EDRDG 430
Progress Report
Date: Spring 2014
Name: Anya
Tutor: Krysta Rinderle
Burris Teacher/Grade: Wright/103
Supervisor: Dr. Bottomley
Part I. Background Factors
I used the game during our first session to ask Anya questions about what
she likes and dislikes. I learned valuable information that has helped me to plan
lessons that keep her engaged and interested. One fact that I learned is that
she likes to read and write. She received several books from the American Girl
series for Christmas that she is currently reading. She likes those books and
continues to read them. She replied that she will not continue with a book that
she does not like or finds that it is too difficult for her to finish. Anya also
mentioned that she likes to play the game Life and Scrabble with her family.
Anya also likes to write and mainly writes fiction stories about her friends or her
family. I have noticed that for writing prompts following a story, Anya does not
include many details from the story. She will say her thoughts out loud and will
include lots of details, but when it comes to writing, she leaves most of them
out. Her behavior towards the tutoring sessions has been positive. She seems
to be enjoying reading the different books and doing the activities.
Part II. Diagnostic Results A.
Tests Administered
Lucy Calkins Reading and Writing Project
Writing Sample
Reading/Writing Attitudes, Interests and Beliefs Game
B.
Reading Levels –
Instructional Reading Level = Guided Reading Level N (Grade 3)
Part III: Diagnostic Results
C. Apparent Reading Strategies
Anya comprehends the stories well when I ask her follow-up questions. I
observed that she does flip back through the book if she does not know
the answer. I noticed that she does pay attention to the illustrations in the
book because she would point something out or flip back to a picture to
help her answer a question. The strategy that she uses is a form of selfmonitoring because of the comments that she makes as she is reading.
Anya has good vocabulary skills and rarely needs help with figuring out
1
any words. She also has read most of the text fluently with stopping and
breaking in the appropriate places. I did not notice any issues with Anya’s
phonics skills. She decodes words that she does not know and attempts to
figure them out by herself. Her most frequently used strategy was to
repeat the phrase or word for a better understanding of the text.
D.
Apparent Writing Strategies
A skill that Anya could improve on would be adding details in her answers
to writing prompts to help compose a more meaningful message. She will
say all the right details, but will include very few details when she
answers a writing prompt. When she does write, her message is
meaningful and the mechanics are correct. Anya just needs to work on
adding in more details to ensure the reader understands what she is
trying to explain. On the writing application rubric, Anya has scored a four
out of six. Her writing is mainly focused, but she could improve on adding
details that add to the topic. When Anya writes, she could organize her
thoughts better by doing a prewriting activity to help her know what she
all wants to say. This would help the organization of her writing to
improve instead of missing a few details that should be added. Based on
the Language Conventions Rubric, Anya would receive a three. When
Anya writes, her mistakes do not drastically change the meaning. She
does mix up her b’s and d’s, but usually will recognize the mistake and fix
it. Anya’s spelling could also improve when using grade-level words. In
her writing there are usually very few mistakes and when we reread her
work, she will usually recognize her mistakes and attempt to fix them.
IV.
Emphasis of Instruction
A.
Goals:
B.
- Include more details in writing.
- Improve on comprehending stories to give a detailed summary.
Methods:
I met with Anya on Tuesday and Thursday from 2:00-2:50 each
week. Each tutoring session used a variety of books and strategies to help
Anya improve her reading and writing skills. The lesson outline remained
the same for each session. It began with a “before reading” section that
contained activating and assessing prior knowledge, finding a purpose for
the reading, and teaching new vocabulary prior to reading. The “during
reading” section contained the strategy that would be used while reading
the text. The “after reading” section included an activity to help with
understanding and comprehension of the text and connecting the text to
writing.
Comprehension:
To work on the comprehension goal, I used the following strategies to help
maintain Anya’s comprehension abilities.
2
1. Picture Walk: A picture walk is a strategy used before beginning
the story. We used a picture walk to go through the book while
just looking at the pictures. Using the pictures, we made
predictions about what was going to happen in the book. This
strategy helped Anya with her comprehension skills because we
would compare what we predicted in the beginning to what
actually happened in the story and in order to accomplish this
task, Anya would need to comprehend what events happened in
the story.
