Language Arts Data and Analysis
The language arts lesson I choose to do a pre and posttest on was plot and theme. This lesson was completed in my small group reading center every day for 20 minutes over a two week period. After the pre-test, the students read a story over a two day period and then completed a worksheet asking what the plot and theme of the story was. All groups completed the same worksheet, however, the text corresponding to the questions were different because of the varied in the students reading level. I wanted each group to be able to read level appropriate text in order to be successful at answering questions referring to the plot and theme of the text.
Chart 3.1 shows the results from both the pre and posttest on a lesson taught complete by me on plot and theme of a text. Four of the 18 students remained the same and one student dropped by ten points which is equal to one question. I am extremely pleased with the results of this lesson even though four students remained the same score. The student Lexi, who dropped, was able to answer the question missed on the post verbally when I reworded the question, but missed the question on the test and I believe it was due to not completely understanding that plot is simply the events in a story. This lesson showed the most growth out of the four used for this assignment when it came to the class averages, as graphed in chart 3.2 on the right. As a whole, the class showed a gain of 11%, which may not seem like a huge leap, but being that almost half the class is either on an IEP or considered an ELL, they really exhibited a better understand of the lesson. I believe one factor was that this lesson was reviewed over a two week period, when most lessons are about a week long.
Although most students increased by 10%, I still had a few students who increased their results by more than that. Maryia is one student that I am extremely pleased when looking at her results on this chart. Maryia is a struggling below level reader who showed a real improvement. I believe that because I leveled the text based on the students reading ability was a major factor in her success, as well as, some of the other students who also have IEPs. Chart 3.3 below shows a separate pullout graph of students in the class who are either an ELL student or a student who currently has an IEP. The two ELL students, Michael and Matthew, remained the same, as well Joy. My two ELL students scored a 50% or less on both test, but I am still pleased with the results as they both completed the test in English. As shown below, Kendall was the student who showed the most growth compared to the other students graphed on the pullout graph in chart 3.3 and also one of the two students who increased compared to the whole class.