QRI-5 is an informal literacy assessment that is used to measure a variety of different literacy skills including fluency, automaticity, word identification, and comprehension. These assessments can be used for students pre-primer through high school. QRI-5 can be used to assess student strengths and weakness, to pinpoint precise reading behavior or habits, to assess student growth over a period of time, and to help teachers create student specific lessons for both whole class as well as for small group interventions.
I found these assessments to be extremely useful as well as clearly described. The assessment process can take a lot of time, but it really gives the teacher a good idea of where the student is with their literacy growth. Having the chance to work with the student one on one and witnessing their reading behaviors can be a useful tool in finding the next logical step for improvement.
DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) is an assessment for students kindergarten through sixth grade. The assessment is used to measure initial sound fluency (ISF), letter naming fluency (LNF), phoneme segmentation fluency (PSF), nonsense word fluency (NWF), word use fluency (WUF), and oral reading fluency with retelling fluency (ORF). A student is asked a series of questions according to which skill is to be assessed, and the teacher uses either a palm pilot or ipod touch with the DIBELS program to record student answers and the time in which it took them to answer the questions. Everything is timed in order to assess the automaticity and fluency within all of these categories.
I really enjoyed trying out this program for future reference. I liked how student progress was charted throughout their assessed history and how the program gives helpful suggestions when students are lagging behind. On the other hand, I did not like using the palm pilot because sometimes it would not register when I would tap a response or a button. It became fairly annoying. Perhaps using the ipod touch would have been less frustrating. Even with this snag, I understood the idea behind this assessment and I would use both of these assessments in my own classroom. I think a classroom shouldn't have one of these assessments without the other only because I feel that DIBELS could assess fluency more quickly and record student history. This would allow the teacher to do this more often if needed. The QRI-5 assesses comprehension and retelling skills in a more in depth manner than the DIBELS. Both assessments are important to accurately assess student learning and to help guide their literacy learning.
Friday, April 29, 2011
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Reading Rockets ELL Webpage
I really enjoyed watching the videos on the website: http://www.readingrockets.org/atoz/english_language_learners . Several of the videos were focused on the use of standards and how they should be addressed in the classroom and during meetings with fellow colleagues. I agreed with what the principal was saying about the implementation of state standards in that until one surrounds oneself with the standards and has understood them thoroughly is the only way to successfully address standards. At this point being a pre-teacher, I understand the standards, what they are, and what they mean, but I haven't yet had the chance to make the standards a fixture in my own classroom. They are not all familiar to me, but they make sense and I understand how to use them. While I am not in the classroom, I can take this opportunity to review the standards so they are much easier to reflect on once I begin student teaching.
I also liked hearing about the vertical comparison of the standards between grade levels as a strategy for teachers to become more in sync with benchmarks and expectations. Kindergarten and first grade teachers compare standards, second and third grade teachers compare standards, etc. Then the upper elementary school teachers discuss with the lower elementary school teachers points that they feel should be addressed that could help their students before they reach upper elementary school. These could be certain comprehension strategies, organization strategies, an emphasis on common sense, or a wide variety of other things.
One of the video mentioned the Daily Language Review, when each day, the students are presented with a grammatically incorrect sentence and they are to fix the sentence or to identify what the grammatical issue is with the sentence. The teacher mentioned that her ELLs, at the beginning of the year, did not make any corrections because the grammatical error took the form of the way they spoke, therefore, they didn't see the sentence as being incorrect. By the end of the year, nearly all the students were able to read the sentence aloud and explain what made the sentence grammatically incorrect. I really like this idea because while students are exploring the new language of English, seeing the structure of English could be a great strategy to students who are more structured or logical thinkers. If they know the rules or if they understand when something sounds incorrect, the more likely they will correct their own speaking or writing. I was lucky enough to witness this when my target student read a sentence to me that he had just written, but he realized that he had made a mistake. He immediately picked up his pen and made the correction.
I also liked hearing about the vertical comparison of the standards between grade levels as a strategy for teachers to become more in sync with benchmarks and expectations. Kindergarten and first grade teachers compare standards, second and third grade teachers compare standards, etc. Then the upper elementary school teachers discuss with the lower elementary school teachers points that they feel should be addressed that could help their students before they reach upper elementary school. These could be certain comprehension strategies, organization strategies, an emphasis on common sense, or a wide variety of other things.
One of the video mentioned the Daily Language Review, when each day, the students are presented with a grammatically incorrect sentence and they are to fix the sentence or to identify what the grammatical issue is with the sentence. The teacher mentioned that her ELLs, at the beginning of the year, did not make any corrections because the grammatical error took the form of the way they spoke, therefore, they didn't see the sentence as being incorrect. By the end of the year, nearly all the students were able to read the sentence aloud and explain what made the sentence grammatically incorrect. I really like this idea because while students are exploring the new language of English, seeing the structure of English could be a great strategy to students who are more structured or logical thinkers. If they know the rules or if they understand when something sounds incorrect, the more likely they will correct their own speaking or writing. I was lucky enough to witness this when my target student read a sentence to me that he had just written, but he realized that he had made a mistake. He immediately picked up his pen and made the correction.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Comprehension Video Response
This video shared a lot of important information and strategies that should be taught to students in order to help build their comprehension while reading. I'm glad that Professor Duke described why teaching comprehension strategies becomes very important from third grade through fifth grade, not just the fact that they will be facing expository text, but the fact that the nature of the language becomes more "written" and academic as opposed to "spoken" language that students have been previously exposed.
I also really enjoyed how the teacher had a poster listing a variety of strategies students could use to guide their thinking about text. Thinking aloud, creating inferences, building predictions, rereading, looking for context clues, breaking down unknown words, are just a few of the strategies that are touched upon in the video. I like how that these are posted around the room, the teachers consistently model, and guide students through the use of these strategies. It rang true to me that a teacher should be more of a coach and less of a didactic speaker of information.
I don't think that any of the ideas in this video are new, but I would happily use many if not all of these techniques in teaching my future students how to build their comprehension. Giving students the opportunities to explore texts through discussion and writing along with explicitly teaching comprehension strategies, teacher modeling of these strategies, and guided use of these strategies. Students need to know why and how these strategies are used and they need to be given a variety of facets to explore the use of these strategies.
Teaching these comprehension strategies can help all readers, even struggling readers. All readers need to have a repertoire of methods that they can fall back on in order to understand what they read. Struggling readers will realize that comprehension is the goal of reading and they will have the tools to lead them to their goal.
I also really enjoyed how the teacher had a poster listing a variety of strategies students could use to guide their thinking about text. Thinking aloud, creating inferences, building predictions, rereading, looking for context clues, breaking down unknown words, are just a few of the strategies that are touched upon in the video. I like how that these are posted around the room, the teachers consistently model, and guide students through the use of these strategies. It rang true to me that a teacher should be more of a coach and less of a didactic speaker of information.
I don't think that any of the ideas in this video are new, but I would happily use many if not all of these techniques in teaching my future students how to build their comprehension. Giving students the opportunities to explore texts through discussion and writing along with explicitly teaching comprehension strategies, teacher modeling of these strategies, and guided use of these strategies. Students need to know why and how these strategies are used and they need to be given a variety of facets to explore the use of these strategies.
Teaching these comprehension strategies can help all readers, even struggling readers. All readers need to have a repertoire of methods that they can fall back on in order to understand what they read. Struggling readers will realize that comprehension is the goal of reading and they will have the tools to lead them to their goal.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Writing Video Response
1) The three main components of a successful writing program are personal connections, writing conventions, and inventions. Personal connections are extremely important for student writing. Students are more apt to write about their own stories, experiences, or how their thoughts and experiences relate to the writing subject. This becomes key when students are asked to write about something in a specific content area. When students are encouraged to write about the topic with reference to their own prior knowledge, experience, and ideas, the more interesting their writing will be and they will also learn about the different writing types. The writing type in this example would be formal or expository writing, or could be considered as a report. Students who have writing journals will know that this writing is much more informal.
2) I would encourage students to write in their writing journal, not only for particular assignments, but whenever the spirit moves them. I, myself will carry around my own journal and take a few minutes every day or every few days to share an excerpt from my own journal. This modeling could show them that writing in this informal format can be helpful for the expression of their own ideas. I will also remind them that they live in New York City (assuming this is where I stay to teach) and that silly or odd things happen around us all the time, but we become a bit desensitized to all of it. Writing can help us get in touch will own human thoughts and feelings.
I would also try to incorporate short writing assignments during content learning such as history. During this time I would try to help students to incorporate their own personal experiences.
3) There are many ways to incorporate personal connections with different subject areas. It science, asking students if they've come in contact with similar things or if they or anyone else they know have experienced or seen a phenomenon. History and social studies could easily link English Language Learners from those particular countries or students who have traveled with their families.
4) Observing the writing conventions that students use can help a teacher know the order in which to teach these conventions. If a majority of the class as issues with capitalizing words correctly like for a proper noun or at the beginning of a sentence, then a teacher could focus on that. If students have issues with knowing when to begin a new paragraph, the teacher would focus on this convention. One to two conventions at a time would be best.
