This past week as I was talking to peers in my block, I found out that the whole school is on the same schedule. Students have around 2 hours of reading and 2 hours of math. They only have PE, music, social studies, and science one day a week. I agree and disagree with this schedule. I find it very interesting and somewhat determination from the teachers to be sure that the students master reading and math. Those are the main subjects that the students have End of Grade Tests on. The school is on its 3rd year of being “watched” and “monitored” constantly due to such low testing grades. Therefore this year is their last chance of bringing those test scores up or the government comes in and takes control. The only part I disagree with this schedule is when the students will be taking the science EOG in the 5th grade and they will not know that material and they will be right back at step 1 with science once reading and math has been mastered.

My overall experience was great! I gained so much practice with partner reading, guided reading, and determining reading levels. These students were great and it was a wide variety which provided me with more experience for my future classroom. I hope I helped Mrs. Roger’s students in some way to increase their reading capabilities.

On Monday, the 3rd classroom in Mrs. Roger’s class was a little hectic. Teachers and students were trying to get back in the groove after being out for a week. A few students missed the 3rd-9 week assessment so I had to take them to the Instructional Lab for them to be able to finish those in a quietly manner just like they would on the EOG. I didn’t get to really do anything out of the ordinary. Throughout the week during SSR I pick a few students and let them read to me. It allows me to check their reading level and see if their books are easy or challenging. This week I read with Wally, Shelby, and Leya. Each of these readers were right on the third grade level. Wally read a book about dinosaurs and struggled with the word paleontologist. He knew exactly what it meant, but he just couldn’t throw those words together. Shelby read a book written by Matt Christopher. All of his books are sports related, which fits Shelby well. Shelby takes her time reading and fully understands what she reads. Her comprehension is right on level! Leya is somewhat above level in reading. She is an average reader, but her comprehension level is above 3rd grade. Other than the SSR reading, the week was a normal week in which I watched, learning, and guided the students while the teacher led the teacher and guided reading. In teacher reading, the teacher uses the text-book and asks types of questions that will be on EOGs. Guided reading is where Mrs. Rogers and another instructor guide the readers throughout 3rd grade level books. Right now the class is reading Winn-Dixie. They are given questions to answer at the end of each chapter. Overall, my week was great and I gained extra practice on guiding a student and asking questions on their readings.

This past week I was able to work with students individually with their 9 weeks assessment.  A few students were absent when they first started the 9 weeks assessment, so I was able to take a few of them into a separate room and administer the test.  As they were taking the test I was paying attention to some of the questions on how they were difficult, easy, and the type of literature questions presented in the assessment.  I found it rather difficult for my 3rd grade class because Mrs. Rogers works mainly with lower students.  The reading part of the assessment was even hard for some of them.  They struggled because they just can’t comprehend well.  On the mathematics part of the assessment, the students didn’t do good because they didn’t try.  A lot of the students in the “lower” classes have the attitude “I don’t care”, which makes it even more challenging for teachers to help them find motivation.  Sarah and I also graded the reading and math assessments.  We noticed scores being real low and the kinds of questions that caused students to struggle.  A few of the questions were easy, such as, what type of story  is the author portraying and what the authors intentions were.  I was just in shock of their scores and the questions they missed.  I am thinking these assessments will show what students need work on for the EOGs.

