Kaitlyn Fowler

March 23, 2018

IRI Analysis

For this assignment, I worked with a student in my fourth-grade reading class. Harry was

self-motivated and did not reach his frustration level while identify isolated words. He did not

want to stop when I said that we did not have to read more. He was persistent and kept going

until there were no more words, despite the fact that I was no longer recording whether or not he

could identify the words. He would sometimes read the first couple letters of a word while doing

this activity. This would result in him thinking he recognized the word, but state a word that was

not correct. For example, instead of reading, “though,” he read “through” or instead of reading,

“precious,” he said, “precise.” I think that Harry should work on focusing on what he is reading.

I think he knew the words that he should have read, but needs to pay more attention while

reading them.

It is obvious that Harry does well with reading individually. He was able to score a 95%

and 98% in regard to his independent and instructional level. As a result, this qualifies him as an

independent reader. However, his weakness with the word lists was similar to what I found with

his weakness for reading the passages. For example, Harry would read the word, “bold,” instead

of the word “blood,” or he would read “saviors” instead of “survivors.” Due to the fact that his

weakness with the word lists and his passages were the same, I would still recommend that he

slow down and focus on the whole word instead of recognizing just a few letters.

Harry’s strength in regard to comprehension is his ability to recognize the main idea of

the question. He was able to recall the general idea and apply it to the comprehension questions
in order to answer them. However, Harry struggled with answering the comprehension questions

with supporting details. On the fifth-grade reading, he was only able to answer 50% of the

comprehension questions with the appropriate details and he received a 66% for the

comprehension questions on the sixth-grade level reading. In general, Harry was able to

remember the main points of the story. However, he could not recall the details or the specifics.

For example, when the answer should have stated, “a man stayed in a room full of poisonous gas

and was unharmed,” Harry stated, “Because he tested it out twice.” While this answer is not

incorrect, he was not able to recall enough details of the story in order to properly answer the

question. As a result, he was able to better answer the questions that had a more general

response, rather than the questions that were more specific. In regard to Harry’s recognition

abilities, he was able to read most of the words during the passages. Harry had a general

understanding of the story and was able to comprehend the main idea. He needs to learn to focus

on the details of a passage. While he does well with the main idea, he is not able to recall details.

As a result, he needs to work on listening for details and using those details in order to expand

his answers for the comprehension questions.

In terms of overall fluency, Harry did well with reading the story in terms of his prosody.

He changed the tone of his voice when the sentence ended in an exclamation point versus when

it ended in a period. He read with emotion and was passionate about the story. However, Harry is

not able to read at the rate that is typical of his grade level. Harry is fourth grade and read 76

words per minute while reading the fifth-grade level story. In addition, he read 77.5 words per

minute while reading the sixth-grade level story. As a result, he was reading at a 1 (J-K) level.

Due to this, Harry needs to work on the speed in which he reads.

 This assignment provided me real life experience of tasks that I will need to be able to

complete as a teacher. In addition, it is similar to a running record which I will frequently need to

do in the future. In fact, my CT was just completing hers the other day in her classroom with the

students. I also enjoyed being able to work with a student one-on-one, especially this student

because I had not formed as strong of a relationship with him compared to others. As a result of

him assisting me with completing this assignment, it appears that he is more comfortable asking

me questions in class. Furthermore, by analyzing the IRI I was able to apply the knowledge that I

gained from class and utilize it individually to help determine where this student is in regard to

this aspect of his learning. Overall, I enjoyed this experience of administering an IRI.