Vous êtes sur la page 1sur 8

Reading Definition- Dec. 24, 2013 and Jan.

5, 2014 What is your own comprehensive definition of reading, informed by your personal and professional experience? Reading is more than just decoding the words on the page in front of us. Reading is how we use those words to make meaning within our own schemas. Reading is an interaction between text and reader. The reader reads the words and does something with the meaning- whether it is adding to their background knowledge or creating a new schema. Reading is asking questions of the author. Reading is using strategies to help decode, comprehend, and understand. Reading can be as simple as reading pictures to reading complex texts. But with reading, there needs to be an action- a comprehension of something new, a wonder that something is possible, an understanding of new vocabulary, a curiosity to learn more, or a new knowledge to be imparted to others. Reading is a dynamic concept. How you would develop or revise your initial definition of reading? What - from Afflerbach or from postings of peers - prompted this change? After reading Afflerbach, I feel that I have hit on several of the same components, just not quite as succinctly as he did! Reading through the chapter and especially those few pages, I found myself agreeing with everything and feeling like it is so hard to sum up in a few sentences just what reading is. Reading is very emotional and personal to me. I find myself, at times, unable to come up with words to describe what I think reading is or just how important I feel reading is. In my own classroom, the immensity of what reading is strikes me every day. It's hard, for me anyway, to know what is most important to start with for certain students. I have a 5th grader that only knows 120 of the sight words. I record books so that he can do some reading independently. Writing is just as low. But while I have him, I also have students who are at or near grade level. What becomes the priority? What is it that I need to teach this fifth grader first? That's been my struggle this year. Reading is the key to academic success and lifelong success. January 24, 2014- Reading Conversations 2 Introductory pages 27-29 offer both a table (Table 4) that provides a simple sequence of administration (on one end of the continuum) as well as a number of statements that speak to the spirit of the reading inventory (at the other end of the continuum), or what one can get from these assessments with thoughtful analysis, in addition to identification of independent, instructional, and frustration reading levels. 1. Select a statement that gets at the spirit of the inventory. Post in "quotes" to discussion board and say why you chose it. Read about reading inventories in Tashas second grade classroom, pp.42-49 2. In this example, develop some expectations for what can be gleaned from a reading inventory. What are your expectations? In what ways do these expectations meet your needs and in what ways do they fall short? Post to discussion board. 1. Quote: "Moreover, the process-oriented assessment provides an opportunity to observe the interaction and coordination of different reading skills and strategies that might otherwise be assessed separately, in piecemeal fashion." This quote resonated with me because I feel like so often I am assessing strategies in a "piecemeal" fashion. I feel the assessments that I am required to give are product oriented and aren't all that helpful. Having an opportunity to sit down with a student, one-on-one, to learn their process and what they are saying to themselves while reading is going to provide me with more useful information along with a more meaningful experience for the student. Reading inventories provide that opportunity. 2. Expectations I expect that I will learn more about my student. The reading inventory provides an opportunity to learn about student interests, strengths, and weaknesses. I am looking forward to figuring out what strategies my student uses

