Comprehension Portfolio

Stephanie Marotto

University of Kansas
 Comprehension Portfolio

Classroom and School Description

Currently, I am a second year special education teacher at a Title-One

elementary school in Colorado Springs, Colorado. At my school, we have students

ranging from kindergarten to fifth grade. However, we recently started providing

classrooms for our local Head Start program. There are approximately 300 students in

our school, and each grade level has two dedicated teachers. Our school is unique due

it being the first in Colorado Springs to have a year-round calendar, which started this

school year. Teachers and students attend school for 45 days, and then are off for 15.

During the breaks, half day interim sessions are offered for 10 days to students who are

not meeting benchmark standards. It will be interesting to see if this new calendar

schedule is successful.

Within the school district, there are various special education programs that are

meant to support the needs of all students with an Individual Education Plan (IEP). At

my school, there are two special education programs, a moderate needs program and a

significant support needs program. The significant support needs program support

students with an Intellectual Disability label. The moderate needs program supports

students with a Specific Learning Disability label. I teach the moderate needs program,

but I used to be in the significant support needs program, and still provide help when

needed.

My caseload consists of students from all grade levels. All of my students have

reading goals embedded within their IEPs. Students meet with me four days a week, for
40 minutes. When instructing the primary students on my caseload, I focus on reading

fluency. Instruction for the intermediate students, the focus of instruction is focused on

multi-syllabic words and comprehension. Since my students are already drastically

behind their peers, challenges I will face are lack of reading fluency, cognitive levels and

retention concerns.

Challenges in Instruction

Of my twenty students, 17 have reading fluency goals due to being at least one

grade level behind their peers. However, at least half of my students, if given extra time,

can read a lot better. Though I would enjoy reading books with my students, and I know

they would to, but shorter passages are read due to time constraints. This helps solve

the problem of my students being slower readers. I have tried reading chapter books

and it was a total failure. It took the whole week to read one chapter before moving onto

the comprehension activities. By the time the chapter was completed, most students

forgot about what was read.

The other challenges that might arise when working on these comprehension

strategies is the cognitive ability and retention level of some of my students. With the

special education process, our district requires all students to have a cognitive

evaluation. Of the twenty kids on my case load, 8 of them have a cognitive score

between 73 and 77, putting them well below average. These students are grade levels

behind and their cognitive score is not far from having an Intellectual Disability label on

their IEP. When instructing these students, it takes days of repeated instruction and

continuous gradual releasing of information for them to retain a fraction of what was

taught. However, since these students are grouped with my higher students, it is also
challenging to not bore the other students while offering repeated instruction to my

lower students.

Since time is minimal with students, I pick passages based on what they are

interested in to keep their attention through each lesson as well as what is being taught

in the general education classroom. At the start of the school year, I do an interest

survey with my students. Picking topics that interest my older students help eliminate

any behavioral concerns. Selected passages are worked on for about six days with my

4th and 5th grade students. The first two days are spent building fluency by decoding

multi-syllabic words. The next two days are spent on vocabulary development. The final

two days are used for comprehension activities. For each strategy, students will be

reading an excerpt from Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi. When reading this passage, I will

walk them through each step in their new strategies. These new comprehension

strategies will have continued to be used with other short texts.

Instructional Strategies

The strategies I would formulate my instruction around are vocabulary

development, using reading fluency to build comprehension and narrative details.

Selected passages are worked on for about six days with my 4 th and 5th grade students.

The first two days are spent building fluency by decoding multi-syllabic words. The next

two days are spent on vocabulary development. The final two days are used for

comprehension activities. For the vocabulary development strategy and using reading

fluency to build comprehension strategy, students will read the passage George

Washington taken from Readworks.org (See Appendix A). When working on the

narrative details strategy, students will read an excerpt from Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
(See Appendix B). When reading these passages, I will walk them through each step of

the new strategies. Then, these new comprehension strategies and handouts will be

used with other short texts. The Common Core Standards to support these standards

would be at a fourth grade level. However, instruction is adjusted based on each

students ability and needs.

Strategy: Building Reading Fluency for Comprehension

Common Core Standard RF4.4: Read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support

comprehension.

The first step to build comprehension is for students to start the anticipation guide

on the passage, George Washington (See Appendix C). Before students begin the

anticipation guide, I will explain that an anticipation guide is to help activate prior

knowledge. Activating prior knowledge before reading the text will help students make

more meaningful connections. Since students are learning about the Revolutionary

War, it was necessary to collaborate with their general education teacher prior to making

the anticipation guide since the statements on the guide cannot be previously taught

information. After we have finished the three components of the reading the passage,

students will complete the anticipation guide. When completing the anticipation guide at

the end of the unit, students are expected to answer true or false questions still, but also

find evidence to support their answers.

