ADVANCE 1 – FINAL PROJECT

MASTER IN TEACHING ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

(Research / Action - Research)

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0. Study program:

Master in Teaching English as a Foreign Language

1. Personal and academic information:

Student Name: Group:

Viviana López Arcelas 2015 - 06

Email address: Date:

08 – 05 –
2017

2. Final Project Supervisor:

Claudia Álvarez

3. General instructions

1. INTRODUCTION:

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"Writing is thinking on paper. " — William Zinsser

Teaching a foreign language has been very discussed over the last years for
a wide group of researchers. These research, have resulted in a variety of methods
or instructional suggestions for teachers, in order to improve their practice, obtain
better results in their classes, improve student’s performance, and support
student’s success; to mention some. In the Unite States, the educational system
requires to have in the elementary school’s curriculum, certain practices that allow
students to improve their literacy development. One of the strategies is read aloud
everyday and the main reason is that it includes benefits for verbal linguistic
intelligence, genres, and listening comprehension, which will impact written
production. This research is just a practice developed through the conception that
learning to read and write is a complex process for elementary students because
they’re not only going to the process in one language, but in two (English and
Spanish).
The aim of this project is to show the effect that read aloud and shared
reading in the elementary classroom can improve writing in a group of twenty-four
first graders by providing tools to increase comprehension and vocabulary in
Spanish as part of a Dual Immersion program. In this paper three aspects will be
covered. First, the definition, application and relationship between read aloud and
shared reading in the elementary school as literacy elements. Second, an
explanation about how to use read aloud as preparation for independent writing
practice; providing vocabulary and comprehension to support students’ written
production. In order to explain the strategy used to carry this project out, the writing
sections with the students, will be presented according to the reading and writing
standards for the State of North Carolina and the theoretical background for read
aloud, shared reading, as well as the Foreign Language framework. Finally, the
results of the project will be analyzed checking the student’s pieces of writing
reached through the development of the project to analyze how first graders
become more productive in writing if they have a reading text as example, and to
find out what are the strengths of read aloud and shared reading in the foreign
language classroom to support writing.

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 Another essential point to develop this project in the first grade classroom,
which constitute my personal motivation to do it, is to show foreign language
teachers how reading aloud and shared reading benefits the development of skills
like writing and comprehension.

2. JUSTIFYING ACADEMIC AND PERSONAL INTEREST OF THE TOPIC:

Neuman, Copple, & Bredekamp (2000) argued that “learning to read and write is a
complex and multifaceted process that requires a wide variety of instructional
practices” (p.14). I agree with what the authors proposed, because I also think that
the best way to teach reading and writing is to use different strategies and
methodologies, in order to support the learning of these language skills. In other
words, I could say that what the authors proposed it to use an eclectic approach
that lead the learner’s success when learning how to read and write. For this
conception, in the United States the Curriculum for elementary school has to
establish a certain amount of time during the daily instruction, to work on literacy. In
order to organized and offer a strong literacy instruction, the teachers not only work
on reading (literacy centers), but also read aloud to students. However, and
although a lot of teachers assign a time during the daily schedule to read a book for
students, a lot of those teachers may not be aware of the potential benefits that
read aloud represents for the student’s literacy development.
As students progress through their school years, the focus shifts from
listening and learning to read, to reading by them. During my experience as Dual
Immersion Spanish program classrooms teacher, I have noticed that “Read Aloud”
as is called in schools is more than an instructional practice that we use to engage
students in reading and model for them how to be a good reader. We also use
some strategies from Shared Reading Approach, like building comprehension
strategies, and show texts features for students to read and find the meaning of the
books. Moreover, when a teacher read aloud to his students, he is showing them
how to write certain kind of text.
As part of my instruction in First Grade, I have a writing block in which I
follow the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for English Language Arts and
the goals for the Dual Immersion Program that I Work for. My first two years, in

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writing sessions I used to model what kind of text I wanted my students write, and
then they tried to follow the instruction using the vocabulary that they already knew
or words from the word wall. After they worked I read their texts, and many times I
realized that they did not understand my instruction or they did not have enough
vocabulary to fulfill the activity. Since some time ago, I’ve been using my read aloud
to introduce the daily writing practice, and I realized that it became a scaffolding
strategy for students which struggled with the writing instruction when it is given
without the reading support.
As Foreign Language teacher, I want to share and go deep on the
conception of Reading Aloud and Shared Reading in elementary school, for future
teachers can see them as a very important approach that benefits writing. In the
same way, this project could give other teachers the idea of apply these
approaches to improve other Language’s skills like speaking.
For some teachers reading aloud is fun and students enjoy it, but what is the
read aloud potential? How to use read aloud to support writing instruction? Does
reading aloud to students really help them grow in their individual language skills?
This study takes a deeper look at a first grade classroom to see how this practice
impacts students’ writing. My purpose with this project is to give a theoretical
support that allows me to fundament this classroom practice, and specially to
support my students’ writing in Spanish.

