Learning to Follow Instructions When Writing

School: St Anne’s

Year Level: Years 2 – 6

Teacher: Jillian Porter & Peggy Bruce

Focus area:

Participating and Contributing: To investigate ways to improve student capability to participate and contribute including Intrapersonal Skill -Independently follow Instructions to Complete Writing Tasks:

• Listen to the instructions given
• Be able to repeat instructions
• Remain seated at desk/table/mat
• Work independently on the required task
• Complete the writing task

Research Questions:

Question 1. Implementation: What Strategies are needed to support children to follow instructions and complete the task given?

Question 2. Engagement: Are the children able to follow instructions and complete the task given at the beginning of the project?

Question 3. Knowledge: What impact does this have on their knowledge? What changes in knowledge have occurred as a result of the strategies used to support children to independently follow instructions and complete set writing tasks?

Success Criteria for Knowledge

Recounts – Year 2/3 (Both Observations) Year 5/6 (Final Observation):

Expert: Selects thoughts feelings and ideas that are personally meaningful in relation to an experience, beginning to add some detail and comments, as well as sequencing most ideas logically, linking events to indicate the passage of time
Practitioner: Selects thoughts feelings and ideas that are personally meaningful in relation to an experience. Demonstrates the use of some detail, and sequencing
Apprentice: Forms ideas about an experience and expresses these using mainly simple sentences and some compound sentences
Novice: Forms ideas and attempts to express these using simple sentences

Question 4. Competency: What changes have occurred in the children’s ability to independently follow instructions and complete set writing tasks?

Success Criteria for Competency:

Expert: I know what I need to do in order to complete a writing task, and am able to change what I do in order to improve my writing
Practitioner: : I know what will help me to complete a writing task, and am able to use this to help me finish the writing task
Apprentice: I can describe what I need to do in order to complete a writing task and can tell someone else what is expected
Novice: I am able to follow the criteria given in order to complete a writing task

Learning Story:

General Background: For this action research project we decided to work together as we both wanted to focus on ‘Participating and Contributing’, and link this within a writing context, as writing is our school wide focus for Professional Development.

Our reasoning behind the choice of ‘Participating and Contributing’ relates to a school wide concern that our children find managing themselves difficult in a general sense, and this has an enormous effect on their ability to ‘Participate and Contribute’ in their learning across all areas of school life.

Choice of Children: We chose three children from Year 2/3 and three from Year 5/6 who were of concern, to be our focus children for the project. The small number of children chosen was due to the short period of time in which to carry out this piece of research.

There were different reasons for the choice of ‘focus’ children within the two levels.

Year 2/3:

• Children in this age group ‘generally’ are learning about how to participate and contribute within the classroom setting.
  
• The specific children were finding this more difficult than their peers

Year 5/6:

• Concerns about children who were seen as fitting within the ‘tail end’ and what kinds of support we need to provide them in order for their learning to move forward
• The types of behaviour which they display; specifically - avoidance behaviour which each child is and has been exhibiting
• The belief that we need to be more explicit when working with these particular children in order to support their learning.

Background on the Children Chosen in Year 2/3:

• Two are year 3, age 7 years (Samoan, Assyrian)
  
• One is year 2, age 6 years (Samoan)


• Two year 2 children are both ex Reading Recovery children


• The other child has difficulty articulating and has various illnesses which have kept him home extensively last year
  
• All three children have difficulty concentrating, understanding and following instructions and consequently do not finish allocated tasks


• Reading and writing is at approximately 1-2 years behind their peers for all three children
  
• Orally all three children have difficulty articulating themselves, do not understand tenses, pronouns etc., and cannot repeat or follow a simple instruction without it made explicit.

