Comprehension-ECI 544 Kristen D.

Anderson North Carolina State University

Purpose of the Assessment The purpose of the assessment is to gain information about the reading comprehension of the student by considering prior knowledge, recall, and answers to explicit and implicit questions. The results of the assessment can be used to plan appropriate comprehension instruction.

Theoretical Basis for the Assessment Comprehension is a key component in the reading process. According to Klingner, Vaughn, and Boardman(2007), meaning, learning, and pleasure are the ultimate goals of learning to read.(p.2) The ability to read words on a page has very little value if a person is not able to make sense of what they have read. Comprehension is the ultimate goal of reading instruction. Deficits in other areas, such as decoding, fluency, and vocabulary, will certainly interfere with understanding (Klingner, Vaughn, & Boardman, 2007, p.5).

Rationale I chose to complete this assessment with a fourth grader, Alex. Alexs teacher reported that he is was struggling with comprehension. Through the use of running records, she has placed him at a Fountas & Pinnell instructional level of R, which is equivalent to an early 4th grade level. I have been working with Alex as a part of a project on increasing student reading motivation, which has allowed me to familiarize myself with his reading ability. I have noticed that he has had difficulty with the grade level text he selected for our reading group. Alex is a bilingual student whose test scores have exempted him from English as a Second Language (ESL) services.

Description of the Assessment Session I met with Alex immediately following our biweekly reading research group. We met in an open space in the center of the fourth and fifth grade hallways that is equipped with picnic tables. Occasionally students walked by in the hallways, however, distractions were minimal. We began with the Word Recognition in Isolation (WRI) assessment, in order to determine what level reading passage I should administer. This assessment showed 90% accuracy at the 2nd grade level. I administered second and third grade level passages, asking the pre-reading questions and following up with retell and comprehension questions. I selected fiction passages at both levels because I felt that comprehension would be less dependent on prior knowledge. Alex maintained focus the entire time

Summary of Results WRI Auto matic PP 1 PP 2/3 P 1 2 3 4 100 90 100 95 90 65 50 WRI WRC Untim Acc. ed 100 95 100 100 95 80 80 96 94 98 95 97 81 2 2 6/9 11/12 14/38 14/55 75 75 100 100 WRC Acc. w/ SC WRC Rate Pros ody Pre-r eadin g Retel l Expli cit Implic it

Interpretation of the Results Alex progressed quickly through the first few WRI lists. He showed a significant drop between the second and third grade list and was only able to recover a few more words with additional time. Because of his 90% at second grade, I chose to have him read the second grade narrative passage, What Can I Get for My Toy? (Lesley & Caldwell, 2011). The concept questions at the beginning has confusing wording, that I believe made it difficult for him to answer the first two questions. When asked, What does new toys mean to you?, he at first answered, a lot of fun, but with probing he was able to give a more complete answer. His prediction reflected his use of the concept questions to formulate two ideas about what the text would be about. His accuracy and comprehension of the passage were both in the high instructional level, so I decided to have him read a third grade passage next. Before reading the third grade passage, The Trip to the Zoo (Lesley & Caldwell, 2011), I asked Alex the concept questions. This time he was able to answer them more easily, showing that he had a better understanding for the purpose and format of the questions after his previous experience. He was able to get 11 of the 12 possible points. Interestingly, he did not really apply the information from the concept questions when making his prediction. His accuracy and comprehension were instructional at this level as well. He was able to correctly answer 100% of the comprehension questions when given the opportunity to look back. Reviewing his data, it seems that the biggest area of concern for Alex is probably his reading rate. He is reading significantly below the 120 wpm that is expected for a student at his grade level, and this is with below grade level texts.

Reaction to the Assessment Previously, the complexity of giving this assessment was overwhelming; overall I felt

much more at ease with administering the QRI this time around. I was more familiar with the format as well as the scoring. I think my own level of comfort also helped to relax the student. The WRI and WRC, along with all of the comprehension measures, were completed quickly and easily. While the administration went smoothly, I had a difficult time scoring and analysing the results of the comprehension components of the assessment. When compared to the accuracy and automaticity measures I had previously focused on, comprehension is a much more complicated area to assess. The pre-reading questions were especially confusing and had very awkward phrasing. I also thought that the retell section provided unfair scoring. I believe that a student who lists every detail of a story verbatim, as is expected with retell, shows a lower level of comprehension that being able to summarize the key events. I agree with the idea that traditional comprehension measures, such as those in the QRI, provide only a basic understanding of a students comprehension of text (Klingner, Vaughn, & Boardman, 2007, p.15). Instructional Recommendations Alex needs practice with rereading familiar texts in order to improve his reading rate. It would be a good idea to chart his initial reading of a passage and, after several practice reads, chart his improved reading rate. Multiple exposures to the same text will help him develop automaticity, increasing his reading rate and seeing the progress he is making will serve as a motivator. Comprehension instruction for Alex should focus on strategy instruction and practice at his instructional level. When reading instructional level text, Alex should be instructed in comprehension strategies, such as High 5! (Dymock & Nicholson, 2010), that emphasize the use of background knowledge, questioning, text structure, visualization and summarizing as

tools in making meaning from a text. These strategies should be modeled for him through the use of teacher think-alouds. While the High 5! strategy is designed for informational texts, it could easily be adapted to use with narrative text.

References

Dymock, S. & Nicholson, T. (2010). High 5! Strategies to enhance comprehension of expository text. The Reading Teacher, 64(3), 166-178. Klingner, J. K., Vaughn, S., Boardman, A. (2007). Teaching reading comprehension to students with learning disabilities. New York: The Guilford Press Leslie, L.,& Caldwell, J. S. (2011). Qualitative reading inventory (5th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.