Fieldwork Observation #5

Megan Wheeler

EDU 306 Dr. Maruca

Megan Wheeler
Dr. Maruca
EDU 306
28 November 2017
Observation 5
If you have not done so already, use a published informal reading inventory (IRI),
(BPST) to assess your ELL focus student and discover their reading level: independent,
instructional, or frustration.
Discuss the student's strengths and weaknesses and what you will plan to assist the
student. Be specific about the student's needs and your plan to assist her or him.
Continue to reflect on your experience in the fieldwork classroom and make note of
any techniques or strategies used.

My host teacher administered the Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA) to

my focus student earlier this school year. For the DRA, the teacher begins by asking a

few questions on the topic of reading engagement. The first of these questions asks,

Who reads with you or to you at home?, to which the student responded, dad. The

second of these questions asks, Tell me about one of your favorite books., to which the

student replied, cat. After these questions, the teacher then introduces the book that will

be read aloud. For this student, my host teacher chose the book Can You Sing? to the

student. The DRA requires the teacher to read the first three pages of the book and point

with her finger as she reads. After these first pages, the teacher tells the student that she

will read what the bird says and that the student will read what the other animals in the

book say.

My focus student appeared to really struggle on this reading inventory.

Considering the amount of errors, this student would be at the frustration reading level.

For many of the pages, the only word written is No. On all of these pages, the student
would add in additional words and read, No I cant. For this reading inventory, adding

words that are not written on the page counts towards the overall amount of errors.

According to the teacher, it appeared that the student was simply repeating the same

phrase and not actually trying to read the print. He was just reading what he memorized

from previous pages. One factor that was also an issue during this students assessment

was the fact that he would not point to the words as he read. This goes hand in hand with

the errors he made while reading aloud because he is not pointing to the actual word that

is written on the page. This is definitely an area for improvement for this student.

At one point during my fieldwork I administered an alphabetical assessment to

my student and he performed very poorly on it. The assessment asked him to identify the

name of a letter and its sound. Out of all of the questions, he only was able to identify

two letter names. I believe that this directly correlates with his performance on the DRA.

It is crucial that this student makes significant progress in his literacy skills. I

would plan to really work hard one-on-one with this student with his phonetic awareness.

Learning the sounds that letters make and how they sound together in a word would

greatly improve his performance on assessments like the DRA. I would pull this student

to work on phonics using flashcards and worksheets. I would also really enforce the

practice of using his finger to point to the words as he reads. If he develops this skill, it

will greatly help him to read the actual print instead of just going off the top of his head.

I believe that one-on-one instruction is the best thing for this student. He is easily

distracted during class time and he becomes disengaged very easily. It is important to

work closely with him to develop these crucial literacy skills before he falls through the

cracks after Kindergarten.