Action Research- what I have learned

Action research is research intended to bring about change of some kind, usually with a social justice focus.  This approach is a continual process that consists of reflection and action.  Action research involves clarifying and diagnosing a practical situation that needs to be improved, formulating action strategies for improving the situation or resolving the problem, implementing the action strategies and evaluating their effectiveness, and clarifying the situation, resulting in new definitions of problems or ares for improvement. 

As a fourth grade teacher in a self contained classroom I see first hand how important vocabulary development and the lack of vocabulary can greatly effect all subject aread.  Vocabulary and word recognition are the foundation for all learning in all areas of education.  The school I currently teach at is 85% economically disadvantaged and the majority of our students are ELL.  Year after year, we see that our students are struggling with over all reading comprehension because they do not have a strong enough vocabular.  These vocabulary skills must be taught in the classroom.  This brought me to the idea of my action research project covering the topic of explicit vocabulary instruction and which methods will provide the most effective instruction.  I believe an action research study will be beneficial in solving this particular problem because it will prove that vocabulary instruction has to be taught, especially in elementary school, in order for students to improve in comprehension.  It will also give effective methods to teachers and educators that work best and that can easily be implemented in the classroom. I think that at my school in particular, teachers tend to forget to teach vocabulary because there is just not enough time in the day with the standardized testing preparations.  This study will highlight the importance of on going vocabulary instruction.