1.

Throughout this class, I have had the opportunity to gain expertise in reading assessment and how to use that assessment data to drive instruction. This is an opportunity not afforded to me on a daily basis. Behavior, regulation, and self-control are the key concepts that I attend to primarily. They are the interacting factors that influence what academics I am able to teach. If I am able to teach and impart knowledge, its been a good day. So having this concentrated time with one student to focus on his reading and to focus on creating assessments was valuable to my teaching practice. My student partner is transitioning from my classroom to high school, and with the assessments that I have implemented, I am able to capture Jason as a reader and will provide his high school teachers with a more complete picture of who he is as a student and not just as a behavior. Jason enjoys learning and remembers what he learns and reads when the topic is taught fully and he has an opportunity to do something with that information. Because of this, he has a large schema on many topics. I count on Jason to help me further classroom discussions with his peers. I look to him to answer my deeper thinking questions. He takes the topic and expands it to think about how other topics apply to it. He connects prior learnings with current topics. Approaching assessment of reading with Jason, I had one major concern; Jasons comprehension when he silent reads. This came from knowing that he would be transitioning out of my classroom into a high school setting where he will be required to silent read in large amounts. I had noticed that when he read for enjoyment, he could detail to me what he had read and if I had questions, he was able to answer them completely. When he was required to read another text that was not of interest to him, I would notice that he would be looking around the room, unfocused, and would not be able to tell me what he had read. In high school, he will be required to read texts that are less intriguing to him. My goal became to provide him tools he could use to maintain that focus. I started the assessments by having him read out loud. In the classroom, I felt that he read quite well, one of my best readers. Completing the Informal Reading Inventory of the QR4 gave me surprising information. I learned that he left off endings of words. He would say farm for farmer or safe for safety, which changed the meaning of the sentences that he was reading. Another surprising discovery was how often he changed the beginnings of the words as well. He would replace would with could and were with are. These miscues did not seem to affect the meaning as much as when he left off the endings of the words. I felt that what would help him the most with this was an awareness of what he was doing. I did not choose to pursue this line of instruction within the assessment class, but I did address it in my classroom. Pointing out to him what he was doing has so far, proven to be helpful to him. He has slowed his reading rate just a little and appears to be looking at the whole word, versus just the beginning or the ending. I chose to pursue the idea that he struggles with comprehension of material when he silent reads. Continuing with the IRI, I asked Jason to silent read a passage entitled Margaret Mead. After reading, he was able to retell 24% of the ideas the passage contained. When

asking him the comprehension questions, without looking back, the passage was at his frustration level and he was unable to answer the questions. He even stated in answer to the question What made Margaret Mead decide she would be able to stay in Samoa? with that part wasnt easy to understand. He also answered questions completely wrong. For example a question asked what Margaret Mead did with all the notes she had taken in Samoa to which the answer is she wrote a book. Jason stated that she destroyed them or kept them in a vault and never let anyone see them. Providing the opportunity to look back, Jason was able to go back and answer the questions correctly. This demonstrated to me that Jason needed help with setting a purpose and knowing what information to pay the most attention to. Beginning instruction I wanted him to focus on various strategies he can use to set a purpose. I started with independent reading with a book of his choice. We discussed and reviewed the strategies of asking questions while reading, making a goal for reading, or predicting what will happen next in the book. Jason indicated in a conference that he had some questions he wanted answered. After he finished reading, he was able to answer the questions. The next instruction involved nonfiction text which he will be encountering frequently in high school. Here I provided him with a graphic organizer in which to help him focus and guide his thinking. Graphic organizers have proven to be a tool that helps Jason in school. The SQ4R asks for prior knowledge, making predictions, and questions on the topic from the headings and subheadings. It guides the student through previewing a text and making connections prior to reading. Our lesson focused on this previewing part. In subsequent meetings, we read; Jason answered questions that had come to his mind when he was previewing; he restated the main ideas of the text; and he reflected on what he had learned. When given the quiz on the material, Jason scored a high grade. When I showed him his grade, he stated that paper really helped me. Creating a meaningful performance assessment also helps Jason to focus himself on the text improving reading comprehension. After the teacher constructed assessment where Jason read about amphibians and reptiles, he compared an amphibian and a reptile. Providing him with the choice of which animals to compare and how to compare them motivated him to read carefully. He put a lot of effort into his assignment, creating a PowerPoint presentation that he shared with his peers detailing what he had learned. My instruction with Jason through the end of the school year will continue to focus on various reading strategies he can use to help him make sense of texts, stay focused, and set a purpose for his reading. Jason still requires someone else to set the purpose for him, particularly with nonfiction texts. Providing him with a menu is helpful. I want him to be able to use this menu more independently and without so much teacher direction. Within this course, I have also been able to compile information to pass on to his next teachers that will be meaningful and contains the data to substantiate my recommendations to them for Jason.

