Module 8

Slideshow Reflection: Factors Involved in Reading and Writing Difficulties

Because I work with students with disabilities in a Title 1 school, I found this slideshow to be very interesting. My students needs are characterized by delays in language, cognition, social and adaptive behaviors, and fine motor skills. Therefore I have to take all of this into account to differentiate instruction and tailor the instructional framework and implementation to their specific needs. On the flip side, I have had students in general education classrooms that did not demonstrate any delays in these areas and may have problems with focus and motivation; these factors can be just as detrimental to their academic achievement especially as it relates to literacy. Perhaps the most important factor to a child’s literacy achievement is the social and emotional domains; it is most difficult to scaffold and provide appropriate support for students with difficulties in these areas.

Video Reflection: What is Reading Recovery?

I especially like the one on one instruction that the students receive in Reading Recovery and the continual assessment that takes place. It really gives the teacher a window right into the student’s thought processes and accurately see where specifically they are struggling. The success rate of 75% of students by the end of first grade is amazing. I especially liked the point that was made that reading well is essential to the success of a child in school; this is so true. Everything that the student will be expected to learn and demonstrate will be through language and literacy; it is how students demonstrate what they have learned.

Module 7: Text Reflections

Opitz Chapters 13 & 14, see Module 5

Module 7: Slideshow Presentation Reflections

Perspectives of the Learning Process

This brief slideshow states the importance of talking to the student to get a clear view of what skills they believe they need to learn as a reader and writer. This can be done informally through conversation; a quick conversation will help you get an idea of how the student thinks they are doing and where they think they need help. This will help the student to set individual goals and take ownership of their learning. It is also extremely important for you to talk to the parent and teacher (if that is not you). Knowing how the child reacts to work at home and school and their learning behavior will help to paint the full picture of the student’s motivation and ability level. It also helps to notice any discrepancies between different environments.

Comprehension Evidence and Strategies

This presentation illustrates reading comprehension and explains what the difficulties students have and the related problems with comprehension of different types of texts look like. This text details every aspect reading comprehension and the possible problems with that area may look like, offering strategies for each possible issue. This presentation gives a lot of information but the most interesting to me is the bullet point that mentioned that reading comprehension involves more than 30 cognitive processes. I find this fascinating because of the unique needs of my students and their highly varied cognitive abilities and how it affects their comprehension (which is what I am completing my action research on).  For each of the slides presented, I just kept thinking of a particular student with that specific difficulty.

Classroom Instruction that Works: Nine Best Practices to Improve Student Achievement

This slideshow presentation details Marzano’s nine best practices that affect student achievement and strategies that can be applied to support each. Because I enjoy learning about how the brain processes information, my favorite of the practices mentioned is finding similarities and differences; showing students the connections between new concepts and ideas and what they already know will greatly increase the likelihood of new information being moved to long term memory. The strategy recommended is the Most Important Point strategy, this asks the students to identify what is most important and make a connection to prior knowledge. Finding similarities and differences in new concepts or information can increase student achievement by 45%. This point really stood out for me because we work on a lot of concept building in my classroom. The presentation goes on to introduce 8 best practices and outline their impact on student learning and recommend strategies for each.

Module 6: Text Reflection

Opitz Chapter 14: see Module 5

Module 6: Video Reflections

Why I Flipped My Classroom

I do love this idea for many reasons: this use of home time to introduce content and the use of class time to apply their learning would be more effective than lecturing a class that is not listening and then sending them home to practice the concepts learned that day for homework that they have to ask for help with anyway because they either were not paying attention or were not ready for the concept presented. I think this really pushes students to take ownership of their learning and makes them the responsible party for taking care of their work independently. I do have one very big problem with this kind of instruction: accessibility of the necessary technology. I work in a Title 1 school where most of the students would most likely not have internet access in their homes and could not access the videos prior to class. However, if it is possible because of student accessibility, I think this is a great idea.

Using Assessment to Improve Instruction

This video expresses the importance of assessing learning for the purpose of driving effective instruction. I found it interesting that the beginning segments of the video introduce assessment as something that some teachers feel is not worth doing. Then I thought that maybe they are thinking of assessment as the large, summative assessments such as benchmarks and EOCT’s. I feel that formative assessment, as we discussed earlier this semester, is not only how you can assess students’ learning, but also how you assess your instructional design and methods. Assessment in its most basic form is really done daily by observing and interacting with the students and having them show you their understanding of the content.

Module 6: Slideshow Presentation Reflections

Reading Strategies: Reading in the Upper Grades

This particular presentation gave explanations of different kinds of reading strategies appropriate for students in the upper grades. It expressed the importance of having a word wall available and implementing activities so that students interact with the wall regularly to solidify understanding of vocabulary. This is a strategy that I use in the classroom with my Kindergartners; we have an illustrated word wall that features sight and past vocabulary words. Our current words are with our EQ on a concept map that stays at the front of the room until we move on to the next topic.  I have modeled KWL charts in my classroom but most of the other strategies such as QAR and 3-2-1, I have not used since I began working with the lower grades. I was impressed with an interactive online vocabulary web I saw during our last professional learning day; it could be modified by grade and difficulty level. I found the last couple of slides on the 80-15-5 Rule very interesting; I wonder how those numbers would be represented in my classroom of students being served by special education.