Throughout the week I was able to work with students on spelling, grammar, reading, and writing.  Monday and Tuesday includes each of those 4 subjects.  The students are normally given a spelling sheet in which they have to write the correct word on the line, correct the spelling word, or put the word in the correct box and then play bingo with the words.   Sarah and I are not allowed to help the students spell out the words or pronounce them, we are there just to be sure they are completing the worksheet properly.  However, I have noticed that there is only a handful of good spellers that are even on the third grade level.  These students struggle so much academically.  Teachers are beginning to prepare the 3rd graders for the writing test in the 4th grade by giving them writing prompts.  The teacher is trying to get them to be descriptive, write what they would see, hear, smell, etc; not a long story.  Teachers want the students to be creative and full of different ideas that make their writing more interesting and along the guidelines required to pass the writing test.  Each day, Mrs. Rogers does guided reading, self-selected reading, and class reading.  The guided reading is where the students and other 3rd grade classes break up to low, medium, and high reading groups all in separate classrooms.  Mrs. Rogers works with the students who have lower reading levels.  This is where they read books with the class, answer EOG type questions, and work on comprehension.  Self-selected reading is where the students read on their own, but the teacher will pull them individually, only getting through about two students a day.  The class reading is where they read their literature books with the class and ask comprehensive questions and also prediction questions.  Overall, I feel that Mrs. Rogers 3rd grade classroom is filled with vocabulary, reading, spelling, and writing to help those children rise to their own grade level.  She uses many strategies to help those students who are considered academically low.

3rd grade

2. What was the flash score for words at: first-grade level? second-grade level? third-grade level?

First Grade-75%

Second Grade-50%

Third Grade-20%

3. What was the accuracy score at: 1-2 level? 2-1 level? 2-2 level?

1-2-97%

2-1-90%

2-2-84%

4. What was the rate score at: 1-2 level? 2-1 level? 2-2 level?

1-2-65%

2-1-44%

2-2-36%

5. What was the percentage correct score for: first-grade words? second-grade words?

first-grade:60%

second-grade: 0%

6. Which grade-level flash score is the best choice for Instruction Level? (*Note: 92-94% accuracy is marginal; take a close look at Rate.)

Level 1-2: 75%

7. Which grade-level accuracy score is the best choice for Instruction Level?

Level 1-2: 97%

8. What do Curt’s rate scores indicate about his grade-level reading? Where is he instructional according to rate?

Curt’s rate scores indicate that he is below grade level.  According to the article, a 3rd grade student should be reading between 95 and 135 rpm.  Curt never reached that level when he took the test and didn’t even qualify for the second grade reading level.  Curt only read a 44 rpm on the 2-1 level and a  36 on the 2-2 level, which strongly indicates he is below reading level.

9. What do Curt’s spelling scores indicate about his Instruction Level.

According to his scores, he is on a first grade level.  He completed 60 % correct on the first grade level and failed to complete any correct on the 2nd grade level.

10. Put all of these scores together, and what do they indicate Curt’s reading level to be?

Overall, Curt’s reading level is on first grade.  All of his tests indicated his level is on the instruction level 1-2.

• Accuracy in Word Decoding: Readers must be able to sound out the words in a text with minimal errors.  It refers to the phonics and other strategies for decoding words.
• Automatic Processing: Readers need to expend as little mental effort as possibly in the decoding aspect of reading so that they can use their finite cognitive resources for meaning making.
• Prosodic Reading: The reader must parse the text into syntactically and semantically appropriate units.  If readers read quickly and accurately but with no expression in their voices, if they place equal emphasis on every word and have no sense of phrasing, and if they ignore most punctuation, blowing through periods and other marks that indicate pauses, then it is unlikely that they will fully understand the text.

2.    Rasinski refers to fluency as a “bridge” between decoding and comprehension. What does he mean by the “bridge” metaphor?

Fluency refers being able to decode words, but yet they have to be familiar with methods for developing their strength in automaticity and prosodic reading.  The students have to be able to comprehend and convey the meaning within the text.  This provides students with a variety of text and to help them become more aware of decoding.
3.    What instructional methods does Rasinski suggest for students with difficulties in automatic and prosodic reading?

• Repeated Readings
• Assisted Readings

4.    Multidimensional Fluency Scale (MFS) is used to measure prosodic quality of oral reading. List components of the MFS and describe briefly what each refers to (p. 49).