During a previous observation during a collaborative team teaching class, students were expected to edit their writing assignments by referring to a color coded editing chart located in the writing folder. They were to go through the writing with the indicated colored marker (green for spelling, red for paragraph, blue for punctuation, etc.). They were to circle or mark in some way any mistakes or anything they were unsure of before they begin their final drafts. I'm sure that throughout the year, the teachers went over each of these conventions and this was part of the application and culmination of what they have learned.
5) Students should be encouraged to use invention and creative writing in their writing journals, during language arts assignments, and even through some (select) content writing assignments. I was always encouraged when writing reports to use interesting facts, create a narrative, or use fun quotations to lure the reader into my expository writing as long as it related to the topic at hand. Students should be encourage to try out different styles of writing or blend these styles.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Observation Week 6- Final Week
Since I have been blessed with jury duty on our Spring Break, I was able to observe at the Elias Howe School on Tuesday, March 22nd. I didn't want to schedule my final observation on Friday because I was unsure whether I would be selected to sit on a jury. If I had been, I would have lost a week or more of observation opportunities. I was told that if a person was chosen for jury duty, most cases last a week or two, but they were currently trying to assign people to 4 to 6 month long cases! Needless to say, I was nervous about that.
It was a very busy day last Tuesday in Ms. C.'s first grade classroom. The students were guided by their classmate, Callie, through the current day of the week including the month and year; they counted all the days of the month and named the days of the week; and they counted by tens, fives, and twos all the days that they have attended school. While observing Jhon during this morning meeting, I've noticed that he was mouthing the words or speaking with the class more often than at the beginning of my observations. He appeared to be a little more confident when reading aloud as a group, especially in this familiar context.
Then when we were about to begin their persuasive letter writing, Firefighter Tom came in for a talk on preventing fire. All the kids were paying the keenest attention on the firefighter and were eagerly answering his questions about playing with matches and fire alarms. We watched this really cheesy fire safety video called Be Cool About Fire Safety with Gilbert Gottfried as the fire alarm and Lindsey Lohan as the kid who burns the toast:
http://www.spike.com/video-clips/974dpi/be-cool-about-fire-safety
The kids really enjoyed the video and it brought about a lot of conversation. Before leaving, Firefighter Tom was nice enough to give the Ms. C. his home address so the kids could write him letters. The students have been writing letters to family and friends, but they haven't had the opportunity to send a letter through the post to someone other than a family member. When the firefighter left, we started thank you letters to Firefighter Tom. As I walked around, it seemed that all of the students, including Jhon, are getting a little better about picking specific details of what they enjoyed and including it in their writing. Previously, it took a lot of probing questions to get Jhon to think about what other important details he could put in his writing. With this writing assignment, Jhon picked out the details of the video that he liked and included these in his thank you letter.
Then we were interrupted again by a postman, so then there was another question and answer session with the students. Jhon was much more quiet and reserved during this portion of the day.
The rest of my day was filled with checking the students' homework because Ms. C. had forgotten her glasses that day. I was in a bit of a rush checking through all the homework in their homework folders, making copies of their differentiated homework packets for next week, and helping students who would approach me during my hectic moments. We also discovered that for some reason, the writing piece that I was intending to make a copy of for this case study is missing. It wasn't posted on the wall like it should have been, it wasn't with the ELL teacher, and it wasn't in his file of writing. Ms. C. and I exchanged emails and telephone numbers in case it pops up. Since I will be at the school for a couple of weeks for my other class, I can always swing by to pick it up later.
It was a very busy day last Tuesday in Ms. C.'s first grade classroom. The students were guided by their classmate, Callie, through the current day of the week including the month and year; they counted all the days of the month and named the days of the week; and they counted by tens, fives, and twos all the days that they have attended school. While observing Jhon during this morning meeting, I've noticed that he was mouthing the words or speaking with the class more often than at the beginning of my observations. He appeared to be a little more confident when reading aloud as a group, especially in this familiar context.
Then when we were about to begin their persuasive letter writing, Firefighter Tom came in for a talk on preventing fire. All the kids were paying the keenest attention on the firefighter and were eagerly answering his questions about playing with matches and fire alarms. We watched this really cheesy fire safety video called Be Cool About Fire Safety with Gilbert Gottfried as the fire alarm and Lindsey Lohan as the kid who burns the toast:
http://www.spike.com/video-clips/974dpi/be-cool-about-fire-safety
The kids really enjoyed the video and it brought about a lot of conversation. Before leaving, Firefighter Tom was nice enough to give the Ms. C. his home address so the kids could write him letters. The students have been writing letters to family and friends, but they haven't had the opportunity to send a letter through the post to someone other than a family member. When the firefighter left, we started thank you letters to Firefighter Tom. As I walked around, it seemed that all of the students, including Jhon, are getting a little better about picking specific details of what they enjoyed and including it in their writing. Previously, it took a lot of probing questions to get Jhon to think about what other important details he could put in his writing. With this writing assignment, Jhon picked out the details of the video that he liked and included these in his thank you letter.
Then we were interrupted again by a postman, so then there was another question and answer session with the students. Jhon was much more quiet and reserved during this portion of the day.
The rest of my day was filled with checking the students' homework because Ms. C. had forgotten her glasses that day. I was in a bit of a rush checking through all the homework in their homework folders, making copies of their differentiated homework packets for next week, and helping students who would approach me during my hectic moments. We also discovered that for some reason, the writing piece that I was intending to make a copy of for this case study is missing. It wasn't posted on the wall like it should have been, it wasn't with the ELL teacher, and it wasn't in his file of writing. Ms. C. and I exchanged emails and telephone numbers in case it pops up. Since I will be at the school for a couple of weeks for my other class, I can always swing by to pick it up later.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Results and Analysis of Youtube Assessments
Results:
Word Lists:
Grade 1- 80% Automatic- Instructional 85% Total- Instructional
Grade 2 (first try)- 5% Automatic- Frustration 5% Total- Frustration
Grade 2- 70% Automatic- Instructional 90% Total- Independent
Grade 3- 10% Automatic- Frustration 15% Total- Frustration
Oral Reading:
Passage Name: Mouse in a House
Readability Level: 1
Passage Type- N
78% Familiar
Total Accuracy: 96% Instructional
Retelling: 27%
# Explicit: 4
# Implicit: 0
Comprehension: 67%
Total Passage Level: Instructional
Passage Name: Whales and Fish
Readability Level: 2
Passage Type: E
78% Unfamiliar
Total Accuracy: 97% Instructional
Retelling: 29%
# Explicit: 2
# Implicit: 4
Comprehension: 75%
Total Passage Level: Instructional, but I would consider trying a Grade 3 passage because the results are borderline.
* Note: I was doing what the book calls "Total Accuracy" except that I did not count Self Corrections as errors. This also may skew the results while using the book's given scales that indicate level.
Explanation:
Because of the student's low speaking voice and whispering during the reading list portion, it was difficult on my computer (without additional speakers) to tell the difference between her speaking out a word and her whispering trying to sound out the word. It is because of this that I counted correct anything that I could hear and understand whether it would be in a soft speaking voice or a whisper. During the second round of Word List 2, see originally skipped numbers 17-19, but she got them correct when she went back to them. It is because of this, I counted them correctly identified but not automatic which is why the scores between automatic (70%) and total (90%) are so different. I also felt that the student had some confidence issues especially during Word List 2. Unfortunately, Word List 3 was intimidating to the student and she was unable to continue. I'm sure that she didn't know all the words on the list, but once she got to the word "rough" she got discouraged. It is because of these results that I think working on sight words and spelling patterns could help her raise her reading level.
During the reading of Mouse in a House, the student had some issues with the endings of words such as saying "years" for "year", "walls" for "wall", "floor" for "floors", and "visit" instead of "visited". I honestly think that she may have not been paying attention and did not use contextual clues to make these corrections. She may also lack the knowledge of tenses when she confuses "come" for "came" etc. There was one possible miscue that I was hesitant to count: When the student says "They" when it was supposed to be "Then" at the beginning of a sentence, but then she pauses a second and says "Then". I'm not sure whether this was a Self Correction or an Insertion so I counted it as a miscue for the time being (just for the sake of practice). I counted 12 ideas during her retelling and I found her comprehension to be Instructional because I counted her response "Because they love mouse" incorrect even though this was only due to her miscue during her reading.
