Park Hill Elementary
Positive Self Talk and Academic Engagement for Behaviorally Tiered Students
Primary Researchers
Lana Brady, Intern, Baylor University
Kayla Kubitza, M.Ed., Mentor Teacher, Park Hill, Midway ISD
Lea Kee, M.Ed., Intern Supervisor, Baylor University
Rationale/Introduction
In my third grade classroom, I sought to implement positive self-talk skills and observed how it impacted the engagement and academic success of one of my students (Student 11). He had been identified as having significant familial trauma including separated parents, the death of a parent, the remarriage of the other parent, and moving across the country in a short span of time. In the classroom, this particular student struggles to manage strong emotions appropriately, often having sudden outbursts of rage towards himself and others, disproportionate reactions to setbacks, difficulty focusing, lack of effort, and verbal aggression which are all expressions of trauma in an academic setting (Todd, 2021). These outbursts can be as short as a couple minutes or ruin his demeanor for the majority of the day. He also displays forgetfulness, has lower academic performance, and disengages in what he deems a challenging academic context. Beyond his emotional inhibitions, he is also Tier 3 reading - Tier 3 being the highest tier of intervention for students with intense academic challenges in a given area. This compounds much of his disdain for academics as reading is a genuine challenge for him, but he does not have the emotional capacity or resilience to face the challenge. These observations paired with the background knowledge of the student’s life all indicate his trauma is a significant academic and social hindrance. Largely these breakdowns relate to a lack of confidence and self-respect evinced in his intense negative self-talk with statements such as “I am going to fail,” “Everyone hates me,” “I hate my life,” “I can’t do this,” “I just want to die,” and other alarming comments when faced with challenging academics or sometimes the most minor inconveniences. Through research, discussion with the school counselor, and collaborating with the behavioral specialist, it was collectively determined that positive self-talk would be the most beneficial practice to implement at this time. Student 11 is eight years old and will turn nine in May, which places him at the end of the window for self-talk to be a regular external practice (Bivens & Berk, 1990). In these last crucial months, other concerned professionals and I hoped to see a positive impact on his self-talk before it becomes more adult-like, intrinsic self-talk (Bivens & Berk, 1990).
Question/Wondering
How does implementing the coping skill of positive self-talk via one on one interaction impact the academic success and engagement of third grade students with emotional interferences?
Methodology/Results
Academic engagement was selected over academic performance due to inherent learning challenges. While some of his grades did not change, that did not mean he was not progressing in this mental capacity. Thus, academic engagement was the target of assessment. The selected positive phrases were written on twelve colorful popsicle sticks to draw from a glass jar. Engagement forms for Grammar, Read Aloud, and Stations were taken three times a week and averaged out. Weekly graded work, his two most recent running records, and observational notes surrounding attitude, breakdowns, and duration of breakdowns were all collected to determine how this intervention impacts both his socio-emotional engagement in the classroom setting and his academic success.
He had the opportunity to implement positive self-talk practices throughout the day. At the beginning of the day during WIN block, Student 11 and I convened for a few minutes to select the phrase of the day, giving him some personal influence and empowerment over the practice and leaning into one on one interaction time. Each positive phrase was written on one of twelve colorful popsicle sticks to draw from a glass jar. The student would draw the popsicle stick out and read the statement written on it. I was present to give reading assistance as needed. After reading it, we would discuss how it was true or why that was an important thing to say about ourselves. All the statements were previously selected by him during our Baseline Data week through a one on one discussion where he gave thumbs up, down, or sideways to indicate his regard for the affirmation. During data collection weeks, when he began to have an outburst, the student had his popsicle stick accessible and practiced stating the phrase to himself amidst his emotional distress. This was with attentive teacher guidance and encouragement.
