Fluency and comprehension

Unlike the other contributors to this blog, I interning in a third grade. When dealing with fluency and comprehension, I feel that there is a major difference in skill level between the two grades. That being said, we do have five students who are not reading in my class.

I have really been thinking about one of these students lately. She is a "newcomer" as my school calls her. She recently moved from another non-English speaking country. She is completely literate in her native language, but that language uses a different alphabet. Since moving to the United States in September, she has completely learned the new alphabet and the sounds that go along with all of the consonants, as well as some of the basic vowel sound rules.

At this point her fluency is better than some of the other children in our class. The principal of Vandenberg often invites English language learners to read for her as a way of encouragement. The child from my class was already invited to read for her. She got to read two books, and got all but one word right. One of the children in our class heard her practicing before she got to go. She was really excited for her classmate. In fact, she said to me, "I had no idea she knew how to read. That is awesome!" The principal's reaction was similar to this child's classmate. When I spoke with the principal, she was exclaimed about how far she had come in a month and a half.

However, she also spoke of one other thing. The principal asked the child questions while she was reading. She said to her, "What does jump mean?" The child got out of her seat and jumped. The principal then asked, "What does tap mean?" The child looked at her blankly.

Is this child reading? The answer to me is simple. She does not speak English. She knows some basic words that have been specifically taught to her. Her vocabulary is expanding every single day, but the fact remains that she is not even socially fluent yet, let alone academically fluent. She is great at pronouncing different words, but that does not mean that she knows what she is reading.

There are two components of reading, and both really need to be present to be able to say that a child is really reading. While this child is in a great position to be an efficient reader because she is learning the words she needs for comprehension, and her fluency is making great strides every day, right now she is simply pronouncing words.

Fluency and Comprehension

This is an interesting topic when working with emergent readers. People often think that students are fluent so they can read. Parents can't understand why their child is in a lower guided reading group because they can read all of the words correctly. But what is reading really? As the readings have pointed out fluency is the act of decoding and "reading" words correctly but comprehension is actually understanding what all of these words mean. Without comprehension, students are not effective readers and cannot learn or process what they read.

This struggle between fluency and comprehension is especially prevalent within my classroom. Out of 27 students i have 14 that are bilingual and are English language learners. We had an incredibly interesting professional development seminar during one of our staff meetings based on our ELL learners because many of the teachers in the buildings are new and have no experience working with ELL students who come into the classroom with little to no English background. During this seminar we learned that although our students can survive in our classroom with basic commands, can speak english with their peers, and can read this is only the beginning. Our students who are learning English for the first time will pick up phrases and will be able to decode words. They even might have a high level of fluency but comprehension is so crucial for these students. Teachers and parents struggle with separating the two and this was an emphasis at the meeting. We learned that ELL will not be able to actually read for context fluently with comprehension and retain information until they have been immersed in the language for 4-7 years. Teachers need to be aware of this and really focus on comprehension along with fluency.

After this meeting I saw this exact phenomenon in the classroom. I have an Arabic student in my class who is an ELL learner. He is completely fluent in speaking and communicating but is a struggling reader. In first grade he was originally scored at an 18 DRA level but after recent DRA testing his score has gone down to an 8. After progressively testing him at easier and easier levels we noticed that it was not his fluency that is not up to par but it is his comprehension. He could not reiterate simple stories and tell us what was occurring within the book even though he was fluently reading with intonation, heading punctuation and correctly decoding words. As a teacher this was a learning experience for me. He was an excellent reader but did not have comprehension. Now we have sent home a list of questions for his parents to ask before, during and after reading. We have already seen improvement in this student and believe he is going to fly through his reading group!

