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Comprehensive Exam Question #1

Jeanie Hawkins

March 7,2005

My Role in Reading & Language Arts Instruction

Four years ago I was afforded the opportunity to develop the Title I Reading program at a new elementary school in Burke County. While feeling excited about the prospect of focusing more on my growing love of reading development, I was anxious as to how I would structure and facilitate a strong program. Having taught first grade for five years, I thought I knew a great deal about the early stages of reading development and had applied this knowledge when working in upper grade classrooms successfully. However, it was not until I began the graduate program with ASU that I began to understand why certain strategies of instruction, use of assessments, and use of materials worked and made sense.

Through the four years of the reading specialist program, I have gained and applied knowledge in various aspects of reading success and failure. Working closely with instructors at Appalachian and colleagues throughout western North Carolina and attending numerous IRA conferences in the Southeast have greatly influenced my knowledge base and teaching practices.

Meeting the needs of the diverse levels of readers has been and will always be challenging. My role as a Title I Reading Specialist must be to help in the assessment and diagnosis of the reading needs in our school community. During the initial phase of implementation of the title I program at my school, the reading team consisted of one fulltime certified teacher (myself) and two part time paraprofessionals. We began by working with small groups of five or fewer students in thirty-minute increments. Within three months of the program’s start-up, I realized that this was insufficient. Our schools population had grown from roughly 390 students to approximately 470. This steady increase continued throughout the following three years, causing us to rethink our Title I monetary commitments. Currently, we have two full time certified teachers and four highly trained paraprofessionals (one is part time). Our team works closely with the classroom teachers to focus and support instruction. We work with all grade levels (K-5) in both inclusion and pullout settings. We target our inclusion time during the guided and sustained silent reading components of the Four Blocks program. Pull out situations occur during science and social studies exploration times for those students deemed most needy by the classroom teacher and Title I staff. Since our classroom teachers incorporate these subjects into contextual reading during their guided reading blocks (where, as mentioned before, ratio of students to teacher are smaller), we feel we are justified in pulling the students for individualized reading instruction during this time and that the students are still learning within the content areas.

Assessment of Reading Achievement/Needs in Title I Program

Assessment is a vital component of the reading program; however, it can be overdone. It is important that one does not become so caught up in assessing students that instruction suffers as a result. Though there is no argument that the level of testing in today’s schools, compounded by the No Child Left Behind Act, is unwarranted and too often misconstrued as the driving force (sole purpose) for education, it is nonetheless inevitable and therefore must be used constructively. Initial or benchmark assessment gives the teacher pertinent information of the students’ strengths and weaknesses and is used to measure growth throughout the school year. It helps the classroom teacher and Title I team focus instruction on the areas with which a particular student is struggling.

Formal assessment takes place across the school at the beginning of the school year. Students in grades one through three are tested individually by members of the Title I Reading Team, using the state adopted Running Records Assessment. The team verifies reading accuracy, rate, and comprehension while coding errors and providing miscue analysis for each student. The goal is to determine each student’s independent, instructional, and frustrational reading levels. This information is provided for the teacher with a carefully written summary for each child in his/her classroom. When questions arise, the Title I staff and classroom teacher conference on the details of each assessment. This method has proven to be successful in our school by allowing teachers to continue with uninterrupted classroom activities, fewer procedural inconsistencies across grade levels and among classrooms, relieving the classroom teacher so that he/she is more focused on the test’s results than on the nuisance

of completing its administration. For grades four and five, teachers use classroom evaluation coupled with the results from the previous year’s end-of-grade reading test in order to refer students who are in need of further reading assessment. Kindergarteners are assessed formally beginning in December, which affords them an opportunity to become acclimated with a school setting and to gain some confidence independent from their classroom.

Once classroom teachers and the reading specialists have studied the data collected from these initial assessment batteries, students are selected to participate in the Title I Program. Once these students have been designated, a more intense round of testing takes place. The following are tests that are administered to individual students who qualify for Title I services along with a brief description and rationale for use.

Word Recognition Inventory (WRI)~

The Word Recognition Inventory is a list of words arranged by grade level. The administrator uses cards to “flash” the words on the list to the student. The “flash” time consists of approximately ¼ second. If the student does not recognize the word or provides an incorrect response, the administrator reopens the cards to allow the student to view the word again (no time limit) and provide another answer. “Flashed” responses and untimed responses are scored separately. The test continues until the student reads below fifty percent on the “flash.”

