TEMS 614

Final Project
Jeremy Barber
12/02/2014

Student 1 Literacy Profile:

I decide to tutor one of my ELA students, whose first language is
Arabic. He is a freshman and excels at math but uses his phone for
translation often. His need to improve is in deciphering word problems
in the math class. He excels at solving, but needs help on starting word
problems. He moved to America only 9 months ago and already has a
strong understanding of the English language for the short time he has
been here. He has a few accommodations due to English not being his
first language. He is allowed extra time on assessments, as well as
translations on all assessments.
Data Analysis Sheets for Student #1 (ELA Student)
Vocab Comprehension
I had the student read a short segment on geometry vocab. The
reading had new vocabulary words with definitions and drawings.
Afterwards, the student was to go back and define a few vocab words
in their own words.
Strengths
This student did well explaining the words from the vocab.
I think his strength came from the fact that with every
definition came a picture that he could understand. I think
that if the definitions didnt have the pictures with them,
he wouldnt have been able to define them as well.

Weaknesses

Conclusions

This student had struggles understanding a few words to

begin with. I wouldnt say he had problems understanding
the words that he was asked to define in his own words,
but rather the words sometimes use to define the words.
Such words as definite and indefinitely gave him a hard
time and I could tell he wanted to ask what they meant.
Once again, if the picture wasnt there to assist with the
definition, I think he would have been clueless as to what
those words refereed to.
I was pleasantly pleased with how the student defined the
words at the end of the activity and would say that he
knows the words and is ready to move on without me even
teaching the words. As we move forward, I hope he
maintains this information and I will have to check to see if
this stays true. If he does forget, he always has his
definitions to look back at.

Visual Literacy
The student was given a venn diagram regarding kinds of music.
It was a 3 event venn diagram. The student was asked a few questions
regarding how many people occur in each event.
Strengths
This student has a strong background in math calculations
and for this assessment it showed. The student had no
problem reading the venn diagram, but struggled when
the questions asked for specifics. The student did very
well when questions asked about single events happening
from the venn diagram. He did well with reading what the
venn diagram was showing, but lacked the specifics.
Weaknesses

This student needed a lot more help with the specifics of

the venn diagram. He could not tell what the intersections
of some circles meant as well as how to tell what part is
NOT an event. When a question asked for when multiple
events happen at the same time, he struggled.

Conclusions

I believe this student needs more help in deciphering venn

diagram specifics. The student needs help choosing what
part of the venn diagram relates to the question being
asked and when a part is not needed. We will work more
with this visual aid in hopes that he will get better working
with venn diagrams. This way we can move into using
venn diagrams for probability.

Note taking and summarizing

The student was given an article to read on independent and
dependent events dealing with probability. The student was told to
note take and summarize at the end of the reading. The student was
also told to circle any words they did not know, underline a few words
or main points and write questions as they read. They read the
following article below.
http://www.wyzant.com/resources/lessons/math/statistics_and_probabili
ty/probability/further_concepts_in_probability

Strengths

Weaknesses

Conclusions

The student underlined most of the bold letters; I think he

figured if they were bolded they were important. This is a
good assumption, however this doesnt necessarily help us
take away main points. His summary inlucded most of the
information at the end of the reading. He didnt remember
much from the beginning or the middle, but could tell me
chunks of the end. This could also be because most of his
questions were not written down until the end of the
reading. Had the student wrote down more questions and
notes in the beginning, this could have helped.
The student did not know these words and was confused
on what they meant and how they related to the reading
(Likelihood, conditional, denoted, intersection, mutual
exclusivity, mutually exclusive). The student did not
understand the equations that were provided for the
probability formulas, which I anticipated because they
were new vocabulary. I will use this roadblock to discuss
how we can research more into a topic that we do not
understand and look for examples. The student did not
remember most of the reading from the beginning to the
middle. This could show that he doesnt retain the
information from the beginning, possibly because he was
focused on the equations. I think the student felt it was
more important to read the article faster, rather then take
down notes and try to retain information.
The student needs to be taught how to take better notes
during a math reading. He needs to be shown what to look
for while reading and what highlighted material could be
important. Also, he needs to be tutored in a few more
vocab words so he can fully understand the meaning.
Many of his questions focused around words he did not
know, I know this is due to his lack of understanding of the
English language at this point. I will tutor this student in
how to take better notes in the math class.

