Connie Henderson 1

Connie Henderson RE 5710 Comprehensive Exam Part # 1 Dr.Moorman Spring 2011

Introduction

I retired from teaching second and third grades in 2004. For a number of years while I was teaching I served on our school’s Student Assistance Team. We tried to develop interventions for students struggling with behavior or academic progress. Since my retirement I have served as a Master Mentor for ILTs (Initially Certified Teachers) and I have been a remediation tutor working with small groups of students in the Catawba County Schools.

During my career and since I left the classroom, I have found myself troubled about how many students do not read well at their grade level. I have wondered: With all we are doing why are too many of our children still struggling readers? It is estimated that schools have had difficulty teaching from 15% to 40% of students to read, depending on socioeconomic circumstance (Morris 1999). Where are we failing in our attempt to produce fluent readers who love to read? I have never accepted that we have students today that are handicapped by their lack of strong reading skills. I don’t accept it because it’s not right. Being able to read well is a gift and a necessary skill for success in the future. Actually, I feel learning to read is a human right. Students and their parents have the right to expect we will teach all children to read. I was pleased to discover recently that the United Nations, in Article 26 of its Declaration of Human Rights, believes that learning to read, write and go to school are rights and privileges to be extended to every child in the world. I strongly agree!

After my retirement I happened to read the book The Teacher Who Couldn’t Read by John Corcoran. John tells his painful life story about struggling, but never succeeding in learning to read. His struggle continued into adulthood. In fact, he did not learn to read until he was more than fifty years old. His story made me decide to enter Graduate School to earn a Masters in Reading Education. At this point in my life I now have time and a deep desire to address the problem of struggling readers from my position as a retired teacher.

After more than two years of hard work in my Masters courses with Appalachian, I’m prepared with knowledge and an understanding of how to apply that knowledge. I’m ready and eager. I want to involve myself in empowering children to enter the world of print with skills that will make them comfortable and successful.

Focus of Response

Because I am a retired teacher I will address questions for the Comprehensive Exam Part # 1 from the standpoint of what I have learned and how I could share that knowledge as a tutor and as Master Mentor assigned to help a struggling ILT. I also want to explore how I might influence best practices beginning with one or two first or second grade classrooms. My hope would be for administration to see what really works in teaching beginning readers. Finally, I would like to influence my profession to be more attentive to what research tells us about what we must do, especially for struggling readers, to help them acquire strong reading skills.

Assessment

One very important lesson I have learned at Appalachian in the Reading Masters courses is I must teach a student where he is if I expect that student to progress to a higher skill level. Reading is a developmental process made of steps. If I want to build strong reading skills in a student, I cannot skip steps. His grade level cannot be the determining factor in planning his reading instruction.

Assessment plays an essential role in a student’s success if proper assessments are used and used correctly. I must know what his skills are, where he is, before I choose what to teach a student. I will start my discussion with beginning readers. However, even if I work with an older struggling reader, I must understand the steps to acquiring reading skills all children follow to become successful readers (Spear-Swerling & Sternberg, 1998). Only then will I know what to do to help a younger or older student get back on the path to successful reading.

If I were tutoring a struggling first grade student, or helping an ILT with that student I would observe the child and look at his writing. To be sure what alphabet and print skills he has acquired I would do some simple assessments explained in The Howard Street Tutoring Manual (Morris, 2005). First, I would administer the alphabet knowledge task. The task contains two parts: recognition of upper and lower case letters as I point to them in random order; and production in which the student writes the alphabet letters as I name them in random order. Ability to name and recognize the letters of the alphabet is important knowledge for beginning readers. Knowing how to write the alphabet letters allows the child to begin “sound-it-out”, invented spellings, as he begins to write.

The second part of the assessment would be to evaluate the student’s Concept of Word in Text. The “Katie” task shows if a student can use a short passage he has memorized and match the spoken words to the print accurately by pointing to the words as he “reads” them to me. Until a student can accurately match spoken words to print he won’t be able to learn new sight words or use letter-sound cues starting with initial consonants, then ending consonants. Thus Concept of Word is very important in the process of learning to read.

If I observed the student and his work and noticed that he seemed to have more knowledge of the alphabet than just a few letters I would begin the 20 word spelling task in The Howard Street Tutoring Manual (Morris 2005). The task has 10 first and 10 second grade words. If the student could produce the beginning consonant letter in just one of the first four words, I would give him the entire 20 words. I might give the test in 2 sessions. Looking at what the student does know would be very important. Dr. Morris’ book points out that spelling ability and word reading ability are highly correlated in K-2 grades. Looking at how a beginning reader tries to spell words would tell me about his phoneme awareness (awareness that words are made of sequences of sounds) and about his orthographic awareness (his knowledge of frequent letter sequences and spelling patterns). Both phoneme and orthographic knowledge must be built in the process of learning to read.