Differentiating Instruction with Multicultural Literacy

This presentation specified what differentiated instruction entails. It stressed the importance of properly diagnosing the needs and interests of the student as well how specifically you can differentiate instruction and assessments. This is something that I currently have to re-visit in my classroom. Instruction in my classroom is differentiated in many ways already because it is a small group classroom of four students. Most of my students are engaged in the whole group instruction that I implement because it is interactive, I rely on literature and songs, and prompt the students as necessary taking into account their individual goals and objectives. I have one student though that has an incredibly difficult time when he is not in direct control of the lesson and he has to share attention with other students. I have recently placed him at a desktop computer near the group so that he can follow along at his own pace and complete all of his work independently.  This has tremendously cut back on the frequency of negative behaviors that we have seen; this illustrates to me how important differentiation is.

Assessment of Cognitive, School, and Home Factors

This last presentation was related to cognitive functioning and the assessments that measure verbal comprehension, processing, perceptual reasoning, and working memory. I am familiar with some of these examples from working with school psychologists, speech language pathologists, and diagnosticians for the purpose of evaluating and providing students with special education eligibility. In my classroom we administer the Assessment of Basic Language and Learning Skills (ABLLS), that assesses more than 20 aspects of a student’s functioning including receptive and expressive language, visual perception, reasoning, literacy and math skills, and gross and fine motor skills. I think it is so important to have a clear overall picture of where your students are functioning in every domain; this will help to guide instruction and provide a framework to support their needs.

Module 5: Video Reflection

Rubrics- an Introduction

The Rubrics video introduces the concept of a rubric for assessment by giving examples of rubrics as they could relate to the assessment of a cookie. Because I am familiar with rubrics the concept was not new to me but I do need to use them more often in my classroom. Usually when I have used them in the past, I have assessed using specific point values but I do like how the rubrics presented used a percentage of possible points so that it could be applied to any point value.

Module 5: Slideshow Reflections

Teaching Phonics, High-Frequency Words, and Fluency

This slideshow relates how students learn phonics to learning high-frequency words and how it improves fluency. It offered specific instructional activities for building word pattern knowledge. This comes at a great time for me because I was beginning to feel that I was running out of ideas for teaching word families. We quite often make flip books and do sorts to learn the patterns. As we read we make lists of rhyming words but it was getting a little boring. I believe next I will have the students make little  books, where a different word from the same family is on each page and they can illustrate. The computer program that we used for Shared Reading in my classroom already involves word building and memory games but we always do an extra activity or two to supplement. The most important point made in the presentation was that you have to match the skills to the texts that are currently being used. If students don’t have the opportunity to apply the skills, it will not be useful to them.

Linking Phonics and Vocabulary Development

This short slideshow reiterated that phonics is not a stand-alone skill in regards to literacy development; it is meant to give the student the necessary skills to be able to read independently and read for meaning, increasing vocabulary at the same time. Phonics instruction must be made meaningful by aligning the texts being read to the skills being taught. I find this true and have caught myself in the past just throwing lessons together without taking the time to align all of the components. It is so much more meaningful when thoughtfully organized in such a way that students are able to make connections between the skills and their application. If opportunities are not provided, they will not be able to make the connections independently and learn by analogy as a result.

Vocabulary Development

This presentation gave several examples of word-analysis strategies. I hate hearing a student prompted to “sound it out.” This tells me that the adult who is working with them does not have a sound knowledge of the different ways students analyze new words; decoding should be a last resort. I enjoy letting students come back to a word after finishing that portion of a reading passage if they need to so they can think about what makes sense using semantic and syntactic clues; they need to be able to look back at what they are reading anyway to monitor comprehension.

 I enjoyed the portion of the presentation on direct/indirect methods and strategies for teaching high frequency words. In my classroom the instructional methods have to be fairly predictable and routine because of the specific learning needs of my students but I like to add in a new and fun activity once a week or so to make sure they are mastering the skills and not just the routine. Some strategies that I may incorporate are the Carbo Recorded Book Method (because I feel the books on tape do move too fast for younger students) and making Little Books; we have made little books for content areas before and the students really enjoyed looking back at them later.  

 Assessing Vocabulary

This particular slideshow explains the different levels of new vocabulary, key points for instruction, and suggestions for assessment. I found the samples of vocabulary assessments to be the most useful part of the presentation; this section has made me think about how I might modify these assessments to use with my students. Our vocabulary assessments rely on the students’ receptive language skills because of their delays in expressive language; usually by identifying a picture or word from a field of 3 or matching. I think I would like to use an adapted version of the vocabulary rating scale to assess knowledge of words on the 2^nd and 3^rd tiers of vocabulary words.  

Module 5: Text Reflections, Ch.'s 11, 13, & 14

Ch. 11 of the Opitz text explains the importance of student vocabulary development as it relates to other aspects of reading skills, how vocabulary develops, how vocabulary can be assessed, and provides guidelines and strategies for effective vocabulary instruction. Vocabulary development is something that I have to work very hard to support in my classroom because all of my students have a severe language delay. I have to plan and implement explicit, intensive instruction to build the vocabulary of my students. As it is mentioned in the text we begin with labeling common objects and move towards actions and descriptions; we start with the concrete and move towards the abstract.

Because my action research is based on an intervention to support listening and reading comprehension, I have also been thinking lately about the relationship between vocabulary and comprehension. If I were to ask a student if the character from a story is creative or dull, they would first have to be familiar enough with those words to make an educated guess. This tells me that as the text explained, vocabulary is a predictor of comprehension.