During her reading of Whales and Fish she continued her pattern with the ends of some words such as "lived" for "live" and "animal" for "animals". She also mispronounced "most" for "must" and "thought" for "through". These are definitely visual graphic miscues that could possibly be helped with practicing sight words. During this particular reading, she had many Self-Corrections and Repeated, but I believe that it was because this was an unfamiliar expository text so whenever she was unsure of a pronunciation or whether a sentence sounded correct, she would repeat it. I counted 14 ideas in her retelling and found her comprehension to be much better than I thought it would be. She got correct more implicit answers than explicit, though, which may be a problem because this is an expository text and students should be taking and using information located in the text rather than from prior knowledge. For instance, the question: "According to the passage, how are whales and fish different?" the student responded that "whales are bigger and fish are smaller". This was an implicit answer, but it was not from the text. Also, this is a generalization. Yes, most whales are bigger than fish, but there are some relatively smaller whale species in the world and there are also some gigantic fish as well. We can't really say that this one is correct, so I counted in wrong. On the other hand, she answered the question, "Where are fins?" with "at the back". She didn't explicitly say "tail" so I counted it as an implicit answer instead because she understands the general idea, but the specific detail doesn't come to her mind.
To help the student with her reading, I feel that working on sight words, her being explicitly taught the tenses (past, present, future), and teaching her strategies to link important details to the main point of an expository text would be an excellent start to strengthen her literacy skills.
Word Lists:
Grade 1- 80% Automatic- Instructional 85% Total- Instructional
Grade 2 (first try)- 5% Automatic- Frustration 5% Total- Frustration
Grade 2- 70% Automatic- Instructional 90% Total- Independent
Grade 3- 10% Automatic- Frustration 15% Total- Frustration
Oral Reading:
Passage Name: Mouse in a House
Readability Level: 1
Passage Type- N
78% Familiar
Total Accuracy: 96% Instructional
Retelling: 27%
# Explicit: 4
# Implicit: 0
Comprehension: 67%
Total Passage Level: Instructional
Passage Name: Whales and Fish
Readability Level: 2
Passage Type: E
78% Unfamiliar
Total Accuracy: 97% Instructional
Retelling: 29%
# Explicit: 2
# Implicit: 4
Comprehension: 75%
Total Passage Level: Instructional, but I would consider trying a Grade 3 passage because the results are borderline.
* Note: I was doing what the book calls "Total Accuracy" except that I did not count Self Corrections as errors. This also may skew the results while using the book's given scales that indicate level.
Explanation:
Because of the student's low speaking voice and whispering during the reading list portion, it was difficult on my computer (without additional speakers) to tell the difference between her speaking out a word and her whispering trying to sound out the word. It is because of this that I counted correct anything that I could hear and understand whether it would be in a soft speaking voice or a whisper. During the second round of Word List 2, see originally skipped numbers 17-19, but she got them correct when she went back to them. It is because of this, I counted them correctly identified but not automatic which is why the scores between automatic (70%) and total (90%) are so different. I also felt that the student had some confidence issues especially during Word List 2. Unfortunately, Word List 3 was intimidating to the student and she was unable to continue. I'm sure that she didn't know all the words on the list, but once she got to the word "rough" she got discouraged. It is because of these results that I think working on sight words and spelling patterns could help her raise her reading level.
During the reading of Mouse in a House, the student had some issues with the endings of words such as saying "years" for "year", "walls" for "wall", "floor" for "floors", and "visit" instead of "visited". I honestly think that she may have not been paying attention and did not use contextual clues to make these corrections. She may also lack the knowledge of tenses when she confuses "come" for "came" etc. There was one possible miscue that I was hesitant to count: When the student says "They" when it was supposed to be "Then" at the beginning of a sentence, but then she pauses a second and says "Then". I'm not sure whether this was a Self Correction or an Insertion so I counted it as a miscue for the time being (just for the sake of practice). I counted 12 ideas during her retelling and I found her comprehension to be Instructional because I counted her response "Because they love mouse" incorrect even though this was only due to her miscue during her reading.
During her reading of Whales and Fish she continued her pattern with the ends of some words such as "lived" for "live" and "animal" for "animals". She also mispronounced "most" for "must" and "thought" for "through". These are definitely visual graphic miscues that could possibly be helped with practicing sight words. During this particular reading, she had many Self-Corrections and Repeated, but I believe that it was because this was an unfamiliar expository text so whenever she was unsure of a pronunciation or whether a sentence sounded correct, she would repeat it. I counted 14 ideas in her retelling and found her comprehension to be much better than I thought it would be. She got correct more implicit answers than explicit, though, which may be a problem because this is an expository text and students should be taking and using information located in the text rather than from prior knowledge. For instance, the question: "According to the passage, how are whales and fish different?" the student responded that "whales are bigger and fish are smaller". This was an implicit answer, but it was not from the text. Also, this is a generalization. Yes, most whales are bigger than fish, but there are some relatively smaller whale species in the world and there are also some gigantic fish as well. We can't really say that this one is correct, so I counted in wrong. On the other hand, she answered the question, "Where are fins?" with "at the back". She didn't explicitly say "tail" so I counted it as an implicit answer instead because she understands the general idea, but the specific detail doesn't come to her mind.
To help the student with her reading, I feel that working on sight words, her being explicitly taught the tenses (past, present, future), and teaching her strategies to link important details to the main point of an expository text would be an excellent start to strengthen her literacy skills.
Friday, March 18, 2011
Observation Week 5
Wednesday, March 16th, I arrived at the school at about 11:45 am, right after the students ate lunch. We began with their math lesson where they had to complete three pages of word problems from their workbooks. They had to show their work for questions like, "I have 9 shapes. Some are circles. Some are triangles. There are more circles than triangles. How many different combinations can we make?" I spent much of this time having students read the problem to me aloud and asking them what they understood about the problem. Many times, I had to ask probing questions like, "So, how many shapes are we supposed to end up with all together?", "Is there a clue in here that is supposed to help us narrow down the combinations?", and "What does the word more mean to you?". Most students did fairly well with the guidance I helped provide. Jhon did very well, too. Once he understood the concept of more than, he grasped that there couldn't be less triangles than circles, nor could they be equal. After the first problem like this, he was on a roll. He didn't quite finish the entire assignment, but he did well. There was one student at Jhon's table, I will call him Jake, that did not seem to grasp this type of equation at all. I tried using the coaching that worked for other students, but he could only come up with one solution. I tried referring to my fingers and we counted out loud. This helped him verbalize an answer, but he didn't remember it long enough (or didn't understand it well enough) to write it down. I then tried referring to the number line on his desk (that he said he understood how to use), but that didn't seem to help either. I felt more stumped than he did.
In between math and writing, I was able to squeeze a quick assessment with Jhon. I gave him the choice of reading either "I Can" (Preprimer 1) or "Just Like Mom" (Preprimer 2). He chose to read "I Can" after looking through both. During our last assessment, he scored at Instructional level, but it was borderline. He could have gotten one more word correct and he would have been at Independent level. I went ahead and gave him this assessment and he scored at the Independent level. He knew what all the concept questions were and he gave me a logical prediction of the story before we began, "I can do things. They do things.". During the running record, he had one miscue on the word lunch, he said food instead which tells me that he relies much on visual cues from the pictures. He stuttered on the first dream, he repeated it and self-corrected. The second dream was correct. I believe that he knew to say dream partially because I asked him a concept question about the word dream and from the visual cues of the picture. He also scored at the Independent level in comprehension. Both of these assessments tell me that Jhon needs to work on his sight word vocabulary so that he is less reliant on picture cues. Maybe I could create a mini-lesson with common rhyming words using Dr. Seuss and another lesson on common spelling combinations.
If I have the opportunity to do another assessment with Jhon, I would either give him "People at Work" (Preprimer 2) or "Lost and Found" (Preprimer 3). I am considering skipping preprimer 2 only because I am curious to know how Jhon will do on a piece of short poetry with no pictures. Plus, I know that Jhon understands the words and concepts of lost, under, outside, dog, and cat because we have discussed many of these things previously during reading and writing time.
During the writing portion of the day, the students were working on writing letters to people in their lives. Jhon chose to write to his father in Ecuador. After his salutations and his request for a new toy, he became stumped about what to write next. I made a few suggestions like talking about when they last saw each other and I asked Jhon if he missed his dad, but he just nodded his head yes. I don't think that Jhon understands "missing someone" using English vocabulary because when I came back to him, he seemed to continue a little further with his request for a new toy and didn't touch at all about missing his father.
In between math and writing, I was able to squeeze a quick assessment with Jhon. I gave him the choice of reading either "I Can" (Preprimer 1) or "Just Like Mom" (Preprimer 2). He chose to read "I Can" after looking through both. During our last assessment, he scored at Instructional level, but it was borderline. He could have gotten one more word correct and he would have been at Independent level. I went ahead and gave him this assessment and he scored at the Independent level. He knew what all the concept questions were and he gave me a logical prediction of the story before we began, "I can do things. They do things.". During the running record, he had one miscue on the word lunch, he said food instead which tells me that he relies much on visual cues from the pictures. He stuttered on the first dream, he repeated it and self-corrected. The second dream was correct. I believe that he knew to say dream partially because I asked him a concept question about the word dream and from the visual cues of the picture. He also scored at the Independent level in comprehension. Both of these assessments tell me that Jhon needs to work on his sight word vocabulary so that he is less reliant on picture cues. Maybe I could create a mini-lesson with common rhyming words using Dr. Seuss and another lesson on common spelling combinations.