Student 11 was incentivized to participate in these coping skill practices with the collaboration of the Behavior Intervention Team (BIT). His BIT goal for the four weeks was adjusted to be “Positive self-talk throughout the day.” After the completion of a Forced-Choice Reinforcement Menu with Student 11, it was found that he prefers Adult Approval and Independent Rewards for rewards. With this in mind, when Student 11 participates in the coping skill practices his reward was positive teacher feedback and filling in a smiley face of approval to turn in during his checkout at the end of the day to BIT indicating whether he met the goal or not. This Forced Choice assessment is also why I opted to implement the skills in a one on one interaction, with attentive adult attention from the classroom teacher. Then he received approval from two adults through words and actions, both BIT at the end of the day and his teacher throughout.
Social behavior and academic engagement increased steadily throughout data collection, indicating a strong positive correlation between positive self-talk and engagement. The student was able to recall his positive self-talk despite emotional distress, and proved to recover from emotional episodes much quicker when using positive self-talk as a coping skill. He went from not even turning in graded work in his RLA block to not only getting the work completed, but even earning a perfect score one week! While his running record did not change, the significant change in engagement and completing of work still indicates significant positive impacts of positive self-talk for students with learning differences.
Implications/Recommendations
Based on my findings, the implementation of positive self-talk practices with third grade students is powerful and effective. This is a practice I intend to implement in a wider context in my own classroom. All of the students were intrigued by the popsicle sticks, and post data collection weeks I even gave several of them their own when they had hard days or weeks. It is great emotional regulation practice for all students, not just those with trauma. Particularly for younger grades where internal positive self-talk is still developing, these practices are impactful. Personally in my classroom, I intend to implement daily popsicle sticks for the collective class or for individual students depending on class environment. An emotionally regulated, engaged student is a successful student.
Reference(s)
Bivens, J. A., & Berk, L. E. (1990). APA PsycNet. American Psychological Association. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1991-08443-001
Todd, R. (2021, October 27). Recognizing the signs of trauma. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/article/recognizing-signs-trauma
Automaticity in Math Facts
Primary Researchers
Madison Clement, Intern, Baylor University
Whitney Brock, Mentor Teacher, Park Hill Elementary, Midway ISD
Lea Kee, Intern Supervisor, Baylor University
Rationale/Introduction
In my second-grade classroom, I have observed students making errors during math lessons due to a lack of knowing simple math facts. Students were affected in learning new concepts quickly and staying on pace with the rest of the class because they lacked automaticity in fact fluency. When we learned skip counting on number lines in October, I saw students struggle to keep up with pace of the lessons because they lacked foundational knowledge of math facts. In our classroom, we take fact fluency tests once every six weeks to monitor student progress and improvement. Besides this, the curriculum does very little to increase students’ automaticity in fact fluency. Baker, A. and Cuevas C. (2018) imply that memorizing math facts is “fundamental to success in many areas of higher mathematics”. I have decided to pull a group of four students and try different teaching methods to improve their automaticity. I chose a technology-based method, hands-on, and flashcards in our small group. For one-week students completed Moby Max fact fluency assignments on their iPads, then we moved on to answering math facts quickly with flashcards, and finally we played hands-on games. I hoped to see which instructional method showed the most improvement in students automaticity and which method students showed the most engagement in.
Question/Wondering
What teaching practice shows the most improvement in automaticity in math facts for second graders?
Methodology/Results
Since the beginning of the year, I have noticed students struggle learning new math concepts quickly because they lack the ability to do basic math facts quickly and in their head. Since there is not any curriculum in place for teaching math facts in second grade, I wondered what the best instructional method is to teach students automaticity and improve their knowledge of math facts. I decided to pull a small group of four students and take data on what instructional method showed the best improvement.
