Week 5- Assignments 1-4

Week 5

Assignment#1 

After reading the Level 1 Word List, Mary was reading at an Independent Level, reading correctly 18 out of 20 words, and placing her in the 90 percentile.

Assignment #2 

After reading the Level 2 Word List, Mary was reading at Instructional Level, reading 17 words correctly, placing her in the 85 percentile.

Assignment #3 

After attempting to read the Level 3 Word list, Mary was reading at frustration level and was able to read about 4 words correctly but didn't complete the rest of the word list in the clip.

Assignment #4 

After viewing the videos and scoring Mary the scorings sheets on pages 223 -225 it seems that Mary's main struggles deal with overall comprehension and needs to work on understanding the details in the passage. For the Prior Knowledge assessment, Mary had minimal knowledge of the passage and answered, “I don’t know” to 2 out of the 3 questions(3/9). Her actual Oral Reading analysis of a Level 2 reading passage, consisting of 197 words, indicated she is reading at an accuracy rate of 95%, which is at instructional level. While her actual reading and word identification seems more or less on target with the level 2 passage, the retelling video depicted how Mary had some difficulties with comprehension of what exactly she was reading.

Out of all of the ideas and questions listed in the book, she only seemed to have grasped around 14-15 of them, with just a few of the main ideas included and barely any details. She seems to require help with understanding the details of the passage she read. From what I’ve watched (and hope I’ve scored correctly), while her reading skills are on a second grade instructional level, it seems that Mary, who is a 3^rd grade ESL student, may be experiencing difficulties with comprehension of the passage she read. Perhaps another passage should be read just in case to confirm if it’s an actual lack of comprehension skills or she just didn’t remember at the moment or wasn’t interested in what she was reading.

Week 4- Assignment # 2

Structure of Reading Intervention

Week 4- Assignment #1

At first glance, after reading the articles on assessment and intervention last week (and having never heard of RTI or anything of its type before), it seemed to me that RTI is mainly instituted to help identify and assess students who may be having difficulties in literacy areas and may require special education services. It seemed to be very lengthy and rigorous and the process wasn’t so clear to me regarding what exactly RTI entailed and what its ultimate goal was. What really clarified it for me were the videos depicting its implementation in Iron Springs Elementary School, which explained to me how RTI was a tiered approach that involves ALL students, not just those who displayed struggles in class.

It, of course, worked as a tool to identify students who didn’t respond to the Tier 1 section of RTI and were subsequently supplemented with Tier 2 intervention, which is more individualized and conducted in smaller groups, and, if necessary, will be placed in to Tier 3, which is even more intensive an individualized. How the intervention works is that while the regular instruction/intervention is implemented in Tier 1, the model allows for identification based on the tier the individual students is on. What I found amazing was how the instruction was so individualized that for the student who was lagging behind, his learning opportunities which will allow him to catch up to his peers doesn’t make him lose out on time spent in the general education class but is rather extended and even more individualized to help him practice and solidify skills. If a students falls into tier 3 of intervention and is still struggling, the assessment aspect of RTI helps identify where the specific issues lie and if he or she requires special education services. So it really isn’t only about identifying learning disabilities, but trying to avoid the whole scene if possible by providing tiered instruction and early intervention.

What struck me as the most crucial aspect of the RTI program was the constant collaboration and teamwork amongst all those involved in the literacy education of the students, from the principal to the teachers to the aids and specialists. Like Principal Goshorn stated, “Literacy is everyone’s business” and the RTI program relies upon the collaboration and team effort to determine if a child requires Tier 2 or 3 intervention, or what steps are necessary to help the students succeed. I would love to learn more about the Tier 1 process and what exactly falls into that category and what steps are actually taken to confirm a learning disability if a student is struggling in a Tier 3.

Week 3: Assignment #3

·       What is QRI5?

The Qualitative Reading Inventory-5 (QRI5) is an individually administered informal reading inventory (IRI) designed to provide information about (1) conditions under which students can identify words and comprehend text successfully and (2) conditions that appear to result in unsuccessful word identification or comprehension.