Reading multi-syllabic words is a huge struggle for my students. When given the

proper techniques of decoding longer words, they can read them. However, I think for

so long people have read these multi-syllabic words for my students, and they
unfortunately have become used to it. During this phase of reading the passage, I will

read the first paragraph for them. When I get to a multi-syllabic word, I will write it on the

white board to dissect it for them by individually reading each syllable and then blending

it back together (See Appendix A of the passage with the multi-syllabic words

underlined). Also, I will analyze prefixes and suffixes aloud so students can hear my

thought process. The second paragraph will be read as a group and any multi-syllabic

words will be discussed. Again, we will determine how many syllables are in the word,

read each syllable individually and determine the prefixes and suffixes. Finally, students

will do the same process independently. After 10 minutes of working, each student will

demonstrate how to decode one multi-syllabic word to the group.

Strategy: Vocabulary

Common Core Standard - L.4.4: Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and

multiple meaning words and phrases, based on grade 4 reading and content.

For the vocabulary development strategy, students will continue using the

George Washington passage from Readworks.org. To best develop students

vocabulary, the words that will be elaborated on are ones essential to the text and

words that are valuable to students outside of the classroom. However, to decide which

words to teach, I referenced the article, Words, Words Everywhere, But Which Ones Do

We Teach? by Michael Graves and other literary educators.

The authors of Words, Words Everywhere, But Which Ones Do We Teach?

suggested four ways to categorize vocabulary words when determining which words to

teach. The four categories of words determined by the authors were, essential words,
valuable words, accessible words and imported words. Essential words are for crucial

comprehending the text students are reading. Valuable words have broad, general

utility for students reading and writing, and thus having enduring importance.

Accessible words are more common or higher frequency words that are not likely to be

understood by students who have limited vocabulary knowledge. Imported words

enhance a readers understanding, appreciation, or learning from a text but are not

included in it (Graves et al. 2014).

The type of words I will teach from George Washington passage are essential

words and valuable words. Though my students are at a minimum a grade level behind

their peers, they do not have limited vocabulary knowledge and do not need accessible

words taught. Also, I do not want to include any more words than necessary, so I wont

teach imported words. Within the passage, the essential words to comprehend the text

are already bolded and provide a brief definition for students. The essential words of

this passage that will be discussed to enhance their understanding, but not elaborated

on, are: regarded, evolve and convention. Since my students are needing additional

support with grade-level content, valuable words will be the premise of my instruction.

Graves suggests to limit new words to five. However, due to retention concerns and not

wanting to overwhelm my students, I will limit the number of words to the following

valuable three words: drafted, admired and bitter. Of all of the unfamiliar words in the

passage, I felt these were ones students might frequently see outside of my reading

group.

Before I begin instruction, students will answer a brief survey of the words so I

can see what they already know. On the worksheet, the words will be listed and
students will indicate how familiar these three words. Students will mark if the word is

completely unknown, initial understanding, partial understanding or full understanding

(see Appendix D for document). This will be beneficial to know where students are with

these words and how much instruction is needed. It will be assumed for this assignment

these words are unknown for my students.

After the word survey is completed, I will begin instruction using vocabulary

concept maps (see Appendix E for an example of a concept map students will use).

With all new activities, I use a gradual release process of I Do, We Do and You Do.

Also, I try to keep any activities the same for each passage to not waste time of having

to explain new activities and to really focus on instruction. The concept vocabulary map

is titled, Learn and Draw a Word. For each new word, students are expected to

provide the meaning, a synonym and antonym, a real life example not related to the

text, a sentence and a picture. During this lesson, I would demonstrate how to complete

the concept map using the word admired. First, I would demonstrate how to find a

simple meaning of admired. I would ask my students, For our concept map, why is it

better to provide a simple definition rather than a complex definition? Next, the

synonym and antonym is to be identified. Then, I will write examples that all of us can

relate to. Finally, I we will create a sentence and draw a picture to represent the word.

After I finished my example, students will work together to create their own concept

maps for the word bitter. Upon completion, students would present different sections of

the concept map. Last, students are to create their own concept map on the word,

drafted. Students individually completed concept maps are to serve as a demonstration

of learning to see if they understand the new strategy.

 Vocabulary instruction never stops after activities are completed. Stephanie Allen

and Holly Lane, authors of the article, The Vocabulary-Rich Classroom: Modeling

Sophisticated Word Use to Promote Word Consciousness and Vocabulary Growth,

suggested that after words are taught, teachers and students continue to use those new

words during conversations. Lane and Allen concluded the more continuous exposure

students have to new words, their word consciousness will drastically increase. The

ultimate goal is to have students use these new words in every day conversations and

when completing future assignments (Lane & Allen, 2010). To provide continuous

reinforcement, after students have learned the new vocabulary strategy, I will add the

new passages to our word wall.

Strategy: Narrative Details and Character Goals

Common Core Standard - R.L.4.3: Describe in depth a character, setting, or event in a

story or drama, drawing on specific details in the text.

