Running head: LITERACY INTERVENTION

Literacy Intervention Plan Bonnie Maddox The University of Alabama at Birmingham

LITERACY INTERVENTION

Running Records I used running records for my literacy intervention plan and worked with a 4th grade African American girl who struggles with reading and writing. I tried three different levels of text in order to find the students instructional level, labeled the errors to determine which cueing systems the student attends to, documented the readability level of the texts and scores, and summarized my observations. The first running record I performed was a Level O-P. There are a total of 170 words, in which the student read 165 correctly; there were 5 errors and 3 self-corrections. The error rate is 1:34 and the self-correction rate is 1:3. The student read 89 words per minute, falling short of the 123 words per minute benchmark. She scored 97% for word recognition and 80% for comprehension of the text, meaning this level is easy. She accurately recalled what the main character was carving and why he worked in ten-minute intervals, but was unable to remember which part of the eagle he started with. She told me what she would make if she could carve wood and why it is dangerous to use a chain saw when tired. While reading the text, she tracked the words with her finger and attended mostly to the graphophonic cueing system. She maintained the meaning of the story while reading. The one word she was unable to read was intervals; she used the letters to guess invals, but was able to answer the comprehension question regarding why he worked in ten-minute intervals; this leads me to believe that she understood what was going on in the story but needed assistance with that particular vocabulary word. The second running record I performed was a Level R. There are a total of 200 words, in which the student read 189 correctly; there were 11 errors and 0 self-corrections. The error rate

LITERACY INTERVENTION

is 1:18 and the self-correction rate is not available because there were no self-corrections. The student read 100 words per minute, falling short of the 123 words per minute benchmark but reading it the most fluently of all the texts, which may be due to the fact that she enjoyed the story and could relate to it easier than the other two. She scored 94.5% for word recognition and 100% for comprehension of the text, meaning this level is easy. She said that she really liked the story and answered all of the comprehension questions accurately and enthusiastically, recalling what Brave thinks he sees in the forest, how he feels when his foot is caught in the roots, and two ways he is tricked in the story. She also told me about a time she imagined something that was not really there and why she thought Brave would not play tricks on others after his experience. While reading the story, she tracked the words with her finger and read foot in the roots word by word. She attended mostly to the semantic and graphophonic cueing systems, experiencing the most trouble with vocabulary. She guessed at anxiously, saying unusual and not attending to any of the cueing systems, and tried to sound out tremendous using the letters to assist her, but was unsuccessful in her attempt and ended up saying trebous. She did not self-correct any errors this time. The third and final running record I performed was a Level S. There are a total of 213 words, in which the student read 196 correctly; there were 17 errors and 3 self-corrections. The error rate is 1:13 and the self-correction rate is 1:7. The student read 75 words per minute and fell short of the 123 words per minute benchmark. She scored 92% for word recognition and 40% for comprehension, meaning this is her instructional level. She was able to answer the comprehension question regarding why Marie named one of the substances after Poland and if she had ever had an X-ray. She was unable to recall what the radioactive materials energy would not pass through, what Marie said were the happiest days in her life, and why Marie and

LITERACY INTERVENTION

Pierre gave the other substance the name radium. This text was more difficult for her and she did not comprehend it; she lost the overall meaning of the story and was focusing more on trying to get the words right, but she did attend to the semantic and graphophonic cueing systems the most. She tracked her reading with her finger and read the story word for word. The vocabulary in the story was challenging for her, she struggled with colleagues, radioactive materials, eventually, Pierre, and polonium. She sounded the words out, saying radio-activity for radioactive and breaking apart substances into sub-stan-ces every time she encountered the words. She also substituted minerals for materials every time it came up in the text, attending to the visual appearance of the word, sentence structure, and somewhat of the meaning. She substituted material for metal during one sentence, attending to the visual aspect of the word and constructing her own meaning for the sentence. The running records are included at the end of this document for further reference. Writing Sample The writing sample I obtained is the students informative/explanatory essay on the animals she studied in science. I concentrated on her revised copy of the paper so I could see her original writing before she made any revisions. The student appears to be in the transitional developmental stage of writing. Most of the writing is readable and approaches conventional spelling, but there are still many words that she did not know the conventional spelling of and therefore created her own spelling. For example, she used vestibles instead of vegetables, botem instead of bottom, and studed instead of studied. According to the student, she prefers writing in non-fiction. She used her science journal to assist her in writing the story, but did not include a lot of vocabulary words or appear to have utilized any other resources such as the word wall or dictionary.

