Analysis of Data

Creating the correct data collection tools to be used for the sampling of first graders involved in

the study is of utmost important in order to determine accurate results which may be helpful in the

future implementation of additional reading programs within the district. In an effort to prove that

‘Reading Beyond the Classroom’ is essential to increase reading levels of struggling students, both

quantitative and qualitative instruments have been utilized in the research. The data sources used for

this project were varied and gave the researcher a variety of data to triangulate in order to ascertain

valid results in an effort to answer the research question concerning the effects of reading outside of the

regular classroom day for struggling readers.

Data source number one was a combination of both on-line timed and written assessments

created by Dibels and administered through the Voyager Learning System, on which the district summer

program is based. In order to read fluently, especially for early readers, there must first be a basis of

phonics. Often struggling readers have not mastered the early stages of phonemic awareness on which

to build a strong reading foundation. The first component of the Dibels testing was the Letter Naming

Fluency (LNF) assessments in which the student read the letter names of randomly listed alphabet

letters to show mastery of the alphabet in one minute. The possibility of reading all 110 letters on the

test in one minute was not feasible, however it will be noted that the median score for this assessment

of students coming out of kindergarten was thirty-four words. Following that, the teacher administered

a written test in which she spoke the letter phonemic sound and the students wrote the corresponding

letter on an answer sheet which showed understanding of letter sound correspondence, an essential

component of sounding and blending for young readers. The test was administrated using only thirty-

one letters and blends as directed by the summer reading program. Since this is teacher administrated,

it was given whole group and the students were allotted as much time as needed, within reason, to

remember and write down the correct letters which corresponded to the spoken sound.

Another element of the Dibels technology based assessments is the Phonemic Segmentation

Fluency (PSF) portion of the testing. In this assessment the teacher reads a word to the student and the

student breaks down as many words as he/she can into the spoken sounds in the time frame of one

minute. This assessment shows an understanding of breaking down words into phonemic sounds;

another important skill which must be mastered in order for readers to gain fluency. The final

component of Dibels beginning testing is the Nonsense Word Fluency (NWF) assessment in which the

student either decodes the nonsense words in order to show phonemics awareness/letter sound

recognition or the student may read the word completely without first breaking it down into separate

sounds, again within one minute. If the child is able to read the word as a whole instead of fist breaking

it down into sounds, it is considered a higher level of mastery. All of these combined assessments given

in Benchmark 1 at the beginning of the reading program give the teacher a view of the beginning level

for each student. The PSF and NWF were given again as a Progress Monitoring assessment at the

conclusion of the summer reading program. The LNF is not administered by Dibels as a part of Progress

Monitoring. These tests will continue to be administered during the school year in the after-school

program to continue to chart reading growth. Results from this variety of quantitative tools, is essential

to understanding the underlying problems of low reading fluency in students. Although, often these

online tests have a margin of error, caused by students’ anxiety level, because they know that they are

being tested, the scores nevertheless gave concrete measurable results which proved that continual

reading and practice beyond the regular school day, especially during the summer, helped to combat

summer slide in struggling readers. This fact is indicated in the change of scores from the tests

administrated at the beginning of the program and those performed at the end. As the scores will

indicate, even if students did not show significant reading growth they at least showed minimal summer

reading loss which was discussed as a prevalent problem in low-income, non-English speaking families as

presented in the literature review. According to the research performed by Cooper, Nye, Charlton, and

Greathouse, low-income students lose more than two months of reading achievement over the summer

even though their middle-class peers make slight gains (as cited by McLauglin and Smink, 2010, p. 2). It

is hopeful that this project will make educators and parents aware of the importance of reading

throughout the summer to at least stop summer reading loss, if not promote reading gains.

The second source of quantitative data collection tools was a combination of two High

Frequency Sight Word assessments, which were also administered to the students at the beginning and

the end of the program and throughout the weeks as Progress Monitoring. The results of these tests

not only served as monitors to drive further instruction, but they showed growth resulting from reading

both at home and in school during the summer. The results were interesting because since one

assessment was followed with continual practice of the word list and one was not, the researcher was

able to see the comparison of results concerning students receiving concentrated practice on particular

sight words and results of casual exposure to the words through reading. In addition the results showed

the difference in reading ability between students with significant parental involvement at home and

those who had little support.