• Expression and Volume: Quiet voice, reads words as if simply to get them out, begins to use voice to make text sound like natural language, focuses on pronouncing words, and reads with good expression and enthusiasm throughout the text.
• Phrasing: Reach in monotone with little sense of phrase boundaries, frequently reads word-by-word, frequently reads in two-to-three word phrases, giving the impression of choppy reading, and generally reads with good phrasing, mostly in clause and sentence units, with adequate attention of expression.
• Smoothness: Makes frequently extended pauses, hesitations, false starts, sound-outs, repetitions, and/or attempts, difficulty with specific words, and generally reads smoothly with some breaks, but resolves word and structure difficulties quickly, usually through self-connection.
• Pace: Reads slowly and laboriously, reads moderately slowly, reads with an uneven mixture of fast and slow pace, consistently reads at conversational pace; appropriate rate throughout reading.

A preliterate speller may write with scribbles, letter like forms, or random letters that have no phonetic relationship to the words they confidently believe they are writing.  Emergent spellers may read familiar books from memory using the pictures on each page to cue their recitation of the text.  Emergent readers may call out the name of a favorite fast food restaurant when they recognize its logo or identify a friends name because it starts with a t, but they are not systematic in their use of any particular cue.

2. How does a Letter Name-Alphabetic speller read and write?

The Letter-Name Alphabetic speller is a beginning reader who has moved from pretend reading to real reading and begun to use systematic letter sound matches to identify and store words in memory.  Just as early attempts to spell words are partial, so, too, beginning readers initially have limited knowledge of letter sounds as they identify words by phonetic cues.  These students begin to use the entire letter string to decode and store sight words.  Also, they confuse vowels in the words they write and read.

3. How does a Within Word Pattern speller read and write?

In this stage, students use basic letter sounds in the onset position.  The onset position is where students recognize initial consonants, consonant blends, and consonant digraphs.  Students tend to focus on the vowel and what follows.  Shore vowel rimes are learned first with consonant blends in the context of simple word families or phonograms.  From the beginning to the end of this stage, students move from needing support materials and techniques to being able to pick various texts and reading them independently.

4. How does a Syllable and Affixes speller read and write?

Syllable and affix spellers read most texts with good accuracy and speed, both orally and silently.  For these students, success in reading and understanding is related to familiarity and experience with the topic being discussed.  Students in this intermediate stage acquire, through plenty of practice, a repertoire of reading styles that reflects their experience with different genres.  In writing and spelling, their stage of word knowledge delight in writing persuasive essays, editorials, poetry, or their own versions of fantasy or realistic fiction.

5. How does a Derivational Relations speller read and write?

Derivational relations spellers have a broader experience base that allows them to choose among a variety of reading styles to suit the text and their purposes for reading.  They read according to their own interests and needs and they seek to integrate their knowledge with knowledge of others.  The same picture is evidenced in their writing.  With purpose and practice, derivational relations students develop and master a variety of writing styles.

6. What is the existing research evidence on the relationship between spelling and reading. Briefly describe research findings discussed on page 20.

Intervention studies exploring the added value of supplemental spelling instruction have repeatedly found that students who receive additional spelling instruction perform better on read tasks such as oral reading, silent reading comprehension, and other reading-related measures in addition to spelling.  Student’s spelling attempts also provide a powerful medium for predicting reading achievement.

Reading processes that takes place in informational texts requires accessing accurate, relevant knowledge, managing mental processes during reading within the confines of a limited working memory, and constructing a coherent mental representation through pruning and organizational processes.

2. Specify the effect that background knowledge may have on constructing mental representations from informational text. Why should teachers be concerned about activating prior knowledge?

Mediation that prompts young readers to activate relevant background information is an important support, but teachers must be sensitive to dialogue indicating that children may be relying on inaccurate or irrelevant prior knowledge.  Some texts or beliefs that they read may be naïve and tend to lead them to false information, which hurts they background knowledge.  Therefore, teaching students to “think like a scientist” demands an intentional examination and discussion of previously held ideas.  Teachers should be concerned about activating prior knowledge because it makes so many connections to previous learning experiences, as well as texts.

3. What are the three instructional approaches that can be used to help primary-grade students comprehend informational text? Describe their common (p. 365) and distinctive features (p. 363-5).

