Kayla Harrison

Lessons 9 & 10: October 19 and 21, 2015

School Reading Problems
Dr. Madden
Reflection #5
Objective

Teaching Strategy

Fluency
Lesson #9: Using a familiar book, Dawson Dawson is familiar with the book
Grumpy Bird by Jeremy Tankard from
will demonstrate the ability to read with
school. This is why I chose this particular
expression and read at a pace of 80 words
per minute. He will also utilize the fluency book to access his fluency. I informed
Dawson that he would be reading and
checklist to evaluate his reading.
while he is reading I would be audio
recording him. After he is finished, he will
listen to the recording and evaluate his
reading based upon the Fluency Checklist.

Outcomes
(Descriptive evidence objective was met)
After reviewing the audio recording, I
concluded that Dawson had read 78 words
in a minute. He is extremely close to
achieving the goal of 80 words per minute.
When Dawson reads, sometimes he will
begin telling a story of his own that relates
to something in the story. This can
sometimes distract him from reading
fluently, however, it is great that he can
make these connections.
When Dawson evaluated his reading on
the checklist, he concluded that his
accuracy and rate were average, his
expression was poor, but his punctuation
detection was excellent. He noted at the
bottom that his goal for the next session is
to read with expression.
I agree with Dawsons evaluation of his
reading. He did not read with expression
in this particular case, but he read with a
much better rate than usual. He

recognized this, and set that as his goal for

the future. In future sessions, we will
continue to work on rate (80 words per
minute) and expression.
Comprehension

Lesson #10: Dawson will be able to read

an informational text at his instructional
level. Dawson will also be able to
complete a 3-2-1 chart to document
comprehension.

I began by introducing the text, How Birds

Fly, which is on Dawsons instructional
level. I reviewed his 3-2-1 activity from
last session, and informed him that he
would be doing another one today. I also
told Dawson that for the reading this
session, we would be partner reading,
meaning I read one page and he reads one
page.
During the reading, I stopped Dawson at a
few places, asking him Right There
questions (QAR). One question I asked
was, How many fingers do birds have on
each hand?
After the reading, Dawson was instructed
to fill out the 3-2-1 chart with the title of
the book, the author, 3 facts that he learned
from the reading, 2 questions he had for
the author, and 1 interesting fact.

After completing the reading, I realize that

the partner reading was not necessary. My
real reasoning for partner reading was due
to the time it would take for him to read it.
There is so little time in our sessions, and I
thought it would cut down time. I should
have let him read the entire book himself.
He responded correctly to the questions I
asked him during the reading.
After the reading, he jumped up and went
to the board eagerly. He began writing the
title and author without me having to
explain what to do. He showed much
improvement this session than last session
when he completed the 3-2-1 activity. He
didnt even need to look in the book to
remember things he had learned. I
definitely think this book was perfect for
instruction and that he is improving in his
comprehension skills.
The questions he asked were relevant to
the topic and thought out. The questions
he asked took a little bit of what hed
learned in previous sessions and applied it
to this topic. For example, he asked Do
pigeons fly? He has been reading the
Pigeon series by Mo Willems for several
weeks now, and he remembered that
pigeons are birds and asked if they fly, too.
He also asked, Does (do) birds have

night vision at night and day? Last

session he read about bats and learned that
they have excellent night vision. He also
knew that bats are similar to birds, and
tried to connect the two. He was using his
schema and evidence from the text to ask
reasonable questions. I was very
impressed with how this section of the
lesson went.
Lesson #9: Dawson will use his
knowledge of writing the who, what,
when, where, and why, to write a few
sentences about Halloween. He will use
brainstorming skills, as well, that he
learned in previous sessions.

