Rationale

Rationale Statement:

The overall attendance at the school where I taught is 443 students. I had 22 students in my second grade classroom. Eleven were girls and eleven were boys. The majority of the students lived in the area where my school was located. There were no English Language Learners in the classroom or the school; over 15% of the school qualified for free or reduced meals.

My students showed gaps in their fluency skills, which is why a new strategy for phonics was needed. I had four students reading below grade level, six students were reading at the second grade level, and twelve students were reading above the second grade level. A benchmark for fluency showed that eleven of my students were reading under the goal of 100 words per minute on the AIMSweb Assessment for fluency. Seven of my students scored below the national average on the MAP (Measures of Academic Progress) assessment test. My students showed frustration when reading and sounding out words. This was evident when students were reading independently. Students were off task, showing avoidance behaviors, lack of motivation and pretending to read.

Fluency was an area of need in my classroom. My students were struggling with decoding words and lacked motivation during reading instruction and when reading independently. Focusing on implementing decoding strategies in small reading groups would allow students to enhance their skills in accuracy, reading comprehension, and fluency. Developing a growth mindset in my students during reading instruction would allow students to become engaged in small reading groups and when reading independently. Having a growth mindset would create self-efficacy; the belief in one’s ability to grow, learn and succeed.