Literacy Profile

Erica Shelley

April 24, 2015

READ 670

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II. Contextual Framework

Cumberland Middle School is located in Cumberland, Virginia. Cumberland County is

very rural area, with few businesses, limited resources and minimal financial opportunities.

Unfortunately most of the time in areas like Cumberland the lack of businesses and jobs means a

lot of people commute outside of the county for employment. A lot of times when you see this in

areas, the education system suffers due to poor revenue within the county. There usually is not a

lot of funds for the school.

When you specifically take a look inside of Cumberland County Middle School, there are

around 430 students. Out of those 430 students, at least 60% of the students are on free and

reduced lunch. This reflects the financial situation within the county as I mentioned above. The

school is currently under their second year of academic review but has set plans in place to move

forward with a great staff working hard to provide the best instruction for their students. There is

a limited ESL population along with a limited special needs population. The principal mentioned

to us that a lot of the time, with those groups of students, if the needs are severe enough they will

find alternative education, because the school system doesn't have the proper resources. The

school uses Pals and iReady tests for instructional level identification, which we know are not

the most reliable. A lot of the factors really effect the students within in the school and

community.

My focal student is a 6th grader named Caitlin. She is a very intelligent 12 year old girl.

Caitlin loves to read and loves school in general which is an odd characteristic for struggling

students. When I first met Caitlin I thought she was just another example of invalid Pals testing

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scores, because her fluency and accuracy was on grade level (if not above grade level). Once I

started testing for comprehension I noticed that there was none. She could read with 100%

accuracy and incredible fluency, but she was not able to tell me anything about what she read.

This is when the red flag went up and I knew I had to work with her on comprehension

strategies. Again, she loves school, so luckily there shouldn't be much of an issue with

motivation.

From what I understand, Caitlin has a good family background but I am still taking into

consideration the community in which she lives when I plan instruction. She seems like she

comes from a supportive family which could correlate with her love for school. One thing I have

to keep in mind is the limited internet access, so Caitlin, along with many other students may not

have access to many resources. I know I have to teach her strategies that she can easily use

anywhere at any time regardless of resources available. Because Caitlin loves school and many

subjects I am looking forward to building off of her background knowledge for each lesson and

let her build her confidence in comprehending different texts.

III. Assessment

As stated, I originally chose Caitlin as my focal student. Unfortunately, with the nature of

real life, her attendance was not consistent. There was a 3 week gap in her attendance. Because

of that situation, I chose to change my focal student to Devondre. Devondre is also a 6th grade

whose struggle is much like Caitlin’s, with comprehension, but he also struggles a little bit with

fluency. Devondre is such a bright student. When reflecting on getting to know Devondre, and

analyzing the data collected on him, I think it’s safe to say that he was placed into tutoring

program because of fluency, comprehension and motivation. From what I gathered from

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Devondre, he has a supportive family at home, who push him to do well in school, but his family

is below the poverty line in Cumberland County. I appreciate that his family wants him to do

well in school because they want him to excel in life and have opportunities they may not have

had.

At the beginning of the semester we gave Devondre several pre-assessments to determine

the appropriate instruction development that would best meet his instructional needs. We gave

the Elementary Spelling Inventory (ESI) spelling test, Qualitative Reading Inventory subtests,

WRI and WRC and obtained a writing sample which we scored with a 6 + 1 writing rubric.

The results of Devondre’s pre-assessments are as follows. The ESI reflected that

Devondre’s instructional level in spelling development is in early Derevational Relations (DR).

He got a total of 19 out of 25 words correct on the ESI. Taking his total correct and his features

score into consideration, is how we determined his placement in early DR. We started at the level

Pre-Primer 1 for the WRI, continuing all the way to upper middle school, which is where we hit

his frustration level. When giving the WRI, he scored 75% at the 4th grade level with words in

isolation timed, and then 95% untimed, showing us that there was this was where we needed to

start our assessment for the WRC. Devondre’s WRC scores depicted that he reads with great

accuracy, scoring 99% correct for both 4th and 5th grade but moving down to 96% in 6th grade.

When you look at accuracy you also have to take into consideration fluency and comprehension.

Devondre’s fluency rates were a little bit slow, scoring 128 WPM for an oral passage at the 6th

grade level. The average score to compare his to is the oral reading rate of 150 WPM at the 6th

grade level. The last portion of the QRI was testing for comprehension. We started at the 4th

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grade level, (using data from his WRI scores) and tested up through 6th grade with oral narrative

and expository texts. There were opportunities for Devondre to look back through the text for an

answer which was scored separately then recalling information without a look back. He scored

75% at the 4th grade level without a look back and 88% correct with a look back, indicating this

was his instructional level that we needed to begin comprehension at. Lastly, we scored

Devondre’s writing sample which showed us that he has strengths in capitalization, punctuation

and spelling, but needs work on adding details and expanding his thoughts.