Final Conclusion:
My final conclusion of student #1 is that he lacks skills decoding
or deciphering the English language because of having a different first
language. The student will need some help decoding the English
language and what we can do to strengthen his vocabulary. My
tutoring will focus around getting the student the necessary vocab to
be successful in the math classroom as well as being successful in the
English language.
Tutoring Sessions:

Tutoring #1: Student 1 has difficulty with decoding when

reading mathematics. There are many words that he cannot
understand because of a lack of prior knowledge. I used Contextual
Redefinition with him, which is a strategy that involves showing him
how to use context clues and definitions to solidify knowledge of word
meanings. Its an appropriate strategy to use every few weeks with a
new unit of study. This activity provided opportunities for students to
predict word meanings and practice using each to determine word
meaning.
Steps:
1. Introduce student to the vocabulary list selected by the teacher
and then place the words on the a worksheet.
2. Student makes predictions about possible meanings for the
words based on their background knowledge and knowledge of
word parts.
3. Have student(s) read Introduction to Linear Equations
http://www.virtualnerd.com/pre-algebra/linear-functionsgraphing/equations/introduction-linear-equations/
4. Student is then provided with context for each of the words to
determine context clues that are helpful for confirming or
determining word meanings for the target words. As they use
context for word meaning, students should cite which context
clues helped them determine word meaning.
Word

Predicted
Definition

Definition
Based on
Context

Context Clues
Used

Table
Vertical Lines
Horizontal
Lines
Linear
True
Statement
This tutoring session went well. The student did okay making
predictions, but didnt know how they words tied into mathematics. I
chose this because these are words that could have other meanings in
the English language and I knew it would help the student start
connecting words like this to mathematics.
Tutoring #2: Student 1 has difficulty with decoding when
reading mathematics. There are many words that he cannot
understand because of a lack of prior knowledge. I used Dictoglos
with him, which is a strategy that is useful in providing English

language learners with background for content reading. Students are

exposed to content or text-specific vocabulary words and given an
opportunity to explore their meaning and use with their peers.
Steps:
1. I chose a short text to read to the student(s).
http://www.regentsprep.org/regents/math/algebra/AE7/ExpDecay
L.htm
(only the first couple short paragraphs)
2. I read the text twice at normal speed and the student notes any
words or phrases that are familiar to him.
3. Student worked by himself to list words and phrases (could work
with pairs).
4. Student then use words in order to reconstruct a version of the
text they were read.
5. I gave student a copy of the text and asked him to compare their
version to the original.
6. I then used students version of the text to discuss grammar and
context of words in a passage.

Dictoglos
What is exponential growth?
Word/Phrases

Group Words/Phrases

Students Version of Text

Compare to Original Text

This tutoring session didnt go as well as the first. The student had
trouble writing his own version of the text. I think it would have went
better if it had been with partners or groups, unfortunately are tutoring
sessions are only one on one. I chose this strategy because it has
students use vocab to re-write a story and the student has been
struggling with using vocab and what it means.
Tutoring #3: Student 1 has difficulty with decoding when
reading mathematics. There are many words that he cannot
understand because of a lack of prior knowledge. I used Frequent

Contact with him, which is a strategy that provides students with an

opportunity to think about, discuss, categorize, and use other words
based on inferences students make about a variety of clustered words.
Given a list of words, students are asked to determine who or what
would have the most frequent contact with each word.
Steps:
1. I gave the student a list of words and three category labels.
2. The student drew three columns on a page and put one label at
the top of each column.
3. The student worked by himself to read, think about, and decide
what category would have the most frequent contact with each
of the words in the list.
4. If the student can justify putting a word in more than one
category, they should place the words in all categories that make
sense.
5. Student then discussed with me why they chose to place each
word in the category, so decide if they are right.
(This can also be done with group)

