THE EFFECTIVENESS OF LETTLAND

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What is the effectiveness of Letterland on my student's ability to recognize letters and produce corresponding sounds? Carrie E. Bolding North Carolina State University

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Abstract

This paper focuses on a single teacher research question. The compelling question is What is the effectiveness of Letterland on my student's ability to recognize letters and produce corresponding sounds? The research involved with answering the compelling question revolves around a newly adopted phonics-based literacy program for all kindergarten classes within the Wake County Public School System. While targeting this research topic, there was an array of resources and tools explored. This paper answers the compelling question by providing the results to various research approaches. Throughout this research process, literature was reviewed, kindergarten students were interviewed, staff surveys were conducted, assessments were given and data was analyzed.

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Introduction

I am a kindergarten teacher at an elementary school that consists of extremely diverse demographics with our student population. Each year, a fresh group five year olds walk through my door with little knowledge regarding letter recognition and sound production. Kindergarten is an imperative year where the students and the teachers work together in order to build a solid foundation to ensure phonemic success. Wake County Public Schools recently adopted the new literacy program, Letterland. Letterland is a phonics-based program that teaches students how to begin reading, writing and spelling. The Letterland characters transform plain black letter shapes into child-friendly pictograms and they all live in an imaginary place called Letterland. Simple stories about the Letterland characters explain the full range of phonics facts so that children are motivated to listen, to think and to learn. These stories explain letter sounds & shapes, allowing children to progress quickly to word building, reading and writing (Letterland, 2011). There are various resources, programs and theories that revolve around the best practices that should be used during literacy instruction. I was intrigued to research this specific reading program and the direct correlation between its use and student performance in letter recognition and sound production. I centered by research on the implementation of Letterland and the effectiveness of the program. My compelling teacher research question that I explored was, What is the effectiveness of Letterland on my student's ability to recognize letters and produce corresponding sounds? This is my second year teaching kindergarten. Last year we implemented a different literacy program called Alphafriends. I found the previous program to be successful with helping my students recognize and produce the letter names and sounds. Because of my former students

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success with letter and sound identification and production, they were quick to begin reading. Letterland is supposed to increase the speed at which students begin recognizing letters, producing corresponding sounds, blending together letter sounds and segmenting words. All of these strategies are essential to the st udents foundation in order to begin reading at a successful pace. This research is extremely significant to my everyday teaching because Letterland is embedded into my literacy block daily. Letterland is a required program that I must utilize within the 2012-2013 school year. By exploring the effectiveness of this program I have been provided with great insight on the success of my students and their ability to recognize letters and producing corresponding sounds.

Methodology

When my kindergarten students first attended their assigned kindergarten staggered entry date at the start of the school year, we spent time assessing each student on basic social, emotional, physical skills as well as basic literacy and mathematical skills. As a result, I have a substantial amount of beginning of the year data for my students performance regarding their foundational letter and sound ID knowledge. The Letter and Sound ID test is a mandatory assessment we use in the Wake County Public School System. This assessment identifies what individual children know specifically about letter/sound identification. Teacher observation is a crucial and critical factor while making informed decisions about whom and when to assess. Letter/sound identification is recognizing upper and lower case letters and identifying appropriate sounds for each letter symbol (Clay, 2005). I reassessed by students using the same assessment at the end of October. By analyzing and comparing the beginning of the year data to

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the current data, I am able to see the effectiveness of Letterland on my students ability to recognize letters and produce their corresponding sounds. The next assessment I implemented was the Initial Sound Assessment that is provided directly from the Letterland Teachers Guide. This assessment involved a display of each of the Letterland characters. Throughout the assessment, students are asked to recall the Letterland characters name, the sound they make and their action trick. For example, Annie Apple is the lower case a. In order to help the students remember the sound the letter produces there is an action trick that corresponds. Annie Apples action trick requires the students to act as though they are eating an apple and make the /a/ sound. My students were my biggest assets and participants during this study. As I began to carry out the Letterland program, I knew that their opinions would be extremely valuable during my research. Therefore, I decided to conduct four student interviews after about a month and a half of implementation of the phonics-based program. I chose to interview an above grade level student, two on grade level student, and a student who is considered below grade level. I gathered their placement level by assessing their current letter/sound ID assessment performance. I interviewed each student individually and asked them the following questions: 1. Tell me about Letterland 2. What do you like about Letterland? 3. Is there anything you do not like about Letterland? 4. Do you think Letterland has helped you learn your letter and sounds? Why or why not? Survey Monkey is a great resource that allows anyone to compose various forms of surveys and conduct the interviews using diverse methods. I chose to create an interview directed to my fellow co-workers on the kindergarten team. The interview was completed by three other

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kindergarten teachers as well as our kindergarten intervention teacher. All teachers interviewed implement Letterland into their daily instructional routines. The teachers were given the link to the survey through email. The teachers willingly answered 5 questions and they are as followed: 1. How effective has Letterland been with teaching your students letter recognition? 2. How effective has Letterland been with teaching your students sound production? 3. What are some benefits you have noticed while implementing Letterland? 4. What are some negatives you have noticed while implementing Letterland? 5. Overall, how would you rate the effectiveness of the Letterland program with the success of your students?