IV. Summary of Data Analysis and Reading Levels

After reviewing and reflecting upon the data collected from Devondre’s pre-assessments,

it was obvious to me that we needed to help him with fluency some but mostly with

comprehension. When talking with Devondre, he was aware that he struggled some with

comprehension. Because Devondre has a struggle with fluency, it’s harder for him to

comprehend the text when reading because he’s so focused on reading word for word. When it

comes to his writing, as mentioned earlier, I could see his strengths in the grammar of writing,

and with that we used his strengths to help out his weaknesses in writing.

Although Devondre is capable of decoding 6th grade words when given extended time, his

oral reading rate is below grade level. He scored 128 WPM for the oral reading rate on the grade

level narrative text. The data collected on his WRC depicts that he has great accuracy, but

struggles with the fluency aspect some, which in return, has an effect on his comprehension. He

scored 75% on the 5th and 6th grade oral comprehension sections of the assessments. He

surprisingly scored higher on the 6th grade oral comprehension with 88% correct using a

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Narrative text, but then dropped to 63% when given a grade level Expository text. When taking

all those factors in to consideration I decided Devondre would benefit best starting with 4th grade

instruction for comprehension and fluency.

By calling Devondre’s instructional level at 4th grade, I know it will help him fill in some

of the “holes” he has with comprehending different texts and help him become more fluent when

reading. As mentioned previously, I think motivation also plays a small role in Devondre’s below

grade level placement, but with that, by showing him he can be successful, it will give him the

confidence he needs to boost the motivational factor. (That and bringing interesting text

selections to get him hooked and engaged). I can tell that he needs a little confidence booster

because even in answering some of the questions from the assessment, he seemed hesitant, so

again, focusing on other factors like motivation and building confidence will also be helpful for

him. He mentioned that he loves history, but that sometimes it’s a lot of reading, so I am hoping

by teaching him to read to learn, and to improve his fluency, he can enjoy history more along

with other subjects.

Artifacts

Section 4.1—Student Interest Inventory

As mentioned previously, Devondre is undecided about reading. He doesn’t love it, but

doesn’t hate it. He describes it as not being his favorite subject, because it’s hard at times, but

he doesn’t mind it. I can also tell from Devondre’s answers that he is aware that he reads at a

slower pace at times and that it is discouraging to him. To my surprise it doesn’t affect his

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confidence in reading as much as I thought it would, but I still think there’s room improving

his feelings about reading.

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4.2—Individual Reading Inventory

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WRI

Flash Untimed

PP 100 100

P 95 100

1 100 100

2 95 100

3 90 100

4 75 95

5 85 100

6 70 90

UM

60 85

HS --- ---

Devondre’s scores of the WRI helped me determine where to start the oral reading passages.

According to the scores, I need to start with a 4th grade passage, because this is Devondre’s instructional

level. The range for instructional level is stated as falling between 14-17 words identified automatically,

and a total correct between 70-85%. If you look at the highlighted portion of my chart above, you will see

that Devondre has 75% accuracy, untimed which places him at the instructional level. Even though

Devondre went up to 85% accuracy on the 5th grade WRI assessment, he went back down to 70%

accuracy on the 6th grade WRI assessment, which showed me inconsistencies. His independent level is at

3rd grade, scoring 90% accuracy untimed, where as his frustration level starts at 6 th grade, scoring 70%

accuracy, untimed.

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QRI-5:  Word Recognition in Context (WRC)

When administering the WRC I used “The Drill” protocol sheet which gave me direction

in giving the WRC assessment. As stated previously, the data from the WRI showed that I needed

to start Devondre off, with a 4th grade passage. I started with an oral reading passage, using a

narrative passage, using Devondre’s instructional level. I discovered that his fluency was slow.

On the 4th grade, narrative passage he read with 99% accuracy, and scored 75% in

comprehension. When moving from the 4th grade to 5th grade passage, he scored the same time, 2

minutes and 30 seconds for each passage, which I thought was interesting. He also still had 99%

accuracy and a 75% score in comprehension. When I gave him a 6th grade, narrative passage, he

scored 96% accuracy and 88% comprehension, and did the same for the Upper Middle school

oral passage. This was very surprising to me as the results were somewhat inconsistent with the

WRI assessment scores. When analyzing the data from WRC, I still decided to start instruction

on 4th grade because Devondre scored 75% in comprehension and even with a look back scored

88% which showed me this was a good place to start.