2. Graphic Organizer: The graphic organizer was compiled of
questions and space to answer the questions to help
comprehend the story. Anya completed the graphic organizer as
she read the story. When we were finished with the story and
completed the graphic organizer, we used the graphic organizer
to retell the story.
3. Word Wall: A word wall is a collection of new words that have
appeared in the story. We used this strategy when reading a
text that contained a few Spanish words. I provided a template
for the word wall and asked Anya to write any word that we
came across that she has never heard of before on the word
wall. She wrote several words down and each time we would
pause and define the word by using the glossary in the back of
the book or the context clues in the story. Using the word wall
helped Anya with her comprehension skills because it provided
a time to review on what has occurred in the story so far to
understand the definition of the word.
4. Open-Mind Portraits: An open-mind portrait is a way to think
more deeply about a character and to reflect on story events.
We used this strategy when reading an informational book
about Rosa Parks. I provided a portrait of Rosa Parks and on
the inside Anya wrote interesting facts that she learned about
Rosa Parks. This strategy helped Anya with her comprehension
skills because she needed to remember what happened in the
book or go back through the book to find facts to write down.
With this process, she was also reviewing what happened in the
book.
5. Venn Diagram: A Venn diagram is used to compare two
different things. We used this strategy to compare two
characters in a story. Anya completed the Venn diagram at the
end of the story and reviewed the story to find traits for the
characters that we were comparing. She found traits on how the
characters were different and how the characters were the
same. This strategy helped Anya with her comprehension skills
because it helped her to better understand the two characters
and the events that occurred in the story.
6. Plot Profile: A plot profile is a way to examine the plot while
3
reading. It looks like a graph with the bottom part separated by
chapters or sections of the book and the left side labeled with an
arrow from low to high. When Anya would finish a part of the
story, we would use the plot profile to track the tension or
excitement of the story so far. If the events were not exciting
then the section would receive a low marking and if the events
were exciting then the events would receive a high marking.
This strategy helped Anya with her comprehension skills
because at the end of each section, she would need to review
the events to determine what kind of marking it deserved.
Writing:
Anya also went through the process of picking a topic, drafting,
revising, and editing a story. To pick a topic, I provided a story map for
Anya to fill out to help her think of the details that she would like to include.
Anya decided to write about a fun center that she owned and what was all
in the fun center. She drafted the story over several sessions. Each time,
she would add a few lines until she felt that she included all of the details.
Through the drafting process, I did prompt Anya with questions when
something was unclear, but overall she included good details that
provided a vivid picture for the reader. For the revising of the story, we
focused on having alternating beginnings of sentences throughout the
story. I noticed that she would use “we” several times in a row. I first
modeled with a short paragraph that I wrote with using “I” as the beginning
of the sentence several times in a row. We worked together to replace “I”
with an alternate beginning. Then we switched to Anya’s story. I asked her
to read her story and see if she noticed any similar things in her story.
Anya noticed that she used “we” lots of times and circled each one so she
could change them. After revising her story, we switched to editing her
story and focusing on her spelling. We especially focused on words that
dropped the “e” before adding an “ing.” Like for the revising, I first modeled
the editing process with my own writing before we switched to her story.
Anya did well with noticing her mistakes and she also found other
mistakes throughout the story on her own to correct. When the story was
complete, she began to type the story and I finished typing what we did
not have time for. For the last session, Anya read the story to a small
group of her peers and showed them her writing piece.
I also used the following strategies to help improve Anya’s writing
abilities.
1. Letter Writing: Following the informational book that Anya read
about Rosa Parks, I asked Anya to write a letter to Rosa Parks.
Anya included questions and comments about how she thought
that she was brave. This strategy helped with Anya’s writing
skills because she had to form thoughts and ideas about a
person and respond accordingly through her writing.
2. Quickwrite: A quickwrite is an impromptu writing that students
use to explore a topic or respond to a question. The students
4
will write for five to ten minutes without stopping to make
revisions or correct misspelled words. We used this strategy
after we finished reading a poem. I provided the question that
correlated with the poem and allowed Anya to write for five
minutes. Anya shared what she wrote when she was finished.
