1

Project Paper

My classroom consists of twenty-one fourth grade students; six boys and the rest

are girls. Eight students are classified as “former” ELLs because they passed the Spring

2012 New York State English as a Second Language Achievement Test

(NYSESLAT). The student I’ll be focusing on is a bright, vivacious, and

eager to please girl and a former ELL. She is a visual learner who

frequently refers to the anchor charts in the room for assistance.

“Sue” enjoys reading aloud rather than to herself. “I can

understand what I’m reading when I hear myself,” she tells me. During

class discussions, she is not very confident when answering questions.

I’ve found the same thing when I’m conferencing one on one.

Reading comprehension tests showed time after time she was

deficient in reading comprehension and reading below grade level.

She had a problem with recalling main idea and details while reading

informational and fictional texts. The learning theory I’m discussing is

the Social Constructivist learning theory. This theory emphasizes the

importance of socialization while learning. With that in mind, I thought

I would partner the child and test the strategies. The results were in

favor of this view, and her comprehension results steadily went up.

Sue is a well-behaved student who takes education very

seriously. She likes to read aloud and is quite fluent in her reading.

She identifies herself as “a good reader” because she can pronounce

all of the words. When asked specific questions about reading she
 2

cannot answer questions that do not have an obvious answer. For

instance, when asked why a character did something, or when asked

why an author wrote a text, she cannot answer. She has difficulties

with higher-order thinking questions. Throughout the content areas,

we have made checklists and wordlists for her to refer to.

My focus was to determine her weakest skills on her latest

comprehension test and think of strategies to help her improve. Two

weak skills were identifying the main idea and recalling details.

During small groups she participates, but rarely participates in whole

group discussions.

She entered kindergarten as an ELL and remained with that

classification until the spring of third grade. This school year was her

first year as a “former ELL.” She has many friends and is very social.

She enjoys doing projects in the classroom and participating in all

group activities. She enjoys working with a partner and can

occasionally be heard telling her partner what to do.

I’ve seen her grow since she entered my class in September.

She has become more confident and her work has improved steadily

since then. Her writing especially has grown. She originally had a

problem with the writing process and we developed a checklist

together to help her remember what she needed to do. She enjoys

looking at picture books and one strategy that I used with her was to
 3

match the picture to the text. That helped her to understand what

she was reading.

Her overall grades have improved, especially in math, but it was

the reading comprehension that was troublesome for her. While

reading science and social studies materials, she was struggling with

identifying main idea and details. We tried many strategies (look at

the pictures, read the sidebars, etc.) and all helped somewhat but she

was still struggling.

The use of anecdotals helped me to track her progress. These

notes allowed me to record information such as how motivated she

was and her level of curiosity. This observable data helped me to

decide the strategy to use.

My interest in the social constructivist view is born from my

experiences in the classroom. I wanted to delve further into

Vygotsky’s view hoping to learn more about this learning theory. I am

a firm believer in Vygotsky’s view and know from experience that

children do learn from each other. Vygotsky believed cooperative

learning was necessary in classroom instruction because struggling

students would learn directly from their peers.

In an article “Second Language Learning Theories” received in

class on March 26, the social constructivist view of learning

emphasizes the importance of social interactions of the learner with

other people. According to this viewpoint it is based on the work of

 4

Lev Vygotsky (Vygotsky 1978), the key to learning is centered on the

social support that the learner receives.

In my experience, students enjoy socializing in school. Studies

have shown and I have seen that working with other children directly

impacts a child’s language and literacy development. When students

read with their friends and talk about what they’ve read, reading turns

into a fun, social activity.

Social constructivism focuses on the importance of cooperative

learning and social interaction when constructing images of reality

(Brown, p.12)

Vygotsky is best known for scaffolding which takes the learner

through steps required in a task. It’s an important part of social

constructivism because it describes tasks the students cannot do alone

without assistance from adults of peers.

Vygotsky argues that culture is the determining factor of

knowledge construction and learning occurs and cannot be separated

from the social context. It is through these social contexts that

students learn from each other and teachers need to construct active

learning communities. Vygotsky examined how our social

environments impact the learning process. He suggested that learning

takes place through the interactions students have with their teachers,

peers and other experts. It is through the cultural lens, Vygotsky

 5

states that students learn by interacting with others and following the

rules, skills and abilities outlined by culture.