If I have the opportunity to do another assessment with Jhon, I would either give him "People at Work" (Preprimer 2) or "Lost and Found" (Preprimer 3). I am considering skipping preprimer 2 only because I am curious to know how Jhon will do on a piece of short poetry with no pictures. Plus, I know that Jhon understands the words and concepts of lost, under, outside, dog, and cat because we have discussed many of these things previously during reading and writing time.
During the writing portion of the day, the students were working on writing letters to people in their lives. Jhon chose to write to his father in Ecuador. After his salutations and his request for a new toy, he became stumped about what to write next. I made a few suggestions like talking about when they last saw each other and I asked Jhon if he missed his dad, but he just nodded his head yes. I don't think that Jhon understands "missing someone" using English vocabulary because when I came back to him, he seemed to continue a little further with his request for a new toy and didn't touch at all about missing his father.
Friday, March 11, 2011
ISCA- Informational Strategic Cloze Assessment Reflection
The ISCA or the Informational Strategic Cloze Assessment is a helpful tool used to assess comprehension in first, second, and third graders with expository texts. It is designed to assess the four dimensions of comprehension: the use of comprehension strategies, knowledge of informational text features, comprehension of graphics in the context of text, and vocabulary comprehension and strategies. The assessment takes approximately 10 to 15 minutes (depending on the student) which makes this assessment unrealistic to use on an entire class. Despite this, it may be most effective to apply this tool to students who may have reading or comprehension problems, or to a random set of students to help the teacher find a well-balanced path for whole class instruction.
The assessment consists of two expository texts: Rocks and Weather. Both of these texts come with detailed scripts for the teacher, assessment questions and prompts, and scoring sheets. The student either reads the text (or the teacher reads it to them) and the student is to fill in the missing words using contextual clues, graphic clues, prior knowledge, and other strategies. When calculating the score, one could look at the overall score which would be the most accurate, or one could analyze particular portions in order to view individual students' needs and comprehension strategies.
This assessment sounds like it would be extremely useful in the classroom. I would most definitely use a comprehension specific test such as this because comprehension can be a major issue for many readers. I do know that my target student, Jhon, has comprehension issues when reading text that doesn't have much to do with his own prior knowledge or when text has humor that he doesn't have the language skills to comprehend yet. When I asked him questions after reading "I See" from the QRI-5, he was able to answer four explicit questions correctly, but when I asked him what the pig was doing at the end of the story (the line was "doing a jig") but he replied with, "he was dancing". According to the QRI-5, this is correct as an implicit question because he observed the graphic clues of the picture of the pig "dancing". It would have been interesting to see how Jhon would have done with the ISCA, but I fear that some of the concepts would be still slightly out of reach for him at the moment.
This also reminded me of another moment when one of Jhon's fellow classmates asked if she could read me a book- I will call her Callie. She brought me a short expository text about trucks. Each page was a short sentence stating what a truck can do such as mix cement, dump garbage, etc. I really liked this book because at the end it had a glossary of terms that could be difficult for students like cement, vehicle, dump, etc. I had Callie attempt to read to me the definitions (those she couldn't read, I read to her). I told her that I love books with glossaries at the back because it helps me figure out things that I didn't understand before, and that if I would have known it was there before when I didn't understand something, I would have jumped to the back and figured out the words that I didn't know. I hope that this is a reading strategy that will stick with her as she continues learning to read.
The assessment consists of two expository texts: Rocks and Weather. Both of these texts come with detailed scripts for the teacher, assessment questions and prompts, and scoring sheets. The student either reads the text (or the teacher reads it to them) and the student is to fill in the missing words using contextual clues, graphic clues, prior knowledge, and other strategies. When calculating the score, one could look at the overall score which would be the most accurate, or one could analyze particular portions in order to view individual students' needs and comprehension strategies.
This assessment sounds like it would be extremely useful in the classroom. I would most definitely use a comprehension specific test such as this because comprehension can be a major issue for many readers. I do know that my target student, Jhon, has comprehension issues when reading text that doesn't have much to do with his own prior knowledge or when text has humor that he doesn't have the language skills to comprehend yet. When I asked him questions after reading "I See" from the QRI-5, he was able to answer four explicit questions correctly, but when I asked him what the pig was doing at the end of the story (the line was "doing a jig") but he replied with, "he was dancing". According to the QRI-5, this is correct as an implicit question because he observed the graphic clues of the picture of the pig "dancing". It would have been interesting to see how Jhon would have done with the ISCA, but I fear that some of the concepts would be still slightly out of reach for him at the moment.
This also reminded me of another moment when one of Jhon's fellow classmates asked if she could read me a book- I will call her Callie. She brought me a short expository text about trucks. Each page was a short sentence stating what a truck can do such as mix cement, dump garbage, etc. I really liked this book because at the end it had a glossary of terms that could be difficult for students like cement, vehicle, dump, etc. I had Callie attempt to read to me the definitions (those she couldn't read, I read to her). I told her that I love books with glossaries at the back because it helps me figure out things that I didn't understand before, and that if I would have known it was there before when I didn't understand something, I would have jumped to the back and figured out the words that I didn't know. I hope that this is a reading strategy that will stick with her as she continues learning to read.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Week 4 of Observation
This past Wednesday, I came in after lunch (around 11:40 am) because I knew that Ms. C. would only have the students for about a half an hour anyway and there's no sense in me being there when I'm not working with the students.
Apparently, on this particular day, report cards were due and the school insists on using a complicated and detailed format that teachers barely know how to use and parents can't understand without asking twenty questions. Needless to say, Ms. C. was stressed out because she was running out of time to turn these in. On the plus side, the whole day was dedicated to students working on their piece of writing that they were going to publish (for the publishing party tomorrow) and when they were done, to read either independently, in pairs, or in small groups. This gave me several hours of experience working with my target student and his classmates.
Jhon's piece that he was going to publish was the same piece that I helped him work on last week about his character, Ben, falling into a swimming pool with all of his clothes on. This week, the piece was written, colored, and nearly ready to turn in. I was extremely proud of him and this feeling only grew when he read the piece out loud for me. As he read, he made corrections to areas of writing that didn't sound correct! He originally forgot the word "to" in one sentence and he used a singular instead of a plural in another part of a sentence. He corrected both of these after listening to his mistakes. This is a huge step in Jhon's English literacy! Ms. C. gave him a high five when I told her that he can make his own corrections by using reading out loud as a strategy.
After he turned in his writing, he read me three short books and he has made some strides in his reading as well. I noticed that he uses contextual clues from pictures, but he also tries to sound out the words too not to assume that the picture is always correct. He reads with more emotion and fluency especially when he is excited to share his reading with me. He tends to read better when he suggests that he reads to me rather than when I suggest it to him.
We also tried two word lists: Pre-Primer 1 and Pre-Primer 2/3. Jhon zoomed through the pre-primer word list like it was nobody's business! Out of the seventeen words, all but one was automatic and all but two were correct. This was clearly independent level. The pre-primer 2/3 list showed different results. He got ten out of twenty correct and out of those all but one was automatic. This was his frustration level. From here, I asked him to read "I See" from QRI-5. He only had two miscues and two self corrections which makes this his instructional level. One miscue was instead of "an" he said "a" and the other miscue occurred when he said "jag" instead of "jig". He self corrected on "rug" because he almost said "rag" and he said "car" instead of "truck" but when he realized that duck doesn't rhyme with car and it doesn't match the picture, he made the correction.
Apparently, on this particular day, report cards were due and the school insists on using a complicated and detailed format that teachers barely know how to use and parents can't understand without asking twenty questions. Needless to say, Ms. C. was stressed out because she was running out of time to turn these in. On the plus side, the whole day was dedicated to students working on their piece of writing that they were going to publish (for the publishing party tomorrow) and when they were done, to read either independently, in pairs, or in small groups. This gave me several hours of experience working with my target student and his classmates.
Jhon's piece that he was going to publish was the same piece that I helped him work on last week about his character, Ben, falling into a swimming pool with all of his clothes on. This week, the piece was written, colored, and nearly ready to turn in. I was extremely proud of him and this feeling only grew when he read the piece out loud for me. As he read, he made corrections to areas of writing that didn't sound correct! He originally forgot the word "to" in one sentence and he used a singular instead of a plural in another part of a sentence. He corrected both of these after listening to his mistakes. This is a huge step in Jhon's English literacy! Ms. C. gave him a high five when I told her that he can make his own corrections by using reading out loud as a strategy.
After he turned in his writing, he read me three short books and he has made some strides in his reading as well. I noticed that he uses contextual clues from pictures, but he also tries to sound out the words too not to assume that the picture is always correct. He reads with more emotion and fluency especially when he is excited to share his reading with me. He tends to read better when he suggests that he reads to me rather than when I suggest it to him.