3. OBJECTIVES

As a classroom teacher giving instruction in a Foreign Language, I am very

interested in this topic because four years ago when I came to this country to teach,
I did not know what my principal was talking about when she mentioned in one of
the planning meetings that “read aloud is a must in the elementary classroom”, as
well as “remember that read aloud show students how to be a strong reader”. In
that moment the term “read aloud” was not clear for me and I started to read about
the topic and made sense for me that teachers have to read for their students.
Additionally, through my practice I found that read aloud was not only a practice to
model how to become a good reader, but also a moment to develop
comprehension and vocabulary. For this reason, I started to explore how to improve

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my read aloud practice and make it a meaningful strategy to expand the student’s
language abilities.
Looking for better literacy practices with read aloud in the immersion
classroom, in which teacher recognizes that achieving the reading and writing’s
goals are challenging but achievable, this project aims to determine the impact that
mixing shared reading and read aloud practices have in writing in first graders from
a Dual Immersion Spanish program. Specifically, this paper aims to analyze how
first graders become more productive in writing if they have a reading text as
example, use writing topics as main categories to guide writing, and to analyze how
first-graders use the vocabulary from the books read in read aloud / shared
readings to produce texts.
Finally, I want to prove my hypothesis that mixing shared reading and read
aloud impact the quality of first graders’ writing pieces in foreign language. I agree
with the statement that “Children can listen on a higher language level than they
can read, so reading aloud makes complex ideas more accessible and exposes
children to vocabulary and language patterns that are not part of everyday speech.
This, helps them understand the structure of books when they read independently”
(Fountas & Pinnell, 1996). I have found that as the authors mentioned before, read
aloud is a compete example of how to expose our students to more complex
structures, having the chance of discussion to reinforce comprehension. I woukd
add that it provides the opportunity to use the vocabulary and language patterns
from the books in their writing pieces.

4. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

The present paper will work about the impact that read aloud and shared
reading has in writing. In order to better understand how reading and writing are
related to each other, it is necessary to go back and look for the history about this
matter.

Reading and writing: abstract history of the research

For many years, reading and writing have been taught separately (and they
still are) in the foreign language classroom. It seems like teachers do not make the

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connections needed between these two processes, in order to balance the
instruction and show students that the relationship between these two language
skills is interdependent. Research has shown that reading affects writing and
writing affects reading, because reading gives students something to write about,
so, studying different literacy genres is giving students the opportunity to write in
that genre and express themselves knowing better how to write it. Squire (1983),
argues that reading and writing can influence and support the development of
reading, writing, and thinking.
Through out the years, the relationship between reading and writing has not
been seen as interdependent, in fact, until the 1970's reading and writing were not
recognized as integrated, they were conceived as separate, but related, language
processes. Historically, this is because the ideas of writing and reading come from
different principles. Writing, as subject, concentrates in a set of characteristics such
style, arrangement, invention, memory, and delivery. By the 1800’s in the United
States belles-lettres, work of Campbell (1963) and Blair (1965) became popular
"bringing appreciation of the art of writing into the commonplace tradition" (Langer
& Allington, 1992, p. 688). It means that writing gained a role of usual.
At the same time that the discourses kept the idea of emphasize grammar,
diction, words, etc. a new focus of the literary models appeared showing
importance of the functions of the discourse. In fact, by the end of the 19 th century
the progressive movement showed how writing could be viewed as practical and
functional. Works developed over that time like Dewey (1915), who was very
influential to the progressive education movement, started to propose student-
centered education, but this did not replace the traditional notions of writing. It
remained like that until the 60s when it shifted to the new rhetoric.
By the 1970’s and 80’s a new panorama emerged due to a variety of works
done on the domain of language and cognition, leading to a new view of writing,
relating it with writing. In this matter, Halliday (1976) continued working on these
relationships, centered on how an individual used reading and writing for specific
purposes with social and interpersonal meaning.
The history for reading was developed in a different way because reading
was established primary based on the British idea of method, content, and theory.
The progressive education view argued that the student-centered instruction

