Running head: TUTORING PROJECT
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Tutoring Project
Dylan Graves
Virginia Commonwealth University
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QRI Report
Background Information
The student tested is a 13-year-old male currently in eighth grade at a public middle
school and will be referred to as John in this report. John currently receives special education
services under the disability category of specific learning disability (SLD) in reading. John has
been receiving special education services since the second grade with a disability category of
SLD and speech / language impairment. His speech / language impairment services were stopped
when he entered middle school at the age of 10. Currently John is in collaborative classes for
most subjects, however he is in a self-contained English class and self-contained reading class in
school. John performs well in school academically; he is currently passing all of his classes with
a C or higher. John is active in school sports; he is a member of the football team. He has strong
social skills with many close friends. John is a driven student who is well liked by teachers and
school personnel. Teachers remark that he is a hard working student that turns in work on time
and enjoys helping others.
Behavioral Observations
John was administered the Qualitative Reading Inventory 5 (QRI-5) during study hall in
school. The report was administered in a resource room with the student and the teacher with no
outside distractions being present. John was motivated to test and was a willing participant in the
assessment. John understood directions clearly and asked no clarifying questions during the
assessment. He did not seem nervous to read in front of a teacher. During the reading of the word
lists John would stop at some words such as “curious” and “precious” and say he did not know
these words. Other than these few instances John attempted to read every word given on the
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word list and every word in the assigned reading passage. During after reading questioning John
was observed squinting his eyes in a questioning manner to try to remember the answer. He did
not become frustrated during testing and was motivated throughout.
Results
John was given the QRI-5 word lists starting at the pre-primer level and stopping after the
fifth level. John made only a few mistakes on the word lists pre-primer through first. Most of the
words here were identified automatically and if not they were eventually identified after John
sounded them out. On the second list John made three mistakes on the words “though, breathe,
and noticed.” John made four mistakes on the third word list and made eight mistakes on the
fourth word list. It was thus estimated that John should begin the reading passage at a level 3.
John was given the passage “Cats: Lions and Tigers in Your House” which is a level
three assessment and expository text. He read at a rate of 108 words per minute (wpm). He read
the passage of 261 words with 12 total miscues, one of those miscues being a change in meaning.
three of the miscues that John made were self-corrections. The level 3 passage was considered to
be John’s instructional level. Most of John’s miscues were substitutions. John substituted “the”
for “their” twice during the reading. John also substituted “licking” for “lapping” and “as” for
“a.” John also had a few insertion errors. He frequently inserted an “s” onto the end of a word.
For example instead of “mother” John pronounced “mothers” and for “animal” John said
“animals.” The only meaning change miscue John performed was in the word “puff” he read it as
“poof.”
John was then asked comprehension questions regarding the text he read. In a retelling of
the story John recalled 16 of 47 ideas. John was then asked 4 explicit and 4 implicit questions
about the passage. John answered all 8-comprehension questions correctly without look backs.
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He recalled specifics bout the passage stating “the cat’s tongue is rough because of the bumps on
it so it can drink” (John, personal communication, October 23, 2013). He answered both implicit
and explicit questions about the passage fairly easily and did not become frustrated. This text
was determined to be at his independent level in regards to comprehension.
After the level 3 passage was administered the same procedure was followed for the level
4 passage, “Johnny Appleseed,” which is a narrative text. During this passage John read at a
slower pace of 94.7 wpm making a total of 17 miscues in 308 words. Of those miscues 7 were
considered to be meaning changing errors. Some of these errors included “excitedly” for
“especially” and “discovered” for “decided.” This passage was determined to be at his
instructional level.
During the retelling of the story John recalled 16 of 47 facts. During the comprehension
questioning John was again administered 4 implicit and 4 explicit comprehension questions
about the passage. John scored 3 correct explicit questions and 3 correct implicit questions with a
total score of 6 out of 8. During questioning John recalled some facts exactly stating “ Johnny
got the seeds from cider makers because you don’t need apple seeds to make cider” (John,
personal communication, October 23, 2013). This passage was determined to be at John’s
instructional level for reading comprehension.