We also tried two word lists: Pre-Primer 1 and Pre-Primer 2/3. Jhon zoomed through the pre-primer word list like it was nobody's business! Out of the seventeen words, all but one was automatic and all but two were correct. This was clearly independent level. The pre-primer 2/3 list showed different results. He got ten out of twenty correct and out of those all but one was automatic. This was his frustration level. From here, I asked him to read "I See" from QRI-5. He only had two miscues and two self corrections which makes this his instructional level. One miscue was instead of "an" he said "a" and the other miscue occurred when he said "jag" instead of "jig". He self corrected on "rug" because he almost said "rag" and he said "car" instead of "truck" but when he realized that duck doesn't rhyme with car and it doesn't match the picture, he made the correction.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Question 2 for My Classmates
What would be some ways that you would inspire students to read even though they say things like, "I don't like to read because it's hard."?
Film Clips from Reading Rocks!
The whole episode of Reading Rocks! was very good, but my focus is on the portion about the student named Maricely. Maricely is a Puerto Rico born fifth grade student with troubles reading in English. Like my target student, Jhon, Maricely's family speaks solely Spanish at home and Spanish is the primary language of her Massachusetts neighborhood. Luckily for Maricely, her mother speaks minimal Spanish and her older sister helps her with reading at home.
I thought her case was interesting because she was having so much trouble with reading and spelling in English that she was held back in the fifth grade when she should have graduated into the sixth grade. She said that she was very upset and angry, but she didn't want to give up. Her main troubles were with how there can be more than one way to make the same sound in English, such as f and ph or rhyming words like though and show. In order to combat this, her focus has been on learning spelling patterns and reading by analogy like in this week's chapters for our leadership discussion. Once a student learns a spelling pattern such as air, they can use this to help them decode words with the same spelling pattern such as hair, chair, pair, and even multisyllabic words such as debonair.
I thought her case was interesting because she was having so much trouble with reading and spelling in English that she was held back in the fifth grade when she should have graduated into the sixth grade. She said that she was very upset and angry, but she didn't want to give up. Her main troubles were with how there can be more than one way to make the same sound in English, such as f and ph or rhyming words like though and show. In order to combat this, her focus has been on learning spelling patterns and reading by analogy like in this week's chapters for our leadership discussion. Once a student learns a spelling pattern such as air, they can use this to help them decode words with the same spelling pattern such as hair, chair, pair, and even multisyllabic words such as debonair.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Week 3 of Observation
Another hectic day of observation took place this past Wednesday, but at least I got to work with my target student with literacy skills this time! The difficult part about Wednesdays is that their schedule changed to have Rosie's Broadway Dance tap class first, a short amount of downtime to "shop for books", followed by music, then lunch. No reading or math at all until after lunch and most of the students are lethargic right after lunch. This was definitely noticeable in Jhon's reading.
In the afternoon, Ms. C. asked me to read with Jhon on the rug a book that was above his level with lots of character dialogue. The idea of the exercise was to have the students read character dialogue with emotion. In this case, since the book was high above his level, I did most of the reading, but I asked him to read with me any words that he knew. Occasionally, I would stop at a word that I knew that he would know and ask him to read it. I did this a partially to keep his attention since he seemed tired and he seemed to drift a bit. This is also why I decided not to expose him to the word lists from QRI-5 yet, especially after this difficult exercise. I was afraid he would burn out. During several pieces of dialogue, I would read the character's lines with emotion and have Jhon echo what I read. There was a point where the phrase "drive me bananas" came up. I asked him what that meant and he didn't know. I told him, "loco en la cabasa" and I made a goofy face and did the universal sign for crazy twirling my finger next to my brow. Jhon giggled about that and it helped him relax a bit more. I just kept telling him that this is a really hard book and we can just read and learn together.
Ms. C. gladly gave me access to all of his past writing to make copies. I chose two pieces from the beginning of the year and I will choose a piece or two that I have been helping him with later. Already, I see a big difference in his writing. He is exercising on his own the strategy of writing words that he is unsure about onto a post-it note before writing in on his journal paper for his writing assignments. Of course, occasionally, I will come and help him "stretch out" the word for him to spell and remind him of certain blends like "sh", but he is making improvements. Jhon really tries hard and it shows.
There is a correction that I want to make to his background information. Jhon lives with his grandmother here in the city while his parents are living in Ecuador (because his father is a professional soccer player there). It is possible that during the summer, Jhon will be whisked back to Ecador where he will speak nothing but Spanish again. Right now, his grandmother is taking Ms. C.'s advice in setting up playdates with students who are English proficient and speak Spanish. Hopefully, his grandmother will grant permission for him to do "Working Lunch" where students eat lunch in a classroom with a reading specialist and are both read to and asked to read. Ms. C. feels a bit hesitant to send Jhon home (both home here and Ecuador in the summer) with the advice (or materials) to watch programming such as Dora the Explorer and other PBS shows or books to read for fear that his parents might feel judged. It is a difficult situation, but it would be a shame if Jhon leaves for two months only to forget all that he has learned again, yet parents have the right to be with their son no matter their location.
In the afternoon, Ms. C. asked me to read with Jhon on the rug a book that was above his level with lots of character dialogue. The idea of the exercise was to have the students read character dialogue with emotion. In this case, since the book was high above his level, I did most of the reading, but I asked him to read with me any words that he knew. Occasionally, I would stop at a word that I knew that he would know and ask him to read it. I did this a partially to keep his attention since he seemed tired and he seemed to drift a bit. This is also why I decided not to expose him to the word lists from QRI-5 yet, especially after this difficult exercise. I was afraid he would burn out. During several pieces of dialogue, I would read the character's lines with emotion and have Jhon echo what I read. There was a point where the phrase "drive me bananas" came up. I asked him what that meant and he didn't know. I told him, "loco en la cabasa" and I made a goofy face and did the universal sign for crazy twirling my finger next to my brow. Jhon giggled about that and it helped him relax a bit more. I just kept telling him that this is a really hard book and we can just read and learn together.
Ms. C. gladly gave me access to all of his past writing to make copies. I chose two pieces from the beginning of the year and I will choose a piece or two that I have been helping him with later. Already, I see a big difference in his writing. He is exercising on his own the strategy of writing words that he is unsure about onto a post-it note before writing in on his journal paper for his writing assignments. Of course, occasionally, I will come and help him "stretch out" the word for him to spell and remind him of certain blends like "sh", but he is making improvements. Jhon really tries hard and it shows.
There is a correction that I want to make to his background information. Jhon lives with his grandmother here in the city while his parents are living in Ecuador (because his father is a professional soccer player there). It is possible that during the summer, Jhon will be whisked back to Ecador where he will speak nothing but Spanish again. Right now, his grandmother is taking Ms. C.'s advice in setting up playdates with students who are English proficient and speak Spanish. Hopefully, his grandmother will grant permission for him to do "Working Lunch" where students eat lunch in a classroom with a reading specialist and are both read to and asked to read. Ms. C. feels a bit hesitant to send Jhon home (both home here and Ecuador in the summer) with the advice (or materials) to watch programming such as Dora the Explorer and other PBS shows or books to read for fear that his parents might feel judged. It is a difficult situation, but it would be a shame if Jhon leaves for two months only to forget all that he has learned again, yet parents have the right to be with their son no matter their location.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Observations and Jury Duty!
Since this week is Winter Break for all NYC schools, I will not be going to observe this coming Wednesday. I also have the unfortunate news that on Wednesday, March 23rd, I have jury duty! Not unfortunate in that I don't want to serve, but in that jury duty could not only mess with my Wednesday but the rest of the week as well. Tuesdays aren't good days for observing for me because of all the running around needed in order to get to and from class the night before--I'm just plain tired on Tuesdays. Hopefully, A) I won't get picked for jury duty and they'll only keep me Wednesday and Thursday, or B) We miraculously have class online or half online that Monday and I can function efficiently that Tuesday to observe instead. (Hint, hint, wink, wink)
Oh well. I'm done with my rant. Hopefully the next few weeks of observation will go much smoother than last week so I can get this case study show on the road.
Oh well. I'm done with my rant. Hopefully the next few weeks of observation will go much smoother than last week so I can get this case study show on the road.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Podcast: Creating a Home Reading Program
The podcast, Creating a Home Reading Program, explains the R4 reading program or otherwise called the Read, Relax, Reflect, Respond Program. Teachers assign a specific number of minutes their students should read at home per week and they are to record their minutes on a reading log that is to be signed by their parents. The reading and relaxing is meant to be a motivator in that these students are reading books that are within their independent reading level that they want to read rather than what they are assigned to read. This helps to relieve the pressure that reading exercises could have on some students.
The teacher also provides students with a list of questions called prompts that are meant to guide students to think deeply about their reading. Students choice one question from a variety of types of questions such as "Reflect and describe how the reading relates to you or your own personal experiences." or "What would be something that your parent or teacher would find interesting about the reading? Why?". Students should be presented with a wide array of questions so that the student can pick a question that fits their learning style or interests.
