What have you seen in language arts/reading instruction? What connections have you seen between what you observed and our readings  and/or class discussions.

- Tuesday our teacher had a meeting on universal screening so we had a substitute.  Since we had a sub there was not as much teaching, it was more seat work.  We did help out with reading groups again and in my group the children rote their trick words five times each in different colors.  The substitute read them a story before lunch and i noticed that she was very enthusiastic which caught the student’s attention!

Have you done any teaching in your internship? What have you taught ? Have you worked with a child or a group of children? What did you do with them (e.g., picture/word sort, DRTA, Text Talk) ?

- I helped out with the student’s individual reading and trick words.  The child would come read their book to me and I would see if they could recite their trick words without errors.  This was my favorite time of day because I got to see how the students improved over the time I was at the school.

Comment on any interesting things that you have noticed about your school, the teachers, the students, or the curriculum.

- Nothing out of the ordinary happened on Tuesday but I did appreciate all of the thanks we got from the teachers and principal!  The students made Kelley and I goodbye cards and they were so sweet.  I really enjoyed going to Moravian Falls and learned so much from the precious children in our class.

Post any questions that you have about teaching/learning.

What have you seen in language arts/reading instruction? What connections have you seen between what you observed and our readings  and/or class discussions.

- The fundations program is continuing to be worked with.  During reading groups I helped out by playing a matching game with the children dealing with blends and digraphs.  On Tuesday the teacher was really trying to get the children to come up with a story on something that they had done in the past week and this was hard for the children.  They kept wanting to right about something they were going to do or make the story up.  The class had their universal screening and the teacher was hoping that they had improved since the last screening.

Have you done any teaching in your internship? What have you taught ? Have you worked with a child or a group of children? What did you do with them (e.g., picture/word sort, DRTA, Text Talk) ?

- As I said in the last question I helped with reading groups and had five children to myself.  There were pictures on magnetic boards and the child had to find the blend or digraph, and the ending letters to spell the word out. This was a great activity because it was fun as well as very educational.  The children really knew their blends and digraphs and the activity seemed almost too easy for them.

Comment on any interesting things that you have noticed about your school, the teachers, the students, or the curriculum.

- I thought the universal screening was interesting because it wasn’t exactly an EOG but still a form of assesment to let the school know how well the child was doing.  It seemed like a very good way to see how the child was doing because there was a mixture of important activities that the children had been working on.

Post any questions that you have about teaching/learning.

What have you seen in language arts/reading instruction?

I have seen a lot of the techniques that we learned in your class.  Today our teacher did choral reading with the lower level students and DTRA with the higher level students.  Every day they have “fundations” where they learn about consonant blends, digraphs, and how to “tap out” words.  It all clicks now that I am in the classroom and when you would always sound out the words makes a lot more since now.  Every child learns how to spell the word they are writing by tapping out each sound on the fingers.  I find myself doing this with them to help them get it and it seems to be the most effective way.  Today the teacher read them an easter story and they made up there own easter story and wrote it out on paper bunnys.

What have you taught in your internship?

I help the children with the books they take home every night and their trick words.  I let the teacher know whether they need another night of practice or if they are ready for a new set.  I help the children tap our words in small groups and I even got to lead my own fundations small group.  During this i said the word, helped them tap it out, then they made the word on their magnetic board. It is great to know that I can make a difference in their lives and really help them learn how to read and write!

Comment on any interesting things that you have noticed about your school, the teachers, the students, or the curriculum.

This week has been really great because my partner and I have completed all of our assignments that need to be done in the schools, all we have left are the write-ups.  Today we went to the library where every child got a free book to keep.  It is a program or grant they have that every  child gets a free book each month, which is amazing!  We also had an easter egg hunt that was so much fun because the students got to go hunt for eggs in the pretty weather.  I have noticed that almost every child in my class is in letter-name stage, but a few are making it up to within word.  Most of the teachers at this school seem wonderful despite the situation they are in and are really making a difference in these students lives.

Post any questions that you have about teaching/learning.