In Ch. 13, study skills and learning strategies are explored. As I was reading, I was wanting to show my teenage daughter that all of the things that I’ve been telling her for years and getting on to her for are true; good study skills involves developing good habits like a consistent study schedule in a place that is free of distractions. I also found the checklists in this chapter to be a good reference because it’s difficult to explain exactly what good study skills look like because of the independent nature of the activity.

This chapter reminded me that in my own classroom I need to slow down and provide more explicit instruction in study skills or just demonstrate more thoroughly through modeling and think alouds how we get information from texts. This may just be presenting students with the resources and then using strategies such as questioning, skimming, or note taking to demonstrate how they can be effective means to focus learning.

Finally, Ch. 14 promotes and explains different ways that parents can be involved in schools. It is widely accepted that parental involvement promotes higher student achievement; this chapter explains several ways that can be achieved and tips for parents on how to support their child’s reading needs. I thought the most interesting part of the chapter was the section that explained TV and computer use as not necessarily having a negative impact on students’ literacy skills. I suppose thought that is consistent with the formats in which people currently gain information.

Opitz, M., Rubin, D., & Erekson, J. (2011). Reading diagnosis and improvement: Assessment and instruction. Boston, MA: Pearson.

Module 4: Text Reflections

I found the points made in Chapter 9 of the Opitz text to be so very true. Students who are exposed to more and different types of text are usually much more proficient readers; I can always tell a difference in my kindergartners who are exposed to different types of text and whose parents read with them at home.
In my classroom I attempt to expose my students to as many different types of text as possible but I end up most often relying on basal readers and predictable books which are probably my favorite. Predictable books are wonderful for rhyme and word family activities as well as comprehension strategies such as sequencing. The students are usually engaged by the rhythm and the illustrations so are much more likely to respond to the text than some other types.
In the 10^th chapter of the Opitz text, comprehension is addressed. The first point made in the chapter that struck me as so very relevant, was the statement on p. 210 that explained the relationship between listening and reading comprehension. I have seen how one affects the other because all of my students have a developmental language delay. A student can have amazing word recognition and fluency but if they don’t have a grasp of spoken language, it greatly affects their reading comprehension.
As it especially relevant to my day to day work in regards to language and cognitive development, I found the section on schema theory very interesting. It’s so fascinating to me how new information is assimilated with prior knowledge.
The rest of the chapter goes on to explain the different levels of comprehension, from literal meaning to creative reading where the student uses information presented to come up with alternatives to the author’s ideas. The chapter further explains comprehension strategies with tables explaining each. This will serve as a useful reference for later.
Chapter 11 of the Opitz text explains how new vocabulary is acquired, different levels of vocabulary knowledge, and strategies for instruction. I found the most useful portion of the chapter to be the table that illustrates a Diagnostic Checklist for Vocabulary Development on p. 266. This checklist is an excellent developmental scale of vocabulary acquisition. I will be referencing this chapter further as I try to add new strategies for teaching vocabulary.

Module 4: Video Reflections

Running Records 1-3:
These videos illustrate how to correctly code a running record; all of the markings for correctly called out words, omissions, substitutions, insertions, repetitions, and sounding out of words with or without self-corrections are demonstrated. This was an excellent refresher for me because I had forgotten some of the symbols used. I have rarely used running records in my classroom in the past because the levels of my readers have varied so much. This is an assessment strategy that I could implement with some of my students if they are ready for it.

Running Records: Assessing & Improving Fluency & Comprehension
This video was a good example of brining a student’s attention to how they read, including accuracy and voice, while paying close attention to fluency signals like punctuation. The student read a short passage from a non-fiction text and was re-directed to some portions that were read fluently and a couple of miscues. I feel it is so important to mention just as many correctly read portions as miscues with the student to maintain confidence while reading aloud.

Balanced Literacy Diet
I thought this extension-type activity of a re-telling was wonderful. This kind of theatrical play based on literature. The favorite portion of any weekly literacy lesson in my primary classroom is the extension activity because it allows for more active participation and the students can demonstrate their understanding of the text in an engaging way.  

Module 4: Assessment: Formative & Summative Reflection

I am in complete agreement with the statement in the presentation, "It is widely and empirically argued that formative assessment has the greatest impact on learning and achievement" (slide 7). I find this to be especially true in my classroom where summative assessments are rarely implemented, formative assessments are used daily, and student progress guides instruction. This provides me with the opportunity to continually respond and modify instruction.
I have found that in a classroom with only 4 students, where each is served by an IEP, I have very few reasons to compare my students to each other and except for the rare circumstances when I have to compare them to a typically developed peer, I often forget about all of the skills that they have not yet developed and only see their progress. This realization helps me to ignore everything but planning instruction that is student specific and suited to their individual needs.

Module 4: Identifying Reading Disabilities Reflection

Because all of my students receive special education services, I have never participated in the RTI process, although I have observed it. In this case, the student had some decoding difficulties which were affecting fluency and comprehension. As this student was in third grade and had a good foundation of phonics and phonemic awareness, a whole to part instructional approach was used to segment words that were not read with automaticity into onsets and rimes, drawing attention to the sounds and using word families to generalize and provide opportunities to learn by analogy.
This particular student was on Tier 2 for a short time and after the personalized interventions had been implemented, building on what the student already knew, in a supportive environment where progress was continually monitored, she was placed back on Tier 1 where the standard classroom instruction is used.
This student's reading difficulties were indicated by spelling tests, fluency assessments, and the DRA. These assessments indicated that spelling patterns were delaying proficient fluency and comprehension.

