Summary of Tutoring Abigail
Abigail (pseudonym)is seven years old. She repeated first grade and will begin second grade this fall. She was not originally chosen for the practicum. Her stepbrother was chosen and her parents brought her early the first day in hopes that there would be an opening for her. They knew Abigail was below grade level in reading and that the practicum would benefit her. On the first day, we did not think that my student was coming (she came late), so Abigail became my student.
On the initial assessment,Abigail’s frustrational level was primer. Her oral reading accuracy was 86%. This was below the instruction level minimum of 90%. She made 14 errors on this passage; five were meaning change errors and two were self-corrections. Her word recognition was 60% flash and 80% untimed. Her comprehension was 100% and this was above the instruction level range of 50%-75%. The accuracy and word recognition scores made primer her frustrational level.
Her instructional level was preprimer. Her oral reading accuracy was 89%, which was above the instructional level of 85%. She made nine errors and three of these were meaning change. She made one self-correction. Her word recognition was 75% flash and 95% untimed. Preprimerwas her instructional level.
Emergent was her independent level. Her oral reading accuracy was 98%, which was well above the instructional level minimum of 85%. She made one error, which was meaning change.
On the first level spelling, she scored 50% and 0% on the second level. I feel that she gave up and did not try her best on the second level. Her parents really wanted her in the clinic and I expected the same attitude from her. Instead, before I was finished with the assessment, she was ready to go.
She is seven years old and her birthday is September 24. The early birthday could have been the cause of some of her reading problems, but after two years in first grade, she should be at level 1-2, not preprimer. During the third week of the clinic,her mother told me that Abigail was on medication for ADHD and that she did not take the medicine that week. Being on and off the medication affected her behavior and attention daily. One day she did not want to turn the pages of the books during guided reading, but the last day she said, “I don’t want to leave you.” I saw this good and bad attitude almost daily during our tutoring sessions.
Her strengths are her enthusiasm at the beginning of the lesson, making connections to the stories, word recognition, and comprehension. I used these strengths to keep her interested in the lessons. I talked with her about subjects that concerned her, especially her pets. We read books with dogs in them and some of the read alouds were about pets and animals. We talked about the stories that I read to her. She enjoyed playing the word games and she was good at them.
Her weaknesses are accuracy and ability to stay focused. I addressed these weaknesses by using texts on her instructional level. I kept her engaged and interested by being enthusiastic myself, choosing books that attracted her, and having a fast-paced lesson with no down time.
Abigail tested at the preprimer level and I began her guided reading at PP3, level 5. We stayed on level 5 for two weeks and then moved to level 6 for the last two weeks. I thought that she just needed more practice and we stayed with the easier level 6. I continued with the same lesson format of reading three books, word study, writing a couple of sentences, introducing a new book, and a read aloud. She liked the books with lots of repetition and rhythm (Mr. Grump and Lazy Mary). I did not see much improvement. I echo read and we partner read. Even the first book in the guided reading, whichshe had already read for three days, she made many self-corrections. The words that she read were not close to the words printed. For example the text might read, The class went to the playground. Abigail would say, “The boy ran home, ah, the class went to the playground.” I usually did not say anything; she realized her mistake and then read correctly. She knew the words, she just did not read accurately the first time. I had her point to each word and this helped some, but she still made two to three self-corrections on each page.
I started with the one dot short vowel a words because I wanted to be sure that she had a good knowledge of these patterns. She did well with these and we were able to move through all the one dot short vowels with time to review. Often she had trouble with “s” words (sled, spit, spun, etc.). When I flashed the word sort, she was able to read most of them automatically. She was able to spell the words, having an 87% correct average during the month.
Usually Abigailwrote about her pets. Some days she said that she needed more lines and other days she did not want to write (almost refusing to write). She spelled well for a preprimer and knew her sounds. I did not see any change in her writing.
I did not see very much growth during the clinic. She was able to focus on individual words in word study, but not in context. She would say a phrase, then self-correct, and then read the words correctly. I am not sure, if it is a focusing issue due to her ADHD or if she has a reading disability. Possibly, it is a combination of many factors. Maybe she just needs more time with this lesson plan, but if improvement and progress are not made within a reasonable amount of time, then the instructional plan needs to change. Abigail needs the continued help of a one-on-one reading tutor and I hope that this will be available for her in second grade. With individual help, she can become a successful reader.
Adapted Instructional Strategies for Classroom Use
I use many of the instructional ideas that were taught during the practicum including, but not limited to, First Steps, Readers Theater, poetry for fluency, Quick Reads, DRTA, word sorts, and reinforcement games. I also learned and was reminded of many strategies that I can use with my small groups.
I have been using one lesson format for my First Steps groups (the beginning reader). I am going to include the other lesson plans with my groups. I have not been doing the easy read with primer and up levels. In addition, once the student got to chapter books, I stopped writing. If I have one student or a small group, I plan to do the easy read, timed repeated readings, and writing. In small groups, I tried letting students time each other on word lists. We shared timers and it was chaotic. I plan to get more timers and try again to let the students time each other in timed repeated readings/high frequency words. I also am going to put writing back into my lesson plans.
Echo read and choral read are two areas that I want to include more in my teaching. In addition, I plan to use the one-one-one procedure where the teacher reads one page, the student oral reads the next page, and then the student reads silently the third page.
Another idea that I plan to use with my struggling older readers is to get them to stop at the end of a page or paragraph and think about what they read. Did it make sense? If not, have them reread the page.
Most of the instructional ideas that were taught can be used with my one-on-one or small groups. If I could just extend the class time, then I could use more of the strategies that I learned.