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LITERACY LEARNER ANALYSIS PROJECT 1

Literacy Learner Analysis Project

Shoshana M. Freedman

Michigan State University

April 30, 2013


I. Brief Background and Reason for Project Focus

Jolie is an eight-year-old second grade girl in my class. This is the second time I have

been her teacher; the first time was in kindergarten. Her reading skills have improved over the

course of this school year, but I notice she still struggles to articulate her understandings of what

she reads past basic “Who, what, where, and when” concepts. I have already taught Jolie

different comprehension strategies, including summarizing, making connections, visualizing, and

collecting new words. Despite the different explicit instruction in these strategies and

opportunities to practice using them, Jolie still demonstrates difficulty voicing her understanding.

This difficulty also appears when explaining her thinking for other subjects. I suspect she may

have some word retrieval or recall difficulties, and possibly language processing difficulties. I

have already articulated these to her parents, and they agreed to schedule psycho-educational

testing to see if she does have a language-based learning difficulty. Meanwhile, they have

agreed to allow her to work with me for these sessions in hopes they may assist in identifying

and addressing some of her problem areas with reading.

We agreed to meet in my classroom after school for each 30-45 minute session. We

planned to meet twice a week for three weeks, although I was warned to be flexible with her

family’s schedule and we met once a week for three weeks and three times in the fourth week. I

intended to focus on two specific comprehension strategies: Identifying the Main Idea with

Supporting Details and Cause and Effect. These strategies tie in with our current unit on

nonfiction and will assist Jolie in her research project on horses. I conducted pre-assessments of

her skills in these areas before moving forward with the lessons and then two post-assessments to

see how much she could produce independently. Following the pre-assessments, I adjusted my

lesson foci to Using Descriptive Language and Identifying the Main Idea with Supporting


Details. I hoped the individual work we did together would increase her confidence in class and

give her a stronger base for reading and understanding nonfictional and fictional texts.

II. Home and Family

Jolie is Caucasian, Jewish, and a native English speaker. She lives in a single-family

home in the metro Atlanta area with her mother, father, and older sister. Jolie frequently spends

time with her grandmother, who also lives in the area, and takes annual trips to Florida with her

extended family. Jolie speaks mostly English with some Hebrew at home and English and

Hebrew at her dual-curriculum Jewish day school.

In Jolie’s home, there are print sources everywhere. Her house is filled with books of

multiple genres, subjects, and developmental levels. Jolie’s mother Beth is the first grade

teacher at her school, so she taught Jolie during her first grade year. Beth brings work home with

her and is an avid Scholastic Book Club consumer. Jolie and her older sister both have their own

books and they make occasional trips to the library. Jolie has assigned reading homework every

night, which she completes and records in a nightly reading log to be checked in school. Jolie’s

mother assists her with studying her weekly spelling words by giving her access to different

materials to help her practice, including writing, wiki-sticks, stickers, various games on the

computer, bingo dabbers, and other art supplies. There is a designated space for Jolie and her

sister to complete homework in their home.

Beth is working to balance her job as a teacher and her role as a parent. She is working

to help her daughter without Jolie feeling like she is becoming her teacher again. Over winter

break, Beth gave me a packet of practice sheets to give to Jolie; this way she would believe I was

assigning it and avoid opposition when instructed to work on it at home. Beth can see how Jolie

struggles with the language pieces, how she is academically lower than many other students in


her class, and she struggles with frustration at not being able to help her daughter because she is

her mother. She regrets teaching her daughter because she believes having a different teacher at

school would have produced a better outcome in Jolie’s progress. Jolie’s mother also questions

whether the small dual-curriculum school is the best educational setting for both of her

daughters; Jolie is struggling academically and her sister is struggling socially and emotionally.

They attend the school and she works at the school because Jolie’s mother is an alumnus and

long-standing member of the local Jewish community.

Jolie’s father is present in the home, though he leaves most of the educational

communication and decisions to his wife. He did attend a make-up conference following our

regularly scheduled parent-teacher conferences and responded positively to teacher

recommendations for intervention for her language struggles. I often observe Beth becoming

emotional during these conferences, especially when her husband expresses frustration over

Jolie’s slow progress.