Linear

Exponent
Parabola
Growth

Quadratic

Slope
Rate of Change
Increase
Decrease

Exponential

Vertical
Horizontal
Initial Value
Decay

This tutoring session went pretty well. There are several places each
vocab word could go, and the student did well explaining why he
picked the place for each vocab. I chose this strategy because it
compares 3 units we would be covering and it helps show how they
connect to each other.
Re-assessment and Reflection
For re-assessment, I always like some sort of data that I can
compare and not have any worry that one assessment was easier than
the other. For this reason, I decided to make the re-assessment portion
the same as one of the original assessments. I gave the student the
same geometry text from before and ask him to read and write
definitions for a few vocabulary words in his own context. I figured this
way; I can compare and see if the tutoring paid off since day one. The
student did better this time, but still was not 100%, as some of the
words were still difficult for him to define. This time around I could tell
the student was looking for other clues and using the diagrams to help
him define a few words. Also, I feel that after a few weeks of being in
school, his vocabulary might be better then what it was back in
September. I can definitely see growth from the first day I assessed the
student. I tried to focus on strengthen his decoding skills while reading,
especially reading math, and I think we have accomplished that.
Parent Summary
Dear Parents or Guardians,
In the last few weeks I have been gathering some data on your
son or daughter about reading and writing skills. The goal here was to
strengthen their reading and/or writing skills, no matter what level they
were at. This did not take away from any of their class time, nor did it
require them to do any extra work outside of class. The procedure that
will took place were some assessing, tutoring and then re-assessing
after to look for growth. This data I collected was seen by no one
besides me and your student. My goal was to help increase your son or
daughters reading/writing skill, not only in a reading class, but also in
deciphering math problems that a student commonly struggles with.
Your son or daughter was not chosen because they showed a weak
reading skill, but because of a variety of tasks I planned to implement
to see if they help improve all types of readers. One of our many goals
here at the high school is to incorporate other subject areas in the
math classroom, especially reading, as it is very important for their
future. After assessing and collecting data, I have concluded that your
student struggles mainly with vocabulary in mathematics. This may
stem from not having English as a first language. However, after some
tutoring and looking at alternate methods to help learn vocabulary,
your student has shown growth in understanding vocabulary of

mathematics. We have set forth ways for them to help themselves in

the future when they dont understand the vocab being presented to
them. I recommend that your student continue his growth using the
vocab and finding different ways to use it, whether it is in his own
writing or writing definitions of the words. This will help strengthen his
math skills and English skills.
If you have any questions, please dont hesitate to ask.
Thank You,
Jeremy Barber

Student 2 Literacy Profile:

I decide to tutor another one of my students.
She is a freshman who loves to read, but has weaknesses in the math
classroom. After several assignments, her real weakness is mental
math skills. She lacks ability to do mental math without a calculator. I
am looking to see if we can connect her love to read with math
problems in bettering her skills. Instead of modeling problems, I will
have her read descriptions on how to solve problems or possibly give
her different representations of math, and see if we can connect that.
Data Analysis Sheets for Student #2 (Loves to Read)
Vocab Comprehension
I had the student read a short segment on geometry vocab. The
reading had new vocabulary words with definitions and drawings.
Afterwards, the student was to go back and define a few vocab words
in their own words.
Strengths
The student did very well in this assessment. She had an
easy time describing the vocab in her own words. She
didnt struggle much during the reading and breezed
through it.

Weaknesses

Her only weakness what the she had to look back in the
text to remember the definitions again. She was a little
forgetful at first.

Conclusions

Something I did notice is that she was a little forgetful and

had to look back in the text to figure out her definitions. It
seems as if she forgot what the definitions were and had
to re-read them. This could be why Ive notice her
struggling in mental math and solving problems. She could
be forgetting the steps needed to be taken to finish the
problem. We might have to have her re-read definitions or
steps a few times after she is done completely reading.

Visual Literacy
The student was given a venn diagram regarding kinds of music.
It was a 3 event venn diagram. The student was asked a few questions
regarding how many people occur in each event.
Strengths
The student recognized what part of the venn diagram
went with the genre of music, but that was as far as she
got.

Weaknesses

This student did not do very well on this assessment. She

struggled on finding a way to read the venn diagram the
correct way. When she answered questions, she never
combined totals from different parts of the venn diagram.