For a struggling reader who has alphabet knowledge, concept of word, and from my observations seems to be able to read some words, I would administer other assessments. For this student I would use 3 assessments from The Howard Street Tutoring Manual (Morris, 2005) : (1) word recognition (graded lists), (2) oral reading passages, and (3) spelling. The word recognition task begins with a Preprimer list and continues through an Eighth grade list included in Diagnosis and Correction of Reading Problems (Morris 2008). Each list has 20 words. Cards are used to cover the words, then uncover them for approximately ½ second. This is a “flash” or timed score. The student gets a second look if he fails to read a word correctly during the “flash” time. Incorrect responses are recorded in flash and untimed scores. The Howard Street Tutoring Manual (Morris, 2005) suggests a score of 60% or higher in the Flash column usually means that the student has a strong enough sight vocabulary to read at this level. The flash score (indicating sight vocabulary) is a better predictor of contextual reading ability while the untimed score better indicates decoding ability. Both pieces of information are important for placing the child in the correct reading and word study levels.

The second task for assessment is a set of Graded Oral Reading Passages. These tests range from first grade to eighth grade levels. Students should be placed at the highest grade level where he scored 80% or better on the flash-word recognition test. The student would read a passage orally as I time him and note errors. After we put the story away I would ask comprehension questions. From this test I could derive an oral reading accuracy score, a reading rate (words per minute), and a comprehension score. The information would indicate his independent, instructional, and frustration reading levels. As result I would know where to instruct this student in reading and how to help him choose independent reading materials.

The third task is a spelling test. It is the Schlagal Qualitative Inventory of Word Knowledge made of 12 word lists ranging in difficulty from first to eighth grade. All students start with the first grade list and continue writing the dictated words until he misses eight or more words. Although a spelling level can be indicated by this test, I would look very closely at the types of mistakes made by a student as a guide for placing him in a spelling/word study level.

The graded levels of these assessments means I could move up into higher grades as I work with students and their teachers.

A final assessment can be a silent reading test. The silent reading test gives scores on rate (words per minute) and comprehension. If I had the time it would be a good test to include, especially to check on comprehension skills in older readers. However, if time does not allow, the previous oral reading, word recognition, and spelling tests will yield valuable information about what a student knows at different levels so instruction can be planned to meet his needs. For struggling readers I would try to assess in the three areas described, two or three times during the year.

I have described what I would do, ideally, in a tutoring situation. K-2 teachers usually have some teacher assistant help and a number of school system and personal assessments tools they regularly use. However, in the real world of teaching, what is a busy teacher (third grade and above) with no teacher assistant help supposed to do? He/she simply can’t administer word recognition, oral passage reading, silent reading, and spelling tests to one or more classes of students. I would advise the teacher to at least give the entire the Schlagel Spelling Test. A teacher could easily give the class a Spelling test on grade level, below their grade level, and a grade level above the grade they are teaching. The results would reveal valuable information about the students’ word and spelling pattern knowledge. Good teachers quickly identify students who lack grade level skills in reading. The spelling test results and his/her observations would help identify students who will need specific instruction in spelling and reading designed to meet their needs. For those students, giving the Word Recognition Tests could provide more information about what they know and where they need to be instructed. If personnel are available, or the teacher can manage coverage for his/her class it would be ideal to continue to gather information about the struggling readers by giving them at least the oral passages and, if possible, the silent passages. Proper assessment is essential to planning and providing effective instruction.

Planning Reading Instruction

The fact that I am a retired teacher means I won’t be planning instruction in my own classroom. However, in my role as a Master Mentor I have already been asked to help ILTs improve reading instruction in the primary grades. After my classes in the Reading Masters Program I am much better prepared to guide a teacher in planning an effective early reading program. My responses will be from that position. However, many practices in a primary classroom that foster strong reading skills continue to be effective with older students.

Where would I begin to plan instruction designed to create successful readers who enjoy reading? I would begin with a print rich environment, with books, lots and lots of books! Classroom books should be fun, serious, fiction, non-fiction, poetry, biography, autobiography, poems, about young, old, and different races and places, award winners, and children’s favorites, graphic novels, and magazines. Each year I would try to inquire about students’ interests and find books to match those interests. I would create a classroom library of leveled books chosen to provide a wide range of interests.

I would recommend reading to students as a nearly sacred practice. It should not be, “If we have time…” It should be core curriculum as necessary as lunch! In the February/March 2011 Reading Today magazine from the International Reading Association Deborah Hollimon’s Letter to the Editor states how simple it is to read to students but how powerful it is in terms of building vocabulary and literacy skills. Hollimon states, “Most new vocabulary is learned through reading. Read-alouds provide students a good oral fluency model and establish a pleasurable connection with books.”

I would invite parents and guests in to read to students. Why? Book language is not the same as spoken language. Children are born and learn to talk without direct instruction. Most children must have direct exposure/instruction in the skills that lead to print literacy. Children have to learn how print works in books. But all children have not had that exposure and experience before entering school. Dr. Gill shared with us that some kindergarteners enter school having 1500 or more hours of experience with books being read to them. Other children enter school with 500 or fewer hours of experience being read to at home. We must do all we can when they enter school to give these children as much print experience as possible. A print-rich environment will keep those well-prepared to begin to read moving ahead in skills and it will begin to provide students lacking book experience a foundation upon which reading skills can be taught.

How would I plan or help a teacher plan a classroom reading program? I will address a