Who are you working with?
18 02 2008Hi, 680/681 People. Please start using your student’s first name when referring to him or her. It gives me a picture of you and him or her together. I can get a better sense of your work and his/her resulting development. So, what’s your work been like?
Hey, Sometime later. I wrote a response to Savanna’s entry under this posting that I feel might be useful to all of you. When you “blog” to this post by giving your student’s first name, please comment on my response to Savanna.
By commenting I mean how does what I said affect you? Is it old news, new news, helpful, muddying the waters for you? Clarifying issues for you? Let me know how it fits you. Dr. Summers
As I said in the last post, we’re kind of at a stalemate due to school break. However, it gives me time to get some reading materials together that we may be able to use in the future. Sam likes comedy and comic books, so I’m trying to get a range of reading materials that he may like. I want to begin in his range, then expand to other genres to make his reading habits a bit more well-rounded.
This response is to Savanna but I think it applies to all, some more than others. Savanna, now that you have scored the Flint, what kind of reading errors did Sam consistently make in oral reading? Remember the miscues that you identified? Did he make meaning errors, syntactic, or visual errors? This will tell you what you need to work on.
In silent reading, what did he recall? A lot, a little. Was he able to answer the questions afterwards? That tells you about his comprehension and which comprehension skills he is strong in and which kind of skills need work.
You said something in your last blog entry that worried me. You said that you were going to get some comedy books because he liked them and then get some books in different genres to make his reading more well rounded. You can’t get away with vauge objectives like that any more. Each time you choose a book or get some materials or “get some books” for Sam, you need to have a specific objective(s) in mind.
So for the comedy books, “I am going to get some comedy books on Sam’s independent reading level. This way he will have no problem reading this level and can spend his energy enjoying the text. This will help foster his attitude toward reading and help him see that reading is fun. It will also develop his fluency since he won;’t have to decode every word.
I guess all this is to say that you must be delberate at all times. Everything you do has an objective that relates back to an assessment.
So Class, your next post is to respond to this comment. Savanna, you too:) .
Hi class..
In response to this comment, I am guilty of the same crime as Savanna in the sense that I wasn’t thikning deliberately about each and every book I brought in to my student, Will. From this point on, I will be sure to make each and every instructional choice deliberate with a clear objective.
Since I have not started the Flynt with Will, I cannot really comment on his miscues or errors, as I haven’t seen any yet. Once i begin to administer the Flynt the next time I see Will, I will post back about what I have noticed.
As for what we have been doing, the second and last meeting I had with Will, I wanted to see if I could gauge what his strengths in reading were so I asked him if he would like to read aloud to me, to which he complied.
During his reading, I noticed that his fluency is probably his biggest weakness and comprehension is actually a strength. Although his reading is not smooth and he uses very little prosody, his self-correction rate is strong, based on my informal observations. During some brief interruptions during the short story we were reading, I asked some recall questions and he never hesistated about what was going on and answered all questions correctly.
It took longer than I anticipated to get through about a ten page short story so we didn’t finish it; this worries me because of the Feb break so I am wondering if he will remember any of the story when we resume our meetings.
He is a kind young man and really wants to improve his reading. One thing that struck me as interesting is that he said he cannot read cursive and cannot write in cursive. I am wondering what to do or think about that - should I try to work on that a little bit with him? Should I just not worry about that because we have other mountains to climb?
Well, that is all for my meetings with Will. Next time, I will begin the Flynt. : )
I have started with Tyler this week. Things are going well and we seem to get along great. he does enjoy reading, but it depends onthe material. So far so good.
Dr. Summers -
This is in regards to the questions you asked us to answer after reading your post. I think everything you said makes sense to me because it is something I have always known you should do when picking out books for lessons. Having it written out does put it back into the front of my mind. Reading what you mentioned will help me remember that I want to choose books for a purpose. It also makes me think about selecting books that can meet different objectives within the same lesson or activity seeing as we only have 15 hours tutoring.
I still am working on finding a student and this has become difficult as everyone is away on break. Hopefully I will have a student starting the week after their break.
It is interesting how you, Dr. Summers, put the act of choosing a book to read with a student into perspective. I always knew that it was crucial to chose books that were meaningful to a student (makes him/her connect to it in some way) as well as to provide him/her for success, not failure; however, I often forget how important it is to have specific objectives for the book you chose other than to have him/her enjoy reading it. This is going to help me when I begin to implement instructional activities with Kalleigh. I am planning on incorporating different books into this instruction and with data/knowledge of her specific areas of reading difficulties I will be better able to choose a book/activity with a specific objective in mind. This will also prove to be more beneficial for Kalleigh in receiving effective, meaningful and helpful instruction targeted at improving her difficulties in reading.
Stacey et. al.,
Ask Will if he wants to learn how to read and write cursive writing. Since he mentioned to you it must be something on his mind. If he says yes he would like to learn, then add it to your list of skills to work on. There may be more important mountains to climb ( a good turn of a phrase) but this is one he wants to climb. It would make him happy to feel so grown up. What a great thing to work on at the end of a session.
