Resources
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Points and Reflections
Activities
Application Activity 1.1
Knowledge of reading assessment is important for all educators. What is your current role or the role you aspire to? Based on your reading of Chapter 1, identify the purpose(s) for reading assessment most relevant to your role.
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Application Activity Answer 1.1
Q: Knowledge of reading assessment is important for all educators. What is your current role or the role you aspire to? Based on your reading of Chapter 1, identify the purpose(s) for reading assessment most relevant to your role.
A: Classroom teachers, special education teachers, reading specialists, adult educators: guide instruction; monitor student progress
School psychologist, special education teacher: determine eligibility for special education services
School administrator: determine accountability
Application Activity 2.1
Which model of reading characterizes reading as being comprised of two primary abilities?
Which models of reading discussed in Chapter 2 are most helpful for understanding where students may be in reading skill development?
Which models are most useful for understanding the reading process?
Which models are most useful for understanding the role of context and environmental variables in the reading process?
Application Activity 2.2
In Chapter 2, the authors discuss three ways of identifying a specific learning disability in reading. Which method makes the most sense to you and why?
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Application Activity Answer 2.1
Q: Which model of reading characterizes reading as being comprised of two primary abilities?
A: Simple view of reading
Q: Which models of reading discussed in Chapter 2 are most helpful for understanding where students may be in reading skill development?
A: Developmental models (Chall, Spear-Swerling & Sternberg, Frith)
Q: Which models are most useful for understanding the reading process?
A: Adams, Information Processing
Q: Which models are most useful for understanding the role of context and environmental variables in the reading process?
A: Transactional, Bell & McCallum Inclusive Model
Application Activity Answer 2.2
Q: In Chapter 2, the authors discuss three ways of identifying a specific learning disability in reading. Which method makes the most sense to you and why?
A:
- Ability-achievement discrepancy (IQ-achievement discrepancy)
- Response to intervention method
- Pattern of strengths and weaknesses method
(Answers vary; Bell & McCallum endorse using RtI to ensure effective instruction but favor using the PSW method to actually identify or rule out an SLD pattern, consistent with both the IDEA and the DSM V definitions of SLD.)
Application Activity 3
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Application Activity 3.1
Q: Why is it considered better for students to have an incremental view of ability rather than an entity view? What can you as an educator do to promote students’ adoption of an incremental view?
A: Students with an incremental view believe they can enhance ability through effort, but those with an entity view believe ability is fixed and they cannot change it. Educators can model and reward statements like, “I will get better at understanding what I read when I ask myself questions,” or “I will remember more words if I study word patterns.”
Application Activity 3.2
Q. Below is the Reading Motivation Scale created by Bell & McCallum for your use as an educator. If you are a practicing preservice or inservice educator, administer the scale to a child and score it. What does this tell you about this child’s reading motivation and what can you do in response?
A. The score is indicative of the child’s motivation to read, and this can be discussed with the child. If motivation is high, great! If not, model and reward incremental thinking and effortful behavior. Find interesting, on-level reading materials.
Application Activity 3.3
Q. Below is the Reading Attribution Scale created by Bell & McCallum for your use as an educator. If you are a practicing preservice or inservice educator, administer the scale to a child and score it. What does this tell you about this child’s reading attributions and what can you do in response?
A. Responses to this scale will indicate whether the child has more of an incremental or entity view of reading, which can be discussed with the child. If the child has an incremental view, great! If not, model and reward incremental thinking and effortful behavior. Find interesting, on-level reading materials.
Application Activity 3.4
Q. Below is an informal Teacher Self-Assessment Scale created by Bell & McCallum for your use as an educator. If you are a practicing preservice or inservice educator, please take a few minutes to answer the self-assessment and reflect on how your responses might influence your actions in your classroom or school.
A. Answers will vary, based on responses. Generally, the idea is to create an environment in which students want to read and can be successful.
Application Activity 5.1
After administration of a new reading assessment to her class, Ms. Crockett and Mr. Oakley, the school psychologist, each scored all the assessments. The scores they came up with were very similar. What does this indicate?
Application Activity 5.2
Mr. Haywood recently created an assessment to determine the level of student mastery on a unit he is teaching. After writing the assessment, he decided to have the reading specialist, Ms. Swafford, look at the test and give him feedback before administering the test to her students. What is Mr. Haywood’s reason for doing this and what is he trying to find out?
