Arts - Buffalo State College

e re-evaluated. Conclusions for this project will be made based on
the student’s progress.
Presentation Type and Session: Poster III
Seeing Reading Through a New
Perspective: Sight Word Games
Zachary Best, HON 400: All College Honors Colloquium
Faculty Mentors: Professor Leslie Day, Elementary Education and
Reading and Professor Andrea Guiati, Director, All College Honors
Program
Four students operating at frustration reading and
comprehension level will increase their ability towards benchmark
using sight word games. Testing of comprehension was done so by
offering Dolch words to find proper assessment level. Given a below
grade level passage, the students read at frustration level. Using
Lev Vygotsky’s idea of scaffolding, 4 one-on-one teacher/student
teams will exercise a multitude of games designed to work towards
recognition of sight words. Increased recognition of Dolch words
will directly allow these students to increase overall comprehension
by use of context clues and other literary strategies. Giving focused
attention to the students and implementing these strategies will
engage and entertain the students. The candid learning will also
allow him/her to relax and focus on reading in an authentic
situation. A post-test following several sessions will allow the teachers
to gage the increased ability of the student over their time together.
At the end of the sessions, the students, if not benchmark, will at least
have made substantial increases in fluency and comprehension. The
post test, much like the pretest, will present a passage at grade level
and will ask follow up questions to assess the level of comprehension.
These questions come directly from the passage. This strategy does
not follow many well-known reading and comprehension beliefs
such as DIBELS. This strategy is also not curriculum based. Instead,
this unique strategy will be innovative and play a role in future
education and tutoring sessions.
Presentation Type and Session: Poster III
The Successful Advancement of First
Generation African American College
Students
Sonya Johnson, Early Childhood Education
Faculty Mentor: Professor Myrtle Welch, Social and Psychological
Foundations of Education
This study addresses the importance of understanding which
instructional tools promote academic achievement for firstgeneration
African-American college students. For this qualitative
study, nine freshmen and one junior first generation student in
Bridge programs were interviewed one on one and asked about
their experiences in school. Two of ten were males and eight were
females. The theories, Model of Student Retention, Involvement
Theory, Emancipatory View of Struggle, and Multiple Intelligences,
Education
ground this study. Using these theories, it is shown that with high
means of post secondary academic support as well as parental
support, these students can succeed. First-Generation students,
who are the children of parents who never went to college, embrace
the world of academia despite their unique challenges such as
their low socioeconomic status and limited knowledge of their new
collegiate environment. Most first-generation college students are
retained on their post secondary pursuit or simply drop out by
their second year in college. To embrace the “cultural uniqueness”
of these “at risk students,” secondary and post secondary teachers
and administrators, with instructional principles within a cultural
responsive framework, can merge these students’ world of
academics with the culture from which they grew up. In addition,
these professionals can implement the importance of transitional
programs that help keep them on a successful post secondary track.
The Bridge Programs and the federally funded TRIO Programs’
success rates are high in regard to First-Generation African
American students’ success with post secondary endeavors.
Presentation Type and Session: Oral – Education
Teacher Candidates: Click Here! How To
Make the Most of a PDS Website
Stephen Malone, Elementary Education
Faculty Mentor: Professor Leslie Day, Elementary Education and
Reading
Buffalo State College highly values the input and perspectives of
its teacher candidates. In fact, each year, two undergraduate teacher
candidates are chosen through an application process to serve
on the PDS Advisory Council and participate in a variety of PDS
initiatives. These undergraduate representatives provide updates to
the Buffalo State College PDS Website enabling teacher candidates to
obtain information about methods courses, student teaching, action
research, and other Buffalo State College Education websites. To
increase student accessibility, student representatives have created
a “For Current Students” section on the PDS Website, and have
launched a Buffalo State PDS Facebook page. The idea behind these
new implementations is that teacher candidates from Buffalo State
College will build a sense of community in the world of professional
development. Over the course of six months, data has been collected
and analyzed to attest to the success of the Buffalo State PDS
webpage and the new Buffalo State PDS Facebook page. In addition
to the steps that have already been taken, “Teacher Candidates:
Click Here!” also takes a look into the future of these web-based
technologies. We hope that you will visit us on our website at www.
buffalostate.edu/pds.
Presentation Type and Session: Poster III
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