If it came down to repeated readings to develop fluency or the cursive writing I vote for the cursive writing. Motivation over the Fab Five.
I have started working with Megan. Unfortunately, she went on vacation this weekand I won’t be able to work with her again until school starts. This week, I will be able to finish the Flynt and move on from there.
Thank you Dr. Summers. I think that it is easy to get off track from an objective and want to satisfy the interests of the student. We have to remember that we are working with this student to better their reading not to just sit and read books that the student might enjoy reading with us. This was very helpful I’m sure for all of us!!
As I stated in an earlier email to you I have changed the student that I am working with to meet the requirments. My new student’s name is Ethan. He is in the fourth grade and is having much difficulty in reading. His mother is trying to get him tested so he can get labeled and get more help in school. She said that he has a difficulty decoding words therefore is not able to comprehend what he is reading. She said his comprehension is out of this world once she reads aloud to him and asks him questions. I meet with this student tomorrow and will find out more about him. It sounds also like his motivation to read is beginning to dwindle so this is a perfect time for some intervention with him:)
Dr. Summers this is my first blog entry; I have been writing in my journal . In regards to the posting, I know that it is important to have an objective for every session with my student, Justin. Too, each objective has to be assessed in order to identify student strengths and weeknesses. I have met with my student only once, due to he had been sick and missed four days of school and then I was out attending a conference, followed by the break. Now that school is starting again, I will be conducting the Flynt. I was able to listen to my student read and he lacks fluency. In addition, Justin has difficulty decoding words. He is strong in the area of comprehension and has the desire to become a fluent reader. Our district did not adopt a reading recovery program until after Justin finished Kindergarten, thus he wasn’t put into the program. He was held back in the first grade, now he is in the second grade. His mother is excited about me working with him. She works full time, and she is due to have another child in May. She doesn’t have as much time to help him and she is not quite sure how to help him. His teacher requires that he read for 15 minutes per night. I am looking forward to helping Justin.
I have not started the Flynt-Cooter Reading Inventory yet, so like Stacey I cannot comment on Chris’ miscues or errors at this point. From working with Chris the last two meetings, it is clear that his comprehension is the major problem. His fluency isn’t great either, but he is able to take the time and sound out words correctly on his own. From what I have seen so far and read in the Road Map, I think that Chris exhausts all his energy into word recognition that “tends to drain mental resources from comprehension” (Spear-Spearling, p. 527). According to the Road Map he is stuck in the controlled word recognition phase which first and second graders normally enter, since Chris is in 6th grade he is a few years behind grade level. I hope after completing the Flynt-Cooter Reading Inventory this will be confirmed and I can start instruction right away.
I have completed the silent reading with my first grade student, Savannah. Savannah does not have a problem with motivation at all; she is always willing and eager to read. However, Savannah is a very slow-processing girl and needs lots of time to read a passage. Not only does this create difficulty in trying to complete the Flyn-Cooter in a timely matter, but I limit the length of my sessions with her to 2 half-hour sessions a week so she does not get frustrated when reading. She really looks forward to our sessions, but I just want to make sure I do not frustrate her with this extra reading, because it takes her so long to get through passages/books, she often times gives up. I am looking forward to continuing/completing the assessment this coming week after break.
I haven’t been able actually work with my student. The first student I was working with didn’t have the time to meet for 15 hrs so his mother changed her mind. I went to work with the new student last week (feb 13th and 15th) and he was out all week with the flew and this week his family went on vacation for spring break. I will be able to meet with him wednesday and friday of this week. I have a good idea of issues Christopher has because I have substituted in his classroom several times. I will be able to blog more information after this week.
My student, Vinny, complains to me that he can’t read (for meaning) unless he is reading outloud. During class, he will be upset with me when I make students do silent sustained reading, which is a requirement in my department. When choosing an outside reading book for him (which I am doing with my freshmen), I tried to point him in the direction of something he could relate to. After reading some of the responses here, after starting/evaluating his Flynt , I realize I do need specific objectives and assessments for him (even with an outside reading novel). As a classroom teacher, I have to get out of the habit (for Vinny) of a general objective, and when I ‘m working with him, I will be much more specific. It is VERY easy to get off track, esecially with a resistant reader.
As I stated in my last posting I have not yet done the Flint with Matt yet. I have to do that later in the week. I didn’t want to do that the first day back from break. I did not want to overwhelm hime the first day back. So we read an ABC book and played on free rice.com.
As for the comment that Dr. Summers posted I understand what a miscue is and how to do a running record. But, I am not quite sure where to go after that. I know that it will depend on what type of miscues Matt has. I also understand that each meeting has to have a purpose but sometimes I think it is important that after you have accomplished your objective that you allow the studnets to do something that they like.
