT RESUME CS 215 722 AUTHOR Gomez, Pilar Astor

19.6:1, the pupil-administrator ratio is 281.0: 1. The averageteacher salary is 45, 800, and the average administrator salary is 75, 710.The operating expenditure is 5, 937 per pupil.The district participates in the Illinois Goal AssessmentProgram (IGAP), which assesses students in grades 3-8 in reading,writing, mathematics or science and social studies depending on thegrade level.All of the schools in the district participate in the IllinoisSchool Improvement Plan.For the 1994-95 school year the districttargeted five areas for planned improvement.Special target one:decrease the number of students "not meeting" state standards inthe area of mathematics and reading.Special target two:increasethe number of students "exceeding" state standards in the area ofmathematics and reading.Special target three:increase studentutilization of technology resources in the school setting.target four:Specialincrease student appreciation and respect for self andothers (through increased involvement in multi-cultural, awarenessbuilding, and service-oriented building programs and activities).Special target area five:increase home-school communications andpartnerships.This district uses a literature-based reading programpublished by Houghton Mifflin, and the University of Chicago MathProgram which is hands-on math.Grades four through six visit the511

district's Discovery Science Center for a total of eighteen hours ofhands-on science education. The primary grade levels receivebimonthly science kits which allow them to do the hands-on scienceFine arts instruction is providedprogram in their own classrooms.by teachers specializing in these areas through music education andart education programs.Computer technology instruction isprovided by technology specialists.The district services identifiedgifted students through a pull-out program.The district is committed to bringing more instructionaltechnology to each school.for this project.Five million dollars has been allocatedWithin a five year period, the district has beenupdating each school's Apple computer labs to Macintosh labs,equipping every classroom with a technology workstation, andproviding technology education for faculty.This district under went significant changes.These changesinclude moving the sixth grade out of the elementary schools intothe junior high schools, and opening an additional junior high. Thejunior high schools were transformed into middle schools withmiddle school curriculum.aThe bilingual program changed from gradelevel centers to students attending their home schools. This hascreated multi-age classrooms.612

Regional and National Context of the ProblemThere is a widespread problem with declining writing abilitiesamongstudents.The current levels of student achievement inlanguage fell short of the standard established by the nationaleducation goal.One of the six national goals states:By the year 2000, American students will leave gradesfour, eight, and twelve having demonstrated competencyin challenging subject matter including English,mathematics, science, history, and geography; and everyschool in America will ensure that all student learn touse their minds well, so that they may be prepared forresponsible citizenship, further learning, and productiveemployment in our modern economy.(Office ofEducational Research and Improvement, 1991, p. 1).The problem is not only seen in the community that has beendescribed, but is a problem that has been addressed by theprofessional literature.It(Gunlach, 1987).is believed that this problem is caused by children notseeing the connection between reading and writing. (Barnhart, 1993).Classroom teachers need to create an environment based onchildren's interest and experience that can help them develop intolifelong readers and writers."In it's simplest terms language713

across the curriculum argues that English is naturallyinterdisciplinary, that language is generally best learned when it is"about something else whether the content be history, science,math, or one's personal experiences."(Tchudi, 1991, pg. 15).Additionally, there is a failure to establish a relationshipbetween children's personal life and experiences and their readingand writing.If readers have limited experience with a given topic,their comprehension will be limited.This is reflected in children'sdesire to write, ability to write, comprehension skills in reading,and their overall vocabulary. (Cooper, 1993).814

Chapter 2PROBLEM EVIDENCE AND PROBABLE CAUSESProblem EvidenceThe fifth grade students in this bilingual multi-age classroomexhibited underdeveloped writing abilities as shown through teacherobservation checklists, writing samples, and a writing survey.Thelack of literacy skills prevents these students from beingmainstreamed successfully into the regular classrooms.The writingsamples were scored using a teacher observation checklist and theIGAP guidelines.Scores in standardized tests, or any other type oftesting scores, were not available for all the students. This is,probably, because of the high mobility of the students.A prompt to write an expository writing sample (Appendix A)was provided.The checklist indicated that none of the students hadmastered any skills at this time.Some evidence of their skillsawareness existed in some cases, however it was only sixteenpercent of the total of the skills checked.The teacher observation checklists (Appendix B), includedfourteen skills grouped into three categories:Inner Layers, and Creativity.Surface Features,Surface Features surveyed their915

Inner Layers checked if thespelling, capitalization, and punctuation.studentswrote their ideas in logical orderused proper sentence structuresupported their statements with detailhad equal detail in each paragraphdid any self editingcarried the main idea through their paperhad a closing paragraph.Creativity was the third category in which the students wereexamined.In this category, the verbs they chose, the use ofunneeded words, the use of transition words and the pride thestudents exhibited in their writing, was evaluated.Three of the eight students showed evidence of some skills inspelling, capitalization and punctuation.However, the rest of thestudents have not attained any of the Surface Layer skills at thistime.The performance of the students in the Inner Layers variedfrom lack of skills to some evidence of the development of the skill.Specifically, only two students presented their ideas in some logicalorder.None of the students was able to focus on the main idea, orhad a some type of closing on their paper.1016

