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Program Analysis of McGraw- Hill Reading Wonders Unit 2
By: Megan Cooper
Gardner-Webb EDUC 671 2019
In the state of North Carolina each third grade student is expected to meet a proficiency goal in one of the pathways outlined by the legislation. Our school purchased the McGraw-Hill Reading Wonders program based on the recommendation of a few first grade teachers. The resource was vetted by the first grade teachers looking at the first grade resource. The resource was not thoroughly analyzed for alignment at each grade level before the purchase was made. Now we are all expected to use the Reading Wonders curriculum that so much money was spent on. I personally am in my second year of implementing this program and I do not use it to fidelity as I have found in some of the lessons it is not accurately aligned with our North Carolina Standard Course of Study (NCSCOS). This program is not a district mandated program but is used at several schools within our district. In analyzing this resource I hope to strengthen my understanding of the resource and all of the Reading Wonders components and truly determine if this curriculum resource is getting the desired results. I also hope to vet the resource for alignment with the NCSCOS and rigor of the content. As for our student and school needs, our student population needs a rigorous and challenging curriculum to enhance their critical thinking and abilities to analyze a text. Being in third grade we also need a curriculum that is going to prepare our students for their first year of standardized testing. Our school as a whole needs a solid reading resource that is aligned with the state standards and appropriate for each grade level. As a result of my analysis I hope to find a better understanding of the resource and bring to light the areas in which this resource may be insufficient so that as a school we will be prepared to fill in the gaps to reach our desired results.
Reading Wonders is a K-6 Literacy Curriculum design to "foster a love of reading in all children" (McGraw-Hill, 2019). Reading Wonders uses researched based "instruction and best practices to help students grow as readers, writers, and critical thinkers" (McGraw-Hill, 2019 ). Reading Wonders is a very detailed program with many components. When beginning implementation of this program it can be quite overwhelming; as the amount of different components is extreme. The program however does encompass most aspects of reading and provides a variety of resources for teachers to use in their classroom instruction.
Reading Wonders was created by McGraw-Hill and launched in 2013. This was the first K-6 reading program specifically designed for Common Core Standards.and the first program built from the ground up. The Reading Wonders program was developed to keep up with the changing standards and the K-12 learning expectations for career and college readiness. It was designed to specifically align with Common Core State Standards as well as address the rigor requirements.
Dan Canton, the president of McGraw-Hill School Education states, "We're confident that Reading Wonders – a rigorous program that was built from the ground up to address all of the new reading standards – will fully support teachers as they transition to these standards, and most importantly, enable our students to become strong readers and critical thinkers throughout their lives."
(McGraw-Hill, 2016)
The Reading Wonders program was implemented to assist teachers with the Common Core State Standards and to give teachers a through resource to help make planning and assessing easier. This program has everything paced out into weekly units as well as having assessments along the way. It also touches on character education as well as incorporating 21st century skills with the digital component.
Before Reading Wonders my school used the Reading Street Program which became outdated and no longer aligned with the new state standards.
Our staff currently uses the textbooks and the teacher resource guides to help with instruction. However, at this point with a lack of adequate training few teachers use the online resources or the digital component of the program.
The program’s goals for its intended population is to reach all learners, while helping them to build strong literacy foundations. Also to teach them to access complex texts, be able to write to sources, and build social emotional learning skills.
The intended target population is K-6 students and teachers. The program was designed to assist teachers with the new Common Core State Standards and to address the growing expectations of our K-6 students.
According to our text, curriculum development is meant "to make a difference- to enable students to attain the school's, the society's, and... their own aims and goals"( Ornstein & Hunkins, 2017, P. 244). Based on the research this program does just that, in Lincoln Public Schools the third, fourth, and fifth graders have progressively increased their reading scores each year after implementing Reading Wonders as shown in the charts below.
Reading Wonders goals for the intended population is appropriate and supported by several research studies performed in different states and districts using the Reading Wonders program. The program intends to reach all children and to teach the whole child. The program has many components to reach college and career readiness as well as social and emotional components.
McGraw-Hill Education Research Evidence, 2017, [Web Source]
The graph shows the academic achievement data for a specific district implementing Reading Wonders. This research was conducted to see how the students from different classrooms would perform based on the reading curriculum being used. Some classrooms used Reading Wonders while the others did not. The data suggest no significant difference between the classrooms using Reading Wonders and the classrooms not using the program. This data was also collected in the first year of implementation of the program.
Dorsey, 2019
The graph shows the academic achievement data from the first year of implementation with the Reading Wonders program.
Johns Hopkins University Center for
Research & Reform in Education (CRRE) performed an efficacy study with Wonders. The classrooms using Reading Wonders showed increases over all areas in vocabulary, comprehension, and overall
reading performance (McGraw-Hill, 2016).
