Marcel LaFountain

4-28-15
Educational Psychology
Dr. Reid Riggle
Learning Event #3
I volunteer at Sulliven Elementary School as part of my Educational Psychology course.
My roles there are various and very diverse, from pushing kids on the swings, playing kickball,
and making sure no kids jump off the high parts of the jungle gym, to tutoring kids in math,
helping students to improve their reading ability, and enriching them through various fun and
interactive activities.
On one day in particular, I was helping a student, who I shall call Pablo, read through a
book. The book itself wasnt that difficult for most third graders to read, and he was in third
grade, except for the fact that Pablos first language wasnt English. Pablo spoke primarily
Spanish and most of the books that he had to choose from were normally in Spanish. But today
he felt very ambitious and wanted to tackle a book in English that he hadnt read before. Pablo
said that he was really excited to read a book that would challenge him because the Spanish
books were getting too easy for him. I was very excited too, because the books would be easier
for me because my Spanish was not the best.
When we began reading, Pablo seemed to be doing alright. Every once in a while he
would pronounce a word not in English, but in Spanish. When this happened, I told him to
reread what he had just read and to remember that he is not reading in Spanish anymore. He

would immediately correct what he had done and would continue. Although he didnt read the
fastest, he did read pretty fluently. I was genuinely impressed by how well he was able to read in
English because just a few weeks earlier I had heard him read in English and he was struggling
to do so. Because of how impressed I was, I repeatedly gave him encouragement so he would
continue to read and so he would try harder to read even more fluently.
Also, every once in a while he would come across a word that he didnt know at all. It
was not that Pablo was reading the word in Spanish, it was that he just could not sound the word
out. It was very difficult to help when this happened, but I just covered up parts of the word until
he was able to sound out each part of the word. After he had each part of the word, I had him
slowly put it together by adding parts to each other. Quickly, he was able to get the words with
no problem. Also, I frequently asked him what the words went or what was going on in the
story. I wanted to be sure that he not only could read the words, but that he knew what the words
meant. Most of the time he didnt know and I took that opportunity to tell him. I didnt care so
much for finishing the book, I just wanted to make sure that he could read the text and fully
understand the text.
Lastly, I asked Pablo how he thought he was doing and how he could get better at reading
in English. He told me that he thought he did very well and I agreed with him and he said that
reading more in English and also inquiring to learn the meaning of words would also be very
helpful. For sounding out words, he said covering up parts of words and sounding them out
really helps him a lot, so hell continue to do that in the future.
The first few concepts that are used in the situation from above have been spoke about in
past papers. The first is positive reinforcement (Huitt, 1987). Constantly throughout the process
of Pablo reading, I encouraged him to keep going and that he was doing a really great job! This

encouraged him to read more and more and hopefully inspired him to want to delve deeper into
the meaning of books and other literature. The next previously used term is the zone of proximal
learning (Gallagher, 1999). This states that there are three zones that people learn in. There is
the first zone, which is what a child knows, the second zone that shows how much a child can
learn, and a third and final zone that shows how much the student cant learn, no matter how
hard they try. In order to be able to delve into the third area a bit, a child must seek help from a
teacher or a peer who is well versed in the subject. In this case, I was well versed in English than
Pablo was. Because of this, I was able to help Pablo to learn more about English and the
meaning of the words, to a point that he could not have gotten to by himself.
A new topic of discussion for this paper is talking about casual analysis (Riggle, 2015a).
Casual analysis is where the student makes an analysis of how well he or she thinks that they did
and what they accredit their success or failure to. In the case of Pablo, he thought that he did a
very good job, based on how I praised him and how he personally felt he did. Pablo was very
happy with his results and now has set a standard or goal for the next time that he reads in
English, with that being to read faster, understand more words, and also to figure out words that
he doesnt know by himself. He credits his success to his effort at the time, to the fact that he
always tries really hard, and his mood, because he was in a very good mood and really felt like
he could do the reading that day.
Another concept that I believe is prominent in this situation is a part of the Self-Efficacy
Theory Riggle, 2015b). Self-Efficacy refers to the beliefs in ones capabilities to organize and
execute the courses of action required to produce given goals. People make judgments about
their ability to perform certain actions required to achieve a desirable outcome. Then based on
their judgments, they perceive whether or not to carry on with the behavior. In specific, I believe