Teachers also provide their students with a reflection journal that is to be written in every week for student responses to their weekly readings. Teachers should also model reading and writing strategies by being sure that they write a thoughtful response to their students' writing. It is recommended that the teacher grades only by whether students complete the task and not by the quality of their writing.
I was curious about this podcast because it has been on my mind how I would create a literacy program in my classroom, let alone at home. Reading at home is extremely important to the literacy growth of students, but unfortunately, many students hate to read or are too distracted by other things such as television, video games, and surfing the web. If students are given a choice of reading materials within their independent reading levels, it is more likely that they will enjoy what they read and feel confident as they do it. As a teacher, it is my job to keep my library full of interesting, fun, and varied types and genres of reading material so that each one of my students can work up to their full literacy potential.
The teacher also provides students with a list of questions called prompts that are meant to guide students to think deeply about their reading. Students choice one question from a variety of types of questions such as "Reflect and describe how the reading relates to you or your own personal experiences." or "What would be something that your parent or teacher would find interesting about the reading? Why?". Students should be presented with a wide array of questions so that the student can pick a question that fits their learning style or interests.
Teachers also provide their students with a reflection journal that is to be written in every week for student responses to their weekly readings. Teachers should also model reading and writing strategies by being sure that they write a thoughtful response to their students' writing. It is recommended that the teacher grades only by whether students complete the task and not by the quality of their writing.
I was curious about this podcast because it has been on my mind how I would create a literacy program in my classroom, let alone at home. Reading at home is extremely important to the literacy growth of students, but unfortunately, many students hate to read or are too distracted by other things such as television, video games, and surfing the web. If students are given a choice of reading materials within their independent reading levels, it is more likely that they will enjoy what they read and feel confident as they do it. As a teacher, it is my job to keep my library full of interesting, fun, and varied types and genres of reading material so that each one of my students can work up to their full literacy potential.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Week 2 of Observation
This past Wednesday, I came in to observe Ms. C.'s class and my target student Jhon expecting to be there for only two hours... I was mistaken. Wednesday was an extremely hectic day. Apparently, their schedule has changed and now at 8:30, they are to go to Rosie's Broadway Kids for tap dance. I had observed a tap class before during a past observation, but it is still very enjoyable to see these kids have such a great time while being exposed to the arts. Like math, the arts are another universal language.
Then we rushed back to the school where they were supposed to be scheduled for music. Since we were running late, the music teacher came downstairs with her guitar. She read them the story Love You Forever by Edward Munsch while playing the song on her guitar. During this time, since Ms. C.'s prep hour was messed up, I helped her prepare for a math activity.
Since Tuesday was the one hundredth day of school, the students made necklaces of one hundred Froot Loops by counting either by two's, five's, or ten's using different colors of Froot Loops. It was Ms. C. and my job to separate three boxes of Froot Loops into the six separate colors. Very tedious work! Also, annoying because, apparently, green is the cheapest color to make so the majority of each box was green, followed by orange, yellow, purple, blue, and then red... there are very very few red which is what made this annoying...plus I'm on a diet so this became a temptation for me. Did you know that Froot Loops have 12 grams of sugar? Yuck.
During this activity, I had the opportunity to work with many students, but I was especially happy I got to work with Jhon. He was in the group of students who were to count the Froot Loops by five's. He didn't have a problem counting out five of the same color of Froot Loops and continuing the pattern. The small issue that we had was his counting past 25 or 30 in English without getting confused. Because of this, instead of putting him on the spot and having him count them by fives for me like I normally do with the other children, we counted together as I point to each group of five. I would do this twice every time I went to check on him by saying, "I think I may have lost count. Could you help me check again?" or "Let's just double check just in case". He did very well.
Unfortunately, since the day was really crazy and the Froot Loop activity took longer than expected, there was no reading or writing time today. There was the extended time literacy intervention that I observed which was similar to last week's lesson. There was one student there that wasn't there last week, but who I remember from Ms. C.'s class last year. I will call him Grant. Grant is an extremely spacey child which is amplified because he misses a lot of class. He missed a lot of class last year and the pattern holds true this year. His literacy skills have definitely taken a hit due to his absenteeism. During the diagraph/tapping/spelling activity using the same diagraphs: ch, th, sh, wh, most of the students would at least get the correct diagraph in the spelling correct. Grant, on the other hand, doesn't even come close to the correct diagraph or he doesn't write one down at all. Ms. C. asks for all the students to name the diagraphs listed on the board and he waits until other students say it before he mouths it. Ms. C. then asked him to say the diagraphs by himself and he couldn't do it. They have been working on diagraphs since October. I can see how Ms. C. is frustrated, but I also feel bad for the student.
During the extended time, I had a chance to ask Ms. C. a few more questions. Many of the questions have been answered in my previous post, but here are some of the answers repeated and elaborated upon.
Ms. C. has been working at this school for almost 25 years and has vast experience working with ELL's. The school has a large Hispanic and Chinese population and every student she has has varying degrees of exposure and experience with the English language. Ms. C. is originally from Greece so she speaks the language fluently and can understand the basics of other languages with Latin foundations. She also speaks Spanish very well which helps when a Spanish speaking student needs a brief translation or a dialogue.
Ms. C. feels that many ELLs need constant and vigilant positive support. Many of these students are extremely shy, like Jhon, and may need extra confidence boosters to motivate him to keep up the good work. For example, Ms. C. mentioned that there was a small issue a while ago when starting first grade. In first grade, he was at the front of the line nearest to Ms. C. and many times, Ms. C. would hold his hand and give him hugs. When moving in to the first grade, he was no longer at the front of the line. This affected his confidence and his work suffered a bit. One day, Jhon's parents spoke to Ms. C. and said that Jhon said that he didn't want to go back to school because Ms. C. didn't love him anymore. Ms. C. had no idea that Jhon felt that way and she was thankful that his parents were comfortable enough to communicate that to her. Jhon is now back at the front of the line.
Like in the example, it is both the jobs of the teacher and the parents to communicate candidly about their child/student. Communication is very important for ELLs both in regards to the family and the community. It is the family's job to try their best to help aid their child on the way to English language proficiency, even if it is by taking them on playdates with peers who speak English or by exposing them to shows like Sesame Street.
She said that classroom teachers, whether if they speak an ELL's native language or not, they consult the ELL specialist or the resource room teacher for ideas for student learning. She also said that reading culturally diverse literature helps to keep both native and non-native speakers motivated and interested in learning about other cultures. She doesn't participate in on-going ELL teaching strategies, but she believes that the strategies she uses works: reading and involving different cultures in class, translating some directions in native language, short dialogues in native language, communication with parents, sending independent level readings home, etc. She has had many students from all over the world including many areas in South America, the Middle East, China, Eastern Europe, and Central Africa. She cannot speak all the languages, but she studies up a bit on the distinct differences between their language and English so she can try to make smoother connections between the languages. To see if what she does helps student progress, she constantly assesses student writing, assignments, and participation. She also told me that Jhon has actually made some improvement in his writing since the last time we met and she would be happy to make copies of some writing pieces for me to look at. She communicates to parents by telephone mostly, sometimes email, and many times by letters home or newsletters. She participates in the school news letter that goes out within the community.
Just to answer the basics, the school uses assessments such as running records and word lists from the Teacher's College Assessment- Reading and Writing Project Columbia University. They use Fundations for the extended time on Wednesdays as a tutorial. Apparently, teachers are not allowed to make "lesson plans" for extended time because it should be only in a tutorial format.
Then we rushed back to the school where they were supposed to be scheduled for music. Since we were running late, the music teacher came downstairs with her guitar. She read them the story Love You Forever by Edward Munsch while playing the song on her guitar. During this time, since Ms. C.'s prep hour was messed up, I helped her prepare for a math activity.
Since Tuesday was the one hundredth day of school, the students made necklaces of one hundred Froot Loops by counting either by two's, five's, or ten's using different colors of Froot Loops. It was Ms. C. and my job to separate three boxes of Froot Loops into the six separate colors. Very tedious work! Also, annoying because, apparently, green is the cheapest color to make so the majority of each box was green, followed by orange, yellow, purple, blue, and then red... there are very very few red which is what made this annoying...plus I'm on a diet so this became a temptation for me. Did you know that Froot Loops have 12 grams of sugar? Yuck.
During this activity, I had the opportunity to work with many students, but I was especially happy I got to work with Jhon. He was in the group of students who were to count the Froot Loops by five's. He didn't have a problem counting out five of the same color of Froot Loops and continuing the pattern. The small issue that we had was his counting past 25 or 30 in English without getting confused. Because of this, instead of putting him on the spot and having him count them by fives for me like I normally do with the other children, we counted together as I point to each group of five. I would do this twice every time I went to check on him by saying, "I think I may have lost count. Could you help me check again?" or "Let's just double check just in case". He did very well.
