Action Plan

The students were given a letter card. On the letter card was an uppercase letter with three choices for lowercase letters. Students were instructed to circle the lowercase match. The students also had a chance to trace the letters as well.

Various letters were put in front of students. The teacher called out a letter and the student was instructed to swat that letter with the fly swatter. For students who were working on letter names and sounds (students A and C), the teacher made the letter sound and instructed the students to hit the letter they thought correspondend.

External Stakeholders

i dont know if i should include since i feel like i addressed it above.

My capstone took place from January 19th to March 11th. Over the 8 weeks, children had opportunities to engage with the 26 letters (both capital and lowercase, sound and written forms of letters) during center time activities. A pretest was given on January 18th, a midcheck was be given on February 18th and a posttest was given on March 11th to track alphabetic knowledge growth and help me see how my students are progressing in their abilities to recognize letters and sounds.

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What was implemented:

The use of multi-sensory learning methods was implemented during center time activities to help increase students’ alphabetic knowledge. Multi-sensory learning includes the use of visual, auditory, tactile and kinesthetic learning methods. All children who participated in my study had the chance to see, hear and interact with various alphabet activities, such as: creating letters out of playdough, finding the uppercase to lowercase match, looking for letters in books, listen to alphabet songs, as well as many other hands on learning activities. Throughout this project, I was focused on how many letters/sounds were identified, the level of support each student needed and how long the students were engaged in each activity.

A closer look at a few of the activities implemented:

Kick the Letter

The letters chosen for the week were written on the front of paper cups. When the teacher called out a letter/ letter sound, the student was told to find the correct letter by knocking it down with a ball. Students who participated together practiced by calling out letters for their peers.

Letter Swat

Uppercase to Lowercase Match

Find the Letter in a Book

Students were given the letters of the week and magnifying glasses and were told to use the magnifying glasses to look for the letters in the book. When the student found the letter, they put the magnifying glass over the letter to show the teacher.

Why was this implemented:

I chose to use multi-sensory learning strategies because multi-sensory instruction is an effective hands-on learning approach that has been proven to help increase the acquisition of literacy skills (Lozy et al., 2020). Multi-sensory learning is also an unique technique as it uses a person's senses to help them learn. Instead of using just one sense, multi-sensory learning allows for the senses to be used in combination with each other. Incorporating the senses in combination with one another is truly effective in helping children learn and store their knowledge in their long term memory. All individuals learn differently, so incorporating visual, auditory, tactile and kinesthetic instruction can help tailor the learning to the way a student learns best. When the learning is tailored to the way the student learns best, students are able to be active participants in their learning. Multi-sensory instruction also makes the process of learning more lively which can help make it more meaningful and engaging, which can push students to learn more.

The population who engaged in the multi-sensory learning strategies are preschool students who needed more direct, individualized instruction. These students in particular, learn best by having repeated exposure to the content being taught. When the content is taught multiple times, as well as it being fun, engaging, and hands on, my students are more willing to engage in the task, which enables them to learn more efficiently. I believe multi-sensory learning methods are effective for my students as it allows them to engage with their alphabet knowledge in various ways, truly allowing them to have fun while they learn.

When was it implemented

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How Diverse Learning Styles Were Addressed:

Multi-sensory learning allows for all learning styles to be addressed. All students learn differently and may need content delivered in a way differently from another child. To ensure all learning styles were met, children had a chance to see, hear, touch and do activities with the letters of the alphabet. This helped tailor learning to the child, helping them to understand alphabetic knowledge in the way they learn best.

To ensure all students were successful, different aspects of alphabetic knowledge was focused on.

Data from the pretest help me set goals for how many letters and sounds I wanted my students to learn. The goals are all different and were carefully considered based on the students prior knowledge and how much progress I thought they could make. Differentiation is an important skill for teachers to utilize as it ensures all students are given equal opportunities to access academic content.

Student Goals:

Student A's goal is to learn at least 11 uppercase letters, 4 lowercase letters, and 2 letter sounds.
Student B's goal is to learn at least 3 uppercase letters, specifically the letters in his name.
Student C's goal is to learn at least 16 uppercase letters, 12 lowercase letters and 10 letter sounds.
Student D's goals are to learn at least 3 letters, specifically the letters in his name

Culturally Responsive Teaching

To ensure my study fostered equity, all students had access to the same alphabet activities, however, different levels of support was provided to the students to help them be successful. For example, in the build a letter activity, one student needed the letter written on a piece of paper to use as a guide when forming the letter. Another student needed the teacher to model how to build the letter first, before trying themselves. Another student was able to look at the letter and then was able to form it independently without any support. Throughout all the activities, I was nearby my students and ready to provide support to help ensure they received a fair share in their learning. All students were supported, but in different ways, to ensure they were still challenged, but able to complete the activity successfully.

I worked with all students in the classroom to provide an equitable learning environment by allowing all students. regardless if they were participating in my study or not,, to participate in the alphabet lessons. All students had access to the alphabet activities and no student was excluded. This helped ensure that all students had a chance to interact with the alphabet activities implemented and allowed them to gain a stronger alphabetic knowledge alongside the peers who were chosen to participate in the study. Students who are already well versed in their alphabet knowledge served as models for the students who are included in this study helping their peers to learn at a faster and more enjoyable rate.

I also included multiple perspectives by creating various alphabet activities. Some of my students learn best through doing, so various activities will include kinesthetic learning methods such as writing the letters with paint. Other students learn best by hearing so Jack Hartmann's letter songs were sung. Throughout my study, I asked my students what their favorite activities were to ensure that the activities were high interest activities that the students would want to participate in. All students' learning styles were included which helped students be more successful in the activity and helped them learn the letters of the alphabet better.

COLLABORATION:

Internal Stakeholders

External Stakeholders

I collaborated with multiple internal stakeholders, which include my grade-level teammates, principal, coworkers and mentor throughout the course of my action plan to ensure my study would be effective. First off, I collaborated with my grade-level teammates to ensure that alphabetic knowledge was a worthy skill of being addressed. My kindergarten coworker stated that children who have a strong grasp of the alphabet in preschool are better able to succeed in kindergarten, giving me the reassurance that alphabet knowledge is important. I also collaborated with my principal to ensure that I followed our district's research policy protocols. All of my internal stakeholders are big factors in helping me put together and implement my capstone project.

Not only was I lucky to have internal stakeholders who have helped support my study, but I was also lucky enough to have external stakeholders who have helped me in this journey as well. One external stakeholder was my associate. My associate supported me by helping me come up with alphabet activities and giving me advice on how I could best implement them during my center time routine. My associate also supported me by helping me find data collection methods that would best align with my young students. My cohort supported me by giving me feedback on my research and ideas for how to take data. My college professors were a huge help in supporting my study by helping me come up with an action plan, a purpose statement and in helping me to understand the importance of my study.