Selected Sample of Try It Outs

Chapter 5: Fluency
Response:
There are four components to fluency: prosody, expression,
automaticity, and rate. There are many effective evidence based
practices for enhancing fluency. Teachers must teach fluency explicitly,
so students understand the language of fluency. Teachers must also
model reading fluency, and this has a significant impact on a students
learning of fluency. Readers need plenty of time for practice their skills;
furthermore, they need to read appropriately challenging material.
Some key teaching strategies for fluency are repeated readings, wide
oral reading, choral reading, partner reading, and scaffolded silent
readings. Each of these strategies improves a different aspect of
fluency. Research shows that fluency practice is most effective when
the reading practice is oral; it involves more than three readings of the
text; and students receive guidance or feedback. Students can improve
their fluency through oral repeated readings with feedback or through
monitored silent readings with feedback. Teachers have ways to assess
fluency. One of the most useful assessments of fluency is the 1-minute
reading sample, where teachers mark everything said or unsaid in the
time. There is also a DIBELS oral reading fluency test. While these tests
are good for rate, the Multidimensional Fluency Scale measures

reading volume and expression. Students can assess themselves in

their reading.
Try It Out 1:
Complete a fluency assessment and provide the assessment given.
Try It Out 1 Reflection:
I am looking at fluency for my action research group, so I gave them a
fluency assessment that measures the Multidimensional Fluency Scale
and WCPM. I gave this test to three students, and it was interesting to
see them with different issues. This specific test was given to a child
who read the most WCPM. He scored a 7 on the multidimensional
fluency scale and read 37 WCPM. He was actually at a lower reading
level than the others, but he did better and seemed more fluent. He
skipped a few words or misread them as other words, and I think he
tried to use a sight word but misread them. This leads me to believe
that he did not try to sound out the word but just tried to guess the
word. After going over his scores, I feel like this assessment told me
what to work on. While his WCPM is very high, he does not read with
expression or intonation. This works perfectly with my question, and I
plan on improving that. I see how these assessments are used in the
classroom, and I began to actually understand the assessment as I was
giving it. The students did stress when I stopped them after a minute,
but I just explained it was a measurement for them. I really enjoyed

doing this assessment, and I would like to do more of these in the

future.

Chapter 6: Vocabulary
Response:
Research shows that
vocabulary is build
through language
interactions, which can be
in person or through
texts. Students learn
through storybook
readings or listening to
others read aloud. Many
times, if teachers pre-teach vocabulary words, students will understand
them better when they hear the words. While students learn many
words indirectly, some have to be taught directly. The book contains a
list of 60 most frequent academic knowledge domain words, which
need to be taught to students. Studies show that vocabulary
instruction will only increase comprehension if the methods are age
and ability appropriate.

There are four main principles for effective vocabulary instruction,

which guide the strategies for teaching vocabulary. Vocabulary should
be taught explicitly and implicitly, because students learn most of their
vocabulary indirectly. Students need to learn how to construct
vocabulary from context, because context helps students learn the
exact meaning of the word. Teachers must not only include a breadth
of word knowledge but a depth of learning, and this comes through
association processing, comprehension processing, and generation
processing. Finally, multiple meaningful exposures are important for
learning new vocabulary. There are many instruction activities for
teaching vocabulary including word banks, word walls, and word sorts.
Try It Out 2:
I read a book with an ELL student and taught some of the vocabulary
words used to the student.
Try It Out 2 Reflection:
I read Otis with an ELL student who barely speaks English. He had this
book in his book box, but it is completely above his reading level. He
would probably not be on A, because he is so limited in his English. We
read this, and I asked him questions throughout to ensure that he
understood what was happening. I read and he tried to read with me,
but he more mimicked my words. We came to the word bawl, so I
asked him if he knew what it meant. He did not, so I explained that it
meant to cry. We went on to read and then saw the word stumble. I

asked if he knew what that meant, and he did not. I asked if he knew
what the word trip was, and he said he did. I told him that stumble is
similar to trip. While I did not teach him too much vocabulary, he
seemed to learn some new words. I hope he will remember the words.
He asked if we could read again, so I plan on reading the book with him
again and seeing if he remembers the words we discussed.

Try It Out 3:
I worked on a word family worksheet with a student.
Try It Out 3 Reflection:
I worked with a student who struggles doing work. He is very smart,
but he understands topics. I did this worksheet with him, and he
understood it immediately. I spoke with him about word families and
how words are in the same family when they have similar endings (like
these used on this worksheet). Word families are important, because
they can help with vocabulary. He knew what these words were, but I
think it helps to put the words on paper. This will help the student learn
the vocabulary words and the spelling. Word families help students

learn to spell these new vocabulary words, if they know what family
they are in.

Try It Out 4:
Make flashcards and go over the words with an ELL student.
Try It Out 4 Reflection:
My teacher told me to make flashcards for school words for a student
who barely knows English. He can barely write or read any English, so I
made flashcards with the words and pictures of school words. We went
over these words, and it was clear that he used all of the pictures to
figure out the words. By the end of my time next semester, my goal is
to have him be able to spell each of these words on his own. I enjoyed
this, and I would like to use them all semester to work with the
student. Next time, I would make these bigger. I would like these to be

more like cards instead of small slips. I would love to use these and
have him practice writing the words on a small white board.