Last Class Tonight!

Tonight is our last meeting for this course. You made it!! I'll be collecting your remaining assignments. Please be timely this evening as it will take us a bit to get through everyone's presentations. Be ready to share your case study project with the group (about 7-8 minutes per person). I'll be handing back the work you've already turned in.

I also got an official declaration of the books for the next class that starts next week. They are somewhat different than the syllabus I had from before:

When readers struggle: teaching that works by Fountas and Pinnell

One Child at a Time by Pat Johnson

Both are pretty standard finds and should be easily available through most book stores.

Blog On

What a week this has been! So many demands to meet. Breathe in, breathe out...We can do this! I have really enjoyed working with kindergartners and first graders for the observation survey. They are so eager to answer my questions. I really enjoyed watching my student do the writing vocabulary. I explained that they had ten minutes to write as many words as they could. He tried to impress me with some big words but struggled with the spelling. I hope I have completed each assessment correctly. I spent time with a reading specialist at a local school. She was very busy setting up new reading groups as well as ELD groups.

She has a lot of paperwork that goes along with her job as a reading specialist. I haven't used Dibels before and at their school they use both the DRA and Dibels. I want to use her as my mentor but she has to look at her work load and see if she can balance a full load. We all know how tough that can be. I've enjoyed this class and am sad to see it end.

final post, homestreeech!

Although it was a ton of work, I learned a few things during this last week (okay, hopefully I learned one or two things during the other weeks too) while trying to read, digest said material, give more running records, attempt to write in a more better way (opps) and finish the Observation Survey. I'm going to tutor the student I worked with since she can't read at all in first grade and its probably safe to say she should be in kindergarten again. I know that she missed much of kindergarten last year because her mother wanted to keep her at home. No, she wasn't sick. I'm not completely sure how the mother's thinking went and I'm gently working on helping her to understand how to help all three of her children. It was interesting to see how all of the subtests, tedious as they were, gave a clear picture of what the student can or can not do as a reader and writer. After giving a few tests and doing the critique from the giant reference library at Concordia, I feel as though I have a small base of information to work with as I move forward as an educator. There is a place for formal assessments besides the state tests!

Freaking OUT!

Why am I taking a class while teaching. Jessica... I am glad you are feeling well enough to write such a witty blog post.
Seriously- I cannot get it together today. Who knew that little kids are so hard to observe, listen, and write with.... bleh. Give me a child with multiple disabilities, needs tube fed, and bathroomed ANY DAY!!!!
And this is all I have time for....

An open letter to Comcast:

Dear Comcast,

As you are a massive cable company with thousands of customers, I suspect that my particular internet situation is of no consequence. In fact, based on the treatment I have received from your "helpful" customer service reps., I am positive that my situation is at the absolute bottom of your list of priorities.

What you don't realize is that not having internet in the week before I have multiple assignments due in a graduate level reading assessment course is crippling. What is worse is that the time I could have spent working on the assignments that did not require internet access was spent on four different phone calls, waiting in line at a service center (at which you only had 2 reps. during an afternoon rush), uninstalling and reinstalling modems, and screaming a string of obscenities at my computer. I wasted all of this time only to find out that you had, in fact, sent me on a wild goose chase and I would have to wait until Thursday for a technician. Oh, and I would have to leave work as you don't schedule evening hours.

Needless to say, I will be finding a new internet service provider.

Your former customer,
Jessica

I have to say, that made me feel much better.

As for the work this week, it's been a rough one, but I'm sure you've already figured that out. The thing I am struggling most with is the assessment critique. I consider myself an intelligent person, but trying to decipher the technical language about the content validity and reliability of the SRI could just make my head explode. I did, however, enjoy administering the observation survey to my adorable little goddaughter. It's not often that I get to work with the little ones. It's a nice change from teenagers from time to time.

At least the end is in sight, right?

I'm Beginning to See the LIGHT!

Today I administered my Reading Observation Survey with a kindergartner. It was kind of fun and took all my strength and concentration to complete the survey with a straight face. The little guy I was working with (who was a nice change from my usual 7th and 8th grade lovelies) was very serious about "helping me with my homework" and was therefore also very serious about doing his best. I was amazed at how diligently my little guy worked as we made our way through all five tests and a running record.

The kiddo I worked with did a really good job with letter identification and struggled a little with word reading and dictation. I was intrigued by the fact that during the word reading he looked at the word "Mother" and instantly said, "I don't know this word" and moved on. I don't think he even really looked at it a full 3 seconds! This is where I had to keep a straight face because as we went through the list any word he came across where I think he felt he hadn't seen before or maybe felt like he couldn't sound out, he just omitted as if it weren't even on the list! I don't know why I think it's so funny...but it's as if he never saw the word at all...he just carried along and kept working his way down the list.

