Laura+Prumachuk

K is in 7th grade in a local suburban school district. She was in my Language Arts in-class support class last year in 6th grade, as a general education student. Although I was the special education teacher monitoring my targeted students, I worked closely with K because of her reading difficulties. K was new to the district last year and came from a Catholic school. This transition was academically difficult for K across all content areas last year.
 * Teaching Scenario**

K has good reading fluency and phonemic awareness. However, she presents with major gaps in comprehension. I worked with K last semester on comprehension monitoring strategies. In particular, I worked with her in the areas of Science and Social Studies since these subjects are especially troublesome for her. She also has trouble orally retelling a text and answering higher-level questions.

One of the strategies I continued using with K from last semester was the Stop and Say Something strategy. This is where a student reads a portion of text, stops, and must say something about what was read (make a prediction, connect, give a summary, etc). We use this strategy when reading Science and Social Studies homework assignments. Although I am seeing an improvement since last semester, K often struggles with coming up with something to say. I think this is hard because at times she lacks background knowledge of the material she is required to read. We are also working on oral retellings. So far, I have provided K with a structure of what elements need to be included in an effective retelling. She still has a hard time giving an adequate retelling and I plan on continuing practicing this with her.

My questions are: What are some effective strategies to build background knowledge? What other comprehension strategies can I use? What are good ways to teach students how to orally retell a text?

Laura Prumachuk Lab in Remedial Reading 15:299:565 Dr. McLean
 * Tutoring Log #1**

Student: K Age: 13 Grade: 7th

Tutoring Session #1: Tuesday, February 8, 2011 Time: 4:00 – 5:00 Location: Somerset County Library

K is 12 years old in 7th grade at Bridgewater-Raritan Middle School. She was a student in my Language Arts, in-class support class last year in 6th grade. Although not classified, K struggled with reading comprehension last year. She had trouble with critical thinking skills such as making inferences, analyzing, and synthesizing information.
 * __Background Information__**

Prior to entering 6th grade, K came from a private, catholic school. Sixth grade was her first year attending a public school. K’s teachers noticed concerns with K’s reading comprehension deficits across all subject areas. She also tested below grade level on the QRI (5th grade instructional level). K’s parents also expressed concerns with K having a difficult time in school. Her parents felt that the transition from private school to public school was extremely difficult, both academically and socially. K is a very kind and friendly child who is shy at times. Although not one of my classified students, I worked closely with K in the classroom last year.

I worked with K last semester for the first part of this course. After completing assessments across all areas of literacy, I found that her greatest struggles lie in reading comprehension. K is an excellent speller and can read fluently. However, she has trouble orally retelling a passage she had just read. She also has difficulty answering non-literal, critical-thinking questions. Last semester, K and I spent half of our sessions working on her Science and Social Studies homework. These subjects are especially difficult for her, as the textbook reading is so difficult. We worked on how to read nonfiction text as well as identifying different types of questions (literal vs. critical thinking) This semester, I hope to continue to work with K on these areas of need.

· The student will be able to recognize the components of an effective oral retelling by using the Retelling Evaluation Guidelines graphic organizer. · The student will be able to demonstrate comprehension of her assigned Social Studies homework by completing a cloze passage and a sequencing activity.
 * __Session Goals/Objectives__**

Since I hadn’t seen K since last semester, we started off our session by casually discussing how she is currently doing in school. K is performing well and received B’s on her last report card. Although K struggles with comprehension, she is a conscientious, hard working student.
 * __Summary/Observations__**

We started our session with an oral retelling activity. I explained to K that this semester, I would work with her to develop skills in the areas I found need more practice. Since K showed a need for oral retelling instruction last semester, I began by showing her a retelling graphic organizer (Retelling Evaluation Guidelines, McKenna and Stahl p.95). This organizer contains the following components: setting, characters, goal or initiating event, problem faced by the main characters, solution to the problem, and clear ending. I explained each of the areas to K. I then asked her to orally retell the book club book that she is currently reading in school, //Son of the Mob// by Gordon Korman. I placed the organizer in front of her and encouraged K to refer to it during her retelling.

K started by naming the two main characters and then said, “I don’t know…that’s it.” I needed to constantly prompt her with guiding questions. She did not look at the organizer on the table, and I needed to redirect her to this frequently. Even though the organizer was in front of her, I prompted her with questions such as, “What was a main event that started the story?” I then asked, “What is a problem in the story?” To this, K responded, “ There isn’t really a problem.” Overall, I needed to provide K with a wealth of support and questioning to guide her through the retelling of the story.

After this, K had Social Studies homework to complete. She is currently working on the American Revolution in class. For homework, she had a cloze procedure worksheet and an event sequencing worksheet. She had a lot of trouble with this. We reviewed how to read nonfiction text first. K recalled skimming nonfiction text first for headings, captions, bold print, etc. K looked back into her textbook frequently to try to fill in the blanks on her assignment. She often read each fill-in-the-blank segment first, then tried to find the answer in the text. It was a difficult task for her. Next, the sequencing worksheet called for K to put the events leading up the American Revolution in order. She started by numbering the events and then checking them with her textbook. She again had trouble with this assignment and we worked closely together to complete it.

After working with K on the retelling activity, I realized that I should have modeled an effective retelling that contained all of the components I was asking for. At first, I was frustrated with the lack of information K was providing about the book. Even after asking numerous questions, K had trouble following along with the graphic organizer. Modeling is so important for students, no matter what the task. I think it would help for K to hear me model a good retelling before asking her to complete one on her own. McKenna and Stahl (2009) also suggest that, “the retelling task is cognitively demanding for students,” and that it is often necessary to supplement a retelling with guiding questions. Even though I had to prompt K with questions, I was able to further discern her level of comprehension through her responses.
 * __Critical Reflection__**

K continues to struggle with the information in her Social Studies textbook. To her, the material is boring and difficult to understand. She also does not have a solid knowledge of the material and there is an overwhelming amount of information for her to know. In upcoming sessions, I think that I will need to work with K on chunking information with graphic organizers for her to better remember it.

McKenna and Stahl (2009) note that cloze activities have several limitations. They state that, “research indicates that cloze assessments tend to assess comprehension at only a very low level.” K’s cloze homework assignment basically asked her to look up the names of people and vocabulary words and “plug” them into the appropriate blanks within sentences. Even though this was a trying task, I don’t believe it shows K’s true level of comprehension of the material.

I plan on purchasing //Son of the Mob// and reading it so that I can better help K give an accurate, oral retelling. I also plan on modeling a retelling so that K can get a better sense of what I expect of her. I am also going to delete the “initiating goal or event” from the retelling organizer, as I felt it confused K and is not entirely necessary. I plan to continue working on oral retellings and am thinking about having K audiotape herself each time. This way, she can listen to herself and look for areas of improvement more independently. Finally, I will continue working with K on her Social Studies assignments and teach her how to effectively organize and chunk information. This is a crucial skill that she will need as she continues through middle school and high school.
 * __Next Steps__**