McGraw-Hill, 2016
There are placement and diagnostic assessments that can be created and customized for individuals. There are also e-assessments that can be created and questions can be edited. The diagnostic, placement, and benchmark tests assess performance. Learning is evaluated through weekly and unit assessments. The weekly and unit assessments are multiple choice questions and have a few written responses.
The entire program aligns with the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) which are all assessed on standardized tests
>The teacher's manual is guided with tips for struggling students or succeeding students.
>The program has a digital component to enhance learning for students and parent involvement.
>The program is research based and aligned with common core (McGraw-Hill, 2014).
>It addresses the five components of reading.
>The program also has differentiated instruction and daily small group plans .
>It has resources for fluency practice and assessment for fluency.
>Students can have access to the books and resources
online from home as well as school.
>It will track student work and provide data
for teachers based on the online program.
There are no specific degree requirements for using Reading Wonders. However, specific training on using the program is necessary. The McGraw-Hill Reading Wonders program is very detailed and a lot of resources and components to go through.
Our staff had a specaialist from McGraw-Hill come to our school to do an overview training of the program and the resources avaliable.
The McGraw- Hill Reading Wonders website has a professional development tab for teachers. This section has teacher guides on all the components of the program as well as videos with examples of how to implement the components.
These resources are aligned to best practices as they offer modeling and guides for implementation. They also offer continued support with their specialist who can answer questions about any of the resources. The only part of the PD that is missing is the sustained training and peer-collaboration aspect. These are areas that need improvement.
As found in researching the tenets for professional development, Sarah Longfield used the "acronym INSPIRE" which stands for Impactful, Needs-based, Sustained, Peer-collaborative, In-practice, Reflective, Evaluated (Longfield,2018 ). Reading Wonders incorprates many of these princples within the professional development page.
Example of a coaching video demonstrating how to implement the vocabulary resource.
https://connected.mcgraw-hill.com/rd14t/assetBuckets.professionalDevelopment.do
As for future plans our school intends to continue to use Reading Wonders as the research shows evidence of best practices and has many options for teachers. This program is not a district program but was purchased for our school as a research-based resource to support teachers.
Our administrator, Sarah Maier has stated that this is to be used as a resource and that as educators we are to "use your own judgement as to what and when to supplement resources". Our school has been working on implmenting a strong professional learning community system to help with reading implementation and clairfying important standards vertically with each grade level. The Reading Wonders program is also being used to implement 21st centrury skills within the classroom and allow teachers to track student data. Our principal has also scheduled further professional development for our staff on the digital componenets of the program.
The impact of using Reading Wonders will hopfully bring more consistancy among the teacher directed lessons across grade levels. This program will also help to increase our students critical thinking and reading ability. Our desired results are to see the long term growth increase with student achievement.
After completing my analysis of the McGraw-Hill Reading Wonders program my perspective of the program has changed significantly. Before analyzing the program I was struggling to see it's benefits and I was very skeptical of the program's alignment. I found that I have not taken the time to throughly analyze the program and all of the resources it has to offer. Yes, I still think in certain areas it is lacking adaquet text to support certain NCSCOS standards. Such as when my team and I were teaching fables, folktales, and myths the textbook had several folktales, but very few myths or fables to help with teaching this standard. I personally experienced what Thomas Harvey wrote about as "the nature of change", he provided a list of obstacles faced when implementing change. The two obstacles I feel I faced were the first two on Harvey's list "lack of ownership" and "lack of benefits" (Ornstein & Hunkins, 2017, p. 250), both of which have been adjusted with my analysis of this program. Our text stated that "consideration of the points in the preceding list and sensitivity to the needs of people...ease implementation"(Ornstein & Hunkins, 2017, p. 250), which I feel was not the case within our school. This program was selected by a small group of teachers who thought it was a good idea and it was not a whole staff choice, which would of allowed "ownership" and helped with buy in from the staff.
Reflecting on this curriculur program has helped me as a teacher leader to "contribute to systematic, critcal analysis of learning in their classrooms and beyond" (Gardner-Webb University, 2018). As a teacher leader I strive to be a lifelong learner and continue my professional development to deepen my understanding of curriculum and resources. Analyzing this program also relates to standard four of the Standards for Graduate Teacher Candidates and how we are to "seek out and use existing research to inform school practices" (Gardner-Webb University, 2018). It is our job as teacher leaders to ensure we are using relevant and impactful curriclum to get desired results. After doing this analysis I can see the benefits of the program and the positive resources it has to offer. However, there is still areas for improvment like continued professional development with the program and how to implement the digital resources within the classroom.
