Inquiry Update

I have been slowly, but surely, increasing the amount of active student engagement in D.I. for a little over a week now. I had been noticing that the more recently learned sounds were getting confused by the students, so they have now been learning new sounds with the help of wikisticks (bendable, stickable wax sticks). The sticks have really helped the students feel the shape of each sound and to concentrate a few more minutes on the sound, rather than me just telling them what it is and them repeating it back to me. This has been very effective as the students are more firm with the new sounds, and it has also added an edge of excitement. Before, when I would announce that we had a new sound, the students would groan because they felt that that meant we would be reading harder words. Now, they get excited and ask me when we are going to learn another sound!

I have also changed up the protocol a little bit in D.I. and have strayed from the script. The students are very bored of me holding the book, pointing to a sound and them saying it. So...to continue firming up sounds and help the students to identify the connection between sounds and writing, I have been taking about 10 minutes per class to use white boards. Each student has a white board and I call out a sound and the students write it. They then hold it up for me to check for understanding. The students get excited about the "new" manipulative and I let them play teacher by saying "I completely forgot what /th/ looks like. Can any of you remind me?" The students love to correct me!

My entire goal for adding more active student engagement to my D.I. lessons was to increase excitement in reading, establish a hands on connection between saying sounds and writing words, and to teach each sound and lesson to mastery. Based on weekly assessment scores and student attention, I feel that this is being accomplished. To continue this pace, I intend to add more active engagement activities that accomplish these goals.