This strategy helped with Anya’s writing skills because it allowed
her to continually write down her thoughts and details without
having to worry about the correct grammar or spelling.
3. Story Map: A story map is a way to organize thoughts before
beginning to write a story. We used this strategy before we
began to write out story. The story map had a place for the
setting, characters, problem, and the solution. It was a way for
Anya to organize her thoughts for the story and to not miss any
details. We continued to look at the story map for the duration of
writing the story to be sure that no details were skipped.
4. Notes within story: For this strategy, I asked Anya to stop after
each page and write an important fact that has occurred on a
post-it note. She stuck the note on that page and we continued
the strategy throughout the book. When we finished reading, we
went through the post-it notes to review the story. The strategy
helped Anya to summarize the story, but it was also helpful for
her writing skills because she had to include details on each
note throughout the story.
C.
Materials:
Books:
• Title: “What do you do with a Kangaroo?” By: Mercer Mayer
o Guided Reading Level M
• Title: “Norman the Doorman” By: Don Freeman
o Guided Reading Level N
• Title: “A Cloak for the Dreamer” By: Aileen Friedman
o Third Grade Basal
• Title: “Sarah May and Big Bee” By: Linda Crocker
o Guided Reading Level O
• Title: “Amelia Bedelia’s: First Apple Pie” By: Herman Parish
o Guided Reading Level N
• Title: “Josefina: An American Girl” By: Valerie Tripp
o Guided Reading Level Q
• Title: “I Am Rosa Parks” By” Rosa Parks and Jim Haskins
o Guided Reading Level N
• Title: “Kids Pick the Funniest Poems” By: Bruce Lansky
o Interest Level: Grade K-3
• Title: “Addy’s Little Brother: An American Girl Short Story” By:
Connie Porter
o Interest Level: Grade 3-5
• Title: “Addy’s Summer Place: An American Girl Short Story” By:
5
Connie Porter
o Guided Reading Level M
Used for Methods:
• Post-it notes
• Graphic organizer template
• Portrait template
• Venn diagram template
• Plot profile template
• Story map template
• Paper
• Pencil
V.
Student Progress
A.
Reading
Anya maintained her independent reading level of third
grade. Throughout the semester, I chose books that were within the
guided reading level for third grade, which included levels N, O, and
P, or books that that had an interest level of an area containing
third grade. The selection allowed me to assess Anya’s
comprehension and reading capabilities. I found that she could
read many of the books without assistance. She also had an easier
time reading the stories that she was interested in, which included
the story about Addy: An American Girl. Anya was knowledgeable
about the series before we began the short stories, which helped
her to talk about the story and the characters more.
In the beginning of our sessions, I noticed that when Anya
came to a word that she did not know, she would decode the word.
As the sessions progressed, I found that Anya was decoding fewer
words and instantly knew the words. I also encouraged her to break
apart the words by solving the base word first. To show her this
strategy, when we came to an unknown word, I would cover up part
of the word and leave a section uncovered for her to solve. I found
that Anya could easily say the word using this strategy. To also
help with new or unknown words, for a few of the stories that were
more difficult, we created a word wall. Anytime while reading that
we came across a word that we have never seen before or were
unknown of the definition, Anya would add the word to the word
wall. Each session that we were still reading the story that the
words came from, we would review how to pronounce the word and
the definition of the word just in case we may come across the word
again. Also, during stories, we would use the context clues or the
pictures to solve any unknown words. I found that Anya improved
on using the pictures as a clue when reading.
When reading a story in the beginning, I noticed that Anya
would make a mistake by skipping a word, switching the word to
6
something else, or mispronounce the word and continue to read. As
we progressed, Anya began to correct her mistakes before
continuing to read. To help her improve on monitoring and
correcting her own reading, I would stop Anya at the end of the
sentence and ask her to reread the section that she misread. I
found that by the end, Anya improved by correcting her own
mistakes without me prompting her to reread.