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Section 4.3—Qualitative Spelling Assessment

Devondre is a pretty strong speller. When looking at his spelling assessments it was

determined that he best placed into early Derivational Relations. He struggles some with

harder suffixes like –ate, and –ize. There is also a clear confusion of some base and root

words such as –pleas and –confid. Overall he’s got a great grasp on consonants, short

vowels, long vowels, blends, diagraphs, etc. I would recommend modest instructional pacing

for spelling because Devondre is a strong speller. If someone (like me) would take the time

to do some sorts and word study, he could easily excel past DR. Because Devondre was

already on grade level with spelling, I chose to not make spelling a focus of my instruction to

lend more time for comprehension and writing.

Using but Confusing

Student answer: rippen Word: ripen

Student answer: sellar Word: cellar

Student answer: pleature Word: pleasure

Student answer: fortunite Word: fortunate

Student answer: comfident

Word: confident

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Section 4.4—Written Language

Writing Trait Score Evidence

IdeasThe content of the piece, the main theme, together with the details that enrich and develop that theme.

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The idea he came up with was clear and his writing of on that topic was focused and everything he wrote made sense and clearly had to do with his topic.

OrganizationThe internal structure of a piece of writing, the thread of central meaning, the pattern of the ideas.

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His story flows well and the organization easily goes through his story as he ages. For his story this organization is appropriate. His story has a conclusion that makes sense but there is not really an introduction.

VoiceThe feeling and conviction of the individual writer coming out through the words.

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His use of voice came through during his writing. I could hear him when I was reading it. Although I am not sure of his intended audience, I would assume it was written as a personal narrative, in which case his voice was appropriate.

Word ChoiceWord choice is the use of rich, colorful, precise language that moves and enlightens the reader.

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All of the words in his writing made sense and were appropriate, but they were pretty boring. He did not really make an attempt to add exciting or detailed words to his writing.

FluencySentence fluency is the rhythm and flow of the language, the sound of work patterns.

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The flow of his writing was very good and smooth. He did a great job with his sentence length with adding quotes and longer sentences.

Conventions The mechanical correctness - spelling, grammar and usage, paragraphing, use of capitals, and punctuation.

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His conventions were nearly perfect. His spelling and grammar were correct and there were no run on sentences or phrases.

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Devondre has a good foundation of writing skills. His writing sample depicted good

Organization, acceptable sentence length and almost perfect conventions of writing. He took his

time and really put effort into his writing sample. One thing I took note of was that his paper was

not very descriptive. There wasn’t an effort in making the sample exciting using descriptive

words. Devondre had a good conclusion, but didn’t start out the story with an introduction. With

those points being said, overall, Devondre is a pretty strong speller and I have a good sample to

go off of to start writing instruction.

Section 4.5—Student

Interests and Affective

Mea- sures

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V. Instructional Goals

For Devondre, when looking at word knowledge, I want to work with him on using the

words he knows in isolation when reading in context. There were several times that he knew

words during the WRI, but then did not recognize them on the WRC assessment. To support this

I will introduce new words to him before reading and encourage him to remember those words

when he comes to them in the text. When looking at another instructional goal, Devondre has

pretty good fluency so he does not need a lot of work in this area. His only need is to continue

building up his fluency in higher level texts. This will be achieved with repeated readings and

keeping a graph to track his fluency.

In regards to comprehension, Devondre needs help remembering actual facts from what

he reads. He does pretty well with implicit questions but forgets the actual facts when trying to

answer questions that are explicitly stated in the text. I will accomplish this by having him high-

light or note where he finds the answers to the questions in the text and having him stop after

each paragraph to discuss the facts of it. Each lesson will also have preselected vocabulary

picked out that I will review before he reads each time. Giving him the vocabulary beforehand

will help him, especially if he comes across the words and doesn’t know them, but also simply

because he’s building more word knowledge.

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Lastly, Devondre needs to work on his ability to respond to a prompt when writing. The

first sample I got from him was a response to a prompt where he wrote one sentence. I got an-

other sample in which he got to choose the topic and he wrote me a whole paragraph. His me-

chanics are very good, we just need to work on adding details to his writing. I will do this by

having him plan out his writing with a main idea and details graphic organizer.

Knowing that Devondre struggles with comprehension is a useful thing to know when

planning my lessons. There are many techniques I will use such as Before-During-After tech-

niques when introducing the text selections. For instance, when introducing a text I can ask him

what he knows about the topic or person, create a KWL chart, maybe do a version of a book or

passage walk, then introduce the vocabulary. I would also introduce a comprehension strategy

such as making connections, predicting, inferencing, etc., Once I have done the “before” part, I

will then monitor Devondre’s reading and make sure he is implementing the comprehension

strategy. He will be able to do things such as high light, underline, use graphic organizers, etc., to

show me that he is utilizing the strategy while reading. After he finishes the text, we will com-

plete our KWL chart if one was used, talk about the text, the strategy and how it helped, and

move into our related writing activity.