Module 3: Text Chapters & Article

Chapter 7 of the Opitz text illustrates the stages of early literacy, gives examples of assessments to determine where a child may be in terms of literacy development, and instructional strategies to guide students further and foster understanding of text. The chapter argues the difference between the mistakenly similar emergent literacy and reading readiness models. I believe that emergent literacy is the more inclusive theory, as it can continue to be applied as the reader develops; however, I also understand what is meant by reading readiness as I teach Kindergarten, enough is known about letter/sound relationships and concepts about print, and language has developed enough that the student is prepared to begin generalizing these literacy skills. It is a really fun time when students just begin to understand that text conveys meaning and begin to interact with their textual environment.

The most interesting part of Chapter 7 for me was in relation to concept development, as a special education teacher of the lower grades, I try to develop and scaffold goals and objectives that foster concept development.

The text goes on further to explain the use of an IRI and miscue analysis. I remember administering the QRI-4 as an undergrad at KSU and found the most useful portion of this chapter was the example of the miscue markings. I had long since forgotten the actual markings and just made up my own system. I also found the sample summaries and charts useful because they got me thinking about different ways to collect data rather than sticking with the same old.

The final chapter of the required reading for this week offers explicit information on teaching phonics skills. This was particularly interesting for me as I only have Kindergarten students this year. I especially found the section on sequencing instruction relevant to my current position. Teaching children to apply the knowledge of phonics is so important because it is something that can be accessed and applied at any level of literacy.

Finally, the article for this learning module promoted the effectiveness of formative assessment. I thought this was an excellent tie-in because this kind of assessment can be applied to any skill at any point in relation to literacy development. These assessments occur mid-learning to determine where the students are in relation to where you want them to go. The purpose is to use the student responses to guide instruction. Formative assessment promotes the belief that more can be achieved by periodically and consistently re-evaluating and providing conscientious feedback regularly.

Opitz, M., Rubin, D., & Erekson, J. (2011). Reading diagnosis and improvement: Assessment and instruction. Boston, MA: Pearson.

Roskos, K., & Neuman, S. (2012). Formative assessment: Simply, no additives. Reading Teacher, 65(8). 534-538.

Module 3: Video Reflections, Phonemic Awareness and Segmentation

These videos gave examples of syllabication and segmentation of words into phonemes. These strategies are great for helping students become aware of the individual sounds within words. The development of this skill occurs over time as the child becomes more able to control the sounds used in language. In the videos I saw a student using blocks to represent the sounds within words; this is a great strategy for providing a tactile cue and reinforcing the left to right pattern when reading. I also saw some word building using a flip card; this would help students learn patterns by analogy. These kinds of activities are ideal for helping beginning readers make sense of text and also for applying to larger words found in more advanced text.

Module 3: Literacy Strategies Project

This presentation was valuable in its explanation of possible problems that students may encounter in regards to phonics. The skill that I learned the most about was the difficulty a student could have recognizing the 2 words within a compound word. This is because all I see when I look at the word pancake is pan and cake. I actually do a short compound words unit with second grade and my favorite book to use is Jan Brett's Jamberry.  
I found the 5 ways in which readers decipher words (decoding, spelling patterns, analogizing, sight words, and context clues) to be a helpful reminder of what should be included in instruction. I often find myself spending more time on 2 or 3 of them rather than connecting all 5 to help all of my students. And it is generally reassuring to me that phonics instruction is important; I've heard so much recently about phonics being less needed in regards to the whole language movement but I've never doubted the importance of a solid foundation of phonics skills so it can be applied as the reader develops.

Module 3: Overview of Assessment PPT

I found this PowerPoint to be a clear and concise explanation of all things assessments. It was actually something I may print off and keep just for the definitions alone, so when a parent asks me about scaled scores and stanines, I will have something concrete to refer to. Something that struck me as I read over this presentation was the explanation of assisted testing. I am quite familiar with this method although had not really considered it a "thing." In my class, we take LOTS of data on required prompt levels. They could be prompt levels for compliance or accuracy but we use them and record them in code.
It caught my attention as well, that assessments reflect increased academic demands through the grade levels. This is something I would expect and have seen since my class is K-2, but I also increase academic demands throughout the year since nearly all of our assessments are teacher-made. I use visual cues to construct materials and then as the students gain skills and independence, gradually fade the cues and prompts.

Module 2: Opitz Chapters 5-6 and Informal Assessment Article

In Chapter 5 of Reading Diagnosis and Improvement (Opitz, 2011), several types of informal assessments are detailed and this was a great refresher for me. In my classroom, some of our instruction is in the form of Discrete Trials which produces mounds of raw data on IEP goals and objectives. While this kind of instruction is effective for repeated and intensive skill practice, it does not help to establish connections with content or strategies, so I limit this instruction to a portion of the day and compare the data compiled with checklists and observations from other instructional segments. The table on p. 63 was a great reminder of the different types of informal assessment and their best suited purpose.

