Assessment and Instruction Report #3: Comprehension

Completed During Elementary School Visit 2

Assignment Description Template

Assessment and Instruction Report #3: Comprehension

Part 1: Overview

Teacher Candidate Project Supervisor/School or Site/District Date Grade of

Baylee Quiller, Abby or City 03-27- Student
Yarborough, Emily Balla Dr. Foster/ Ellis Elementary School/ 2024 3rd
Harmony
Pseudonym Used for Student: Rosey Assessment Time: 8:50-9:30

Classroom Context:
Ellis Elementary School is located in Belleville, IL, where they have a variety of learning
levels present in the school. This assessment took place in Ellis Elementary School’s art room
for before-school content practice at 8:50 am - 9:20 am. The school provided this time for
students to practice in areas where they struggle. We worked with a student to help her literacy
skills. The teachers in this room made the experience uplifting and encouraging to students to
where students were eager to participate with SIUE students. You could tell that after the
experience the students that we worked with felt better about the content that they were
practicing.

Part 2: Diagnostic Assessment Plan

Diagnostic Assessment Tool Descriptions

Developmentally appropriate texts for reading records will be prepared for you and
your partners for the readers assessed. The length of these texts will vary according to
grade level ability: Primer 40-60 words; First Grade 100-150 words; Second Grade 100-
200 words; Third Grade 200-300 words; Fourth Grade and Above 300-400 words.

The prepared text you and your designated reader choose to read together should be
accompanied by:
· 3 Explicit Comprehension Questions [right there or think and search
questions];
- What was the kitten trying to get to?
- What did the kitten climb?
- What happened when the kitten was racing by the pond?
 · 3 Implicit Comprehension Questions [think and search or author and me
questions];
- Why do you think the kitten thought the moon looked like a bowl of milk?
- Why do you think the kitten was trying to get things?
- What was the purpose of the kitten going so fast?
· 2 Critical/Evaluative Comprehension Questions [on my questions].
- Have you ever read a book like this?
- Do you have any cats at home or any pets?
Diagnostic Comprehension Assessment Part 1 Analysis of Miscues Worksheet and

Oral Reading of Miscues Analysis Summary Form

Diagnostic Assessments Part 2 Oral or Written Story Retelling Analysis Form

Diagnostic Assessments Part 3 Comprehension Analysis Summary Form

Teacher Candidate Partner(s)

Baylee Quiller, Emily Balla, Abby Yarborough

Assessment Procedure
1. We had the reader pick out a book that they were interested in to read aloud to
us.
2. Then we had the reader read aloud the book to us as we jotted down missed
words or reading errors.
3. After the reader was done reading we asked the reader a few different
questions; three explicit, three implicit, and two critical/ evaluative questions
4. The reader did not struggle too much to answer these problems and remained
highly engaged throughout the practice

Part 3: Commentary
Answer each of the seven prompts below with one claim about the assessed reader-writer’s
reading comprehension. Support the claim with specific evidence from the assessment results
you and your partners observed and recorded. Then reason about why the claim you made may
apply to other primary readers and writers by connecting patterns of behavior displayed by the
assessed reader-writer to CIED 321 textbook information. Be sure to use APA in-text citation
format for commentary writing that includes page numbers from sources. Be sure to include a
formal APA bibliographic reference for each source you cite at the end of this templated
commentary.

1. Describe a significant observation you made during a particular diagnostic

assessment that was different from the observations of your assessment partners.
In what ways might this kind of difference affect the accuracy of a teacher’s
judgment about a reader-writer’s comprehension? What do these differences say
about the care and frequency with which comprehension assessments must occur
to be valid measures of student ability (see judgment 133-134)? What do these
differences say about the importance of anti-biased approaches to reading
comprehension assessment?
During the assessment observation, we noticed that the student continually rearranged words
in a sentence that she was reading. Such as; when the text read “bowl of milk”, she would say
“milk of bowl”. This difference from the other observations would affect the accuracy of a
teacher’s judgment because once judgment was noticed, I found myself focusing on this more
than the other miscues that were happening. This goes to show that the more frequent that
comprehension assessments happen the more accurate the results will be. Each time the teacher
may focus on a different miscue and therefore after a few comprehension assessments the
teacher will really be able to assess where the reader is at. These differences show the
importance of how anti-biased approaches help comprehension assessments.
2. What did the assessed reader-writer do when given a comprehension that
question cannot be answered right away?
When Rosey couldn't answer a question right away, she would ask for clarification and often
wait for some prompting to help her further answer the question. Another thing she would do
is go on a tangent based on other questions we asked her to fill up time. For example, we asked
her if she had a cat to which she then went on a tangent saying something along the lines of,
“Well no I don't have a cat but I do have a dog and my cousin has two cats and some dogs” etc.

3. What aspect of comprehension could this reader-writer learn more about?

Why?
This reader could learn more about sentence structure, cohesion, and fluency. During her oral
reading, Rosey had the most miscues when it came to making substitutions and adding
insertions. For example, she would interchange “the” and “a” frequently, replacing one with
the other. She would also substitute a word with something else if she was unsure. Learning
more about sentence structure, cohesion, and fluency will allow her to better identify word
 relationships between the word and the idea of the story. This will overall boost her
understanding of the story but also strengthen word identification skills.
4. What are the strengths of this reader-writer’s ability to identify words?
The reader showed strength in self-correction and had no issue with decoding. When she
would consciously make a mistake she would be quick to go back and reread that word or even
the whole sentence. She also was able to easily sound out words that were not a part of her
everyday vocabulary.
5. What can this reader-writer do to improve word identification?
To improve word identification this reader-writer can practice decoding, word patterns,
practice rereading the same story getting fewer miscues each time, etc. This reader did a decent
job with the story the first time that she read it, therefore, I think that reading it again could do
the reader-writer some good.
6. What are the strengths of this reader-writer’s semantic and/or pragmatic
knowledge of vocabulary and text structure?
The reader-writer has strengths in pragmatic knowledge of vocabulary and text structure. We
know this because when asking the reader-writer questions related to the book she did really
well with answering the implicit questions that were asking her what the author was implying
for us to know. However, she struggled to take the literal meanings of vocabulary and would
instead make insertions or substitutions to help fit the implied meaning.
7. What can this reader-writer do to develop greater semantic and/or pragmatic
knowledge of vocabulary and text structure?
The reader-writer struggled a little bit more with semantic knowledge, as it was hard for her to
process reading aloud unfamiliar words or sentences. This is when she would add insertions
and substitutions based on being unsure about a word or sentence. She could develop greater
semantic knowledge by continuing to read stories like this aloud, identifying new names or
vocabulary, and trying to recall the word based on its definition. This will help her in reading a
word and determining the meaning of the concept behind it.

Works Cited

Gehsmann, K. M., & Templeton, S. (2022). Chapter 7. In Teaching Reading and Writing
(Second, pp. 250–251). essay, Pearson.