Unfortunately, since the day was really crazy and the Froot Loop activity took longer than expected, there was no reading or writing time today. There was the extended time literacy intervention that I observed which was similar to last week's lesson. There was one student there that wasn't there last week, but who I remember from Ms. C.'s class last year. I will call him Grant. Grant is an extremely spacey child which is amplified because he misses a lot of class. He missed a lot of class last year and the pattern holds true this year. His literacy skills have definitely taken a hit due to his absenteeism. During the diagraph/tapping/spelling activity using the same diagraphs: ch, th, sh, wh, most of the students would at least get the correct diagraph in the spelling correct. Grant, on the other hand, doesn't even come close to the correct diagraph or he doesn't write one down at all. Ms. C. asks for all the students to name the diagraphs listed on the board and he waits until other students say it before he mouths it. Ms. C. then asked him to say the diagraphs by himself and he couldn't do it. They have been working on diagraphs since October. I can see how Ms. C. is frustrated, but I also feel bad for the student.
During the extended time, I had a chance to ask Ms. C. a few more questions. Many of the questions have been answered in my previous post, but here are some of the answers repeated and elaborated upon.
Ms. C. has been working at this school for almost 25 years and has vast experience working with ELL's. The school has a large Hispanic and Chinese population and every student she has has varying degrees of exposure and experience with the English language. Ms. C. is originally from Greece so she speaks the language fluently and can understand the basics of other languages with Latin foundations. She also speaks Spanish very well which helps when a Spanish speaking student needs a brief translation or a dialogue.
Ms. C. feels that many ELLs need constant and vigilant positive support. Many of these students are extremely shy, like Jhon, and may need extra confidence boosters to motivate him to keep up the good work. For example, Ms. C. mentioned that there was a small issue a while ago when starting first grade. In first grade, he was at the front of the line nearest to Ms. C. and many times, Ms. C. would hold his hand and give him hugs. When moving in to the first grade, he was no longer at the front of the line. This affected his confidence and his work suffered a bit. One day, Jhon's parents spoke to Ms. C. and said that Jhon said that he didn't want to go back to school because Ms. C. didn't love him anymore. Ms. C. had no idea that Jhon felt that way and she was thankful that his parents were comfortable enough to communicate that to her. Jhon is now back at the front of the line.
Like in the example, it is both the jobs of the teacher and the parents to communicate candidly about their child/student. Communication is very important for ELLs both in regards to the family and the community. It is the family's job to try their best to help aid their child on the way to English language proficiency, even if it is by taking them on playdates with peers who speak English or by exposing them to shows like Sesame Street.
She said that classroom teachers, whether if they speak an ELL's native language or not, they consult the ELL specialist or the resource room teacher for ideas for student learning. She also said that reading culturally diverse literature helps to keep both native and non-native speakers motivated and interested in learning about other cultures. She doesn't participate in on-going ELL teaching strategies, but she believes that the strategies she uses works: reading and involving different cultures in class, translating some directions in native language, short dialogues in native language, communication with parents, sending independent level readings home, etc. She has had many students from all over the world including many areas in South America, the Middle East, China, Eastern Europe, and Central Africa. She cannot speak all the languages, but she studies up a bit on the distinct differences between their language and English so she can try to make smoother connections between the languages. To see if what she does helps student progress, she constantly assesses student writing, assignments, and participation. She also told me that Jhon has actually made some improvement in his writing since the last time we met and she would be happy to make copies of some writing pieces for me to look at. She communicates to parents by telephone mostly, sometimes email, and many times by letters home or newsletters. She participates in the school news letter that goes out within the community.
Just to answer the basics, the school uses assessments such as running records and word lists from the Teacher's College Assessment- Reading and Writing Project Columbia University. They use Fundations for the extended time on Wednesdays as a tutorial. Apparently, teachers are not allowed to make "lesson plans" for extended time because it should be only in a tutorial format.
Friday, February 11, 2011
First Week of Observation
On Wednesday, February 9th, I attended P.S. 51 Elias Howe School once again to observe in an elementary school classroom. I was pleasantly surprised when I was assigned to a teacher who I have worked with once before last year, Ms. Abby C.. Ms. C. taught kindergarten for the last 23 years, but is now currently teaching first grade. She told me that it really helps that she had several of her students last year. They already had a relationship and they could try out first grade together.
Ms. C. was the first teacher I have ever worked with and, so far, she is my absolute favorite! I spent the whole day with her and her class observing and helping out students where ever I could. When the students were in music class, Ms. C. and I had a chance to talk. Apparently, she specializes in literacy as well and English. Also, surprisingly, she had taken many theater courses in college and said that Elizabethan English was her forte. I also discussed with her the purpose of my observation and as soon as I said the words "ELL case study" she immediately interrupted me with "Jhon!".
Ms. C. gave me a thorough background of the student as well as copies of all his previous assessments. Jhon's family moved here from Ecuador in the middle of last year. He, his parents, and his grandmother moved to New York City after his father, a former professional soccer player, chose to make the move to the United States. All three adults in his life do not speak English at all.
When Jhon arrived last year, he did not speak any English, but by the end of the year, his conversational English improved but his reading level was left at A. Then his parents took him back to Ecuador for two months and he completely forgot all the English he had learned. Ms. C. dared to say that he may have taken two steps back in his English acquirement.
Currently, Jhon is reading at level D when the benchmark for first grade at this time is approximately G/H. According to his assessments, he is at the early alphabetic level or phase. Ms. C. also told me that he is a timid child but eager to try. Many times when he makes a mistake, he shuts down. He is also sitting with a group of students who also speak Spanish but are fluent in English. Even with this sitting arrangement, he hesitates to ask for help when needed.
I had the opportunity to introduce myself to Jhon and he is a very sweet little boy. I asked him if he would mind me listening to him read for a little while and he said he didn't mind. He read two books to me. The first was a narrative about a game of hide and seek. He read enthusiastically but whenever he didn't know a word, he would skip over it or make up something that would seem to make sense. For example, the book had the repetitive line "Nobody there" and instead he would say "not there" or "not here". The other book was an expository piece about maps that he seemed to enjoy reading.
At the end of the regular school day, I observed Ms. C. teach a small literacy intervention group during extended time. The teachers use guidelines from a program called Fundations by the Reading and Writing Project of Columbia. The lesson was geared toward helping the students achieve phonemic awareness, or as the book presented it, blending and chunking. In order to spell five given words, Ms. C. urged the students to tap out on their fingers each sound that they hear of a word. The word mash was one of the given words. Ms. C. modeled tapping out M-A-SH and then the students did it along with her. Then they would try spelling it on their dry erase boards. I thought this was a really good mini lesson that I could easily use myself.
All in all, I was extremely pleased with how my first observation day went and I am excited to go back.
Ms. C. was the first teacher I have ever worked with and, so far, she is my absolute favorite! I spent the whole day with her and her class observing and helping out students where ever I could. When the students were in music class, Ms. C. and I had a chance to talk. Apparently, she specializes in literacy as well and English. Also, surprisingly, she had taken many theater courses in college and said that Elizabethan English was her forte. I also discussed with her the purpose of my observation and as soon as I said the words "ELL case study" she immediately interrupted me with "Jhon!".
Ms. C. gave me a thorough background of the student as well as copies of all his previous assessments. Jhon's family moved here from Ecuador in the middle of last year. He, his parents, and his grandmother moved to New York City after his father, a former professional soccer player, chose to make the move to the United States. All three adults in his life do not speak English at all.
When Jhon arrived last year, he did not speak any English, but by the end of the year, his conversational English improved but his reading level was left at A. Then his parents took him back to Ecuador for two months and he completely forgot all the English he had learned. Ms. C. dared to say that he may have taken two steps back in his English acquirement.
Currently, Jhon is reading at level D when the benchmark for first grade at this time is approximately G/H. According to his assessments, he is at the early alphabetic level or phase. Ms. C. also told me that he is a timid child but eager to try. Many times when he makes a mistake, he shuts down. He is also sitting with a group of students who also speak Spanish but are fluent in English. Even with this sitting arrangement, he hesitates to ask for help when needed.
I had the opportunity to introduce myself to Jhon and he is a very sweet little boy. I asked him if he would mind me listening to him read for a little while and he said he didn't mind. He read two books to me. The first was a narrative about a game of hide and seek. He read enthusiastically but whenever he didn't know a word, he would skip over it or make up something that would seem to make sense. For example, the book had the repetitive line "Nobody there" and instead he would say "not there" or "not here". The other book was an expository piece about maps that he seemed to enjoy reading.
At the end of the regular school day, I observed Ms. C. teach a small literacy intervention group during extended time. The teachers use guidelines from a program called Fundations by the Reading and Writing Project of Columbia. The lesson was geared toward helping the students achieve phonemic awareness, or as the book presented it, blending and chunking. In order to spell five given words, Ms. C. urged the students to tap out on their fingers each sound that they hear of a word. The word mash was one of the given words. Ms. C. modeled tapping out M-A-SH and then the students did it along with her. Then they would try spelling it on their dry erase boards. I thought this was a really good mini lesson that I could easily use myself.
