Winding Things Down

Things have been rather quiet in the research world this week. It is a sure sign that things are slowly coming to an end. Last week I was able to finish up with my small groups. I am still missing three R-CBM scores from students that were absent last week and I plan to make up those sessions tomorrow. Sicknesses have been sweeping through my classroom and it puts a damper on collecting data. Last Thursday and Friday I had three students out each day. I will post finalized scores as soon as I get the last three entered. You may be wondering what I am planning to do with all of the R-CBM scores I have collected. I was able to take a look at the data myself to look at gains and loses within each student after each session. In order to take a better look at which program was more effective in helping students with fluency, my professor will be helping me run statistical data on the numbers. Running statistics goes beyond my knowledge so I am very grateful that she will be helping me with this part of the process.
Below is what I have left to complete before March 20th. I plan to complete these assessments ASAP and will inform you of the results.

• 2nd Whole Class R-CBM Benchmark to track whole class progress 
• STAR TEST- Given after last group session has been completed 
• Garfield Survey- Given after last group session has been completed 
• Final whole class AIMSweb passage after last group session has been completed

Now that I am finished working with small groups, I will be able to really look into reading attitudes after the Garfield Survey is taken again. This will inform me of whether or not the fluency programs had an impact on reading attitudes. If the Garfield Survey results stay about the same for the students, then I will know that the research groups did not impact their thoughts on reading. The STAR Test will also allow me to see the gains made from the beginning of the research to the end. If significant gains are made in students' reading levels, this would show effectiveness of the research groups. I am excited to finish up to see the end results. I feel like large gains have been made with how many words the students can read per minute, but I am just as interested to see if reading attitudes were affected. This has been harder for me to observe from week to week.