Matt really enjoyed freerice.com for a little while. Thistime I read the word and the choices for him. Next time I will make him read the vocabulary word and then I will read the choice. Then for our third time I will make him read it all. I will try to do this in the morning when no other studnets are here. Today we made a little to much noise while the other studnets were working.
I am glad that Matt is very reseptive and willing to try everything that i am doing.
Can anyone think of an objective(s) for the last part of Candi’s session with Matt? When they were playing with FreeRice?
I plan on completing the Flynt with Logan later this week. Last week I took the time to understand where he is falling academically and more of “where do we need to go from here?”.
Every meeting together we play some sort of “game” in the beginning of our meeting. These games usually focus around sight words since he does have difficulties with these. I find this activity to be a great opener because he looks at this as being fun and “cool” rather than “boring learning stuff”. After I administer the Flynt this week I will have a better understanding of where we need to focus our attention in the aspect of reading.
Like the beginning of our meetings I end with another game. This way he begins each session with a possitive experience and has something to push forward to towards the end of our sessions.
Little does he know the “boring learning stuff” is really fun
I had my first (formal) session with Dezsirae today, and things went well. I didn’t have all of my materials with me (the surveys that I want her to complete) because I normally wouldn’t have seen her today, but I got lucky! We only had a short period of time to work together, so I grabbed what I DID have and I used Flynt to establish where we should start our assessments. I was orginally told that Dezsirae had a third or fourth grade reading level, but her reading today started her at sixth grade, which was nice to see. Perhaps she’s been making progress over the past few weeks.
I explained to Dezsirae what we were going to be doing in our upcoming sessions (reading inventories, surveys, etc.). This helped her feel more comfortable with our sessions, but it also helped me lay the work for my objectives in the upcoming days.
That said, my student just had her to tongue pierced in the past few days, and her tongue is swollen because of it. It will be hard to get a truly accurate measure of her oral reading skills until the swelling goes down.
I actually haven’t finished the Flynt with Sam yet. We did the first silent and oral reading yesterday, and I determined that Sam can move up another level to level 7. However, I did determine that most of his errors are visual, and that he often subsitutes words that look like the word but that don’t make sense in context. I’d also like to work on fluency (he completely disregards punctuation) and vocabulary. His comprehension is great.
I may have not said it before, but there are reasons why I’m choosing the texts I’m choosing. For example, I want to choose some comedy books because - like Dr. Summers said - I want to foster a love of reading first and foremost. I thought we could also pick out some words for vocabulary. As for fluency, I thought I could try readers theatre and/or poetry for expression.
I’m going to do some more reading on this, but I’m not quite sure how to tackle Sam’s subsitution problem. Any ideas?
My student is a second grader named Zack. He receives spec. ed. services in reading, writing, and math. He is currently working at a mid first grade level in all academic areas. He is very affectionate, loves to be read to, and responds well to individual attention and praise. Zack was out sick last week - Wed. Thurs., and Fri. Monday the 25th was a supt. conf. day w/no students. Consequently I wasn’t able to do anything w/him that I had planned to do after the winter break (interest inventory, Burke, and Flint). We started to administer the second grade ELA assessments last week however, with so many children out sick we’ll have to continue this week.
In response to Dr. Summer’s comments… It is important to clearly know what it is you want to teach your students so that you can assess their learning and know if you have reached your goals. This is especially important in spec. ed. as it’s the spec ed teacher’s responsibility to ensure that their students meet the goals stated on the child’s IEP.
I finally have been placed with a student through the Field Studies Office. I am going to be working with a high school girl named Jessica. Hopefully I can get in and meet her soon!
I have finally been able to meet with my student. I am actually working with two kindergarten students. There names are Crystal and Breavan. I have mostly been testing them, to see where they are in reading.
So far from the tests and from information from their teacher, Crystal is below the Kindergarten level. She has a hard time with the letters of the alphabet, drawing the letter and finding the letter on a piece of paper. Also I read a book to her and then had her draw a picture of her favorite part of the story, she had a very hard time understanding the directions. Even asking her the questions from the surveys was very hard to do. She gets side track very easily. She does not want to do any work, and just wants to play. So it is very hard to get though testing her. Her teacher thinks that Crystal does have some sort of learning disability. So she was very happy for me to do a case study on her, and be able to work with her more (one on one).
Then I would say Brevan is about beginning Kindergarten level. He knows most of his ABCs. However, he has to look at the letters and the pictures that go with the letters (on the wall) to find a letter I ask him to find. He is able to get the work done a lot faster then Crystal is able to. He also understood the questions of the survey a lot better.
There teacher would like me to work with them mostly on there ABCs since they are so far behind then the rest of the class.
I think am as guilty as everyone else when choosing a book for my student. When we were first meeting, I decided to take her to the library to choose a chapter book that I would read to her and if she is able, she would read to me sometimes. Obviously, I couldn’t have a set objective for the book prior to going to the library. I am going to make a more concious effort to have an objective that is carefully linked to each book.