Application Activity 5.3
What is the difference between reliability and validity, and why should they be important to you?
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Application Activity 5.1
Q: After administration of a new reading assessment to her class, Ms. Crockett and Mr. Oakley, the school psychologist, each scored all of the assessments. The scores they came up with were very similar. What does this indicate?
A: This indicates that the assessment has good inter-rater reliability.
Application Activity 5.2
Q: Mr. Haywood recently created an assessment to determine the level of student mastery on a unit he is teaching. After writing the assessment, he decided to have the reading specialist, Ms. Swafford, look at the test and give him feedback before administering the test to her students. What is Mr. Haywood’s reason for doing this and what is he trying to find out?
A: He is trying to establish the content validity of his assessment.
Application Activity 5.3
Q: What is the difference between reliability and validity, and why should they be important to you?
A: Reliability is the extent to which scores are consistent with repeated trials or with similar questions within the same assessment, and validity is the extent to which the assessment measures the construct or skill the assessment is meant to measure.
Application Activity 7.1
Use Figure 7.2 in the text to answer the following questions.
- Based on the score report, how does the achievement in this teacher’s class compare with others in her district? Nationally?
- As this teacher begins thinking about instructional strategies for next year, he used the classroom score report to identify areas of strength and weakness so that he can make adjustments to his teaching strategies. What are the areas of strength and weakness? Why is it important to identify areas of strength instead of just weaknesses?
- Based on this score report, do you notice any students that may need interventions as they start the next school year?
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Application Activity 7.1
Use Figure 7.2 in the text to answer the following questions.
- Q: Based on the score report, how does the achievement in this teacher’s class compare with others in her district? Nationally?
- Q: As this teacher begins thinking about instructional strategies for next year, she uses the classroom score report to identify areas of strength and weakness so that she can make adjustments to her teaching strategies. What are the areas of strength and weakness? Why is it important to identify areas of strength instead of just weaknesses?
- Q: Based on this score report, do you notice any students who may need interventions as they start the next school year?
A: The students in this class scored as well or better than the district average in the areas of Reading, Written Expression, and Mathematics. As a class, they scored lower than the district in the areas of Listening, Word Analysis, Vocabulary, and Conventions of Writing. Nationally, the class was below the average in the areas of Written Expression, Word Analysis, Listening, and Mathematics.
A: This teacher identified her areas of strength as Reading and Vocabulary. She identified Word Analysis, Written Expression, and Math as areas of weakness. By identifying areas of strengths she is able to think about what instructional strategies she has used successfully that could be applied in other areas.
A: Claire Davison, Dylan Ewing, Payton Kuehn, Ava Pavlich, Estavan Perez, Samuel Thornburg, and Natalie Wright all scored below the class average in at least 4 of the 7 scoring categories. These students would be good candidates to consider for interventions at the start of the next school year.
Application Activity 8
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Application Activity Answer 8.1
Q: Using the table below, write a brief letter to Sammy’s parents summarizing the data. Be sure to include a summary of each section as well as recommendations for instruction.
A:
Dear Mr. & Ms. Smith,
We are writing to share results of Sammy’s recent academic testing. Assessment included the following: Iowa Test of Basic Skills (a group administered, norm-referenced achievement test), which included the Extended English Language Arts (ELA) Total and subskills as well as a Mathematics Total score; the Woodcock Diagnostic Reading Battery, a test that assesses various reading skills in depth; Qualitative Reading Inventory-5 (QRI – 5); the Test of Silent Contextual Reading Fluency (2nd ed.; TOSRF-2); the Elementary Reading Attitude Survey; and the Reading Motivation Scale.
To make sense of this information, national percentile ranks (NPR) are numbers that convey the relative standing of a student when compared to others in the same grade or age by identifying the (proportion or) percentage of students who took the test and performed worse. A stanine expresses the entire range of scores by dividing the distribution of scores into nine categories; 1-3 are below average; 4, 5, and 6 are average; and 7, 8, and 9 are above average. Grade-equivalent scores (GE) are calculated by averaging raw test scores of students in a sample at particular grade levels and then using these averages to provide an approximation of the grade-level performance of students.