John exhibits strengths in reading comprehension. In both passages John was able to
answer both implicit and explicit questions sometimes with exact accuracy. In both the level 3
and the level 4 passages John was able to recall 16 out of 47 ideas. John exhibits some
weaknesses in the areas of reading fluency and vocabulary development. Often during reading
John would read over periods and commas without necessary pauses and/or breaks.
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Instructional Recommendations
John appears to have weaknesses in the areas of reading fluency and vocabulary
development. Instruction should focus on reading fluency with expository texts, as he will be
reading many expository texts in middle and high school. John remarked to his teacher he
doesn’t mind reading if it is something he enjoys. Instruction should try to center around natural
texts of a subject matter that John is interested in if at all possible. This will do well to heighten
engagement of the student. John will benefit from repeated instruction and exposure to new
vocabulary words. If John is continually exposed to vocabulary words he well omit them to
memory and be able to use them more often. John will also benefit from repeated readings of
natural text to improve his fluency skills.
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References
Leslie L. & Caldwell J., (2011). Qualitative Reading Inventory-5. New York: Addison Wesley
Longman.
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Writing Sample
The Haunted House Graphic Organizer
Great Opening to a spooky story: one day on 7alloween nights me and my brother went to a
haunted house
Introduction Paragraph: (this is when you are walking down the street)
Describe what you see
wolfs, full moon, black cat, zombies
What do you do?
Walk, eating candy
Hear Something
franki stein steps, broken glass,
See a spooky house –
describe it
it had a enter if you dare, eyes on the door, a black cat on the
pumpkin, lighting,
Get to the front door of the
house
I slowly walked to the door
Paragraph 2:
Get into the house: (this is your introduction to your second
paragraph)
Hear Something
a cat, zombie steps
What do you do?
I walked up the steps
when I get in the house I was
neves
What do you see in the room?
What do you do next?
I ran down the steps
Paragraph 3:
How do they get into the room? (the one with the
dancing skeletons)
someones hands pushed me in
the door
What do they see?
Someone playing some music
What do they do?
Dance
Hear something???
Skilling dance
How do they get out of the room?
I broke the door
Paragraph 4:
Get into the final room: (laboratory) when I got into the final room
What do they do?
They were launching at the monkey
What do they see???
Bats, bonse, spiders,rats, monkeys
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Hear??
Mats and people
How do they get out of the house?
We ran so fast
Conclusion – Paragraph 5
What do you do when you get out of the house??? I ran so fast to my house
What did you see?
· Sky
I saw the sun
Where did you go?
I went back home
Did you hear anything?
I hear a guy from the house say by
End your story J
I told my mom
One day on halloween night me and my brother went to a haunted house when we was
walking down the street we saw wolfs, a full moon, a black cat, and a zombies then we
started eating some candy nexts we started to hear something like franki stein steps and
some one in the woods dropping glass. When we got to the house it looked like it had a
enter if you dare on the top of the door and the door had eyes on it then we saw a black cat
on a pumpkin next we went slowly to the door of the house.
when we got in the house that I was nervous then we started to hear things aging like a cat
and a zombie steps nexts we saw the eyes aging and the same cat that was outside then
we ran up the steps.
When we got to the top we got nervous because if we should go or not go in but the next
someones hand pushed me in the door.when got in the room we saw someone playing
music and skeletons dancing then we was trying to get out of the crazy room but the door
was locked so we got a hammer but it did not work but next we used a drill it did not work.
Then I had a good ideale that I broke the door down .
so when we got to the final room there was some sciences that was launching at the
monkeys then saw some bats on the wall, bones on the floor , spiders on the web and rats
the next we started to hear people talking and mats walking across the floor. Then we ran
so fast out of the door and back down the steps and out the door.
when we got out of the house we started to run back to our house the sky was a little dark
still. We went back to our friends house then out of nowhere a guy from the house said to
us by so when we got back to our house are mom said how was halloween we say it kind of
good and kind of scary and are mom said why is part of it scary. And that when we told her
the story.