and which ones he is lacking in. I feel it will provide a better picture overall of the student as a reader, along with providing data that will be meaningful to me and provide information that will drive my instruction in more specific ways than the testing that I do now. I do feel that it is still somewhat inauthentic. It's still reading in isolation to an extent, although I appreciate the variety of passages that are available to me. January 24, 2014- Response to Afflerbach Ch. 6 On pages 118-127 Afflerbach situates this discussion of early literacy assessment in the context of RTI. 1. How is his description similar to, or different from, your own understanding of, and experience with RTI? Read about Marie Clays assessment of early literacy on pages 127-132 of the chapter as well as in the attached ppt. the ppt adds much more Compare the OSELA with the DIBELS NEXT on these parameters: details of construction, consequences and usefulness, roles and responsibilities, reliability, validity, training, nature of information provided. 2. Pick one of these parameters to develop in the discussion board. Pick one that no one else has picked. 1. Experiences with RTI The description that Afflerbach provides is similar to what I hear is going on. The staff from the ISD meets frequently to discuss RTI and to look at the data that has been collected. They meet with teachers regularly and value their input. The staff discusses instruction/strategies that should be implemented. My room is different. I do not meet with the RTI team. They do not look at my students' data. Essentially, due to the nature of my classroom, they are all at Level 3 for their behavior and academics typically fall there, too. It is unfortunate that I am the only one looking at the data. It's overwhelming, and add in that they called my parapros or myself a nasty name, and sometimes the only thing I care about is that the progress monitoring is done for the next two weeks. It would be helpful for me to have a team to look at the data from an objective point of view and provide either confirmation that what I am choosing to do is moving in the right direction or let me know that I am off the rails and headed for a crash. 2. Comparison: Roles and Responsibilities OSELA: School districts must be committed to the OSELA due to the extensive training and time involved for the administrators of it. This also makes it a costly apparatus to use. Teachers are required to spend hours training, administering, and scoring the protocols. This tool focuses on all of the components of reading including how meaning is constructed. DIBELS Next: This is very popular as minimal training is required; staff can be trained in just a couple of hours. Administrators dont necessarily need to be able to interpret the results. It also takes only about half an hour to administer. This tool focuses on certain strategies of reading and there is a lack of focus on the construction of meaning. January 30, 2014- Response to Afflerbach Ch. 3 In Bb Group Discussion, before reading Afflerbach, describe qualities of good questions about text. After reading Afflerbach, return to the Bb Group Discussion and expand upon your list add new qualities, get more specific about the ones you have, show your thinking. Before reading: Qualities of a good question Good questions help a child delve deeper into their knowledge base, make new connections, and encourage further inquiry. After reading:

After reading Afflerbach, I feel that good questions also include questions that use Bloom's Taxonomy of Thinking: Knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. I appreciated the examples in the reading that took us through that progression of questioning. Good questions build in each other, leading students from the text to applying what they know to the concept, creating new ideas and learning. Good questions are also appropriately phrased for the students and meets educational goals that have been laid out. January 30, 2014- Response to Fisher, Frey, and Lapp Before you read these chapters, answer this question in the discussion board: What makes text difficult or complex? Provide an example from your own experience and one from a students experience. After you read the chapters, update this response to show how your thinking has evolved in response to the text. What makes text difficult or complex? Vocabulary, lack of background information, and the genre can make text difficult or complex. Reading my husband's books on software engineering to better understand what he does only left me more confused. The words are in another language; one that I do not speak. For my students, poetry is notoriously difficult and complex. They struggle with language and meaning in literal texts, so poetry with all of its figurative language and literary devices is very difficult for them to read. After reading: EVERYTHING makes reading difficult or complex!! There are so many nuances to each text. The important thing is to understand what it is about the text that makes it complex and difficult. Other categories that contribute to text difficulty and complexity are meaning, purpose, figurative language, organization, narration, and text features. Evaluating texts is much harder than I originally thought. Taking the student lens and looking at the text from a different perspective is difficult for me. I think that because reading comes very easily to me, these are categories that I take for granted and don't necessarily consider in texts that I give to the students. I know that I am better at it than I was when I first started teaching, but looking at this list of things that make reading difficult reminds me that I have a long ways to go to effectively evaluate texts. February 5, 2014- Lipson and Wixson Before reading these pages from Lipson & Wixson, record here some of the issues, problems, or concerns that arose in your experience with an IRI. After reading Lipson and Wixsons critical review of IRIs, record here additional important understandings about limitations of IRIs. After all have posted by Saturday, review what others have written and respond to another member of the group whose comments resonated or perhaps conflicted with your own experience. Opportunity 1: Issues, problems, or concerns with the IRI: I had some issues with the IRI, but my issues weren't necessarily my student's issues. I felt some of the passages were not of high quality and were lacking in plot and information. I was left wanting more from some of the articles. I'm not certain if my student felt the same way. He seemed to enjoy what he was doing. I also thought the questions were of poor quality and redundant- same type of question in the pre-reading to the retelling to the comprehension questions. The questions were not high quality either and some were poorly written. I guess I wanted the IRI to do more than what is intended to do. Opportunity 2: This article, I thought, did a great job of outlining some of the flaws and issues with IRIs. I was happy to note that the IRI they found to be most comprehensive was the one I was using. On the other hand, I feel that there are real issues with it as well.