Vygotsky argued that language is the main tool that promotes

thinking, develops reasoning and supports cultural activities like

reading and writing. (Vygotsky 1978). In reality, Vygotsky recognizes

that learning always occurs and cannot be separated from a social

context. The construction of knowledge occurs with Vygotsky’s (1962)

social context that involves student-student and expert-student

collaboration on real world problems or tasks that build on each

person’s language, skills, and experience shaped by each individual’s

culture. (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 102).

Unlike Piaget, Vygotsky places more emphasis on culture

shaping cognitive development. Vygotsky does not refer to stages in

the way Piaget does. Vygotsky places much more emphasis on social

factors and the role of language in cognitive development and Piaget is

criticized for underestimating this.

According to Vygotsky (1978) much important learning by the

child happens through social interaction with a skilled peer or teacher.

This person models behaviors and/or provides verbal instructions for

the child. Vygotsky refers to this as collaborative or cooperative

dialogue. The child aims to understand the instructions provided by

this person then internalizes the information, using it to guide or

regulate their own performance.

 6

One important principle of Vygotsky is the more knowledgeable

other (MKO) which refers to someone who has a better understanding

or higher level of ability than the learner regarding a particular task,

process or concept. This could be a person or an electronic tutor that

is used in some educational settings to guide students through the

learning process.

The concept of (MKO) is related to the second important principle

of Vygotsky’s work, the Zone of Proximal Development. It is the

difference between what a child can achieve with guidance and

encouragement from a skilled partner. Vygotsky also believes

interaction with peers as an effective way of developing skills and

strategies.

The social constructivist view of learning emphasizes the

importance of social interactions of the learner with other people.

Louise Rosenblatt (1938) first advanced the Reader-Response Theory.

She agreed with Vgotsky. When children talk about books, especially

with a partner, it increases their understanding of what was read and

improves their ability to express themselves orally. (Cullinan, Galda

p.59)

I paired Sue with a child who reads on grade level since Sue

reads below grade level. My plan was to have them read the same

materials on 4th grade level. I wanted to see if the social interaction

helped with her reading comprehension.

 7

Sue scored below grade level on reading comprehension tests

since the beginning of the school year. Earlier in the school year I

wanted to check the comprehension levels of both fiction and

nonfiction reading with my students. Data gathered from this

particular student showed weakness in comprehension skills

particularly locating the main idea and recalling details in fiction and

nonfiction reading.

I chose the story Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume

for fictional reading because of Judy Blume’s descriptive writing style.

My strategy was to have them read a chapter together, then respond

to the reading with each other via a dialogue journal. Another strategy

I used was during the whole class discussion of the reading, the

partners would check with each other first, and then give the answer.

The third strategy was to create a graphic organizer to keep track of

information.

For nonfiction reading, I used the content area textbooks for both

social studies and science. Using the graphic organizer for science,

each partner discussed then wrote three main ideas and the

supporting details to those main ideas. The results were:

MAIN IDEA: Food Chains

SUPPORTING DETAILS:

 a consumer that eats prey is a predator

 wolves are predators of antelope

 8

MAIN IDEA: Habitats

 tarantulas get energy from spiders

 consumers depend on living things

MAIN IDEA: Food Webs

 raccoons eat snails

 hawks eat rats

 rats eat grasshoppers

Then they began to correspond using the dialogue journal.

“What did you think about the science? I think it was very interesting

because I never knew anything about the word niche. It’s a little hard

to pronounce. I also though that learning about those animals were

very interesting.”

The response from Sue was:

“Niche is a weird word to me too. I thought it was interesting because

we got to know the different habitats of animals. Did you know that

cats use their eyes and claws to catch their prey? They use their body

parts too to catch prey. So interesting!”

This went on until the end of each chapter. At the end of the

chapter, the class gathered together for a whole class discussion about

the chapter. The subject question sought was “How do Living Things

Get Energy?” Because each subtitle were broken down on the graphic

organizer, Sue and her partner were able to answer questions easily.

“Can anyone tell me some facts about a food web? Sue and her
 9

partner eagerly raised their hands to answer. Sue checked with her

partner, and then answered the question.

They did the same for the fictional story. First they created a

graphic organizer, only this time it showed the structure of the story.

As they read and then discussed, they noted in the graphic organizer

the characters, setting and events of the story including the problem

and solution.