Conclusions

This student needs more time on reading vend diagram

and visuals like this. She could not answer any of the
questions correctly because she did not know how to
include certain parts and when not to include certain
parts. I could tell that she guessed on most of the
questions. I think we will be spending time on how we can
isolate parts of venn diagrams and other visuals like this. I
think this might be the fact that her math reasoning isnt
as strong as her reading skills.

Note taking and summarizing

The student was given an article to read on independent and
dependent events dealing with probability. The student was told to
note take and summarize at the end of the reading. The student was
also told to circle any words they did not know, underline a few words
or main points and write questions as they read. They read the
following article below.
http://www.wyzant.com/resources/lessons/math/statistics_and_probabili
ty/probability/further_concepts_in_probability
Strengths
This student did very well with the reading. She took great
notes and didnt have many words circled. At the end she
summarized the reading fairly well, just struggled in other
places. Could easily tell me the main points and the main
vocab from the reading.

Weaknesses

She did not understand the visuals that were given, as

well as the examples. She could easily tell me most every
vocab word except she didnt know what mutually
exclusive meant. Her lack in knowing how to decipher
visuals and examples really hinders her ability to learn the
mathematics behind the reading.

Conclusions

Its easy to see her strength is reading, but struggles, as

she is not able to use visuals and examples to her
advantage. I know she easily summarized what she read,
but Im not certain that she learned it. I feel a student that
learned it could easily use the examples to explain how
the problem is solved. We will spend more time
deciphering examples and visual aids.

Final Conclusion:
Once again, this student definitely has strength in reading and
understanding vocab. She does struggle on retaining information, but
does well when summarizing as reading. I think we will keep this going
as we tutor and re-assess. We need to spend more time on reading
visuals and using the examples provided to help us with our
mathematics. I believe the student really needs to have their tutoring
focused on reading visuals in mathematics. We will spend more time
on this.
Tutoring Sessions:
Tutoring #1: Student 2 has difficulty with reading visuals in
mathematics. They lack the knowledge needed to advance their
mathematics if they cannot read graphs, tables, and other expressions.
For tutoring student 2 I had to use other types of assessment not from
the book, since most focus on reading context. For the first tutoring
session, I focused on reading graphs. This will help the student connect
the context to the graph.
Steps:
1. Student was given packet that had 8 graphs and 8 short
contextual descriptions of the graphs.
2. The student must match which graph goes with which context.
3. Once they have matched all 8, they must explain why they chose
these matching pairs.
This tutoring session went fine. The student matched 5 out of the 8
correct, as some are similar but have distinct differences that could
help set them apart. For example, there were some context that talked
about continuous data and some that talked about non-continuous
data. This tutoring session was important, because it helps the student
read one of many used visuals in mathematics. Next tutoring session, I
will have the student make up their own graphs from context and make
up their own context from a graph.
Tutoring #2: Student 2 has difficulty with reading visuals in
mathematics. They lack the knowledge needed to advance their
mathematics if they cannot read graphs, tables, and other expressions.
For tutoring student 2 I had to use other types of assessment not from
the book, since most focus on reading context. For the second tutoring
session, I focused more on reading graphs, as it is vital to excel in
mathematics. For this session, I wanted to extend what we did in the
first session, except this time I will have the students making their own
contextual expressions and graphs.

Steps:
1. The student was given 6 graphs that were of a different variety
and was asked to make up their own context for them.
2. They had to explain to me why they chose this expression as we
follow along on the graph.
3. Then the student was given 6 context expressions and they had
to make 6 graphs on their own from them.
4. I then had her pick 3 context expressions and had them make up
a different graph; we talked about their similarities and
differences.
This tutoring session went better. The student did well making graphs
from contextual expressions, as there are several right answers. The
student did make a few tiny errors that most every student makes
there first time doing this assessment. For example, when making a
graph comparing shoe size as you age, the student started the graph
at the origin (0,0). This may seem like a good place to start, however,
when we are born we dont start off with a shoe size of zero. When it
came to making contextual expressions from graph, they used
examples that were close to those given from previous assessments. It
would have been better if they used original, but nonetheless, they did
a fine job.
Tutoring #3: Student 2 has difficulty with reading visuals in
mathematics. They lack the knowledge needed to advance their
mathematics if they cannot read graphs, tables, and other expressions.
For tutoring student 2 I had to use other types of assessment not from
the book, since most focus on reading context. For the third tutoring
session, I focused on using Venn diagrams or mapping diagrams in a
different way from the previous assessments. This time we would be
using Venn diagrams to express conditional statements and counter
examples.
Steps:
1. I had to first show the student how to create a venn diagram or
mapping diagram of a conditional statement.
2. Then I had the student create a venn diagram of 5 different
conditional statements.
3. After the venn diagrams are completed, I had the decide where
they would place a counter-example for each venn diagram.