Fluency/Comprehension

The relationship between reading comprehension and reading fluency within my classroom is that of making sure that the students are understanding what we are reading to them or what they are reading to themselves. I have noticed that my students when they read aloud to themselves during silent reading time- they have a better fluency pattern as well as a better comprehension pattern. For example, I was sitting with a student and she was reading a Clifford book to me. Of course she was reading it aloud and her fluency seemed to be going well. She had a few stop-ups here and there but that is expected of a second grader. I then asked her questions at the end of the book to see if she could re-call what she had read and she did very well. I thought, that was interesting because I have never looked at the two relationships before. I then had a different student read a book silently to themselves and I had prepared myself to ask them questions when they were done (reading through the book first) I noticed that they seemed to stay on a page longer than ‘normally’ and when I went to ask them questions their answers were fuzzy and un-clear. I made the conclusion that it is harder for the students to read in their heads because when they hear themselves saying it aloud they can hear the mistakes that they make and correct them, verses reading to themselves. I thought it was an interesting find. So I think the relationship between reading comprehension and reading fluency is very close and if a student is able to fluently read they will have a better time comprehending because they already know what they are reading and do not have to worry about just getting through the story but understanding it.
Approaches that are used to assess and teach fluency in my classroom include as I stated above sitting and reading with students to help them become better readers by giving them hints to sounding out words, helping them use sight words to help them pronounce other words that they may not know. As well as observing students during their reading time. This is a great tool because you can see exactly where students are struggling and where their strengths are. I find that observing students and then looking back at the notes is a great way to assess them and them help them improve. Fluency is taught in my class through read aloud instruction and examples. Students work with the teacher when we are circulating around as well as they are listening to how a story is read to them with inflection and punctuation.
What I need to know to fully understand my students reading development is in my opinion the number one most important facet would be the students attitude toward reading. If a student hates to read and has no interest in it, they are going to be poor readers because it is more of a chore than something to be learned and gain experience. It is ‘dreadful’ to the student and therefore reading is put into a negative category. Finding out their attitudes toward reading will help me understand my students better and give me more opportunities to help them improve. I could do this through a reading survey or just asking students randomly what they like about reading and what they don't. I also think it would be helpful to find all the students strengths within reading and make sure that I complement them on their strengths and then help them improve on their weaknesses. I can find this out through observing and note taking during their silent reading or writing time.

Fluency

I love that this is this weeks post because I was actually doing a quick assessment of students' fluency during Daily 5 today. In TE 301, the biggest thing about fluency that was stressed to me that you cannot be a fluent reader unless you comprehend the text. Deeney describes a fluent reader as "any person who reads smoothly, without hesitation, and with comprehension" (pg. 85). It is very easy for a student to read the words on the page quickly but if they do not understand what they are reading, they become just good decoders. Therefore, it is so important to check with a student to make sure that they know what they are reading. During my assessment today, I made sure to focus on a couple of items. First, I had the student read to me for a minute or two and I simply listened to their fluency. Secondly, I looked at the book with the child so I could monitor his or her accuracy. Finally, I asked the child after a page or two, what we read or another question pertaining to the next. From my previous classes, I know that my anecdotal notes would have been somewhat useless if I did not link these couple of items.

During my assessment, I also noticed that some children's fluency changed drastically when the next they were reading changed. For example, one boy chose a Magic School Bus  book to read. This book was full of scientific terms and names that he he had never heard of. This meant that he spent a majority of his time reading, decoding the different words. Decoding had sucked all of the fluency out of him and he was left not even understanding what he had read. However when we changed the text he was reading to a narrative, his fluency and comprehension improved. It is amazing how quickly his literacy skills were improved by just changing the text.

My CT has yet to start reading groups, but I know that this is where fluency, comprehension, accuracy, and expanding vocabulary will be worked on. (We use the C.A.F.E. literacy program in our classroom). My CT will assign the different reading groups based on the students DRA scores. I am excited to see how reading groups work and what types of mini lessons she will perform.

Salch and Marino 2010

This article was all about writing conferences between a teacher and student. It gave tips and ideas that would make the conferences as successful as possible. Some of the tips included: giving praise, tell them how you felt as you read it, keep the conferences brief, and when giving tips, apply them directly to their story. It also gave hints regarding how to deal with situations where children do not want to write. Instead of just forcing them to sit down, listen to them tell a story and then encourage them to write it all down.

We do use this technique in my classroom. I took away a few ideas from the article that I plan to use in my classroom, actually. For instance, we have one child who repeatedly attempts to tell us that he hates writing, and that he is a terrible writer. The next time this child tells me a story, as he does almost daily, I will encourage him to write it down. I will relate it back to storytelling in writing as opposed to orally.

I need to get myself to think on my students levels as opposed to on my level. I routinely keep reminding myself that they are third graders and therefore will write as third graders, not as adults. It is the only area of teaching that I sometimes struggle with getting myself to think like them.

This module made me think about the need for various forms of assessment. Looking at their work alone will not do me any good unless I am talking to them about the issues that I notice. Unless the I know where they are coming from, I will not be able to identify where their mistakes took place.

