Observations about Christopher
For the five-year-old Christopher, his ability adequately matches the Early Stage 1, whose traits comply with Christopher’s descriptions, which include:
He recognizes that words on a page have a meaning and can be read aloud.
He spends time looking at a book.
He recognizes and interprets print in his environment.
He recognizes words during shared reading of literary and factual texts.
He participates in the shared and guided reading of visual and written texts.
He reads a variety of texts matched to instructional level (Reading Outcomes and Indicators)
The text that was used for Christopher’s assessment was “The Baby Duckling.”
Below you will find a table that outlines the overall statistics of his running record:
Total Words
Total Errors
Self-Corrected Errors
Many of the errors were grouped together, in words that were clearly unfamiliar. The words “come with me,” repeated twice in succession, accounted for six of the 22 total errors – more than 25 percent. However, Christopher was able to self-correct all the six of these errors, which suggests a higher level of ability. Many of the other errors suggested that Christopher was effectively following the story. For example, Christopher, given the fact that the first baby was female, notices the substitution of “her” for “him” (page 110). Here, Christopher is assuming that both babies are female. He is aware of the story but he is making assumptions rather than doing the actual reading. Shortening “cannot” to “can’t,” which happens twice, sounds like it could be a phonetic issue, but again, this could also be a case where, based on the context clues, Christopher knows what is coming next and is already prepared to read it. The only error that indicates some difficulty with the reading is the substitution of letters in “saw,” but again, after this happens once, Christopher is able to self-correct.
At least one in every five children has considerable difficulty learning how to read. Evidence clearly shows that most early age children who have reading difficulties are unsuccessful in catching up with their peers. Even though most of these kids eventually become knowledgeable, many keep on having reading difficulties, which make them unable to become fluent readers. Early reading development for Christopher is important. Therefore, efforts, which identify his disabilities, should be implemented. Christopher’s reading ability is realistically predictive of his entire long-term educational achievement. With the foundation that he has, it is clear that Christopher is well prepared for future educational experiences that will better his skills (Baker, 2000).
Christopher’s’ reading development is good but its assessment should be based on a tangible model. This model should be the one that will help his teachers in recognizing trends in his assessment data and in proper planning for his instruction. This model is also going to be remarkable because it will help in identifying Christopher’s strengths and wants and finally in classifying specific areas of reading development knowledge hindering his learning to read. Usually, it is much better for an instructor to identify student’s learning strengths and weaknesses so that he or she may be assisted early enough. Special coaching can be introduced to ensure that the learner is at the required level throughout their studies. To support Christopher, screening should be conducted to check and determine his positional progress . This should be done annually at the beginning of every year (Starfall, 2011).
Diagnosis, which involves looking deeply at Christopher’s’ strengths and wants to establish measures for improvement, should also be done by teachers. Progress monitoring, which involves conducting a regular check on how he is doing should be conducted by the teachers at least four times a year to improve the management of his performance. This will also make Christopher understand that he is being cared and supported through his education. In addition, tests of achievements such as proficiency tests should be carried on regular basis to assist measure the outcome of all this efforts. To add on these, regular classroom observations are important in determining Christopher’s progress. Progress monitoring assessments is achieved by evaluating lessons and planning future lessons.
Christopher needs to learn a variety of skills and strategies to enable him become proficient in reading. Often, it has been indicated that students who excel in education are those who get appropriate guidance and reading materials while still young. At this stage, he needs to understand that what can be read can be spoken. Reading can also be spoken and be written down to be read by someone else. He will therefore, grasp the fundamental concepts prior to entering other stages in school, but he will need clear instruction to set the background for reading. Christopher needs to learn particular things about letters, oral language, and words (Baker, 2000).
According to research, skills and knowledge that kids need to enable them to read with fluency and understanding includes prior knowledge, experience, oral language, phonemic awareness; Semantics and syntax, letter-sound relationships; metacognition; and order thinking skills. They get most of what they know as far as oral language is concerned by speaking and listening to others, including their peers, families and teachers. Through experience with oral language, Christopher will build the vocabulary, semantic and syntacting knowledge that forms foundation for writing and reading. Having proficient oral language will make Christopher have a solid start for reading. This understanding will allow him to categorize words accurately and to forecast and interpret the meaning of written language (Baker, 2000).