            Some assessments that I need to implement more often are anecdotal records and rubrics. I could develop a rubric that included educational and behavioral objectives. Most of the assessments that we use are informal so I found the article Making the Most of Assessments to Inform Instruction (Risko & Walker-Dalhouse, 2011) very informative. If designed and implemented correctly, this is the most telling and informative kind of assessment for evaluating instruction. Because classroom assessments have traditionally been modeled after school-wide benchmark tests they do not illustrate the students' progress or potential; these kinds of assessments do not really measure the effectiveness of day to day instruction. I love that the article stated that "there is no research to suggest they have direct educational benefits for students." That statement completely validated my feelings of such assessments!

The idea of having students collaborate on formative assessments is wonderful. If they're being evaluated on the content, then they should be involved in the process. This would help them take ownership and adjust their approach to learning as needed.

To me, designing multi modal assessments could be quite daunting, but if you take the author's advice and start a little at a time, perhaps adding one assessment every quarter, it would not be as overwhelming. I use computer and technology based assessments in my classroom; we recently received an Ipad as a donation and it helps me take data as well. These kinds of assessments have helped me to support my knowledge of students' progress with multiple sources of data.

As far as standardized assessments go, I have not had to give the CRCT in three years since I have K-2 in my classroom. Therefore, my students on Gen Ed assessments have completed benchmarks and checkpoints. Although I have not heard of all of the tests mentioned in the book, the descriptions of the different types and the definitions of associated terms helped to remind me of how much work goes into creating and implementing the tests.

Module 2 PPT Reflection: Strategies that Support Emergent Literacy

This presentation was a great refresher on the stages of literacy development. It really helped to put things in perspective to look back and think about what each stage looks like.
I remember my very early literacy experiences as quite enjoyable, my grandmother and mother read to me daily and this instilled a love of reading for me as I grew up. This is why I feel that repeated, positive exposure to text at a young age is a predictor of success in reading, along with language development, and making reading and writing functional. If a child does not have the language development to process the information, the act of receiving language through text will not be meaningful and reading and writing need to be recognized as a means of exchanging information to be engaging.
The assessments mentioned in presentation are some of the same assessments that I've just completed with my Kindergartners. You can definitely tell which students have more exposure and experience handling books at home when you assess Concepts of Print with a five year old. Some of my students know all of the pre-primer Dolch words and some do not know which page to start reading on. This is why differentiation starts early and is so important.

Module 2 Reflection: PPT & Article

Assessment of Reading and Writing Processes PPT & Emergent Writing in the Primary Grades Article

I agree with the information presented in the PPT regarding the importance of study skills. In my small group classroom we spend a substantial portion of our school day working on school behavior and building independence. For this reason, we have to prioritize the hierarchy of skills necessary to participate in school. While my students most frequently have a limited vocabulary due to a language delay, I agree that this is the most easily observable trait to determine what their reading comprehension may be and the best way to assess vocabulary is just by listening. Because of the developmental nature of language, words that children feel comfortable speaking will take a little longer to come out in their writing.

One area I try to spend a lot of time on in my classroom is writing; this is difficult when the students have limited language and fine motor delays. We use technology to put together words and phrases that express feelings and describe what we see. Because some of my students may never speak, and sign language is not a practical means to communicate with most public, writing is an essential skill for them to have. The nature of their disability also means that they will most often not be assessed as within the same levels of writing development detailed in the article, Emergent Writing in the Primary Grades.

In the past when evaluating students' writing. I have found the portfolio method to be my favorite means to illustrate student progress. I enjoy being able to show where a student began regarding their expressiveness, organization,  and conventions, and then showing the progress made after interventions and lots of practice.  

Module 2: Video Analysis-QRI 5 Intro

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHAZyRKKbic

The brief video cited above, demonstrates an appropriate way to establish a rapport with a tutee or student for whom you are administering an assessment like the QRI-5. During such an introduction, you should ask some general questions related to the activity to establish the student's background, confidence level, and general feelings related to the topic. Asking leading questions also helps to set the expectations of the assessment. Dircections should be clear and concise so there is no confusion. I think the teacher in the video did an excellent job of using her teacher voice; this helps the student to understand the purpose of the work.

Module 1: Response to Video

"Watch and Learn: Assessing Reading Skills"

I noticed that at the beginning of the video, the young girl was asked to read a scaffolded word list. This tells me that they were assessing her word identification skills. I found it interesting that this student was overall so high achieving, but with so much trouble with fluency and comprehension. It only makes sense that one affects the other but usually there is not such a large discrepancy as the one mentioned in the video. That makes me wonder if there was a reading disability that was affecting her ability to decode. I’m also curious about her writing skills and how her fluency issues affected the length and quality of her writing.

I agree that assessment must be ongoing and formative to maintain progress and measure the effectiveness of implemented strategies. I believe that assessing students’ informal writings such as journal entries and quick writes is a good way to assess reading comprehension and language skills. 

Module 1: Response to PowerPoint

As a Special Education Teacher, when reading the PowerPoint I found it incredible that by 2014, 100% of students are supposed to have reached academic proficiency. I just don’t see this happening for all students. Of course, that is because my class is split on the number of kids who are on standardized assessments with accommodations and those that are on alternate assessments. But even so, the system is set up so that not all students can or will obtain proficiency. The assessments that are used don’t allow all students to be successful and yet that is the expected goal.

Having stepped off that soapbox, I did like that the information presented supported the use of direct and explicit instruction for struggling readers to support prerequisite skills. I’ve been on the fence about which direction is generally better, top-down or bottom-up, but overall my opinion is still that the instructional choices have to be made based on the individual child and what works for one won’t work for another. I have always based reading instruction on literature but also provide systematic phonics instruction to those who show progress with this method. 

