Final Blog/ Introduction

                My name is Mallory Blaine, I have had the pleasure of working with a third grade student through the month of June for our summer reading program at Grand View University. Over the past month, I have been able to assess different areas related to the level of reading in which the student currently performs. Some of those assessments include; word sorts, comprehension, visualization, spelling and questioning of text.

                During our time together, I have noted that Jason (psuedonym) has great visualization skills when reading. He is able to make assumptions of what characters, settings, and main events look like based on the little text we read in class together. I believe Jason is ready to tackle more complex comprehension strategies such as questioning. He loves to question the text and what is happening but still needs assistance in answering those questions. I believe with a little bit of work he will be able to easily tackle this task. We spent a few times working on spelling and word sorts to determine what level of speller he is at. Based on the Elementary Spelling Inventory I gave him and his score I would put him at the spelling stage of within word patterns with a focus on long and other vowels. Knowing this we focused some of our time on vowels and word blends and how the consonant effects the vowel in a word. This was a somewhat difficult concept at first so he may need extra assistance in the near future in this area.

                He seems to enjoy the Magic Tree House Series quite a bit so we focused most of our lessons together on the book Dragon of the Red Dawn. Based on his ability to read the text with great fluency and answer comprehension questions that come along with the book, I would leve him in the range of M-O on the Fountas & Pinnell reading leveling system.

                One recommendation I have for home is to maybe get a few books that are on the edge of his reading level. Be going to the Scholastic Book Wizard website you will be able to find multiple books at the O level that Jason may be interested in. This is a fairly easy website to navigate and all his books will be under the guided reading level O. I have taken the liberty to look up a few series that I feel Jason may be interested in; The Jigsaw Jones Mystery series would be a good fit for him as well as The Boxcar Children. I also suggest having you read along with Jason at home when you can. Have Jason read some to you and you read some to him. Encourage him to ask questions about the text and try to assist him in finding the answer in the book you are reading.

                During our time together I have learned a lot about my own ability to create lessons that specifically cater to the needs of a certain student. I have also learned that the little areas that teachers may not focus on when they have larger groups of kids are really key to whether students are able to become successful readers. By focusing my attention on smaller groups I will be able to help with the specific needs of individuals instead of trying to assume that the whole group will benefit from one type of instruction. During the tutoring sessions I have also been able to change my style of teaching and have become more comfortable with how I will teach small groups in my future classroom.

Lesson Five

Objectives:

1. Good readers are able to sort words into their proper categories based on blends and how the consonants influence the vowels.
2. Good readers are able to story map based on setting, characters, and main events of the story.
3. Good readers are able to create unique poems based on vocabulary words in the text.
4. Good readers are able to create their own unique visuals of how they feel the characters, setting and main events may look in the story.

Procedures:

1. We will start the lesson with continuing to read chapter 4 of Dragon of the Red Dawn book. During this time I will be conducting a running record to determine if his accuracy has improved in our time together. After we finish reading the story I will have him retell the main events and characters of the story. The student will then place these facts on our existing story map we started at the beginning of our time together.
2. After we finish with the story map the student will then be asked to create an acrostic poem using the phrase "The Poet Basho" based on a character from the book. I will ask the student to use words and phrases from what we have read and create descriptive visuals that help retell what we have read so far in the text. We will use the book to search for words in the text.
3. Once we have finished with our chapter 4 activities we will continue on with our word sort and discussion of blends and how the consonant r can influence how the vowel i may sound in a word. I will ask the student to sort the words that we used in our last session and have him explain to me why we sorted them in their particular categories. Once we are finished discussing the words we will do activities for the rest of our time together. Some activities will include blind sorts, speed sorts, rainbow sorts, etc.
4. Once we are finished and leaving I will be sending home a report card of our time together to share with the student's parents. I will also be giving him a small writing journal so he can practice over the summer. This journal will be for questions he might have as he reads and to write down all the books he may finish before the summer ends.

Reflection on student:

As we began Jason was prepared to continue reading our chapter book that we have been working on. He was adamant about reading in his head so I had to explain to him that I was assessing his reading and needed to hear him say the words out loud. I explained to him that I was trying to determine how accurate his reading was and how this would help me when we started our lesson. I analyzed the running record and saw that he improved his accuracy by 3% his error rate lowered to 1: 16.1 ratio while his self correction rate remained the same at a 1:4.33 ratio from his first running record. I was really happy to see these results as he had improved in this area in the short time we spent together.