III. Emotional Climate

I am Jolie’s current General Studies teacher. My second grade classroom promotes a

healthy emotional climate where students are encouraged to ask questions, state their opinions,

and receive constructive feedback from both peers and teachers. Students regularly engage in

comprehension discussion during whole group read-aloud time, small group literature circles,

and partner reading. I frequently take polls from my students asking how comfortable they are

with a subject before moving forward and emphasize understanding the process over solely

having the “correct” answer. When answering an opinion-based question, students are required

to either add onto each other’s ideas, acknowledging when they agree or provide a contrasting

idea to a previous one and give reasoning. Students are not required to speak in front of the class


if they can demonstrate understanding in a small group or individually with me. They may say

“Come back to me,” if I am looking for each student to respond and they are not ready to share

yet; I will look for responses from other students and then return to the student(s) that passed the

first time.

Over the course of the year, Jolie slowly progressed from only sharing her ideas with me,

to sharing with a small group, and finally the whole class. She noted to her mother during the

process of these lessons, “I hear my name in class more.” When her mother asked why, she said,

“Because I am raising my hand and my teacher calls on me.” When Jolie does raise her hand,

she will sometimes hesitate when giving her answer or begin to respond but pause or stop

completely. She benefits greatly from having wait time to gather her thoughts before

responding. This is most effective when working individually with me and is more difficult to

accomplish when working in a small group and whole group due to her peer’s lower patience

level. She often becomes annoyed or upset when other students interrupt or offer their ideas

when she pauses. When she requires a longer wait time in the presence of other students, I often

invite her to raise her hand again when she is ready to respond. Her responses to this invitation

depend on her mood. If she feels embarrassed that she did not have a response ready, she might

hide her face in her arms on her desk or tuck her hair behind her ears repeatedly. If I can offer

the second try when she is still feeling ready to share, she will usually raise her hand after a few

moments and then respond. Jolie’s responses to questions or opinions are usually on-topic and

appropriate for the subject at hand.

Jolie is motivated to read. I often observe her “shopping” in the class Book Nook to

replenish her individual book bin for more reading material. She frequently chooses books from

the Arthur, Froggy, and Berenstain Bear series, shying away from chapter books but still


positive in her opportunities to select reading material. Jolie chose to study horses as her

research topic for a nonfiction project in class. This choice has turned her interest more toward

books related to horses. When reading independently, Jolie shows good focus and stamina to

read for fifteen minutes or more at a time.

IV. Literacy History (e.g. Family Literacy History, School Literacy History, Educational

Literacy History)

At the beginning of this case study, Jolie was reading independently at guided

reading level K according to her last Fountas and Pinnell continuum assessment in December

2012. Jolie is currently getting services from a Speech and Language Pathologist to help her

with her expressive language, word recall, and word retrieval skills. However, she has not yet

been formally diagnosed as having a deficiency in these skills, though her parents intended to

schedule a psycho-educational evaluation to be administered in the spring. Jolie also works

individually or in small groups with me or the support teacher during math lessons.

Jolie began her formal school career at the age of 4 in our Jewish day school’s Pre-K

classroom. She then continued on to kindergarten, first grade, and now she is in second grade.

Throughout her school career, Jolie learned in a dual-language environment, spending half her

instructional time in English and the other half in Hebrew. Jolie’s General Studies curriculum

includes Reading, Writing, Math, Social Studies, and Science. Her Judaic Studies curriculum

includes Hebrew language, Writing, Tefillah (Hebrew for “prayer”), and various religious texts.

Jolie has been immersed in two languages since first attending our school.

Jolie was my student in kindergarten and now she is again in second grade. This is my

second year teaching her. Jolie is a low to average-achieving student in her class. She often

assesses as lower than her peers in language-based activities and requires instructional support


for math, reading, and writing within my class. She often appears to either understand but seem

unable to articulate her ideas, or does not understand and emotionally shuts down if she feels

embarrassed. Jolie’s mother Beth, who was also her first grade teacher, sees her first grade year

as a “lost year” because she feels Jolie did not learn as much because of their relationship. When

Beth could see her daughter was struggling in class, she often let it go and worked to provide her

daughter additional instructional time and support individually at home. Beth often said to Jolie

when she shut down in class, “That’s ok, we’ll work on it at home,” and tried to hide her feelings

of frustration and anxiety at her daughter’s struggle to learn new concepts. Beth has multiple

times shared her regret that Jolie attends this dual-curriculum dual-language school with two

languages solely because she attended the school as a child. Her sense of community and

obligation outweighs her desire to put Jolie in a more supportive school environment with more

time focused on English. Beth has questioned whether she should put Jolie in public school

multiple times over the years.

