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DOL Effectiveness in Elementary Students

Erica Abramowicz
Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota
Schools of Graduate and Professional Programs
Portfolio Entry for Wisconsin Teacher Standards 1 and 2
EDUW 691 Professional Skills Development
Caroline A. Hickethier, Instructor
November, 29, 2016
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Selected Wisconsin Teacher Standard Descriptors

Wisconsin Teacher Standard (WTS) 1: Teachers know the subject they are teaching

The teacher understands the central concepts, tools of inquiry, and structures of the

discipline(s) he or she teaches and can create learning experiences that make these aspects of

subject meaningful for students.

Knowledge. (a) The teacher understands major concepts, assumptions, debates,

processes of inquiry, and ways of knowing that are central to the discipline(s) s/he teachers. (b)

The teacher understands how students’ conceptual frameworks and their misconceptions for an

area of knowledge can influence their learning.

Dispositions. The teacher realizes that the subject matter knowledge is not a fixed body

of facts but is complex and ever-evolving. S/he seeks to keep abreast of new ideas and

understandings in the field.

Performances. (a) The teacher can evaluate teaching resources and curriculum materials

for their comprehensiveness, accuracy, and usefulness in representing particular ideas and

concepts. (b) The teacher can create interdisciplinary learning experiences that encourage

students to integrate knowledge, skills, and methods of inquiry from several subject areas.

Danielson Domains Danielson Domain 1: Planning and Preparation

Component 1d: Demonstrating Knowledge of Resources. (a) resources of teaching (b)

resources of students
Component 1e: Designing Coherent Instruction. (a) Instructional material and

resources. (b) Instructional groups

Pre-assessments
Self-assessment of Instruction Related to WTS and Targeted Student Learning Objective(s)
For Wisconsin Teacher Standard (WTS) 1, I wanted to focus on how Daily Oral

Language (DOL) affects the “learning experiences” of the students. I teach math, religion, and

reading language arts to 16 fourth grade students, with varying ranges of ability. For example, I
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have a student with dyslexia so reading and grammar don’t come easily for this student, while

another in the same class is substantially above grade level. When deciding what to do for

morning seat work, I was faced with a choice. I could either do a math sheet or a D.O.L sheet

but not both. My target learning objective will be to discover if taking out their morning DOL

sheet will have an adverse effect on their weekly sentence tests.

I chose two WTS 1 performances to assist my research process. The performance about

“evaluating teaching resources and curriculum materials for their usefulness” helped guide my

process. When I started the year, I was told to use both DOL and a quick math review sheet as

morning seat work. It became too much for some of students; which in turn, didn’t create

“learning experiences that encourage students to integrate knowledge, and skills from other

subject.” This led me to decide to cut one of them out. Seeing as how we just started a new

math curriculum and they have an English class that is separate from reading language arts class,

I thought the logical choice would be to remove the DOL sheet. Before I can make this decision

for my class, I need to assess how this will affect the learning of my students.
I chose two categories under knowledges to guide my actions when planning how to

assess whether DOL is an effective “process of inquiry” for students to gain understanding of

grammar conventions in the written English language. The second knowledge focus pertains to

“how students’ misconceptions for an area of knowledge can influence their learning.” My

students groan and complain every time they have to do DOL because they don’t understand why

they have to do it in my class and in their English class. Their attitudes lead them to not doing

their best work and to rush to get it done because “I was told to.”
My goal is summarized by the disposition I chose: “the teacher realizes that the subject

matter knowledge is not a fixed body of facts but is complex and ever-evolving. S/he seeks to

keep abreast of new ideas and understandings in the field.” I tried to do as I was asked by my

teaching team, but is it really what’s best for my students? There are other strategies and
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methods I can try to get the students engaged and excited about learning about grammar. First, I

need to establish whether DOL really does affect my students’ understanding of grammar. Once

that is determined, I will look into some of the newer ideas for teaching grammar to students.
Assessment of Student Performance Related to Targeted Student Learning Objective(s)
From the time the students arrive till the time we start class, the students have about 20

minutes of morning work time; however, some of my students who ride the bus usually arrive

with only ten minutes of work time. In that amount of time, the students are asked to do a math

review page and five DOL sentences. Grammar comprehension levels of the students range from

