Learning agenda
Fruitland teachers experiment with new program

By JESSICA KELLER
ARGUS OBSERVER
Thursday, March 12, 2009 10:09 AM PDT

Fruitland Elementary first-graders in Stacee Sanders’ class recite a jingle taught as part of the Shurley Method, which is a key part of teaching grammar rules in the program, Tuesday.

FRUITLAND — Students in Gina Ziegler’s third-grade class at Fruitland Elementary School have no problem belting out 49 common prepositions used in sentences without missing a beat, and they know the function of prepositions in speech as well.

In fact, all the students at Fruitland Elementary School are well on their way to becoming grammatical gurus because of the Shurley Method language arts program implemented just this year.

The Shurley Method is an English language instruction program that helps students develop advanced writing and speaking skills by learning the different parts of speech and sentence construction and then applying what they learned by analyzing sentences.

“The nice thing about this is it only takes about 10 minutes a day,” FES Principal Joe Wozniak said.

 The first component to the Shurley Method is teaching students the different parts of speech through jingles that are chanted or sung, often accompanied by claps or hand movements, which is how Ziegler’s students learned 49 prepositions and how Shannon Contreras’ second-grade class knows what components a sentence needs to be complete.

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“The kids really enjoy learning the jingles,” Wozniak said.

The second component to the method is applying those rules and definitions by breaking down sentences using a “question and answer flow,” where students are given a sentence and they name each of the sentence components by answering a scripted set of questions that identify who is doing something, what they are doing and how it is being done.

Wozniak said he learned about the Shurley Method from one of the English teachers at Fruitland High School who heard about the lessons and the jingles from her nephews who attend a charter school. She was impressed by what she heard and recommended Wozniak look into it, he said. Wozniak contacted Chuck Ward, principal at Thomas Jefferson Charter School in Caldwell, who allowed Wozniak and some FES staff members to visit his school and see how the Shurley Method worked first hand at the beginning of October.

Now the first- through third-grade students at FES and the fourth- and fifth-grade students at Fruitland Intermediate School are using the program, and next year, Fruitland Middle School students will start practicing the Shurley Method.

Prior to using the Shurley Method, Wozniak said teachers didn’t have any one tool to effectively teach the different components of grammar at one time.

He said teachers could use a workbook and teach what a noun was for a few lessons and then move on to verbs and so on, but those lessons weren’t necessarily conducive to applying all the different components at once.

“It didn’t pull it all together the way this does,” Wozniak said, adding the Shurley Method teaches students to dissect a whole sentence at one time.

One of the beneficial aspects to the program, at least from the students’ point of view, is the jingles and rhythm of the question-and-flow makes it fun, as the students in Ziegler’s class attested.

“These kids really like doing it,” Ziegler added. “I’d say it’s one of their favorite things to do.”

Third-grade teacher Terri Walton said the program has worked very well overall.

“It is easy to teach, and it’s fun, and the students enjoy it,” she said.

Walton said the students appear to be learning faster and applying what they learn to writing.

“I think they come away with a real working knowledge of the language,” she said.

Wozniak said, as part of the school’s reading series, students are tested on language and writing skills, and those test scores appear to have increased. Hopefully, he said, that will translate to higher Idaho standardized testing scores.