Getting to know Kendra (pseudonym) has been a delight. Her excitement for reading and writing fiction has allowed her to write creative and interesting stories. She currently loves to read fictional stories, particularly ones with an eye catching title. Kendra is very aware of what material is at a "just right" level for her as she stopped reading a text I gave her and informed me the book was "too hard." I witnessed her struggle through the first and agreed with her analysis. The book I had brought for her was Agnes Parker: Girl in Progress, a 4.7 reading level. On the 4th grade passage Amelia Earhart, Kendra scored below the 50th percentile. She struggled at times with fluency and missed two of the comprehension questions; one explicit (which I gave the opportunity to look back through the text and she chose not too) and one implicit.
Based off of the informal reading conferences and assessments, I gather Kendra to be just below a 4th grade reading level. I believe she needs to work on fluency to get her to a 4th grade level. If she were to increase her fluency she would be able to fully answer comprehension questions for materials at a 4th grade level, explicit and implicit questions. Moving forward with Kendra, I am thinking about creating a lesson designed to help Kendra with her fluency. I would like to work with her on multiple strategies that will help her to identify words and gather meaning. This particular lesson would satisfy the G.L.E 1.2.1- Apply reference skills to define, clarify, and refine word meaning and G.L.E 1.4.2- Apply fluency to enhance comprehension.
I think it is awesome that your buddy is aware of her own level of reading. You stated that she chose to stop reading a book once she realized that is was not “just right” for her. I think that represents the impact of teachers on her learning, which have helped to guide her to understand what it means when you read a “just right” book. It appears that Kendra needs help with comprehension as well as fluency and through helping her to learn how to gather meaning and identify new words; she will be able to better understand her text. You mentioned that you would like to use multiple strategies, which strategies were you think about using? I know that there are many skills and strategies to use to aid comprehension especially when trying to indentify meaning, but I am curious to see which strategies you would use with her.
ReplyDeleteJamie
I agree that Kendra needs to be aware of what books are at her just right level. If they are too hard, she will constantly be frustrated and won't learn anything at all. While that would work with her when she chooses her own book, what would you suggest for her when she has to read out of the 4th grade curriculum book? Do you think that it is vocabulary that she is struggling with? Is it picking out important info as she reads?
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like you have done a good job narrowing down what you'd like to work on with your buddy! I like how you've already researched the GLE's and are hitting important standards. But I am curious, what were you planning on doing for the lesson?
ReplyDeleteOne of the things I am having difficulty with in general is that we are teaching kids to be able to identify their "just right" books and yet on the standardized tests, they are given texts that might not be "just right". How do we help students like your buddy, who might not be at grade level, learn to not get frustrated on the standardized tests? How do we encourage them to not give up? Are there strategies we can teach?
Fluency sounds like a good area of focus for your buddy. Comprehension strategies are another option. Is there a particular strategy from Routman, Tovani, or Cooper that seems like a good fit? What about text selection?
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