Module 1, p. 14, Activity #4

Opitz, M., Rubin, D., & Erekson, J. (2011). Reading diagnosis and improvement: Assessment and instruction. (6^th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

Recently, a friend of mine asked me to tutor her son, who was in second grade and on the RTI tier 3, because he was having problems with reading comprehension, spelling, and finishing his math work in class.  As I sat down with him to complete some assessments and get an idea of where he was, I had him read passages from the QRI-4 to get a miscue analysis.  After getting an idea of his independent reading level from the word lists, I had him read the passages silently first and then aloud while I noted any miscues. While he did not use expression or pause for appropriate punctuation, he did monitor what he was reading which was indicated by the self-corrected miscues; about one in five were corrected. However, when he approached an unfamiliar word, his only available strategy was to sound it out and once he had read past the word, was very unlikely to self-correct. He did not skip any words unless he was told to try.

His readings were the same, regardless of the genre with no indication of purpose-based variances. It seemed that although he was beginning to monitor comprehension, as indicated by the self-corrected miscues as well as the miscues that did not change meaning, he had not yet gained enough strategies to be a completely proficient reader. 

We’ve used a literacy-based approach to instruction, including all components of a balanced literacy program. When we meet, we always begin with a book and use that to springboard into phonemic awareness, vocabulary, and conventions. Many of our lessons include word study to draw attention to parts of speech and word parts. Then we follow up with a journal response to the literature. He has shown tremendous progress.

Personal Model of Reading Theory

After completing the readings and research this semester, I can’t say that my entire personal model of reading theory has changed but it has definitely evolved and I have a fuller understanding of literacy development. Now I am aware of the general order of literacy skills attained by early readers and know the importance of matching instruction to the natural development. This means providing phonics and phonemic awareness instruction on an as needed basis within the context of shared or guided reading and providing students with the tools to read individual words by analogy rather than feeding them the words.  I have always tried to implement a balanced approach to literacy in my classroom and utilized many components to serve this purpose. However, after reflecting on my methods, it seems that some parts of a balanced approach have not been used to their utmost potential; this means that there has been a discrepancy in my beliefs and practice.    

            In my last model of reading theory I actually used the phrase “reading readiness” and now I’m a little ashamed. I previously stated that for reading instruction to be effective, the reader needed to have a basic understanding that text conveys a message, have some receptive language knowledge, and be aware of the functionality of reading and writing. It turns out that the same students that I previously would not have deemed “reading ready” were participating in shared reading with support where these developmental literacy skills were being modeled for them. Even though I was utilizing all aspects of a comprehensive literacy approach, what I considered to be “instruction” was systematic and skills based.

              Although I will continue to provide skills instruction to my students in the areas of phonics and phonemic awareness, I will be paying closer attention to the contexts surrounding these skills to make sure they are relevant to what we’re doing right now. If the students are not taught in which instances these skills will be needed, we can’t expect them to know when or how to use them. In the future I will also be expecting my students to produce more writing and for varied purposes. They will also be participating in reading and writing to learn in inquiry processes in the content areas. Perhaps because I completed my comprehensive literacy approach paper on inquiry, I now recognize this as a very effective method of delivering literacy instruction within the context of student guided research and as I was researching and writing myself, I was thinking of how I could adapt and model the process with my own students.

            Because my classroom is represented by many different developmental levels, I still agree with what I said previously that: “students can be exposed to the foundations of reading in a balanced approach, but instructional strategies and methods must be based on individual students’ abilities and readiness.” All of my students receive instruction in components of a comprehensive literacy approach but the level of support, engagement, and independence varies greatly. For this reason, I will differentiate instruction for the individual within the comprehensive literacy framework.

Module 6: Instructional Challenge

If I were in a teaching situation where most students are not meeting the standards on the standardized assessments I would provide support to my students by supplying a positive classroom environment and a comprehensive literacy approach. Within the classroom my library would be filled with lots of high interest books that would be available for the students to check out and take home and I would utilize inquiry to engage and motivate students. I would consistently model strategies to increase comprehension and monitor their use and effectiveness by observations and conferences. I would also implement morning meetings to improve the classroom community and support students’ communication and expressive language skills. Outside of the classroom, I would conference with parents to see what their needs are and what might be happening at home so that I could provide support to the student as necessary. I would also invite parents in to the classroom to promote involvement and support.  

Module 6: Reading Reflection

In Chapter 15, Weaver argued that whole-part, comprehensive, literature based instruction is undeniably more effective than part-whole, skills based instruction for every reader, regardless of their existing skill set. All of the research that she presented has reaffirmed for me that reading is a holistic experience and that the primary purpose for reading is for gaining meaning. Of course students are more motivated when learning to read is within a context that they can understand, consistent with their familiar language, and materials are available for them to independently select from based on their own interests. Reading her text and related materials along with research this semester has encouraged me to redesign some aspects of literacy instruction in my own classroom to introduce my students to a greater variety of strategies for gaining meaning from texts. 

