Summary of Semester 1

Reading Essentials Class -Year End Report

Reading Essentials Class –January 4 – May 27

5 days a week

Daily Schedule

7^th Grade- 10:21 – 11:01

8^th Grade- 11:25 – 12:05

6^th Grade-11:55 – 12:35

During the semester, I saw a total of 32 students for various amounts of time.

6^th Grade-9 students

7^th Grade- 14 students

8^th grade-9 students

Reading Block

The 40 minute class session was divided into Reading Block and Lesson Block. I started out with a smaller reading block and worked to build the students’ stamina for silent reading. I started at 3 minutes as suggested by the Daily Five but within 3 days we were up to 20 minutes of reading without interruptions. I taught the Read to Self as suggested by the Daily Five book and the students responded to it positively very quickly.

The plan was to gradually introduce other aspects of the Daily Five program such as Read to Someone and Listen to Reading. I did introduce Read to Someone but did not continue with it because of several factors. I found that the students did not focus with Read to Someone. They viewed it as a social time. This may be connected to the middle school mind developmentally but I think it was also an outgrowth of the type of students I had. These students all struggled with reading so it may have been uncomfortable for them to read in front of a peer. Several students continued to ask for Read to Someone throughout the semester. It may be worth thinking about for the future with more stringent guidelines put in place.

Lesson Block

Once the Reading Block was functioning smoothly, we settled into a routine with a consistent Lesson Block for twenty minutes daily. I had originally planned to conduct small group instruction sessions during this time but my testing showed that all students were having difficulty with decoding multisyllabic words. I used the Qualitative Reading Inventory to assess their decoding skills with single words and all students were below to significantly below grade level in this area. So our lesson time was always done in whole group.

We covered the following topics during Lesson Block time.

· Good fit book (choosing appropriate reading material)

· Word Identification Strategy (Strategic Instruction Model Learning Strategy)

· Prefix & Suffix identification and meanings

o part of DISSECT but we went in more depth and worked on word meaning

o We also incorporated work on this in game time

· Fluency instruction & practice

· Game day-Each Thursday Chris Navis had game day during the Lesson Block

· Review of Visual Imagery Strategy

Assessment

Assessment was the basis for all instructional decisions made in Reading Essentials. AIMSWEB data was used for initial placement in Reading Essentials. Teacher and parent input was also used to determine the students who would benefit the most from this intervention.

Once students began the class, I did additional assessment to pinpoint the cause of the difficulty they were experiencing in reading. I expected to see a mix of decoding and comprehension difficulties. This was not the case. Possibly because I chose the very lowest readers from each grade, there was a commonality in all their reading assessments.

As each lesson was presented, students were assessed to ensure mastery.

AIMSWEB progress monitoring was used for assessments of progress.