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Writing Sample Analysis
The writing sample provided was completed with the use of a graphic organizer as a
prewriting strategy. The student completed a 5-paragraph essay that included an introduction,
supporting paragraphs, and a conclusion. The passage was in correct chronological order and
flowed intuitively. The student wrote cohesively and every aspect of the story made sense where
it was included in the writing. The student used much of the same language throughout not
varying many sentence structures. A noticeable deficit in the essay was the lack of punctuation
and capitalization. Each paragraph was one run on sentence and lacked any punctuation. At times
this made the essay confusing to follow. There were several spelling errors throughout but most
did not take away from the meaning of the text. It appears the student used the graphic organizer
effectively and it helped him complete the assignment and organize his thoughts. However, there
were some details in the graphic organizer that were not present in his essay.
Selling Assessment
The student spelled 9 words out of 25 correctly on the spelling test. The student spelled
words correctly that focused on short vowels, diagraphs and blends, and long vowel sounds. The
student began to struggle with words that focused on other vowel sounds. He especially
struggled with the ending of some words. Some of these words he spelled incorrectly were
“cary” for “carries,” “march” for “marched,” and “bidle” for “bottle.” These mistakes are made
apparent in his reading as he frequently made miscues by changing the ending of words. He
would either add an ending such as “ed” or “s” to a word or omit the word’s ending altogether.
Handwriting Analysis
The student’s handwriting is legible and easily read. He writes with large print in which
lower case letters take up most of the space in a row. All of his letters are between the lines and
do not interfere with other words in the page. The spacing of his letters is consistent making it
easy to identify one letter from another. The slanting of the letters is inconsistent at times,
however, slanting to the right then to the left. On most of his work, when making a mistake, he
erases cleanly so it does not affect the neatness of his writing.
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Tutoring Lesson Reflections
Date:
Insights about my
student’s learning,
progress, or needs:
Insights about teaching
reading:
Other notes,
observations, or
questions:
Ideas for the next
session:
(what would work well,
what might you do
differently)
Lesson Reflection Log 1
7Novemeber2013
Based on the QRI my student needs to work on his reading fluency,
vocabulary development, and decoding skills. I was also curious about
his comprehension skills as well. The student had been administered
the QRI before and was given the same passages I had given him. I
was curious to see if his high scores on the comprehension questions
was because he understood the passages or because he had seen the
questions before and had some memory of the answers. I decided to
make comprehension a part of many lessons because of this reason.
Also, because my student is an 8th grader, comprehension is an everimportant part of the curriculum in most subjects.
I am a little nervous performing all of these tutoring sessions one on
one. I have more experience teaching math and the more I learn about
teaching reading the more I realize how difficult it is. There are many
pieces that come together to make a successful reader. I hope I am
targeting the areas of need for my student.
I could not ask for a better student to tutor. He is highly motivated to
learn and seems interested in what we are learning. After reading the
chosen passage the 3rd time he was better adjusted to it and his fluency
increased. I think he enjoyed seeing that he got better reading the
passage as time went on. He did have some trouble with new
vocabulary, which was also seen in the administration of the QRI. I
will try to focus on this throughout the sessions.
This lesson went well. Time went by quicker than I thought it would
and before I knew it 30 mins was up. That being said, the timeline
seemed to work well for the lesson I planned so I will try to stick with
a similar format going forward. I will focus on vocabulary and fluency
again in the next lesson. I will have the student continually bring his
notebook to use for new vocabulary words.
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Date:
Lesson Reflection Log 2
12November2013
Insights about my
student’s learning,
progress, or needs:
This session went well again. I am glad I had a similar lesson planned
because based on his results I believe I am targeting his areas of need.