• Picture Walk: these conversations typically occur as the teacher and students preview each stage, or few pages of a new book, before reading.
• Know-Want to Learn-Learn: enables teachers to access prior knowledge of students and to help students develop their own purposes for reading expository text.
• Directed Reading-Thinking Activity: instructional framework that views reading as a problem-solving process best accomplished in a social context.

There are all based on three common theoretical principles that are crucial.  Those three principles are (a) an emphasis on reader engagement and social mediation, (b) activation of relevant prior knowledge, and (c) anticipation of what information might be likely to be included in a text.

4. What is the purpose of the experimental study reported?

The purpose of the experimental study was to explore how the (PW) Picture Word, (KWL) Know-Want to Learn-Learn, and (DRTA) Directed Reading-Thinking Activity might influence developmental reading abilities and content acquisition when used with informational text in the primary reading group context.  The focus of the investigation was on the ways the differences in instructional approaches influenced the construction of meaning by novice readers.

5. Who were the subjects?

The participants were 31 second-grade students in two demographically similar schools, in the same school district, in a midsize Midwest City.  Originally, there were eight groups of four students participating in the study-four groups in each of two cycles of instruction.  The cycles were conducted consecutively during the first half of the academic year with a three-week break between the cycles.

6. Describe the reading materials used during the intervention.

For each lesson, informational texts on topics were likely to be familiar to second-grade students.  The texts addressed science topics that had been taught to the students in their first or second grade science curriculum as part of the state science content standards.  Some topic examples were spiders, the moon, how water changes form, and insects.

7. How long did the experiment last?

The data was taken over a 10 week period, conducting two four-week periods of intervention within that frame time.  Each cycle consisted of 12 days (three consecutive days for four consecutive weeks).  On the third day data was collected for each group.

8. What were the experimental conditions?

The experimental conditions were gathered over a total of 10 weeks.  In that time they conducted two four-week periods of intervention within that time frame.  Groups 1 through 4 from School A received the intervention during the first cycle, and Groups 5 through 8 from School B received the intervention during the second four-week cycle.  Following two days of individual pre-experimental screening to ensure that readers shared a common instructional level, he conducted a 45-minute orientation session with each group.  There were 12 days of intervention in each cycle.

9. Describe the procedures specific to the Picture Walk, KWL, DRTA, and the Control Group conditions.

Each day, Stahl introduced the same new book to all of the children for a total of 12 text selections during the intervention.  On the first day all of the groups began with a brief introduction to the topic for the week, and then completed a vocabulary recognition task.

Picture Walk: Stahl started off with a brief overview of the test, before reading.  They engaged in an interactive discussion about the book as we worked through the book page-by-page, talking about pictures, the text structure, and the student’s prior knowledge, and formulating predictions based on that information.  Topic headings were addressed, when available.  To generate a discussion of the pages, Stahl asked questions about words and what they are describing and what the writer is teaching them on that page.  That method was the only method that specifically introduced new vocabulary before reading the text.  After the PW, the children mumble read the text independently.  After reading, we discussed whether our predictions were verified and collectively summarized the information from the text.

KWL: Stahl began with KWL chart that interacted among the students.  After he introduced the topic, the class started discussing the topic.  Their input was written on the K side of the chart.  On days 2 and 3 the children wrote on their individual KWL chart and later shared with the class during discussion.  Next the children categorized the recorded information.  Later on children generated questions about the topic.  Before Stahl asked the questions, he provided an overview of the book the other groups received before reading.  The table of contents was discussed, when available, so that the students would be more likely to anticipate the content and generate questions that could actually be answered in each book.  Stahl wrote in their questions each day and then guided discussions to help the children generate more questions based on the table of contents or text headings and that would likely be answered from reading each text.

DRTA: Before reading, the students formulated and justified predictions about the text based on the title, cover, prior knowledge, and if available, table of contents.  After reading each section of text, a brief discussion was held to verify predictions, summarize the information in the text, and generate new predictions for the next section of text based on the discussion about the text, pictures, and headings, if available.  At the conclusion of the entire text, discussion was minimal about the overall text.

