Portrait of a reader: Rosalie - Ongoing assessments in action

I was setting up centers for the first day of class, which was still a week away, when Rosalie and her mother entered the classroom to meet me. Rosalie’s mother explained that Rosalie was so excited about school and simply could not wait until the official “Meet the Teacher” night that was planned for the evening before the first day of school.

After Rosalie met me, she began to explore her new classroom, and I had a few minutes to speak with Ms. Lidell, Rosalie’s mother. Ms. Lidell expressed concern for her daughter’s reading abilities. “I am scared for Rosalie to come to first grade,” said Ms. Lidell. “I know she will be expected to read and when she plays at reading at home it just sounds like she is making a story up. She only looks at the pictures. She doesn’t even look at the words.”

I tried to ease the mother’s concerns by telling her that this was part of learning to read and that I could build on Rosalie’s strength of meaning making (picture reading) for literacy instruction.

When the school year began, I took a running record of Rosalie’s reading using a text on a level B in my DRA kit. This is a level for emergent readers. I conducted the running record by beginning with a picture walk. Rosalie was indeed tuned into the action of the story through the meaning cues provided within the illustrations. Rosalie provided a plausible story based on the pictures. When it was time to put the words and the pictures together, Rosalie did not pay attention to the words at first, but I gave her a sequined glove to wear to point to track the print while reading. Having the glove on was more than just a novelty to Rosalie; she seemed to want to earn the privilege of continuing to wear it by pointing to the words and really following the flow of print as well as taking picture cues into account.

Rosalie moved quickly into the numbered levels of texts. Once she reached level 6, where the text is less repetitious and less reliably predicted by pictures, I could see the areas of literacy that needed support for Rosalie to continue her growth as a reader. Rosalie would get stuck at “wh” words (who, what, where, when, why). These words appear frequently in all levels of reading and needed to be added to Rosalie’s repertoire of sight words. I played games such as “My Pile Your Pile” with Rosalie in between running records to reinforce quick recognition of the words. To play, I simply had the “wh” words written on index cards and included in a stack of other sight words Rosalie was familiar with or becoming familiar with. When Rosalie correctly read a card, it went into a pile near her. Words that were incorrectly read remained in a pile near me. I could then see if certain words were repeatedly being missed. I was sure to also give Rosalie practice with these words embedded within texts.

When Rosalie mastered these “wh” words, I gave her another running record from my DRA kit. This time Rosalie was at a level 8! Rosalie’s progress was exciting to her, her mother, and me.

At this point, I noticed Rosalie was not paying attention to all of the information within a word. She seemed to choose a different ending to words based on her own background knowledge and the meaning and syntax cues. For example, one sentence in the text she read stated: “The tram stopped.” Rosalie read, “The train stopped.” Rosalie could see that the picture looked somewhat like a train, something she had experience with in her life. She also looked at the beginning letters of the word “tram,” which are of course similar to “train.” I decided to use Elkonin boxes with Rosalie immediately following that reading. I wrote the letters tr, a, and m in three boxes:

tr a m

I again gave Rosalie the sequined glove and asked her to read through the word carefully in isolation. Rosalie correctly called the word, “tram.” Together we revisited the page that showed the tram and Rosalie reread the sentence free of errors. Unprompted, she said, “Oh, it’s not a train. It’s a tram. There’s no track for it. I was on one of those at the zoo. It took me and my family to a part of the zoo that was too far to walk to.”

I used Elkonin boxes in minilessons with Rosalie and several other students over the course of a month to provide practice and guidance in paying attention to words from the beginning to the end. Rosalie’s progress continued in reading. I also sent an example of the Elkonin boxes home to Rosalie’s mother so they could practice at home together. Using running records from my DRA kit allowed me to see how I could tailor reading supports for Rosalie. Information gained from running records gave me a specific way to talk about a Rosalie’s progress as a reader with her mother and to include Ms. Lidell in lessons we worked on in school.