I will continue to focus on vocabulary development and fluency.
Insights about teaching
reading:
Other notes,
observations, or
questions:
Ideas for the next
session:
(what would work well,
what might you do
differently)
I am encouraged that the results from the QRI are matching up with
what I am seeing in the tutoring sessions.
It did not appear that he studied his new vocabulary words from the
last session. I can forgive him because these tutoring sessions are not
graded assignments but I would like to see a little more effort from
him. The comprehension questions he answered well and seems to
understand the passage that he read. He also did better at finding new
vocabulary words to add t his list kept in his notebook. I am glad we
are using the notebook. I think it is good for him to have a place to
refer to with the new vocabulary words.
The student enjoyed graphing his progress on the CBM graph. I think
he enjoys having some “buy in” to the lessons. I very much like using
the notebook and will continue it going forward. Vocabulary will still
be a highlight of the lessons. The format I am using works well with
the time limit and I won’t change much of the formatting for next
time.
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Date:
Insights about my
student’s learning,
progress, or needs:
Insights about teaching
reading:
Other notes,
observations, or
questions:
Ideas for the next
session:
(what would work well,
what might you do
differently)
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Lesson Reflection Log 3
14November2013
He is really doing well with the reading comprehension questions at
the end of the passages. He is answering them without looking back in
the text and doesn’t need much support or prompting. Vocabulary
skills seem to be improving as he is seeing the words more often and
becoming familiar with them.
I love seeing the improvements he is making! I also think that
everyone would be a reading teacher if all the students were as willing
to participate as he is. I can’t say enough about how eager this student
is to learn.
Did well with the vocabulary words this time. I think as he sees them
and uses them more he is committing them to long-term memory. The
sessions went very similar to the first two. He is still very eager to
learn and has not complained once about doing this during his study
hall time.
Based on some of the feedback I received on my QRI report I was
thinking about making this change anyway but my student brought it
up too. He mentioned that it would be “cool” if he could choose some
articles to read and answer questions on. He is a student athlete and a
huge football fan so I decided it would be ok for him to choose some
articles from ESPN. I will incorporate this into my next lesson.
Because he has been doing so well with comprehension I think I will
eliminate that from next lesson and try a new activity instead.
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Date:
Insights about my
student’s learning,
progress, or needs:
Insights about teaching
reading:
Other notes,
observations, or
questions:
Ideas for the next
session:
(what would work well,
what might you do
differently)
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Lesson Reflection Log 4
19November2013
I eliminated the comprehension focus this session and wanted to focus
in decoding and vocabulary. His QRI results show decoding skills are
not his strongest area. Based on this lesson I will continue to focus on
this area.
I liked seeing him so happy to choose an article and being excited to
read. I love reading and it makes me smile seeing others enjoying it
too!
He was very engaged today! He really enjoyed picking an article from
ESPN and reading it. We could have talked football all day. He
continues to show growth in the area of vocabulary development. I
like the strategy of keeping new words in a notebook so he can refer to
them often. During the decoding part of the lesson I instructed him to
use specific strategies. It took him a minute to recall the strategies I
instructed him on but he told me that he had learned them before. This
shows that he was not actively using the strategy of looking for the
smaller, root word, covering up the prefixes or ending, and so on.
Hopefully he will use this strategy more often on his own.
I still want to continue to focus on vocabulary. If nothing else I want
him to learn some new words and commit them to long-term memory
so he is able to use them in other classes. I also want to focus on
decoding strategies, as it appears he is not using them on his own. I
will definitely let him choose another article as he was very excited
today and his engagement was high.
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Date:
Lesson Reflection Log 5
21November2013
Insights about my
student’s learning,
progress, or needs:
It is apparent he still needs instruction on the use of decoding
strategies when pronouncing unfamiliar words. He is very used to the
1 minute timed readings we are completing for the CBM.
Insights about teaching
reading:
Don’t take off points for me saying this but teaching reading is tough!!