Due to my personal relationship with Beth as my friend and mentor, I often find it

difficult to share with her my findings for Jolie’s challenges. I strive to give her an honest

depiction and I have encouraged a full evaluation to get more information so we can best help

Jolie learn. However, I sometimes find myself underemphasizing some of her more prominent

challenges in the hopes of highlighting her positive moments in school. Beth has demonstrated

anxiety toward both of her daughters’ struggles in school and I notice I work more to assuage her

fears rather than confirm them. When Jolie struggles to articulate her needs and advocate for

herself, it further inhibits my ability to assist her where she feels challenged in any subject area.

V. Tests Given and Summary of Test Results


I administered the Vocabulary assessment outlined in the Abecedarian Reading

Assessment. These include the Production, Antonyms, and Synonyms subtests. I selected this

section of the Abecedarian because I noticed the Production subtest required Jolie to produce a

response on her own, whereas the Antonyms and Synonyms subtests gave her three choices for

responses. I wanted to gauge how much of her challenges were related to whether she could

know a word and express it on her own over needing choices to help her remember which

response was most appropriate. Then I completed the Student Oral Language Observation

Matrix (SOLOM) Teacher Observation, noting her comprehension, fluency, vocabulary,

pronunciation, and grammar skills as they currently stand. I selected this assessment because I

knew I could use my additional experience with her as her classroom teacher to complete such an

assessment. The SOLOM focuses on a student’s oral language skills, which directly relates to

her reading skills. Finally, I completed the Primary Reading Comprehension Strategies Rubric

(2-3), taking into account my work with her as her reading teacher. This assessment specifically

focuses on whether the student can use specific reading strategies to help them comprehend the

material and also correlates to the concepts I have been teaching all year, including the lessons I

will teach for this project.

During the Abecedarian Vocabulary Production subtest, students hear a word and are

required to state its meaning and use it in a sentence. There are a four practice words where a

student learns the expectations of the assessment before the assessment officially begins. On this

subtest, Jolie scored 5 out of 10. A passing score is 8 out of 10. She struggled to define words

“chop,” “wiggle,” “blush,” “frost,” and “beast”. For all of the words, she attempted to both

define them and put them in a sentence. She was able to put “chop,” “wiggle,” and “blush” into

a sentence but could not describe what they meant. She mistook “frost” for “frosting” and said,


“You can put it on a cake.” When asked to use “frost” in a sentence, she substituted the word

“it” when given two separate opportunities to attempt it. She acknowledged hearing the word

“beast” before but did not know what it meant. During each component of the Production

subtest, Jolie required between 30 seconds and 90 seconds to respond, asking to return to three

separate words after failing to attempt them the first time. She sat with her shoulders rounded

inward and her arms around her knees. With praise and encouragement, she completed this

section without becoming too frustrated and benefited from quiet wait time so she could respond

without feeling rushed.

For the Abecedarian Vocabulary Antonyms subtest, students hear a word and are then

given three possible choices for a response. The three responses include a synonym, another

related word, and the antonym in random order. The student is given three example words where

the administrator says the words and their antonyms. Then the student responds to four practice

words using the three choices for each word. On this subtest, Jolie scored 10 out of 10. A

passing score is 8 out of 10. She hesitated only with the word “lift” where the possible antonym

choices were “lever,” “drop,” and “push”. Jolie’s demeanor relaxed more during this subtest and

she responded more quickly during this section.

For the Abecedarian Vocabulary Synonyms subtest, students hear a word and are then

given three possible choices for a response. The three responses include a synonym, a related

word, and either another related word, a word with a similar sound, or an antonym. The student

is given two example words with three choices for each with room for discussion before they

respond to three additional practice words. On this subtest, Jolie scored 8 out of 10. A passing

score is 8 out of 10. Jolie hesitated more often during this subtest, selecting “rocket” as her

response to “airplane” when the correct choice was “jet” and the other option was “train”. For


the word “hear” Jolie responded with “watch” when the correct choice was “listen” and the other

option was “look”.