I know that at times, I take the reading levels for granted and just assume (or hope) that the person labeling the passage for readability and representativeness is doing their due diligence. This part of the article was a great reminder for me that I need to be my own judge and not just take these things for granted. I also agreed with their statement about how IRI's fail to take into account the familiarity with different topics and text organizations. Interest levels for readers is so key to everything we do with them. IRI's are also very subjective. One administrator may score an error one way, while another may do it a different way. This, I think, makes it difficult to compare across several administrators. If more than one person is administering the IRI, I think it is very important that issues such as errors and how the IRI is to be administered is dealt with before giving the IRI. Experience is important to becoming more adept and proficient at administering the IRI. As I have been doing this with my student partner and another student as I was unsure if my first partner would be able to continue, I have found that I want to find time to do this with all of my students. I feel that the more I give it, the better I will get at it, providing me with a part of the picture of the student as a reader. This could be a way to get to know my students at the beginning of the year, spending one on one time with them and building relationships. But it is just a small part of them as a reader. February 8, 2014- Bully and Valencia What message (be specific!) do you take away from this study? Reading is a complex, multifaceted, interactive activity that cannot be adequately evaluated, defined, or mandated through standardized tests. Standardized tests totally miss the boat on the nuances and complexity that reading is. Policymakers are doing a disservice to students, parents, teachers, and schools when they mandate policies based on one standardized tests that does not take into account student interests, student ability, classroom instruction, and the student as a whole person. This study shows that a standardized test does not accurately capture students as readers. February 15, 2014- Stiggins Response In your post to the group discussion, please share an idea from this article that you found so very compelling that you want to be sure to hold it in mind as you design a formative assessment of your student partners literacy. Why did this idea resonate with you and how do you want it to affect your student partners assessment experience? After everyone has posted, read all posts and reply to a colleague who has inspired you with their thinking... What struck me as most important in this article is the idea of the effect of scores on learners. I work with students who have experienced failure in all aspects of their lives. They already feel like failures at home, the community, in friendships, and at school. They have been unsuccessful in traditional classrooms and find their way into mine. In my class, the focus is on rebuilding their self-esteem, their confidence, and motivate them to want to do well in all areas of their lives. Tests and quizzes just don't fit into that picture very well. If I do happen to give a test, it is after much study, practicing with the test or quiz, and other accommodations from there- some students might work on it together, others might have it read to them. What I have found in my situation is that one bad score can lead to a loss in other areas- confidence, motivation, engagement, and self- esteem. In my class I use a lot of minimal grading to help take the focus off the scores. Students are encouraged to participate and try their best. Assessment is better used in my classroom as I sit next to my students and interact with them as they are learning and creating products. It's the process that is my focus and not the product. With the new evaluation system, I think teachers focus have shifted so much to that student growth piece and become focused on the grades students are learning, but without regulation, confidence, and motivation, student growth isn't going to come. My goal is to ensure that my students are successful every day in as many ways as I can. When they don't do well on an assignment, I will sit next to them to help them understand what went wrong. I could relate to the anecdote about the girl and the careless mistakes on the math tests. That's what most of my students' mistakes are and

once I am able to go over it and over it again with them, they begin to correct those mistakes. But it takes multiple experiences with reteaching and practice.