2. I have grown as a teacher throughout this process. Data and numbers have always discouraged me. My students are academically low, making inconsistent progress. I am frustrated in my classroom as I have to teach the common core standards for their grade level, but also remediate back to 2nd grade at times. It makes my job difficult and soured me against assessments (in the testing sense). What this class has done has shown me the usefulness of good assessments. It reminded me that there is helpful and meaningful information to be gathered. I feel reading is the key to school success. This class helped me to understand that good assessments are going to back up my teacher intuition about students as readers. They could also show me things that I hadnt seen before, opening up avenues of instruction. I see the value again! I have begun to implement some of the assessments we looked at through the class with my other students to help me better understand what their strengths and weaknesses are as a reader. My goal is to look at assessment not as a necessary evil that I have to administer, but as a tool to help me understand my students as learners. The demands are overwhelming in my classroom, behaviorally, academically, and emotionally. This is going to take planning and teamwork to accomplish. I want to continue to use the IRI as a way to analyze student miscues and understand what they are doing well. There is often not a lot of time provided to me in my classroom where students are regulated all at the same time. With academic levels ranging from the first to eighth grade level, it is hard to find an activity that can occupy all the students for a period of time. Working together independently oftentimes does not work either, as students become disregulated and disturb the rest of the class. However, having two teacher assistants provides me with opportunities to work one-on-one with students when the classroom is calm. I feel that the IRI is a positive first step in looking at a students abilities with reading. It highlights helpful information such as what kinds of miscues are made, what reading level are they at, and what kinds of questions they are struggling with. This course has fostered my growth in many areas. I have deepened my understanding of reading assessment and how they are to be used (IRA 3.1). I have changed how I think about assessments in general and will continue to look at them as a way to understand a learner better and more completely. Writing the reports to demonstrate this information was a new experience for me. It has filled me with confidence as I move forward to present my findings with Jasons IEP team (IRA 3.4). I know that in the report, I have the data to back up my recommendations for his next teachers. This course also helped me to grow in understanding how to use the information that I obtained from the assessments to then drive instruction (IRA 3.3). In the past, I have given assessments, looked at the results and just did not know what to do with the results. I did not know how to interpret them, let alone use them to guide instruction. Having several opportunities throughout this course to practice this skill has made me more proficient in looking at data and using it to make instructional decisions. This course also showed me how to look at each assessment, interpret the data, and decide what assessment to use next to gain further information. The IRI information led to using the think aloud data and the miscue analysis which led to looking at performance assessments.

On page two of his book, Understanding and Using Reading Assessment K-12 (2012), Peter Afflerbach says this; Reading assessment that gives students useful feedback while shoring up their self-esteem is important to the students and the teacher. This captures the essence of my personal goal. Using what I have learned in this class, I will be able to assess students, provide meaningful instruction, all while increasing their self-concept. When I feel confident in what I am doing (using assessments to guide instruction), the students gain confidence and skill in reading, and then I feel more confident and gain valuable experience. This class has set me on that path.