VI. Evidence of Research Base:  Individualized Instructional Goals

In “Assessing and Correcting in Reading and Writing Difficulties” by Thomas Gunning, he

talks about how fluency can depict how quickly a student decodes and how that time can effect a

students’ ability to process information in a text. Devondre’s fluency is right on the fence of hin-

dering his comprehension. So far, all my assessments have shown that it isn’t affecting him but

as he moves up further into middle school, if he doesn’t get practice with fluency some, that gap

will get bigger and bigger. To help Devondre become a more fluent reader I am going to have

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him read passages in chunks, conduct repeated readings and practice reading orally and silently

so he gets practice with both types of reading (Gunning, 2009, pg. 303). Those strategies are

some Gunning talked about in addition to increasing the amount students are reading, to help

with fluency.

The practice with fluency will also help Devondre practice word knowledge. Devondre has

great accuracy when reading, but for the words he misses, I will get him to sound out the word.

Sometimes just by having him look at it again is all he needs to do. When thinking about how to

build on Devondre’s fluency I referred to Gunning’s balanced language systems idea, that stu-

dents should be using graphophonic, syntactic and semantic systems to decode words (Gunning,

2009, pg. 101). I will examine my students’ errors and allow for him to take note of his mistakes.

If there are common, repeated mistakes, I will then take a step further to bring in more practice

with words in isolation to help increase the automatic recognition of words.

As mentioned previously, even though Devondre’s fluency is below grade level, it hasn’t af-

fected his comprehension as much as I would have suspected (yet). Thomas Gunning is a big ad-

vocate of accessing a students’ background knowledge before giving a reading passage, and also

giving the student background information on the passage. From my own personal experiences I

have seen just how much of an effect this can have on a student’s comprehension and fluency. It

helps to give them background knowledge of a story because reading is easier for students when

they can make connections, or have an idea of what they are reading before they do so. I also

plan to model my reading and writing for Devondre which is something else Thomas Gunning

talks about. “It is essential that the processes of reading and writing be explained and modeled

with lots of opportunities for guided practice and application” (Gunning, 2009, pg. 373). With

those ideas, I plan to incorporate modeling, pulling from my students schema, giving proper

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background knowledge, teaching comprehension strategies, etc., into every lesson I create to

specifically tailor to Devondre’s needs.

As mentioned previously, Devondre is a pretty strong writer. I will incorporate graphic orga-

nizers and have him plan out his writing to help with the planning process. Devondre’s writing

sample was pretty well organized, but I saw room for improvement in the flow of his ideas.

Thomas Gunning mentions how students can use graphic organizers to gather their thoughts be-

fore writing. I plan on specifically using the ones listed in his text, like semantic maps, pictorial

maps, and venn diagrams. Graphic organizers can also be used to help build vocabulary, which

will also help in Devondre’s writing. I also plan to model my writing just as I would my reading.

“One way of guiding students’ writing is to model the process” (Gunning, 2009, pg. 471).

VII. Instructional Plan

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VIII. Tutoring Log

Devondre had perfect attendance and attended each tutoring session. There were no

scheduling problems when working with him, which made tutoring a little less stressful.

Day Time

1/28 45 minutes (assessments)

2/4 45 minutes (assessments)

2/11 45 minutes (lesson and finishing up assessments)

2/25 45 minutes (lesson)

3/11 45 minutes (lesson)

3/18 45 minutes(lesson)

3/25 45 minutes (lesson)

4/1 45 minutes (lesson)

4/15 45 minutes (assessing)

IX. Literacy Lessons and reflections

This portion of my literacy plan is submitted separately due to difficulties placing the lesson

plans in this section.

X. Progress Monitoring and Post Assessments

For lesson 4, I conducted an informal running record. I was excited to see that Devondre was

showing improvement. I could tell that strategically choosing texts for Devondre was really mo-

tivating him. Devondre’s fluency improved slightly from our first meeting, and also improved in

comprehension. He went from 75% correct on a 5th grade passage to 85% correct on a 5h grade

passage. It was great to see his improvement in just a few short weeks. There was also a little bit

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of improvement in his writing. The graphic organizers seem to really help him gather his

thoughts, and also give him something to re-visit when we pick back up on the writing.