The third category the students were checked.on wasCreativity.In this category the students demonstrated completelack of skills with no evidence of any understanding in this area.The samples were also scored using the IGAP scoring scale.(Appendix C)This test evaluates focus, support, organization,conventions and integration as explained below. The results of theevaluation using the IGAP scoring scale showed that most studentsscored very low on every feature of the test.Focus evaluates the students' writing based on how clear themain idea, point of view, theme,or event is presented.Support/Elaboration focuses on the quality of details and reasonsand the explanation of the theme.The precision of elaborationdepends upon balanced descriptions of the key components of theOrganization scores the plan of development and whether orpaper.not the key points and sentences logically flow together.Conventions scores the use of standard written English.Integrationis a focused global judgment of how well the paper achieves thetask. (Illinois State Board of Education, 1994)Each feature except for Conventions is rated on a six pointscale for state assessment.paper's development.follows:The number indicates the level of theIn general, the scores may be interpreted asA score ranging from one to three indicates the feature isabsent or in the developing stages. A score ranging from four to six17

signals the feature is basically or well developed.rated with either a one or a two.Conventions areOne indicates that a paper hasmajor errors and is equivalent to scoring in one to three range in allother areas. Two indicates a paper has minor errors or no errors,this is equivalent to a four to six range in the other areas. Eachfeature is rated independently with the exception of the Integrationscore which is graded holistically.An overall score is given to eachThe overall score is calculated by the following formula:paper.Overall score 2x (integration) (focus) (support) (organization) (conventions)Therefore, the overall score ranges from 6-32. (Illinois State Boardof Education, 1994)Students in this group achieved the following scores.Onfocus, five out of the eight students scored only a two, and the otherthree scored a one, a three, and a four, as shown in Figure 1.Most of them attempted to develop a main idea; however, the effortwas not maintained throughout the paper. The samples lackedclarity.12is

Figure 1Scores on FocusLikewise, students also fell short on elaborating andexplaining their theme.The students were ambiguous and confusingin their statements.They gave unrelated lists and most of them didinsufficient writing.Data on Figure 2Figure 2Scores on Support1313

In most casesThe results on Organization were also very low.there was insufficient writing to determine a cohesive plan orthought on which the organization could be sustained.The studentsdid not seem to follow any plan and there was no evidence ofparagraphing.The writing samples also lacked transitions andconcluding statements. No one scored above a two.(See Figure 3)Figure 3Scores on OrganizationConventions scored the students knowledge and use of themechanics in the standard written English.Clearly the graph showsthe results of the test, with none of the students scoring more thanthe minimum score.(Figure 4)1420

Figure 4Score in ConventionsFigure 5Scores on IntegrationFigure 5 clearly shows that all eight students scored at thelow end of the table.Five students scoring four out of twelve andthree scored only two out of twelve possibilities.1521

The writing survey (Appendix D) suggested a lack ofunderstanding of the writing process. Two key question in thewriting survey, were question four, and question six."What do youthink a good writer needs to do in order to write well?", wasquestion four.And question six was;about what you write?""In general, how do you feelThe response to question four identifiesstudents' knowledge of the importance of organization andsupporting details when writing.The significance of question sixshow students' confidence in their ability to write.The studentsoverwhelmingly responded that a writer writes well if his or herhandwriting is visibly appealing.None of the students mentioned theimportance of the content of a piece of writing.In response toquestion six on the survey, seven out of eight thought they were goodwriters.Their perception on being good writers is, probably, alsobecause they give great value to penmanship and neatness.Probable causesAfter reviewing the records and cumulative folders of thefifth grade students in the multi-age class,itstudents are experiencing problems in writing.is evident that theseThese problemsseem to be multi-factorial, such aslack of modeling in reading and writing at homethe children come from low income backgrounds and have1622

less opportunities for outside enrichment experiences.the students come from homes were a language otherthan English is spoken and have a low languageproficiency in either language.lack an understanding of the writing process.Students coming from an environment where literacy isreinforced have a natural interest in learning to read and write.However, students with less exposure to literacy have a moredifficult time reading and writing.522)According to Jongsma (1990, p."The roots of lifelong literacy are planted within the familyand cultivated by the child's early exposure to books and to readingmodels."Parents are not able to foster reading and writing for severalreasons.Lack of literacy, low English proficiency and long workinghours for both parents are the main reasons.Leisure time is notspent on literacy activities and there is no modeling of reading andwriting at home.Neither parent knows how to read or how to helpthe student in their literacy skills.Anderson (1985) supports thatwhen parents are involved in the school programs, take theirchildren to the library and encourage reading foi entertainment,children become better readers.The level of background knowledge is another important link inthe successful growth of literacy.The child that has traveled,1723