It seems that there are so many areas of need and it is hard to just
focus on one for the lesson. I am seeing now how interconnected all of
the aspects of reading are with students.
Other notes,
observations, or
questions:
He is doing very well with the vocabulary words! He also used the
decoding strategies better this session but still needs instruction. He
was still unable to pronounce some words using the strategy or
understand the meaning. He was, again, very excited about picking a
sports article to read.
Ideas for the next
session:
(what would work well,
what might you do
differently)
I will continue to let the student pick an article to read. This heightens
his engagement in the lesson, which helps him learn. I will try to give
a final “quiz” on all of the vocabulary words next session and
probably stop the vocabulary then. I spoke to his English teacher
(another special education teacher) about decoding strategies. She
shared with me what they are using in class and I will incorporate that
into my next lesson. It still appears he is not using decoding strategies
to use advantage when coming across new words.
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Date:
Lesson Reflection Log 6
26November2013
Insights about my
student’s learning,
progress, or needs:
Did very well with the vocabulary words. Again, did not appear to use
the decoding strategies effectively even though he is also being taught
and using the same strategy in his English class.
Insights about teaching
reading:
Decoding strategies seem difficult to teach. It appears that so many
other factors are in play when using context clues to find out the
meaning of a word.
Other notes,
observations, or
questions:
Loves reading about sports. He said he wishes he could read about
football in other classes too. He still did not appear to use the decoding
strategy effectively. We looked at isolated sentences and tried to use
context clues and identify important words to identify the meaning of
the unknown word. Sometimes he used the strategy effectively but
most of the time he did not correctly identify the meaning of the word.
Ideas for the next
session:
(what would work well,
what might you do
differently)
For the last session I want to focus on using the decoding strategies
again. I am surprised that he is not better at using context clues as he is
using the same strategy in his English class. This is something he
needs to continue to focus on in the future.
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Date:
Lesson Reflection Log 7
03December2013
Insights about my
student’s learning,
progress, or needs:
The student did very well with comprehension and showed
improvement in vocabulary over the course of the tutoring sessions.
He still is challenged by the use of decoding strategies, however.
Insights about teaching
reading:
I learned so much from these tutoring sessions and enjoyed them. I
think the time could have been much worse of my student wasn’t as
eager to participate as he was. The use of decoding strategies still
seems very difficult to teach but over time I know I will improve.
Other notes,
observations, or
questions:
I wanted to check on his comprehension skills again this lesson and he
did very well. I also used sentences in isolation to try to get the student
to use decoding strategies effectively. This still continues to be a
challenge for him.
Ideas for the next
session:
(what would work well,
what might you do
differently)
Student said he loved reading about sports in school and loved
choosing the article. He said he enjoyed the tutoring sessions and think
they helped him some. I hope he has some of those vocabulary words
committed to memory so he can use them in the future!
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Tutoring Lesson Observation 1
Date: 10-12-2013
Session: 2
Observer Name: Carrie Puryear, M.Ed
Observer Title: Exceptional Education, Math Teacher
Observation Notes
The student worked on vocabulary in his notebook, writing sentences for the vocabulary words. He was
working diligently and seemed to understand directions to the activity. After that task was complete,
Dylan asked some prior knowledge questions, engaging the student and assessing what he knew.
The student read the passage aloud. After, he asked some comprehension questions and added words to
the vocabulary notebook. They discussed context clues and synonyms to the words that were chosen for
vocabulary from a previous lesson. The student talked about what he liked about the passage and what he
disliked.
The student was engaged the entire session. He participated actively and seemed interested in the
vocabulary and the passage. Sometimes the student referred to his notebook without prompting. I was
surprised at how well they worked with each other and how Dylan supported him through the lesson.