For lesson 7 I gave a 5th grade reading passage on Harriet Tubman. Devondre has been read-

ing about different people from the past during our meetings and we had previously read a bibli-

ography on Harriet Tubman. The passage I selected for the post-assessment was another passage

on Harriet Tubman, but this one had to do with her life after the Underground Railroad. It was a

familiar topic, but a new passage. After Devondre finished reading, when I asked him questions,

I was pleased to see how much he comprehended. He scored 100% on the comprehension ques-

tions and improved his fluency by 30 seconds from the beginning of our tutoring sessions to the

post assessment. I was so excited to see the growth he made, and showed Devondre the scores.

He was so proud of himself.

XI. Review of the Research

After completing the tutoring experience I can see that there were several specific things that

helped Devondre succeed. As mentioned in my instructional goals the use of graphic organizers

and modeling really helped my tutee. I would recommend that Devondre’s teacher continue to

model reading and writing for him along with continuously monitoring for progress. Fluency

work should also be incorporated into his reading instruction through re-reads and appropriate

instructional level texts. Devondre one day mentioned his love of technology (just like other stu-

dents) so incorporating reading and writing with technology would definitely be a powerful tool

for success. Devondre also needs proper amount of answering time when given a question. A lot

of the times in our tutoring sessions, the other student would answer before him, so I learned to

specifically ask Devondre questions at times, and prompting him as needed. I saw the Devon-

dre’s need for success and a confidence booster, and by taking his interests and creating lessons

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around that, he was able to quickly engage and succeed. I would highly recommend opportuni-

ties for choice when it comes to reading material and writing topics because I noticed when De-

vondre was given choice, he was highly motivated. With that, I know that there is a curriculum to

learn and to follow but by incorporating student choice somewhere in the lessons, it will really

help him. During our meeting times we worked on comprehension strategies. Devondre was

somewhat familiar with some of the strategies like predicting and making connections but I

would recommend a continuous use of those strategies and also allow for Devondre to pick and

use the ones that work the best for him. Thomas Gunning refers to this as a “Balanced Use of

Strategies” which really creates student success (Gunning, 2009, pg. 331).

XII. Report Writing

April 24, 2015

Dear Mrs. *******

I have really loved working with Devondre this semester. He is a joy to work with and such a smart, talented student. It took me a few weeks to get him warmed up to our routine, but after he got used to it, he jumped right in. I specifically tailored each lesson to Devondre’s needs according to my assessments and reflected upon each lesson I gave him. Each time we met I saw improvement in Devondre in many aspects. For each lesson we focused on fluency, comprehension and writing.

At our last tutoring session, I administered a final assessment to indicate Devondre’s areas of growth. The data reflected that Devondre’s fluency improved as well as his comprehension and writing. Aside from academics, Devondre’s attitude towards reading has also improved as his confidence was built in his successes. In January Devondre scored only 75% correct in comprehension on a 4th grade passage, and in March he scored 85% correct on a 5th grade passage. With our last assessment, Devondre scored 100% on the 5th passage. He also knocked of 30 seconds from his previous fluency score from the beginning. I am confident to say that Devondre will easily be able to begin reading accurately on grade level.

In the beginning of tutoring, as mentioned earlier Devondre seemed disengaged. After conducting the assessments and student interest survey and also the self-efficacy survey, I knew I needed to find things that interested him. With that, each week I picked a new passage for us to read about people from the past. (Devondre expressed his love of history). We tied those passages and questions into our essential questions, “Does history matter? Do things of the past affect us today?” Devondre was so engaged in each reading and actively participated in each lesson. He became more confident in answering questions and even started referring back to the text. It was great to see his growth and engagement.

For future recommendation, I would say to find anything history related or comical. Most of our passages we read in tutoring were history passages, but Devondre mentioned how he also loves comical stories such as “Diary of a Wimpy Kid”. I took note that it was important for him to have a choice in what he

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read and to engage him by using those interests. Here is a list of books that I thought would be of interest to Devondre that he could read to continue his growth. The following books are all historical fiction.

Island of the Blue Dolpins (Instructional) The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World (Independent) The Mystery of Rascal Pratt (Instructional) Number the Stars (Independent) On the Wings of Heroes (Independent)

Again, I thoroughly enjoyed my time working with Devondre. I am so very proud of the progress he made throughout the course of our visits and I feel sure he will continue to succeed. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions! My number is 434-547-2507.

Sincerely,Erica ShelleyM. Ed. CandidateReading, Literacy, and LearningLongwood University

References

Gunning, T. (2009). Assessing and Correcting Reading and Writing Difficulties (5th ed.). Boston,

Massachusetts: Allyn & Bacon.

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