Week 6

Mary needs an intervention to enhance her reading ability. From the results of her reading assessment, I decided to give her extra lessons 30 minutes per day for the following weeks (Three weeks would be enough for the instruction).

For the first week, I will work together with her doing some share reading, and generate some questions related to main ideas and details to assess her understanding after reading. For the second week, I will teach her some methods for better generalization and summarization of the article (both main idea and details). For the last week, I will let her read independently and give out some assessment at the end of the intervention.

Mini Lesson Plan

Topic: Reading with Tools

Level: Grade 3

Objective:

1. Students will learn to obtain both main idea and details from an article.

2. Enhance students' ability of reading comprehension. 

3. Students will learn to use tools for better comprehension and memorizing.

Procedure:

1.      Present Mary with the topic. Ask some questions before reading to assess Mary’s precious knowledge about the article.

2.      Let Mary read the whole article and record her reading process.

3.      Provide a table of the main content for Mary to fill in the details.

4.      Go back to the article and implement the details in the table.

5.      Have Mary retell the story and ask questions from the sheet.

Standards:

NY- New York State Core Curriculum

Subject: English Language Arts

Grade Range: Grades 2–4

Strand: Reading

Core Performance Indicator: Identify purpose for reading

Core Performance Indicator: Use decoding strategies, such as sounding out words, comparing similar words, breaking words into smaller words, and looking for word parts, such as root words, prefixes, and suffixes

Core Performance Indicator: Use self-monitoring strategies, such as rereading and cross-checking

Core Performance Indicator: Apply corrective strategies, using classroom resources, such as teachers, peers, and reference tools

Core Performance Indicator: Recognize the difference between phrases and sentences

Core Performance Indicator: Recognize and discriminate among a variety of informational texts

Core Performance Indicator: Read aloud at appropriate rate

Core Performance Indicator: Maintain a personal reading list to reflect reading goals and accomplishments

Assessment:

A small question form will be given to assess Mary’s understanding.

Reading Material:

Assessment:

Week 5 Assignments

Word List Level #1:

From the video, Mary got 18 words correct. 16 of the words were automatically identified and 2 were identified. Wrong words are: brain, afraid

Total Correct Automatic = 16/20 = 80%

Total Correct Identified = 2/20 = 10%

Total Number Correct = 15/20 = 90%

The score 90% is at the Independent Level.

Word List Level #2:

From the video, Mary got 15 words correct. 14 of the words were automatically identified and 1 was identified. Wrong words are: though, begins, breathe, insects, noticed.

Total Correct Automatic = 14/20 = 70%

Total Correct Identified = 1/20 = 5%

Total Number Correct = 15/20 = 75%

The score 75% is at the Instructional Level.

Word List Level #3:

From the video, Mary got 5 words correct. 3 of the words were automatically identified and 2 were identified.

Total Correct Automatic = 3/20 = 15%

Total Correct Identified = 2/20 = 10%

Total Number Correct = 15/20 = 25%

The score 25% is at the Frustration Level.

The previous results indicate the level of passage should be given to Mary.

Passage Level #2:

Before reading the passage, according to the three concept questions we can see that her understanding of the article was 3/9= 33%.

From the second video, Mary read a passage of 197 words in total. There were 12 errors and 3 self-correction words.

Accuracy rate = (197-12)/197 = 94%

Error rate 12/197 = 1:16

Self-correction rate = (12+3)/3 = 1:5

It indicates that Mary was independent in reading the passage. Her accuracy rate is high and her retelling is almost correct.

Rate = 11820/258 = 46WPM

Correct WPM = (197-12)*60/258 = 43CWPM

In the part of retelling the story, Mary thought of 23 points from the total 49. And from the final 8 questions, Mary retold most of the answers. The little girl had a very good beginning. She had a very fluency reading skill with words that she has already known well. She has a good comprehension ability of understanding the main idea of an article. And she was also able to go into most of the details. Last but not least, she has equipped with the basic logical thinking ability due to her retelling order. However, her confidence of reading weakened after meeting unfamiliar words. She relied on her teacher too much and her self-correction rate is low. So she probably needs more training on independent reading.