Anya has always read with expression throughout the
sessions. She was good at fluctuating her voice to match what was
happening in the story. I did notice that she seemed to enjoy a few
books more than the others because she would put more effort into
reading the book with more expression. An example would be when
we read the Addy short stories. She knew the characters and would
give each character their own special way of talking and I felt like
she was connected to the story and enjoying reading it.
Anya maintained her fluency level. She did well on
recognizing punctuation and pausing in the correct places
throughout the whole semester. To help her with fluency, I would
include a story or a chapter of a book each time we met to read and
to continue to practice good reading skills.
To help Anya improve her comprehension skills, I used
various strategies. A strategy that Anya seemed to enjoy the most
was the open-mind portrait. We used the strategy while reading a
book about Rosa Parks. After reading, the portrait allowed Anya to
write new facts that she learned about Rosa Parks. Several of the
facts that she wrote, Anya remembered from the readings, but she
did use the book to look back through and find new facts to include.
Throughout the semester, I also asked Anya questions while
reading and after we finished reading the story to help her think
about what she is reading or just read. My goal was to ask Anya
several different question types, such as, literal questions,
comparison and contrast questions, inferential questions, and
synthesis questions. The various questions had Anya develop
thoughts about the story in different ways.
Another area that we focused on was making predictions
about a book. We would use the title of the book and the pictures in
the book to make an overall prediction. Anya did well on making a
prediction that was related to the story. While reading the Addy
short stories, we would also make predictions after each part. Anya
would reference back to the whole Addy series when making the
predictions which showed that Anya was remembering and
comprehending the information about the Addy series. Her
predictions were always relevant to the text and we would discuss
when we finished reading whether her predictions were correct or
incorrect and why the story may have changed.
7
B.
Writing
At the beginning of our sessions, I noticed that Anya needed
to improve with her writing. When I had her write her first summary
over a story, I noticed that there were few details included. To help
her improve her writing skills and adding in more details, I prompted
her while she was writing with questions. If Anya would write a
simple response and I could not visualize what she was writing
about, then I would ask her questions to understand clearly what
she was trying to say. I would then ask Anya to add in those details.
During the sessions, Anya would tell me a great summary that
included lots of details, but when I asked her to write that down, she
would skip many of the details and write the basic. I continued to
ask questions throughout the semester and noticed that I began to
ask fewer questions because more details were being added.
I also used various strategies when writing to help Anya not
do the same thing each week. One example is the letter that Anya
wrote to Rosa Parks after reading the book about her. Anya mainly
included questions for Rosa Parks, but did mention how she
thought that she was very brave to not get up from her seat. This
different strategy helped Anya with her writing and comprehending
the story because the included questions and comments were
based off of the book. Another strategy that I used was to pick a
certain event from the story to write about. An example would
include writing about a memory box and what would go in the
memory box like in the Josefina story. Anya referenced the story
while writing about it and included some neat things that she would
like to keep forever.
VI.
Summary and Recommendations
A. Summary
The tutoring sessions were planned to help Anya include more
details in writing and to improve on comprehending stories to give a
detailed summary. Anya attended all of the sessions that were twice a
week and lasted from 2:00 – 2:50 PM. Each session consisted of a lesson
with three main sections. The “before reading” section consisted of
activating her prior knowledge, finding a purpose for the reading, and
teaching any necessary new vocabulary. The “during reading” section
consisted of the strategy that would be used while reading the text and
any comprehension questions. The “after reading” section included the
activity to help with comprehension and a writing prompt to connect the
text with writing.
The lessons used a variety of strategies to help Anya improve with
her comprehension and reading abilities. Each of the strategies are listed
with a description under the “Methods” section. I also used several books
in the lessons throughout the sessions. The books are listed in the
“Materials” section along with any extra supplies used for the strategies. In
8
addition to the strategies, I used a game and made observations to assess
Anya’s attitudes and interests.
Over the course of the sessions, I noticed that Anya’s attitude
towards reading and writing improved. She seemed to get more into the
books and liked to make predictions about what was going to happen
next. When writing her story about the fun center, there were several
times that Anya wanted to continue writing even though we were out of
time. She was excited to create the story and use her imagination. An
observation that I made throughout the sessions was that Anya liked to
read and write when she was interested in the topic.