Module 5: Instructional Challenge

As your school year starts, you realize that you have three ELLs who are newcomers to the United States. Discuss how a comprehensive literacy program addresses their needs, drawing attention to specific components of the framework that are particularly relevant. Then discuss any additional scaffolding you would offer to support these children's needs.
As evidenced on p. 272 of the Weaver text, the ELL students who were in the “book flood” program (which provided the students with story books of higher interest) showed greater improvement in comprehension, word identification, and phonics skills than those who were given direct and systematic instruction. Some of the strategies mentioned here were: sustained reading, shared reading, book discussions, and a modified language experience approach. I agree that all of these would be effective methods for reaching ELL’s and improving literacy skills, but I would also add: read alouds, books on tape, guided reading, and guided writing. I would also want to provide them with a peer literacy partner who could help them in the classroom.
In the primary grades, I would try to mix in as much that was familiar to them as possible by bringing in objects that they are familiar with (and maybe know the English word for) and environmental print that they know to add to mini-lessons within shared reading. I would also implement an integrated inquiry lesson with peer support to maintain motivation and give them reasons to read and write.

Module 5: Reading Reflection

Phonics, or letter-sound relationship instruction, if implemented, should be in the very early grades on an as needed basis and within the context of a shared reading-type activity. Some students may not require systematic instruction to make the letter-sound connections, but some may.

In my classroom we implement Discrete Trials for intensive skills instruction, and a common goal is receptively identifying letter by sound and this has proven successful in demonstrating that each symbol is representative of that sound. Although, technically the student has mastered the skill once they have reached mastery level in that context, we further apply the skill by identifying it in the natural environment and building words with the mastered letters.

For most children however, the systematic instruction of letter sound relationships is unnecessary. These students will usually grasp the concept when it is presented within other lessons, as mini-lessons.

Module 4: Activity 2

After reading the NRP Summary Report and Allington’s “missing pillars”, I feel that the most vital components  to a child’s literacy success are Alphabetics, Comprehension (including vocabulary, text comprehension, and comprehension strategies instruction), and matching kids with appropriate texts. Since I have a small group classroom, my students read for different reasons; some read for the everyday functionality and some for their academic goals; I think that these components of a literacy program are vital to all aspects of literacy, whatever the individualized goals of the child may be. If you do not have a solid alphabetic knowledge, it would severely limit your ability to attack unfamiliar words. Vocabulary is a functional skill; it helps to introduce you to things in the environment. Text comprehension is important whether you are reading a book or directions on a household cleaner. Finally, when implementing reading instruction, the level of the text depends on the type of instruction, however it must be appropriate to the child and the context of the activity.

Prominent Theorist or Researcher Paper

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3x-xDM1h-OGR3U2Z1p6RGRHQ3c/edit

Module 4: Activity 1

In the video, I noticed Robin doing some word building with onsets and rimes; it actually looked like he was using the chunk stacker game that I’ve used with my kids. He used this knowledge of phonograms to read some leveled texts where he was also using syntactic and semantic clues to see if his miscues made sense. He then began noticing these chunks in the environment, which seemed to give him confidence when it started becoming relevant. I noticed that he was using a white board to write out words as he was writing to read; I thought this was a great strategy because writing is so daunting for a struggling reader that the impermanence of a white board to check words and sounds before you actually “write” them into your text makes it less intimidating. And finally, as he was setting up his email account, I noticed that he was using these phonograms to “sound out” parts of the word in conjunction with the contextual clues to read the word “Congratulations.”

Module 4: Instructional Challenge

If I had a student like Marcus in my class, who often miscues with substitutions that begin with the same letter(s) of a word, although his miscues are not syntactically or semantically acceptable, I would begin with a Retrospective Miscue Analysis and invite him to listen to his recording so he could hear where his miscues were and see if he could point out when it wasn’t making sense. I would also include Shared Reading instruction with picture walks beforehand to activate prior knowledge in the hopes that he would retrieve contextually appropriate vocabulary as necessary. One possibility would be to implement writing strategies in which I would either help him construct a passage or have him begin journaling on his reading to help him to realize that he can gather meaning from what he was reading. I also think that implementing inquiry may help him to understand that text contains information and there are specific strategies we can use to gain meaning. And finally, I would implement LOTS of sustained reading, with opportunities for buddy reading and books on tape as well. The more fluent reading is modeled in a way that is conducive to gaining meaning, the better his chances of gaining meaning himself.

Module 4: Reading Reflection

The following are the strategies that  I have implemented at one time or another:  Read Alouds, Shared Reading, Guided Reading, Sustained Reading, Inquiry-reading to learn, Individual Writing Conferences, Write Alouds, Shared Writing, Inquiry-writing to learn, books on tape, Reader’s Theater, and phonics. 

Due to the nature of my classroom, we do not currently do the activities that require more student independence.  In my current classroom we have a Reading Circle in the middle of the day during which we do shared reading, write alouds, and phonics: chunking with onsets and rimes.

During our calendar time in the morning, we do guided writing with language skills to build sentences about pictures and scenes.  The students who are ready for guided reading, are pulled once a day for comprehension work with adapted materials. 

In the afternoon, we have a circle in which we do a read aloud from our themed book of the week, often supplemented with audio/visual activities on the white board.

We have a listening center where the students listen to books on tape, a reading center for sustained reading (usually with adult support), and we have a writing center where handwriting and fine motor activities are practiced with adapted materials until they are ready for guided writing with visual prompts. My students all participate in these activities but most require adapted materials and additional prompting/support.  

I am pleased with the strategies I have been implementing, progress has been made in every instance based on the student’s current functioning and goals and objectives.

Module 3: Activity 2

I believe that stressing phonemic awareness by giving intensive one on one instruction in individual letter sounds and having the students read and create non-sense words is a good strategy to do just one thing, build phonemic awareness.  The only skill that this type of activity will assess is whether the student can successfully recognize letter sounds and put them together in a sequence after hearing them.  It is an important part of learning to read, but not the most important. 

