Vanessa+Barros



Vanessa Barros 15:299:565 - Lab in Remedial Reading Dr. McLean

Student: J Age: 6 Grade: 1st

Tutoring Session #1: Tuesday, January 25, 2011 Time: 5:30-6:30 Location: Henry Inman Library

**__ Background Information __**
 * Student J is a 1st grade student at a Catholic Elementary School. His father contacted me about working with his son who has had some difficulty with reading. He is currently being tested by a Child Study Team to determine if he is eligible for special services. Based on the information provided by J’s father, J has a somewhat inconsistent home life. His parents are divorced and share joint custody. He spends part of the week with his dad and part of the week with his mother. His mother has also hired her own tutor for J because they couldn’t agree on who should work with him. **


 * This is the first time I will be meeting and working with J, therefore I will have to devote the first several sessions to administering assessments. **

My goals for this session are:
 * __ Session Goals/Objectives __**
 * get to know J and develop a rapport
 * administer the Primary Spelling Inventory to evaluate his encoding abilities
 * administer the QRI Word List
 * administer QRI reading passages to determine an approximate reading level
 * read aloud a text to informally evaluate his listening comprehension


 * __ Summary/Observations __**

Today I was introduced to J and his father. I spent the first 10 minutes discussing J with his father. He couldn’t offer me too much information in regards to the difficulties J has other than that his teachers have indicated that he might need to be classified and must be evaluated by the “state.” In meeting with J, it was clear that he would much rather be picking out a movie or playing on the computer than working on his reading with me. After his father left, I asked J if he liked to play games and of course he said yes. I started off by setting up a “match” game for the first 10 words from Fry’s Sight Word Inventory. During this game, I engaged him in conversation about school and what he likes about school. He said that he enjoys science and math. He also likes gym class. I also noted during this game that J is highly competitive and does not like to lose. Any time I made a match, he became visibly upset and would boast if he found a match. He had little difficulty reading these words.

I told him I was so impressed with the words that he read and asked him if he could read some other words to me. I then began the QRI Word List assessment. J was independent at Pre-Primer 1, but at a frustration level for Pre-Primer 2/3. I decided to begin a “sight word” box for J so that he could practice his sight words with me as well as at home when staying with dad. I wrote 10 words that he had difficulty with on index cards and showed him how he can practice reading these words (reading it, clapping the letters, air writing, using them in sentences, etc.) I then placed the words in an index card box.

We took a small break to play another game. This time we played “Spin – a – Rhyme” game. This was a bit more of a challenge for J as he had difficulty identifying the rhyming words.

Next I administered the Primary Spelling Inventory. Based on this assessment, I found J to be at the Early Within Word spelling stage. He missed all long vowel patterns, which gives me a good starting point for word study. Some of his long vowel errors include:
 * “hop” for “hope”
 * “wet” for “wait”
 * “shod” for “shine”
 * “rem” for “dream”

The last assessment I planned to administer was the QRI passage, “Just Like Mom” (Level: Pre-Primer 2). He had difficulty answering the concept questions for this text, but I attributed this to J’s lack of focus. He showed little interest in answering these questions or reading the QRI passage. At the Pre-Primer 2 level, his total acceptability level was independent, but his total accuracy level was instructional. Some observations I made during this assessment were that J tracks his print and spends a good deal of time looking at the pictures before reading the text. He was unable to recall specific details, but summarized the text by stating that the story was about “a little girl is learning from her mom.” The comprehension questions were a frustration for J. I noted that some of his responses didn’t match the question. Again, I think this is largely due to his lack of interest and motivation.

Time expired before I was able to read aloud a text to J. I did explain some of my initial observations with J’s dad and explained the importance of mastering sight words. I showed J’s father the sight word box and asked him to have J practice these words at home.

**__ Critical Reflection __** Today’s session allowed me the opportunity to get to know J. I do not have contact with his teachers and was only able to receive limited information from his father so I didn’t quite know what to expect. I found J to be a pleasant boy, but he definitely lacks the ability to stay on task for any extended period of time. He spends a lot of time fixated on noticing the other children using the computers in the library or having time to look through the movies.

Some of my initial assessments indicate that J has a limited sight word vocabulary. I noted on the QRI Word Lists ( Leslie & Caldwell, 2011, p. 105) that the words he knew, he was able to identify automatically. If he didn’t know a word automatically, he simply told me that he didn’t know the word. Caldwell & Leslie (2009) attribute this “passing” on a word to a child’s inability to identify the letters and sounds in a word (pg. 19). While I don’t necessarily believe this to be the case with J, I plan to investigate this further in the next session.

After the reviewing the Primary Spelling Inventory, I can assume that J has a basic mastery of initial and final consonants as well as short vowel sounds. He was also able to spell most consonant digraphs except ‘th.” He missed all long vowel words, and even substituted the wrong vowel when attempting to spell the word (i.e. “wet” for “wait”). This leads me to believe that he has had little to no instruction in long vowel sounds so I would like to begin our next session with introducing him to the CVCe pattern for long a.

Administering the QRI reading passages was a struggle. J had lost interest in our session, even though I attempted to break up the assessments with games. Pre-Primer 2 was a frustration for J, but it is difficult to determine if this is an accurate assessment of his reading abilities. I was pleased to note some positive reading behaviors such as print tracking and previewing the illustrations before reading. He had two miscues during this reading, neither of which should have negatively impacted his comprehension. Therefore, I am inclined to believe that his poor performance on the comprehension portion may be because he simply lost interest in the task.

For my next few sessions, I would like to continue administering assessments as well as begin instruction in the areas assessed today. Assessments Instructional Goals
 * __ Next Steps __**
 * Phonemic Awareness
 * Letter ID
 * QRI passages/Running Record
 * Word Study: CVCe (short vs. long a)
 * Sight Word
 * Reading Strategy: Take a picture walk

References Bear, D. R., Invernizzi, M., Johnston, F., & Templeton, S. R. (1999). //Words Their Way: Word Study for Phonics, Vocabulary, and Spelling Instruction (4th Edition)// (1 ed.). Alexandria, VA: Prentice Hall. Caldwell, J. S., & Leslie, L., & (2009). //Intervention Strategies to Follow Informal Reading Inventory Assessment// (Second ed.). New York: Pearson.

Mckenna, M. C., & Stahl, K. A. (2009). //Assessment for Reading Instruction, Second Edition (Solving Problems in the Teaching of Literacy)// (Second Edition ed.). New York: The Guilford Press.