1.  How to get a student to correctly spell a word when they don’t understand by “tapping it out”?

2.  How could my teacher make time for social studies and science because the students don’t have these subjects at all?

3.  How to teach chidren words with silent “e’s” or letters in general?

2. What was the flash score for words at: first-grade level? Second-grade level? Third-grade level?
-  First: 75%
Second: 50%
Third: 30%

3. What was the accuracy score at: 1-2 level? 2-1 level? 2-2 levels?
- 1-2: 97%
2-1: 90%
2-2: 84%

4. What was the rate score at: 1-2 level? 2-1 level? 2-2 levels?
- 1-2: 6 %
2-1: 44 %
2-2: 36%

Look at the spelling scores in Table 5.2 on page 172.

5. What was the percentage correct score for: first-grade words? Second-grade words?
- First Grade- 60%
Second-Grade 0%

6. Which grade-level flash score is the best choice for Instruction Level? (*Note: 92-94% accuracy is marginal; take a close look at Rate.)
- Curt’s instructional level is 60%-85% in his first grade level flash scores 75%

7. Which grade-level accuracy score is the best choice for Instruction Level?
- First Grade because Curt’s accuracy scores were 97%, which means he was in the top half of the instructional level.

8. What do Curt’s rate scores indicate about his grade-level reading? Where is he instructional according to rate?
- Curt’s scores showed that he was sufficient at the first-grade level and instructional at the second-grade level.

9. What do Curt’s spelling scores indicate about his Instruction Level?
- Curt got a 60% at the first grade level and since instructional level scores are around 50% he could still be instructed in the first grade level.  He could then move to the second grade level, which he is not at yet because his score was 0%.

10. Put all of these scores together, and what do they indicate Curt’s reading level to be?
- After looking at all of Curt’s scores I can say that Curt is at a late first-grade, early second-grade reading level.  His scores are higher at the first-grade level and understand over half of the words on grade level.  His instructional level will be based on comprehension though.

2.   Rasinski refers to fluency as a “bridge” between decoding and comprehension. What does he mean by the “bridge” metaphor?
- Rasinski refers to fluency as a “bridge” because it connects the three dimensions of reading fluency to comprehension.  The three dimensions consist of children’s ability to decode words, automatically processing the text, and read the text while actually understanding it.

3.    What instructional methods does Rasinski suggest for students with difficulties in automatic and prosodic reading?
- The instructional methods suggest using assisted readings and repeated readings and there reading ability will improve.

4.    Multidimensional Fluency Scale (MFS) is used to measure prosodic quality of oral reading. List components of the MFS and describe briefly what each refers to (p. 49).
-    1. Expression and Volume- Shows the emotions the reader has about he text through their expressions and volume while reading the text.
2. Phrasing- Measures if the child is using good phrasing while reading the text for example mostly clause and sentence units.
3. Smoothness- Measures how smooth the reader reads the text taking a few breaks.  Resolves word and structure difficulty quickly with self-correction.
4. Pace- Measures if the child reads at a conversational rate throughout the text.

1.    Describe in broad stokes the reading processes that take place during comprehension of informational text (p. 362, under Construction of Meaning and Concept Development with Informational Texts).
-According to Stahl the reading process consist of assessing accurate, relevant knowledge, managing mental processes within the confines of a limited working memory and constructing a coherent mental representation through pruning and organizational processes.  Anderson, Parson, Black, Kintsch, Van den Breok have said that studies show that cognitive strategy instruction and a high level of social interaction around the book improve comprehension greatly.  Jetton, Rupley, and Wilson state that meditation on background information for children will help them comprehend but be careful to eliminate the unwanted extra information.

2. Specify the effect that background knowledge may have on constructing mental representations from informational text. Why should teachers be concerned about activating prior knowledge?
- Jetton, Rupley, and Wilson state that is important for children to meditate on relevant background knowledge.  The teacher must be sure not to use background knowledge that is irrelevant to the text because there are cases where discussion gets centered around that knowledge and led to limited recollection of the text (McKeown & Beck).  The children’s prior knowledge of the content or genre should however help them make connections with the text and discussion is a great way to expose this knowledge.