I collected data for three weeks on a group of 3 girls and 1 boy, ages 7-8, 2 students are Hispanic, and 2 students are White. Every week I met with students during our math station time Monday-Thursday for 20 minutes. During this time, students took a pre-test and post-test every week and we worked in small groups and one on one to work on fact fluency. I created the pre and post-tests with math questions students were working on or needed to improve. I chose 1 student who already shows mastery of the concepts to see how a student with mastery could improve their knowledge. 2 students are on level and 1 student is below grade level. Students understood that during this small group time they were to work on their fact fluency skills with the method we were working on that week. I observed students’ engagement in the instructional method and used pre-tests and post-test to analyze their improvement.
The first week students worked on their own with their iPads. On Monday, students took two pre-test, one subtraction and one addition. They had two minutes to answer as many questions as they could out of 100. Then students were told to use their iPads and get on Moby Max Fact Fluency. Moby Max Fact Fluency gives students math fact questions to answer in a certain amount of time based on their skill level. Students used their iPads for about 15 minutes of practice during our small group time. We did Fact Fluency Monday-Thursday. On Thursday, students did their last fact fluency and then took two post-tests, one on addition and one on subtraction facts.
The second week, students took their pre-tests on Monday. This week we focused on using flashcards to increase automaticity. I called students one on one and worked with them for 15 minutes. I had a mix of addition and subtraction flashcards, and I encouraged students to answer the questions as fast as they could. We worked with flashcards every day of the second week. On Thursday, students took their two post-tests, so I could use the data to see their improvement.
The third week, students and I took a hands-on approach by playing games related to math facts all week. Gorman, K implies using manipulatives and activities “assist in helping students acquire the skills needed to become successful”. After taking their pre-test, I explained to students the games we would be playing each day. We played Get Out of My House, Go Fish, and Bingo. During this week, I saw students enjoy learning math facts because they were able to be creative and do something different with their learning. On Thursday, students took their last post-test, and I analyzed the data from the past three weeks to see which method showed the most improvement and which method students showed the most engagement in.
I found students improved the most using flashcards. After taking a 100-question pre-test on Monday and a post-test on Thursday in two minutes, students showed the most improvement. Student A (girl, 7, below level) showed a 14% improvement in subtraction and a 5% improvement in addition facts. Student B boy, 8, above level) showed a 20% improvement in subtraction and an 8% improvement in addition. Student C (girl, 7, below level) had a 4% improvement in subtraction and a 13% improvement in addition. Student D (girl, 7, on level) had a 2% improvement in subtraction and a 3% improvement in addition. The students impressed me with their improvement and how they focused on their math facts while we worked throughout the week together. I also saw my students’ confidence in their math abilities grow. I believe the flashcard method worked best for students because flashcards force students to recall what they know quickly. Flashcards force students to memorize facts efficiently in order to be able to recall the facts for a test.
Implications/Recommendations
Throughout the three weeks of working with this group of four students, I have seen their confidence and abilities in math improve. Knowing that using flashcards increases automaticity, I can try to use faster paced, small group activities with students to encourage them to use automaticity with their math skills. After seeing students’ engagement and excitement increase while playing games, I would love to find a way to use something fast paced like flashcards and games together.
I found that my research could have more data if I had more time to work with my small group of students. A weakness to my study was the consistency and time. There were times that students were absent or pulled out causing my data to be skewed because they missed a day of working with me and the group. If I were able to do this study again, I would want to make the time working with students longer, so I could collect more data. Another change I would make would be to have a group of students that worked on only one of the three instructional methods. I feel like this method would give me more data to analyze on which instructional method improves students’ automaticity.
Reference(s)
Baker, Austin and Cuevas, Josh (2018). The Importance of Automaticity Development in Mathematics. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1194585.pdf
Borton, Heidi (2018). Effects of Instruction on Basic Addition Fluency for Second Grade Students. https://nwcommons.nwciowa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1112&context=education_masters
Morano, Stephanie, Randolph, Kathleen, and Church, Naomi (2020). Combining Explicit Strategy Instruction and Mastery Practice to Build Arithmetic Fact Fluency. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0040059920906455
Gorman, Karla. Impact of Hands-On Activities in Second Grade for Improving Math Fact Fluency. https://www.eiu.edu/researchinaction/pdf/Karla_Gorman_Manuscript.pdf
Manipulatives and Technology: An Asset or a Distraction?
