Action Reseach Progress

My action research project got off to a rough start.  I would ask teachers for vocabulary lists that they would be using for the week and it was like pulling teeth to get those list delivered.  For the older grade levels I would ask the students for their list and would simply have my assistant copy them down for me.  At first I was not allowed access to the School City, the program that the teachers use to monitor student progress. This made it difficult for me to do my performance comparisons.   Once that was cleared up I was able to see where the students were in academic terms. Some teachers have reported that they have seen an increase in the student’s use of the vocabulary terms since I began using and creating activities using those words. One example that comes to mind was a student asking his teacher for permission to get hydrated because she was thirsty.  My campus testing strategist has been very helpful and supportive of my project as has been the campus administrators. They have been very impressed with the activities that I have created such as “Basketball Spelling” and “Vocab Relay”. With my campuses AYP status anything that looks like it might bring up our students test scores is welcome. The students themselves have been very good and actually like the activities. I was hoping to be done with my project at the end of this year but I may have to extend the time frame to the first and second six weeks of the 2013-2014 school year.  While not originally planned for it will allow me to get a better comparison of how my project has affected the student’s performance.