Example: If your engine is broke, then your car will not run.
cCar will not Run
Engine broke
Where would
you place the
example: The
car is out of
gas
The student struggled a little bit with this assessment, probably
because it is entirely new to them. I wanted to give them another way
of how we can represent contextual expressions. This could help visual
learners, especially when asking for counter-examples and where they
go. I wanted this student to experience different type of visuals they
will see in high school math.
Re-assessment and Reflection
To re-assess student #2, I figured I would give her two different
types of assessments, both dealing with reading visuals in
mathematics. The first re-assessment I had her do dealt with reading
graphs. I gave her 10 graphs and 10 contextual scenarios and asked
her to match up what graph goes with which scenario. The first time
we did this, she had a succession rate of 62.5%, this time she matched
8 out of 10 correctly, which is an 18% increase compared to last time.
This to me just shows how much growth she has shown over only a few
weeks in reading graphs. The next assessment I decided to give her
dealt with venn diagrams. This time I gave her a diagram consisting of
three events and asked her to answer a few questions about it. She did
fairly well with it, still not 100%, but we did not focus a great deal of
time on venn diagrams. She did however, do better then the first time
she saw a venn diagram. I think now she has a better understanding of
reading visuals in mathematics, which is what our goal was. I feel now
that she has a better understanding of how to use the visuals in
mathematics to better understand a topic.
Parent Summary
Dear Parents or Guardians,
In the last few weeks I have been gathering some data on your
son or daughter about reading and writing skills. The goal here was to
strengthen their reading and/or writing skills, no matter what level they
were at. This did not take away from any of their class time, nor did it
require them to do any extra work outside of class. The procedure that

will took place were some assessing, tutoring and then re-assessing
after to look for growth. This data I collected was seen by no one
besides me and your student. My goal was to help increase your son or
daughters reading/writing skill, not only in a reading class, but also in
deciphering math problems that a student commonly struggles with.
Your son or daughter was not chosen because they showed a weak
reading skill, but because of a variety of tasks I planned to implement
to see if they help improve all types of readers. One of our many goals
here at the high school is to incorporate other subject areas in the
math classroom, especially reading, as it is very important for their
future. After assessing and collecting data, I have concluded that your
student struggles mainly with reading visuals in mathematics and
using them to fully understand problems. We spent a few tutoring
sessions dealing with different types of visuals used in a math class
and how we can break them down and use them to better their needs.
We have focused most of our attention reading graphs and different
types of graphs. We have also looked at graphs and how they can be
described in contextual descriptions. This will help your student
connect what the graph is telling us. Your student did show growth in
describing graphs and other types of mathematics visual aids. I have
spoken to your student that they need to continue working towards
this goal throughout the school year if they truly want to better
themselves.
If you have any questions, please dont hesitate to ask.
Thank You,
Jeremy Barber

Student 3 Literacy Profile:

I decide to tutor another one of my math students.
He is a freshman and he excels in the math classroom, but often gets
problems wrong because of his weakness in writing skills. His problem
seems to be in not taking his time on math problems and often has
small mistakes that lead to getting the answer wrong. He can explain
what he is doing, just gets lost in his own writing. Several times he will
start a problem and misread a single digit which could throw off the
entire problem. He also often starts to write down descriptions on how
he solved problem but gets lost in the vocabulary algebra 1 students
should have. This student enjoys reading, but seems to not like writing
as much. He does not have any special services for school.