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affected reading, and by the early 1900’s reading was involved in psychological
research.
Through the 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s the behaviorist psychology continued to
work on reading research, at the same time, reading was also affected by the
theory in language and concept development, promoted by authors like Bloom
(1971), Bruner (1960), Piaget (1958), as well as linguistics like Bloomfield (1942).
For the 1970’s the research was focused on the influence of sociolinguistics and
language acquisition, then going towards the meaning construction that occurs
when reading, as well as the interaction between reader and text; all as result of the
influence of cognitive psychology and the constructive perspectives
As it has been explained, reading and writing, due to the different beginnings
they had, were not consider as similar processes, however, by the 1980’s, reading
and writing began to be thought as social and cognitive processes, and resulting in
new research about the relationship between these two language processes. It is
not a secret that along the history of language, these factors has been exami9ng
independently, however, in the last years; research has shown its interest in the
interdependent and interrelated acts of reading and writing. Actually, it is evident
how the focused has changed, that after 1980 is usual to find publications with titles
like “reading and writing” or “writing and reading”. This may be because the focus
shifted to the study of reading and writing as acts enclosed in social and cultural
contexts.

The relationships between reading and writing

In order to analyze the similarities and the relationship between reading and
writing, it is important to remember the constructivism approach of language and
cognition, which gave us some important insights (Goodman K. and Y, 1978):
Writing, as well as reading, being a language process is not an easy task. Learning
the graphic code is not part of the humans’ genetic as are the sounds. This is why it
has almost always been learnt in a relationship learner-teacher. Authors like Eisner
(1981) argue that when reading, the visual cues become words, and in writing,
words are transforming in visual cues.

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 With reading and writing been considered related activities, teachers have
threatened them as essential components of the Language. In the 1960’s, the
research into language was extensive, and reading and writing were considered as
related language processes. Loban (1963) developed a study about students'
reading and writing development thorough out 4th, 6th, and 9th grades, concluding
that “the students who read well, also write well”, and that the relationship was true.
After that moment, these relationships grew in importance in the school.
Stosky (1983, p.636) showed that "better writers tend to be better readers
(of their own writing as well as of other reading material), that better writers tend to
read more than poorer writers, and that better readers tend to produce more
syntactically mature writing than poorer readers". She also found that in instruction,
programs which grammar was not taught traditionally, but used reading to teach it,
gained in writing.
Many scholars worked hard to show how these relationships were important
and they focused on the student’s engagement on tasks, describing how from the
early years, children use signs and symbols to gain and convey meaning. Through
efforts to communicate through writing and reading, they gradually adopt both
symbols and conventions of use. Eckhoff (1983) found that the second grade
students she studied tended to imitate the style and structure of the basals used for
reading instruction, which affected the organizational structures and linguistic
complexity of the students' writing. It has been shown that teachers need to know
the processes of reading and writing and how they relate to one other, in order to
better instruct literacy in the classroom.

Similarities and differences between reading and writing

Constructivist theory as well as other researches argued that reading and

writing are both activities looking for making meaning. This meaning is constantly
changing because students or people in general, read and write, forming imaginary
impressions that change while creating meaning. Both reading and writing involve
planning, generating and revising meaning, which changes in the process of
making meaning of a text, this is why both are conceptualized as composing
activities. Form this statement, some researchers consider a writer as a reader, and

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a reader as a writer. In accordance with Smith (1983) reading like a writer allows
the learner to become a writer. When the reader reads like a writer, not only makes
meaning, but also is learning from the writer’s style. This is going to influence future
texts that the reader will eventually write.
In the middle of writing, the writer needs to read. And writers use to place
themselves in their reader’s minds to see how much they are going to comprehend.
For Tierney & Pearson (1983, p.578) both, reader and writer make meaning, they
tried to explained that when a writer writes, plans his piece of writing and anticipate
misconception, but at the same time, the reader will try to place himself in the
writer’s shoes to better understand his ideas that could be influenced by his culture.
In this process
Some researchers have showed specific differences between reading and
writing. Langers (1986a) affirmed that even though cognitively reading and writing
are connected acts which seek for meaning, they are different because of the
strategies and purpose. It is also important to mention that reader and writer exhibit
different behaviors while reading and writing, as well as their ages and approaches
used to fulfill the activity.
In summary, what authors concluded is that writing and reading are deeply
related activities of language and both are modeled through the use. Generally, the
process of organize, remember and present it are the same, but the message’s
structure, and strategies used depend on the purpose, consequently making
reading and writing different.