As we transitioned into the next activity I explained to him that it would be something different and I wanted him to try and use his resources (the book) to  create an acrostic poem. He wasn't sure what an acrostic poem meant but when I started explaining it he knew right away! He started out strong creating words and phrases that really gave visuals for the book and were great descriptors. I wanted him to make sure that if someone read the poem that they could get a good visual or setting, characters or main events just based on the phrases he provided. After we got into it a little more he lost interest. He started to make up words that did not relate to the book at all and also were at times inappropriate. It took a lot of redirecting and prompts to get him back on track. After a little while of not making progress I helped him find words and had him describe what he already knew about the book. I then told him well that word starts with... This was to keep him on track to finish the project.

We ended our time together with our word sort that we have been working on the last few sessions. I once again had him sort the words out and explain his reasoning behind the sort. We then really focused on the sound the vowel in the word made when we said it out loud. I told him to really put emphasis on the vowel sound so he is able to properly sort the words. After we went through and spoke all of the words we did a speed sort. He really wanted to beat his time and so we focused on reading the word out loud quickly but making that emphasis on the sounds so he could get it correct the first time. He was able to sort his words properly, beating his best time twice during our session.

Reflection on teacher:

Although Jason expressed boredom for the book in our previous session I wanted to end on something he was familiar with and able to really finish strong for our last time together. I noticed that although he wasn't very interested in the book anymore he got right to work right away and knew the routine to where I didn't need to explain to him what needed to be done. It was nice for me to be able to just tell him our objectives and he was able to start without hesitation.  This also concerned me because I thought maybe we were not doing much of a variety in our lessons. I knew that it was the right choice however once I scored the running record and saw that he improved him accuracy when reading. I did ask him how he felt after reading this time and he told me that he thinks he was reading the book a lot better and understanding it as well.

There were a few times during our acrostic poem activity that I knew I lost control of our work time. He would get off task and it would take me longer than anticipated to get him back to working. This showed me that maybe I need to avoid something completely new unless I fully prepare the student prior. Next time I will want to have my lesson plans all complete and before leaving during a session explain to him that we will be doing something new and different and explain it briefly so that he will be ready to go when we start our next lesson.

The word sort was great. He really did a good job with focusing on putting emphasis on the vowel sound. It did take me a few times to really show him how to really pronounce each sound so you are able to tell the difference in which column they needed to be sorted into. After we finished really focusing together I let him take charge and sort out the words doing a speed sort. In the future however I want to really get some other activities involving word sorts incorporated to keep it fresh and fun for the student.

Lesson Four

 Objectives:

1. Good readers are able to sort words into their proper categories based on blends and hoe the consonants influence the vowel.
2. Good readers are able to answer text dependent questions based on a reading passage.
3. Good readers are able to retell what they have read and determine what the main events in the text are.

Procedures:

1. We will start our day on a different task. We will be working on a close reading passage about magic. I will have the student read through the passage one time and answer a few questions that come directly out of the reading. I will then have the student read the text a second time and answer questions on how the text works. We then will read the passage one more time and I will have the student answer questions that evaluate the text and use the integration of knowledge and ideas.
2. Once we are finished with the close reading we will move on to a different word sort. We will be focusing an r-blend/r-influenced sort. I will have the student sort the words on his own based on how he feels they should be. We then will discuss his ideas and why he sorted them the way he did. I will then go through the sorts with him and explain why they belong in each category. When we have finished we will do a few activities based on that sort. (speed sort and blind sort)
3. Should we have time at the end of the day I will have the student continue on chapter 4 of our Dragon of the Red Dawn book. After he finished I will have him map the main events of the chapter and have him retell what has happened so far in the book.

Reflection of student:

Jason (pseudonym) was a fan of mixing up our routine from the normal just reading of the same book. Although the text I chose for our close read was a little higher than he was used to he seemed very interested in the text and started asking questions right away based on what we were reading. When I asked him the text dependent questions he didn't hesitate to answer right away. He does a very good job of locating answers that come directly from the text. When we went back to reread the text for our next set of questions he started to paraphrase and almost skim through the passage. He did this again for the third time and I could tell he did not fully understand why we were reading the passage multiple times. When we got to a little more of higher order thinking and questioning he did need more scaffolding when we answered the questions. I had him go through and circle words or phrases that told him that the boy in the story did not really think that magic was real. He circled all of the questions that the boy asked but could not tell me that they were all questions when I asked how each one of the phrases were related to the others. It took a little bit of extra questioning from me to finally get him to understand that when the boy continued to question the magic tricks this meant that he did not fully believe that it was real.
When we moved onto the word sort he got to work right away. Although his first sort was not completely correct he was able to sort one column correctly without any guidance. As we worked on the other two columns I had to remind him a lot to really focus on the sound the i made in each column and to take him time when sorting them out. After only a few times that we went through he caught on to the sounds not just the way the words looked and was able to sort them correctly. By the end of our time together we were only able to do one speed sort and he was able to get them sorted correctly in 1 minute 1 second.