B. Recommendations for Parents
a. To maintain comprehension
• A way to help Anya maintain or to improve her comprehension
abilities is to ask questions to her about the book she is reading.
Some questions could be: Who is the main character? What is
the main problem in the book? How is the problem solved?
What was your favorite part in the book? Did the book end the
way you predicted? Asking these questions or similar questions
can help Anya comprehend the story and to summarize the
story in the end.
• To also help Anya improve her comprehension capabilities, you
could provide her organizers with questions to fill in regarding
various aspects of the story. This example would be to
understand the characters of the story better:
http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/printouts/Character
Map.pdf This example would help to comprehend the conflict in
the story:
http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/printouts/Conflict%
20Map.pdf This example would be an overall story map that
Anya could complete after reading:
http://printables.scholastic.com/content/collateral_resources/pdf/
00/ORG00_020.pdf We also used this map during one of our
tutoring session and it helped to organize her thoughts. All of
these suggestions would help improve Anya’s reading
comprehension abilities.
b. To improve writing
• A way to help Anya include more details with her writing is to
ask her questions. Ask Anya to tell you more about what she is
thinking through her writing. I noticed that Anya does well with
telling her thoughts, but may leave out a few details when
writing. Prompting Anya with questions helped to include more
details and improve her writing.
• Another strategy to help Anya include more details would be to
create a cluster map or do a prewriting exercise to write some
notes down that should all be included. Another option could be
9
to complete an interactive story map online and to print out the
results. A suggested one would be:
http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/studentinteractives/story-30008.html. All of these options would help
Anya to help get her thoughts and a plan on paper first before
she begins to write.
VII.
Tutor Self-Evaluations:
The opportunity to tutor Anya every Tuesday and Thursday has
taught me more about reading and writing instruction. This course has
given me a better understanding of how to teach reading and writing
skills to students. I am more aware of the process that a teacher
should make when creating lessons for students who need extra help
in reading and writing. I also received a chance to practice making
lessons to work with students and I feel more prepared to become a
teacher that can help students learn and improve reading and writing
skills. The course also showed me that there are several different
components of reading and writing that should be included, which are
phonics, vocabulary, fluency, comprehension, and background
knowledge to help each student improve their skills and abilities.
The course textbooks helped me to use a variety of instructional
strategies with Anya because they provided examples and options to
use. Based on the needs of Anya, I had several choices to choose
from when finding a new strategy to help Anya improve her reading
and writing skills. I found that several of the ideas in the strategies
book were well liked by Anya and I know now that they would be a
good idea to incorporate with reading and writing instruction again.
I used a wide range of assessment methods to evaluate my
instruction and how Anya was performing. After each lesson, I would
reflect on how Anya did with the reading material and what she wrote.
If needed, I would make alterations to my lesson to help Anya improve
the next time. I would also reflect on the strategy that I used and if I
included all of the necessary instruction skills to help Anya improve her
reading and writing abilities. I always had the goal of helping Anya and
I would make any changes necessary to correct the lessons. To
evaluate how Anya was doing, I completed two running records to help
me see what Anya needed help with and what standards we should be
focusing on. Reflecting on my teaching and on how Anya was doing
allowed me to make sure that I was meeting Anya’s needs with reading
and writing instruction.
I created a literate environment that fostered reading and writing
skills by using various methods and materials each session with Anya.
I focused my lessons on Anya’s interests and used books and
strategies that she would enjoy. The tutoring sessions allowed me the
opportunity to use a variety of strategies and to practice them within a
lesson. The literate environment created for Anya helped me to realize
10
what should be included when creating lessons for reading and writing
instruction.
The tutoring sessions helped me to view my own professional
development as a career-long effort and responsibility. With learning all
of the new strategies for reading and writing instruction, I have realized
that there are lots of strategies to help students and I can continue to
learn more strategies to find the best ones for different students. It is
important to see development as a positive to help students learn at
the best of their abilities. I feel that the learning never stops for
teachers when it comes to finding new instructional strategies to help
each student succeed in the classroom.
11