A friendly reminder of where this all started…

Purpose Statement

The purpose of this study is to gain insight as to which method of color coding brings about the greatest effectiveness and accuracy in recognizing sight words and Dolch and Fry words for students in grades Kindergarten through second grade.  Essentially, which color coding method is most effective in reading fluency in the primary grades.

Research Question 1

How does color coding vowels and consonants relate to fluency and accuracy for KG to 2nd grade students in Southwest Florida?

Research Question 2

How does color coding using the Orton-Gillingham method relate to fluency and accuracy for KG to 2nd grade students in Southwest Florida?

Research Question 3

How does color coding the 44 sounds of the English language with 22 highly contrasting colors relate to fluency and accuracy for KG to 2nd grade students in Southwest Florida?

I keep hearing the Shania Twain song, Still the One, but not because of that mushy husbandy stuff, but because this dissertation is soooooooo difficult, but I’m glad I didn’t listen to one of my previous professors and actually stuck with this program basically stuck to my guns.  That loser prof told me I wasn’t doctoral material and that I needed to learn to write as an academic.  Granted, I know that I need to learn to write a bit more, shall we say, stuffier, but this chic is going to get that doctorate degree - trust and believe - and then I’m going to mail a copy to her. :-)

Anyways, here we are to the methodology part and the blog post assignment for that.  I’m not trying to reinvent any wheels here.  Welcome to the conversations I have with myself.

So I think ‘what am I really trying to show here?’

Answer:  that students read the words better when they are color coded and even better yet, when they are color coded my way

I also think ‘how the jail am i going to show that?’

Answer:  i’m going to see how well they read a set of words, then give them all the awesomeness of color coding, then retest them

Hmmm, ‘what words you gone test em with?’ (I’m not sure why I speak to myself in this slave voice)

Answer:  I’m thinking Fry, because I love him.  I don’t know if you know, but the Dolch list is separated by age (not a fan of that method) and Fry just went with the frequency (loving that).  Although there is no primary source that shows Dolch actually separated his words by age, he did segregate the nouns (why the heck?).  Anywho, I’m with the Fry Guy on this one.  I’m going to use 300 words.  First 100 for KG, 200 for 1st grade and 300 for 2nd grade. Besides, everyone loves fries.

What is your post test going to look like?

Answer:  It’s going to look exactly like the pre-test.  Through my research with all of this color-coding, there is no benefit to having the test color-coded, so I’m not gonna kill myself to do it.  I do still have some work to do, because I’ve only color coded the first 100 words.  As ‘luck’ would have it, today is day 1 of quarantining because I am Covid positive.  Some thoughtless chic came to work on Thanksgiving when her results were pending, just to get that double time money.  I swear.

How are you going to decide how long to run this intervention thingie?

I’m thinking 200 minutes of instruction… in 10-minute sessions.  That way, if it turns out to be effective, teachers can easily find 10 minutes in their day to do this. So, like 10 minutes a day for a month.

How many groups?

Answer:  Well, my 2-3 groups and the get nothing control group.

Orton-Gillingham color coding

Consonants/vowel red and blue coloring

Malik’s Method color coding

Whatever the heck their classroom teacher is using

What kind of design? Quantitative, qualitative, or mixed methods?

Answer:  Quantitative, mos def.  I don’t really care about the feely feely part of this, just want to know if they read the words better or not.  And how much better, if at all.  So quantitative it is.  Yup.  I just want the data, the numeros, the info, just the numbers!

Speaking of numbers, how many participants will you need?

Answer: I’d like 100-120. That way I have like about 30 in each group.  I also want to try to get a mix of public, private and charter school students.  This will probably be via zoom, but that’s a different issue.  I remember reading this article and loving the results, only to find that they only had 4 participants.  Man was I pissed.

So the Research Design portion should at least include these things:

1. how long you need to do this research for

2. the type of data you are looking for

3. where and when you are going to do this research

4. how many participants you need

5. the things you are testings

6. what you hypothesize

7. how you’re going to analyze all of this