February 15, 2014- Kucan and Beck response On the group discussion, post questions that you have in response to your reading of the section of Kucan & Beck. If you have used thinking aloud as assessment/inquiry into students comprehension, please share your experience. I used the Think-Aloud assessment when giving my student partner the QRI-4. It was interesting to hear him think aloud. He mostly just gave me back what the text said, peppered with comments like "That's intriguing" and "It makes me want to learn more." I have to say I was a bit disappointed. I have been using think alouds all year in the classroom. What I realized after doing this with my student partner is that I hadn't given them enough time to practice the skill themselves and to listen to them use the skill. My questions after reading this section of the article are more wonderings. I wonder what I would learn if I began to use this in my classroom. I wonder how many of my students would fall into the category of students who were "not aware they had misunderstood the text" (277) and how many would be comprehending what they have read. I think this article raises a lot of good points about what think alouds could tell us- their integration of their thinking with what they know, the strategies that they use when reading. I also feel it would provide evidence for how my classroom environment effects learning and student motivation and engagement. It would further enhance the relationship I already have with my students by providing that one on one attention they all so desperately need. February 20, 2014- NCTE Response Before reading this statement, describe your current understanding of formative assessment and say in what way you use formative assessment now. Formative assessment is how I use what my students give me to decide where to go- reteach or move on. It is frequent noticing of where students are at with material and in my room especially, behavior. This is always ongoing. Examples of how I use it in my room would be that confused look in someone's eye, class or individual discussions, or behavior. After reading, explain how you have updated your understanding of formative assessment since reading this article, and how, specifically, you would like to further develop the formative assessments that you now use. I learned that I need to become a better analyzer of the data I get from my formative assessments. I tend to skip the "What do you make of it?" question and go right from what I see to doing something about it. I need to spend more time figuring out why the mistakes were made or the lack of learning occurred. Answering that question will guide me to improved instruction. I appreciated the list of formative dos and don'ts. It is a great reminder of how to formatively assess correctly. I also need to do a better job of letting my students know why I am teaching what I am teaching and how it will be used in their lives. March 1, 2014- Response to OConnor, Moats, or self-selected 1) Which book chapter or article did you read? What concern about your student partner led you to choose that text? Provide a specific example(s) of student literacy behavior that led to your concern. I read Ch. 10 Metacognition to Improve Reading Comprehension from the Handbook of Reading Interventions. My concern with my student partner has been how well he comprehends what he reads independently. When there is discussion on a topic, he participates fully and brings many insights to the discussions. However, when he is reading independently, he often tells me that he doesn't know, that he can't remember, or that he zoned

out. While utilizing the think-aloud strategy with the QRI-4, I found that Jason was quoting text or rereading the passage back to me. His thoughts consisted of "That's intriguing/interesting." He did make some connections with his personal life, noting several times that he would like to see what we were reading about (stars). I felt that he could have made many more connections as we had been studying stars and space at the time. I am concerned with what he is taking in when I am not sitting next to him. 2) What insight did you glean from this reading? What are the implications of these insights for your teaching your student partner? This chapter was full of a lot of good information. It helped me to better understand metacognition and how involved the executive processes are in this process. This chapter also talked about metacognitive strategies that good readers use such as planning, prioritizing, and self-checking (pg. 221) and also what cognitive strategies are used in reading: figuring out what a word means (pg. 221). This chapter also talked about how to teach metacognitive strategies, which all include independent level text, modeling, guided practice, and independent practice. Due to the extensive list of strategies, I will be able to set out with my student partner right away in tackling some of the strategies, Klinger, Morrison, and Eppolito say that just learning one metacognitive strategy will increase comprehension (pg. 221). My student partner is an eighth grader returning to his home school and high school next year. I need to provide him with as many tools as I can so he will be successful. It was great for me to see so many strategies that I have already taught my students, and that the reminders of them will help all of my students. 3) After reading this text, what action would you like to take, including, perhaps, seeking additional information? Be specific. I need to start by reviewing several of the strategies I have previously taught. I think I need to create some visuals so the students can be reminded what the steps in each strategy are and when to use the strategy. My student partner is good at the prereading strategies. He looks at pictures, reads captions, relates the information to his schema, and makes predictions that are on target. I would like to focus more on the strategies that take place during reading, such as self-questioning and thinking aloud. The chapter gives a nice list of question stems that I could use in the classroom (pg. 232). This chapter also talks about the Questioning the Author strategy. I have heard this strategy come up many times in my literacy classes. From the description, I feel that this would benefit my student partner. I plan to look into this further to confirm if this would work for him. March 8, 2014- Response to Afflerbach Chapter 4 Chapter 4 of Afflerbach addresses portfolio assessment. After reading this chapter, how would you use a portfolio to gather evidence of student literacy skills (reading, writing, speaking, listening, viewing, and representing visually) (a) to augment the sorts of assessments of comprehension and word-level skills that we are conducting in EDR 626 or (b) for your own use in your classroom? What would be the purpose of the portfolio, what would be in it, and how would it be used? OK. So portfolios...well I started out the year with really good intentions of using them purposefully and authentically. Somewhere, about December, behaviors in the classroom overtook academics and with all the snow days, I've lost steam with them. I was really excited about them when I started and so were the kids, but like Afflerbach says, they take a lot of time and organization. I didn't realize how far ahead I would have to think, especially about what types of things I wanted to have in the portfolios. I had neat little tabs, but then I realized I needed more and different ones, and the time to add to the portfolios just wasn't there. Now, unfortunately, I feel like it's just a filing cabinet and instead of taking work home, they are just putting it into their binders. So while I feel it isn't a true portfolio assessment, it does show how my students have grown in their math skills and in their reading skills and strategies. It contains the units we have studied in science and social studies. So for the purpose of record keeping, it is successful. What I want to focus more on is the self-reflection pieces and the back and forth communication between my students and myself. I want to move the portfolio to a place where students can showcase their growth and new skills, while also demonstrating the standards are being met. I would continue to put the items in it that I have them put into it now- assignments, assessments, vocabulary, reading strategies, pieces of writing, notes, etc. But I think I would like to go electronic with it. I already have a website for my students/parents. I would like to put the information on line, teach the students where to post items. I feel that would help me to be better organized. It