Primary Researchers
Emily Costar, Intern, Baylor University
Amber Pearson, B.S.Ed, Mentor Teachers, Park Hill Elementary, Midway ISD
Kayla Kubitza, M.S.Ed, Mentor Teachers, Park Hill Elementary, Midway ISD
Lea Kee, M.Ed., Intern Supervisor, Baylor University
Rationale/Introduction
The presence of technology in the classroom has transformed learning immensely for students in public education. As an intern in a third grade classroom, I have witnessed firsthand the creative ways technology can enhance learning when used rightly by the teachers as well as my nineteen students. While technology is used in all subjects, I chose to focus on the relationship between mathematics, technology, and students’ engagement and comprehension. My interest was sparked when monitoring students during math stations at the “Technology” station. At this station, the students use IXL, an online, interactive learning program, to complete math problems on their iPad corresponding to the specific topic they are learning in class. I have noticed that at the “Technology” station, some of my students’ attention wanes, resulting in off-task behaviors and decreased comprehension of certain math concepts. With this in mind, I would like to explore how enhancing the technology station will affect students’ engagement and comprehension of mathematics concepts by introducing the use of virtual manipulatives and concrete materials.
Question/Wondering
How does the use of both virtual manipulatives and concrete materials in a technology-based math small group station affect the engagement and comprehension of five third grade students?
Methodology/Results
The study was conducted on a small group of five students: three male and two female, all of whom are from diverse ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. I chose this small group of five students because as a whole, they seemed to struggle the most with their engagement and staying on task throughout stations. My wondering stemmed from their observable behaviors during their twelve-minute rotation at the “Technology” station including inattention, using the pencil tool on IXL to draw rather than solve problems, and going on other apps that provided more entertainment. Over the course of four weeks during the geometry unit, I collected data through various formal and informal assessments to measure both engagement and comprehension. These assessments included a matched assessment at the start and end of the study, engagement samples, observations, anecdotal notes, and student comments.
During the first week of data collection, I collected preliminary data during the five students’ rotation at the “Technology” station by monitoring their iPads using the Google Classroom feature and observing their behaviors. Three students did not log onto IXL or begin their assignment until six minutes into the station while the other two students never logged on at all and instead chose to play games on another platform and reorganize their iPad apps. Additionally, I administered a pre-assessment addressing geometry topics using eight practice questions from Forde-Ferrier’s Ultimate STAAR Math Workbook (2014). The questions were based on TEKS 3.6B, which requires students to “use attributes to recognize rhombuses, parallelograms, trapezoids, rectangles, and squares as examples of quadrilaterals and draw examples of quadrilaterals that do not belong to any of these subcategories.” The students’ average score was 40%. Finally, the engagement sample I collected revealed that during the station, the students were on task 59% of the time and off task 41% percent of the time. At the start of week two, I pulled the five students into a “collab lab,” a separate learning space from the classroom. In accordance with research published in The Journal of Education (2013) where researchers found that virtual manipulatives are most effective in increasing students’ understanding of mathematical topics after the teacher introduces a topic and models how to use the manipulatives, I modeled how to use the virtual manipulatives after the students’ learned about geometry during the math mini-lesson. I introduced virtual manipulatives to the students by modeling how to use the pattern blocks from Didax, a website with various virtual manipulatives. The students implemented the use of the virtual pattern blocks into their IXL assignment, which in turn increased their engagement by about 20%. At the start of week three, I noticed that while some students enjoyed using the virtual manipulatives and used them as they completed their IXL assignments, other students did not find them helpful. To be consistent with my wondering about how to enhance the “Technology” station, I enabled students to use other tools such as graph paper, whiteboards and markers, and pattern blocks in order to draw and label shapes as they solved for the perimeter of various polygons. Eventually, I provided students