clinic portfolio

LITERACY TUTORING PORTFOLIO

Tutor: Mary StangTutee: Student A

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Student Background Information………………….……………………..p. 3

Tests Administered………………………………………………………..p. 4

Test Results and Observations………………………………………….p. 5-7

Summary and Recommendations………………………………………p. 8-10

PART I. STUDENT BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Identifying Data

Student: Student A

School/Teacher: Greenwood Elementary School/Garrison

Chronological Age: 10 School Grade: 5th

Reason for Referral

Student A’s primary language at home is one other than English and therefore, some of her background knowledge and vocabulary is limited.

Background Information

Student A is a 5th grader who enjoys reading fiction books, mainly mystery or fantasy. She likes school primarily because it gives her an opportunity to socialize with friends. Overall, Student A has a fairly positive view of reading and strives to be a strong reader. The tutoring sessions took place in the Greenwood Elementary Library for just over an hour every Tuesday afternoon following the regular school day.

Behavioral Observations

Student A usually came to tutoring on time and was excited to read and get to work. She works to please those around her and therefore would willingly complete the tasks asked of her. She would occasionally try to stall, especially during the writing time, by getting off subject and talking. However, she was always able to be redirected and would get back on task. Occasionally, Student A would appear to become tired toward the end of the lesson; She become less enthused about the task at hand and put less effort into her work. However, overall Student A was typically very excited to learn and always willing to put forth her best effort.

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PART II. TESTS ADMINISTERED

Materials and Procedures Administered

Table 1. An Overview of the Assessment Materials, Purposes, and Uses

Assessment Purpose and Use Date of Administration

Elementary Reading Attitude Survey

Enables teachers to gain insight from students on their attitude about reading at home and in school. This helps teachers to best reach the specific needs of each student.

September 25, 2012

Interest Inventory Identify topics that individual students may be most interested in. Can be beneficial when selecting texts that each individual student may find appealing.

September 25, 2012

Basic Reading Inventory (BRI)

Used to estimate a student’s instructional level and allows a teacher to gain insight into a student’s reading level, strengths, and weaknesses.

Word Lists:October 2, 2012

Passages:October 9, 2012

Running Records Used to record and analyze a reader’s behaviors. They provide insight to the common errors a reader makes and allows educators to gauge instructional need.

October 2, 2012October 9, 2012October 23, 2012October 30, 2012November 6, 2012November 13, 2012

Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory

Measures readers’ awareness of or perceived use of reading strategies. Identifies strategies that they self-report to use and also indicates strategies they are lacking that need to be supported or taught.

October 30, 2012

Spelling Inventory Determine stage of spelling development and indicates where spelling instruction should start and what it should entail.

November 6, 2012

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PART III. TEST RESULTS AND OBSERVATIONS

Attitudes/Motivation:

Elementary Reading Attitude Survey

The Elementary Reading Attitude Survey is given to find out how students feel about reading. The student’s attitude toward reading can tell a lot about how they will behave during tutoring. Student A and I read the statements together and she chose a Garfield picture that displayed the emotion she displayed about the statement. Student A scored a 34/40 or 85% for both recreational and academic reading. This means that she falls in the 91st percentile for other students her age. Overall, Student A has a positive attitude toward reading, both at school and at home. She loves to read out loud, to start new books, and to choose to read during free time at school. However, reading tests make her nervous and she is also a little hesitant to use a dictionary and try different kinds of books.

Interest Inventory

The Interest Inventory is a quick survey given to determine a student’s likes and dislikes. This is used to select books and design activities that the student will be more likely to become engaged in. Student A read the statements out loud and wrote her responses. Once she had finished writing down her answers, we had a more in-depth conversation about her likes and dislikes. Student A was really excited to discuss her interests with me, and I was able to learn a lot about her as an individual. She really enjoys mystery and fantasy books. She is usually confident while reading, but prefers to be modest and would rather not be the best at reading. Student A doesn’t mind practicing her reading at home and often does so with her two younger siblings.

Word Recognition:


The Basic Reading Inventory includes a graded word list and reading passages. The child’s ability to read the words on the list guide teachers in determining the student’s reading level and where a student should begin reading passages, which will be discussed in a later section. Student A began reading word lists at the third grade level; two lists below grade level, and continued until Student A was decoding words at a frustration level.

Student A appeared very confident in reading the graded lists, especially on the easier lists. She read the words relatively quickly and often corrected her mistakes when asked to go back and look at the word again. At the third grade level, Student A read the list at 100% accuracy. She continued to be successful with the fourth, fifth, and sixth grade lists scoring 95%, 95%, and 90% respectively. Student A began to slow down around the seventh grade word list where she read with 75% accuracy. She requested to read the last list, eighth grade, which was definitely a frustration level list for her. She only read this list with 65% accuracy. Therefore, based on the BRI word list results Student A reads at an

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independent level up until sixth grade. Sixth grade is considered instructional, seventh grade instructional/frustration, and eighth grade is definitely frustration.

