Week Two

This week I have continued working on locating research for my literature review. I found three articles that have real potential. The first article deals with a research project relating to timing students while they were exposed to flash cards with sight words and phrases. The students were asked to read these words aloud. Group one was not told that they were being timed. Group two was told that they had to read the words and phrases in three minutes. The results demonstrated in this project that explicit timing increased accurate response rates. The article demonstrates the process to use while using this with students. The second article deals with the Accelerated Reading Program and the effects it has had on the student’s ability to be successful on tests based on the amount of books read and tests taken by students. This report deals with fourth grade students, but the article did have some useful information. The third article that I discovered dealt with the effects of high-stakes testing on students and methods one teacher used to teach reading using good teaching techniques while still trying to meet student’s needs. I need to find out how to access this article beyond the abstract because it is only available in the library. I read one other article that was not at a peer review level, but it did have some interesting methods to use technology to teach elementary students. I am going to see about incorporating some of these into my project.

I finished the first half of my video with the students. I then spent one day learning how to use the DVD editing program. I was frustrated in the beginning just trying to save the video on my computer. I have done it in the past, but not in the editing portion. I then read the help section several times and began using the editing program. I worked for two days editing the first portion and managed to get a 29.35 DVD out of it. I learned how to use the tools in the program, but I also discovered some ways to get a better quality of resources into the DVD. I have really enjoyed experimenting with different things in this project. It is helping me get a really clear picture of the actual project that I will begin during the state testing time to use as my prototype for the final project.

I am really quite happy with the DVD so far. I will be showing it to the students tomorrow to hopefully inspire their acting in the second part of the DVD.