What have you learned about your buddy’s needs, abilities, and interests?
D is an enthusiastic learner who considers himself exceptional at math and science, but only average at writing or reading. When it comes to literacy, though, D does say that he enjoys reading mysteries and some fantasy books. However, it does not sound like D has found motivation to do reading outside of what's required for school.
Looking at the results of D's various comprehension assessments, it seems that D needs the most help in this area. He reads aloud with clarity, confidence, and intonation, but only with average/below average speed. In retellings, D omits or confuses the main points and supporting details. What's interesting, and I will investigate this further tomorrow, is that D's "comprehension" significantly increases when prompted with the right questions. Thus, there is the possibility that D's comprehension is at or above grade level, it just does not appear so during the standard method of assessment.
D's writing shows his creativity, sense of organization, and ownership of his work. However, as detailed in my previous analysis, D's convention errors detract from the meaning of his piece. Thus, D is well on his way to becoming a clear, fluent writer, but needs to work on his grammar.
As a result of this knowledge, what learning objectives and materials are you considering using for your lesson?
Based on the data I currently have, I think a comprehension lesson focusing on identification of main ideas would greatly benefit D. This would provide a clear purpose to motivate D's reading and set clear expectations of an end product to help D focus on the text. In finding main ideas, D would have to sort through supporting details and "discard" them so that he does not veer off-track or misinterpret the text.
Another possibility would be to help improve D's fluency. It is possible, as we learned, that if a reader reads too slowly, it becomes harder to comprehend the text. As we were told, the reader might forget what the beginning of the sentence was about by the time he gets to the end of it! So, perhaps a fluency lesson would also provide D with the skills he needs to improve comprehension.
I think this sounds like a very reasonable next step, from what you have described.
ReplyDeleteI recently did a lesson using "determining importance" as a comprehension strategy for the same purpose. My master teacher and I chose an issue of Time for Kids and I had them not only think and talk about what was the most important details to the story, but I also had them point out what details were not as important (for contrast). I then had them tell me why those "extra" details aren't so important (if they had been left out, the overall purpose of the story would not have changed).
It seemed to work well with the kids I was with. When I asked them to retell what happened in the story, they were able to give me all the important parts and I feel confident that looking for the important details helped them to comprehend the story better.
I think you have a couple of good options. Getting the main idea is a comprehension strategy that would help across all content areas so I gravitate there. A lesson about summarizing or synthesizing information would help strip away the details and get down to the "golden nuggets".
ReplyDeleteAlthough you could do this with fiction, I would go with a science based nonfiction text since that is a high interest area for him. Might keep his attention more effectively.
Great group discussion! hlac's example, above, does a good job using a short piece from a newsletter/periodical for kids, a wise choice as the purpose or main idea of the article is easy to figure out (the headline, oftentimes) and so determining main ideas vs. details falls in place.
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