Rachael Schupak

School Reading Problems

10/1/15
Relection #2
This was our second week with Dawson and I already see him improving in some
areas. Kayla and I felt that our lessons this week really helped us realize what Dawson
needed to work on and what he already knows. This week, we focused on CVC, CVCe
and CVCC words. In both lessons, Dawson knew the difference between short e and i
sound, and long e and i sound. When Kayla and I were teaching the long i CVCC (igh)
words, I wrote on the board kit and kite. He was able to say the words correctly and
identify the long i word and the short i word. Then I wrote igh on the board and before I
could explain anything, Dawson shouted out that the word was a long i word and asked
to show us something. He then got out of his seat and wrote light and sight on the
board. This showed us that he had an understanding on igh words. We played bingo
on both Monday and Wednesday which he seemed to enjoy, but it worked because he
knew his words. In the future, bingo may not be the best to explain the difference in
words. For our next lesson, Kayla and I know we need to work on Dawsons vowel
pairing, so we will focus on the -ou and -ow words.

For fluency this week, we worked on seeing how many words Dawson could read
in a minute. On Monday we had him read a familiar text, Rhyming Dust Bunnies with a
goal of 89 words per minute. Unfortunately, Dawson read only 68 words per minute.
Kayla and I learned that we needed to change our strategy to get him to read faster. So
on Wednesday, we had him read, Joseph Had A Little Overcoat, which was a book he
was unfamiliar with. First, I read it to him. Then, Dawson was instructed to read the book
to us and was informed that he would be recorded. After he read the book once, he got
to listen to himself read the book. Then, Dawson read the book one more time, which he
read more fluently then the first time. Our goal this time was for Dawson to read 75
words per minute, and he was very close, reaching 71 words per minute the second
time he read. For our next lesson, we are going to have Dawson read an unfamiliar book
and see if he can read it with expression, since this is something we started working on
last week.
When it came to our comprehension activity, Kayla and I wanted to focus on
evidence, schema and inference. We started on Monday by reading him The Pigeon
Finds A Hot Dog. As we went through the book together, we had a few stopping points
where we would have Dawson find some evidence on the page to form a schema and
make an inference on what might happen next. It appeared to us that Dawson was not
really grasping the concept no matter how we explained it to him and by the end of the

session, he forgot what the definition of all three words. We felt that we may have
explained too much instead of modeling more, or we may have even chose the wrong
book. On Wednesday, we reviewed the words evidence, schema and inference and tried
it with a different book, If You Give A Dog A Donut. This time, Dawson had a better idea
of how to pick out evidence, form a schema and then make an inference. In other words,
this time around, Kayla and I were more successful. Our ending activity also helped us
evaluate if Dawson understood the lesson. Dawson was able to pick an item from the
bag, and correctly identify two out of three items. During our next lesson, we are going
to start working on informational texts and incorporate evidence, schema and inference
into this activity.
This week, Kayla and I wanted to start a bigger writing activity with Dawson. On
Monday, we had him fill out a story web based on his favorite month, December. At first,
it was hard for Dawson to come up with ideas and he started to give up. The tutors
suggested he write down his sentence on a whiteboard, since we knew he enjoyed
doing that instead of writing on paper. On Wednesday, we did a foldable activity to help
Dawson understand parts to a story (who, where, when, why). Dawson seemed to enjoy
this activity and we believe it helped him understand that when he writes his story next
session, that he needs to incorporate what he started writing in his foldable.