Sammy’s strongest performance is in the area of mathematics, which is not surprising given his academic history. His Mathematics Total National Percentile Rank (NPR) on the Iowa Tests is 59, which yields a Stanine score of 5, and a Grade Equivalent (GE) of 4.0. These scores indicate that he is performing slightly above his grade and age peers in this area. Also, based on informal observations in class, Sammy seems to enjoy math and gets along well with his peers and teachers. On the other hand, Sammy has a history of reading difficulty, as reported by all his teachers, and this can also be seen from a variety of scores reported on the accompanying Table.
On the Iowa ELA tasks, Sammy’s reading-related NPRs are all below average (compared to peers), ranging from 4 (Word Analysis) to 45 (Vocabulary and Listening). These scores, and particularly the Word Analysis NPR of 4 (Stanine of 2, GE of 1.7) and the Reading NPR of 10 (Stanine of 2, GE of 2.3), indicate that he has significant difficulty with the basics of reading compared to his classmates. He has particular difficulty with word level skills. Reading-related strengths include Vocabulary knowledge and Listening comprehension, though these skills are still below average related to peers. In general, his reading skills are in some ways comparable to students in the second grade.
The Woodcock Diagnostic Reading Battery scores are consistent with those from the ELA. Performance is well below average in all the subdomains of reading; NPRs range from 13 (Word Attack) to 37 (Passage Comprehension). Again, results reveal relative strengths in reading comprehension and weaknesses in word-attack skills. The results from the TOSCRF-2, a measure of reading fluency, also show relatively weak reading performance (NPR, 19, Stanine 3, and GE, < 1.0). The results from the QRI – 5 show specific reading challenges, e.g.., word-attack skills.
Results from the two reading motivation scales reveal low motivation to read. Sammy is not interested in reading, most likely because of the difficulty he experiences in engaging the process of making sense of print.
The school team is committed to helping Sammy acquire reading skills, with particular emphasis on word study skills. Given the importance of reading for academic success, the school-based team believes that Sammy needs to spend more time each day in learning to read. More specifically, we are committed to building reading skills by having Sammy spend 30 minutes per day engaged in specific strategies designed to strengthen these skills; for example word study strategies from Making Words and/or Words their Way by Cunningham and colleagues. Given the evidence in support of these strategies in the professional literature, we expect Sammy’s scores to increase substantially. We also suggest that Sammy’s progress be evaluated every couple of weeks using a curriculum-based measure to assess gains in reading fluency.
The school team understands from the reading motivation assessment results that Sammy is not likely to read on his own, i.e., he is not motivated to read for pleasure. The team will make a point of working with Sammy in the library to find books that interest him. Also, we suggest that you can help at home by collaborating with us to provide him access and incentives to reading independently. The school team recognizes that Sammy is struggling. We intend to help him become a better reader by relying on Sammy’s strengths, determining his interests, and using those to support reading skill acquisition.
Sincerely,
School-based team
Instructional Tips
General
Provide adequate time for reading and writing every day.
Provide 90 minutes on average of reading per day (Allington, 2006).
Provide 30-45 minutes on average of writing per day (Allington, 2006).
Provide access to lots of books and other materials students can and want to read.
Allow students to have choices about what they read.
Provide opportunities for students to read with and talk about their reading with peers.
Collect and use assessment data to determine student strengths, weaknesses, and interests and target instruction appropriately.
Provide instruction in all areas of reading.
Provide a balance between authentic reading-writing activities and specific skills-building instruction.
Word Analyses
Use a sequential and systematic approach, balanced with embedded practice, to learn words.
Use predictable books with young children.
Teach young children or beginning readers to count or clap words in a phrase, syllables in a word, and finally, phonemes in a word.
Do rhyming activities, song, nursery rhymes, and games with young children.
Use students’ names as a basis for teaching letters and sounds.
Play word games (e.g., change a hen to a fox—lead students to change hen to fox by changing one letter of the word at a time) (Cunningham, 2005).
Use word walls (posted lists of words) to build automatic word recognition.
Use high frequency words in the word wall.
Use words that can be decoded analytically in the word wall (words with common rimes).
For higher grades, use words from subject area texts in word wall.