I chose to analyze Unit 2 of the McGraw-Hill Reading Wonders program. This is the second unit with six weeks of instructional lessons. I specifically picked Unit 2 because it focuses on one of the biggest reading standards for third graders and one that my team always seems to struggle with teaching. I am hoping that analyzing this unit and looking closely at it's components may help to better assist with teaching this standard. Based on the EdReport "the instructional materials for Reading Wonders Grade 3 partially meet expectations of alignment" (EdReports, 2017). I also wanted to look at how closely this program is aligned with such an important standard.
-This particular unit is focused on one of our biggest standards in third grade which is RL.3.2 Recount stories, including fables, folktales, and myths from diverse cultures; determine the central message, lesson, or moral and explain how it is conveyed through key details in the text. This is always a difficult standard to teach as students struggle with lessons or morals being taught.
-The unit meets the goals of the program by providing a variety of differientation opportunities for students. It also provides common assessments for each week of the unit to help the teacher know students have mastered the concept for each week.
-Unit 2 is broken down into six weeks. Each week has a different concept and esstential question.
Week 1: Weekly Concept: Cooperation
Essential Question: Why is working together a good way to solve a problem?
Week 2: Weekly Concept: Immigration
Essential Question: Why do people immigrate to new places?
Week 3: Weekly Concept: Government
Essential Question: How do people make government work?
Week 4: Weekly Concept: Survival
Essential Question: How can people help animals survive?
Week 5: Weekly Concept: Figure it Out
Essential Question: How do people figure things out?
Week 6: Weekly Concept: Figure It Out
Essential Question: What does it take to solve a problem?
The unit has a variety of activities available such as the read aloud stories, small group instructional plans with text, online lessons you can assign students to complete on their own student dashboard, and leveled practice pages as shown below.
The Wonders program is a methodical reading curriculum, which includes three main sections: whole group reading, small group differentiated instruction, and whole group language arts. The whole group reading component is broken down into time slots for each section. For the small group teaching section, there are a variety of leveled books to teach children who are either approaching, on level, beyond, or English language learners (ELL). The third section, language arts, has a writing and grammar lesson for each day of the week. The writing lessons are either shared or independent.
>The teachers’ role for Reading Wonders is laid out in the guide specifically for teachers to follow. The program is not scripted however, it will say, for example, review character traits or a specific skill. It will give the teacher examples of what to use, but then will give choices on how to implement the instruction. Teachers can Go Digital and use online resources.. The Wonders program provides teachers with every part of the language arts instruction model you would need to teach in a day. The teacher is not expected to come up with his or her own curriculum.
>The students’ role in the curriculum is to follow along and respond when asked questions by the teacher. The students are able to independently inquire about their reading during the small group lessons and writing instruction. The program provides many materials for students to use such as the companion workbook, online games, or interactive presentations. The program is geared toward different learning styles as it provides concrete materials as well as digital ones to engage students.
Explicit curriculum is the planned or formal material. This is the specific topic or subject the student is suppose to learn from the lesson. (Ornstein & Hunkins, 2017, p.14).
“Absent Curriculum which can also be referred to as the Null Curriculum can be defined as the subject matter and experiences not taught” (Ornstein & Hunkins, 2017, p.9).
"The Hidden Curriculum which arises from interactions among students and between students and teachers. Hidden Curriculum is built around peer groups and can often compete with the teacher’s planned curriculum” (Ornstein & Hunkins, 2017, p.14).
The teacher guide book has questions in the margins of each story to help the teacher with questioning as they read. It also points out tips for ELL students and vocabulary for the teacher to point out as reading. The teacher guide has explicit instructions for the teacher to follow for each component as well as what to say while you are reading aloud the stories. The following video shows the differentiation provided and the questions in the margins of the book.
The hidden curriculum is within the concepts of each weekly focus. Each week focuses on a moral trait such as unit 2 week 1 is focused on cooperation. Unit 2 week 2 is focused on immigration. These topics are not the main skill being taught but the underlying concepts that are teaching students about moral traits or other important topics.
The absent curriculum is the curriculum that is "defined as the subject matter and experiences not taught” (Ornstein & Hunkins, 2017, p.9). Within this specific unit the part of the standard that is not specifically addressed or taught is myths and central message. In the text it teaches the concept of "theme" which is not in the third grade standard at all.
The Reading Wonders program provides an array of materials that enable teachers to differentiate for individualized instruction. One of the principal from Delta Charter School commented that her teachers “all enjoy using the Reading/Writing Workshop” and “love the differentiation in Wonders" (McGraw-Hill Research Evidence, p.13 )
The program even offers tips and videos on how to determine your students needs to group them. The assessments have varying levels to help struggling readers. The small group leveled readers also have a wide range of levels and skills to help all readers. The teachers guide includes whole group lessons and small group lessons. The small group lessons on based on four reading levels; approaching, ELL, on level, and beyond. "Whether a student is Approaching Level, On Level, Beyond Level, or an English Language Learner, the differentiation supports provide equity of access for all learners" (McGraw-Hill Research Evidence, p.13 ).
