Teachers gather data at seemingly insane rates throughout the school year. During the time that I spend as an intern leading the class in Read-Alouds, my CT is using class time and circumstances efficiently by calling back students one by one to take progress monitoring literacy assessments. We talk about their performances afterwards. (#FEAP5c) Of these include letter-sound relationships, word recognition, and Words Their Way primary spelling inventories (Bear, 2000). A couple of W.T.W. (Words Their Way) feature guide scores are displayed below (names blocked for FERPA purposes)(#FEAP6), which are only individual points of data for this cross-analysis chart my CT made. All students' scores are displayed nice and neatly on a chart for cross analysis and forming small groups. The chart even has their W.T.W. stage of needed instruction. I have also taken informal, observational notes on all of my students and have found that a select few seem to be willing to do work, just need to be reminded what they are doing because of all of the events and distractions going on in the room at one time. This is first grade, and there are so many instances where a student will become the center-of-attention for the whole class, no matter how short/long the time. Some students grump and pout at challenging material (short), while others seem to throw tantrums at the slightest sign of self-viewed inadequacy (long). All students are well behaved when provided with low-challenging work, however, its when their minds must move is when the attention and behavior problems begin to occur. (#FEAP3j) I don't know if it has to do with the way we are instructing the material, or if there are any ways to reduce distractions in the room for these students. My CT and I have weighed in on the decision to chase after a wondering centered around the students who need extra guidance and reminders to perform the classwork that has been assigned at the current moment. These are genuinely smart and wonderful children, its just that somewhere in their brain they take a mini-vacation more times than aught and find themselves behind during the day. My initial wondering is as follows, "How can I foster intrinsic motivation for learning and increase time-on-task for students who seem to lag on assigned work in the classroom?" (#FEAP5a) (Internship)
References
Bear, D. (2000). Words their way: Word study for phonics, vocabulary, and spelling instruction (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Merrill.