with the choice of using virtual manipulatives or concrete materials while working on their daily IXL assignment. At the end of four weeks, I concluded the study by completing a final engagement sample as well as administering a post-assessment. The average score of the post-assessment, which was identical to the pre-assessment, was 67.5%, and each student either matched or improved their previous score. Additionally, the students’ overall engagement increased to 81% at the end of the four weeks. Therefore, both the comprehension and engagement of the five students increased as a whole from the start to the end of the study. The study’s results are consistent with research conducted by Pamela Edwards Johnson and others in the article titled “Virtual Manipulatives to Assess Understanding” (2012) who explain that incorporating the use of virtual manipulatives into mathematics instruction enhances students’ understanding because of their ability to represent abstract concepts in a concrete manner, even if it is through a digital source. I found that these tools not only increase comprehension and understanding but also overall student engagement. The quantitative data I collected using engagement samples and the matched assessment scores supports this conclusion given the 32% increase in student engagement and the 27.5% increase in students’ comprehension of geometry concepts. Furthermore, the positive patterns in student behavior such as starting their work at the very start of the station, being more excited and willing to complete their work, and making comments about the helpfulness of the various tools, demonstrate the positive effects of virtual manipulatives and concrete materials on the five students during their time at the “Technology” station.
Implications/Recommendations
Based on the results, it is evident that the inclusion of virtual manipulatives and concrete materials positively impacts students’ engagement and comprehension of third grade math concepts. Going forward, when working with technology in the classroom where students are working independently, I would provide students with the option of using virtual manipulatives or concrete materials in order to enhance students’ understanding of math concepts and to maintain their engagement in order to ensure that they are getting the most out of their education. In order to be consistent with previous research, I would recommend that teachers first model how to use the virtual manipulatives before implementing them as an addition. In the future, I will continue to implement the use of virtual manipulatives for each student in my class during their time at the “Technology” station with the hope that the students would take responsibility for their own learning and voluntarily choose to use the virtual manipulatives as they complete their assignments independently on IXL. Overall, this research study has been a valuable experience in showing me the importance of using virtual and concrete materials in math activities.
Reference(s)
Didax (2024). Pattern Blocks. https://www.didax.com/apps/pattern-blocks/.
Forde, J., & Ferrier, D. 2014. Ultimate STAAR Math Workbook. Forde-Ferrier, L.L.C.
Johnson, P. et al. (2012). Virtual Manipulatives to Assess Understanding. Teaching Children Mathematics, 19 (3), 202-206.
Moyer-Packenham, P. et al. A Study Comparing Virtual Manipulatives with Other Instructional Treatments in Third- and Fourth-Grade Classrooms. The Journal of Education, 193(2), 25-39.
Multi-sensory Strategies and their Effect on Sight Word Retention
Primary Researchers
Abbey Kelly Intern, Baylor University
Amy Hopkins, BS Ed., Mentor Teacher, Park Hill Elementary, Midway ISD
Lea Kee, M.Ed., Intern Supervisor, Baylor University
Rationale/Introduction
As I began to get to know my students in the second grade, I noticed that many of my students struggled with reading and came into second grade with a below grade-level reading level. It became clear how this impacted their writing, reading, and math skills. Sight word flashcards were utilized with specific students during guided reading groups, but I believed that these students required practice of sight words beyond this method. Studies I have researched also do not support the sole use of flashcards as sight word learning strategies for students, but rather incorporating movement or visual aids to support learning (Simonton 2019). I theorized these learners would potentially be more successful in their reading and writing if their sight word practice was multisensory.
I decided to meet individually with these four students to observe their ability to read and apply this list of sight words in their own writing after three weeks of various multisensory strategies. I planned to assess their progress by giving writing and reading assessments at the beginning and end of the study, as well as assessing their growth in reading at the end of each meeting during the week.