Grade 1 to Grade 6. My students on the lower level of this are also my students who struggle in

math. These students are just “going through the motions.” The morning D.O.L isn’t

meaningful to them which is when I hear them say, “Let’s just get this over with.”
When I heard this, I realized something had to be done. I asked myself “Is DOL really

helping them?” I started looking at other forms of helping them. I talked to their English teacher

who said they do something similar to that at the start of her class. Since we just started a new

math curriculum this year, I decided to keep math and experiment with taking out the DOL part

of morning work. I created and conducted an experiment which I will explain more about later.

Artifact A shows the students’ scores for each test they took (two using DOL and two without

using it).
Assessment of Learning Environment While Learning Targeted Objective(s)
To find out if the environment was the issue with incompletion of tasks, I conducted an

informal poll during one of our morning meetings. I asked my students whether the room was

quiet enough for them to complete the morning work. Their answers ranged from “It is good.” to

“Yes.” to “I don’t know.” To help alleviate some of the extra noise (for the students who said it

was too loud), we tried keeping the door closed and everyone only whispered until the bell rang.
After a few days, I observed students still struggling to complete the task. As a result, I

tried not doing D.O.L sentences every day but every other day instead. By doing this, their
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morning work apprehensions were reduced. The students who struggled were completing their

work. They had a feeling of accomplishment rather than defeat. My students that arrived early

and finished the task went around the room helping those who were struggling. The boring “here

we go again” learning environment started to change into a “Let’s do this!” learning environment

that was creating “learning experiences that were meaningful for the students.”
Assessment Conclusion and Essential Question to Guide Research
The self-assessment, assessment of student performance, and learning environment

assessment show that doing DOL every morning isn’t an effective way to teach grammar

comprehension to 85% of my students. Just because a resource has been used in the past with

the reasoning “that’s just what we’ve always done,” it doesn’t always mean that is what is good

for the students now. My learning goal, as stated by my essential question to guide research,

draws its’ wording from WTS 1: Is D.O.L a teaching resource that shows “usefulness in

representing particular ideas and concepts?”

Research Summary
Daily Oral Language (DOL) practice sheets and sentences have been a staple in

classrooms for years. However, is it the right way to teach grammar to elementary students? As

stated by Hillcock (as cited in Whittingham, 2007), “Traditional grammar instruction is generally

characterized by rote memorization of the rules or conventions and ‘skill and drill’ practice. This

traditional instructional mode may have detrimental effects on writing and does students great

damage” (p.24). What does this mean? Teachers have been trying to find alternatives to

traditional methods because students don’t respond to it. According to Braddock and Lloyd, the

students get bored with the same thing year after year which “leads to a negative attitude towards

writing” (as cited in Whittingham, 2007, p. 24,).

The thing many teachers choose to try is Daily Oral Language (DOL). Teachers can

change the DOL sentences to fit their students’ interests. The students may be embracing this

method, but does it affect their day-to-day writing? Although students embraced it and showed
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success in the daily tasks, they didn’t have the ability to correctly edit their own writing (Mullen

as cited in Whittingham, 2007). In general, educators assume that when a student is good at

finding grammar errors in a peer’s writing, they are great writers themselves. Many times this is

not the case.

To prove how effective DOL really it, Jeff Whittingham did a nine-month study. His

subjects were 70 fourth grade students. In 2007, Whittingham’s study focused on trying to find

out if there was a difference between experimental and control groups on editing and writing

scores. He did various test and collected the data. The conclusion to his study found that “there

was not a statistically significant improvement in students’ editing and writing skills when Daily

Oral Language (DOL) was used as an instructional methodology over the period of a school

year” (Whittingham, 2007).