Writing
We started off by modeling a sample story
about Halloween. We went through the
sample story and highlighted the who,
what, when, where, and why. We, then,
reviewed the importance of including these
in a story. Then, we asked Dawson what
he is doing for Halloween: dressing up,
trick or treating, etc. He was instructed to
begin brainstorming ideas.
After he had finished brainstorming, he
was instructed to write complete sentences
about his Halloween and what he wanted
to do. We did a sentence together on the
board to help get him started.

Dawson chose to begin his story with On

October 13th, because he wanted to tell
the reader when the story was taking place
first. After he had written that phrase, he
wrote I and followed it by it is almost
Halloween. He told me he had put the I
there because it was telling the who of the
story and then he wanted to say what was
happening on that day. I explained to him
that it doesnt make sense to put the I
there. I realized in that moment that I
should have started him off with writing a
beginning, middle, and end, instead of
introducing who, what, when, etc.
The next sentence he wrote told what he
did on that day. He wrote: I got my
costume and pretended that I was the
master chief from halo. He put a period
after pretended. When I asked why he
had done that, he read the sentence for me
without stopping for the period, then said,
I need to stop there because this sentence

takes too much breath. I thought it was a

good time to explain commas and what
they can be used for. I explained that
commas tell us to breath for a second, but
that there is more information to come. He
didnt seem to understand because he
changed all the periods in his piece to
commas, but then he got frustrated and
said he was going to leave the period there
(after pretended). I stopped explaining
after he showed frustration.
He did write two complete sentences, and
that is more than he was able to write last
session, which is definitely an
improvement. I hope to change the writing
up next session and use beginning, middle,
and end as a writing strategy instead of
who, what, when, etc., which seemed too
challenging.
Lesson #10: After review, Dawson will
demonstrate his understanding of -ai and
-ay words through a ping pong sorting
game, followed by constructing sentences
using -ai and -ay words.

Word Study
To begin the lesson, Rachael wrote the
words brain and say on the board. She
introduced that we would be reviewing -ai
and -ay words. Dawson was asked to
identify the words on the board, then
Rachael read a few words aloud and
Dawson was asked to identify whether or
not the word is spelled with -ai or -ay.
Dawson was then given 12 ping pong balls
containing -ai and -ay words, that he was
instructed to say aloud and sort them into

Before Rachael could ask Dawson to

identify the words on the board, he read
them: brain and say. Rachael moved
onto the next words, saying them aloud,
but they werent visible to Dawson.
Dawson identified the correct patterns for
each word, except for the word essay. I
do not know if he knew what word she was
saying or he did not know what the word
meant, because he said there was no long a
sound in the word. It took him a minute
before he said, oh wait, and then

buckets that contained the -ai and -ay

patterns.

concluded that it had a long a sound at the

end.

After the sort, he was asked to pick a word

from each pattern bucket and write a
sentence containing that word.

Dawson accurately identified the patterns

in each word and sorted them into the
correct buckets.
When Dawson was asked to write
sentences using the words hed picked out
of the buckets, he did better than I had
anticipated. His first sentence involved the
word main. He wrote: The main
hallway is on your lepht. He looked at
his sentence for a moment before asking,
Is that how you spell left? Rachael
explained that left is spelled with an f, but
he was correct with the sound that goes
there. After fixing the spelling, he began
his second sentence using today. He
wrote: Today is the main idey to get the
peppel to help the monarks buterfliy to not
dei today. After several words he stopped
and reread what hed written so far and
pointed to each word as he read it. His
sentence did not make sense, however, he
had made a complete thought and written it
down. He was confident with what he had
written, and that is one step further than he
was before. I am proud of how far he has
come thus far. He has shown progress.
In the next few sessions I would like to
work on sentences with him. Those are

what he seems to struggle with the most

when writing. I believe that is why he
hates to write, because he struggles with it
so much. I want to make it fun, but also a
helpful learning experience.

Evidence from Lessons 9 & 10

Fluency Checklist

3-2-1 Chart for How Birds Fly

Tutors sample story and Tutees Halloween story

Tutees sentences using -ai and -ay words