For Christopher’s next reading assessment, I would recommend a text that is more difficult in terms of reading level. The content of the book should be clearly within Christopher’s grasp, as this will enable him to pick up and follow the story line of the book well enough to know which word should come next. For instance, even though the words “come with me” were new, he was able to self-correct and keep on going with the reading. A more difficult book would make Christopher rely on the individual words more, and provide a better assessment of his actual reading ability. As it is, it could be that he is ready for the next portion of Stage 1. It is just too early to tell, especially with the book that was chosen for the screening (Teale, 1986).
I would recommend several activities for Christopher. For a student who appears to be a bit ahead of his expected age range, as Christopher is, reading is one of the fun parts of teaching. Reading involves finding creative activities that will help in providing an accurate assessment while also giving Christopher an activity that he will enjoy (Baker, 2000, p. 12; Leseman, 1998, p. 297; Snow, et al., 1998, p. 22). Activities that are farther down the “Beginning Reading” Spectrum than the book that was used to test Christopher, such as “Bobo the Elephant” (Reading Planet) help the learner to add new words to his vocabulary. On the other side, the book also provides a story that is more advanced enough as to keep the reader from guessing each step well before that step happens (Teale, 1986, p. 179; Super and Harkness, 1997, p. 18; Serpell et al., 2005, p. 39). With this activity, Christopher would put on a set of earphones and listen to the story, as each word being read is highlighted in red, in turn. He can follow along the entire story.
Some of the words that gave Christopher some difficulty were ones that appeared on basic “sight word” lists in the earliest primary grades. Since Christopher is obviously ready to recognize a number of words, it is time to expand his “sight word” vocabulary (Bus et al., 1995, p. 9). Parents and teachers can work with “sight word” acquisition using several different ways. One of these is rote memory, which involves the teacher sending home a list of these words with definitions on the back, for students and parents to use them. Another way that these sight words can be learned is through online interactive games (Lynch et al., 2006, p. 7). Starfall has come up with an entire series of sight word games that teach students not only how to spell those words but also how to find them in a series of text (Starfall, 2011).
Just because Christopher can identify and predict the direction of the plot of a simple book does not mean that he should leave that skill behind. Rather, games like “Your Story Ending” (U.S. Department of Education, 2010) can actually help Christopher develop that skill further. In this activity, the teacher or parent will read part of a story with Christopher. The amount of reading that Christopher actually does will depend on the rigor of the story. The point of the activity, though, is to have Christopher predict the ending. The activity involves reading up to a point where the ending is still in doubt, and then the teacher or parent can have Christopher tell his own ending and write it down for him. In a small group, the teacher could read up to the stopping point and have each child draw a picture of what would happen at the ending.
HAPPY LEARNING ACADEMY
123 Learning Road
March 22, 2012
Mr. and Mrs. Involved Parent
456 Homestead Circle
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Parent:
Based on Christopher's recent reading performance, we are very excited about his potential in our school. For someone of his age, his reading is above average. While he is still an Early Stage reader, he is familiar with books that many students do not master for at least another year.
Our evaluation involved listening to Christopher as he read a basic book entitled “The Ugly Duckling” aloud. As he read, our diagnostician marked words that Christopher missed. In the majority of his mistakes, he was able to self-correct his own errors before the diagnostician had to assist him. In other cases, the words he missed showed that his mind may have been moving a bit faster than the text, as his mistakes showed that he was predicting words to come instead of slowing down to read them.
We have compiled a comprehensive reading program for him at our school, based on his testing results. By incorporating books that are suited to his reading level and activities that take into account his existing abilities, we will help him progress even further as a reader. We will be focusing on activities that help him build his “sight word” vocabulary. In readers of his caliber, oftentimes they know what words sound like, but they have never seen them in print, because they have heard them in adult conversations but have not read them. As a result, they can become confused when reading. We will also initiate some creative activities that will use his existing ability to predict coming events in a story and apply it to plot lines that are more sophisticated. This will boost his reading ability considerably.
When Christopher is at home with you, you can do some activities with him as well. When you are reading him a story, or if he is reading one to you, stop occasionally and ask some questions about the events in characters. Ask him what different characters are like, as far as personality. Then, ask him how he knows this. Teaching students to support their opinions with evidence from the text is one of the most important skills in reading comprehension.
Also, sometimes as you read to him, have him draw what he sees in his mind while you are reading. This multisensory approach stimulates connections in the brain and greatly enables deeper reading comprehension. Every now and then, ask him what he is drawing.
Between our activities at school and your hard work at home, Christopher will take his natural strengths at reading and become quite skilled.
Best regards,
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