Reflection on teacher:

After going over the close reading with Jason I noted that I still needed practice with the concept. I failed to explain to him what the purpose of us reading the passage multiple times was and it may have been due to me not fully understanding why either. The next time I do a close reading with the student I will make sure that we go over the objectives completely and we both fully understand the procedures and why we are doing the close reading. I chose a passage that I felt would not only be challenging but would be interesting for the student. He did an awesome job answering questions directly related to the text but when we tried higher order thinking I switched what questions I was going to ask him. This may have caused confusion for both of us. I was able to start a pretty good discussion between the two of us based on a question that involved looking in to the text and determining the answer based on how the text works. The third set of questions I gave to him were pretty straight forward and I wish I was able to create some better responses from the student.
When we were focusing on our word sort I felt as though we were rushed. Next time I work with the student I want to spend more time with the sort so that he feels comfortable with the words prior to us trying to do s speed sort. I felt as though he didn't fully understand how the i sound was working in the words and we should have spent more time on them rather than just jump into activities right away.
Overall Jason did a great job cooperating and ready to work hard. He seemed really interested in getting the words correct and determined to get them sorted into the correct categories that best he could.

Lesson Three

Day three lesson

Objectives:

1. Good readers are able to track and write favorite facts from the story they are reading.
2. Good readers are able to visualize characters, settings, or main events with the help of existing pictures in the text.
3. Good readers are able to make predictions and conclusions of the story based on the chapters they read.
4. Good readers are able to create unique poems based on vocabulary words in the text.
5. Good readers are able to create story maps based on setting, characters and main events of the story.

Procedures:

1. We will start today's lesson continuing to read chapter 3 of the "Dragon of the Red Dawn" book. As we read I will make sure to encourage the student to think about interesting facts he may encounter as we read through the chapter together. During this time he will be able to fill out the 'Jack's Facts' worksheet. We will only start on the first column as we read and save the rest of the page until after we are finished with the chapter.
2. After we finish reading I will ask the student to let me know about some of the interesting facts he was intrigued by and wrote down we will then discuss why he considered them important to the story. This will be a part where we will be predicting what may happen next in the story.
3. During our discussion I will be asking a few simple questions about setting, characters and main important events that can then be placed on our story map. The student will fill in what he feels are important events on the map before we continue to the activities on 'Jack's Facts' sheet.
4. After we are finished with the chapter I will ask the student to create a map, diagram, or illustration relating to the chapter that we read. this will be a task that I will make sure he does not just copy a picture from the book but create his own visualization of what a scene may look like.
5. If we still have time at the end of the session I will go over what an acrostic poem is and how good readers are able to create the poem based on what they have already read. I will give him a vocabulary word based on chapter three and ask that he completes the poem using only words or phrases related to what we have already read in the entire book.
6. Should we have time at the very end I will let him free read into chapter 4 as we will continue the lesson on "Dragon of the Red Dawn" during our next session.

Reflection of student:

During this time Jason (pseudonym) has a lot of questions about the text that was only sometimes relevant to what we were reading. It took him a while to get on track and when he would ask a question about what he was reading he would pause and think about my response until prompted to get back to reading. Although this only happened a couple of times he still got through all but one or our procedures throughout the day. He also may need a little help keeping his place when he looks away from the text. This took him a little while to find where he was and often times needed assistance finding where he left off.
Jason is already able to grasp a lot of concepts when it comes to reading chapter books. He makes sure to go back and re-read a sentence or even a paragraph if something does not make sense to him when reading. He knows that voice of the characters and although prosody is still something he needs to work on he does understand quotations and that this is a character speaking now and reads to the best of what he feels they sound like. He also stops in the text and makes sure to analyze the few pictures that are in the book. When I asked him why he spent so long looking at them his simple reply was "I need to get a visual of what is going on in the book in my head while I read." He has already made predictions and drawn conclusions from the text without being asked to do so. He enjoys talking about what is going on in the text and also having me give my opinions as well as his own. He also utilizes a lot of I wonder statements or questions during reading.
During our task of drawing a picture to represent what was happening in the story he started working right away. I had planned on instructing him to create a picture other than one already in the book but he did not need to be told so. He started working on a detailed picture of a bridge and the men that were off to the side. He even went as far as dressing the man based on what was described in the text.
Over all Jason has shown great interest in reading and remaining engaged in the activities I have given him. He has yet to refuse to work or say that he doesn't like a task that I have assigned for the day. I believe that with more tutoring and motivation to read he will go on to be a great reader and overall great student.

