Jennifer L.

Mollen (Jenny)
READ 436 – Fall 2018
Exit Slips (to be posted to eportfolio)

Describe the assessments you will use for instructional level readers, define the levels (independent,
instructional, frustration), and explain the factors that will influence your grouping for instruction.

There are three different levels that describe elementary school readers – frustration,
instructional, and independent. The first level occurs when there is a “mismatch between
instruction and what an individual is able to grasp,” which ends up impeding the child’s
learning and results in frustration from that child (Bear 2016). Majority of the time, this
happens when the teacher provides students with tasks that are above their reading level.
The next level, instructional, occurs when the instruction provided by the teacher and the
student’s ability level are aligned. These students are able to be successful in the tasks given
by the instructor with some assistance. The last level, independent, occurs when the student
no longer needs assistance or “instructional support,” and complete the assigned reading
completely independently (Bear 2016). A student who is in the independent stage of reading
completes the task with a “high degree of accuracy, speed, ease, and fluency,” (Bear 2016).

For readers who are in the instructional level, I think the best type of assessment that gives
the teacher to most information would be running records. Running records are completed
by teacher while the student reads a given passage that is on their reading level. After
completing the running record, the teacher can decide if the student should move up a
reading level, down a reading level, or continue practicing in the reading level they are
currently in. I think the flexibility in the levels of different passages is what makes running
records so great. There are so many resources for teachers that contain all the different levels
they may have in their classrooms and a variety of topics, so they can choose what a student
might be interested in. Not only in running records is the teacher able to make note of
unknown or mispronounced words, repeated words, omitted words, and the flow (or
fluency), but the teacher can also test comprehension of the reading by providing questions
about the passage after the student has read. Students must not only learn how to read the
words of a passage, but they have to be able to comprehend and understand what they are
reading – otherwise, what is the point?

In regard to the grouping of students in my future classroom, I think it is important to group

based on the individual’s reading level. I do not believe it is effective to place students at
completely different levels in the same reading groups, because this will fuel frustration on
all ends – higher level readers getting frustrated that the lower level readers don’t
understand like they do, and lower level readers feeling upset and unwilling to continue to
participate, because their peers are at a higher level than they are. While I think the most
effective way to group students is by their reading level, I think it is incredibly important that
the students to not know the labels of different groups. Students do not need to know that
there is a high level and/or a low level, because that can cause the feeling of inferiority.
 Readers who are working together on the same level provide each other opportunities to
learn and grow from each other.

Define fluency and describe how you will teach it, including examples and resources from class.

Fluency is the part of reading in which one reads with expression, appropriate tone, and at
the appropriate speed. How a teacher knows that a student is reading with proper fluency is
that they are reading with emotion and passion – clearly interpreting and understanding
what the author is trying to convey through their words. That being said, I believe that
students cannot begin to work on their fluency until they have a strong handle on reading. If
they can’t read the words efficiently or correctly, then they are going to be unable to read a
passage quickly or understand what they read. If they do not understand the text, then they
are not going to be able to read it with expression or tone.

In terms of teaching fluency to those students who have some sort of mastery of reading, I
think there are a number of ways to go about it. First, one has to decide which part of fluency
they want to focus on with the student – do they want to focus on expression and tone, or do
they want to focus on speed? Expression and tone refer to the emotion conveyed when
reading a story. In order for a student to read with this emotion, they must be able to
interpret the meaning of the text as they are reading it, and convey the emotion set through
the author’s word choice and context clues. Speed while reading refers to making sure the
students are reading at an appropriate rate – not too fast or too slow.

There are a few different ways that teachers can work with students on their fluency in the
classroom. For expression, teachers may have their students engage in a reader’s theater
assignment. This activity involves the students reading a book allowed to their class, in parts,
almost as a performance. For example, I completed a reader’s theater with second grade
students on the book The Day the Crayons Quit by Oliver Jeffers. For this reader’s theater, the
students each had a puppet representing their crayon, and they were asked to personify the
crayon and read with the emotion that crayon was feeling. Reader’s theaters can be
spontaneous, such as mine where the students were given the assignment and performed in
the same day. Or, they can be practiced over a longer period of time in order for maximum
performance.

For working with students on speed, most teachers engage in some sort of running record.
Running records are completed by asking the student to read a passage and counting the
number of words they can read in a minute, minus any errors that they made have made. In
order to track their progress, after a few days of practice, the teachers run the running record
for a second time and see if the students have a higher score for words per minute. In my
practicum placement fall of 2018, my cooperating teacher assigned students fluency
passages and would do a running record on Monday when she gave them out and then again
on Friday to track the students’ progress. This is likely the way I will track fluency with speed
in my future classroom.
 Compare word study to the method used when you learned to spell.

When learning to spell in elementary school, we typically just practiced by writing and
rewriting the words that we were to be tested on. Throughout the week, we had homework
to practice writing the words and on Fridays we had our spelling test. As far as I can
remember, the homework usually entailed just writing the words… possibly using them in a
sentence or drawing a picture. We also often used little phrases to help us remember
common spellings, such as “i before e except after c,” which I now know isn’t always true…

Word study is a much more practical way to have students learn how to spell. This method
helps students recognize patterns within different words, but also how to recognize when a
certain word doesn’t follow the pattern. Compared to what I did in school, I feel like the
students are actually learning how to spell words and why it works rather than remote
memorization. By learning these skills and patterns, they will be able to make better
inferences on how to spell other words they don’t know yet.

