Taquino 1

Victoria Taquino

Vicki Lanius

EDU 140

28 November 2016

Analytical Research Paper

Part 1: Student Background

Isabel is the name of the student who I tutored in reading for four weeks. She is an eight

year old third grader from Ayersville Elementary School, and she has many interests, both inside

and outside of school. Her interests in school include working in groups during reading and

math, playing outside on the swings with her friend, Ava, and she also enjoys coloring in art

class. Isabel also enjoys doing various activities outside of school. For instance, when she is at

the YMCA, Isabel likes to play outside and spin on the tire swings. She also likes it when they

do fun projects such as painting and doing science experiments. At home, Isabel likes to play

with her toys, especially her Shopkins.

When asked what her favorite book or book character was, Isabel responded by saying

she liked the character, Madeline, from the Madeline books. I also asked Isabel if she enjoys

reading and to explain why or why not in her answer. She replied by saying she enjoys reading

because if she is reading a chapter book with no pictures, she is able to imagine the pictures in

her head while she is reading. She also says that it teaches her big words that she does not know.

When asked what kind of genre of books she likes to read, she told me she liked mostly fiction,

comedy, and sometimes non-fiction. Isabels favorite books to read are the Geronimo Stilton

books and the Madeline books. When asked what her least favorite book to read was, Isabel
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explained that that was a hard question because she likes so many books. She finally said that

she does not really like books that are guides or comics.

In her spare time at home, Isabel says she either like to watch television, read, or spend

time with her grandma. When she gets spare time at school, Isabel likes to read. To conclude

the student interest survey, I asked Isabel if she thought reading is hard or easy for her and why.

She explained to me that at school they have different colored books that represent the different

levels of reading, and her teacher sometimes makes the students read harder, challenging boos

that are not at their level. She explained that overall, reading is easy for her because shes been

reading and has been read to since she was in kindergarten.

Part 2: Connecting Tutoring to Research

Even though Isabel is a very bright student who does excellent in reading overall, she

does have a couple areas of weakness that she needs help with. These areas include reading

prosody and vocabulary/word recognition. I have noticed that Isabel likes to read particularly

fast, almost as if shes rushing through the text. Because of this, she pronounces words that she

knows incorrectly, which causes a bit of confusion in comprehending the text to the best of her

ability. She often times has to reread a section here and there because she misread a word or

two, changing the meaning of the original text. Because of this, I have been working with Isabel

to slow down her reading and to really pay attention to what the words are saying. By doing this,

it will help Isabel improve her fluency and comprehension. I also noticed that she has often asks

how to pronounce a certain word or asks the meaning of a word. Because of this, I work with

Isabel on how to improve her vocabulary.

Although reading fluency may have different definitions to different people, it is mainly

defined as the ability to read a text accurately, quickly, and with expression. However, in my
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experiences with tutoring, I have realized that being a fluent reader does not necessarily mean the

rate or speed at which you read, but it has more to do with accuracy and comprehension.

Reading fluency is made up of two distinct components at two ends of the reading spectrum

automaticity in word recognition and expression in oral reading that reflects the meaning of the

text (Rasinski 4). In order for any student to be competent in reading fluency, they have to

master the skills of word recognition and reading comprehension.

Being able to recognize words automatically and accurately is called automaticity in

word recognition. Word recognition and comprehension are two necessary efforts when it comes

to reading. Because of the limited amount of concentration that readers have, the attention that is

used for one task cannot be enforced on the other. And so, when readers have to use excessive

amounts of their cognitive energy for word recognition, even if they are able to decode the words

accurately, they have reduced the amount of cognitive energy available for comprehension and

thus, comprehension suffers (Rasinski 4). This is something that I have noticed with Isabel.

She was able to decode and pronounce many words within her text, but she would often times

have to ask what a word meant, or what the passage was saying.

Reading prosody, also known as the expression one uses when doing oral reading, is the

relationship between meaning and comprehension in reading fluency. Comprehension in reading

is a key element in order to engage in expressive reading, prosody. In order to read something

with appropriate expression that reflects the authors purpose and meaning, the reader must have

some degree of comprehension of the page itself (Rasinski 4). The use of correct oral

interpretation allows readers to broaden their comprehension skills. Also, confidence is a major

part of being able to read with expression. [W]hen reading orally with appropriate expression

the reader is enhancing his or her own comprehension by using various prosodic elements
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(volume, pitch, phrasing, etc.) to expand on the meaning (Rasinki 4). I have noticed that when

Isabel read to me, she did so at a rapid speed, which took away the chance for her to engage in

expressive reading. For one of our tutoring sessions, I did an activity with Isabel where we took

turns reading phrases back and forth with each other because research has suggested thatthe

most practical approach for assessing prosody is for informed teachers to simply listen to

students read orally and to rate the students expressiveness on a guiding rubric (Rasinski 6).

When observing as a student reads allow, teachers are able to identify whether or not they

engage in expressive reading. This helps teachers plan and organize lesson plans to help those

particular students improve their reading prosody.

Part 3: My Reflection

During my tutoring sessions, I have realized that I particularly enjoy working one-on-one

with a student who needs the extra help. Because I tutored my niece, we already had a great

personal relationship, but I also thought that this tutoring experience helped improve our

connection in other ways. I also enjoyed seeing Isabel improve on her reading, and I thought it

was very rewarding to be able to be a part of her success. I honestly did not find anything that I

did not like about tutoring. I really enjoyed working with one student at a time to reach a goal

that was set by the mentoring teacher. Because I tutored Isabel at home during my own time, I

was not able to build a relationship with the mentoring teacher. However, when I met with her to

discuss the assignment, she gave me a few ideas of what I could do at home to help Isabel

improve her weak areas in reading. She was helpful in giving suggestions, but thats the farthest

our relationship has gone. I learned that I take pleasure in being able to help a student improve

in something that they needed help with. It makes me feel accomplished and good about myself

that I was a part of the reason for a students success.

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Work Cited

Rasinski, Timothy. "Fluency Matters." Iejee.com. International Electronic Journal of Elementary

Education, 31 Oct. 2014. Web. 16 Nov. 2016.

<iejee.com/index/makale_indir/113/fluency-matters>.