DL-TA Part 2

DL-TA Part 2
Sin Cheung
National Louis University

DL-TA Part 2

Prior to administering the activity, I had changed my book from The True Story of The
Three Little Pigs to Papas Mark by Gwendolyn Battle-Lavert. I failed to realize that the first
book is a common book that students may have already heard of it before and it turns out
Destine has read the book already. Papas Mark takes place shortly after the Civil War when
the law was passed saying colored men can vote. In the story, voting was important to Papa so
he practiced in perfecting his mark to a real signature with the help of his son for the day of the
election.
One of the strength areas that I saw after watching the video I recorded of Destine and I
was that I was able to keep her engaged, for the most part, during the story. This is a particularly
a more difficult task as Destine has a hard time focusing and is also very hyper. I kept her
focused by being excited and into the book. I also kept the book very close to us so she can
look at the pictures as I was reading to increase her comprehension of the story. Im not sure if I
was over scaffolding but I had to stop at almost every or most pages and ask her what was
happening in the story. As I was reading I can tell that she wasnt understanding the text so my
strategy to help her keep up with the book in order to make predictions was to make sense of
the story together frequently throughout the book. This was a strength for me because I saw the
excitement and a jump in increased participation from her throughout the book.

DL-TA Part 2

One of the growth areas for my DL-TA is the proper language I failed to use when asking
Destine for evidence to support her prediction. It wasnt until after I watched my video that I
realized that I didnt actually use the word evidence often to have her support her predictions.
This was one of the feedback from the part 1 of my DL-TA. Due to the fact that it was only us
working together and while most of the time I was trying to help her comprehend the book that I
forgot to use language like what evidence. At first making a prediction in the beginning was a
struggle for her because she didnt understand the story so she shrugged her shoulder a lot.
When she made her first prediction after we discussed what was happening in the book, I felt
such a relief that I forgot to use proper language. Another thing is that even when she made her
first prediction, she was confused with all the characters in the book so we had to go over which
character was who. Another growth I will need to work on is pre-planning and being mindful of
where I want to do the activity and how I wanted to record the lesson. I saw how big of a
distraction it was to start the the lesson because Destine was distracted with the computer in
front of us. It took a longer time to get into the book than it should have. Lastly, as I helped her
comprehend the storyline throughout the book, I didnt do much of modeling on how to predict
which I thought is vital especially with Destines case. I felt like I was doing so much of helping
her comprehend that I was missing what DL-TA is supposed to be. One example in the video
was when she predicted that Papa is going to mark an X every Saturday on a paper. When she
said it I wrote it on the board but failed to ask her what evidence in the story made her predict
that. I assumed that if I were to ask her she would point to the picture of Papa writing the X on
the paper and begin from there. I shouldnt have assumed because when I think about it now,

DL-TA Part 2

having Destine tell me that she looked at the picture gives me the chance to expand on her
strategy and let her know it is a tool she can use.
Destines responses for the most part directly came from the pictures in the book. For
example, when she said, I think they wanted all colored men to vote. 1, 2, and 3 (Points at the
three colored men after reading the poster in the book that said Vote! Vote! All MEN OF COLOR
VOTE!). and Simms is going to teach Dad how to write his name with the letter in his hand
(pointed at Simms holding Dads hand with a pen in their hand) all were referring to what she
saw in the pictures. With the few times I asked to support her prediction in addition to a
examples just provided, she consistently pointed to the pictures when explaining. This shows
that Destine is a very visual learner. Although it was a rough start to get the book going and to
get Destine into the book, during the middle of the story Destine said, Can I read? or Can I
read the posters (in the book) multiple times. This confirms that her engagement level is active
even though she may or may not be comprehending the book. Due to the fact that her
comprehension was low, self-monitoring was a struggle for her. After reading some parts of the
story to her, she struggled to confirm and modify her predictions. I needed to scaffold for the
most part mainly by summarizing what I just read.
To increase Destines comprehension level of the story, I think some background
knowledge is needed to make the DL-TA more effective. I saw that even at the end of the story,
Destine did not understand why it was important for Papa to know how to write his name.
Although we discussed it at the end about voting and post Civil War, it was apparent that she
wasnt making a connection. I also asked her if she knew what election and she had said no

DL-TA Part 2

which was what I originally predicted so I already had a friendly definition for her. With that
being said, I think some background knowledge of when the book took place and the history and
events that occurred would be helpful to her. As I mentioned earlier, using proper language and
having her draw evidence from the text would make a difference in her learning as those are all
strategies that I tell her she can use to help with comprehension. I also believe that I need to do
more modeling to show Destine how I would predict especially when she struggled with it.
Through modeling I am showing Destine strategies to predict, and at the same time, I am
allowing her to understand the way I think. With those being said, Destine can learn from me
and apply it to her own strategies in predicting. For example, when Destine struggled to predict
what was going to happen next when Papa was writing an X on a piece of paper with Simms
after the grocery store, I could have model how I would predict by drawing evidence from the
story. I could have used that time to model predictions such as, I think that Papa and the
storekeeper will work on a business together or maybe they already have a business together
because every Saturday Papa goes there, gets something, and sign the paper with an X or
The storekeeper was talking about it is election day in a few weeks and colored folks should be
proud, I think that Papa is going to be activist in the election coming up. While I am making
these predictions I am also referring back to the pictures to give her a visual representation of
what I am talking about. Due to the fact that this was in the beginning of the story, it was
definitely a perfect time to model so she can apply it for the remainder of the book.
As this was my first time administering a DL-TA, everything was new to me. I didnt
recognize how powerful predicting can do to increase comprehension and engagement.

DL-TA Part 2

Reading/English classes were never my favorite because I was never good in them. When my
teachers had us read, I would do very poorly because my comprehension and vocabulary skills
werent there. I think that DL-TAs would have been a great way to help me understand texts. A
text may or may not interest a child but when they are asked to predict they are being active
participants to the book. When they give their prediction, it makes them want to continue to read
because they want to find out if their prediction is correct. Predictions can be fun to them
because they are told from the beginning that there isnt a right or wrong answer, but I think it is
even more effective because they are asked to draw evidence from the text to support that
prediction. These are great skills that they can apply to when they are reading on their own.
Overall I think that DL-TA isnt just about predicting, it is about all the strategies used to make
those insightful predictions which inevitably increase fluency and skills around comprehension.