Reflection of teacher:

This lesson was very in depth. Going back through my objectives and procedures I noticed that although they all tied into the book we were reading the objectives were all different. We did not focus on just one area of comprehension but rather 4-5 different skills. Jason (pseudonym) was able to get through all of the tasks that were asked of him with time to spare but I could tell that it was almost rushed to get done with every task. He knew that we had a lot to do for the day so he was focused on finishing rather than making sure they were done correctly and in depth. As I start to create me lesson for our forth visit I want to make sure that I keep our objectives to a maximum of 3 and really spend a good chunk of time on each task. I need to make sure we are getting the most out of our time together rather than just trying to get through as many comprehension tasks. This would be a lot easier if I have more background knowledge on the student and knew what areas he needed help with or if he had already perfected the strategy and did not need extra assistance. If I were to spend time doing a tutor session again with a different student I would do what I could to make sure I had better resources for the individual student. This goes back to not everybody learns the same and trying to create a lesson that is solely based on the age of the child is almost impossible when trying to make sure they are engaging and that the student will be able to get the most out what we trying to accomplish. In my next lesson I plan on getting away from the same book and focusing on a new word study as well as a closed reading passage to help activate some higher order thinking. I want to challenge the student to see just how far he can go. I believe he is capable of doing great things with reading and I want to try and open that door for him and get him started. This way when he starts school in the fall he is prepared to challenge himself and become a better reader overall.

Lesson Two

Day two

Objectives:

1. Good readers are able to map stories based on main events, setting, characters, and details of the story.
2. Good readers are able to write a summary of the story in their own words.
3. Good readers are able to focus on suffixes of words; changing y to i before s.
4. Good readers are able to properly spell words that are at the age level and be able to determine what the words are and how to use them in a sentence.

Procedures:

1. We will start out the day finishing our elementary spelling inventory. We will finish the list given to us based on his age and then work to determine what stage the student is at based on the feature guide.
2. We will then move onto our reading. We will be reading chapter one of "Dragon of the Red Dawn." During this time I will be conducting a running record based on the reading I chose. We will not discuss together what words are missed but rather just go through what happened in the story.
3. After the student finishes reading the first chapter we will be doing story mapping based on what was read. He will be asked to answer questions about what was happening in the story and discuss main details of the first chapter.
4. If there is time at the end we will be working on our word sort. We also want to make sure that the words that were chosen are a good fit for the student based on the Spelling Inventory Feature Guide.
5. If the word sort is not a good fit we will move on to chapter 2 of the book and continue story mapping.

Reflection of student:

During our first task of finishing the spelling inventory I could tell that Jason was not ready to start out with such a tough list. Although we had started out with easier words we jumped right into the middle of the list with more complicated and complex words. He did he best and although he did not move up as far as I thought he would he still was able to get some of the sound patterns and blends from the words given to him. We then moved on to our reading of the "Dragon of the Red Dawn." he told me that he had been reading this story at home but had not finished it yet (he was on chapter 5). Jason did an awesome job of answering the simple questions that were given about the first chapter and even explained to me that Japan was the setting without me explaining that was one of our main objectives. When we moved on to a few of the more specific questions of the book he did get a little confused. He did use his resources wisely and looked back into the story to find the answer he needed. He was not only able to use the text but the pictures provided to determine that they had made it to their destination of Japan this was using his background knowledge of what buildings and gardens of Japan looked like.

We then moved on to our word sort based on the spelling inventory given to him. We started with suffixes and more specifically changing the y to i in plural words. I asked him to sort out the words how he felt was right and the first sort was mainly on the sounds of the word rather than spelling. He gave an oddball list of words based on the a sound they made where all the rest made an "oy" sound. During his second sort we talked about the spelling of the word and to focus on how they would be sorted that way. He immediately told me the rule of changing y to i and adding es without him seeing the word sort headers. Knowing that this is something he has already mastered my plan is to move on to a more complicated sort for him to work out next time.
      