Regarding the instruction

Due to the interrelation of reading and writing, several researchers have
worked about how these two language skills should be addressed in the classroom.
Shanahan & Lomax (1986) conducted a research in first and second grade, in
which they analyzed how the interactive model of reading and writing, and the
writing to read model influenced students’ performance. The researchers concluded
that there is transfer of knowledge between the processes. In addition, Hanson, et.
al (1991) agreed that in general students do better when they are exposed to the
literature with its genres, styles, and topics. To provide students with topics they are
interested in, and familiar with, will positive impact their position towards learning.

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From this perspective, teachers are most successful in their instruction when they
provide and generate a positive reading and writing environment, where students
find these processes are linked and they apply previous knowledge and can
express themselves free in the instructional language. In other words, instruction
must encourages meaning making through reading and writing based on
understanding as related composing processes.

Reading and writing in literacy instruction

With a lot of research about reading and writing and a clear idea about how
reading and writing are interrelated, some authors took the vantage point of the
results to define what we use in everyday instruction as literacy. Here, literacy
means “the ability to manipulate the language and thought involved when people
make sense in a variety of situations”; it involves ways of thinking that are learned
in the many contexts of life (Langer, 1987; 1995). For classroom teachers, literacy
is nothing different than “a valuable tool to use the language comprehensibly, and
becoming aware of the use of language”.
Langer (1997, p.10) developed a research for eight years, finding that
"envisionment-building" literature classes allow students to become part of a
learning community where they can deal with their ideas and other’s ideas,
respecting that difference and taking advantage of it to go beyond their thinking to
enrich their individual richness, with all the interpretations. It would mean to
consider reading and writing as language tools, not simple skills.
Research also shows that when students (children) are engaged in “act out
retell activities, label pictures, draw, and create, they are immersed in fundamental
literacy activities that are part of the language development process” (Teale &
Sulzby, 1986).
It has been deeply discussed that reading and writing are correlated and
needed to be well instructed in the daily literacy.

Having explained all the fundamentals about how reading and writing are
related, it is now important to link reading and writing with read aloud, which is the
fundamental part of this project.

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Read aloud
Read aloud is a component on the daily literacy instruction
in elementary schools. Previous works developed about this topic have been
elaborated about the main importance of read aloud as a classroom practice, the
definition of read aloud, the language skills impacted by read aloud, as well as
comprehension. This paper will make a revision about the elements and use of
reading aloud in the elementary classroom.
Read aloud is one of the most important literacy activities that teachers
should do in their classrooms with students in order to engage them in a topic,
conversation or reading activity that students would not be able to do by
themselves. When we read aloud in the classroom, we are showing how to read a
book; interacting with the characters, making connections, and comprehending a
text that might be difficult to read alone. Strachan (2015) said that “during
interactive read aloud teacher scaffolds children’s sense making and supporting
their learning of new concepts through direct instruction, asking question before,
during, and after reading” (p.209). I agree with the author because as teacher I
have experimented how while reading aloud to my students, I not only show them
how to read the text, but I also guide their comprehension explaining new
vocabulary and focus their attention on the text features or topic that will help them
to better comprehend the reading, it also provides time for students interaction
between pairs and discuss other’s ideas to enrich the reading comprehension.
In interactive read aloud the teacher is providing students with tools to better
comprehend the text and discuss it with others. This read aloud is a powerful tool
for literacy instruction because it not only supports reading comprehension, but also
speaking and writing. When thinking this kind of activity in a foreign language
classroom, read aloud becomes an instructional tool in which teachers have to
show fluent reading, text structures, literature genres, allows pairs interaction, and
give the fundamentals for writing that students will use on independent writing
activities.

Read aloud and meaning (discussion)

As foreign language teachers may agree, we all look for oral production in a
natural way; where our students negotiate meaning and communicate. Read aloud

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allow us to give students prompts to produce orally. As (Strachan 2015, p. 209)
argued, “physical and verbal interactions between students and teacher during
interactive read-alouds allow teachers of young children to refute misconceptions".
When reading aloud to students, teacher can realize how difficult or easy is the text
structure or vocabulary for the learners; so, it gives the teacher an opportunity to
clarify misconceptions and do not lose meaning.