LITERACY INTERVENTION

The student does not appear to struggle with conventions of print such as capitalization and punctuation, but does seem to have a little difficulty with spacing. She writes from left to right, top to bottom, and uses punctuation to communicate meaning and expression to readers. For example, she uses a question mark in her opening sentence, Have you ever studed animals? and an exclamation mark in her final paragraph, Finnaly you study fiddler crabs! She struggles with spelling, but uses correct verb tense and mostly writes in complete sentences. The writing sample is included at the end of this document for further reference. Strengths/Challenges The student has a beginning level of self-correction when errors do not make sense. For example, during the first reading she substituted runs for rounds in He rounds the head and body and self-corrected herself. This self-correction shows that she realized runs did not make sense in the context of the story, attending to meaning and self-correcting the error. She also had a strong level of comprehension for the second story with which she had a strong level of background knowledge and could relate to the text. She was consistently able to answer explicit and implicit questions about the text for the first two readings and has a developing level of understanding in regards to the concept that a story should make sense. She understands that words are graphically similar and uses that knowledge when encountering an unknown word, like when she substituted minerals for materials. She also uses beginning consonant cues for figuring out unknown words. For example, she substituted severe for suffered, polium for polonium, and material for metal. The student needs to consistently self-correct when errors do not make sense or sound like spoken language. She needs more strategies for figuring out unknown words, she tends to

LITERACY INTERVENTION

rely most heavily on consonant cues and graphic similarities for unfamiliar words. She also needs to build her ease of reading and take ownership of learning new vocabulary, as evident in her struggle with the vocabulary in the texts. Intervention Plan I would teach self-correcting strategies for when errors do not make sense or sound like spoken language because the student needs to understand that reading should always make sense and sound like spoken language. We would read together and I would stop her at every error and ask, Does that make sense? or Does that sound the way you talk? We would also work on instructional strategies for figuring out unknown words, which would build her ability to confirm what the word in the text actually is rather than taking a guess. We would do this with shared reading and cloze passages. When doing the cloze passages, we would first ask what would make sense and then take a look at the beginning letters to see if we can determine the word. The student read the last text word-for-word, tracked the words with her finger for all three levels, and did not meet the benchmark words per minute with any of the texts. In order to build her ease of reading and make reading easier for her so she can pay more attention to comprehension, as seen when she lost comprehension of the last running record that was difficult to read, we would do repeated readings of familiar texts and poetry. We would also talk about how reading should sound the way you talk and do choral reading, readers theater, and maybe even some shared reading to build her sight-word vocabulary and confidence. To help her with vocabulary, I would do front-loading of it through conversations around difficult words in the text prior to reading independently. We would also do guided practice about how to use a variety of resources to learn new vocabulary. This instruction would help her take initiative in

LITERACY INTERVENTION

learning new, unfamiliar, and/or challenging words in the texts that she is reading so that her comprehension is not compromised. I would show her how to use the dictionary to look up new words and how to use context clues to infer the meaning of words while reading. Vocabulary instruction will also help her with writing. Utilizing resources such as word walls, dictionaries, and her journals, will help her incorporate more vocabulary in her writing and help her with spelling. In conclusion, the student needs to understand that reading should always make sense and sound the way you talk. She needs to consistently self-correct her errors and utilize more strategies for figuring out unknown words. Taking ownership of new vocabulary and building her ease of reading will aid in her comprehension and also support her writing development.

LITERACY INTERVENTION

Documentation 1st Running Record: Level O-P (Easy)

LITERACY INTERVENTION

LITERACY INTERVENTION

10

2nd Running Record: Level R (Easy)

LITERACY INTERVENTION

11

LITERACY INTERVENTION

12

3rd Running Record: Level S (Instructional)

LITERACY INTERVENTION

13

LITERACY INTERVENTION

14

Writing Samples Revised Copy Used for Analysis

LITERACY INTERVENTION

15

LITERACY INTERVENTION

16

Additional Writing Samples

LITERACY INTERVENTION

17

LITERACY INTERVENTION

18