visited museums, and attended a variety of events will have morebackground knowledge than the child who did not have theseopportunities.According to Britsch(1993)Everyday activities are fertile ground for developingliteracy.Young children use oral language as a tool tosolve problems and figure out intricacies of newexperiences.As they grow, children's first writingsarise from their experiences:Language helps give shapeto the relationships children are forming with theiruniverse.The process of language developmentbothoral and written - is one in which children begin toorganize language itself into patterns they can use togive meaning to their experiences.Another consideration is the level of language developmentthat the students have achieved.Most of the students in this classhave been in the bilingual program since first grade and a few sincekindergarten.However, they were not able to be mainstreamedbecause their low language ability. These students manage in bothlanguages, yet they lack the more cognitive and academic side oflanguage.Rivera (1984) makes a distinction between "surfacefluency", and "more cognitively and academically related aspects oflanguage proficiency".1824

Another cause to be considered is that the students do notunderstand the writing process.Many of these students were inclassrooms when the writing process was taught, yet they did notlearn the skills necessary to organize their thoughts and transfertheir ideas into writing.One of the problems is the lack of time dedicated to writing.Teachers do not always have control over their curriculum and theyrush through to cover it. 'The process approach to writing is aninherently holistic, inductive, nonmechanistic approach thatrequires large chucks of class time for writing and responding towriting" (Zemelman and Daniels, 88).Probable causes gathered from the literature and from the siteinclude:lack of literacy modeling at home, need of backgroundknowledge, and minimal understanding of the writing process.Another probable cause is that students have developed a survivalonly language and they need to acquire a more cognitive andacademic language.19

Chapter 3THE SOLUTION STRATEGYReview of the LiteratureThe literature search for the solutions strategies was basedon the probable cause data. This data suggested that the students inthis multi-age class had low language development, lack of literacymodeling at home, a need for additional outside experiences, andminimal understanding of the writing process.The literatureresearch for solution strategies suggests problems to be considered.One of the problems for these students is the lack of academicand cognitive language. Costa and Lowery (1989) encourage teachersto use a "language of cognition" in the classroom, giving thestudents the opportunity to hear cognitiveterminology.Thestudents must be able to comprehend thoughtful language in order tolearn.Loban's longitudinal study, cited by Hall and Ramig (1978),lends further support to the need of competence in the spokenlanguage in order to be a competent reader and writer.Hall and Ramig (1978) cite the studies of Chomsky on therelationship between language and exposure to literature and also2026

cite the research from Ruddell and Tatham. Chomsky's deductionwas that students who had been exposed to literature and had beenread to early in life had a higher level of language development thanthose lacking this exposure. Ruddell and Tatham observed a strongrelation between language fluency and reading comprehension.and Ramig (p. 34) further state thatHall"the relative ease or difficultywith which readers can handle written language is related to thesimilarity of the written language to the oral language".Another problem is the lack of literacy at home and lack ofmodeling.As previously noted, reading comprehension is in directproportion to the language development of the child.Research showsthat children who were read to, and told stories to, develop a largervocabulary than those who did not have this opportunity.The students need to have some background knowledge and aconnection to the topic in some way in order to understand themeaning of the text. According to Cooper (93),the result of many different experiences.literacy develops asChildren learn to think,speak, and listen when they have an opportunity to do this in reallife. In the same way, students need to read and write in order tolearn these skills.Authentic literature, instead of difficultycontrolled literature, is more motivating and more fun.Also, itenhances the vocabulary and develops the language of the reader.2127

However, reading is not merely decoding but being able tounderstand the meaning. To understand a passage, all the readershave to understand how the author organized the ideas presented.Then, the reader needs to relate them to their own information orschemata.Reading comprehension is the process in which thereaders compare the concepts from the writing to their ownschemata or background knowledge.In other words, the readers haveto relate to the topic.For students of other languages, the use of themescreatesexcellent opportunities for gaining background knowledge as well asincreasing their vocabulary and gaining fluency1994-1995).(Ernt and Richard,They further state:When students can relate to the topic of discussion andwhen they can make use of the new vocabulary acquiredthrough repeated readings and discussion of a book, thentheir sense of competence and their desire tocommunicate increases.This confidence, in turn,increases students' willingness to communicate and totake risks with the new language.Workman (1982) states that writing is the expression of thestudent's perception based on their experiences.Furthermore, whenstudents write they have the opportunity to review their thoughtsand insights giving them an opportunity to revise and to learn.2228

The problem is getting the students to write.Many times thestudents are asked to write about things th

DOCUMENT RESUME ED 403 598 CS 215 722 AUTHOR Gomez, Pilar Astor . one part-time nurse, one full time nurse's aide, one speech and language therapist, a school psychologist, and two classroom aids. . Indian, 0.9 Fi