Non-instructional Control Condition: This was used to compare the effects of providing reading opportunities in informational text versus providing a social context for the activation of prior knowledge, setting personal purposes for reading, and generating and verifying for a text.  The children had an opportunity to read the same informational texts that were read in the intervention conditions.  Before reading Stahl presented the same brief overview of the text that had been provided to the treatment groups.  Then the children independently mumble read the new text.  Independent reading was always followed by drawing a picture and/or writing about something they would like to share with the group based on the text.

10. What measures were used to determine the relative effectiveness of the treatments? Describe the measures briefly.

Vocabulary Recognition Task: is a large body of evidence that indicates that there is a strong relationship between vocabulary and reading comprehension.

Maze: a timed multiple choice modification that was group-administered.

Free Recall: Individually each child provided a free recall of the day’s text.  Student’s completed that by responding to the prompt provided.

Cued Recall: After the free recall, each child was asked to answer three explicit and three implicit questions based on that day’s text.

Post-Intervention Recall: Stahl conducted individual strategy interviews with the students in that cycle.  Interviews were recorded on audiotape and transcribed.

11. Which treatment(s) were found to be more effective in increasing students’ vocabulary knowledge and maze performance (p. 381)?

Overall, each treatment was very beneficial, but the picture walk engaged on more vocabulary knowledge.  In the maze performance, PW and DRTA were more effective, but picture walk still had more benefits than that of DRTA.  Also, there were no differential gains in vocabulary knowledge due to the conditions. In other words, no condition (DRTA, KWL, PW, Control) was better than the others in increasing students’ vocabulary knowledge.  In maze, DRTA and PW were found to be more effective than the other two conditions in increasing students’ maze performance.

12. Students’ comprehension of the texts was greater under the DRTA condition than KWL and the control conditions. What do you think explains DRTA’s advantage over the KWL condition (p. 382)?

DRTA is a more descriptive and deep interaction among the books and students, whereas KWL is just the basic questions a teacher would ask in the everyday classroom when reading a book.  DRTA asks critical questions, the teacher interacts with the students more by scaffolding, making predictions, using text-based information with prior knowledge, and having many times to introduced topics and discussions with the classrooms.

13. It was found that the treatments did not differ in the quality and quantity of students’ retellings (p. 384). In other words, students were not differentially affected by the treatments in the way they integrated textual information with prior knowledge. What does this finding mean in terms of the different emphases employed by experience-based (KWL) vs. text-based (DRTA) treatments?

This means that when asking students to recall or retell stories that they have read, it has no effect if they have had prior knowledge or not.  The different instructions still had the same effect, in which it didn’t matter if they had prior knowledge or not.

14. In light of the findings from this study, what conclusions can you draw about the role of teacher support in children’s construction of mental representations from informational text?

It is important for teachers to present good visual representations of texts, as well as knowledge surrounding the story, and even scaffolding as they read through the informational texts.  If teachers present mental representations right off, then students will have good visual images and be able to correctly portray the story.  Overall, the teacher needs to be able to present good predictions, prior experiences, and great informational texts so that students can learn and gain more knowledge for future readings.

“The hypothesis test was that students will learn the pronunciations and meanings of new words better when they see spellings of the words during study periods than when they do not.  Our explanation was the grapheme-phoneme connections should be activated by spellings and as a result should secure the pronunciations and meanings of words in memory earlier during learning” (pg 396-397)

2. Who were the subjects?

The subjects for the experiment was 2nd and 5th graders who were enrolled in an urban school with a large minority population.  The experimentalists decided to do a study on fifth graders as well because older students have greater knowledge of the orthographic system than younger students, their vocabulary learning might benefit even more by seeing spellings of the words.  They used a different age level for the experiment to allow their findings to be more accurate.

3. What were the experimental conditions?

The procedure consisted of low-frequency nouns that were longer, consisting of two and three syllables.  Ten words were taught in each condition.  Students were given a minimum of 5 and a maximum of 8 trials to learn pronunciations and meanings of the words to a criterion of 3 perfect successive trials.