The teacher completes the SOLOM upon understanding its separate components and

rating the student based on five oral language components observed in class. Each component is

given a point score ranging from 1 to 5. The lowest possible score is 5 and the highest possible

score is 25. A proficient speaker has a score of 19 or 20. Jolie scored a 20 on this assessment,

earning 4 points for Comprehension: “Understands nearly everything at normal speech.

Although occasional repetition may be necessary.” She scored 3 points in Fluency: “Speech in

everyday conversation and classroom discussion frequently disrupted by the student’s search for

the correct manner of expression.” She scored 4 points in Vocabulary: “Student occasionally

uses inappropriate terms and/or must rehearse ideas because of lexical inadequacies.” Jolie

scored 5 points in Pronunciation: “Pronunciation and intonation approximate that of a native

speaker.” She scored 4 points in Grammar: “Occasionally makes grammatical and/or word order

errors that do not obscure meaning.” This confirmed for me that Jolie is a proficient native

English speaker, so her struggles with language are related to something else. When Jolie

speaks, she can make herself understood and understands most of what she hears. Her challenge

lies with being able to decide what she wants to say and then speak confidently and frequently.

On the Primary Reading Comprehension Strategies Rubric (2-3), the teacher completes

the rubric based on their observations of students while they read. Students are scored Level

One (the lowest score), Two, Three, or Four (the highest score) in seven different categories:

Making Connections (Prior Knowledge), Questioning, Visualizing (Sensory Imagery),

Determining Importance, Monitoring Comprehension, Inferring, and Synthesizing. I completed

this rubric based on my observations of her reading and work related to our class nonfiction


research project. Jolie scored as working in a Level One or Two for all of the seven categories of

Reading Comprehension. Her Level One scores were in Determining Importance and

Monitoring Comprehension because she is “unable to identify the important concepts in the text”

and she “does not identify difficulties or problem areas.” Her Level Two Scores were in the rest

of the Comprehension Strategies, as they each describe how she begins to address each

component, but not to its fullest extent. I feel that here is where her language difficulties impact

her reading the most; I think she is capable of more and in fact I think she knows more than what

she reveals because she struggles to articulate what she understands. I also think her language

difficulties mask what she knows from what she truly has not learned yet and it is difficult to tell

the difference.

I used this information to assist me as I focused on Using Descriptive Language and

Identifying the Main Idea and Supporting Details with Jolie. Given her challenges with

expressive language, I will need to adjust the lessons so that she can access the material and

demonstrate her understanding without too many open-ended responses. I recognize her need for

wait time and her need for choices to help articulate her thinking. With direct teaching and

guided practice, I hoped to increase her reading comprehension in these areas.

The post-assessments I used were the response sheets she completed at the end of each

lesson. The first was creating a page of a similar style to the book we read, Things That Are

Most in the World by Judi Barrett (1998). Jolie was required to select an adjective in the story

and then create her own version of that page using different descriptive language and illustrate it

appropriately. She wrote, “The hottest thing in the world is a hot Peper with other spice things.

with fire.” At first, she wrote “other spice things” (other spicy things) but when I asked for an

example, she erased it and wrote next to it “with fire”. When illustrating her page, she drew a


picture of herself sitting at a table with a red pepper on a plate and a fire next to it. I showed her

the illustrations from that page in the story and asked if that looked like the hottest thing in the

world. She adjusted her picture to include glasses of water and an image of herself holding a fan,

similar to the dragon holding a fan on the “hottest” page. She also made her fire larger.

The second post-assessment was a graphic organizer for recording the Main Idea and

Supporting Details from Teach Comprehension Strategies with Picture Books (Peterson, 2005).

Jolie and I read a selection from the book A Sea Full of Sharks (Maestro, 1990) and then she

recorded inside the center light bulb “There are different sizes and shapes of sharks”. On the

lines designated for the supporting details, she wrote, “Most sharks are about 6 or 7 feet long.

Some sharks are as long as 50 feet. Some sharks are tiny and may be only 6 inches long.” This

paraphrases the full amount of information from the selection as we worked together to omit

unnecessary information.

I intended for both post-assessments to be completed independently. However, Jolie was

still in the stage of learning where she needed more guided instruction rather than feeling

confident in her mastery. The post-assessments are more like formative assessments rather than

summative. If I continued on with either of the activities, perhaps I might get a more accurate

depiction of Jolie’s growth in these areas from independent work.

VI. Lesson Plan Matrix

Lesson Foci/Date Objectives (include including performance, conditions, and criterion. State the Common Core State Standard at the end of each objective.