In many of the articles printed on this topic, Whittingham’s finding is a common one, so

why do people still use DOL? The results may not be statistically s significant, but there are

improvements in other areas. One such area is the mechanics of grammar in writing. When

writing, students showed an increased awareness of mechanical errors if they were exposed to

DOL (Whittingham, 2007). This is a good start; however, DOL is not a fix all method. More

research is needed to fully understand its effectiveness. Until then, teachers should not accept it

because “that is the way it has always been done.”

Research Implications
My essential question to guide my research was “How does DOL affect understanding of

grammar in Elementary Students?” I’ve always wondered why students had to do DOL when

they do something similar to it in the literacy class. Does it really help them that much? This

year, our school implemented a new math curriculum with daily remembering sheets. In the

morning, our students arrive at different times and are expected to complete morning seat work
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which consisted of DOL. Now, we were to add the math to their morning work. It became too

much for them. Which do I eliminate; math or DOL which has always been there?
I tried taking out the math sheet; however, the new curriculum was more advanced than

what we previously had. In turn, students needed more practice with their math, so I had to

reintroduce the math review pages into their morning work. I was hesitant to remove the DOL

sentences because it’s been around forever. I remember doing it at their age. Can I really take it

out? Does D.O.L really affect their grammar comprehension? Whittingham’s study (2007)

“found there was not a statically significant improvement in students’ writing when using Daily

Oral Language (DOL).” I came to the conclusion to try taking it out temporarily to examine the

effects of not doing Daily Oral Language.

Research-based Action Plan
Action Plan Summary Outline
1. Design an experiment to test how effective Daily Oral Language (D.O.L) is in helping

students comprehend grammar. Change how frequently the students do DOL

2. Conduct the experiment in a way that students can participate but not alter such as their

weekly sentence tests. First, do DOL for two weeks consistently and review it with them daily.

Then, I’ll remove the DOL morning component for two weeks while continuing to do their

weekly sentence tests.

3. Assess the difference in sentence test scores. Are they higher when we did DOL or

lower? If there is a difference, is it a very big one? After looking at the compiled data, I will

decide whether to reinstate DOL into the students’ morning work.

Targeted Student Learning Objective(s)
1. Standardized goal: Grammar comprehension
2. Targeted learning objective: Student will show mastery of fourth grade grammar

concepts.

Task(s) and Essential Proficiency Criteria for Targeted Learning Objective(s)

1. Task: Analyze the effectiveness of DOL in helping students’ understanding of

grammar mechanics.
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2. Criteria that Prove Proficiency in Meeting Targeted Learning Objective(s)

a. Is there a significant (20%) difference in student scores (either higher or

lower) on their weekly sentence tests?

b. Does it only affect certain students or all of them?

Method(s) to Assess Progress of Proficiency for Targeted Learning Objective(s)

1. Students will take their weekly sentence tests. These tests are related to their

weekly story and test the students’ understandings of grammar concepts.

2. Every morning the students will complete their DOL sentences. During

literacy, we will go over these sentences together making corrections and

explaining our corrections as we go along.

Post-assessments
Instructional Insights Related to WTS and Targeted Student Learning Objective(s)
People always say, “If it’s not broke, don’t try to fix it.” This came to mind when I

wanted to change something that teachers have been doing for years. However, is it truly still

working, and are the students still having “meaningful learning experiences?” After a few

weeks, I observed the students just doing it to do it. They didn’t understand why nor care, but

we kept doing it because “we had to.”

After a while, I started to do it whenever the schedule allowed it. I began to notice a

strange reoccurrence. On the days we didn’t do DOL, the students completed their morning

work and had a more positive attitude throughout the day. On the other hand, when we did DOL,

some students weren’t completing their morning work. The ones that didn’t complete it felt

defeated and that attitude stayed with them for the entire day. After about three more weeks of
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observation, I came to a conclusion to try an experiment to see if we really needed to do DOL or

if their English class was enough.