Students will read the excerpt from Pinocchio, by Carlo Collodi to learn about

characters, setting and events in a story. The passage was obtained from

K12Reader.com. Aside from having smaller groups and needing shorter passages, I like

to use print outs so students can write on the passage as needed. The excerpt from

Pinocchio will be used while I am demonstrating the new narrative strategy. In the

second part of the gradual release format, students will work in pairs on an excerpt from

Cinderalla. For the independent practice, students will read an excerpt from Emperors

New Clothes by Hans Christen Anderson. This passage was also found on

K12Reader.com.
 Before starting the lesson, students will read this passage independently in a

MAZE format. In a MAZE passage, every 7th word is omitted and students are given a

choice of three words to decide which one makes the most sense. After students have

completed this, we will read the passage as a group and review their responses. As we

are reading the passage, we will go through the multi-syllabic process. Any multi-

syllabic word, with three or more syllables, will be analyzed and thoroughly broken

apart.

The basis of this lesson is determining and really understanding what the

characters are trying to accomplish. In this activity, students will complete a goal

structure story map (See Appendix F for an example). Before instruction of

understanding characters goals, students need to identify the characters and setting.

To do this, students will create a bubble map (See Appendix G for an example) to

describe the characters and setting in the passage. Students will independently

complete this activity for no more than 10 minutes. As a group, we will discuss the Fairy,

Pinochhio, Geppetto and the setting. Within the discussion, students will be required to

explain why it is important to understand the characters first before learning about their

goals.

Teaching students how to use the Goal Structure Mapping is so simple, concise

and something they can apply to all narrative texts, including PARCC. The Goal

Structure Mapping video is a great example of how to implement this new technique. I

was able to take a lot of key points that I can apply in my classroom

(Kansasreadingfirst, 2010). The map the teacher uses has basic shapes that outlines

what characters are trying to accomplish and the relationships between the characters.
 To start a Goal Structure Map, the characters names need to be written with a

line underneath and connected with arrows. The characters that will be included on this

Goal Structure Map are Pinocchio and the Fairy. The characters headings are to be

connected with arrows. As the students and I are working through the map, I will have

them reference the text to help complete the map. The first shapes are circles to write

what the goals are for the characters. For Pinocchio, his goal is to not let the Fairy know

he took the coins instead of giving them to Geppetto, the puppet maker. The Fairys goal

is to help Pinocchio realize lying is not okay and there are consequences. The next

shape on the map, a rectangle, represents characters attempts to reach their goals. For

Pinocchio, his attempts to reach his goal of keeping the coins were through various lies.

The Fairys attempts to help Pinocchio was letting him know that lying comes with

negative consequences. The last shape, a triangle, is a simple yes or no response

indicating the outcome of the characters goals.

Once I have completed instruction, the next step in the gradual release process

is for students to complete a Goal Structure Map with a partner using an excerpt

Emperors New Clothes by Hans Christen Anderson. Again, students will complete a

MAZE of this passage and do a bubble map that describes the characters and setting.

Then, students will work together to create their map. As a group, we would go over

their findings. Finally, the last step in the gradual release process is for students to

independently complete a Goal Structure Map on an excerpt from Cinderella.

Conclusion

Continually doing these instructional strategies in vocabulary development,

reading comprehension and narrative details will be effective for my students learning.
Having the same activities for new passages will help maintain consistency. Most

importantly, these new strategies can be used for my students course work in the

general education classroom.

Appendix A
Appendix B
 Appendix C

Anticipation Guide on George Washington

Before Reading Statement After reading, I learned

True/False
George Washington
helped win independence
from France.

Washington led the

Continental Army to
victory.

There were only 9 states

when Washington was
president.

Washingtons face is on
the nickel.

After the war, George

Washington wanted to
become king.

The Hudson River

stretches from New York to
New Jersey.
 Appendix D

Name: __________________________ Date: _______________

How familiar are you with these words?

Directions: Please circle your understanding of each word. Remember, it is okay if you

know nothing about the word.

Words Unknown Initial Partial Full

Understandin Understandin Understandin
g g g
drafted I do not know Heard or seen I know one I know multiple
it. it, but do not meaning and meanings and
know the can use it in a multiple ways
meaning. sentence. to use it.
bitter I do not know Heard or seen I know one I know multiple
it. it, but do not meaning and meanings and
know the can use it in a multiple ways
meaning. sentence. to use it.
admired I do not know Heard or seen I know one I know multiple
it. it, but do not meaning and meanings and
know the can use it in a multiple ways
meaning. sentence. to use it.
 Appendix E

Example Vocabulary Concept Map

Word: Meaning:

Synonym: Antonym:

Examples:
Sentence:

Picture:
 Appendix F

Goal Structure Map

Name ______________________ Date:___________________

Pinocchio < -------------------------------------- Fairy

 Appendix G

Character and Setting Bubble Map

References

Read Works Passages

 References

Graves et al. (2014). Words, words everywhere but which ones do we teach? The

Reading Teacher, 67(5), 333 346.

Kansasreadingfirst. (2010, February, 4). Goal Structure Mapping. Retrieved from

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEy7srhJz60&feature=youtu.be.

K12Reader.com

Lane, H. B., Allen, S. A. (2010). The vocabulary-rich classroom: Modeling sophisticated

word use to promote word consciousness and vocabulary growth. The Reading

Teacher, 63(5), 352370.

Readworks.org.