The third source of assessment tools was a reading log which the students were instructed to

fill-in each night to indicate that they read for a period of approximately fifteen to twenty minutes either

by themselves or with an adult. Although it is of utmost importance for children to enjoy reading by

themselves, it is very important for them to orally read with an adult to increase fluency and in order to

have any errors corrected to aid in the child’s reading growth. The results of this assessment tool

proved that parental involvement in a child’s education at home may lead to higher achievement in

reading fluency regardless of socio-economic or ethnic background. That being said, it must be made

clear that the reading log is a difficult tool to assess, as there is no real way to determine if it is valid or

not. The students complete the log, supposedly with the aid of their parents, but there is no way to be

sure that the books are actually being read or for what amount of time. This fact is one that was

debated by all teachers of all age students in the summer program and evidence in the teacher survey

which was completed by the instructors. Graeme Paton (2011) explains that parents can improve a

child’s academic performance by the equivalent of up to six months’ schooling by reading together and

engaging in family activities. Although there is no definite way to know if the reading logs are as

legitimate as hoped for, it is apparent from the triangulation of the various assessment tools that

parental involvement was important to students as they continued to strive towards reading fluency.

Data source number four consisted of a two-part guided reading tool which was used to keep

anecdotal notes on the students while reading in small groups or one-on-one with each of them. Due to

the small size of the class it was advantageous to read individually with the students during the week

which is not always possible with large class sizes in the class room during the regular school year.

Notes were kept to track student growth both during ‘cold’ reads to assess the skill of sounding and

blending of new words and during subsequent readings to show growth with repeated reads. Often

students become anxious when they realize they are being tested either using the on-line testing or with

paper and pencil and do not perform at their highest level, so using anecdotal notes in a relaxed

atmosphere benefits the triangulation process for assessing results.

The fifth data collection source was a teacher survey completed by a number of instructors who

taught in the summer reading program and were willing to reply to it. These surveys along with the

results of the Dibels testing for all students in the program gave evidence of the value of reading beyond

the classroom for students of all ages who were present during the program. The survey also gave

information on a number of variables such as attendance, language spoken at home, and reading log

completion as seen in other classes and grades other than the one which was being tested for the study,

giving proof that eliminating summer slide can be accomplished regardless of the age of the students.

Although the aforementioned data collection tools show proof that students benefit from

alternate forms of reading throughout the year, numbers do not tell the whole story. Other conditions

must also be taken into consideration when evaluating the positives and/or negatives of an extended

school reading program. As the study delves more deeply into the quantitative and qualitative data

being presented, it will also be intertwined with various outliers, such as attendance, behavior, focus,

language and socio-economic indicators which may or may not affect individual student reading growth

even with the aid of an extended school reading program. These outliers will be discussed in

conjunction with the concrete data which has been collected. In addition, at the onset, I must say that

there were a total of eight students in the tested class, however, the parents of one student requested

that his data not be shared in the study so the results of the study shows only seven students, three girls

and four boys. Although the data cannot be shown, I will note that the fifth boy scored highest in the

class on the initial Benchmark test, but made no progress, in fact, he lost several points in one indicator

throughout the program. This I believe may have been partially due to the fact that he had a behavior

problem which distracted from his learning experience throughout the program. The majority of the

other students all showed significant growth in most areas tested as will be presented in the graphs.

The following graphs will show that the initial results of the Benchmark 1 test shows that the

class as a whole is reading below the targeted goal (113.0) with an average score of 69.4 indicating that

88% of the class was likely to need intensive support and 12% or one student was in need of core

support. One fact that should be noted is seven out of the eight students in the class had just

completed kindergarten, but student #1 who initially recorded the highest score in the Benchmark 1

assessment was a child who had already completed first grade once, but was retained. Although this

student struggled throughout first grade, she was still able to retain a portion of reading knowledge to

help her score above the other students on the initial assessments. Subsequently her score placed her

in the ‘needs of core support’ designation compared to the other students; however, it was clear

through teacher observation that she was in need of intensive support also. The disappointing

disadvantage to this assessment as far as this study is involved is that after the summer program all

students return to their respective schools deeming it impossible to chart the growth of the class as a

whole again. The students will all be enrolled after school in a continuation of the reading program and

will continue to be monitored and tested to show individual growth, but not as a group.