The program also provided a variety of activities for different learning styles. Each unit has a theme song and there are songs for every sound or spelling card. The Reading Wonders program also offers a digital collaboration opportunity for students. Teachers also have access to digital content that provides videos, photographs, interactive presentations, and read aloud options for stories.
The assessments within the program vary based on the needs of the students. There are weekly assessments based on skills and unit assessments that cover the standards taught through the whole six week unit. Fluency assessments are available as well as foundational skills assessments. The weekly assessments are also available to be differentiated as they have the approaching-level assessments.
(McGraw-Hill Education, 2017)
The images above are of the unit 2 assessment page. You can see that there are a variety of assessments available.
Unit two offers a variety of resources and explicit teaching strategies to help teachers with this standard. It provides strategies to scaffold learning and meet students where they are. It provides a help section with each story called the ACT (Access Complex Text). You can see these components in the video on this page.
According to EdReports the Reading Wonders curriculum is lacking with vocabulary and writing skills to help students think critically. The assessments are also not higher order thinking questions as all the assessments are multiple choice (EdReports, 2017). This particular unit is lacking a variety of text that is aligned with the standard. The textbook only has two myths available to teach with but provides several folktales.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fTIV1n2Vgr_dI7cyCAawD4_IguSi5hgYpC4LGB3sq0Q/edit?usp=sharing
After analyzing this specific unit closely I found that it has many valuable resources to help support a teacher with the RL 3.2 standard. However, it is lacking a few ways as I do not feel it has enough rigor to the activities and it has little variety in the text available to use. This standard covers folktales, fables, and myths. Yet this unit has very few myths or fables available to use. It also focuses on the skill of "theme" which is not part of the third grade standard. The third grade standard focuses on central message, lesson, or moral which is not mentioned in the pages as shown. Standard two of the Standards for Graduate Teacher Candidates states teacher leaders will use "diverse world cultures and global issues" which is incorporated in the weekly concepts and it also states teachers "implement curriculum and instruction that is responsive to learner differences" (Gardner-Webb, 2018). This is shown in the various leveled books, and resources. Each week has differentiated resource pages that are based on approaching, on-level, and beyond. Through this analysis I have found that this resource has a lot to offer but does need some supplemental materials to fill the gaps of the absent curriculum.
Matteson, Addie. (2016, Dec. 7). Wonders 2017: McGraw-Hill’s K-6 ELA Program Retrieved from https://www.slj.com/?detailStory=wonders-2017-mcgraw-hills-k-6-ela-program-slj-review
Dorsey, Wendy (2015) “Balanced Reading Basals and the Impact on Third-Grade Reading Achievement.” Journal of Organizational & Educational Leadership: Vol 1: Iss. 2, Article 2. Available at: http://digitalcommons.gardner-webb.edu/joel/vol1/iss2/2
EdReport.org. Inc. (2019). Reports Overview Retrieved October 18, 2019. from https://www.edreports.org/report/overview/reading-wonders-2017.
McGraw-Hill Education. (2019). K-6 Reading and Writing Curriculum: Wonders. Retrieved October 18, 2019. from https://www.mheducation.com/prel-12/program/microsites/MLTSP-BGAo7M0/wonders.html
McGraw-Hill Education Unveils Reading Wonders. Entertainment Close-up 14 Sept. 2012. Business Insights: Essentials. Web. 18 Oct. 2019. http://bi.gale.com.ezproxy.gardner-webb.edu/essentials/article/GALE%7CA302324315?u=nclivegwu
Place All Learners on the Path to Literacy Success. (2016). Retrieved from
https://s3.amazonaws.com/ecommerce-prod.mheducation.com/unitas/school/explore/research/wonders-success-brochure.pdf
Gardner-Webb University. (2018) Program Standards: Standards for Graduate Teacher Candidates. Retrieved on 10/28/2019 from https://bbapp.gardner-webb.edu
Shanahan,D.T. (n.d.) Text Complexity. Retrieved October 18, 2019. from https://s3.amzonaws.com/ecommerce-prod.mheducation.com/unitas/school/explore/sites/reading-wonders/wonders-white-paper-text-complexity.pdf.
Wonders Grades K-6: Resource Overview. (2019) Wonders Grades K-6: Resource Overview. Retrieved from https://s3.amazonaws.com/ecommerce-prod.mheducation.com/unitas/school/explore/sites/reading-wonders/wonders-2020-overview-brochure.pdf
Ornstein, A. C., & Hunkins, F. P. (2017). Curriculum: Foundations, Principles, and Issues (7th ed.). Boston: Pearson.
Longfield, Sarah. (2018, Apr. 4) Effective Professional Development: Principles and Best Practice. Retrieved from https://www.cambridge.org/elt/blog/2018/04/04/effective-professional-development-principles/