Read aloud and connections

Making connections in order to understand a book or text is another
advantage of read aloud because when listening someone reading to them,
students make the meaning of the words, but also they make connections to the
text, the world, and themselves. Waller & Barrentine (2015). It means that when
students comprehend a text they find similarities and differences between them and
the characters in a story. They can also think about situations well known or close
to them, as well as find facts about the real world to learn.

Read aloud in the elementary classroom

Read aloud time is much treasured in most elementary classrooms. This is a
time when teachers invite students to dive into the worlds of fantasy, magic,
mystery, and enormous possibilities that reside in our favorite books. This suggests
that read aloud is a time to discover literature and make contact with meaning and
learning. For Wiseman (2011, p. 431) this kind of activity is called “interactive read
aloud” and are important because is a learning opportunity for beginning readers or
readers who struggle, due to the chance of scaffolding in which teacher or pairs
model the reading; engaging the learners and creating an environment of reading
community.

Read aloud and oral language (verbal linguistic intelligence)

Students learn in very different ways, one of those ways is through oral and
written communication. During a read aloud students listen the teacher
communicating written passages and the students use verbal communication to
make meaning and discuss the text. Gardner and Moran (20016, p.227) defined
intelligence as the potential that someone has, and can be activated to process

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information in order to solve problems or create important products for a culture.
For these authors the verbal linguistic intelligence is the ability to learn via
language; both oral and written. Read aloud represents a specific example of
verbal linguistic intelligence because it allows kids to learn from oral and written
communication.

Read Aloud and Shared Reading

In literature about the topic of this project is common to find misconceptions

about read aloud and shared reading, because some people consider them alike,
but there are clear differences that make them practices linked, but not the same.
As it was exposed before, a read aloud is an activity where the teacher
reads for the whole class and creates interaction making pauses to explain
vocabulary, concepts, or supporting learner’s comprehension, asking questions for
students “turn and talk” to generate high order thinking. It seems to be like reading
for the adult and comprehend it through scaffolding, which is a variety of
instructional techniques used to move students progressively toward stronger
understanding and, ultimately, greater independence in the learning process.
In regards of shared reading, Button and Johnson (1997), stated that the
main purpose of shared reading is for students to initiate “the riches of book
language, and given shared opportunities to develop the strategies of sampling,
predicting, confirming, and self-correcting for future independent use” (p. 58). When
the teachers initiated shared reading, students showed greater enthusiasm and
higher self-esteem in reading. It means that shared reading supports the reading
skills that students need in order to become better readers, this is why for this kind
of literacy instructional activities, teachers use an enlarged copy of books, to
ensure “all eyes” are on the book.

Reading aloud in the foreign language teaching

Among the four skills of linguistic ability, speaking and writing skills are
classified as active skills while listening and reading are categorized as passive
since the two skills do not involve any production. The main goal of reading is
grammar instruction and comprehension. The most common methods to teach
reading are read aloud and silent reading; however, comparing to silent reading,

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read aloud has been less encouraged in the foreign language classroom because
in current communicative-based language learning classrooms since it has not
been seen to be genuinely communicative.

How does read aloud improves writing

Although read aloud has not been greatly spread in foreign language;
Language immersion programs in North America (Spanish, and Mandarin) in order
to follow the Common Core State Standards and the balanced literacy structure,
have to read aloud with their students. Previous research has been done about
how read aloud improves the speaking ability. For this paper, the goal is to show
how making connections in read aloud, provides students with better understanding
to produce written texts.

5. METHODOLOGY

The present project has been conducted through action research, a kind of
qualitative research. Authors like Clark & Cresswell (2015) argued that this type of
research is the exploration of a problem.

The methodology included lessons in which I used anchor charts

interactively created with students, the selection of fiction books for read aloud,
audiotapes of the sessions, and analysis of the writing pieces resulted from the
read aloud. On the appendix, you will find pictures of the students’ pieces of writing
and the kind of anchor charts used for the lessons.

Background of action research

(McFarland & Stansell, 1993, p. 14) stated that “action research” is a term
make up by Kurt Lewin; a social psychologist and educator, who worked on action
research through 1940 in the United States. They also argued that Lewin described
a work that do not separate the investigation from the action needed to solve the
problem.
Action research is a process of investigation and inquiry that occurs as
action is taken to solve a problem, in order to improve the effectiveness of a
process, providing with understanding and better practice.