Word recognition is essential in one’s ability to read. This first assessment is given for the purpose of determining a student’s sight vocabulary and decoding ability, as well as providing a good prediction of the student’s instructional reading level. By determining at which grade level a student scored between seventy and eighty-eight percent, the administrator can select an appropriately graded passage for oral and silent reading assessment.

Informal Reading Inventory (IRI)~

The IRI consists of graded passages with several comprehension questions at the end of each passage (on the administrator’s copy only). During the initial introduction to the IRI, students are asked to read aloud the passages as the test administrator marks errors in accuracy and monitors rate on a separate copy of the text. When the student has finished the reading, he/she is asked comprehension questions. The test administrator uses the scores in accuracy, comprehension, and rate to determine the student’s independent, instructional, and frustrational reading levels.

This portion of the reading assessment provides the instructor with information on a variety of reading methods. By completing miscue analysis of errors and studying the patterns of errors, the teacher can better understand what type of interventions to use in future reading instruction.

Silent reading comprehension and listening comprehension can be assessed with the same tool using alternative graded passages. Information from these two types of assessments is used when comprehension and rate are in question.

Spelling Inventory~

Students are asked to spell words from the McGuffey Qualitative Inventory of Word Knowledge (Schlagal, 1992). The words in this spelling inventory reflect high frequency spelling features. First, the administrator models the process of spelling with the student sounding out the word one letter at a time. Then he/she appeals to the student to try the same procedure for upcoming words. Words are presented in their natural pronunciations, not drawn out or over-emphasized, then used in a phrase or sentence before being repeated a final time (i.e. “Bike…I ride my bike to school…Bike”). Students continue with the spelling assessment until they can no longer produce fifty percent of the words.

Assessing a student’s orthographic knowledge and application of spelling procedures is a time efficient method of assisting the reading teacher in the planning and implementation of effective word study. Determining the spelling stage at which a student is performing also gives the teacher a better understanding of the student’s phonological awareness.

Early Reading Screening Inventory (ERSI)~

The ERSI is used for students in kindergarten and first grade as their benchmark assessment. Much as the above mentioned assessments of reading, the Early Reading Screening Inventory gives the teacher a bettering understanding of each student’s developmental reading stage. With younger or seriously delayed students, we rely on the ERSI to gain information about book and print awareness, alphabet recognition and production, sight word recognition and phonemic awareness through spelling tasks.

Other Methods of Assessment~

Informal assessments of reading are taken throughout the year to track growth and reading success by both the Title I staff and classroom teacher. At the mid-year mark, Burke County students in grades three through five are tested according to the end-of-grade curriculum requirements. The results from this test are used to focus guided reading questioning techniques, targeting those standards that have yet to be met (to be discussed in Reading Instruction). Formative and summative running records are implemented across all grade levels. Reading skills and word study checklists are kept as a record of each student’s interaction with text. All methods of assessment are considered when constructing and pacing lessons, forming collaborative groups, and planning for individualized assistance.

Methods of Reading Instruction

With the limited times that the Title I Reading Team is available to work with students in each grade level, it has been a constant struggle to make the most out of our scheduling. Four Blocks reading instruction has become a vital part of our school day understandably so. Our school’s teachers have had a pivotal role in the planning and scheduling of our school day. Working as a team, we have devised plans that benefit all grade levels and allow each student the extra reading attention that is mandated by Title I.

Our reading program consists of forty to seventy-five minutes of daily reading instruction in a heterogeneous, inclusive setting with the student to teacher ratio of 8:1 in grades four and five and 5:1 in grades one through three. This takes place during the guided and sustained silent reading blocks of the Four Block structure. By lowering the number of students per teacher in each room, we have succeeding in increasing the quality of feedback and monitoring accomplished during these lessons. The logic behind such heterogeneous grouping lies in the belief that all students arrive at the task of reading with divergent knowledge and abilities. We capitalize on this diversity by allowing students to work together in the creation of a positive learning atmosphere without the stigmas associated with controlled ability grouping. We realize that with the demands placed on student/teacher accountability, accommodations must be made for struggling readers. For this reason, we employ flexible ability grouping in order to achieve specific goals for these students (Sigmon et al, 2001).

