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Conducting a Reading Assessment in My Internship Classroom Katie Funke Seattle Pacific UniversityConducting a Reading Assessment in My Internship ClassroomAs a teacher it is extremely important to know your students’ academic strengths and weaknesses in order to determine the right learning environment for that student. Especially in a first grade reading program, the students reading success is dependent on the teacher’s ability to match each student with appropriate texts. I recently administered a Qualitative Reading Inventory-5 (QRI) (Leslie & Caldwell, 2011) to one of the struggling readers in my first grade classroom. This test is designed to determine the student’s reading level. Through assessing the student’s; ability to identify words, oral reading fluency and comprehension. According to the first grade student’s NWEA MAP (Measure of Academic Progress) testing scores they are in the 2nd percentile for their grade. The student tested low in every category: Phonological Awareness, Phonics, Concepts of Print, Vocabulary & Word Structure, Comprehension, and Writing. The QRI-5 test has three reading levels based of the percent of words correctly identified; independent (90-100%), instructional (70-85%), and frustration (below 70%). A child’s independent reading level is that which the student can read the text comfortably with little or no errors. A text at the instructional reading level is the optimum level for students to read during literacy instruction. There are enough opportunities for the teacher to teach decodable strategies while the student is still reading most of the words successfully. When a passage is too hard for a student to read without frequent errors it is at their frustration level. As teachers it is important that we find the right level for our students so that they can experience success in trying to learn how to read. Upon administering the QRI-5 test, the student’s instructional level is at the Pre-Primer 1 stage. The student correctly identified 82% of the words. Because the student was almost at the independent stage for Pre-Primer1, I decided to administer the Pre-Primer 2/3 word list. At the Pre-Primer 2/3 stage the student correctly identified 65% of the words. Therefore, this level was at the student’s frustration level. According to the design of the test, the next step was to provide the student with a reading passage that is at their instructional level. In this case, a passage at the Pre-Primer 1 stage was within the student’s instructional level. Based on the first passage, the student read at a rate of 36 Correct Words Per Minute (CWPM). The student had a score of 8% for the concept questions and based on the title did not give an accurate prediction. The student recalled 4/12 of the ideas in the story and tested at the frustration level for the comprehension portion of the test. When asked the concept questions for the second passage the student answered 33% of questions appropriately. The student read at a rate of 33 CWPM. The student recalled 4/10 ideas in the story and scored at the instructional level for comprehension. Based on the results of the test, the student reads at a rate of around 33-36 WCPM. This means that the student’s Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) is at the target rate norms for their grade level. The results show that the student often tested between a high instructional level and a low independent level. In regards to reading accuracy, the student’s independent reading level is Pre-Primer 1 and their instructional level is Pre-Primer 2. However, because the student scored much lower in terms of comprehension their instructional level is at Pre-Primer 1. From this test, I was able to determine that the student’s reading ability is below grade level. I learned that the student was confident in decoding consonant-vowel-consonant-final e (CVC e) words with long “a” and easily decodable three letter words. I also noticed a pattern of the student continually struggling to identify words ending in “–ing”. The student seemed to struggle significantly in the comprehension portion of the test. Specifically, with making predictions, retelling key ideas in the story and answering comprehension questions. Based on the data collected from the QRI-5, this student needs additional support in learning decoding strategies for more complex word structures. The student needs additional help with common endings such as “–ing” and blends such as “th” especially. The student also needs additional instruction on how to make appropriate predictions based on context clues. As well as instruction on learning comprehension skills that can be utilized while reading the text. This assessment provides an opportunity for my mentor teacher and I to identify the student’s reading strengths and weaknesses. It allows us to identify which words are difficult for the student to decode and which comprehension strategies the student needs to learn. Because the student is an English Language Learner (ELL) student, they are receiving pullout instruction for reading as well as linguistic tutoring. It will also be important that the mentor teacher and I collaborate with her tutors, so that we can provide the student with consistent support. My experience in administering this assessment was stressful. Because of unforeseen circumstances, I had to wait until the last day possible to conduct the test. Trying to find time to administer the test provided to be the biggest hurdle. For the most part I felt successful and confident in administering the word lists. The difficulty came when I was only given the last 6 minutes at the end of the day to administer the reading portion of the test. I was so focused on the lack of time that I was not really focused on the student’s reading. As for the student, in my opinion, I think she felt rushed as well as remorseful for having drawn in my QRI-5 text book. When it came time to read the second passage, I looked up to see that the student had drawn in the book, creating an even greater time crunch because she kept apologizing and asking if I was mad at her instead of reading the last passage. Next time I would hope to have more time to administer the test. Since ideally, I would have liked to have given the student the reading portion of the test for Pre-Primer 2 to confirm that is the right level for this student. I was surprised by how much the student could read. Therefore, I learned that in the future it is important to have all of the testing material that you might need easily accessible to use. Not only is it important to have the testing materials for a few levels below what you expect the student will test at, it is also necessary to have a few copies of the levels above as well. ReferencesLeslie, L., & Caldwell, J. A. (2011).?Qualitative reading inventory: 5. Boston, MA: Pearson/Allyn & Bacon. ................
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