Online Class Blog Post

Reading Lessons:

            My focus students were two students from the upper level reading group and two students from the lower level reading group. My MT explained to me that the students in the lower level reading group needed more instruction with summaries and comprehension, where the upper level students needed help with creative writing strategies. She explained to me, that when students would try to write a summary they would copy word for word, or include too many or not enough details. She also explained to me how the students had seen creative writing strategies, like figurative language in poetry, but they have not have much chance to use them.

Assessment appoaches used in my classroom: 

Classroom-based  reading assessment

•  observations
• on the spot conferences
• book discussion conferences
• editing conferences
• student work samples (writing journals) 
• running reccords

Portfolio Assessment

• readings logs (march is reading month)
• writing journals

High-stakes testing

• MEAP
• Insights testing
• test taking strategies
• preparing for standardized test

Additional appraoches that could ahve been useful in guilding my instruction during my mini reading lessons would have been mini-conferences prior to the lesson.  Having mini conferences with my focus studnets prior to the lesson would have helped me to decide what to focus on most. I would have gained a better understanding of where my students were at in each subject and what materials they already had. It also would have helped the studnets because I could have let them know that I will be pulling them out to work on a lesson about summaries/figurative language. I had one student in each group that was really shy and nervous, and I think if I would have met with them first, they would have opened up more during hte lesson because they would have known what to expect.