Instructional materials (what will use to deliver the main objectives of the lesson)

On-going assessment (to measure attainment of objectives)

3/21/2013-4/4/2013 Describe how words Things that are Most in Ask whether or not


Read and discuss adjectives that describe an extreme state of being.

Respond to text with a written and illustrated response using the same phrasing as the original text but with a different example.

and phrases (e.g., regular beats, alliteration, rhymes, repeated lines) supply rhythm and meaning in a story, poem, or song. CCSS.ELA.RL.2.4

Use information gained from the illustrations and words in a print or digital text to demonstrate understanding of its characters, setting, or plot. CCSS.ELA.RL.2.7

Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words.a. Distinguish long

and short vowels when reading regularly-spelled one-syllable words.

b. Know spelling-sound correspondences for additional common vowel teams.

c. Decode regularly spelled two-syllable words with long vowels.

d. Decode words with common prefixes and suffixes.

e. Identify words

the World, Judi Barrett (1998, Scholastic Inc.)

Blank Paper

Pencil

Crayons

Jolie agrees with each statement for what is the “most” and have her give reasoning.

Have Jolie identify unknown vocabulary, defining it within context and with real-world examples.

Ask Jolie for additional examples of the different adjectives outlined in the text.

Monitor for accuracy and fluency and to see if Jolie uses self-correcting strategies when she loses comprehension due to inaccuracies or slower rate of fluency.

Have Jolie complete a page “continuing the story” with her own example using one of the adjectives listed previously in the text. Check to see how she relates the adjective to a reasonable example.


with inconsistent but common spelling-sound correspondences.

f. Recognize and read grade-appropriate irregularly spelled words.

CCSS.ELA.RF.2.3Read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension.a. Read on-level text

with purpose and understanding.

b. Read on-level text orally with accuracy, appropriate rate, and expression on successive readings.

c. Use context to confirm or self-correct word recognition and understanding, rereading as necessary.

CCSS.ELA.RF.2.4

Create audio recordings of stories or poems; add drawings or other visual displays to stories or recounts of experiences when appropriate to clarify ideas, thoughts, and feelings.CCSS.ELA.SL.2.5

Demonstrate


command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.a. Use collective

nouns (e.g., group).

b. Form and use frequently occurring irregular plural nouns (e.g., feet, children, teeth, mice, fish).

c. Use reflexive pronouns (e.g., myself, ourselves).

d. Form and use the past tense of frequently occurring irregular verbs (e.g., sat, hid, told).

e. Use adjectives and adverbs, and choose between them depending on what is to be modified.

f. Produce, expand, and rearrange complete simple and compound sentences (e.g., The boy watched the movie; The little boy watched the movie; The action movie was watched by the little boy).

CCSS.ELA.L.2.1Demonstrate command of the


conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.a. Capitalize

holidays, product names, and geographic names.

b. Use commas in greetings and closings of letters.

c. Use an apostrophe to form contractions and frequently occurring possessives.

d. Generalize learned spelling patterns when writing words (e.g., cage → badge; boy → boil).

e. Consult reference materials, including beginning dictionaries, as needed to check and correct spellings.

CCSS.ELA.L.2.2

Use knowledge of language and its conventions when writing, speaking, reading, or listening.a. Compare formal

and informal uses of English.

CCSS.ELA.L.2.3

Demonstrate understanding of


word relationships and nuances in word meanings.a. Identify real-life

connections between words and their use (e.g., describe foods that are spicy or juicy).

b. Distinguish shades of meaning among closely related verbs (e.g., toss, throw, hurl) and closely related adjectives (e.g., thin, slender, skinny, scrawny).

CCSS.ELA.L.2.5

Use words and phrases acquired through conversations, reading and being read to, and responding to texts, including using adjectives and adverbs to describe (e.g., When other kids are happy that makes me happy). CCSS.ELA.L.2.6

Lesson Foci/Date Objectives (include including performance, conditions, and criterion. State the Common Core State Standard at the end of each objective.

Instructional materials (what will use to deliver the main objectives of the lesson)

On-going assessment (to measure attainment of objectives)

4/10/2013-4/12/2013

Identify the main idea

Ask and answer such questions as who, what, where, when,

“Main Idea and Supporting Details”, pg. 24, Teach

Have Jolie identify unknown vocabulary, defining it within


and supporting details of a nonfiction text.