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Findings

Letter Recognition: In the graph below, comparable data is displayed regarding my students ability to recognize both lower case and upper case letter. The blue bar depicts the students letter recognition knowledge on their first day of kindergarten. The r ed bar depicts the students letter recognition knowledge at the end of their first quarter of kindergarten.

Letter Recognition
60

50

40 Letter ID KIA 30 Letter ID October Letter ID January 20 Letter ID April Letter ID June 10

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Sound Production: In the graph below, comparable data is displayed regarding my students ability to produce the corresponding sounds for both upper case and lower case letters. The blue bar depicts the students ability to produce letter sounds on their first day of kindergarten. The red bar depicts the students ability to produce letter sounds at the end of their first quarter of kindergarten.

Sound Production
60

50

40

Sound Production KIA 30 Sound Production October Sound Production January Sound Production April 20 Sound Production June

10

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Letterland Initial Sound Assessment: In the graph below, comparable data is displayed regarding my students ability to recall all 26 Letterland characters, produce the proper sound of the letter/character and perform the corresponding action trick. My students had not been exposed to the Letterland program prior to their first day of kindergarten. Therefore, the data displayed above portrays where my students performed at the end of the first quarter of kindergarten with this specific assessment.

Letterland Initial Sound Assessment

30

25

20 Character Name- KIA 15 Character Name- October Sound- KIA Sound- October

10

Action Trick- KIA Action Trick- October

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By conducting student interviews, I was able to clearly gather how my students feel towards the use of Letterland into their daily routines. I interviewed four students; one above grade level, two on grade level, and one below grade level. All of the students had very similar responses to the four questions that were asked. Overall, the students are thoroughly enjoying utilizing Letterland. They each believe that Letterland is helping them to learn their letters and sounds. Each student mentioned the enthusiasm with the characters, their action tricks and the matching songs and stories. While conducting my teacher survey, I received consistent reactions and results. Below are pie charts that clearly display the agreement amongst the teachers for each of the ranking questions. The teachers also had the options to express the positives and negatives that they have experienced while implementing the Letterland program. All of the teachers shared similar benefits and concerns. They described the enjoyable stories, characters and action tricks and how they are able to clearly see the excitement and passion with their students while using the program. They truly feel that the program has been extremely beneficial with helping their students become proficient with producing letter sounds. The teachers shared harmonious concerns revolving Letterland and its inability to focus on letter recognition. All the teachers feel as though the students comprehend the Letterland characters name versus the very important letter name and therefore they are lacking the ability to quickly and competently recognize letters.

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Effectiveness of Letterland on letter Recognition

Extremely Effective Somewhat Effective Not Effective

Effectiveness of Letterland on Sound Production

Extremely Effective Somewhat Effective Not Effective

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Overall Effectiveness of Letterland

Extremely Effective Somewhat Effective Not Effective

Discussion Throughout my research process, it was very apparent that my students were making adequate progress with their ability to recognize letters and produce the corresponding sounds. My research was data driven from the first day. I chose to focus on utilizing two assessments to accurately and consistently gather data that would ultimately help me answer my compelling research question which was, what is the effectiveness of Letterland on my student's ability to recognize letters and produce corresponding sounds? Collaboration with my fellow kindergarten teammates provided me with addition input and data. These teachers were willing to share their observations about the effectiveness of Letterland within their classrooms. We held various discussions that helped guide my research to ensure that I used the most valuable tools. Discussions and meetings with my peer research group provided me with support and additional instructional aide as I excelled through my research process.

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As I carried out my research approach, I learned a great deal about myself as an educator. I realized that teachers must always remain fluid and flexible. Research means experiencing constant changes and having to reflect and revise our tactics as we assess, document and analyze data. Being organized and having a clear and concise method of data collection prompted simple information analysis. Inputting my information into different graphs provided comprehensible displays that visibly illustrated the growth amongst the students. My students, who were the heart of this process, are willing and eager learners. Their young, passionate minds created a resilient learning environment thus prompting success within my research. The Letterland program captured their imaginations from the first day of implementation. The children quickly gravitated towards the magic and hastily began to recognize letters, produce sounds and execute these new skills within our literacy program on a daily basis. The effectiveness of the Letterland program is extremely evident as most of my students have begun reading simple sight word books and are able to do so by properly sounding out words using their letter and sound knowledge. I have learned that if you can capture the imagination of your students, create an intriguing and exciting learning environment then their adaptable and exceptional minds will exceed your wildest expectations.

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Resources

Clay, M. M. (2005). An observation survey of early literacy achievement. Auckland, N.Z: Heinemann.

Freese, G., & Wendon, L. (2005). Letterland teacher's guide. Cambridge, UK: Letterland International.

Letterland | Child-friendly phonics. (2011). Letterland International. Retrieved November 11, 2012, from http://letterland.com