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 Action research is a process in which participants examine their own
educational practice systematically and carefully, using the techniques of research.
It is based on the following assumptions:
• Teachers and principals work best on problems they have identified for
themselves.
• Teachers and principals become more effective when encouraged to
examine and assess their own work and then consider ways of working differently.
• Teachers and principals help each other by working collaboratively.
• Working with colleagues helps teachers and principals in their professional
development.
(Watts, 1985, p. 118)
In the field of education, due to the “action” nature that this inquiry has, it
involves a cycle of questioning, gathering data, reflection, and making decisions. It
seeks for teachers training and development, rather than the acquisition of
knowledge (Borg, 1965, p. 313). Action research’s cycle includes five phases of
inquiry:
 Identification of a problem area
 Collection and organization of data
 Interpretation of data
 Action based on data
 Reflection
Action research offers a wide variety of actions to collect the information to support
the research. Some data can be collected through interviews, portfolios, dairies,
audiotapes, photos, video tapes, case studies, among others.
Data collection and analysis
The main goal for this research was to prove the impact that read
aloud has in writing in first grade students. The data was collected using various
methods over a nine-week period. This kind of research allows teachers to gather
information in many different ways. For this project, the information was collected
from two main resources: audiotapes and sample of student’s work analyzed in a
teacher’s diary, where the main focused was how students wrote their own story
using the main concept worked during the read aloud.

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 Firstly, I had a writing session with my students in which they wrote a fiction
story with the title “¿Qué hace?” What does he do? In this section, students just
wrote sentences using actin verbs that they knew already.
Then, I had two writing sessions with some weeks apart from each other.
These lessons were audiotaped to facilitate the reflection and the data’a
organization. For these lessons, I started reading aloud a book, students turned
and talked about the book, then, we created an anchor chart with student’s
participation. After the reading aloud, the students created a fiction text using as
title the word (topic) taken from the read aloud.
Finally, the audiotapes were transcribed and analyzed. To interpret the
information collected, the audiotapes were transcribed on a diary, in which the data
was sort by categories, to answer every question regarding instruction and
student’s performance.

During this project, the research question was: How read aloud affects
writing in first grade students from a Spanish dual immersion program? Regarding
the question, the analysis of the student’s writing was focused on how they showed
comprehension about the topic introduced through the reading aloud, to produce
clear pieces of writing.
The process followed in order to gather all the information needed to answer
the research question, was organized in a schedule which included three writing
sessions. Every session was audiotaped, and previously analyzed in order to
register the lesson’s main topics on a journal. The observations were analyzed and
registered in the journal as follow:
 Writing session 1: student’s performance: how much support they
need to produce a writing sample?
 Writing session 2: Teacher’s instruction: How the writing lesson was
connected with the read aloud? Did it impact the student’s writing?
How?
 Writing session 3: teacher’s instruction and student’s performance:
How the read aloud main topic was reflected in student’s writing.

Findings

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 The data collection methods used in this research showed very important
information about how the read aloud books impacted the writing pieces that
students produced. The two findings that showed the impact that read aloud has in
first grade writing include: how the read aloud text’s instruction add to
understanding, and how making connections with the read aloud and writing give
students input to produce stronger texts without much support from the teacher.

Read aloud text’s instruction add understanding

Research has showed that read aloud extends students comprehension.
Santoro et al. stated that read alouds can be an opportunity to teach and enhance
students' comprehension reading skills (2008).

Comprehension of the text that is read aloud to students is the key that gives
them deeper understanding of the concepts or topics developed in the books, since
the comprehension goes from reading to listening and oral interactions, students
are provided with a complete literacy activity that involves several language skills at
the time.

Read aloud allows stronger writing productions

William Grabe and Robert Kaplan (1996) suggested that L2 reading would
help improve L2 writing at the beginning level and the advanced level. They
encouraged the use of extensive reading for beginners’ writing class as they noted
that “the outcome of a reading activity can serve as input for writing, and writing can
lead a student to further reading resources” (p.297).

The outcomes from the read alouds were used in this project as the “title” for
fiction texts that students produced. Going through the comprehension activity of a
book, and organizing the outcome in an anchor chart gives the students the chance
to create their own texts following the genre that is being studied and using the
topic to develop a story.