Joanne Hindley Salch and Marianne Marino

This piece was incredibly interesting and focused on the conferencing portion of writer’s workshop. Teachers discussed how they often feel like this is the most difficult part of writer’s workshop because there is not script guiding you towards making you students better writers, it’s all on the teacher. Often time’s teachers feel as if they have to correct every mistake in their students writing. Other times they feel as if they have to reprimand students for not working as efficiently as they could be. But, the main focus of this article is to teach us how to conference and what types of things we can say or do to help guide our students. Guiding our students is the main concept of the writer’s workshop student teacher conference. Teachers are viewing their students as writers and are guiding them to use their suggestions. One method that was brought up was to recap the student’s story and ask them if that is what they wanted the reader to get out of it. This way, students are acknowledging that they may have left something out and the teacher is not pointing it out directly but leading them towards self-discovery and independence.

We do use writer’s workshop in my classroom but we have not implemented the program yet. I am so glad that I read this article before jumping into writer’s workshop because now I know where my conferences should go. I am incredibly quick to correct all of my student’s errors and realized how frustrating this can be for students. I especially hated this when I was writing and carried this feeling even through college. After reading this piece I now know that I am that teacher but I understand what conferences should look like and how to engage students in their writing as opposed to make them dislike the process.

This form of writing instruction I believe one of the most important. If teachers communicate with their students one on one they can not only understand student’s strengths and weaknesses, but also show them that they care about them as writers and people. We can learn about our students through writing and conferences open this door.

As for what I need to learn about this topic I feel like I need to learn a lot but mainly I need to practice. I realize that I will not be great at conferencing initially but with practice I will become better. I plan on not only reflecting on my students work but my ability to conference with them as well. I feel like this is crucial to my development. Overall, I am excited to try some of these methods with my own students when writer’s workshop begins.

Lastly, when it comes to assessment I feel as if teachers are constantly assessing student’s knowledge throughout the day but it is always more beneficial to write down notes or use an assessment scale. Because we haven’t started writer’s workshop yet I may want to have the students do a self-evaluation based on their feelings about reading and writing. This will be crucial for me to understand where my students stand on these topics. I could also use more writing samples to further assess the different levels and needs my students have.

Helping Struggling Writers Succeed: A self-regulated strategy instruction program

Lisa Helsel
Daphne Greenberg

Helping Struggling Writers Succeed: A self-regulated strategy instruction program

Summary:
This article is about different ways to help struggling writers come out in their writing and change their bad habits that they have before they reach higher level education. One of the main goals of the article is to get across the point that teaching self-regulated writing strategies to students is the best way for them to improve on their writing. This gives the students the tools to be more independent in their writing and write through using ‘tasks.’ By this the students are working towards a common goal that they can set for themselves and be more independent with their writing. Shying away from always asking questions and wanting the teacher to scaffold their writing. One of the ways that students can self-regulate their writing is through making an outline of what they are to be writing about. This allows them to see their ideas before they are put into sentences and paragraphs to make sure that everything is making sense. I believe that this is very helpful, although in the younger grades it may be more challenging for the students to comprehend that they are making an outline and then writing in paragraph form. The students then take this outline and begin to write a summary from what is in the outline. Lastly a way for struggling writers to be more part of the classroom with their writing, teachers can lower the expectations for these struggling writers to their ability and slowly over time raise these expectations.

Discuss:
These writing strategies would fit into my classroom in our writer’s workshop. At the grade level in which I am currently at (second grade) I believe that the student’s that are struggling writers would need instruction in making outlines and the other strategies to improve their writing. I don’t think that it would be a bad idea for all students in the class to learn how to write outlines and then write summaries from those outlines. I would make sure that writing outlines was practice. I would also want the writers that are struggling in the same areas to be placed into groups with the same students at their level so the students are working together through their writing but also learning how to write independently. During writer’s workshop students would experience this learning and self regulating strategies to improve their writing through instruction and then independent work. This allows students to organize their ideas into categories and then properly put them together into sentences that make sense. Students can get into the habit of doing this and then their writing over time will improve. Once the ideas are organized students can then write more clearly with grammar and spelling. As a professional in order to use this approach for my students I would need to find a way to make sure that all students were understanding what an outline is-of course fitting it to a second grade level. Possibly a concept map or a spider map with very little writing at first to show the students exactly what is expected of them. I will also need to make sure that my students are organized into their right level groups.

After this module I have learned that for my assessments of my unit plan I need to make sure that student’s are understanding what is being taught. I am going to be doing read aloud’s and word work. The type of assessments necessary for my unit would be giving students different word work activities to make sure that they have an understanding of the different word sounds, word recognition and understanding other word sounds. Also students need to have comprehension in order to understand the read aloud’s. I need to plan assessments that will give my students understanding of all of these things. Questions, examples are the best way for these two topics in my opinion for me to assess my students. My students as writers are all across the board in levels. I want to make sure that I am assessing my students at their correct level and pushing those that need it.