Data Analysis Sheets for Student #3 (Good at Math/Struggles

in Writing)
Vocab Comprehension
I had the student read a short segment on geometry vocab. The
reading had new vocabulary words with definitions and drawings.
Afterwards, the student was to go back and define a few vocab words
in their own words.
Strengths
This student had nearly flawless descriptions that were in
his own words, but there were some issues. For the most
part the student was spot on with definition of the vocab
words.

Weaknesses

Some of the students definitions wouldnt have made

sense to a non-math person. His descriptions were in an
order that could make readers confused, but made sense
to me. Another problem was they were no in complete
sentences, more just fragments put together.

Conclusions

I think that the student knows what they want to say, just
doesnt know how to say it or write it down. Their
descriptions dont make complete sense but the word
description behind it is there. This student needs work on
writing and describing their thoughts.

Visual Literacy
The student was given a venn diagram regarding kinds of music.
It was a 3 event venn diagram. The student was asked a few questions
regarding how many people occur in each event.

Strengths

This student got most of the questions right. They did

fairly well figuring out what each question was asking and
what part of the venn diagram to use.

Weaknesses

They did get lost in their own thoughts at times.

Sometimes they knew that a part needed to be included in
the total, but then forgot to add it in. Once again, the
student was rushing through it and needed to stop and
think before writing down an answer.

Conclusions

It shows that this student needs to take their time more,

as they rush through questions and make mistakes. This
also might show why on the first assessment their
definitions didnt make sense. They know what they need
to say, but then rush through it and dont know what to
write down.

Note taking and summarizing

The student was given an article to read on independent and
dependent events dealing with probability. The student was told to
note take and summarize at the end of the reading. The student was
also told to circle any words they did not know, underline a few words
or main points and write questions as they read. They read the
following article below.
http://www.wyzant.com/resources/lessons/math/statistics_and_probabili
ty/probability/further_concepts_in_probability
Strengths
This student did very well on this assessment. They wrote
many notes to themselves as they were reading, most of
the notes were just fragments. They didnt underline many
words, except the same one everyone has, mutually
exclusive.

Weaknesses

Their weakness in this assessment was the summarizing

part. Once again, it made sense to me, but others reading
might get confused in their translation of the article.

Conclusions

This student needs help connecting their thoughts and

writing them onto paper. I think if we slow down their
thinking while writing and get them writing in full
sentences it might help.

Final Conclusion:
This student needs help just slowing down their writing process
while writings summaries and other writing assignments. The student
has no problem reading and describing definitions and summaries, but
lacks correct form while writing sentences. This student will need
tutoring in helping them write down what they are thinking first, then
re-writing it in full sentences. I know they will not favor this process
because it requires more work, but I truly think it will help.
Tutoring Sessions:
Tutoring #1: Student 3 has difficulty with transferring thoughts
into writing. I used Dictoglos with him, which is a strategy that is
useful in providing learners opportunities to re-write text that they
have read. Students are exposed to content or text-specific vocabulary
words and given an opportunity to explore their meaning and use with
their peers.
Steps:
1. I chose a short text to read to the student(s).
http://www.regentsprep.org/regents/math/algebra/AE7/ExpDecay
L.htm
(only the first couple short paragraphs)
2. I read the text twice at normal speed and the student notes any
words or phrases that are familiar to him.
3. Student worked by himself to list words and phrases (could work
with pairs).

4. Student then use words in order to reconstruct a version of the

text they were read.
5. I gave student a copy of the text and asked him to compare their
version to the original.
6. I then used students version of the text to discuss grammar and
context of words in a passage.
Dictoglos
What is exponential growth?
Word/Phrases

Group Words/Phrases

Students Version of Text

Compare to Original Text

This tutoring session went well. I encouraged the student to slow down
when writing their version of the text and try to make complete
sentences. I also encouraged them to go back and re-read what they
had wrote and make changes. It seemed the student did well once they
went back and edited what they wrote the first time. After comparing
what they wrote to what the context actually said, I can tell the student
has no problem remembering context, just rushes through the process
of writing.
Tutoring #2: Student 3 has difficulty with transferring thoughts
into writing. I used just a summarizing technique with him, which is a
strategy that is useful in providing learners opportunities to write a
summary of something that they have read.
Steps:
1. I gave the student some text to read that deals with how to read
mathematics.
http://web.stonehill.edu/compsci/history_math/math-read.htm
2. While reading text, student makes notes that will help them
summarize at the end.
3. Student writes a paragraph explaining what they just read. I
explained that somebody who hasnt read this text should know
what its about after reading your paragraph.