Background on the Children Chosen in Year 5/6:

• Two children are Year 5, age 8.10 and 8.11 (African, Samoan)


• One child is Year 6, age 9.09 (African)


• One child (Year 5) has had Reading Recovery
  
• All three children have English as their Second Language
  
• In reading and writing the children are working between 2 -4 years behind their peers


• All three children display avoidance behaviour in all aspects of their learning
  
• Orally the children have difficulty articulating themselves and find it particularly difficult to listen to, repeat and follow instructions and require additional support in all situations

The Goals and Expectations for this Research Project: The goals and expectations were focused around investigating ways to improve student capability to participate and contribute within the context of writing.

The main goal was to support the children with their ability to:
Independently follow instructions to complete writing tasks under the following criteria:

• Listen to the instructions given
  
• Be able to repeat instructions
  
• Remain seated at desk/table/mat while engaging in the writing task
  
• Work independently on the required task
  
• Complete the writing task

The expectation was that there would be a shift in their ability to do this for themselves following specific support structures.

The Programme: The Year 2/3 programme involved the classroom teacher working with the three children during writing time.

The Year 5/6 programme varied slightly from the Year 2/3 programme in its delivery. The children worked with two teachers for the duration of the programme. One teacher introduced the activities to a small group of children (of which the three target children were a part) prior to the writing session each day. The same activity was then repeated within the classroom setting at the beginning of writing time by the classroom teacher. This included the whole class.

The logic behind this variation was to investigate whether the use of double doses would support the children in their ability to understand what was expected of them at writing time, and to provide them with further opportunities to practice those expectations.

Programme Outline:

Week 5 – Monday 2nd March
Initial Brainstorm – What do we do to manage ourselves during writing time?

Week 5: Tuesday 3rd March
Introduce the knowledge criteria:

1. Listen to the instructions given
   
2. Be able to repeat instructions
   
3. Complete the writing task
   
4. Remain seated at desk/table/mat while engaging in the writing task


5. Work independently on the writing task

Focus on specific criteria for each writing session beginning with no.1

Week 5: Wednesday 4th & Thursday 5th March
Criteria 1: Listen to the instruction given using the following process:

1. Discussion – introduce the specific criteria
   
2. Chinese Whispers


3. Play act – listening to instructions


4. Verbal word play – introduce Acrostic Poem

L - Look
I - I face the person speaking
S - Sit still
T - Take notice of what is being said
E - Expect to understand what is being asked
N - Need to ask questions when I am unsure

Week 5: Friday 7th March & Week 6: Monday 9th March
Criteria 2: Be able to repeat instructions

1. Revisit previous criteria (1)


2. Discussion – introduce criteria 2
   
3. Play act – give instructions or phrases for children to repeat


4. Play follow the leader – take turns giving instructions
   
5. Play Simon says

Week 6: Tuesday 10th & Wednesday 11th March:
Criteria 3: Remain seated at the desk/table/ mat while engaging in the writing task Revisit previous criteria (1 – 3)

1. Discussion – introduce criteria 4


2. Play act – give scenario’s for children to act out
   
3. Problem solving – What will I do if…..
   E.g. my pencil breaks; something is bothering me; something else is happening in the classroom; I don’t know what to do; if someone else tells me to do something etc

Week 6: Thursday 12th & Friday 13th March:
Criteria 4: Work independently on the required task

1. Revisit previous criteria (1 -4)


2. Discussion – introduce criteria 5
   
3. Problem solving – What will I do if…. I don’t know what to do


4. I know that I can complete the task because …… I will ask myself “What are the steps I need to take?” (Criteria 1 – 4) …. And if I am unsure I will ask the teacher to explain the writing task again

Observations: Observations took place over a period of three days at the beginning and the end of the project. Each observation lasted for 20 minutes during the writing session and was broken into two sections.

• Ten minutes during modeling time


• Ten minutes during independent writing

Following each observation a photocopy was taken of the children’s writing after ten minutes.



Following the observations the data was transferred onto excel for analysis.




Results:
Outcome 1. Knowledge:

Number of students who were ...

