Literacy Writing Prompt for 2-18-11

What have you learned about your buddy’s needs, abilities and interests?
Interests
My fourth grade buddy loves to play football at recess. He also likes the Seahawks, soccer, scary and mystery books, fast cars (Ferrari, Lamborghini), and playing video games (World of War Craft). His favorite color is purple. One of his goals is to read more at home instead of playing video games. He said it is hard for him to find a book of interest at home and there is limited resources. My partner and I find our fourth grade buddy very sweet to work with; we are curious to know why his desk is right next to the his teacher's instead of with a group?
Abilities and Needs
- When my partner and I did the spelling assessment, he really enjoyed spelling. When we had time left in out next sessions, he would always want to wrap up with some spelling. Words ending in “ed,” long vowel, other vowel patterns, consonant doubling, inflected endings, and syllable junctures are learning targets of focus. I would place this writer in the Within Word Pattern and Syllables and Affixes spelling stages (Bear & Templeton, 2004).
- During the word bank exercise, this student did well, read the words fairly quickly, and finished all the words. He self-monitored when he did not know the word and attempted to sound out the letters. According to the assessment, he is able to read independent words at about a 5th grade level.
- Comprehension is the area that I would like to focus more on. When our buddy read from his own text book, he had a hard time retelling the story. It seemed he was more concerned with reading than comprehension. He had to go back to the text often and re-read to recall events. However, this student was aware of words that were unfamiliar to him. When we read a book of our choosing, Goosebumps, which is at about a fourth grade reading level, he said the text was too easy. And he was able to retell a good share of the details. When we read "Amelia Earhart", this student was able to recall some events in his own words; however, when we asked him the questions that were pre-written, our buddy had difficulty. From this assessment, he was at the frustration level and at the twenty-fifth percentile in fluency rate (2006 Hasbrouch & Tindal Oral Reading Fluency Data). This assessment was surprising to my partner and I because during our other sessions, his rate in regards to fluency was fine. Our buddy did not have any background knowledge on Earhart and did not seem to have an interest in the story.

As a result of this knowledge, what learning objectives and materials are you considering using for your lesson?

I would like to focus the next lesson on comprehension strategies. Is he making mental images in his head as he reads? Is he able to use background knowledge? Is he able to ask questions as he reads? Is he aware when things do not make sense when he reads? I think explicitly sharing one or two of these types of strategies will help in his reading comprehension because this student does have the ability to read fluently with out many miscues and self monitor. For materials, I would like to find a book he would enjoy reading about (i.e. fast cars, football) and a text that is still at fourth grade reading level. The learning objective would be focusing on one of these strategies to improve cognitive awareness of meaning in text.