Hallie Utter

Miscue Analysis- 2nd Grade

Geography

This miscue took place in Mrs. Oviatt's second grade classroom in Mecosta Elementary. Mrs.
Oviatt has a large room that has recently been remodeled and is well lit. The classroom is
colorful, busy and filled with posters and motivating signs. Along the left side of the room are
several storage cabinets that contain teaching materials that are needed throughout the year. The
students desks are pushed into groups of four to six and are placed near the front of the room. At
each desk lies either a medicine ball or a squiggle chair depending on the students preference. In
the front of her classroom is a large whiteboard along with a document camera where she models
assignments. In the front right corner of the room lies her reading area with three couches all
facing an easel with chart paper hung on it and a bookcase full of books. The walls are lined with
posters and bulletin boards display students work and curriculum. On the right wall, lies a large
window that faces out to the playground and placed next to it is Mrs. Oviatts desk and computer.
In the back of the classroom, there is a bathroom for students, along with several different tables
including a large round wooden table, a large round plastic table, and two rectangular tables for
group and individual work with students. In the back right corner are several filing cabinets that
contain student work and are overflowing with papers. Alongside the cabinets are carts of school
supplies such as scissors, glue sticks, markers, colored pencils, and mathematical materials.

Introduction

I was asked to assess an eight-year-old females comprehension level. Mrs. Oviatt was looking to
get updated scores on her student's comprehension level and also allowed me to analyze this
students reading fluency. I was told by the Mrs. Oviatt, that this student is towards the lower end
of the spectrum in terms of her previous oral fluency and comprehension scores. So far, her
fluency score has maintained consistent throughout the year and she is struggling with
comprehending the text. This miscue was taken at the large wooden table next to another group
of students who were also being tested. The rest of the class had combined with the other second
grade classroom for the day so the room was relatively quiet.

Rapport Building/Information Gathering

I began the test by introducing myself to the student as Ms. Utter. I told her that I was an eighty
hour Ferris student and I was going to conduct a fluency and comprehension test for Mrs. Oviatt
today so she could get an updated comprehension score for her class. I asked her how her day
was going since they had a two-hour delay for fog and many of the students felt off. She
replied with Good I got to sleep in. Then I asked her how she felt about reading and the student
replied with I dont like it. Its boring. I asked her why she found reading boring and she
replied its hard and Im not good at it. I told her I understood but the only way to get better at
something is to practice which is what we are doing right now. Then, I handed her the student
book and asked her if she remembered doing this previously and she replied with yes. I
explained that she would read through the story and I would follow along in my own book. At
the end of the story, she would have to complete three comprehension questions regarding what
she read. I asked if she had any questions and then told her she could begin whenever she was
ready.

Administering Informal Reading Inventory

While conducting the inventory, I crossed out words that were incorrect or mispronounced, drew
carrots if the student inserted any extra information, and underlined vowels that the student
mispronounced. After the student read the section, instead of counting the total amount of errors
I decided to later write down the errors to see if I could find a pattern since Mrs. Oviatt was only
checking the students comprehension. After the student finished reading the section, I handed
her the worksheet called: Decodable Story 37: A Plant that Acts Like an Animal and instructed
her to answer the bottom three comprehension questions. To help speed up the process of testing
students, I read the questions out loud to the student one at a time and allowed her to complete
each one before reading the next one. I had to remind her several times to restate her answer in a
complete sentence and if she was unsure about an answer to go back in the story to see if she
could find it.

Statistical Miscue Analysis

This type of miscue was a benchmark assessment taken from SRA Imagine It produced by the
McGraw-Hill companies. By completing the miscue, I was able to determine that this student
could only answer one comprehension question without having to go back and search for the
answer. However, she was able to find the other two answers in the story after being reminded.
Compared to her last assessment, it looks like there is no improvement in her comprehension
score. In terms of fluency, the student made twenty-five errors throughout the story. While timing
her, it took her eight minutes and thirty-three seconds to complete the story which was fourteen
pages long (average of twenty-four words per page).

Professional Analysis

Overall, this student struggled with vowel sounds, vowel diphthongs, and there was confusion on
some words that were similar. In terms of vowel sounds, this student seemed to sound out words
and mix up the vowel sounds. For example, several times this student switched a short e to short
I, short a to short e, and short u for both short a and o. This student also had a hard time
determining what sounds these vowel diphthongs made. She especially struggled on ou, and oo
and mistaken them for the opposite sound. Lastly, this student tends to reverse words that were
similar such as dry and dirty, droop and drop, and form and from.

Instructional Strategies

For this student, I would first suggest matching each vowel with its appropriate letter sound. It
was evident that this student was mixed up on her vowel sounds and this lack of instruction is
effecting her reading ability. I would suggest using flash cards and using one on one explicit
instruction to work on identifying the vowel and the sound it represents. After the student has
those vowels down, I would move onto the diphthongs that she was struggling with. I would use
a similar strategy here with flash cards and using explicit instruction to sound out the double
vowels. I would have her practice reading words with those diphthongs and make sure she feels
comfortable. Lastly, I would use flash cards and write out the two words then lay them side by
side in front of the student. I would have her highlight the differences between the words and
then based on those differences and our new vowel sounds, see if she knows how to pronounce
them. By highlighting the differences, I feel like this will allow her to visualize what makes each
word unique.

Conclusions/Reflection
Overall, I wasnt very impressed with this type of assessment. I felt like this assessment didnt
really test the students comprehension of the text since Mrs. Oviatt allowed students to go back
to the book to answer the comprehension questions. Although going back to the book is a good
strategy to teach students, when trying to assess whether or not students understand what they are
reading this is not a good strategy to incorporate. When looking at all the worksheets, I
personally knew which ones students knew and which ones students had to go back to look up
but both of the second grade teachers will not know by looking at the papers. I also felt like the
testing area was hard to concentrate in. My student sat on a medicine ball which seemed to
become distracting since she had a hard time keeping track of where she was in the story. She
also seemed to get distracted by the other group of students getting tested since they sat at the
table right next to us. When we first started testing I tried picking a table away from the other
group so it would be less distracting but half way through the testing time the other group
decided to move to the table next to us. I feel like my assessment does not completely reflect this
childs reading ability because of the fact she was so distracted plus near the end of the story she
was becoming very frustrated and started to rush just to finish.