Gill 2007

Sharon Gill's article discusses the lost world of poetry in elementary school classrooms. It has been engrained in our society that poetry has to be piece that only academic scholars can understand and evaluate (Gill, pg. 622) . For this very reason, poetry is viewed as not being appropriate for elementary aged students and therefore, not taught in schools or even found within public libraries. Gill's article focuses on bring poetry back into the classrooms. Her approach to poetry is meant to enjoy, to feel, and to participate in. Gill provides countless examples of good poetry for children and also provides the simplest of ways that it can be added into the classroom curriculum. "Helping children enjoy and appreciate poetry is as simple as sharing a favorite poem and letting students talk about what they notice" (Gill, pg. 623). Bottom line, poetry should not be ignored within the classroom setting. Poetry can be a great asset to any child's education.

For the past few weeks, my students have been learning all about visualizing. My CT has just focused on providing children with numerous examples through read-alouds and oral stories. Once, we used a short poetry piece to pull out detailed words which helped us to visualize what the author was trying to portray. I never once considered focusing on poetry to help students learn visualizing but after reading this piece, it is easy to see that poetry is the perfect type of literature piece. Students would have to use their senses to really connect to the piece. They cannot rely on visual clues which forces them to really create their own picture. If poetry was the first bit of literature introduced to my students when visualizing was being taught, I believe that their work in Writer's Workshop would have been much better and much easier for them to write.

As a professional, I believe that I need to have more experience with poetry myself. I grew up without much exposure to poetry and therefore do not feel comfortable with working with this type of literature. If I want my children to learn from poetry and apply the things that they learn while reading poetry to their own literacy development, I must do the same.

My students are currently learning the different steps involved during Writer's Workshop. The sole purpose of learning these steps at this moment is for DWA testing. Learning more about Writer's Workshop has shown to me that this cannot be just a week long lesson. Students need to be constantly learning how to improve during each step of the writing process and should also be applying the new skills that they learn during reading to their own writing. Reading and writing are very much interconnected and I do not believe their is much of a bridge between the two subject areas. I hope that during my unit, I will be able to connect both subjects.

Book Club Plus reading reflection

After reading through the through the assessment chapter I found that some of these forms of assessment rarely cross my mind. When students discuss texts as a group in a book club format I would just assume that participation is enough for students to receive some sort of grade, but then how to teachers actually assess students? The chapter was incredibly insightful and specific in the types of discussion students should be having. Students should be respectful, stay on task, bring new ideas into the discussion and support their team members. One of the main criteria for assessment that I thought was important was the concept of using evidence from text and connecting this to student’s prior knowledge. I thought that it was incredibly interesting and my students are working on this right now. When they eventually get into their book club groups they will be able to do this flawlessly because of the practice they have received. We also have reading logs students need to fill out, which is yet another for of assessment, but our reading log is not as specific as the one listed in chapter six. The reading log we use just tracks the student reading by the minute. But, as the year progresses I think that at second grade level they may be able to take notes and actually interact with the text while reading. As for now, we are focusing on students reading and comprehension and maybe towards the end of the year we will be able to create a more in depth assessment for their reading logs.

The other form of assessment that I thought would be useful in the classroom was the personal assessment students fill out based on their own work. We have not done this type of assessment in our classroom but I am interested in trying it out to see what our students have to say about their own work. Lastly, writing samples are taken constantly in our classroom and this is mainly what we focus on. Students are constantly writing and we are able to assess both what they read and how their writing is developing.

The classroom management chapter was intriguing as well. I though that it was interesting that one of the main topics was to choose an engaging theme so student’s interests are peaked. The idea that literature will either capture of set off a group student is so powerful and literature is at the basis of classroom management. If students are at a low level and are reading difficult books they will choose to give up and management is lost. Grouping is also key and we are working on that with our students currently. All of our students know that they will work with everyone in the class and they have to learn to work cooperatively. If these standards are set up in the class a classroom community is created and students are expected to work together. I also enjoyed reading about the types of groupings that are possible in the classroom and hopefully as the year progresses my students will be able to try a fish bowl activity. I would love to do this but understand that I would have to plan out the activity more fully.

Lastly, chapter eight reinforced standards that are need to be met for books clubs. Although as teachers all of this may seem “fun” to students, our job is to make sure we are meeting standards out students need to learn. I thought this reading was incredibly helpful and hope to use a great deal of these techniques within the classroom this year.