Over the past few weeks, I have learned that my 4th grade buddy is a very confident reader. She loves to read and frequently reads for enjoyment, not just as a requirement for school. Her fluency is well developed. When tested reading a grade level text (Amelia Earhart) she read at 139 words per minute, which is the 75th percentile for her age group. When we asked her to read an excerpt from “the Mouse and the Motorcycle” by Beverly Cleary (pg. 12, 1990, level 4.1), the only miscues she made were ones that approximated words but did not change meaning or grammatical correctness. For example, she would substitute “it’s” for “it is” and she would insert or omit words that did not necessarily change meaning (for example she changed “around room 215” to “around the room”).
When looking at the NAEP Oral Reading Fluency Scale, I would place my buddy at a solid level 4. She reads large, meaningful phrases, with expression and a sense of ease. She also displays a high level of comprehension. She was able to make accurate inferences into every text that she read to us.
When we ask her to retell a story to us however, she is often very brief in detail, but she is sometimes able to recall and answer questions if prompted. If I were able to take a next step with my buddy and her reading, I would be interested to know more about her comprehension of non-fiction texts and how she determines the importance of what she is reading. With fiction, she seems to understand and be able to make predictions and inferences. From a few questions we asked her about the Amelia Earhart passage, I have questions about what details she chooses to remember from her reading. I think that if I were able to find a non-fiction text that interests her and focus a lesson on determining the importance in what we are reading, it might be a beneficial focus for her. Since we have not had a lot of opportunity to observe her in this type of activity, it may be that she does not have difficulties in this area, but it seems that it might be an interesting activity to undertake.
I think we are pretty consistent in our analysis of S.'s reading, just taking a slightly different avenue for a possible lesson. The one thing I was wondering about is whether S. can actually make inferences.
ReplyDeleteI think she can predict - with the Early Years book in the Little House Series she did that with predicting the success of Laura based on her ability to meet other challenges. I do not think she was able to infer about the characters in Mouse and The Motorcycle or the story about the dragon in the class textbook. She had a very superficial understanding of those stories.
I am not convinced she understands character motivation in fiction and so that is where I was thinking of focusing. The QRI testing with the retelling of a 3 (or maybe even less) is what also pointed me to this area for additional focus.
Interesting idea to branch to a different reading strategy. I've seen many students have trouble evaluating text for level of importance (in a basic sense, separating main ideas from supporting details). I agree that a nonfiction text would suit this type of activity the best.
ReplyDeleteDo you know what topics interest S so that you can choose a naturally engaging text?
Choosing a nonfiction text would also be an interesting exercise to provide a different evaluation of S's fluency. Often, we read nonfiction texts with different intonation because there isn't a character for us to relate to or assume the voice of. Since S is such a fast reader, I think it would also be interesting to collect data showing whether or not reading a nonfiction text makes a difference in this measure of fluency.
Good points about text selection and the difficulty of the strategy of determining main ideas vs. details. Might an engaging nonfiction text work for your lesson? Setting a purpose for reading might be a way to help your buddy decide what information from the text is important
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