BLOG+Reflections

__**BLOG Reflections**__ __**Initial Reflection:**__ I am excited to start the project. I have all of the PowerPoint slides set up, and I think it will work well to rotate the slides each day of the week, so that the students do not get too familiar with the phrases on each slide. They students really love the chance to work with anything involving technology, so I am asuming that they will enjoy the project! **__January 24-28:__** The students have really gotten the hang of reading the PowerPoints. They excitedly wait for their turn. When they are done saying all of the phrases in the PowerPoint, they are really excited to see how they did. Although it is going well with the students, I don't feel that the project is just right. After conversing with my co-teacher, I have decided to revamp the project. Instead of just using random phrases that are just common phrases, I am going to use phrases from our fluency passages that we do each week. Each week, I will type the fluency passages into my pre-made, timed, fluency phrases.
 * The first day of the week, the students will read the fluency passage to me at the beginning of the week, and I will note the number of errors.
 * The second day of the week, the students will do the same passage in the fluency phrases PowerPoint, at a timing of 2 seconds between slides. I will keep data in an excel spreadsheet, and help the students on phrases that the students struggled on. When they have finished the phrases PowerPoint, I will go over the errors with them and discuss the meanings of missed words, so that when reading their fluency will be more smooth.
 * The third day of the week, the students will do the same fluency phrases PowerPoint, at a timing of 1.5 seconds between slides. I will make notes of errors and discuss them with the students again at the end of the phrases activity.
 * The fourth day of the week, the students will again do the same fluency phrases PowerPoint, at a timing of 1 second between slides. I will make notes and discuss their erros with them after the phrases activity.
 * The fifth day of the week, the students will read their fluency passage to me, and I will make a note of the nubmer of erros. Then the students will be able to see how they have improved.

__**January 31-February 10:**__ Wow! The students have really improved in their fluency on the passages from the beginning to the end of the week! They have been loving doing this and seeing their progress. I have had to extend this to work over the course of two weeks because we had several snow days that were not anticipated. This has helped though because the project is hard to get done in the amount of time that I have with the students. I take the students for a half hour a day, but by the time the students get in and I give them instructions for the other activities going on in the room and give each of their students their individual time for the project, it is time to go! It is a little more time consuming than I realized it would be in the beginning.

__**February 14-18:**__ This project has become very time consuming, as I mentioned in my last reflection. I am going to have to start combining the project to cover two weeks because I am not able to get all of the students done each day and still keep up on the other things going on within the classroom. When the students have questions, it takes me away from implementing the project. I will only be able to get 2-3 students done each class period.

__**February 22-March 4:**__ I was able to finish up last week's passages in these 2 week's. I was not able to do any of the project the second week of this time period because I had to do ACCESS testing with our ELL students. The students have been a little dissappointed that they do not get to participate in the project every day. They really like the opportunity to show me what they can do!

__**March 7-11:**__ This week is continuing to go well. I don't have anything to change about the project. It is very repetitive at this point, so I do not have much to reflect on! The kids are really getting great at saying the phrases. I even feel like the 2 second timing is not necessary for some of them. However, there are a few of the students that still need to do the 2 second timing. Although this is the case, I will kee the 2 second timing as as to kee the project the same for all students participating.

__**March 14-18:**__ I love this project. The students made improvements in their reading fluency and really enjoyed using the technology.


 * __Final Reflection:__** If I were to do this project again, I would choose to have the students do this more independently on laptops. I may not be able to provide the amount of support with correcting or coaching the students on their errors, but I think I will still see improvements in reading fluency while avoiding the time consuming nature of the way I was implementing the project. I think it would have also been able to see more gains because the students would be exposed to the fluency phrases a greater number of times.