The dictation test gave me a greater appreciation for you wonderful K/1/2 teachers who have to make sense out a few letters to get to the amazing stories these kids have to share. I really enjoyed this part of the observation survey because in working with only older kids, it is very interesting to witness and understand where literacy begins with our students.

I'm feeling better this week about the workload for this class. After finishing up the Reading Observation Survey, the Formal Assessment Critique, my Literacy Assessment Toolkit, and now my blog response, I can spend the rest of my time focusing on reviewing and studying the massive amount of assessment terms and compiling all the information I've gathered for my Case Study project. It's amazing we are already hitting the halfway point of October and that now we've only got one more class after tomorrow!

Last Post!

I am happy to say that I am done with my observation study. All that's left is my Formal test critique. I am having trouble figuring out how to get the through the mental measurement yearbook. Are we just supposed to choose a test using the list and then do our own research? I have really tried to divide up my time so I could cover everything that's due on Thursday. I am really starting to stress out about this. Help Please.

Clay's Survey

This week as I was putting together my observation survey for one child, I kept thinking about how much time it takes to assess one single student and how much time it would take to assess an entire class. I continued through the process, doing every subtest as I was supposed to, then I prepared the summary sheet and gathered all the different scores and stanines. When I was finished I was quite happy and felt like I had a very comprehensive look at the child. Reporting all the scores at the end was very easy and I was reminded why it is so important to take good notes on each test as you go along. I am sure many of the little things I observed would have been lost somewhere in my memory if I hadn’t notated each one as I went along. I would definitely use this in my classroom in the future.

Background Knowledge

I was struck again about the importance of background knowledge while practicing for the Observation Survey tasks with my son. He's 4 1/2 and a pre-reader, so I had to wait patiently for him to examine each picture in the book, Sand, before he could attend to the questions I had to ask. His grandparents live at the coast, so he has a ton of background knowledge about digging in the sand at the beach and thought this was just a great book. Even though he wasn't thrilled with me asking him questions about the book instead of just reading it, he was very engaged the whole time and commented on each picture starting with the cover. Being a little boy with blond hair he asked, "Is that me?" when he saw the cover. He continued commenting on each page and when the picture shows the water splashing in the hole I got detailed instructions on how the boy should dig his hole farther away from the water if he doesn't want the water to wash it away, but if he liked watching the water wash away the hole, then it was a good place to dig. He also informed me that starfish was wrong, Grammy and Gramps told him that they are really called sea stars. And he was also very concerned about the size of the house as some other people found with their students.

I couldn't help but think about how much of himself he was bringing to this book before he was even close to being ready to attempt the text. And then I think about the kiddos in my class who have never been to a beach and how they would have to draw on images/information from TV, movies, or other books to support meaning making from this book.

It also reminds me of a volunteer that I had last year doing some Junior Great Book groups in my class. She did a whole class session at the end of the year with "The Emperor's New Clothes." We were talking about how not all kids have nursery rhymes and other traditional stories read to them. Kids are exposed to an incredible amount of cultural background knowledge through these stories. If they never hear or read them, they cannot fully understand/appreciate stories that reference these traditional tales.

Child Development/Assessment/Last Post

With a full survey of an emerging reader to think about and write about my understanding of this Clay’s book becomes deeper. Emerging readers, writers and thinkers need support. How we support them depends on culture, traditions and trending values in education?

My thinking around early literacy keeps returning to our discussion last week about Switzerland. They are patiently waiting for their youth to be ready to read. They are giving them background knowledge, experiences and choices around play and story telling and phonemic awareness to trust their gradual entrance into the world of reading text. These developmental years between 3 and 6 years of age are so important for building diversity in dendrite growth. On the contrary, many Americans are sacrificing important dramatic play and story telling time for phonics and word reading lessons in preschool and Kindy. Also, they are allowing T.V. and video games, both of which are not optimal for building phonemic awareness, to be experienced at home. I guess I am a people person who is worried about loosing the ability to laugh and play in the light of literacy. After all, literacy is reading, writing, speaking and thinking - not just reading.

My experience with the Observation Survey really has me asking these questions about child development. I ran into an interesting article that asks the question that I am commenting on above. When should more formal skills in reading and writing be taught. This quote grabbed my attention. “In fact, a child who is introduced to formal reading and writing skills before they are ready is at risk of losing confidence and more importantly, a love of learning. By forcing a child into reading and writing too early, parents and teachers run the risk of creating specific learning difficulties, under-achievement and behavioral problems” (Blythe, 2009.)

after completing my formal assessment review tonight I am feeling ready to study for our exam. However, more importantly It is feeling so good to have some knowledge about why we assess students. I am excited to be able to discuss, argue and defend my views on assessing our youth.