Reflection on teacher:

I started the spelling inventory at the middle of the list because I wanted to save on time and also not worry about that as much as our main lesson plans for the day. Knowing now that they may have been a little too complicated at first I would make time to start from the beginning of the list and work our way into the tougher words to ease him into the task rather than just set him loose.
We started reading the "Dragon of the Red Dawn" and this is where I found out he was already reading the book in his free time at home. I was able to get him to think about details and setting as well as some of the main characters a little more than what he would have on his own by story mapping. I wanted to make it a fun activity but where he would be able to learn about the details of what is going on as well. Before we got into our activity of story mapping I conducted a running record on the first couple pages of the chapter this is where I found he was reading at a 93% accuracy rate with his error rate being 1: 18.5 and his self correcting rate being 1:4. This shows me that although this may be at his reading level this text may be a slightly easier read for him. I considered switching books and trying something different but I believe that this will only cause confusion. I decided I will be finishing our story mapping with the same book but will also incorporate some other activity to work on different comprehension skills.
During our word sort I wanted to give him the opportunity to find out what the rule was before I explained to him how they should be sorted. I let him sort them based on the sounds the letter patterns made rather than spelling first and asked him to explain his thinking. Every answer he had for me was also brought with some sort of explanation of his thought pattern. Although he did sort the words incorrectly the first time he did have a great explanation based on the sounds the word patterns made. I wanted to put emphasis on how our word sorts will be working on the spelling of words and not just the sounds they make. This is when he was easily able to figure out the rule and tell me what it was without my helping him.
Once again Jason has shown me that he knows a lot more than I expected going into our tutoring sessions. This means that I plan on getting some more challenging tasks for him to work on but also want to make sure that I am not overwhelming him with work.

Lesson One

Day One:

Objectives:

1. Good readers know their interest so they can make motivating book choices.
2. Good readers know that spelling words is important.

Procedures:

1. Start with the interest inventory with the student. This should take 5-10 minutes and is a guided worksheet.
2. We will then go into a spelling inventory with the student. I will be using the elementary spelling inventory for our 3rd grade friend. This will be administered by me and will strictly be focused on what the student knows and at no time will we be going back and learning what words were misspelled.
3. After the spelling inventory is over I will be listening to the students read aloud. During this time I will be creating a running record with the students to track their reading levels.

Reflection on student:

Jason (pseudonym) showed a lot of interest in the reading survey we conducted and was very interested in being able to pick his own books he would be interested in for our tutoring sessions. During our time going over the reading survey I learned that Jason was very interested in video games and also to run outside. He told me that his new favorite books to read involved the Star Wars characters and also the Magic Tree House Series. He already enjoys reading and states that it is his favorite subject where as math (mostly multiplication) was his least favorite subject. He seems confident in the choosing of his own books and told me that he understands most of what he reads and if not he doesn't mind asking questions about the text. To get an understanding of where he was at we started a spelling inventory. He did an excellent job on the first 15 words showing little sign of struggle when spelling them out. He focused on the sounds and patterns involved and was great to ask for it to be repeated if need be. We moved on to read a short story that to no surprise to me he had already read "Dogzilla" was one of his favorites and he was able to retell the story to me as soon as we ended. He also turned the tables on me and asked me to make predictions on what was going to happen! Over all I placed Jason at the M reading level with great potential to move up a level or two.

Reflection on teacher:

As we started our tutoring session I knew that I had a child that already enjoyed reading. My first thoughts were that I would need to be able to keep him interested throughout every session we met. I wanted to have him keep telling me his thoughts on what we read and how he felt about being here with me during his summer months. Although he didn't seem to mind he continued to change the subject to similar but yet off topic conversations. As someone working one on one with a student I need to remember that we do have limited time to get as much as we can done without leaving him on the edge during our last visit. I decided that I would make our focus for our next session be around the Magic Tree House Series and hopefully choosing a book that he would enjoy but have not read yet. I also wanted to create a lesson plan that would continue to be engaging and not repetitive with the text that we chose. I also was not able to finish his spelling inventory as I wanted to make sure I was able to hear him read and judge on what type of books he would be able to read. Judging by what I saw and heard from Jason I determined we would work on suffixes for our word sort at our second meeting. We would also begin a chapter book lesson about retelling and visualization, with the lack of pictures in the book we were reading I wanted him to be able to explain to me the setting and characters based on what we planned on reading. Overall I believe our first session together went very smoothly. I still need to be able to keep him engaged at all times and make sure that he is prepared for our session each time. I can achieve this by explaining the objectives first thing before we start any tasks.

Background About Student

I was paired with a 3rd grade boy for the summer tutoring program for our literacy class. Jason (pseudonym) is currently reading at a M level for guided reading and has the potential to move up to harder reads by the end of the summer. He currently enjoys reading books about Star Wars and also the Magic Tree House series. He told me that at any time he could be reading 2-3 books at once. I am hoping that by the end of our time together we will be able to perfect his reading strategies and also get him to fully comprehend what is happening in each story he reads over the summer.