A reader also needs to be able to understand what reading is for and why we do it; the functions of literacy are what will ultimately motivate young learners.  This can be accomplished with modeling reading and writing and talking about it.  The environment also needs to be full of opportunities to read that are relevant to children such as environmental print.  This will help them to notice letter patterns which will foster their phonemic awareness on a broader scale than one to one letter instruction.

Finally, I do not believe that non-sense words have anything at all to do with proficient reading.  Reading is a language based activity.  It does not make sense to me that reading words with no meaning in isolation could promote proficient reading. 

Module 3: Mock Memo from a Reading Specialist

To: Classroom Teacher

From: Reading Specialist

Re: Comprehension Strategies

Dear Teacher,

In regards to your current classroom assessments, most of your class has incredible fluency, sight word recognition, phonics, and word attack skills.  However since most of your students are having trouble with reading comprehension, you may want to consider re-balancing reading instruction to include more strategies to facilitate reading for meaning. 

You may want to begin with administering the Qualitative Reading Inventory-4 to each student, making sure to give them a chance to read each passage silently before having them read it aloud to you.  It would also be a good idea to tape record their miscues so that you will be able to analyze very closely the types of miscues they are making.  Often students with higher comprehension will have miscues that do not change meaning, demonstrating that they understand what they read.  I would then form new reading groups based on current instructional level and the types of miscues made.  After the groups are formed, I would invest them in reading by giving them choices of high interest books and passages, giving LOTS of opportunities to read all genres. 

To further their investment in what they are reading, I would have the class begin keeping reading journals to respond to what they are reading.  Writing about what they read, in addition to their own thoughts and experiences, will give you an informal assessment tool regarding their comprehension.  The journals will also give them ideas for projects in Writer’s Workshop.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Heather Akin

Module 3: Reading Reflection

When taken as it is stated: “Skillful readers of English thoroughly process the individual letters of words in their texts.” (Adams) I disagree.  To me this means that in order to read the text and gain meaning, letters are read before words and words are read in order, as Adams further states “left to right and line by line.”  As I was reading this I was thinking that I may get what she means, even as we read and are unaware of individual letters, we still know they are there and can go back to pick them out.  And then I read further on page 109, where it is said that “Statements about the reader ‘processing’ most words could be valid, if by ‘processing,’ the authors mean perceiving rather than fixating upon.” This means that as we read and “perceive” words out of our parafoveal vision, we can pick out individual words and know what letters are in those words without fixating on each individual letter.  As such, I do not agree with the literal interpretation of Adams’ statement, but can agree with the notion that all letters are perceived.  However, regarding her statements that explain how “good readers” read all words in order, I believe that an effective reader understands the order and direction of text, although they may not necessarily focus on every word in that given order.

Module 2: Activities 1 & 2

word	me	Clockwork orange ch 1
Creech	The sound a bug makes	screech
droogs	Slobber that hangs from a dogs mouth	friends
Glazzies	Chills up your spine	Eyes
goloss	dental floss that has been frayed	Voice
Malenky	that mood when you’re sad and cranky at the same time	Little
Messel	A whole lot of something	feeling
millicents	People who wish harm
poogly	when something is ugly as poop	scared
Razrez	the residue that shaving cream leaves on the skin	tear
Skorry	when you are regretful and scared	Fast
Spatted-	when something is covered in drops of spit	dated
Zoobies	Some kind of animal toy	teeth

I consistently found myself making up definitions by using letter patterns from familiar words. For example, droogs sounds like drool, so to me it is the long strings of slobber that sometimes hang from a dog’s mouth; and creech looks like screech, so I said it is the sound that a bug makes.  I noticed that when defining these words, I was relying on what I know of the English language but also relying heavily on my schema illustrating that the author’s meaning is changed significantly by the reader’s existing schema.

Then, when reading the first chapter of A Clockwork Orange (A. Burgess), I used context to determine the meanings of the unfamiliar words.  Sometimes the clues were given before the unfamiliar word in the sentence, but most often the meaning was revealed after the word in the same sentence and in many cases, after the sentence in the reading passage, sometimes in the same paragraph and sometimes after.  I found that the definitions given varied greatly from those that I had come up with when the words were presented in isolation.  This activity made me realize just how much we rely on context to learn vocabulary.   

When reading the word lists on page 85, I found myself decoding the words by chunking them into syllables; I did not attempt to read them letter by letter.  Sounding out words one letter at a time would be a tremendous waste of time.  The words were much easier to read in chunks and this also helps to recognized familiar letter patterns.  I only read a few of the words all at once, these were the ones that I already knew how to pronounce and they were: sarsaparilla, sycophant, submandibular, plesiosaur, and ingénue.  These are also the words that I am somewhat familiar with the definitions of.  The only word that pronouncing actually gave me insight into the meaning of was plesiosaur and that is because it ends in “osaur,” once I said the word out loud I thought, “Oh yeah, I know that word.” When encountering new words in reading, I usually pause to give a stab at pronunciation, and then quickly read on to see if I’m given any insight into the meaning.  When helping students with new vocabulary, I believe that the very strategies we have used to decipher the new words we’ve encountered would be appropriate to teach to students, such as using context both within and outside the sentence or passage and also chunking words  and using their parts.