Once again I had to encourage the student to go back and edit what
they had written the first time. The edited version was much better,
because it had complete sentences. It seemed at first that the student
just re-wrote what they had taken notes of during the reading, but
these were just short fragments of text. Im hoping that all this
encouraging of going back and re-reading what they have written and
fixing it will help in the long run.
Tutoring #3: Student 3 has difficulty with transferring thoughts
into writing. I used a Retelling technique with him, which is a
strategy that is useful in providing learners opportunities to re-tell the
class or another student what how to do something or what they have
just read. With this technique it wont be so important that the student
writes in complete sentences, however, what they write must make
sense as they explain it to the rest of the class.
Steps:
1. I gave a text to student for them to read and re-read a few times.
http://www.purplemath.com/modules/solvquad.htm
2. Student is supposed to look for the most important parts of the
text.
3. Student writes down what they are going to say.
4. Student re-tells what they have read to class or another student.
5. Allow for any follow up questions that student needs to answer.
I had the student re-tell what they read to their class in the beginning
of actual class time. I then allowed for students to ask questions. The
assessment seemed to go well. I think the student put a lot more
thought into what he was going to say, thus putting more thought into
what he wrote down. I believe since he had to talk in front of the entire
class, he re-read what he had written and edited it before he finally
explained to the class what he had read. This was my goal, to get them
to edit what they wrote on their own.
Re-Assessment and Reflection
For the final re-assessment with student #3, I decided to have
them do another summarizing technique because our goal was to get
them to show growth in getting their thoughts down on paper. This
student lacked the ability to correctly get their thought process down
into writing. We worked on making sure they go back and edit and reedit what theyve written and make sure its in complete sentences. For
the re-assessment I gave the student a reading on how venn diagrams
are used in the math classroom. The student was given the opportunity
to take notes and at the end only use those notes to make a summary
of the text. I did not allow them to go back and look through the text to
write a summary in hopes that they would take better and more

complete notes while reading. The student did fairly well when
summarizing, as most of their notes were well-written and thought-out
notes. This student has shown much growth since the first assessment
and has set forth goals to continue to grow. I believe his best
performance was when he was asked to re-tell a story in front of the
entire class, I believe this put the pressure and willingness to be
correct that he needed. I have no doubts that this process has helped
this student grow as a student.
Parent Summary
Dear Parents or Guardians,
In the last few weeks I have been gathering some data on your
son or daughter about reading and writing skills. The goal here was to
strengthen their reading and/or writing skills, no matter what level they
were at. This did not take away from any of their class time, nor did it
require them to do any extra work outside of class. The procedure that
will took place were some assessing, tutoring and then re-assessing
after to look for growth. This data I collected was seen by no one
besides me and your student. My goal was to help increase your son or
daughters reading/writing skill, not only in a reading class, but also in
deciphering math problems that a student commonly struggles with.
Your son or daughter was not chosen because they showed a weak
reading skill, but because of a variety of tasks I planned to implement
to see if they help improve all types of readers. One of our many goals
here at the high school is to incorporate other subject areas in the
math classroom, especially reading, as it is very important for their
future. After assessing and collecting data, I have concluded that your
student struggles mainly with collecting their thoughts and transferring
them into their own writing. We worked on making sure they revise and
write in complete sentences when they are writing text. I had your
student writing their own definitions of several words along with having
them re-tell something they read to the class. I chose this method,
because I felt it they were describing to their peers, they may be more
inclined to edit their work and make sure it makes sense. I believe the
work has paid off because in our last tutoring session when they re-told
the text to the class, they did very well and the sentences were well
thought out. We talked about some techniques we need to use to make
sure this growth continues. If they continue with these techniques,
they will definitely improve in their reading and writing skills.
If you have any questions, please dont hesitate to ask.
Thank You,
Jeremy Barber