Week Five Assignment One

          This student was, in my opinion, operating below instructional reading level for the third grade. With words that she seemed uncomfortable with this child simply tried to "skip" over them or sound it out by herself in a quiet tone. I would like to have reassured her that even if she gets it wrong its okay because it will help her understand that she can learn from her mistakes. At one point, the student skips four lines of words and jumps from number 16 to number 20! It is clear that she shows some type of comprehension to the story Whales and Fish because she can recall small details from the story. However, this child does not have an in depth understanding of the expository text and cannot use her reading comprehension to learn a lot of new material. I would choose an intervention strategy by having this student read a small paragraph and then tell me exactly what she read. This will help ensure that she is conscious of what she is reading so that she can answer simply recall questions after she reads the text.

Week Four Assignment Three

          The QRI-5 provides teachers with a few ways for them to assess their students reading comprehension and word identification. In the grades pre-primer1 through high school different levels of the assessment are present. The teachers in the lower elementary grades will provide their students with passages to read such as three narrative texts and one expository text. There are pictures present in these passages to help students with word identification and comprehension. As we move to the higher level grades such as upper middle school to high school the text that the students are asked to read passages pertaining to the curriculum of other subjects.
          Students are encouraged to demonstrate their understanding by four simple forms of comprehension. In one example, students are asked to retell the story as if they are telling something that has never heard the story before. Another example is when the students are asked two types of questions. The first question is an answer that is derived directly from the text. The second question is an inference that the reader can make from what is going on in the text. Students are also encouraged to do look-backs at the third grade level and higher. This is where students can go back in the text to find the answer they are looking for. The final comprehension assessment is think-aloud. This  is where a teacher places the word STOP at the end of a sentence or passage and asks the child to describe what they are reading about at that particular moment.

Week Four Assignment Two

Week Four Assignment One

Describe your understanding of RTI and its structure of intervention in details. What other questions do you still have about RTI? (b) Provide comments and feedback on at least two your peers’ blogs

          Response to Intervention is a great way to help students get extensive instruction on something that they are struggling with. For example, if a student is having difficulty decoding larger words the teacher, school psychologist, or any other important superior figure can meet together after school to discuss other ways to provide extra instruction to ensure that this student does not fall behind. The system was essentially created so that no student would be able to fall through the cracks and that every student would, hopefully, be on grade level or higher. The teachers first need to meet once a week to discuss any possible student struggles and discuss ways that they can either prevent this from happening or figure out a new solution to ensure that the problem is taken care of right away.

          The entire idea of RTI helps teachers, school psychologists, principals, and other administrators not over-diagnose children for special education services. The problem with over-diagnosing students for special education is that some of the students do not need entirely the services that special education provides. With Response to Intervention, teachers can help provide extra instruction or work with the special education teacher or resource room teacher to ensure that the students do not fall behind. This will help students not develop a stigma about being in special education and can also boost the students confidence level in the classroom. 

          There are three different tiers to the RTI program intervention strategy. The first tier indicates that all students receive instruction. Every student participates in the 90 minutes of instruction provided and about 80-85% of students learn from this tier. The second tier is where fewer students receive additional instruction. The additional instruction is another 30 minutes which will focus in on the exact criteria that the student is struggling with. The final tier is the least participating tier. There are not many students that are included in this final tier and it is for intensive instruction. The instruction is usual individually based or small group based. 

          I wanted to know if the parents are always included in the RTI process. If it is possible, can parents request for a teacher to implement RTI like they can with special education?

Week Three Assignment Three

What is QRI5?

            QRI5 is an individually administered informal reading inventory or IRI that is designed to provide information about conditions under which students can identify words and comprehend text successfully and conditions that appear to result in unsuccessful word identification or comprehension. (Leslie and Caldwell, 2011) The QRI5 assessment focuses on questions that ask for word identification, fluency and comprehension. It is used to assess reading in grades Pre-K through 12^th.

What is the purpose of using QRI5?

            Informal assessments are one of the best ways to assess our students. This is when we see our students in their most comfortable environment. Our students can show that they are able to identify words, comprehend what they are reading and reading with fluency by participating in QRI5. It provides a graded word list and numerous passages that are designed to assess students’ oral reading and silent reading. We use QRI5 to help document student growth over a period of time. This is not a formal assessment and therefore does not have standards linked to it.

Have you seen similar assessment activities like QRI5? What are they?

            I have not seen many links to QRI5 in my educational career. The only thing that I could compare the QRI5 assessment to something I have seen and worked with is a Running Record. In a running record, our students are being assessed on word recognition, fluency, and comprehension. On the other hand we are formally assessing out students by sitting them down one by one and grading them based on the performance they put on for you.

What is your impression of QRI5?

            I believe the QRI5 is a great way to assess our students. I am a huge supporter in informal assessment because I believe our students should show progression over a period of time. In order to steer away from standardized testing and the pressure of assessments on our students, the QRI5 helps students be assessed without knowing that they are actually being assessed. I especially like that the passages are broken down by grade level. I am excited to learn more about QRI5 and be able to implement the idea in my classroom.

Week Three Assignment Two

Discuss what assessments are needed to measure students' learning outcomes and how teachers can address these common core learning standards if you have students of various reading levels.