would also save space in the classroom. Assignments, papers, projects could go home and the digital copies would always be within reach. March 21, 2014- Response to Afflerbach Ch. 9 or self-selected Personalize the topic of accommodations in reading assessment with respect to the students you teach. What principle, tension, or information supplied by Afflerbach got you to thinking about the assessments that you conduct in your own classroom? What were your thoughts? How do you resolve to approach assessment anew in response to this reading? Provide a specific example. If you elected to read an alternate, self-selected text, please share what you learned that you will apply to designing instruction for your student partner. Again, be specific, and share the reference. I accommodate for all of my students. Each of them has IEP accommodations. My students are all working below grade level in all areas. Reading, spelling, and writing are major areas of concern. I was very familiar with all the accommodations listed for students with disabilities. I was struck by the description of linguistic modification. That is a strategy that I don't often use, but could benefit my students, especially the younger students who aren't as familiar to testing. I regularly give tests in science and this section made me think about how those questions are worded. I may need to modify them due to unfamiliar vocabulary. We just finished a unit and when I get back to school next week, I am going to look at it and see if any of the questions could have been linguistically modified to help my students have a better outcome. I go over each of the questions and explain them, then the next day they take the test. That, in itself, may not be enough for my students who read at a lower level. Creating questions that they can read and understand may provide different results. This section definitely got me thinking. Standardized assessments are so difficult for my students. They don't understand the questions and in some cases can't even read them. It's long and overwhelming. They just guess. Each year, I might have one student who actually tries their best. The rest are done within 15 minutes. My biggest challenge with standardized tests is trying to figure out how to make them meaningful to the students, especially when I don't see how they are meaningful for them. I want them to try their best. I applaud Stephen's dedication to preparing his students for assessment, but I don't have that time. It's hard enough to hit the standards in between behavior eruptions! There is such value in helping them be prepared, but unfortunately, I haven't been able to do that.