For the following two weeks, we did DOL every morning. We corrected it as a class. If

they got something wrong, we had a discussion about why it was wrong and how we could fix it.

Some days, we didn’t get to what I had originally planned to cover because our discussions ran

long. At the end of the week, my class would take their sentence test which consisted of ten

sentences with varying types of mistakes for them to fix. Some of the mistakes included:

misspelled spelling words, wrong plurals, improper capitalization, improper punctuation, and

possessives. After I graded them, I handed them back. Sometimes, we discussed the common

mistakes made that week. I planned it so that at the end of the two weeks we would be starting

our Iowa and CogAt Testing which would last for two full weeks.
During that time, we didn’t do literacy including DOL. At first, it was hard not to do it.

We spent about a fourth of our literacy time on it. The kids asked (although not enthusiastically)

if we had to do DOL. As time wore on, they started to forget about it. Our day flowed nicely

from testing to math. One students even commented that the “day just flew by.” Finally, testing

ended, and we returned to our literacy curriculum.

Comparison of Student Performance Related to Targeted Student Learning Objective(s)
Following testing, we went back to our literacy routine with one small change, we still

didn’t do DOL. The students didn’t say anything about us “forgetting” to do it. They came in

and did the morning math review for morning work. I observed almost all of my students were

finishing their morning work. The ones that finished early were going around the room helping

those who weren’t done. This started to recreate meaningful learning experiences. Their

attitudes started to change as their conceptions of morning work changed. During one of our

morning meetings, I told them that we would be starting DOL again. A few students asked, “Ms.
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A., do we really have to do DOL again?” A couple responses surprised me. For example, one of

my lower level students said, “I was just starting to like morning work again.”
At the end of the first week of not completing DOL in the morning, we again took the

weekly skills test. Their grades were promising; 10 out of 16 students actually scored higher

without doing DOL than when we did DOL! (Artifact #1, Test2.3) Was that just a coincidence?

Only time would tell.

After all the data was collected, the class average dropped by 19.38%. However, the

students whose grades decreased the most were the students who are already receiving reading

intervention help. The average percent the scores went down by was 8.2% and the average

percent scores went up was 7.2%. This shows there wasn’t a significant difference. Based on

these results, I would like to not do DOL every day. I would ask the interventionist to continue

with using this with my students she pulls out for reading intervention help.
Comparison of Learning Environment While Learning Targeted Objective(s)
In the beginning, the learning environment was a little chaotic. The students were

rushing to get morning work done and not doing their best work. Our correction discussions

were very much teacher led. Some of my struggling students felt defeated the moment they

walked in and saw DOL on their desk for morning work. As time went on, the students learned

to manage their time and weren’t rushing as much. The discussion became more student-driven.

“I see a mistake. Can I fix it?” and “Ah man, I didn’t get a turn.” started to be some of the most

frequent comments I heard which demonstrates the change in student attitudes about DOL.

However, some were still feeling defeated and started to “hate” morning work.
When we stopped doing DOL, the students were slightly confused. They wanted to know

why. I was able to use the Iowa Testing as an excuse because we really didn’t have time to fix

and discuss them around testing. Not all of the students were disappointed, in fact they were

happy. Throughout testing, the learning environment started to become calmer (aside from

nerves over the test).

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After the testing finished, I continued not to do DOL. Most of the students didn’t really

mind. Almost the students started to finish their morning work. The learning environment

changed again. It became a learning community powered by students. If some students became

too loud, others would politely ask them to be quiet because others were trying to finish their

work. They helped each other on questions rather than coming to me for every question. It’s not

like that every day because fourth graders are still fourth graders, but it is like that most days.
Reflection of Entire Learning Process
The essential question guiding this entry was “How does DOL affect understanding of

grammar in Elementary Students?” I found that just because “that’s the way it’s always been

done” doesn’t mean that it’s the best practice for students. My students were excited to try a new

way to do DOL. We tried doing it with small groups, and acting out the sentences. Small groups

didn’t work very well, but they loved acting the sentences out. Finding “new” ways of doing

things takes time, but it’s worth it to help your students succeed. I also learned what works for

one class may not work for another class. Last year, my class didn’t have any problems

completing morning work including DOL. However, this year’s class is struggling with the same

task. Students learn in a variety of ways, so teachers shouldn’t just teach with one way to do it.

