Emily's Inquiry 3 Rough Draft

                                                Finding Faith with Fidelity

            It was a red-hot July day when I first stepped into my first grade classroom. While exploring the colorful room I discovered a book that I had been dreading to encounter, Reading Street. Reading Street is an all inclusive fully scripted literacy program for pre-k through sixth grade. My reason for dreading was encountering Reading Street was simple, I didn’t believe that a one size fits all program could never actually work for all students. In the book Strategies That Work Harvey and Goudvis it is stated, “One size does not fit all. Responsive teaching is intentional, flexible, and adaptive. We have an instructional plan in mind, but we know that kids differ, so we plan instruction that responds to individual needs and interest. We design our instruction to support students with varying reading proficiencies, learning styles, and language backgrounds.” From what I had heard Reading Street left no room for flexibility and adaptation.

Before long August came along and I was sitting in my first official staff meeting. When the topic of Reading Street arose I kept hearing the words “with fidelity” over and over. At first I wasn’t sure what exactly what was meant by phrase “with at most fidelity as possible” however, my mentor teacher quickly walked me through the idea. She stated. “It means that we have to teach all parts of the book, exactly how the book says to teach them.” At first I was a little shocked by this idea as well as concerned. My shock came from that throughout all my time in the Michigan State University teacher education program I had been taught that a teacher needs to embrace a curriculum and make it his or her own, not simply follow it.

My shock turned to fear once September came and I had twenty-one six year olds sitting in my classroom. My students were all so different, socially and as learners. In literacy alone my students fit into seven different leveled categories, low strategic intervention, high strategic intervention, low on level, medium on level, high on level, low advanced, and advanced. In this moment I thought that there was no way that a one size fits all program such as Reading Street could ever meet the needs of all my students, regardless of it having leveled small groups daily.

            Before long cooler weather had set in and it already was October. It was time for me to start planning my Literacy Unit.  In my professional development literacy classes we had spent a great deal time talking about pushing back, hybridizing, or finessing the curriculum to meet the needs of the learners in our classrooms. I quickly started to brainstorm activities and methods to help meet the needs for all my learners. However, when I shared my ideas with my mentor teacher she praised my ideas but told me that there simply isn’t time in the day to do those things and that doesn’t follow the path of fidelity that the school has set forth. I was going simply have to follow Reading Street and somehow I was going to have to make it meet the needs of all my learners. From that moment I began my quest to find faith within fidelity.

            Throughout my unit I stayed strongly on the path of fidelity with a couple of minor tweaks. These tweaks were made in specifically for my lower achieving students, by meetings with them before each lesson that contained a story. I would read them the selection in morning that they would hear within the lesson that afternoon. Due to time constraints I only did this with my low strategic intervention and high strategic intervention students. Also I made and implemented a strategic seating chart to help support my students’ needs. My lower achieving students would be placed near me, the teacher and close to the board. My on-level and advanced students would be intermixed together to support one another. The on-level and advanced surrounded the lower achieving students from behind to act as a support. However, the on-level and advanced students weren’t in the vision of the lower achieving students so they wouldn’t feel the pressure of other students knowing answers before them. Otherwise I followed Reading Street with complete fidelity.

            Before I knew it the day had come, it was time to begin my guided lead teaching. Within my first few days of teaching I was really unsure about my students learning. Some students just flew through worksheets with little challenge while others struggled greatly. My advanced students interacted in group discussion with ease while my lower achieving students still continued struggled to contribute. However, by the middle of the first week my lower achieving students began to contribute more and more. They began to complete worksheets independently with ease. By the end of the week for the most part, they had reached the same level of mastery as my on-level to advanced students. This patterned continued onto the next week. To my astonishment Reading Street, taught with fidelity was able to reach and provide growth for all of my students.

            While Reading Street is able to foster learning growth for all of my students I must admit it is still not the end all answer. Reading Street, taught with fidelity was able to bring all students to somewhat level playing field after instruction. Having students on the same level of learning is of course is a huge goal in education however it simply isn’t enough. Our goal as educators shouldn’t be to “catch up” our lower achieving students to our high achieving. It should be to foster a high amount of growth in all students. We as teachers need to take programs such as Reading Street and finesse them to challenge all students equally. We need to realize that these programs do work however we can make them even more effective and meaning through differentiation.

Resources:

Harvey, S., & Goudvis, A. (2007). Strategies that work: Teaching comprehension to enhance understanding (2nd ed.). York, Me: Stenhouse Publishers. Pg. 36

Routman, R. (2005). Writing essentials: Raising expectations and results while simplifying teaching. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Pg. 261