that the enactive mastery experiences (Riggle, 2015b) played a large role in how well he read and
so does he, although it says it a little funny. Enactive mastery experiences are basically a
learners own previous success at the task. Ones interpretation of success or failure on a task,
along with perceptions about difficulty of the task and the amount of effort expended, mediate
the effect of enactive experience on self-efficacy beliefs. In Pablos case, he told me that he did
pretty well the last time he read with a different teacher in English, so his spirits were high about
how well he could read and he also had a lot of self confidence in his ability to read. This gave
him an advantage because his self-efficacy was high enough for him to feel comfortable reading
to me.
A part of Vgostkys Sociocultural Theory (Riggle, 2015c), which has to do with how
people learn based on their culture and their background, has to with sociocultural history
(Riggle, 2015c). Sociocultural history says that people from around the world are going to think
differently based on their life styles, culture and the environment. With Pablo, this has a few
meanings. For one, Pablo is a Hispanic student, meaning that he grew up in a home that spoke
dominantly Spanish at home. Because of this, there is a language barrier between Pablo and me,
but also it means that because he grew up speaking Spanish, he has less knowledge of how to
speak English and when he sees a word, he generally first thinks of pronouncing it in Spanish.
This means when he reads English, he sometimes reads like the words are in Spanish and
confuses the two languages. This is a minor problem I believe though, and once he starts reading
more books in both language, hell remember if hes reading Spanish or English.
The final concept that is prominent is metacognition (Livingston, 1997). Pablo did a bit
of this by himself probably, but I wanted to know what his metacognition was, so I asked.
Metacognition is basically thinking about thinking, like when a student reflects on how well they

did, how the student solved the problem that student had, etc. To stimulate this in Pablo, I asked
him to tell me how he thought he did, how he is going to try to improve in the future, and how he
best got through the difficult parts of books. This causes him to really think about the task that
he just accomplished and think about his thought processes which caused him to complete his
task successfully.
In all, this learning event taught me a lot about self-efficacy and metacognition, because I
really tried to make Pablo not only complete the task of reading, but I wanted to help create
meaning from the experience and for him to be able to apply this one situation to more than just
reading. Hopefully by doing this, I not only helped him with his immediate task, but help him in
the future by giving him new tools to use whenever he runs into a difficult situation.

References
Gallagher, C. (1999, May 1). Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky. Retrieved April
29, 2015, from
http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/vygotsky.htm
Huitt, W., & Hummel, J. (1997). An introduction to operant
(instrumental) conditioning. Educational Psychology Interactive. Valdosta,
GA: Valdosta State University. Retrieved April 29, 2015 from,
http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/topics/behavior/operant.htmlall. (p. 59-62)
Livingston, J. (1997, January 1). Metacognition: An Overview. Retrieved
May 1, 2015, from http://gse.buffalo.edu/fas/shuell/cep564/metacog.htm
Riggle, R. (2015a). PowerPoint Presentation - Attribution Theory.
Retrieved April 30, 2015, from
http://education.snc.edu/ed120/attribution.ppt.htm
Riggle, R. (2015b). PowerPoint Presentation - Self-Efficacy Theory:
Albert Bandura. Retrieved April 30, 2015, from
http://education.snc.edu/ed120/selfefficacy.ppt.htm
Riggle, R. (2015c). Lev Semenovich Vygotsky (1896 1934). Retrieved
April 30, 2015, from http://education.snc.edu/ed120/vygotsky/Welcome.html