All in all, I was extremely pleased with how my first observation day went and I am excited to go back.
Question for the Week
What would you do if you had an ELL in your classroom that you knew for a fact didn't have any exposure whatsoever to English outside of your classroom?
Response to Intervention (RTI): What Teachers of Reading Need to Know
Response to Intervention (RTI): What Teachers of Reading Need to Know
Summary & Reflection
By now, we all know what Response to Intervention or RTI is, especially in regards to the field of literacy. But when it comes down to actually putting it into practice, many of us, including myself, are flummoxed about the breadth of student skills that need to be assessed as well as the many various methods of intervention. This article gives us a general outline of the steps that should be taken by sharing the vignette of Mark, a second grade student with difficulties in fluency and accuracy. The authors discuss RTI's step by step process with this student beginning with universal screening with the Phonological Awareness and Literacy Screening (PALS) and first grade word lists; and ending with specific individualized instruction with constant assessments to see whether benchmarks have been achieved. Happily for Mark, in the final step, the committee did not see evidence of a need for him to be in special education, although, there was concern for him to fall behind over the summer break.
I enjoy reading articles like this because it reveals what truly happens implementing RTI in a real-life context. Like any of the students that we hope to teach, we ourselves tend to be more interested in reading material that can be related to the outside world or that insights empathy. This article is a good supplement to some of our upcoming chapters in our text books in regards to the planning, organizing, and implementation of interventions. Literacy interventions must be structured, balanced, and based on scientific evidence of our students' skills to be successful.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
The Assessment of Thoughtful Literacy in NAEP: Why the States Aren't Measuring Up Summary & Reflection
The Assessment of Thoughtful Literacy in NAEP:
Why the States Aren't Measuring Up
Summary & Reflection
This article addresses the troubles with standardized testing in this country. The authors performed this research by obtaining 20 of the most populated states' standardized comprehension tests and analyzed the nature of their questions. The types of questions were compared to the literacy framework provided by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The results were not as, we as teachers, would have hoped. Most states' standardized comprehension tests focus heavily on vocabulary, but far less on open-ended questions which give students greater opportunities to think and respond thoughtfully about a piece of text. Many tests also have a deep focus on text details which could give students the wrong impression about the purpose of reading: we read for understanding, but we build that understanding by relating it to our thoughts and experiences. Students may then pay unnecessary attention to inane facts in the reading rather than empathizing and relating to the text.
I think it is a shame that many teachers focus highly on having their students memorize facts about text instead of having students build knowledge by questioning, empathizing, and relating the text to their previous experience. Even though it is a shame, according to the results of this article, they are not completely wrong. These teachers are responding to the fact that our testing system doesn't focus on the building of true comprehension of textual ideas but the comprehension of the facts or vocabulary. Testing should have more open-ended questions that cause students to think deeply about the characters and their situation; in exposition text, students should be made to care about the presented issues as they read. If our students both comprehend and care about the text, they are less likely to look at reading as a dull task but as an opportunity to learn something new or step into the shoes of another person. As a result, they are more likely to become life-long readers. If we continue testing for inane details they way we have been, more and more students will fail to read for pleasure.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Using Assessment to Guide Instruction
The video Using Assessment to Guide Instruction had some very helpful points in guiding us to becoming assessment based literacy instructors. Truth be told, my computer was being a bit funky so I was unable to actually view the video, but I could listen to the entire thing clearly.
The video was an excellent summary of all that we have been talking about in class: assessment will lay the groundwork for our literacy programs. The use of only one assessment only gives us one perspective of the progress of a student. It may tell us that "Bobby" has word identification troubles, but how is his meaning-making skills, written skills, oral communication skills, motivation? When we use multiple assessments or gather a variety of evidence of student progress (or lack of progress) we have a better understanding of the whole picture. In the video, teachers were asked what they considered evidence to student progress. Many things were addressed including the following: running records, word games, retellings, conferencing with student themselves, conferencing with parents, conferencing with colleagues who have contact with student, anecdotal evaluations (notes observing student behavior, comments, interactions, etc.). The video also stressed that we not only need to evaluate student strengths and needs skill wise, but also within what context. Most students read narratives better than expository pieces, but sometimes, especially with boys, expository pieces could be motivating or more interesting to the student.
I felt that this video was an appropriate review to what we have been discussing in class. I found most of it helpful. There was one phrase that was used that I found to be obvious and silly, though, "Struggling readers tend not to read". Of course they don't! If someone is struggling with something, it usually means they are going to avoid the thing from which they struggle unless they are motivated to try harder to succeed. I've seen this occur in the 4th grade classroom I observed last year when a student became severely frustrated with stumbling through a text he was reading with his teacher that he completely shut down. He stopped reading and when prompted by the teacher, he snapped back. He didn't mean to snap so the teacher was pretty understanding. Later, the teacher told me that she was considering more small group or individual instruction for the student. A student needs to be exposed to a well-structured literacy program where they have the opportunity to read a variety of different texts within both their instructional and independent levels in order to keep them motivated and keep them "hanging in there" so they can be successful life-long readers.
The video was an excellent summary of all that we have been talking about in class: assessment will lay the groundwork for our literacy programs. The use of only one assessment only gives us one perspective of the progress of a student. It may tell us that "Bobby" has word identification troubles, but how is his meaning-making skills, written skills, oral communication skills, motivation? When we use multiple assessments or gather a variety of evidence of student progress (or lack of progress) we have a better understanding of the whole picture. In the video, teachers were asked what they considered evidence to student progress. Many things were addressed including the following: running records, word games, retellings, conferencing with student themselves, conferencing with parents, conferencing with colleagues who have contact with student, anecdotal evaluations (notes observing student behavior, comments, interactions, etc.). The video also stressed that we not only need to evaluate student strengths and needs skill wise, but also within what context. Most students read narratives better than expository pieces, but sometimes, especially with boys, expository pieces could be motivating or more interesting to the student.
I felt that this video was an appropriate review to what we have been discussing in class. I found most of it helpful. There was one phrase that was used that I found to be obvious and silly, though, "Struggling readers tend not to read". Of course they don't! If someone is struggling with something, it usually means they are going to avoid the thing from which they struggle unless they are motivated to try harder to succeed. I've seen this occur in the 4th grade classroom I observed last year when a student became severely frustrated with stumbling through a text he was reading with his teacher that he completely shut down. He stopped reading and when prompted by the teacher, he snapped back. He didn't mean to snap so the teacher was pretty understanding. Later, the teacher told me that she was considering more small group or individual instruction for the student. A student needs to be exposed to a well-structured literacy program where they have the opportunity to read a variety of different texts within both their instructional and independent levels in order to keep them motivated and keep them "hanging in there" so they can be successful life-long readers.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Reflection on Two Literacy Articles
The first article, Organizing Instruction for Struggling Readers in Tutorial Settings by Mokhtari, Hutchinson, and Edwards is an overview of the general steps that go into pinpointing and organizing specific literacy instruction for struggling students. I appreciated the author's use of the case study to show us how we are to design student instruction. Firstly, as teachers of literacy, we are to use multiple assessments in order to decipher both the strengths and the needs of our students. The use of Informal Reading Inventories such as our text in combination with other reading records, retellings, think alouds, writing exercises, and standardized tests such as the Iowa Test of Basic Skills as mentioned in the article (a test that I myself have taken as a student many MANY times) can give us a good idea of how to design and implement a cohesive literacy program (which is the second step). Lastly, monitoring student progress is stressed as extremely important in the article. Should a teaching method be superior for one student, but inadequate for another, adjustments should be made.
The second article, Linguistically Responsive Teacher Education: Preparing Classroom Teachers to Teach English Language Learners was extremely helpful for my confidence in that the authors, Lucas, Villegas, and Freedson-Gonzalez offers us sound suggestions and strategies that can be implemented our classrooms. I now see clearly the importance of students getting clear input and exposure to English through activities such as read alouds and student discourse as well as importance in allowing students many opportunities to create meaningful output through writing and conversation. I found the differences between conversational discourse and academic discourse to be very interesting which also gave me ideas on how to help students evolve from conversational to academic discourse in topics such as science and literature studies.
Reading both of these articles has, indeed, lessened my anxiety of designing curriculum for my own classroom by offering me a variety of potential teaching strategies for all my future students.
The second article, Linguistically Responsive Teacher Education: Preparing Classroom Teachers to Teach English Language Learners was extremely helpful for my confidence in that the authors, Lucas, Villegas, and Freedson-Gonzalez offers us sound suggestions and strategies that can be implemented our classrooms. I now see clearly the importance of students getting clear input and exposure to English through activities such as read alouds and student discourse as well as importance in allowing students many opportunities to create meaningful output through writing and conversation. I found the differences between conversational discourse and academic discourse to be very interesting which also gave me ideas on how to help students evolve from conversational to academic discourse in topics such as science and literature studies.
Reading both of these articles has, indeed, lessened my anxiety of designing curriculum for my own classroom by offering me a variety of potential teaching strategies for all my future students.
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