March 29, 2014- Response to Afflerbach Ch. 8 and Henk article Both Henk and Afflerbach (8) are provided in support of your analysis of elements of the instructional context in one of your own lessons, which is the focus of work for March 31. How did these readings get you to thinking in new or nuanced ways about elements that may interact to affect student learning? What do you want to be more aware of in your upcoming lessons and why? Motivation, self-concept, and the environment around students are essential to student success in school. In my classroom, many times, it is the only place where they feel safe to express their emotions and highlight their strengths. I spend a huge amount of my time focusing on how to motivate my students, how to improve their selfesteem, and looking at the environment around the students. I do this stuff as my primary job- the academics come second. In my class, if the students arent regulated, there is no learning taking place. They need to feel good about themselves and they need to feel safe. Without these things, there is no motivation for them to do well. The framework provided in the Henk article is a tool that I am going to use going forward. I believe it will help me to focus more on the reading and how to teach it well. Like I said, academics often come second or not at all on some days, unfortunately. I think this framework can help me get back on the right track with reading instruction, taking all of the others that Afflerbach talks about into consideration as well.

April 12, 2014- Afflerbach Ch. 7- high stakes assessment Afflerbach's chapter addresses 'high-stakes' assessments, exploring the history, reasons for growing use, characteristics, affordances and limitations of these instruments. These topics will guide some of our discussion on April 14. In response to Afflerbach, what question or interest is developing in your own mind? Pursue it. Do you want to find out more about the latest assessment consortia - PARRC or Smarter Balanced? Look it up on the Internet. Do you want to explore the topic of high-stakes assessment and young children? David Berliner (cited in Afflerbach) has an interview on the topic at http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answersheet/post/why-giving-standardized-tests-to-young-children-is-really-dumb/2011/07/18/gIQAB7OnMI_blog.html. Or perhaps you are interested in parents' attitudes toward these assessments - follow the Dreher & Singer citation in Afflerbach. It is readily available through GVSU's subscription to The Reading Teacher.

In the Group Discussion articulate your question or interest and then share what you discovered. As I was reading chapter seven of Afflerbach, I found myself nodding my head and agreeing with him out loud. I got a couple of funny looks from my kids! But what he says makes sense: What does a single standardized, high stakes reading test score actually mean? (159). A single score on a single day, does not tell the story of that student. It doesnt tell you that last night at home, they were too afraid to sleep or went without dinner. It doesnt tell you that some of these kids are so beaten down with failure that they feel t here is no point in even trying. The whole process is stressful, without meaning for the students, and not an accurate picture of what a rd student CAN do. Those scores arent going to reflect that my student who was reading at a 3 grade level at the th beginning of the year is now reading at a 5 grade level- they arent going to know because they are taking the test th for 7 graders and she cant understand it. These tests are about the adults and school districts, not about students abilities. We are depending on kids who are just learning, who learn at all different levels and times to save our schools and our teachers jobs. Really?! As long as we are making them do things they arent developmentally ready for at younger and younger ages, why not put our school districts on their shoulders as well. Its ridiculous. So my question as I was reading and thinking of my students and my own daughter who struggles tremendously in school, what are the impacts of high stakes assessments on students with learning disabilities. I was looking in particular for newer information and the way that PARCC or Smarter Balanced might affect kids. The overall finding is that high stakes assessment are just detrimental to kids with disabilities. The article I read talked specifically about students with learning disabilities, and some of the outcomes were grade retention, dropping out, and alternative diplomas. These are kids who most likely have had access to the general education curriculum with supports and typically have a pretty good outcome in life. So what about my kiddos who have emotional impairments along with learning disabilities. Their emotional disabilities have caused them to lose weeks, months, and even whole years of learning sometimes. The whole thing just seems ridiculous to me. That one test would affect so many things, like all the rest of the time in school doesnt matter. I could go on and on, but Im going to try to wrap up some of my thoughts. I looked into PARCC and Smarter Balanced and what accommodations they provide for students. They provide a lot of support, if students are familiar with how to use the tools and know how to use them, they will be helpfullike the highlighter option or the writing tools. If the test is truly an assessment of their ability, then as they are asked questions, the test will back up to their level and provide an accurate piece that can be included in the puzzle of that student. It could truly be useful information. Whats not useful, is then turning around and setting policy that uses one test against a school district and teachers. If it comes down to how our students do on tests only, I will be out of a job every year. It makes me want to find another job.

Vous aimerez peut-être aussi