3.    What are the three instructional approaches that can be used to help primary-grade students comprehend informational text? Describe their common (p. 365) and distinctive features (p. 363-5).
1. Picture Walk- According to Clay it is the prereading conversation that is based on pictures.  Fountas and Pinnell elaborated in saying that you go through the pictures with the child to predict what the story is going to be about.  You should introduce about three vocabulary words throughout this conversation.
2.    Know-Want to Learn-Lean- This technique was developed by Ogle where the teacher records on a chart what the children Know, Want to know, and after reading Lean, while discussing the text topic.  This is a technique very popular among teachers.
3.    Directed Reading-Thinking Activity- Stauffer tells us that for this technique the teacher divides the instructional text into meaningful sections and then discusses each section.  This is a problem-solving method where the children should establish their own purposes for reading, generate predictions, justify their predictions, independently read the text, and revise their predictions after evaluating them through reading.
*All of these techniques incorporate reader engagement and social meditation, activation of prior knowledge, and anticipation of what is most likely going to happen in the story.

4. What is the purpose of the experimental study reported?
- The purpose of the study is to see how PW,KWL, and DRT might influence developmental reading abilities and content acquisition when used with informational text in the primary reading group of context.

5. Who were the subjects?
- 31 struggling second graders in two demographically different schools, 8 groups of 4 students, 4 groups in 2 cycles which consisted during the first half of the school year allowing a three-week break in between cycles.

6. Describe the reading materials used during the intervention.
- For each lesson informational books were selected on topics that would be familiar to the second graders.  The text topics were based on science that had been presented to them in first and second grade as a part of the state standards.  This included specific topics on Spiders, The Moon, How water changes form, and insects.

7. How long did the experiment last?
- There were 10 weeks of data gathered, 2 four-week periods of intervention were included in this time.  There were 12 days of intervention in each cycle.
8. What were the experimental conditions?
- Group 1-4 received the intervention during the first cycle and groups 5-8 received them during the second cycle.  There were two days of individual screening before the experiment started to see that readers shared a common instruction level, then there was a one 45 minute orientation for each group.  There were twelve days total of intervention in each cycle.  Each group received treatment for three days with the data being collected on the last day.  On the day after the conclusion of intervention interviews were held with the students about their comprehension strategies and instructional preferences.

9. Describe the procedures specific to the Picture Walk, KWL, DRTA, and the Control Group conditions.
- PW: The teacher walked through the pictures and had discussion with the children, related their prior knowledge, and formulated predictions.  This method specifically introduced vocabulary words and they talked about four new words.  Children were taught the meaning of these four words.  After this the children mumble read the text to them and then everyone discussed if their predictions were verified.
-KWL: The teacher interactively made a chart with the students.  Each child wrote on their own sheet of paper what they knew before it was discussed in a large group. After a discussion on the topic and the table of contents, the children were able to put their questions on the chart (relates to prediction).  After more discussion the children mumble read the text they recorded answers to the questions in the learned column, also discussing new learned information and recording it on the chart. The children were able to record on their individual chart before recording on the group chart.
-DRTA: Before reading the children formulated predictions based on the title, cover, prior knowledge, and if available the table of contents.  The students predicted for 2-3 pages of text then mumble read that text, after reading that a discussion was held to revise predictions, summarize, and make new predictions.  At the end the discussion was minimal of the overall text.

10. What measures were used to determine the relative effectiveness of the treatments? Describe the measures briefly.
1. Vocabulary Recognition Task-Whether vocabularies were gained, and if any treatments were superior in vocabulary gains.
2. Maze Task- a timed multiple-choice timed assessment.  Also dealt with the quantity the child could read within three minutes.
3. Free Recall- the children responded to a prompt that stated, “Please tell me everything you can remember from today’s text” and the responded.
4. Cued Recall- the children had to answer 3 specific questions on the text.
5. Post Intervention Interview- Individual interviews with the students to see if they gained two common strategies activation of prior knowledge and prediction.

11. Which treatment(s) were found to be more effective in increasing students’ vocabulary knowledge and maze performance (p. 381)?
- There was no technique that did specifically better than the other when dealing with vocabulary knowledge.  PW and DRTA achieved significantly higher than the controlled condition in the maze performance.