Discuss new vocabulary within a nonfiction text.

Retell a paragraph in one’s own words.

why, and how to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text. CCSS.ELA.RI.2.1

Identify the main topic of a multiparagraph text as well as the focus of specific paragraphs within the text. CCSS.ELA.RI.2.2

Determine the meaning of words and phrases in a text relevant to a grade 2 topic or subject area. CCSS.ELA.RI.2.4

Comprehension Strategies with Picture Books, Mary Peterson (2005, TeacherTreasures.com)

A Sea Full of Sharks, Betsy Maestro (1990, Scholastic Inc.)

6-7 12-inch rulers

Pencil

context and with real-world examples.

Check for understanding with each sentence and have Jolie retell it in her own words.

Monitor for accuracy and fluency and to see if Jolie uses self-correcting strategies when she loses comprehension due to inaccuracies or slower rate of fluency.

Have Jolie identify the key word within the main idea that relates to all the supporting details and complete the “Main Idea and Supporting Details” handout, rewriting it in her own words.

VII. Reflection on the Lesson Plans

The first lesson contained Jolie’s pre-assessments. She appeared thoughtful, mildly

anxious but willing to try the different tasks. She benefited greatly from quiet wait time and I

appreciated using my empty classroom as our workplace. We sat at the carpet, a more informal

meeting place, rather than at my desk or her desk. Once while waiting for an extended time for a

response, I asked, “Are you thinking of what to say, or do you want to say ‘I don’t know’ to this

question? Sometimes it is hard to tell.” Jolie responded, “I’m thinking,” which surprised me


because in class she will either bury her head or say “I don’t know” or “I don’t remember.” This

time, she continued thinking and then responded to the question.

The second and third lessons included reading The Most text and Jolie’s response to her

reading sheet. Reading and discussing the story took the most time, as with each page I would

check Jolie’s comprehension for each page spread. I would ask her if she agreed with whether

the description matched the adjective and follow with asking her why she thought that way. She

often appeared stuck when trying to explain, and I encouraged her to talk around the word she

was looking for by describing it instead. When we read the page “The quietest thing in the world

is a worm chewing peanut butter,” she agreed that it was but struggled to describe how. I

encouraged her to think of something that would be louder to eat than peanut butter, and she

responded, “Chips”. The “prickliest” page was difficult for her to comprehend because she had

no prior knowledge of its description, the inside of a pincushion. I scaffolded the idea for her by

activating her prior knowledge of sewing and using needle and thread before describing what

might keep the needles organized without poking anyone. Jolie studied the illustration of a sad

armadillo inside a pincushion as I described its use and winced when she touched the page. She

disagreed with the “hottest” page as describing pepperoni pizza. Pepperoni is not kosher by

Jewish law and the mixing of meat and milk is forbidden; this example is outside the realm of

her cultural knowledge. I asked if Jolie had ever tasted pepperoni; she had not. When I asked

what would make more sense to her, she responded, “a hot pepper”. Her later selection of the

“hottest” page as the response page and the hot pepper in her description matches this first

mention of it during the reading.

The fourth, fifth and sixth lessons included brainstorming Jolie’s prior knowledge of

sharks, readings of A Sea Full of Sharks (Maestro, 1990) and Jolie’s response page for the “Main


Idea and Supporting Details”. I selected this topic because I thought she might find it interesting

and I thought another horse book would be too similar to her project in school. Before the

reading, Jolie described sharks and I recorded her responses on a web: “They have a tail. They

are big. They have sharp teeth. They live underwater.” During the reading, I monitored her

accuracy and fluency more closely because it dropped from the increase in words per page and

level of word difficulty. Jolie struggled to understand how the different varieties of sharks have

been organized “into 30 large families” (Maestro, 1998, p.3) confusing the scientific word

“family” with the “family” she has at home. Jolie remembered from our research project how

visuals come with captions and pointed out the different captions for a page spread containing

nine different types of sharks. I asked her to name the largest and smallest sharks using the

captions. Using my iPhone, I searched Google to show her images of the Basking Shark and the