Running Records

Running Records are used to record and analyze a student’s reading behavior. By looking at common errors made, it can be determined how the student commonly process text. By recording a student’s miscues, repetitions, and correctly read words as they’re reading a teacher can gather what common errors they make and make inferences about their reading level and gain ideas for areas of instruction. The results gathered from completing running records on Student A were very interesting. She doesn’t necessarily struggle with reading the words on the page; therefore, she has a very high accuracy rate and small error rate. For example, she read a section of Because of Winn-Dixie (Level R) with 98.7 % accuracy and a section of The World According to Humphrey (Level O) with 99.6 % accuracy. While this is a very positive thing, Student A is often times having to self-correct or repeat herself. While reading Because of Winn-Dixie and The World According to Humphrey, Student A often read with a self-correction rate of 1:4 and 1:2 respectively. This implies that to comprehend what she is reading she often has to re-read or self-correct. During running records it has been recorded that she has paused to ask, “where am I?” It has also been noted during her running records that she lacks expression while reading and oftentimes is unaware of punctuation.

Spelling Development:

Words Their Way

The Words Their Way Elementary Spelling Inventory gives insight as to what the child’s stage of spelling development is. Each word on the test gets progressively harder and has certain features or components a teacher can use to gauge what a child understands about spelling and what knowledge they are lacking. Student A spelled 20 of the 25 words correctly. She has no trouble with beginning or ending consonant sounds; vowels, including short, long, and other; or with digraphs and blends. She also succeeded with inflected endings, syllable junctures, and unaccented final syllables. The features Student A had the most trouble with were harder suffixes, including ate and ize, and bases or roots, such as confid. According to the feature and error guide that are associated with the spelling inventory, Student A is currently in the Derivational Relations stage of spelling.

Reading Fluency:


While administering the passages during the Basic Reading Inventory, the child is reading the passages aloud while the teacher is timing how long it takes them to read the passage and making notes about mistakes or miscues. Student A read the fifth grade passage at 200 WPM, the sixth grade passage at 171 WPM, and the seventh grade passage at 130 WPM. However, Student A’s reading often lacked expression, and she

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appeared to be inattentive to punctuation, which often resulted in awkward phrasing or the need to reread.

Comprehension:


Following each passage read during the administration of the Basic Reading Inventory, the teacher asks a series of comprehension questions. The child is asked to answer these to the best of their memory to determine what they actually gathered and remember from the reading. Student A began reading passages at the fifth grade level, the last level for which she was reading word lists at an independent level. Student A read the fifth grade passage with 97% accuracy, the sixth grade passage with 96% accuracy, and the seventh grade word list with 98% accuracy. Therefore, she read all three of these passages at an independent or instructional level.

According to the BRI results Student A reads and comprehends independently at the fifth and sixth grade level. She answered comprehension questions with an accuracy of 90% and 100% respectively. However, there was a huge jump between the sixth and seventh grade levels, which quickly showed that this was a level of frustration for her. It became evident that Student A understood very little of the eighth grade level passage and only answered 3/10, 30%, of the comprehension questions correctly. Therefore Student A’s instructional level would most likely be at the sixth grade level.

Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies

The Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies survey measures how a reader thinks they use certain strategies while reading. It can be used to determine which strategies or techniques they think they excel at, and which ones they wish they were more confident in. Student A read each statement aloud and then rated it on a scale of 1-5, 1 being “I have never "heard of this strategy before” and 5 being “I know this strategy quite well, and I often use it when I read.” When analyzing the scoring, the strategies can be broken into three different subgroups: global reading strategies, problem-solving strategies, and support reading strategies. Student A’s results added up to be 49/60 (81.67%) for global reading strategies, 22/35 (62.86%) for problem-solving strategies, and 30/40 (75%) for support reading strategies. Overall Student A rated her perception and awareness of strategies at 111/150 (74%). This would imply that Student A has a moderately strong level of awareness and perceived use of reading strategies when reading academic or school-related materials. It would also indicate that some of the strategies she has little awareness of are problem-solving strategies.

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PART IV. SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Summary:

Student A is a fifth grade student at Greenwood Elementary in Des Moines who thoroughly enjoys reading, but is currently lacking some of the background knowledge and vocabulary needed to be successful. Through assessments and surveys, I gathered a lot of valuable information on Student A. She is really enthusiastic about reading and has the ability to decode words at a level well beyond her grade level. She is also a relatively strong speller who has mastered basic vowel and consonant sounds. Student A is now at a place where she can begin focusing on the more complex features of spelling, such as unaccented final syllables.

One area of further instruction for Student A is fluency. While it is not necessarily detectable from looking at words per minute, it is evident when looking more closely at the running records or at comprehension. During the running records, Student A is often times having to repeat herself or ask where she is in the text. Additionally, when asked to summarize a text, she can replay it event by event but has trouble identifying which parts of the text are actually meaningful.

In addition to this, Student A’s reading rate is so rapid that she often seems to be unaware of punctuation. This was evident in both the BRI assessment and in many of the running records that were conducted. It often results in awkward phrasing and lack of expression. If this concern is addressed, Student A’s comprehension may also improve. The other component of comprehension that may need to be addressed is background knowledge and vocabulary. She is once again able to repeat what happened during the reading, but when asked to explain this more in depth, she often times does not fully understand what is going on.