Additional tests which were administered to the students at the onset of the program was the

letter naming assessments. One Dibels test which was administered on-line was the letter naming

fluency test which also, unfortunately did not have a subsequent post-test; however, did give the

teacher an overview of each students incoming letter recognition. It is evident from the results that

student #1 had superior letter name knowledge as compared to the students who had only completed

kindergarten. The students were then given a test in which the teacher read the phonemic sound of a

letter and the students were asked to write the corresponding letter. It is interesting to note that the

majority of the students scored at comparative levels on this exam including student #1. This seems to

indicate that although student #1 had already completed first grade and was able to name letters, she

was still deficient in letter/sound correspondence, clearly a the same level of those just exiting

kindergarten. It is also noted for this study that student #1 is designated as an English Language Learner

living in home with only Spanish spoken so this may be a contributing factor to her inability to

correspond many phonemic sounds to the correct letters. Student #5 who scored low had significant

difficulties performing up to standards in kindergarten and was on the verge of being retained when he

showed some progress so it was hoped that this program would encourage enough growth for him to be

able to handle first grade work. In addition, student #5 and student #7 who also scored significantly

lower than the other students on the letter/sound portion of the assessment both come from Spanish

speaking homes.

The next graph shows student results of the Dibels Phonemic Nonsense Word Fluency

assessments from the beginning of the summer reading program in the Benchmark 1 test and at the end

of the program in Progress Monitoring. In this test the students view nonsense words and decode as

many of the letter sounds as possibly in one minute. Since these are not known words, the results show

growth in pure letter/sound correspondence instead of giving an indication of the student remembering

an already known word. Significant growth was shown by four of the students and slight declines by

three students. Student #1 scored one point lower than the beginning of the program. Although this is

not a significant loss, showing no growth indicates that this student is still having difficulty with

phonemic sounds and will need an additional year in first grade as was already indicated in order to

master reading fluently. Students #5 and #7 both showed slight declines also, and it is interesting to

note that they also come from non-English speaking homes. In addition, both student #5 and #6 had

focus problems and often had to be reminded to concentrate on their work and often did not return

their reading logs. There was no correlation between boys and girls in these results, however it is noted

that the students who made significant gains (except for student #1) also completed their reading log

each night, proving that additional practice may have been beneficial to their reading growth. An

additional component to this assessment is an indication of the ability for the child to read the entire

word as a ‘whole word read’ as opposed to just decoding the sounds. Interestingly, although student #1

showed no overall growth when decoding word parts on this assessment, she was the only student who

was able to read any of the nonsense words as a whole, scoring 5 during the Benchmark 1 test and rising

to 10 words at the end of the program. Students receive extra credit on the NWF assessment if they are

able to read the whole word without sounding out each letter.

The following graph shows that all students showed growth on the Dibels Phonemic

Segmentation Fluency Assessment. In this one minute test, the students are read a word instead of

viewing it and are expected to break it down into the phonemic sounds which are heard. I could find no

correlation between either girls or boys, completed reading logs or attention in class to account for

which students showed the most growth. Although it was not surprising to see that student #7 showed

a very insignificant amount of growth, only increasing his score by four as he exhibited great difficulty in

focusing during class, however it was surprising to me that students #1 and #2 showed the least growth

and they seemed to be the most engaged during instruction. Student #3 showed the most growth on

this assessment over the course and as will be noted, he seemed to have the most parental involvement

with at home reading.

Two final quantitative tests were given to the students, concerning high frequency word

recognition. At the onset of the program, all students were assessed on their knowledge of forty-one

high frequency words which would be presented during the weeks of the instructional program. These

words were taught in a variety of ways and reinforced throughout the weeks with in-class instruction

and at home practice with word cards It can be seen by the graph that all students showed growth and

increase in word knowledge through continued reinforcement. Student #1 showed the least amount of

growth by number and percentage (17%), but that was because she was able to recognize most of the

words during Benchmark 1 due to her exposure to them during her previous year in first grade. Student

#3, once again showed the most growth by being able to learn to read thirty new high frequency words

during the course of the program. Students #2 and #6 also showed growth of twenty (49%) and twenty-

one (51%) words, respectively. The correlation which I see, once again, is that these students always

completed their homework and seemed to have parents who were involved with this educational

endeavor, making sure that they practiced these words each night.

In addition to the above high frequency test mandated by the summer program, I administered

an additional first grade word recognition test to the students. As stated in the name, these are words

which the students will come into contact with in first grade. It should be noted that most of these

words were not officially taught during the program (except for a few which were across overs from the

district test); however, it was the examiner’s hope that through exposure in reading alouds and in

guided reading groups the students might come to a knowledge of some of these words. As can be seen

by the graph, all students showed at least minimal growth in recognizing previously unknown words. As

expected, student #1 initially scored the highest as she had been taught these words previously in first

grade, but it was encouraging to see that she was able to recognize four new unknown and untaught

words by the end of the program. Concurrently, as seen in the graph, other students made strides

learning up to seven new words. Although these figures are not staggering, it must be remembered that

these words were not taught, they were just learned through everyday reading, proving that exposure

to reading in any capacity throughout the year will influence a child’s academic ability.