Do” Making Words” activities—guide students to make small words from bigger words (Cunningham & Hall, 1994).
Teach common patterns in words by having students identify and create rhyming words.
Teach phonics by analogy—students use words they know to decode new words.
Teach six syllable types (c = consonant, v = vowel):
- Closed—cvc (cat)
- Open—cv (go)
- Double vowel—cvvc (read)
- Vowel-consonant-E—vce (write)
- R controlled—cv + r (car)
- Consonant-le—C + le (candle) (Bos & Vaughn, 2006)
Teach meanings of prefixes, suffixes, and word endings and practice applying them.
Fluency
Provide opportunities for choral reading—have a group read together focusing on inflection and rate.
Be sure text is at appropriate level—not too difficult nor too easy.
Have students take turns reading with a partner, focusing on inflection and rate.
Provide opportunities for older, struggling students to read easy level books to younger students.
Provide opportunities for students to re-read text to meet a set standard of rate and accuracy.
Allow students to audiotape and time themselves reading.
Use oral reading fluency norms (in Figure 3-7) as a general guideline to set expectations.
Model fluent reading: Read the first few pages of a text, then let students read the rest of the text.
Provide opportunities for echo reading: Read a passage and let students read it immediately afterward.
Vocabulary
Discuss meanings of words before reading text.
Provide opportunities for students to use words in various contexts.
Relate meaning of new words to familiar words.
Teach meanings of prefixes, suffixes, and word endings and practice applying them.
Provide opportunities for students to encounter new words repeatedly in text.
Guide students to determine meaning of vocabulary from text rather then giving them definitions.
Provide opportunities for students to work in groups (e.g., work with a partner or peer tutor) to learn vocabulary.
Use a variety of methods to promote active engagement (Kamil, 2004).
Allow students to act out definitions, make mental pictures, use the words in writing, and attend to context cues to infer meanings (Kamil, 2004).
Use vocabulary from children’s literature to introduce and then use new, more sophisticated words.
Create examples and nonexamples of a given word meaning and have students determine which is which.
Teach students a process for determining meanings of words in context.
Teach vocabulary both directly and through multiple incidental opportunities (wide ranging independent reading, writing, and classroom discussion).
Teach students to use dictionaries and computer resources efficiently and effectively.
Comprehension
Teach young children or beginning readers to guess the covered word in a phrase or sentence.
Teach students to predict what will happen in text.
Teach story structure; teach students how to ask what, why, when, where, who, etc.
Introduce new reading material by reading and discussing a portion.
Teach comprehension monitoring: Students ask, “Does this make sense?”
Use cooperative learning groups to teach reading.
Use reciprocal teaching strategies: Predicting, Clarifying, Questioning, and Summarizing (Palincsar & Brown, 1984).
Use graphic organizers to aid comprehension. Use teacher generated graphic organizers to introduce a story or subject area content. Teach students to develop their own graphic organizers, such as story maps, during and after reading.
Use well-designed questions to promote comprehension.
Teach students to generate and then answer their own questions as they read.
Teach students to summarize what they read.
Teach students to use more than one strategy simultaneously to improve comprehension.
Reading-Writing
Teach the same words in reading and spelling.
Provide opportunities for authentic writing frequently each week.
Provide some extended time for authentic writing a couple of times per week.
Provide time for students to share their writing with peers.
Teach students to use a timeline to develop background knowledge and relate what they read to what they already know (Wooten, 2002).
Use literature as a catalyst for student writing.
Use student interests and experiences as catalysts for writing.
Teach students to use sticky notes to mark passages of interest and to write brief notes they can build upon in writing and discussion.
Motivation
Don’t assume that students can read grade-level material.
Interview students to determine their interests.
Provide access to a wide variety and different levels of reading materials.
Match reading content with student interest.
Encourage strong readers to try new genres.
Teach students to self-select books of appropriate interest and reading level.
Teach students the five-finger rule for determining book difficulty (see Chapter3).
Provide access to lots of books and other materials students can and want to read.
Involve parents and family in literacy experiences.
Provide ample time for a wide range of reading.
Foster students’ reading self-efficacy.
Provide opportunities for students to read and write together.
Provide opportunities for buddy reading (i.e., older and younger students reading together).