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Tutoring Lesson Observation 2
Date: 10-19-2013
Session: 4
Observer Name: Carrie Puryear, M. Ed
Observer Title: Exceptional Education, Math
Observation Notes
The student recited all the vocabulary words and wrote new vocabulary sentences in the vocabulary
notebook. The student chose an article on a sports website and discussed what he knew about the article
before they read it. The student read the article aloud, sounding out unknown words but needed some
assistance. Dylan and the student discussed the pros and cons of the article, what they liked and disliked.
The student was engaged throughout the entire lesson and asked to pick the article for next session.
Dylan kept the energy up and was encouraging and positive the entire session. They have a great bond!
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Tutoring Lesson Observation 3
Date: 11-26-2013
Session: 6
Observer Name: Carrie Puryear, M.Ed
Observer Title: Exceptional Education, Math
Observation Notes
Dylan immediately began quizzing the student on vocabulary words. He would give the
definition and the word and the student would answer accordingly. Dylan and the student chose
an article from ESPN and read it aloud. He asked comprehension questions when the article was
over. They talked about what the student liked and disliked about the article. At the end, they
brainstormed ideas for the last tutoring session. The student will bring the material to read to the
session.
The student did a great job on the vocabulary words! Dylan and the student were both engaged
and enthusiastic about reading. The student, however, did skip over words that were unknown
when reading the article. Need to work on context clues!
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Report Summary
Summary Statement
Going into the tutoring project I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. I have never tutored
a student one on one before much less tutor a student in reading. I thought the initial assessment
process went well and clearly identified some areas of need for the student. I was concerned,
however, about some of the results of the assessment because it was the first time I was giving
the test and because the student had taken the test before. I was concerned the QRI did not give
an honest assessment of the student’s need in the area of comprehension because he had
encountered all of the questions before in past testing sessions. After a few tutoring sessions I
realized that the assessment results appeared to be accurate as the student was consistently
scoring high remarks on comprehension questions. The accuracy of the QRI in identifying areas
of needs for a student was encouraging.
I was also encouraged by the student I was tutoring and his attitude. I believe my sessions
would have gone much differently had the student not been as engaged and such an active
participant. We formed a good relationship from the beginning and every session he was ready to
learn! I think the interaction between myself and the student made the tutoring project an
enjoyable experience.
At times during the project I was concerned whether or not I was targeting the student’s
correct areas of need. I knew he was showing deficits in the areas of vocabulary and decoding
skills but I was unsure if other areas needed to be targeted as well. However, I know that over
time I will be able to decipher problems like this more easily.
Overall I thoroughly enjoyed the tutoring experience. I learned a great deal and I believe
my student learned from the experience as well. I particularly enjoyed working with a student
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individually. I enjoyed being able to target his specific areas of needs instead of trying to access
an entire classroom full of students.
Future Instruction
Decoding skills instruction needs to be a focus of future instruction for the student. He
has been taught specific decoding skills but still does not use the skills appropriately. Based on
my tutoring sessions it appears the student still struggles with decoding the meaning of words in
context which can greatly impact his education going forward. That being said, his overall
comprehension skills seem fairly high.
I would also focus on the use of vocabulary words. The student started off not knowing
many of the new vocabulary words found in the reading. However, with frequent exposure and
use of the words he became more familiar with them and internalized their meaning. When
giving future instruction it would be best to incorporate vocabulary instruction into the lesson
while also using vocabulary words frequently to increase exposure.
Changes
I was discouraged to see very little growth in the graphing of the CBM data. For all of the
1-minute readings I used a 4th grad level passage. Perhaps, if I were to do this over again, I
would have used easier passages to try and see more growth. This would have especially been
beneficial to the student to see growth in our sessions. I understand that over time I would see
growth but it would have been encouraging to see some upward trend over the course of 7
sessions.
My goal going in to these tutoring sessions was to have the student be able to take
something concrete away from the lessons and be able to use it in the classroom. I decided to
focus on vocabulary for this reason. Perhaps I should have used decoding strategies as the main
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focus instead. It became clear after a few sessions that the student was struggling decoding words
in context. Had I known this earlier perhaps I would have changed my approach.