Question/Wondering
What is the impact of having students practice sight words with multi-sensory strategies on their retention of sight words in their reading and writing?
Methodology/Results
I conducted my research with a small group of four females aged 7-8 in my second-grade class. They all have prior issues with retaining sight words and struggle with writing and reading skills. They are at varying reading levels, but they all lie within the E-H reading level range. The four females are various ethnicities including African American, Hispanic, and Caucasian. During the first week, I collected data by conducting a checklist of each student’s ability to correctly identify all 30 sight words within three seconds. These sight words were selected from the Fry list of first grade sight words because these students are below grade level in reading and writing. In the data collection week, students also wrote sentences that contained all 30 words as I read the sentences aloud to them. These nine sentences were created by me to include all necessary sight words. The purpose of this pre-assessment was to observe students’ ability to apply these words in their writing and collect data about writing growth.
During the next few weeks of research, I provided instruction with different multisensory methods. I met with each student twice a week. During the first week, students practiced their first list of 10 sight words through a game called ‘What’s Missing?’ Students identified the missing letter from the word and spelled the word aloud with me. I incorporated this game as one of my strategies after reading about this game’s positive effects with “develop(ing) visual memory, establish(ing) left-to-right visual scanning skills, and increas(ing) automatic recall”. (Simonton 2019). In the second week of research, each student built words with ‘Play-Doh’ with the second list of 10 words. This was a visual aid for students as well as kinesthetic strategy. During the third week, students wrote the third list of 10 words in sand as a kinesthetic strategy. I checked students’ retention of words at the end of each day to observe improvements throughout each week. I then analyzed this data to determine if a specific method helped students retain sight words more than others.
I assessed each student’s reading growth and each student made significant growth when reading all 30 sight words in a flashcard format. Each of the four students correctly identified 50% of the sight words during the first week, and the lowest amount of growth was 37% improvement during the final week of data collection. One student improved from 50% to 93% accuracy. Students demonstrated retention of all thirty words, and there was not a particular list of words that showed the least retention. This signifies that the students learned just as well from each multisensory strategy and there was not one specific strategy that showed more retention than others with reading skills. At the end of the four weeks of data collection, I also had students complete the same writing pre-assessment and made notes about which words they had improved with, in comparison to the first week. I noted the number of letters they had in the correct place in each word and calculated the percentage of growth for each student based on the word lists used for each strategy. Based on the average percentage of improvement from week 1 to week 4 of letters placed correctly in each word, students showed the most growth with the second list of words. This list was taught during the second week using the ‘Play-Doh’ method and the average of the four students’ growth was 10.25%. Three of the students showed growth with each list of words in their writing and retention, but student #3’s number of correctly written words declined from week 1 to week 4. She showed a decline in correct words from weeks 1 and 3 and showed no change with week 2’s words. I am unsure of the reason for this decline in writing, but she may have more trouble applying her sight word knowledge to her writing than the other students or was not as focused during the writing practice. Her recall skills of these words improved while her writing declined.
Implications/Recommendations
Throughout my research, I observed students’ ability to retain their sight words in their reading and writing skills. I think to acquire accurate results about the benefits of multisensory strategies in comparison to flashcards, I wish I could have more time to observe students’ retention. I believe it could have been helpful to teach a list of words for several weeks rather than for only one week per strategy. Another limitation of this research was a lack of comparison to students’ retainment with sight words. I have been working with these students during the year but did not have physical data to compare how well students retain a certain list of words to their ability to retain with these multisensory strategies. A strength of this study was that students appeared more engaged in these activities than flashcards. Also, each of the four students showed retention of each list of words while recalling during the last data collection, which shows that each multi-sensory strategy was helpful. Overall, I recommend using multisensory strategies and I will continue to do so in the future to engage students in their learning of sight words.
Reference(s)
Simonton, Kaylee, "Effective Sight Word Methods for Young Readers" (2019). Culminating Projects in Teacher Development. 39. https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/ed_etds/39