The Peer Assisted Learning Strategies (PALS) ECE 311 Early Childhood Curriculum & Methods Instructor: Debra Gray Danielle Bryant 1/11/2012 The peer assisted learning strategies program (PALS) is a very important tool that is designed to aid a wide variety of students. During my viewing of the IRIS Learning center module I learned a great deal about the PALS program and its many benefits. First I would like to talk about what the PALS program is. Peer Assisted Learning Strategies is a type of class wide peer tutoring that is used to improve reading and math skills.Teachers pair lower and high performing students, and the partners work on different activities that address the skills that are causing problems. The pairs are changed regularly, giving all students the opportunity to act as coaches and players.
PALS enable teachers to address individual student needs, as well as observe students and develop individual remedial lessons. It is a complementary strategy that teachers can use to augment their existing reading and math curriculum. PALS is composed of 25-35 minute activities that are implemented 2-4 times a week.What I really like about the PALS program is two different learning levels of students are paired together. The student that is a high performer can really help the low performing student. PALS Reading, which has been developed for preschool through high school, is a structured, peer-mediated activity.
Preschool – kindergarten PALS focuses on letter names and sounds, letter-sound correspondence, phonological awareness, and decoding. First grade PALS stresses decoding and reading fluently. In grades 2-6, PALS promotes reading fluency and comprehension.In the higher grades, PALS activities include partner reading, paragraph shrinking (identifying the main idea), and prediction relay (predicting what will be learned next, reading aloud, determining if the prediction was accurate, and summarizing the main idea). PALS does not require special reading materials. (Vanderbilt Kennedy Center).
The PALS program has many great benefits, but I will discuss only five. First the individualized reading material for each student pair is great. Many students do not learn at the same pace and level of other students.Therefore this benefit is good because it caters to the needs of students on an individual basis. When teachers teach all students the same way their maybe students that do not fully understand the information that is being taught therefore using an individualized program will be more beneficial to all students.
The Second benefit that I feel is important is that the instructional pace for each student pair can vary. In this benefit the teacher has the authority to alter the material to fit the needs of the children that he or she is working with.If the teacher feels that the students are not grasping the information it will be very helpful for her to make adjustments as necessary. The third benefit is it promotes collaboration and positive social interaction between students.
This allows various types of students the opportunity to work together in a positive environment. The fourth benefit is the program is cost effective. This benefit is important because it saves money for schools, teachers, and parents. It saves because only a limited amount of material has to be purchased.The same material does not have to be purchased for the entire class.
Other types of materials can be purchased and passed around from group to group when one group has completed that set of materials. My fifth and final benefit is the program is enjoyable. I really like this final one because when school work is made fun then the students will want o do a really good job with it. I feel the children will learn more. They will also remember more of the information.
Now that I have discussed the benefits of PALS, what are the reading skills that are addressed between K-PALS and first grade PALS?K-PALS is taught during 20-minute sessions, three days a week for 20 weeks. To conduct K-PALS, the teacher groups the class into pairs and then teaches the students how to do each activity, with one student starting as the Coach and the other student starting as the reader; students change roles during the activities. To accommodate academic diversity, the level of difficulty of the reading tasks can be adjusted for students who need more time to master the content. K-PALS provides completely scripted lessons for teachers to use in teaching students how to conduct peer tutoring.Tutoring routines focus on phonemic awareness and word recognition. By the end of K-PALS, students begin reading simple connected text.
The first grade PALS program is a daily workbook full of lessons that help first grade teachers incorporate critical content identified in research as effective in early literacy instruction. The 20-week program includes code-based activities, a time line, daily direction cards, game sheets, and black line masters. The lessons in this peer-tutoring program provide opportunities for readers of all abilities to achieve success.Even lower-functioning students show improved reading skills and actively participate in these exercises. (Mathes P, PhD.
). First Grade PALS instruction consists of 30-minute sessions conducted 3 days a week for 16-20 weeks. The teacher groups the class into pairs, and then teaches them how to do each activity, with one student starting as the Coach and the other student starting as the Reader; students change roles during the activities. First Grade PALS provides completely scripted lessons for teachers to use in teaching students how to conduct peer tutoring.The lessons teach phonemic awareness and word recognition, and focus on fluency development, wide reading and vocabulary development, and comprehension. The lessons combine carefully designed, systematic phonics instruction with independent practice in reading connected text as well as trade books to actively engage children in reading.
(Vanderbilt Kennedy Center). The differences that I see between the K-PALS and The First grade PALS the time that the lessons are taught and the timeline appears to be for the first grade PALS only.The recommended grouping between to two types of PALS is K-PALS group a high achiever with a low achiever and the first grade PALS groups. In both programs the class is broken into groups from the highest to lowest groups. The students appear to be group from the highest high score to the highest low score.
Now, if I was a first grade teacher and I was working with the PALS program and one of my students was absent. I would take on the roll of the absent student. Also if I was a first grade teacher implementing the program for the first time, I would make sure that I am well versed with the program before I share it with my students.To promote a positive environment I would make sure that the students that I will pair together have a pretty good personal relationship. I would certainly not group two students together that are at odds with each other.
In conclusion, during my research is having discovered that the PALS program seems to be a very beneficial tool that is helpful to all students. References The IRIS Center for Training Enhancements. (2008). PALS: A reading strategy for grades K–1. Retrieved on 1,11, 2012 from:Http://iris. peabody.
vanderbilt. edu/palsk1/chalcycle. html
