Kara Stack CI 475 10/31/11 Individual Child Assessment Reflection When we were first given this assignment, I did

not think that being in a gifted classroom would have an impact on the student I chose for this particular assignment. I am in a 4th grade gifted classroom at Stratton and when I asked my cooperating teacher about this assignment, she informed me that every single one of her students is reading at grade level. Initially when she told me I figured this meant I would have to go to another classroom to talk to a different child but after working with this particular student, I realized that there are many ways in which students can struggle in reading/writing even if they are reading at grade level according to their DRA scores. The student that I chose to work with for this assignment is named Noah. He is 9 years old and part of the gifted program in the school. The students that are put into the gifted classroom are put there for their mathematical skills but tend to be more advanced students in general. After speaking with Noah, his teachers, and even his mom I learned a lot about him and some of his habits when it comes to reading and writing. Noah is an extremely hard working student; he does not have the natural ability that other students in his class have. He has to work much harder to get the same grades that some of the other students get fairly easily. I have noticed that he tends to rush through work sometimes in order to do something else. With that said, in my observations I noticed that when he rushes through other work, he usually does so in order to read silently after finishing. This demonstrates to me that he has a love of reading. A child that has this much passion for reading can be taught different techniques to increase their performance in writing/reading/speaking and listening.

The books that he reads are usually fiction and are at his grade level. They are typically short chapter books but he does not like one topic specifically in the genre of fiction. He seems to like to read anything, although I have noticed that he reads the Warrior series often. The variety of books that are offered in my classroom library allows the students to read a variety of books and Noah definitely takes advantage of this. When it comes to actively participating in the class, Noah seems to lack focus. When we try to do read alouds on the carpet, he struggles to pay attention. I have to ask him to reset himself multiple times while I am teaching a lesson. I think this lack of focus could have something to do with the fact that he has the third lowest reading level in our whole class (the other 2 have special accommodations made for them). He gets easily distracted when other things are going on in the classroom and does not efficiently finish his assignments to his best ability because of this. The one area that I have noticed the most lack of focus in Noah is when we work on Wordly Wise. This is interesting because he loves to write reading responses. The students write in their reading response journals every other week about the books they are reading. I think that the fact that Noah loves reading so much and is given the chance to write about these books that he is engaged in, is demonstrated through his reading response journals. When I talked to my coop about his scores, she said that he receives 9s and 10s on every response, which is great. I think that he might struggle with Wordly Wise because it is not something that is of direct interest to his life. He rushed through his first Wordly Wise assignment and therefore did not do his best on the test. I took samples of Noahs reading response journals because it demonstrates what a great writer Noah can be. He loves to write when he is writing about something that interests him, and

he does it well. Many of the students were struggling with writing about what the book means to you, as opposed to just a summary. To show this growth over time, I took a reading response that he wrote at the beginning of the quarter and compared it to one that he did later on. After Ms. Newman gave them instructions on reflecting instead of just summarizing, Noahs work instantly improved. This shows that he can follow directions and has the ability to do the work. I can tell by his writing that he really enjoyed the books he was reading. One of the other student teachers working in my classroom did a running record with Noah. He read an excerpt about Cassiopeia. Although there were some tough words in the reading, he was able to score a 98.3% in terms of the amount of words correct. Whenever he would mix something up, he would usually self-correct himself. He is not a particularly fast reader but he was very accurate with the words. He also asked for help on some of the tougher words that this passage used, which was very reasonable for a 4th grader. If I had done my own running record, I would have possibly used a different passage that used more familiar words. During the first quarter my teacher performed DRA testing. Noah was reading below grade level last year and worked really hard to be at a 50 now. He scored a 6 out of 8 on reading engagement, a 13 out of 16 for oral fluency, and a 19 out of 24 in comprehension. Comprehension is the main category looked at which is the area that Noah struggles in the most. He was very hesitant when he was reading for the DRA, which could have potentially been due to nerves. As I observed this DRA being done, I felt that he was trying to read the passage just to be done with it, he was not reading for comprehension. I think this was made apparent when looking at his answers after reading the story. When I looked at Noahs written responses, it was clear that he was not doing a thorough job; he was doing the work just to get it done. Ms. Newman made it very clear that the students

need to write in complete sentences and do their best work because it would be used for a grade. Although Noah knew this information, he still rushed through his work and that was reflected in his responses. I find this interesting because he willingly works on his reading responses because he enjoys doing them. This leads me to believe that he does enjoy writing but when it has a direct correlation to what he is reading in his free time. His summary is very detailed and is written well but many of the other questions were not complete. In my interview with Ms. Newman, we talked about Noahs strengths and weaknesses as a student. She told me that his strength was definitely his hard working attitude. I think this has to do with his mother and how important she thinks schooling is for him. She works a lot with him at home on different things that he is struggling with. She is a huge asset for my cooperating teacher because she is able to communicate with Noahs mom about things he needs to work on at home. Something Noah needs to work on is reading comprehension. This could be just taking more time to read the passage and understand it instead of just rushing through it. His strengths are in writing and oral expression. He loves to participate in class discussions and add on to what the other students are saying. If he likes the topic that we are discussing he is actively participating in the discussion. In order to make Noah a better reader/writer I think there are many things that I could do as his teacher. After seeing a lot of his work and his demeanor in the classroom, it is plain to see that he is a great student but he needs to be engaged at all times to be actively participating in the discussions. Although this seems to be true for a lot of students, I think Noahs lack of focus comes into play with this idea. When he does not like the topic that we are discussing in class, he tends to not pay attention and rush through his work. To rectify that situation, I should provide more examples that pertain to other ideas related to the topic. For instance, if I am talking about a

topic that students sometimes struggle with, I can relate it back to their lives to make them more engaged in the lesson. I think that Noah needs this kind of connection as much as possible to keep him on task and effectively getting his work done. I think Wordly Wise is definitely an area of teaching that I need to improve upon. When I asked Noah what happened on his Wordly Wise test he did not seem to have an answer as to why he did not do his best. I spoke with him about rushing through the practice problems that the book provides and how that possibly could have related to his test score. I think many of the students, including Noah, look at word work as busy work. I want to help him see the connection between his writing and vocabulary used in his writing to his word work. I could also adapt some of the word work lessons to incorporate fun ways of practicing the words so the students are more engaged, such as a review game before the test. If Noah becomes more engaged in his Wordly Wise work, his writing level will increase as well. As for comprehension, I think that he shows that he understands what he is reading when he is interested in the topic. However, when he takes test such as the DRA he scores poorly on comprehension. I think that a way to help Noah with the understanding of the story can come from having questions to be thinking about to prompt his reading. If he has a list of questions to think about before he starts reading, maybe he will know what information to really focus on in class. By increasing Noahs reading comprehension and keeping him focused on our lessons, I think he could become an even better student. He belongs in the gifted classroom, but works hard to keep up with the curriculum. He is very passionate about reading and shows this by reading silently in his spare time. By allowing him to read whatever he wants, he is constantly reading

during his free time. The crucial part to this is getting him to read just as well when he is working on something mandatory for our class.