Teachers need to be flexible, so they can adapt to what their students’ individual needs.

What Worked and Why

1. It worked using Standardized testing to break the experiment into two parts. It gave a

reason for why we didn’t do something that the students could understand.
2. Correcting DOL the same day during literacy gave the students instant feedback. This

allowed them to voice their concerns before the next D.O.L sheet.
What Did Not Work and Why
1. Using their weekly sentence tests didn’t work the best. It didn’t work as well as I

would have like because each week the skills tested weren’t the same. They all had the basic

components, such as: capitalization, punctuation, spelling words, etc.; however, they also
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covered the new skills learned that week including: possessives, proper nouns, singular and

plural nouns, etc.

2. Basing my data on only four tests. This is a very small sample size and if one or two

students had a bad day or struggled with the skill for the week, it could throw off the results

completely.
My Next Steps
1. I would like to find a more consistent means of testing their grammar skills after doing

D.O.L for a certain number of weeks and followed by not doing DOL for the same number of

weeks. I could possibly even use a test that I’ve created to test the same grammar skills only

with different sentences.

2. Learn new methods for teaching grammar. During my research process, I came

across an article that mentioned using art to teach grammar. It sounded very interesting. I’d like

to learn more about it and even try it.

I feel like I may never find an answer to my question. There have been many studies, and

almost all of them conclude with “there is little research substantiating its use” or “no

statistically significant difference between experimental and control groups” (Whittingham,

2007, pg.25). It’s okay though because we don’t always need a definite answer (my students

learned this as well). I will continue to try to find new ways that will work for them whether it is

DOL or another method. I may have to find a different way with each class because not

everyone learns the same, but that’s what makes learning and teaching exciting.
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References
Whittingham, J. L. (2007, Spring). Daily Oral Language: Is it effective? Mid-Western
Educational Researcher, 20(2), 24-30.
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Artifact A

Test Scores ( in percent)

While Doing DOL Not Doing DOL

Students Test 2.1 Test 2.2 Test 2.3 Test 2.4

1 100 96 100 85

2 89 88 91 96

3 100 100 95 88

4 79 79 77 81

5 71 88 68 96

6 100 100 91 85

7 82 57 59 64

8 96 96 95 88

9 71 67 95 77

10 96 96 100 85

11 82 58 77 77

12 93 67 86 77

13 82 67 55 60

14 79 94 82 81

15 96 96 100 85

16 86 67 59 65

This table shows the test scores for all 16 of my students. The highlighted columns are
the results of the tests they took when we were working with DOL. The last two columns are the
results of the tests they took when we were not using DOL. Student number 5 is my student with
dyslexia and spelling/reading are not easy for him, so we redo his tests. Also, students 7, 13, and
14 are my students that are pulled for reading intervention.

Artifact B
Personal Averages (in Percent)
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Students While Without What’s the

Doing DOL DOL difference?

1 98 92.5 - 5.5

2 88.5 93.5 +5

3 100 91.5 - 8.5

4 79 79 No change

5 79.5 82 + 2.5

6 100 88 - 12

7 69.5 61.5 -8

8 96 91.5 - 4.5

9 69 86 + 17

10 96 92.5 - 3.5

11 70 77 +7

12 80 81.5 + 1.5

13 74.5 57.5 - 17

14 86.5 81.5 -5

15 96 92.5 - 3.5

16 76.5 62 - 14.5

This table shows the students’ average score for the test in Artifact A. Again, the purple
highlighted column is when we were using DOL. The red highlighted boxes show the students
whose averages decreased when we didn’t use DOL. The students with the greatest decreases
were the students that are, for the most part, the one that already receive reading intervention
help.