4. What did the treatment involve?

The treatment involved the recalling of words and their spellings in the introduction and during the recall.  Meanings were taught with pictures, defining sentences, and clarifying sentences.

5. Which group (spelling-present vs. spelling-absent) gained more in vocabulary learning?  How were the groups’ recall of pronunciations affected by the treatment?

Recall of pronunciations was better than words were learning with spelling aids than without spelling aids.  The advantage provided by spellings became apparent on the first recall trial for the higher readers but not until the second trial for the lower readers.  Also, the size of the advantage of spellings was much larger for higher than for lower readers, and remarkably it grew larger and larger over the first 3 trials for the higher readers.  Overall spelling-present gained more vocabulary and the recall of pronunciations was better with spelling aids.

6. Why do you think that fifth graders who were high on a word reading task benefited more from the spelling aids than their peers with less orthographic experience and knowledge, even though the two groups did not differ on receptive vocabulary knowledge?

The fifth graders who were high on a word reading task benefited more from the spelling aids because those students were used to the phonemic awareness and syllables in the words.  These students were accustomed to these words by spelling, writing, and reading, where as there peers with less orthographic experience struggled due to lack of experience of the graphic phonemes.

7. What general conclusions were derived from the study findings by the authors? What implications were offered for vocabulary learning and instruction?

Some general conclusions from the studies were that teachers need to be aware of the importance of spellings for vocabulary learning, when teachers encounter, pronounce, and plain new vocabulary words to their students, they should take time to display the spellings of the words, and independent reading past 3rd acquires new vocabulary words.  Also, spellings of words are especially valuable for students who are learning English as a second language and as a teacher, we should not favor good vs. poor readers because it may have to do with superior orthographic knowledge rather than superior phonological memory.  Overall, there are so many conclusions from this study that teachers should use in their classroom.  A few vocabulary learning implications were spellings enter memory as well as in a form that better secures pronunciations and meanings and clarifies the constituents of pronunciations.

Curt’s spelling patterns present characteristics at the “with-in word” pattern stage, as well as the “letter-name” state.  I chose this stage of development because Curt spelled six of the ten first-grade words correctly, but misspelled all ten second-grade words.  In his spellings, he even represented short vowels conventionally and showed good knowledge of consonant clusters.  I thought he fell into the stage of “letter-name” because it state that he failed to mark long vowels in several words.

2. Describe partner reading.

Partner reading is a safe, comfortable way to begin reading stories with a slow, word-by-word reader.  It involves the tutor and child alternating pages as they read a story aloud, with the tutor asking comprehension questions now nad then.  It happens to be psychologically appealing to the child because he can perceive the tutor, from the start, as an equal partner who is willing to share the reading load.  Overall, I feel that this type of reading is beneficial for struggling students, who need help with comprehension.

3. Which is harder for a student, partner reading or DRTA?

I feel that the DRTA is harder for a student because there is a demand for active, creative decision-making of both students and teacher as they read nad discuss a story together.  There is much more thinking involve and often critical versus the simple “tutoring” experience readers gain through partner reading, which even happens to be a more relaxed atmosphere.
4. In planning a DRTA, what is important about selecting places to stop?

The tutor should be planning on three or four stopping points to give themselves a chance to ask the student questions about what has happened thus far and what might happen as the story continues.  It gives the student a chance to practice on his/her comprehension problem.  The tutor may give them ideas by asking questions and allow them to think critically and understand the story.
5. In planning a DRTA, what is important about deciding questions to ask? What kind of questions? How many?

There are only two types of questions tutors can ask: comprehension and prediction.  Tutors can ask comprehension to be sure the student is following along with the story and comprehending what is going on.  Prediction questions allow the children to think critically and use what they have comprehended thus far to predict the rest of the story.  The tutor should plan several questions to be sure the student fully understands what he/she is reading and the DRTA is useful for their struggles with reading.  A lot of the questions ultimately depend on the student and their struggles.