My high school physics teacher once told me, “There is more than one way to climb a mountain.” In the same respect, there is more than one way to assess our students. Teacher should be using a variety of methods for assessing their students both individually and collectively. In our classrooms we have students that range in ability from high honor student to low special education student. We have been revolutionizing the way we view education to meet the needs of all of our students within one class environment.

While some children are on a higher reading level and others are below reading level, teachers need to ensure that the individual student is making progress. It is not to say that our reader that is below reading level should be reading at an exceptional level by the end of the year but instead should be making steady progress throughout the school year. This child should be assessed on both an individual level and a group-working ability level. His or her ability to work with other students is important to his or her learning process.

Running records are a great way to analyze students on a personal level and a recording of a group discussion is a great way to analyze students on a collaborative level. As I have stated, there are a variety of different ways to assess our students. Teachers need to ensure that they assess the child’s reading ability throughout the school year, possibly weekly or bi-weekly, and also assess the child’s ability to work with others and participate actively in group projects and collaboration.

The grouping of students in these collaborative group projects is also important. We would not want to place a group of extremely low students together because they would not receive inspiration or peer tutoring from the higher ability students. When our higher ability students are grouped with our lower students, they are confirming their knowledge by teaching the lower ability students what they already know.

            In order for a teacher to assess a child fairly, he or she must be able to watch that child throughout the learning process. It is important to watch for social cues between students as well as verbal and written cues. Teachers must be flexible in working with all of the different ability students in their classroom. They must also be able to assess their students on a variety of different types of instruction and on individual and group projects.

Week Three Assignment One

The whole idea of Response to Intervention has always been difficult to comprehend. I have sat through various workshops that explained in short detail what it is all about but for some reason it was hard to wrap my head around the concept of it all. While reading the article, I was pleased to say that the breakdown of RTI was more clear and informative this time. It could be that I was exposed to this topic various times before or that the article clearly outlined specific that I needed to see in detail in order to comprehend.

While reading this article I was completely shocked to discover that about 80% of students that are identified for special education struggle with literacy. I have read in a wide variety of educational articles that too many children are being qualified for special education when, in reality, these students just need a little extra help or different methods for delivering instruction. Response to Intervention allows teachers, school psychologists and any other professional working with the students to set miniature goals to ensure that progress is occurring. That is, rather than measuring the IQ of a student, RTI replaces IQ scores with measured goals.

The steps of the Response to Intervention Process helped me see clearly what exactly RTI is all about. The first step in the process is to ensure that universal literacy practices are established. Students need a standard to be held to otherwise we are measuring these children unfairly. If the child is in second grade it would only be fair to test this child on second grade literacy standards. The second step in the RTI process is to ensure that scientifically valid interventions are implemented. When we are working with students on setting new goals and new methods of instructions, we want to make sure that we are using reliable methods with these children. It is not a good idea to try messing around with teaching methods that are not proven to be effective, but instead we are encouraged to use methods that have been scientifically proven effective.

The third stage of the RTI process is to consistently monitor student progress while receiving intervention instruction. The monitoring of the student should be targeted to the specific behavior or learning discrepancy that we want to alter or modify. We should be testing our students weekly or bi-weekly to ensure that progress is being made. The fourth stage of Response to Intervention is to focus on individualizing the intervention for that specific student. For example, what works for Johnny in our classroom might not work for Suzy. We need to gear our instruction and our intervention strategies to ensure that the needs of these particular students are met. The final stage in the RTI process is how to make the decision to determine if this child needs special education services. To ensure that we are not over-diagnosing our students and classifying them in categories of special education that do not apply, we should ensure that we have tried every other method.

Response to Intervention has helped teachers cater to the needs of individual students in their classroom without having to classify them for special education services. Teachers are able to monitor students and set sub-goals to ensure that progress is being made.

The article on the assessment of thoughtful literacy in NAEP was a little difficult to comprehend for me at first. I found myself constantly reading this article over and over again because it was a little dry for me. With that being said, after I got past the test I was able to comprehend the idea between NAEP testing and state testing. I thought it was interesting to find out that states could possibly be “lowering their standards” due to the No Child Left Behind Act. In any subject at any level, true comprehension comes from applying what you know to something that is completely different. For example if I was teaching my students how to measure water using a measuring cup, my students would demonstrate mastery of this knowledge if they were able to go home and measure ingredients for a recipe. They are taking their level of understanding and bringing it into a new topic that they were not necessarily taught to do.

I was also surprised to find out that teachers were often observed in engaging the readers in their classroom to memorize and recite specific details rather than react, think, and respond to text. The National Assessment of Educational Progress tests their students’ ability to react to a piece of a literature or to use prior knowledge to help understand characteristics of characters in a story. The item type of the assessment they used was exceptional. By using 57% of open-ended questions in the NAEP assessment, in comparison to the average 7% of state assessment questions, the students are able to use higher level thinking skills to answer questions.

The way we test our students is critical. We want to teach our students to be critical thinkers and analyze a text without asking them to recite information or look for vocabulary in the text and find a synonym. Our students are independent learners and should be taught to think abstractly rather then definitively. As the next generation is tested, we should be using NAEP assessment standards to ensure that our students can master the material without lowering the standards of the individual learner.