Week 4

Assignment #1:

Describe your understanding of RTI and its structure of intervention in details. 

RTI (Response to Intervention) is an approach to identifying students with disabilities. RTI is not only an assessment, but also a process of intervention.

Students are screened by basic literacy skills about three times a year. Student whose performance doesn’t meet the minimal benchmark scores needs extra help. Students will receive intended interventions as small groups. The process is monitored for continuous interventions. During the process, sensitive assessments will be given for students’ changing performance. For struggled students, individualized intervention and additional assessment will be designed. Finally, professionals and parents will review the data to see whether the student needs special education services. If student doesn’t respond to intervention well, additional assessment will be given for students’ social, behavioral, emotional, intellectual and adaptive functioning.

As I searched last week, RTI is a like a pyramid model. The bottom tier of the model is universal monitoring and classroom interventions to increasing learning. The middle tier is for increased monitoring and small group interventions. The top tier is intensive monitoring and one-on-one interventions. It is an effective and rigorous approach.

What other questions do you still have about RTI?

1.      Is RTI suitable for every child?

2.      Are there any special requirements for teachers served in this program?

3.      Are there any drawbacks of the approach RTI?



Assignment #2:
Reading Interventions

WEEK 3

Assignment #2:

Discuss 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.

Many assessments can be applied to measure students' learning outcomes. According to the new knowledge, QRI5 is a excellent assessment for assessing students reading levels. The results of the assessment can help teachers determine students’ ability so that they can be allocated into different groups for different reading instructions. Teachers can choose appropriate materials for students to read and exercise. Students can make adjustion with their own steps. Also, students are assessed frequently (weekly or biweekly) for their progress.

Assignment #3:

What is QRI5?

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

What is the purpose of using QRI5?

QRI5 provides graded word lists and numerous passages designed to assess the oral and silent reading and listening ability of students. QRI5 also provides a number of assessment options. Results can be used to estimate students’ reading levels, to group students for guided reading sessions, or to choose appropriate books for literacy circles, reading workshops and independent reading. QRI5 can be used to document student growth.

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

I didn’t know many assessments. Of what I know, running record is quite similar to QRI5. It assesses accuracy of word identification, speed and comprehension.

What is your impression of QRI5?

I believe QRI5 is a very effective assessment of reading. It provides abundant resource for assessment. And I prefer informal assessment because it won’t bring students too much pressure. Students can present their real ability of reading with QRI5.

WEEK 2

Before going to school, children are mostly influenced by their parents at home. Parents’ every word or movement will affect their children’s perception towards the world. According to Piaget’s theory, children are active learners. Even though they do not speak, they will learn and imitate from observation. From the video, we can see the little girl pretend that she can read just like her mother even if she doesn’t actually know how.

Language learning better starts early. Some people can speak several languages as mother tongue because they live in a multi-language environment. They perceive different languages at the same time and they can organize them after a certain period of time. Though adult learners can learn a second language, it is very hard to speak naturally.

Self-Introduction

Hello, everyone. Sorry for the delay, because blogger.com is blocked in China and I just arrived NY yesterday night.My name is Jingyi Yuan. I’m an International student from China. Tomorrow will be Chinese New Year Eve; so I’m here sharing our happiness with all of you from another part of the earth. I haven’t been teaching yet, but I will start my student teaching this semester and I hope to teach Chinese in my future teaching.

Through the learning of the last year, I have my understanding of Language Art and New literacies. It’s the product of our high technology era. People change ways of learning with technology and make it much easier and more attractive.

My favourite joke is about cultural difference, actually it is about language. It happened between an international student and her landlord. One day, the landlord asked the student: “Did you have your dinner?” The student answered: “No, I didn’t.” But the old lady didn’t hear clearly, so she asked again: “You didn’t have your dinner?” According to Chinese logical method, the student answered: “Yes” (Which actually means No). The confused lady asked one more time: “ Did you have dinner?” The student answered: “No, I didn’t.” The old lady then asked several more times, but finally gave up.  

Hope you like the joke. I’m glad to be with your guys in this course.