Assessment Term Test: Helpful Hints

1. For the most part, stick to what was covered in the reading and in class.
2. Practice using the terms in sentences.
3. You may use your own notes as long as they are in your words.
4. Writing involved. Make sure to bring your favorite writing utensils (paper, pen, pencil, laptop...)

Study hard but don't stress. You'll be fine!

See you this week.

T

This week's reminders:

Observation survey results are due this week for the David Douglas group.  However, we will discuss the process and your findings in class. You will be given time afterward in class to complete the summary notes for the observation survey. Some of you are studying madly for the lovely quiz of assessment terms. Fear not, for I will make this as painless as possible. Eventually, you'll want to know all of them for the test, but for now, concentrate on what has been covered in the reading and in class. We will also take some time to do some sharing of your assessment critiques.

Due:
Observation Survey, including all subtests, and analysis sheet (David Douglas crew only)
*Reminder that Molalla cohort will turn this in at the next class
Formal assessment critique
Last blog response

In Class:
Observation Survey discussion/ complete summary sheet
Formal assessment critique discussion/share
Review of terminology
Test of Assessment Terms

Last Blog Post

On Friday I was able to do Clay's observation survey with a 1st grader named Isaac. I was able to do all five subtests, but I still need to do a running record with him. For the Concepts About Print task, Isaac had a raw score of 15 and a stanine of 2. I thought it was interesting that he focused so much on the picture when I asked him what was wrong with this...and this...and this. He was obviously not looking close enough to the text as I read or he didn't know how to spell those words enough to realize that they letters were mixed out of order. Isaac pointed out that the picture on page 15 was all wrong because the "house" was too small. This made me laugh inside. It was very good thinking on his part to notice something like that, though it wasn't quite the answer I had in mind. On page 14, when I asked if there was anything wrong, he said it was all messed up because there were two "and" words on top of each other and then three "a" words on top of each other. I never would have noticed this. He did not mention the jumbled up spellings though. 

My favorite subtest was the writing vocabulary assessment. Isaac, once he was running out of ideas, said he was going to start looking at the posters in my classroom to figure out how to spell more words. He saw "FACE" on a poster and wrote FACE. He saw "CLASS" on the rules poster and he wrote CLASS. I thought, wow he's a smart kid to look at the wall! After I noticed he was doing this, I began to prompt him with ideas for words like the word book, red, look, big, etc. He did a lot of slow, sounding out of letters as he wrote his words down. This is also the case when he reads. When we did the Word Reading subtest, Isaac was very slow and sounded out each letter by itself. He was able to blend sh in shouted but not ch in children. He has difficulty knowing when a vowel, particularly e, is long or soft. 

I enjoyed doing the observation survey. It made me want to teach Kindergarten and first grade! Now I'm working on the summary of the observation survey. I'm interested to see how Isaac reads a book when I do the running record. It's been fun learning this new way of assessing students. Up until now I've really just used the DRA. I am glad that this course has been worth the time. I'm happy to finally be taking courses that truly mean something to me and that are applicable to my students!

#4 Observation Surveys and Livebinders

Reading about Clay’s observation survey was very insightful for me. For one, as a kindergarten teacher a few years back I had to give the “concepts of print” assessment. All of the questions were pretty much the exact same as Clay’s survey, except we were not given the scoring guide or directions (and definitely not the book Sand). It’s pretty much common sense as far what your trying to find out about what the student knows, but now I feel like I actually I have a better way of asking the questions and I like the other four components of her survey. The Clay book I will actually keep and use as reference since it is very applicable for 1^st grade.

Also this last weekend I was going to start putting together my Assessment toolkit, so I started looking at the livebinder.com website. Great website for anyone who hasn’t looked at it yet! Some (maybe all I didn’t look into the technicalities of them yet) of the livebinders are open for everyone to see and access. I found one on the Daily 5 and the Café and I love it! Great resources and websites… all for free. : )

Blog #4: Programme, Behaviour, and Tea (not coffee)

Pay me now, or pay me later:

In chapter 3 Dr. Clay makes a strong case for early identification and intervention of emergent readers who struggle. She maintains that school systems cannot afford to wait until a child is two reading grade levels behind before remediation begins. As we all know, the gap widens with every tear of the calendar unless intensive support raises the trajectory of the struggling reader. Yes, I’m a middle grade teacher, but I see the value of substantial investments in early reading. Such investment benefits all future learning, including that done in middle school.

