HELPS and Houghton Mifflin Group Progress

HELPS:

I am very excited to begin by saying that All-Star Elementary (A pseudonym for my school) has just received training on the HELPS Program. We were able to watch a video of Begeny, the creator of the HELPS Program, implementing the program with a child. We were also able to look though all of the HELPS materials and discuss what results we were seeing with this program in the classroom. This group has been responding well to the HELPS Program. With this being said, I have only worked with this group two times thus far. I was supposed to work with them Monday and today, but snow days are not allowing for that to happen. I am going to have to find time to make up these two sessions. I was able to put the data I have collected into a table in order to see the progress made from session 1 (1/27) to session 2 (1/29). All names are pseudonyms. The running record in this group is somewhat challenging due to time constraints. Ideally, I need to listen to each participant read the passage three times each. I have found the time to do this on the two days working with this group. I know that this will not always be the case. The chart reflects the students’ scores during the third reading of the passage.  

HELPS Students Names	1/27/2014	1/29/2014
H L	29/3	35/4
H K	28/6	43/4
H A	50/1	52/1
H G	90/0	88/0
H B	84/0	104/0
H Jo	83/0	92/0
H Ja	72/0	58/1
Scores reflect WCPM/errors. Scores reflect the students third time reading the passage.

As you can see, progress has been made. Two students did not show gains with WCPM from session 1 to session 2. Gains were also made within the first reading of a passage to the third reading of a passage. This data is not shown in the chart but below you can see a student’s progress from the first reading to the third reading of a passage. I like that the HELPS contains a comprehension component that the repeated reading does not. It seems that the students are able to make less mistakes when they have an idea of what they are reading about. 

 

This student read 70 WCPM the first time reading, 73 WCPM the second time reading and 88 WCPM the third time reading the passage. This student shows improvement within each reading. Remember, after the first reading, we discuss difficult words, comprehension of the story, and the students fill in the blanks while I read the story. All of these are components that is not a part of the repeated reading group. It is also important to note that the student had 0 errors on the third reading of the passage. 

Houghton Mifflin Group:

I have only worked with this group once. The students seemed to enjoy the first session. We read the decodable reader story, "Mike's Bike" several times before beginning the activity. I had them silently read, read with me as a group, and fill in the blanks as I read the story. In doing this, the students were exposed to the text in several different ways. The center activity that went along with the reading series involved them writing about what they had read. Below you can see what two different students wrote about the story. 

 

Hopefully we will have school tomorrow so the research can continue! Stay warm!