12. Students’ comprehension of the texts was greater under the DRTA condition than KWL and the control conditions. What do you think explains DRTA’s advantage over the KWL condition (p. 382)?
- DRTA was able to direct the Childs attention more to the important ideas and assist with difficult text concepts because the teacher was able to assist the children.  The interactions during reading were able to justify the predictions as they went along.  Justification and Verification of predictions were able to get the children to use higher-level thinking.

13. It was found that the treatments did not differ in the quality and quantity of students’ retellings (p. 384). In other words, students were not differentially affected by the treatments in the way they integrated textual information with prior knowledge. What does this finding mean in terms of the different emphases employed by experience-based (KWL) vs. text-based (DRTA) treatments?
- The experiment shows that KWL charts do not help children more than DRTA text based because children cannot completely learn about something through prior knowledge.  DRTA is more beneficial because the teacher walks through the story with them and is there during difficult parts, where KWL is still individual reading with discussion before and after.

14. In light of the findings from this study, what conclusions can you draw about the role of teacher support in children’s construction of mental representations from informational text?
- The children have better results when the teacher assists them (DRTA) because they are able to verify predictions, make new predictions, and summarize throughout the reading.  If there is something difficult for the children to understand the teacher is there to guide them to the correct answer.  It shows that the teacher being there for support causes the best results compared to any other technique.

1. How does a Preliterate (Emergent) speller read and write?
- According to the author students’ may write in a scribbles, letter like forms, or random letters that have no phonemic meaning to the words they are trying to write.  These children will often use pretend reading and read books from memory using pictures to tell them what is happening in the text.  According to Chall children in this stage lack alphabetic principle or are just starting to understand it.  Children use logos a lot to understand things.  These children really relate to the letters in their names and recognize those certain letters everywhere.

2. How does a Letter Name-Alphabetic speller read and write?
- These children have moved from pretend reading to real reading.  They have begun to use systematic letter sound matches to recognize and be able to store words in their memory.  These children have a hard time with letter sounds as they identify words by phonetic cues.  As they move later into this stage they will confuse vowels in the words they read and write.  These children usually read word by word and if you ask them to read silently the best they can do it whisper, because they need to vocalize the sounds the words make.  This stage really benefits from repeated reading.

3. How does a Within Word Pattern speller read and write?
- This is a stage when single letter-sounds are put into patterns or chunks and internalized.  After these children see the basic letter sound they focus on the vowels.  Short vowel rimes are learned first with consonant blends.  Once this is learned students begin to use long vowel patterns but still confuse them.  Students reading are supported by familiar letter patterns to help guide them.  For the first time children stop finger pointing and begin reading silently.  Their sight word vocabulary allows them to write better and faster.

4. How does a Syllable and Affixes speller read and write?
- During this level students are able to solve abstract problems and reflect on experiences.  These students have automatic word recognition ability therefore their minds are able to really think during the readings.  Their vocabulary continues to grow and this also allows them to be fluent writers.  These readers have great accuracy and speed while reading orally or silently.  Some of the writing in this level consists of persuasive essays, poetry, editorials, etc.

5. How does a Derivational Relations speller read and write?
- At this level these students are able to choose out of a variety ways of reading to suit the text they are working with.  They are able to read for enjoyment and are interested in talking with others about what they got from the readings.  They are able to develop and master a variety of writing styles.

6. What is the existing research evidence on the relationship between spelling and reading? Briefly describe research findings discussed on page 20.
- Ehri found in a study that asked readers of various ages to read and spell words, their correlations were .68 to .86 and in others 40% to 60%.  Zutell and Rasinki have reported that students with additional spelling instruction perform better on oral reading, silent reading, and more.  Perfetti found that practice at spelling helps reading more than practice at reading helps spelling.  Morris and Perney predicted that a first graders invented spelling was a better indication of their end of grade reading than a standardized reading readiness test.  Ellis and Cataldo said that spelling was the greatest predictor of reading achievement.  Ganske said that establishing children’s level of spelling and reading is a big deal in being able to give them instruction correctly.

1. What was the hypothesis tested by the researchers?
-Rosenthal and Eri’s hypothesis that was tested was that students will learn the pronunciations and meanings of words better when they can see the spelling of the new words during study periods than when they do not.