Something else word study touches on that I never remember learning in school is looking
at the combinations of vowels and consonants in words, and what sounds they make when
they are placed in different places. This, again, is a pattern that students learn that will help
them in understanding and guessing the spelling of other words. I can say with complete
honesty that I did not know the difference between a vowel and a consonant (which letters
belonged in each group) until almost middle school. I did not even know there were any
differences between letters. I see my second graders (in my practicum classroom) work with
vowels and consonants every day during their word study, and they know that all words
must contain a vowel.

In conclusion, word study is a much better method of helping students learn how to spell
than the techniques that were used when I was in elementary school. Actually studying the
words, understanding what kinds of letters go together and what kinds of sounds certain
combinations of letters make. Overall, students gain a better understanding of how and why
it all works.

Why do we use before, during, and after activities for comprehension? Name at least one comprehension
activity for each (before, during, and after) with resources from class.

When creating comprehension activities for students, teachers should include a before
activity, during activity, and after activity. The purpose of including these parts of the activity
is to help nourish readers who are both active and reflective. Before reading activities
encourage students to approach their reading with a purpose. Giving the students a purpose
for reading (or allowing them to discover it for themselves) makes them more willing to
participate in the during reading and after reading activities. During reading activities help
the students engage and make connections in the reading. Providing students with a task to
complete while they read ensures that they are working to understand what is happening in
the story. Eventually, students will be able to understand/comprehend a text while reading
without having an activity to guide that. After reading activities help students bring it all
together and assess their understanding.

There are many activities that can be used before reading. Some of these include K-W-L
(know, want to know, learned) charts, anticipation guides, story words, reciprocal teaching,
and DRTA’s (Directed Reading-Thinking Activity). During reading activities include
character maps, sequence maps, K-W-L charts, reciprocal teaching, and DRTA’s. For after
reading activities, students can participate in think-pair-share activities, QAR activities
(question answer relationships), connections charts (text to self, text to world, text to text),
K-W-L charts, and reciprocal teaching.

Compare our writing activities to what you see in practicum.

The writing activities discussed in class are very wholesome and complete. Writing is done
best when there is a brainstorming, prewriting/outlining, and drafting. Writing is a process
and foregoing any of these steps will result in a less cohesive piece of work. Being able work
with one’s writing and constantly revising and receiving feedback will ultimately lead to the
best final draft possible. Going off of this, it is important to teach students that writing can
have multiple drafts before the finished product, not just one. Each one of these steps to the
writing process are extremely important in creating the best piece possible.

In my practicum classroom, I do not recall seeing many writing activities. My students

struggle with spelling and get very overwhelmed and upset when trying to write. Most of the
time they are told to try sounding out words, but overall, they just get frustrated, break down,
and end up with nothing on their paper. There are only two writing activities I remember
seeing so far this semester, and they both were done around Halloween. First, the students
read the popular book Hallowiener, and then were asked to create their own costume and
story for another wiener dog. The students were focusing on making sure their story had a
beginning, middle, and end. Many students had trouble coming up with what they wanted
their dog to do in the story, which resulting in most of the students copying the same
elements from the actual story, just changing the dog’s costume. I believe if the students were
encouraged to begin with brainstorming and making an outline or story map before they
began writing, that a lot of them could have come up with very creative pieces. These
students are awesome, and I have no doubt that they all had the ability to come up with great
stories… they just weren’t given the best opportunity to foster that. It is hard to just jump
into writing a story without thinking about it beforehand. The other activity was a journaling
activity about what the students planned on doing for Halloween. Journaling is meant to be
less structured than a formal writing activity, so there wasn’t really a brainstorming or
prewriting portion. This was the only time I have seen the students engage in a journaling
activity. However, I think journaling is very valuable and something I definitely want to
include as an activity in my classroom that is done at least once a week.
Write your own information sheet for parents’ night (for instructional level readers, grade of your choice).
Use handouts from class as an example.

Dear Parents,

Welcome to Ms. Mollen’s second grade classroom at Longan Elementary School! I am so

excited to have the opportunity to work with your bright, young scholars this year, and can’t
wait to watch them learn and grow. In this newsletter, you will find all the information you
need to know to help your student be successful inside and outside of the classroom.

First and foremost, I will outline some of the academic aspects of our classroom. Many things
are done differently than when you or I was in school. I understand how frustrating it can be
when you want to help your student with their homework, but you don’t quite understand it
yourself! Please keep this information sheet handy all year to refer to when you have any
questions. Additionally, you are always welcome to reach out to me with any questions.

Literacy. In our classroom, we participate in a variety of literacy activities each day. The
different types of activities within our literacy block include fluency, word study,
comprehension, writing, and reading. Below I have outlined what each of these sections of
literacy mean and what type of activities we will participate in for each during this year.

 Fluency
o Fluency focuses on proper expression and speed when reading aloud. It is
designed to improve oral communication skills.
o Activities include reader’s theaters and presentations.
 Word Study
o Word study intends to expand the student’s vocabulary and focuses on
common patterns that take place within words in order to understand
spelling.
o Activities will include weekly word sets where we will focus on how to spell
the word, how to sound it out, vowels, and what it means.
 Comprehension
o This aspect of literacy has the student identify a purpose for reading, make
connections and developing an understanding while reading, and reflecting
after reading.
o Activities will include story mapping, anchor charts, K-W-L charts, reciprocal
teaching, and many more.
 Writing
o It is important for our students to begin recognizing the steps that should take
place while writing (brainstorming, prewriting, drafting, revising). We want to
teach students how to organize their ideas, find resources, and work toward a
final product.
o Activities will include weekly journaling and story mapping.
 Reading
 o As always, we will work on improving each students’ reading skills. We will
bring together everything we learn through fluency, word study, and
comprehension in order to become better readers.
o Activities will include weekly reading logs and accelerated reader tests.

Math. [insert math messages here]

Social Studies [insert social studies messages here]

Science. [insert science messages here]