·       What is the purpose of using QRI5?

 QRI5 is used for a number of things such as  estimating student reading levels, documenting students’ growth, helping with designing and evaluating student instruction, choosing appropriate book for literacy activities, or assessing students’ reading comprehension, which can be done through either retelling, questioning, look-backs, and think-alouds . Teachers also use QRI5 when the purpose of the assessment is to focus on the individual and to be informal rather than standardized and norm-referenced. The results will be based solely on the individual student being assessed and his or her continuous progress and not based or compared to any other student or group of students.

·       Have you seen similar assessment activities like QRI5? What are they?

From what I understood, it seems the running record can be placed in a similar  category as QRI5, as it is also individually administered to the student, and not based on other students’ performance. It also consists of a student reading a passage but there are significant differences in the way it is administered and graded, and the goals of the assessments are varied as well.

·       What is your impression of QRI5?

      I find it be fairly simple yet extremely effective and it really allows the teacher to get a picture of both the student’s ability to read different types of text, identify independent, instructional, or frustration levels for comprehension and more.

Week 3: Assignment #2

What assessments are needed to measure students' learning outcomes and how teachers can address these common core learning standards if you have students of various reading levels: 

·      Teachers should incorporate original writing and have student create their own writing samples (such as in journals), which will help develop, implement and communicate new ideas to others. I feel this can be handed in as a form of assessment that is individual for each student so no matter what level they are on, it’s their original writing which can promote creativity, collaboration, and communication and guidance and support can be administered when appropriate and shouldn’t be compared to others. It meets standards as technology can be incorporated to put together the original writing piece and it meets the standard involving writing narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences. Students can present their writings to the  class which can also help assess their communication skills.

·      Another form of assessment is having students  engage affectively in a collaborative group/discussion and activities and working together to frame, analyze and synthesize information from texts assigned to them. This is great for meeting the needs of learners on various levels as collaborative learning is in place and the students can help each other and/or ability grouping can be implemented as well. Students’ work can then be synthesized and expressed in form of a presentation or other project/assignments and be handed in as assessment. Rubrics should be constructed for both individual input and group work as well. This form of assessment is meeting standards as long the students are able to draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research. Students should also be able engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 4 topics and texts, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly.

·      A great form of informal assessment and  evaluating students’ comprehension is implementing group discussion and questioning and having students communicate and demonstrate their critical thinking skills. I feel assessments don’t always have be formal and be administered only through written assignments and the like. Just observing and recording students’ responses and insights can help assess their comprehension and evaluate how much of what they are reading they are interpreting correctly. This form of informal assessment is also easier to implement when having students on various reading levels in the class, as it isn’t confined to one same form or test for every student to complete. Rather, it’s individual for each student and they are all assessed on their own level. Discussions can be in smaller groups or larger teacher-led groups or even in pairs. Anecdotal records and observations should be recorded throughout.

Week 2- Assignment #3

 There were many interesting things explored and discussed throughout the 10 mini-video clips. I especially enjoyed the portrayal of the parents exposing their young children to the pleasure of reading at a very young age and I watched how the young girl pretended to read, displaying print awareness before she can actually read! The study on how highly developed infant’s language abilities are is fascinating to watch and you actually have to see it to believe it! A lot of what I watched reinforced information I already knew such as importance of read aloud and modeling literacy skills, such as phonemic awareness. The puzzle activity where the students changed letters to create new words was very useful and one I would definitely implement in my own classroom. It was also great to watch how the teacher used the activity as an assessment to see which student would need help with reading later on. The use of pig Latin to display advanced phonemic awareness was an interesting tidbit I would’ve never thought of regarding something like pig Latin! The use of a word web reinforced what a useful tool it is in the classroom especially when building fluency and comprehension. Other tools and strategies discussed, such as semantic gradients, helped with developing vocabulary and extending word knowledge, which helps with overall comprehension and fluency. The spelling word study program was also very interesting to watch and recognizing spelling patterns is a very effective strategy for students to utilize without making spelling seem difficult. Overall the videos all held interesting strategies and techniques that I could learn from.