8. Proficient experts - at start [0]; at end [0]
7. Beginning experts - at start [0]; at end [0]
6. Proficient practitioners - at start [0]; at end [0]
5. Beginning practitioners - at start [0]; at end [1]
4. Proficient apprentices - at start [0]; at end [1]
3. Beginning apprentices - at start [3]; at end [1]
2. Proficient novices - at start [3]; at end [3]
1. Beginning novices - at start [0]; at end [0]

Knowledge effect size = 0.25
Standard error = 0.17

Outcome 2. Competency:

Number of students who were ...

8. Proficient experts - at start [0]; at end [0]
7. Beginning experts - at start [0]; at end [0]
6. Proficient practitioners - at start [0]; at end [0]
5. Beginning practitioners - at start [0]; at end [1]
4. Proficient apprentices - at start [0]; at end [1]
3. Beginning apprentices - at start [3]; at end [2]
2. Proficient novices - at start [2]; at end [2]
1. Beginning novices - at start [1]; at end [0]

Competency effect size = 0.42
Standard error = 0.15

Conclusions:

Question 1 -Implementation: The question we asked was: ‘What Strategies are needed to support children to follow instructions and complete the task given?’

We established that the strategies needed to be clear and very explicit in order for the children to gain a greater understanding of what the instructions were in order to complete the task given.

The programme was structured in order that the learning was delivered in small and manageable chunks. The criterion was delivered so that the children were able to build up their knowledge in relation to one aspect at a time. This then was linked together again at the end of the programme.

Question 2 - Engagement: The question we asked was: Are the children able to follow instructions and complete the task given at the beginning of the project?
The initial observations showed that:

Competency – Modeling:

• One child was a beginning novice (Year 5)
  
• Two children were proficient novices (Year 6, Year 2)


• Three children were beginning apprentices (Year 5, Year 3 x 2)

Knowledge – Independent Writing:

• Three children were proficient novices (Year 6, Year 5, Year 2)


• Three children were beginning apprentices (Year 5, Year 3 x 2)

The classroom teachers found that as they observed the children it became more and more apparent as to the extent to which they avoided participating within the writing programme. This was seen in both the modeling session as well as the independent writing session. The ways in which the children avoided participating varied from overt avoidance to very subtle ways which were not obviously seen.

In discussion it was agreed that all teachers felt that the children were not avoiding the work on purpose, but rather that the children had developed strategies to deal with continually not understanding what was expected of them. The result was a strategy of - continued avoidance of work.

Question 3 - Competency (Modeling): The question we asked was: What changes have occurred in the children’s ability to independently follow instructions and complete set writing tasks?

The results show that changes did occur in the two groups in both modeling (competency) and independent writing (knowledge). These changes are relatively small, however given the time frame it is evident that the programme did support the children to participate and contribute to a greater extent.



In order to have a greater effect it would beneficial to give more time to the implementation of the programme in order to greater support the children’s ability to participate and contribute during writing. In doing this we would need to further develop the activities within the programme, as this would allow for more opportunities for the children to practice and consolidate their learning.

Final Conclusions:

The results indicate that the strategies used within the programme were useful and allowed the children to build their knowledge. However, it became apparent that the project would need to be extended in order for greater gains to occur, and for the children to consolidate their knowledge and understanding.

Overall the children showed increased confidence in their ability to talk about what they were doing and in their attempts to write independently for themselves. There also was a shift in their enjoyment when writing and when talking with their peers, or if asking for assistance. This would indicate that their engagement is definitely greater when they fully understand the task given them.

Next Steps:

• Continue the action research project in Terms 2 - 4 in order to consolidate the children’s knowledge and extend their learning with regard to participating and contributing.
  
• Introduce the action research project as a whole school focus with all classroom teachers participating. The project will continue to focus on three target children; however the whole class will participate in the programme. This project will run for the duration of Term 2 – 4.
  
• Following this the aim will be to deepen the children’s competency and knowledge in relation to the writing process. This will link into our Professional Development in Writing. This project will begin in Term One of 2010.