Run, Run, Run Records Away:

I have now had the opportunity to conduct several running records with a handful of my students. While I still get a bit “deer in the headlights” before (and during) a session, I’m starting to see some direct application to my instruction. Using the QRI-5 I’ve noticed some characteristics and tendencies of my sixth grade readers that I’m sure that I’d not have observed otherwise. For example, this week I did a running records with a student that I’d thought was about an early fourth grade level. I based my assessment primarily on his difficulty with fluency during a few short oral readings. However, I’ve discovered that his comprehension is much higher than “he sounds.” Even when I bumped him up to a sixth-grade level selections he was able to comprehend the material with fairly high accuracy. Who knew?

DONE!

Another fun week of learning how to give assessments. As I've read Clay and the "how-to", the number crunching, etc. I've been asking myself how her assessment stacks up in the education world. Next week, we'll look at other assessment tools and critique one and then decide if we would recommend it or not. It would be fun to do Clay's.

I'm looking forward to seeing how everyone analyzed their running records. I went back and looked at the livebinder material and then looked again at the running records I took and felt that it will take a few of these to see if I'm coming to valid conclusions. Listening to other people in our class discussing their thinking will also help to solidify the connections and the decisions we need to make to best support the student. One thing I noticed is if we do this with fidelity, then the outcomes will be more meaningful and helpful.

I can't think of a clever title right now...

My big victory this week was getting my "speedy mumbler" to speak loudly enough to be recorded. Score! I will be grateful when this running record business is over.

I think that in order to keep my sanity, I keep looking at these final assignments as a series of baby steps. The case study as a whole kind of frightens me, but a couple of paragraphs on background followed by a couple of paragraphs on previous testing, etc...seems like a much friendlier assignment. It's all about the self delusion at this point.

As for the reading, I have absolutely no frame of reference for what was discussed in the Gillet this week except for my daughter. She is in some of these early reading stages and I always get a little giddy when I see something that she is currently doing. However, my husband doesn't quite understand when I get all excited about her early signs of Transitional Alphabetic Reading. Go figure.

Reading #4

Okay...I don't know how everyone else seems to be holding it together so well, but I am feeling completely overwhelmed and exhausted! With the first month of school out of the way, my not-so-little middle school friends are beginning to show their comfort level and some of those old behaviors from the year before that we teachers were hoping (more like wishful thinking) they had grown out of over the summer. My classes are working away on expanding and strengthening our math skills; as once again more curriculum has been added to a shorter timeline and cut scores for the state testing have been raised. I'm trying to find the time to stay current on my case study work (we only have 2 weeks left!!). And at this very moment, I am focusing on not thinking about the cold that is trying to take me over! [insert heavy sigh here]

AND so now that I've gotten that out of my system...I was glad to have been assigned with the reading this week from the Clay because it has given me an itsy bit of clarity on the observation survey assignment that I would like to get done and out of the way. I feel like there are just so many little parts to get done here and there all the time. It reminds me how lucky I am to be a MATH teacher! Math is absolute...sure there are different ways to solve a problem, but for the most part we remain linear, going from point A to point B. Although I have been able to make several connections between the tools and strategies for literacy and how I can apply them in/with my math curriculum, I still feel grateful that I don't have to do all of the DRA/QRI-5, running records, surveys, etc. I know that informal and formal assessments, when used and understood correctly, can make a world of a difference in guiding BEST teacher practice; but I just can't get over what a time and energy commitment it must be for classroom teachers without any EA, building or parent volunteer support.

I guess my question is...How often are we seeing classroom teachers effectively using these strategies and assessments in their core literacy blocks on a regular basis, AND are they able to still find the time to cover all necessary curriculum? Any thoughts or opinions?

Days gone by. . .

The Gillet chapter really took me back to my kindergarten days! One of my favorite parts of kindies was the writing. We used a "magic line" to get kids going even if they weren't sure of sounds and letters yet. They could use the magic line anytime they couldn't figure out any of the sounds of a word. When they read their writing to an adult, they would read the line the same way they would read any of their other words. Most of the time they did that for a day or two and then they were off and running with letters, even if they didn't correspond to any sounds.

But my absolute favorite part of kindy writing was using the document camera for "author's chair." The kids would take turns putting their writing up to be projected while they read it to the class. Even the quietest, shyest students and the most reluctant writers couldn't resist the lure of seeing their work on the big screen!

#4

Finally able to post- not sure why it is not letting me do this at school....
as i read all the chapters this week and was trying to complete 3 running records and one msv analysis... I asked myself- why do people do these. I do a giant amount of paperwork each day for students on IEP's- which consists of many QRI/IRI/reading assessments but the running record is a whole new level. It was painful to complete and 3 times was murderous. I have tons of respect for teachers that do these throughout the year or on a regular basis. Don't get me wrong- the information is great, but trying to remember what each mark means as a kids read 120 words per minute is a tad difficult.