Then they created a dialogue journal between themselves

focusing on their response to the story they were reading. They wrote

in each other’s journals about the meaning they made for the book

(what they liked, didn’t like, what they didn’t understand, questions

they had). The two collaborated together to make meaning from the

story rather than just summarizing or using interpretations of others.

During whole class discussions, when asked a question, the partners

were allowed to consult with each other before answering, thus feeling

confident enough to answer.

The outcome was what I had expected. The results were

favorable. The first comprehension test after using these strategies

showed that Sue made gains in her comprehension. The first

comprehension test was a small one and showed a slight improvement

for Sue. Before the strategy she scored a 40 out of 100. After using

the strategy for a while, she scored a 45. Her scores within a two-

month period steadily rose with her last story comprehension receiving
 10

a score of 65. Testing surrounding nonfiction reading remained the

same and then improved slightly. She began getting 3 out of 8 correct

and last check was 4 out of 8 correct.

I met with the two girls and we discussed if using a graphic

organizer when reading fiction and nonfiction and communicating

through a dialogue journal helped them to better understand what is

read. I asked how they felt about consulting with one another before

answering.

Sue: “I really enjoyed doing this. I liked talking with Sara. I really

liked writing how I feel in the dialogue journal. I like talking about the

answers to questions first before raising my hand.

Sara: I liked it too!

Me: How did it help you with comprehension? Sue?

Sue: If I didn’t understand something, Sara would help me.

Sometimes writing about what I read helps me to picture it.

The next story comprehension test was a small one. Sue scored

a 7 out of 10. The next small one showed a score of 8 out of 10. After

about one month of using these strategies everyday, I administered a

larger scale comprehension assessment that tests all of the reading

skills. As mentioned earlier, Sue scored lower in “Main Idea and

Recalling Details.” The first test (before strategy implementation) she

scored 3 out of 8 correct in this category. This time, it was 5 out of 8

correct. It was raised just a bit.

 11

She’s attempting to answer questions on her own. I noticed that

she’s beginning to gain confidence. She would still rather check with

her partner before answering. Each time we read, Sue is with her

partner. We use a basal reader in the classroom. They read together,

stopping frequently to check word meanings that could not be found

using context clues. The reader contains comprehension tests after

each story.

I noticed the change in conversation in the dialogue journal. She

was commenting on how much “easier” reading seemed to her. She

stated how she was able to “picture” in her mind what she was

reading.

Children can learn from each other. I’ve seen it happen time

and time again. When I first read Vygotsky’s theory, I wondered how

children could possibly learn from one another. After all, isn’t it the

teacher who has all of the knowledge and then in turn, gives that

knowledge to the students? It wasn’t until I put these theories to the

test. I am a believer in cooperative learning. I know that children can

and do learn from each other. The teacher, being the facilitator, sets

up the class in a way where this can happen.

I’ve always used cooperative techniques and strategies in my

classroom. This is my fourteenth year of teaching and I have seen how

this theory and the findings actually work!

 12

There have been some school years when it didn’t work as well.

The culture of the school did not allow for this to take place, and I was

unsure whether it would work. But as I gained more experience, it

seemed to get easier and easier. In this particular instance, the use of

the partners, together with the graphic organizer and the dialogue

journal worked for the two girls. I might extend these strategies

among the other students too.

These particular strategies work well for ELLs. It gives them the

opportunity to practice speaking, writing, listening, and to use the new

skills they are learning. It’s a way to use language without the fear of

embarrassment or fear of a wrong answer. I think this is a good way to

follow the Common Core Standards for ELLs.

By working with a partner, the ELL can experiment with

language. They will learn from their partner who is more experienced.

Together the ELL and the partner make meaning by constructing

knowledge within a social setting.

 13

SOURCES:

Article received in class – March 26, 2013 “Second Language Learning

Theories

Brown, H. Douglas. (2007) Principles of Language Learning and

Teaching (5th edition) San Francisco: Pearson

Learning Theories Website

http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/Isn/educator/edtech/learningtheorieswebsite/
vygotsky.htm

Simply Psychology Website

http://www.simplypsychology.org/vygotsky.html#sthash.Z20QnaF5.dp
bs
 14

Cullinan, Bernice and Lee Galda (1998) Literature and the Child
(4 ed.) New York: Harcourt Brace College Publishers
th