It is obvious through the quantitative numbers on the previous graphs, that all seven students

showed at least some growth in letter knowledge, phonemic awareness and word recognition during the

course of the summer reading program. This is important because a strong foundation in these skills is

essential in order to encourage reading fluency and comprehension. Due to the fact that six out of the

seven students represented in the study had just exited kindergarten, a timed reading fluency test was

not appropriate at that time. They will, however, be formally tested on their reading fluency in the

future as they continue to attend the after-school program which is a continuation of the district

summer reading program. Since the students were not equipped to take the on- fluency tests, I

continued to monitor their reading fluency individually as I read with them and took qualitative notes on

their reading ability. Every student was also given a reading log to complete each night in order to

promote reading practice at home. In addition, a survey was given to other educators who taught the

four supplementary first grade classes, and to instructors who taught students in other grade levels to

ascertain their thoughts on the benefits of the program for their students. In discussing the qualitative

data tools and their findings, it will become evident that some were more useful and relevant when

compared to the findings from the quantitative data collections tools.

One of the qualitative tools used in the study was a student reading log. During the summer

program, students were not given homework as they would be during the regular school day. The only

additional work the students were asked to engage in was practicing the assigned high frequency sight

words and completing a reading log to prove they had read for at least fifteen minutes each night. It

must be noted that reading logs are not the most reliable collection tool as it was impossible to really

perceive if the students actually read with an adult for the allotted time that was stated. However, that

being said, after comparing the amount of said time reading as noted on the logs with the results of the

quantitative collection tools and the indications from the anecdotal notes, it does appear that those

students, who read consistently each night, did show more improvement in reading ability than those

who did not. Student #3 who showed the most growth overall during the program on all indicators

completed his log every night and on weekends. It is also noted that according to the log, he read for

significant amount of times. Student #1 read each night, but in the beginning completed one log each

night, noting that she had read a total of fourteen books the first night for approximately three or four

minutes per book. It was evident after several nights that she and her parents, who do not speak

English may not have understood the purpose of the log; after a subsequent explanation, student #1’s

logs came back each day more logically completed. She did however, show growth in the quantitative

indicators, but not as much in the qualitative anecdotal fluency notes. Student #4 completed her log

most nights, but seemed to read the same book each night for the same amount of time, possible due to

misunderstanding of the parents in a home with limited English also. Once reminded and given

additional books from the school library, she completed the reading log satisfactorily. Students #2 and

#5, who also showed growth, consistently completed logs, but not to the extent that student #3 did.

Student #4 rarely completed his logs and once again this lack of motivation and support proved to

hinder his reading growth.

The most useful qualitative data collection tool were anecdotal notes taken through teacher

observation while reading with the students both in whole group and individually. Comparing the notes

on all students, it was evident that student #3 showed the most growth in all areas reading including

fluency, comprehension, phonics, behavior and self-monitoring over the weeks of the study. It was

interesting that although both student # 1, 2, and 3 all exhibited growth in their phonics and decoding

ability, student #1 seemed to still have difficulty in reaching the next level of reading fluency. Possibly

this may be due to the fact that student #1 is an English Language Learner with no English support at

home for practice. Students #1 and #3 also showed great improvement in their reading behavior,

including concentration and eagerness to read. Student #5, who was eager to read and displayed good

comprehension, continued to struggle with phonemic awareness, leading to less noticeable growth in

reading fluency. Students #4 and #6 showed minimal amounts of growth in all observable reading areas.

It was also observed that student #4 seemed unfocused and had difficulty concentrating in the whole

group reading environment. It was noted that she seemed to exhibit better reading ability during one-

on-one reading with the teacher, possibly because there was less activity to distract her. Although

student #6 showed no significant gains in fluency, he did exhibit the skill of self-monitoring and was able

to go back and self-correct at times, when he realized he had misread a word. However, he seemed to

lack confidence and continually looked at the teacher for approval after each word, possibly hindering

his speed in fluency. It must also be noted that student #6 also exhibited unfocused behavior and often

shook his head and gave up when he could not decode a particular word, leading the examiner to

believe that he needed more self-confidence in order to become an accomplished reader. Student #5

showed no observable growth in any of the areas of reading which were monitored. It must be noted

that his mother confessed that he entered the program due to his many difficulties in kindergarten and

through the fear of retention. It was evident through his demeanor, that he really did not have any

interest in attending the summer reading program or completing any of the work necessary to become

an accomplished reader. Theses guided reading anecdotal notes when compared to the students’

reading logs indicated that those children who were motivated and practiced their reading at home

improved their reading significantly more than those children who did not consistently read outside of

class.