2. Who were the subjects?

- The first group consisted 20 second graders that were 7 years, 7 months mean in age.  They were enrolled in an urban school with a large minority population. These students were reading on grade level but their vocabulary level was below average on Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test.

-The second group consisted 5th graders that came from the same low SES school the second graders were from.  There were 14 higher level readers and 18 lower level readers.

3. What were the experimental conditions?

-Each student was taught the proununciations and meanings of two sets of six concrete nouns.  They worked with the students individually. The students had a minimum of six and a maximum of nine trials and had to get three trials perfect in a row.  All subsequent trials tested the student’s recall of the words introduced during the initial trial and after each recall attempt, students were given the correct responses.  The researchers taught the students the unfamiliar words by using pictures, definitions and multiple sentences that used the words. These all helped show the students the meaning and use of each word.

4. What did the treatment involve?

- In the treatment condition students learned unfamiliar spoken words while the spellings were present during study periods.  In the control group students learned unfamiliar spoken words while the spellings were not present.

5. Which group (spelling-present vs. spelling-absent) gained more in vocabulary learning?  How were the groups’ recall of pronunciations affected by the treatment?

- The spelling-present group gained more vocabulary learning than the spelling-absent group.  Pronunciations and meaning recall was greater with the spelling-present group compared to the spelling-absent group.  With the second graders the recall of pronunciations increased after multiple trials.

6. Why do you think that fifth graders who were high on a word reading task benefited more from the spelling aids than their peers with less orthographic experience and knowledge, even though the two groups did not differ on receptive vocabulary knowledge?

- The fifth graders on a higher word reading task most likely benefited more than the students on a low word reading task because they are more developed in grapho-phonemic and of larger syllabic spelling units.  With these students being more developed in this way it probably allowed them to store the unfamiliar multisyllabic words in their memories.  Since the low word reading task were not as developed in grapho-phonemic and larger syllabic spelling units, this put them at a disadvantage.

7. What general conclusions were derived from the study findings by the authors? What implications were offered for vocabulary learning and instruction?

-The group of fifth graders that were exposed to the spellings did a lot better than the group that was not.  Students who had stronger orthographic knowledge did a better job then the ones who were weaker in that area.  Students with stronger orthographic knowledge were able to used grapho-phoneic connections to put the words in the memory.  It also showed that spellings help with different reading levels because it benefited the second graders and the fifth graders.  When teachers present new vocabulary words they should show the spelling of the words. When a child is reading individually they should stop at an unfamiliar word and decode it before they continue.

1. Look at the spelling errors that Curt makes. What stage of word knowledge is Curt in?Why do you pick this stage of development? What are the key characteristics. * Curt made mistakes that would fall into all three categories.  I would probably pick the Letter-Name Stage that he is most like because he is writing down sounds that he hears, but not in the right order that they should be written. He is confusing the short vowels and seems to sometimes get words completely wrong when he is timed.
2. Describe partner reading. *It is when the tutor and child alternate reading pages. The tutor asks comprehension questions throughout the reading. This is appealing to the child because they perceive the tutor on an equal level alternating readings with them.
3. Which is harder for a student, partner reading or DRTA? *DRTA is harder for a student because they have to come up with hypotheses and react on them.  This is different from just alternating reading with a tutor it is thinking far into the text and learning from it.  I think this a great way to get the child to actively interact with the text.
4. In planning a DRTA, what is important about selecting places to stop? *There needs to be three or four stopping points.  It needs to be at parts in the story where there are questions to ask about what has happened to far, and questions about what is going to happen.  The tutor must ask themselves at what point in the story am I able to anticipate an important event coming up.
5. In planning a DRTA, what is important about deciding questions to ask? What kind of questions? How many? *The reason there are stopping points is because you feel their are questions about what has happened and about to happen in the story.  There are three questions at stop one.  The first two seek information about the story setting and characters. The third one is asking the child if they want to change their original prediction about what was going to happen in the story why or why not.  Stop two also consist of three questions. The first two check the childs comprehension and plot-relevent information.  The third ask the child to predict what might happen next in the story.  Stop three you can either get the child to retell what has happened and predict what will happen in the end because of this or ask the child how they think the story will end and why they think that.  For the ending you can ask how did it end, was your prediction right, for others a moral might be pursued.