Population

This research project was developed in one of the Harnett county schools in
North Carolina. The school is located in Angier, North Carolina, it is a K – 2 school.

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The average class size at each grade is twenty students. North Harnett Primary is a
title I school, which means that more than half from students in the school receive
free or reduced lunch. The racial/ethnic origin of the school is Hispanic, African
American and white. The school offers a Spanish Dual Immersion program
managed by Visiting For international Faculty (VIF) since four years ago.

Participants
The study took place in Señora Lopez’s first grade class. The first grade
class chosen to do this project has twenty-four students. It is important to clarify
that this group has two days and a half for Spanish, so I will develop two sessions
per week.
This group of kids have been enrolled in the program for two years, and according
to the school’s methodology (differentiated instruction), there are students in
different developmental stages of writing like prewriting, early emergent, emergent,
and early developing. So, even the instruction will be the same one, the results of
pieces of writing will be different for every student.

6. STUDY
This project was designed to develop it during the first academic quarter of
the school year 2016 – 2017. The research included a schedule with activities to
fulfill on specific time.
The lessons created were aligned with the Common Core State Standards
for ELA (English Language Arts), specifically for reading and writing.
The first academic quarter included the study of the realistic fiction as
genre, in which students needed to identify and create characters with well-defined
character traits.
Task Date Status

Authorization letter to the September 9th 2016 Completed

School’s Principal
Books’ selection September 1st – 5th Completed
Writing session #1 September 4th 8th Completed
(Baseline)
Weekly by the end of Completed
Lesson’s plan every week through the
quarter

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 Weekly (1 record per Completed
Recorded lessons session)
Theoretical resources September 6th – 23rd Completed
search

At the end of every Completed

Analysis of sessions week through out the
quarter
At the end of every Completed
Analysis of Student’s week through out the
writing pieces quarter
Final analysis December 20th – 24th Completed
At the end of every Completed
Analysis of Student’s week through out the
writing pieces quarter
Advance 1 June 2017 In progress
Conclusions and contrast Pending Pending
between lessons, results
and theory.

7. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

8. CONCLUSIONS

9. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Neuman, S. B., Copple, C., & Bredekamp, S. (2000). Learning to read and
write: Developmentally appropriate practices for your children. Washington, DC:
National Association for the Education of Young Children. Retrieved on August 3 rd
from: http://docplayer.net/21375656-Guided-reading-constructivism-in-action-
donna-kester-phillips-niagara-university-abstract.html

I.C. Fountas, G.S. PinnellGuided reading: good first teaching for all children
Heinemann, Portsmouth, NH (1996). Retrieved on August 1st from: The effect of
teacher’s storytelling aloud on the reading comprehension of Saudi elementary
stage students on
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221083191100021X

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 Langer, J. A.& Allington, R. (1992). Curriculum Research In Writing and
Reading. In P. W. Jackson (Ed.), Handbook of Research on Curriculum (pp. 687-
725). New York NY: Macmillan Publishing Company. Retrieved on august 1st from:
writing and reading relationships: Constructive tasks on
http://www.albany.edu/cela/publication/article/writeread.htm
Halliday, M. A. K. (1976). Learning How to Mean. NY: Elsevier N. Holland.

Goodman, K.S. y Goodman, Y. “Learning about psycholinguistic processes

by analizing oral reading”. Harvard Educational Review, 1977, 47, 317-333.
Loban, W. (1963). The Language of Elementary School Children (Research
Report 1). Urbana IL: National Council of Teachers of English.
Squire, J. R. (1983). Composing and Comprehending: Two Sides of the
Same Basic Process. Language Arts, 60. (5), 581-589
Button, K, & Johnson, M. (1997). The Role of Shared Reading in Developing
Effective Early Reading Strategies. Reading Horizons, 37 (4), 262-273.
Watts, H. (1985). When teachers are researchers, teaching improves.
Journal of Staff Development, 6 (2), 118-127.
McFarland, K.P., & Stansell, J.C. (1993). Historical perspectives. In L.
Patterson, C.M. Santa, C.G. Short, & K. Smith (Eds.), Teachers are researchers:
Reflection and action. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

10. APPENDIX

Advance 1 has to include sections 2, 3, 4 and 5 fully developed and it should

not occupy more than 20 pages. You must follow these instructions to name
the file:

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