December 2, 2019

Dear Ms. Fails,

Hello, my name is Syndra Mahavixay and I am a student at the University of Mount Union who has been
working with the RAC program. I would like to thank you for the opportunity to work with Fred this
semester and take time from your class to do so. As you know, I gave assessments to Fred. From these
assessments, I have gathered information that I would like to share with you. Attached you will see a
copy of the diagnostic chart from the variety of different assessments I have done with Fred.

First, I would like to talk to you about the strengths I noticed while working with Fred. When assessing
Fred on comprehension, we did oral and silent reading. When oral reading, I noticed Fred did very well
with identifying characters. Whenever reading through a story or a passage, I would ask him
comprehension questions at the end. When the questions were regarding characters, Fred was quick to
name the characters he read about. When silently reading, Fred seemed to be more frustrated and have a
more difficult time. When asking him the comprehension questions, he would often shrug his shoulders
and say, “I don’t know.” Silent reading was more challenging than oral reading for Fred. When assessing
on vocabulary, I assessed Fred on definitional, conceptual, and contextual. Fred had a challenging time
with definitional and contextual, however, he was able to make connections conceptually. I would give
Fred vocabulary words and he was able to make a connection with pictures. Refer to the diagnostic chart
for the list of words. When assessing word identification, I worked a lot with prefixes and suffixes. With
prefixes and suffixes, I had Fred underline the prefix and the suffix in each word to see if he could
identify them. Fred did well with underlining to identify them. Lastly, when assessing writing, I had Fred
do a writing prompt. When giving him the prompt, he did very well with word choice. When Fred was
writing about a dog and a cat, he was able to show me he understood by the words he chose to add in his
story while he was writing.

Along with strengths, I noticed some areas for improvement while assessing Fred. With comprehension,
Fred had a difficult time with word identification when orally reading. When orally reading, Fred would
skip over words he did not know or simply say, “I don’t know” which made it harder for him to
understand what he was reading. When working with vocabulary, Fred had a difficult time matching and
identifying the words meanings when focusing on definitional. At one point, Fred shut down completely,
becoming very frustrated because he said he did not know the words. The definitional portion was very
challenging for him. Refer to the diagnostic chart for the list of words that were challenging for Fred.
When assessing word identification, Fred had a difficult time with context clues. Fred was given a variety
of different sentences with a blank in each sentence. He was to fill in the blank with a word that made
sense by using the words around it to help him determine what word he could use. For almost all of the
sentences, Fred wrote ‘yes’ in the blank. One of the sentences read, “_________ is Bob’s dog.” For this
sentence, Fred wrote ‘yes’ in the blank. Context clues were very challenging for him. Lastly, for writing,
Fred had a difficult time with sentence fluency. Although Fred did very well his word choice, he wrote
down simple sentences that did not flow together. Instead, it was what he knew about a dog and a cat and
he would write it down in no specific order for it to flow together. This also made organization
challenging because the sentences were in no specific order to where it would help the sentences flow
together to make a paragraph.

When working with Fred, I did activities that seemed to help him in the areas for improvement. With
these activities, Fred seemed to have a positive attitude, which seemed to really help him focus, be
engaged, and understand more. For oral comprehension, I had him highlight key words in the questions
and highlight key words in the story that matched the words in the questions. I had him highlight in
different colors for each question so he would not get confused. Fred liked to be able to highlight himself
and almost search for words in the story and the questions that helped him. For vocabulary, I went over
the vocabulary words and what they meant on index cards and had him draw a picture on the back that
helped him remember the word. For this activity, I drew with him, however I drew a picture after he drew
one, so he was not drawing the same thing. Rather, he would draw what would help him. He loved this
because he was able to be creative, make pictures, and it truly seemed to help him remember because he
made those connections and gave me examples. For word identification, I gave Fred a flip book with
different prefixes and suffixes with what each of them meant. Then I had cards that had words on them
and had him underline the prefix or the suffix in the words. Fred was able to use the flip book. Then, I had
him match the words with what they meant according to the flip book. Fred seemed to really like this
activity because he liked having something to refer back to and it was very hands on which seemed to
help him a lot. Lastly, for writing, I had Fred take sentence strips and create a story by putting them in
order. On each strip there was a transition word (first, then, lastly). Fred loved doing this because it was
also hands-on, and he was able to pay attention to those key transition words that helped him a lot.

Thank you for the time you gave to work with Fred. I have learned a lot from this experience. If you have
any questions, please feel free to contact me at mahavise2020@mountunion.edu. Thank you again.

Sincerely,

Syndra Mahavixay