At the end of the program, willing teachers were asked to anonymously complete a survey in

order to ascertain student growth and their thoughts on the benefits of the programs as it pertained to

the children in their classes. Reviewing the surveys completed by the other first grade teachers, it was

noted that most students in their classes improved. Teacher #1, stated that six of her seven students

showed improvement and also completed reading logs consistently. She also noted that the student

who showed little improvement was absent a considerable amount of time during the program. It was

interesting that teacher #2 explained that five out of her seven students improved and the two who did

not show adequate growth were also absent a significant amount of time. She also noted that her

students were not consistent in completing their reading logs, but those who read with an adult showed

improvement in the skill of sounding and blending. Teacher #3, who had five out of her six students

show improved reading abilities, agreed that there was more development for those students who read

at home with an adult, and she also noted that the one student who showed the least amount of growth

came from a non-English speaking home. Of the additional eight teachers who completed surveys in

grades two through four, all had much the same findings as those of my first grade partners. After

analyzing the surveys it became apparent that approximately 75% of the students in those classes

showed improvement in reading ability. Of those eight teachers, three stated that their students did not

complete reading logs consistently, but that those who did showed improvement. Five teachers

indicated that a majority of their students filled out the logs. It should be noted that one of the teachers

commented on the validity of the logs as she wondered if the students really read the books or just

wrote down the titles. One teacher noted that her student who did not show improvement also had

issues at home which hindered his attendance. Another teacher commented that she noticed that her

students who read each night seemed eager to come into school the next day to share what they had

read. One teacher explained that the students who developed showed improvement in the skills that

were focused upon, leading her to believe that the individualized correction and encouragement aided

to student growth. Interestingly, one of the teachers noticed that her students who were English

Language Learners actually showed more progress than others. It was observed by teachers also that

due to the short time period between testing, the improvement was not as significant as it might be

reflected during the after school program which lasts for six months. Although, these students return to

their respective schools during the year, it will be interesting to study their continual growth as the year

progresses in the after school reading program.

After analyzing the data triangulation, there appears to be four main areas which either increase

or inhibit reading fluency in students. The first and most impressive indicator to student growth is

participation in additional small group instruction in reading outside of the regular school day and year.

Although not all students showed significant growth in reading fluency, all students showed at least a

portion of growth in one or more components of reading such as phonics, phonemic awareness and/or

word work as it pertains to high frequency sight word recognition. In addition, it must be noted that

even for those students who did not show substantial growth, at the very least there was no major

reading loss indicated, proving that encouraging students to read outside of the regular classroom will

increase literacy in most cases. The value of small group instruction also became obvious to me as

student #1 was a member of my class during the school year but could not perform up to grade level

requirements and was retained, and yet she did astonishingly well in this small group setting. As the

regular school year has begun, and she is back learning in a regular classroom with a large group, she is

once again having some difficulty keeping up with her peers.

Another key finding was that parental involvement and support at home is imperative for

student reading growth. Those students who continually read each night with an adult and practiced

sight words showed more improvement in reading skills than those who did not. Although, it appeared

that those students who had limited language support at home struggled more with their reading, that

fact could not be definitely proven, because the cultural background of all students was not made

apparent in some cases. Although the sampling of students in the tested class had good attendance so

a difference in reading ability could not be tracked to that outlier; it was noted in the teacher surveys

that some instructors found that inconsistent attendance detracted from learning. The last factor

which was noted in the study class, which either contributed to or weakened reading growth, was

student behavior and motivation. After analyzing the data and comparing it with teacher observation of

behavior patterns, it was apparent that those students who were engaged and eager to learn performed

superior to those who seemed unmotivated. Those students who came ready to learn and participate

excelled in classroom activities; however, those who were ‘forced’ to attend became behavior problems,

sometimes disrupting the instructional time of the other students. Additionally, those students who

appeared unfocused and had difficulty concentrating did not show as much improvement as was

indicated by the testing; however they showed improvement on a one-to-one basis with individualized

attention.

The conclusions of this study coupled with the findings by other researchers discussed in many

of the articles in the literature review proves the importance of additional instruction for struggling

readers outside of the regular classroom in order to increase reading achievement for all readers.

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