Data Analysis Assignment

Improving Reading Skills in The Third Grade to Improve Performance

EDU 708: Research Design in Education

Nova Southeastern University

March 13, 2021

Topic Description

Community

The community in which the proposed action research project will take place is located in northwestern Mississippi. The community is in a suburban environment in which the population keeps on changing due to high population of people coming to suburban areas. Employment opportunities in the area include agriculture, health care, retail trade, and the largest is educational services. Majority of the residents in the community work in the many industries in the area which sustains their living conditions. The population of the community is 378. The median income of the residents in the community is $30,511. The ethnic distribution consists of 285 African American, 71 White and 22 Hispanic.

School

The district in which the proposed project will occur consists of one high school, one middle school and two elementary schools. The target school will be an Elementary school. The school serves Grades K through 6. The student enrollment is 274, of that enrollment there is 269 African American, one White and four Hispanic.

The target school has one principal, one lead teacher, 15 full time certified teachers, four teacher assistants, one librarian, one gifted teacher, one art teacher, two custodians, one counselor, and one nurse. All 28 classrooms are equipped with 5 computers that are internet accessible. Each classroom has a promethean board, whiteboard, and a television VCR/DVD combination.

Literacy has been explained as the knowledge and skills that are significant learning to read, write, speak, phonological awareness, and listen. Reading has been specifically identified as interrelated skills vital in comprehending different texts meaning. The English Language Arts can in general be set to refer to effective communication and the skills necessary for comprehension (Lotherington, 2017).

Topic

The writer examined the data for Grade 3 reading performance. The data indicated a decrease in performance. The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd benchmark assessments showed that Grade 3 students’ English Language Arts (ELA) performance tanged from 16.6% of students being proficient to 13.7% being proficient (see Table 1).

Results of Third Grade, 2020-2021, Benchmark Assessments

Source: CASE 21 Benchmark Assessment Report (Bartlett, 2021).

Therefore, the topic for this project is to improve the reading performance of Grade 3 students.

Rationale for the Topic

In order for every student to become an effective reader, the Legislature in Mississippi passed the Literacy-Based Promotion Act. This act aimed at achieving highest student outcomes through third grade public school’s students. It was enacted on July 1, 2013 (Williams, 2018). More technical amendments were made to the Literacy-Based Promotion Act during the 2016 legislative session. One major amendment made was the technical amendment which was to go into effect in the 2018-2019 year of school. Promotion of fourth-grade students was to be determined by the students’ ability to achieve a score not just above the minimum level but higher than the lowest two achievement levels in reading. This implementation guide is tasked with providing an expectations framework with an understanding towards Mississippi educators with respect to Act implementation. This guide has been recommended for use by all stakeholders as a resource for providing effective literacy instructions at the same time preventing reading failure in elementary schools especially through Grade 3.

The literacy efforts should be concentrated on preventing reading failure with an aim of all students being able to achieve grade level proficiency by the time they finalize third grade. Literacy-based Promotion Act is incorporated and organized on a particular order starting with an established act forbidding Social promotion identified as Literacy-Based Promotion. The Act was implemented in the aim of improving students reading skills in Elementary School and in Third Grade enrollment in the public schools to make sure all students completing 3rd Grade Level are able to read.

Proposed target group

The proposed target group for this action research project will be Grade 3 students. From a class of twenty-one students, the writer will select eight students. are all those pupils in grade 3 who exhibit deficiency in reading and performance as mandated by the State Education Department which will be enforced by teachers through observation. Intense reading instructions need to be applied to those pupils and interventions be applied immediately to help in identification of reading deficiency. Grade 3 students need to understand and profess literacy based on the skills knowledge taught in elementary school. (Table 2)

Research ethics

The ethical concerns in the research are to maintain the anonymity of the education center and the community at large and to ensure that all the people participating in the research are also under protection. As a researcher, guaranteeing confidentiality helps to present factual results and helps all participants to express themselves freely. Identifying the changes and challenges contributed by the legislation on grade three student by using peer-reviewed literature material helps develop a strong connection with the outcome of the research. Anonymizing your data is one way that you can assure participants of their confidentiality, which is a promise to the participant that any information they share will not be disclosed in a way that could potentially identify them (Locmiller and Lester, 2017).

References

Bartlett, D. (2021). Teachers' Use of Third Grade Reading Benchmark Assessment Data.

Lochmiller, C.R. & Lester, J.N. (2017). Introducing Qualitative Research. An Introduction to

      Educational Research Connecting Methods to Practice (p. 84). SAGE Publications, Inc.

Lotherington, H. (2017). Elementary school language and literacy education for civic engagement: An evolving playbook for postmodern times. Language and Literacy, 19(3), 4-20.

Williams, K. R. (2018). What Are the Effects of the Literacy-Based Promotion Act of 2013 on the Fourth and Fifth-Grade Students' Achievement Test Scores. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway, PO Box 1346, Ann Arbor, MI 48106.