Goblin Shark because the illustrations were rather vague in their descriptions. She appreciated

seeing real photographs of the sharks since the book only contained illustrations. We ran out of

time to continue reading the book in its entirety, so Jolie selected the passage she found most

interesting and used it to record on the “Main Idea and Supporting Details” sheet. I described

how many nonfiction books put the main idea that covers each part of the topic in the first

sentence of their paragraphs. I read to her the whole book only reading the first sentence of each

paragraph. She agreed that doing this alone does give the reader some information, but not a lot

of information about the topic. Jolie reworded the first sentence from the page describing shark

sizes and recorded her response. We worked together to find three supporting details using her

wording, which described the length of most sharks, and the lengths of the longest and shortest

sharks. To give her more perspective on the average shark size, I brought out rulers and Jolie

used them to measure a line seven feet long on the carpet. She laid next to it to compare her


length to the “shark”. I then took a turn to show her how I would also be shorter than the

average shark.

Giving Jolie concrete examples helps to reinforce new concepts. If I could teach these

lessons again, I would work with her to locate items that would help her describe each adjective

in The Most book. I would also help her create a word bank of index cards to choose from when

she is having trouble recalling the right word. Locating a video about sharks may also reinforce

Jolie’s reading about them and give her another experience to draw from when describing what

she understands about sharks. Every time I used more abstract or verbal-only examples, Jolie

was quieter and nodded or shook her head more often. When using the concrete examples, she

made more attempts to describe what she was experiencing.

VIII. Recommendations to Teachers and Parents

Jolie’s confidence and willingness to take risks in class after this experience increased.

This could be due to more individual time with me outside of regular class. This could also be

attributed to the direct instruction to talk around an idea when a particular word seems difficult to

retrieve. Jolie raises her hand more often, although she still hesitates when called on and puts

her head down when she does not have an answer ready.

Upon the completion of this work I asked Beth about the exact date to Jolie’s psycho-

educational evaluation; she seemed surprised, as though I was mentioning it for the first time. At

first I apologized and thought I might be discussing another student, but looking back through

my earlier notes I did record agreeing with both Jolie’s parents that an evaluation was necessary

to help us learn more information about how best to support Jolie. I even mentioned how public

school may provide it more cheaply than a private evaluator but how a private evaluation may


glean more pertinent information. The work Jolie is doing with a Speech and Language

Pathologist seems to give Beth confidence that something is being done to help her daughter. I

recommended additional work over the summer to help Jolie retain her current skills. Jolie

should continue reading both fiction and nonfiction texts, practicing how to identify the main

idea and supporting details. After I complete the end-of-year reading assessments I will have a

better idea as to her most current guided reading level and will have more specific

recommendations for summer reading material.


IX. Appendices of Work

Appendix A: Consent Form


Appendix B: Abecedarian Vocabulary Assessment


Appendix C: SOLOM Assessment


Appendix D: Primary Reading Comprehension Strategies Rubric (2-3)


Appendix E: Student Work Sample


Appendix F: Student Work Sample


X. Bibliography

Barrett, J. (1998). Things that are most in the world. New York, NY: Scholastic Inc.

English language arts standards: Reading: Foundational skills: Grade 2. Common Core State

Standards Initiative. Retrieved from http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RF/2

English language arts standards: Reading: Informational text: Grade 2. Common Core State

Standards Initiative. Retrieved from http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RI/2

English language arts standards: Language: Grade 2. Common Core State Standards Initiative.

Retrieved from http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/L/2

English language arts standards: Reading: Literature: Grade 2. Common Core State Standards

Initiative. Retrieved from http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RL/2

English language arts standards: Speaking and listening: Grade 2. Common Core State

Standards Initiative. Retrieved from http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/SL/2

Jill Kerper Mora. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.cal.org/twi/evaltoolkit/appendix/solom.pdf

Language Arts Committee. Primary reading comprehension strategies rubric. Walnut Creek

School District. Walnut Creek, CA: Retrieved from

http://www.readinglady.com/mosaic/tools/Strategy%20Rubrics.pdf

Maestro, B. (1990). A sea full of sharks. New York, NY: Scholastic Inc.

Peterson, M. (2005). Teach comprehension strategies with picture books. West Jordan, UT: TeacherTreasures.com.

Wren, S., & Watts, J. (2002). The abecedarian reading assessment: Letter knowledge,

phonological awareness, phoneme awareness, alphabetic principle, vocabulary, decoding.

In Austin, TX: Retrieved from

http://www.balancedreading.com/assessment/abecedarian.html

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