|
November 1, 2002
Having Students Learn Basic Grammar Through Technology
By Hilary Pruett
Introduction
My third-graders, all in a Special Education resource room, have a reading level anywhere from kindergarten level to first grade. Unfortunately for these pupils, the seemingly simple act of writing is one of the toughest tasks they encounter each day. A difficult concept for these students to learn is to write a paragraph. Each student struggles with writing. In fact, it is difficult for them to write even a basic sentence without adult assistance.
My students have poor sentence structure and grammar skills. For them, understanding the parts of speech is difficult, and sometimes it seems that no matter how much we review, they often fail to grasp a clear understanding of the different parts of speech.
This project was designed to help my students understand the role of the different parts of speech in making a complete sentence. Because my students are much more interested in learning on the computer than listening to me lecture or doing endless worksheets, I have chosen a program called Grammar Rock to assist my them in learning the basic parts of speech. The theoretical perspective associated with this project follows a constructivist approach to learning. I want the students to work on the computer and learn at their own pace.
Rationale
Nevada State Standard
7.0 Students will write using Standard English, grammar, usage, punctuation, capitalization and spelling.
(3) 7.1 Students will identify and correctly use grammar in writing simple sentences with noun/verbs, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, and other parts of speech such as subject/verb agreement.
(3) 6.5 Edit for Standard English
(3) 6.2 Students will organize ideas for future writing through activities such as sequencing and classifying.
Theoretical Perspective
The theoretical perspective associated with this activity is best described as constructivism. This activity reflects the theory that children learn from interactivity with their environment. As the children are exploring and working through the games, they are learning at their own speed and interacting. Since this is not a teacher directed activity, children are using their prior knowledge to learn about the parts of speech from the program. Constructivists want the students to learn about the world from exploring their environment (Sprague, Dede, 1999). Although some teachers might worry an activity like this is somehow letting children play, it is really so much more. In fact, some children get much more immersed in a subject with a constructivist approach than with a teacher directed activity (Sprague, Dede, 1999). The software keeps my students interested, and some researchers believe that where there is genuine interest children remember information longer than with pencil paper tasks, or rote memorization (Holloway, 1999).
Activity Description
The students work with a program called Grammar Rock, which has two separate components. The first asks the students to watch one of eight videos, each related to a unique part of speech or grammatical concept, i.e.: nouns, verbs, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, interjections, conjunctions, and subject/predicate. If you recall the memorable School House Rock Collection, in which each part of speech had its own catchy tune, you can visualize this segment of the program.
Once a student has watched a video it is time to go to the game for that part of speech. Each game has three levels of increasing difficulty, but my students start on the first level. The game presents a sentence and asks the player to locate a specific part of speech. As the level gets more difficult, the sentences become more complex, and the different parts of speech are harder to identify. For students who are really struggling, the program provides a hint. There is also a help button that a player can click for help. On-screen prompts say "click this button, and it will describe the part of speech you are looking for." For example, if the student is working with nouns, the help button offers the clue that a noun is a person, place or thing. One disadvantage is that students with poor reading skills may have trouble reading so much information on the screen.
Evaluation
Each of my students enjoyed using this program. Although they loved watching the videos, the game segments became a little more of a problem for them. Having to read the questions was, for some, a major problem. Although many, even those with a first-grade reading level, were able to get up to the third level of difficulty, others were only able to get to the second level. Some quit in sheer frustration. This was unexpected.
To evaluate my students, I gave them a quiz before they started the Grammar Rock program. This quiz involved reading a sentence and identifying the different parts of speech. None were able to complete this quiz. After working with the Grammar Rock program for about two consecutive weeks, all of my students were able to identify a noun and a verb. The next part of the evaluation was for the students to identify all nouns and verbs in the sentence. This was a very difficult concept for each of the students to understand. They seemed to understand the different parts of speech, but they were still unsure about how each of the parts of speech work together to make a sentence. Another problem the students encountered was spelling mistakes. Each of the students had a difficult time spelling.
I had allotted only three weeks for this activity but it has taken a lot longer than anticipated. From reviewing all of the evaluations that the students completed, I believe they have a strong understanding of nouns and verbs. However, they are still unsure about how to use the other parts of speech. I would say this project was successful, because they have gotten the concept of nouns and verbs. I think that, with time and with more practice, they will be able to complete work on all eight components.
Modification
One of the biggest changes I will make is to have an adult work with the students rather than just expecting students to know what to do. In fact, we lost a lot of time with students not really knowing what to do, or how to play the game. Next time I will have a lesson to go over the activity and how the program works. I would work on each part of speech longer, having the students work on nouns for at least a week before going to the next part of speech. I would also evaluate the students after they had worked on each part of speech rather than waiting until we got through all of the parts of speech. Finally I would require the students to print a report showing their individual scores, since the program has this capability. Thus I could monitor their progress more closely. It would also give each of the students more motivation to keep going to see the progress they have made.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I believe that this project was a success for all of my students. I have seen a better understanding of a subject that had been difficult for them in the past. With more time, I believe that this project could have been even more successful. Because it is hard for these students to grasp such a difficult concept in a short time, they need to work with the program more, and be able to have a longer completion time for each part of speech.
I am proud at how hard my students worked, I believe in certain circumstances a constructivist model can work. If the students are self- motivated there is nothing that a child cannot achieve.
Email: Hilary Pruett
|