Overall, Student A is able to read and comprehend grade level texts. She is a strong reader who has strong word recognition and spelling skills. To continue her development as a reader, instruction that develops background knowledge and vocabulary would be an asset. Additionally, instruction focused on reading rate and prosody could help her to comprehend more difficult text. By focusing on fluency and building background knowledge, Student A will be better able to make inferences, connections, and find meaning within her reading.

Recommendations:

Goals for Tutoring:

One of the major goals for Student A is to improve fluency and prosody while reading orally. This would hopefully allow her to begin reading with more expression, begin to recognize the importance of punctuation, have more intentional phrasing, and slow down while reading in order to better comprehend what is being read. Some ways to go about achieving this goal include echo reading in which the teacher would read a page and ask the student to echo it. Student A would not only be echoing the words on the page, but also the expression it is read with. Another alternative would be an activity called “Say it

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Like the Character.” This exercise would have Student A practice reading sections of the text, as she perceives the character would be speaking. The tutor or teacher should model the process. This will allow Student A to infer both the intonation and feelings, so she can better express this to her listeners when reading aloud. A final way to improve fluency and prosody while reading orally would be to utilize repeated readings. By having Student A read a piece of text numerous times, she can focus less on the decoding of words and more on reading with expression and gaining meaning from the text.

Another goal for Student A is to continue building a strong background and vocabulary bank. She would benefit from being more comfortable asking questions when unsure about content or a specific word. While her vocabulary is expanding, she would have success expanding her vocabulary for use in both reading and writing. One effective way she could work to build background is through book previews. For a student, like Student A, who lacks background knowledge and fundamental vocabulary, a detailed book preview is extremely beneficial. The teacher or tutor could preview the book for Student A. For bigger concepts and main ideas, Student A should receive some time to research, and become more comfortable with the information. For smaller concepts and more minute details, all she may really need is to engage in a dialogue or conversation about the topic. A specific way to help Student A continue to build her vocabulary is to familiarize her with how to use a dictionary and to create a vocabulary journal. She needs to learn how to read with a pencil in her hand. As Student A reads, she should circle the words she doesn’t know as she’s being exposed to new text. Instead of breezing over them, like she does now, or having the instructor immediately tell her the definition, she should become comfortable with a dictionary and look up the unknown words. Once the meaning of the word has been identified, she can work to use it in a sentence and add it to an ongoing notebook that she should review somewhat regularly. A portable word wall would also be of use for Student A in both her reading and her writing. Using her journal, she could create a folder with mini envelopes for each letter of the alphabet. As she looks up new words she can add them to her word bank. Then as she is reading or writing she can pull these words out and incorporate them in her writing or even her daily vocabulary.

A final goal for Student A is for her to further understand the concept of summarizing and inference making. She needs a more concrete grasp of what the difference between main ideas and repeating the entire text is. She can then more effectively use the concept of main ideas to predict and infer what’s coming next. There are a lot of effective ways that Student A and her instructors could go about achieving this goal. One of these ways would be to underline main ideas as she is reading. If Student A is able to visually see how much they think is pertinent information. If they are underlining whole paragraphs, then obviously there is a misunderstanding and not everything is the most important concept. For a student like Student A, she would be able to underline while reading and then go back and highlight even less than what was underlined in the first place. Another technique that could be used is the Top 5. Student A would read the text and while reading write down or brainstorm everything deemed important. After brainstorming and recording the list, she would work to narrow the list down to the five most important events or ideas. Working with either a peer or tutor partner, may be beneficial, because ideas that both see important are most likely in the top 5. Another way to distinguish main idea summaries and retellings would be by giving the summary a word limit. Student A should be notified of how many words she has before she begins writing.

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Once again she may likely need the opportunity to eliminate sections of the summary out or to reword points. By giving her a word limit, she will hopefully begin to notice just how few details are needed to summarize the text and get the main points across. Student A would also benefit from being asked teacher or instructor generated questions. By the instructor asking inference questions or questions that do not have a concrete answer in the text; Student A’s inference skills will begin to improve. These questions can be based on things outside of the direct text and therefore the instructor can ask follow-up questions, enter into a dialogue, or provide direct support. A fact versus inference chart would be an additional activity used to support Student A’s learning and working toward the goal of improved summarizing and inference making. After reading the text, she should create a two-column chart with one side labeled fact and the other side inference. An instructor can use sentence strips or post-it notes to write various facts and inferences. Student A should then be able to determine which side of the chart the statement should be placed on. After modeling how to do this, Student A should then be able to add her own statements to the chart.

Student A is definitely on the right track when it comes to being a successful reader. She has the motivation, interest, and dedication necessary to truly make significant strides in her reading and also that make her a joy to work with. These activities will only continue to benefit Student A and help develop her fluency and prosody, background knowledge and vocabulary, and ability to distinguish between summary and retelling.

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