Inclusion During Guided Reading~

During guided reading we strive to keep students actively engaged with text for a minimum of forty minutes by applying pre-, during, and post reading strategies. By building and activating knowledge of the subject prior to reading, eliciting critical thinking about story elements while reading, and using this information to make connections with text after reading, the dynamic goal of comprehension is more easily achieved.

Each time a new guided reading strategy is introduced, it is carefully modeled by the teacher. After the teacher has walked the students through the steps, they are allotted time to practice in small groups and/or literature circles. Students use this opportunity to learn from one another while the classroom teacher and support staff circulates to monitor and provide assistance. The following are examples of some of the literacy strategies used during guided reading: probable passages, DRTA, talking drawings, anticipation/reaction guides, KWL, story frames, character analysis charts, Venn diagrams.

Inclusion During Sustained Silent Reading~

During sustained silent reading times the students keep a log of the self-selected book they are reading, its genre, and the time spent reading. Thirty minutes per day, four days a week (one day is set aside for conferencing) are dedicated to the act of silent reading at the student’s independent reading level. This comes from the assumption that students are more motivated to read when they are permitted to make decision about what they are reading and when they are allotted uninterrupted time for reading (Gambrell et al, 1996).

Students use sticky notes to mark areas of text they wish to discuss with the teacher during conferencing. All students conference once a week with his/her classroom teacher, while those students qualifying for further Title I assistance meet to conference with a member of the Title I team or another adult at least once more. The goal of these conferences for the teacher is to monitor fluency and comprehension, as well as to offer support through discussion of the literature and to help the students with future text selections. This is as much a learning endeavor for me as a teacher as it is for the student being consulted. It helps me gain a better understanding of the types of literature specific students are interested in and the level of success my children are achieving while reading independently. Sustained silent reading has served as a strong motivator and contributes to exceptional reading growth in the classroom. This procedure is encouraged at home as well because of its strong correlation between time spent reading and reading success.

Pullout Instructional Reading Methods~

Students who are in need of further more intensive reading regiments are pulled out of class and tutored by individual members of the Title I Reading Team. These small groups are organized according to ability and instructional need but operate in a flexible ability grouping capacity, which allows us to renegotiate members as needed. Comprehension, word study, spelling, fluency, and writing are needs most often addressed in the fifty-minute pullout sessions. A sample lesson plan structure follows:

Read Aloud~

  • Five – ten minutes
  • Helps to focus students
  • Provides a model of fluent reading and “think-aloud” comprehension while serving to peak students’ interests in variety of genres.
  • Jim Trelease states that reading aloud to children has proven to be the “single most important activity for building knowledge and eventual success in reading (Trelease et al, 2001).”

Guided Reading~

  • Twenty minutes
  • Students participate in reading text on instructional reading level while learning and practicing comprehension skills and strategies. through: DRTA, Echo Reading, Partner Reading, Choral Reading, Literature Response Questions (geared toward EOG standards)
  • Based on the model of the Four Blocks Literacy Program, Cheryl Sigmon reiterates the need for “direct, explicit instruction of comprehension strategies” and a time to apply this knowledge in order to succeed (Cunningham et al, 1998; Sigmon et al, 2001).

Word Study~

  • Five – seven minutes
  • Students engage in word sort activities in which they examine patterns and consistencies of the written language for the purpose of mastering recognition, spelling, and meaning.
  • Sequential presentation of the features to be explored is elicited from the initial spelling inventory and writing samples collected during assessment.
  • Strategies included: concept sorts, word family sorts, contrasting feature pattern sorts, word hunts, concentration, word jeopardy, speed/timed sorts, blind sorting, etc.
  • “Designing a word study program that explicitly teaches necessary skills while engaging students’ interest and motivation is clearly one of the most important aspects of a literacy program (Bear et al, 2000).”

Spelling~

  • Five minutes
  • Students use a combination of tactile letters and written process to practice and apply phonemic and orthographic concepts in spelling through Spell-Say-Write, Making Words, Blind Spelling Sorts, Rainbow Writing, Word Wall activities, “tapping” exercises, etc.
  • Spelling and writing are correlated to reading success. When orthographic knowledge, phonemic awareness, and phonology come together, reading and writing can take off as seen in the Braid of Literacy model (Bear et al, 2000).
  • Though struggling students may learn spelling patterns for a weekly test, many do not retain or apply this knowledge outside of this context; thus, it is crucial for the manipulation of letters and sounds to be a part of spelling instruction (Cunningham, 1998).

Vocabulary~