Professional Readings

Carmen Lemen
Professional Reading
Book: Literacy in the Early Grades by Gail E. Tompkins

Writing Strategies and Skills

Writing strategies are like reading strategies: Theyre tools that children use
deliberately to craft effective compositions (Tompkins, 2010)

Key Points

Within the Tompkins book I found procedures to Interactive Writing. There are step-by-
step implementation ideas, relevant student feedback, and an easy-to-use chart of
teacher guidelines, and specific goals. Different topics include: grouping options,
recycled writing, writing with different levels and building on favorite words. These
lessons catch the interest of early writers and help improve their writing. Students need
to see and do to fully understand writing skills.

Connections

This book reassures my belief in working with students interactively and through
thinking aloud. I think letting the students be in charge of creating and the teacher
guiding is best practice. I use lessons through my Leveled Literacy Intervention kits
each day, but I am always looking for better ways to approach writing. Writing and
reading go hand-and-hand.

How This Information Will Help Me

I would like to look into more of Tompkins books and research on writing. I also have
been speaking with the instructional coach at my school about writing. My instructional
coach is forming a writing committee at school and we will have a few professional
development days on this topic.

Carmen Lemen
Professional Reading
Article: Reading Rockets
Every Teacher, Every Day: What Teachers Need to Implement Effective Reading
Instruction
By: Donna Mecca
Key Points

A group of teachers got together to analyze and take a step back to refocus, energize and
connect on the topic of effective reading instruction. The following key points were discussed:

Teachers need time to teach language arts

Teachers need a yearly budget for their classroom libraries
Teachers need to be evaluated fairly
Teachers need assessment to guide instruction, not take away from it
Teachers need meaningful professional development
Teachers need student input

Connection

As I look at each of these areas within the article, I cannot help but agree with each and every
one. There are many times where I can remember saying, I want more professional
development on guided reading. I also would love to see my classroom library grow. I know
many teachers around me have spoken about assessment guiding their instruction and having
time to teach language arts.

How will I use this information

I would like to start some conversations with my coworkers regarding these topics and
how we can make changes
I would like to see less data and analyzing and more professional development
I would rather see joy of learning in our students, rather than raising assessment scores

Carmen Lemen
Professional Reading #2
Book: Strategies That Work: Teaching Comprehension for Understanding and
Engagement
Author: Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis
Chapter 10 Determining Importance in Text: The Nonfiction Connection

Key Issues & Points

This chapter focuses on gaining important information from text read by students, how
students can form an opinion from the text, and how it can be merged into their own
thinking process. Students for many years are asked to pick out and/or highlight the
important information when reading. However, there needs to be a process of steps
shown to sort details and make sense of the information. This chapter shares strategy
lessons to help shift the students frame of mind when reading and collecting information.
Another point throughout this chapter was the importance of nonfiction within the
classroom. NONFICTION READING IS READING TO LEARN

Connections
When thinking about my students and reading to find the main idea or important
information in the text, I can see them struggling. I use graphic organizers and we read
through the information together. We make connections from the texts and link them to
larger concepts. However, I did realize after looking through my classroom library, I DO
 NOT have enough nonfiction text. I did follow the trend of about 80% fiction and 20%
nonfiction.

How This Information Will Help Me

The first step will be to gather more nonfiction text for my classroom. This will be the best way
for students to make connections and see the bigger picture. I also will be using the lessons
within this chapter to help students form opinions and find the most important information in text
read.

CASE STUDY
Carmen Lemen
Internship in Reading Instruction
Case Study
Fall 2017

I chose Student A for this case study due to reading scores based on her Individualized

Education Plan and data gathered since kindergarten. Student A is currently in second grade and

has been receiving support for comprehension, fluency and decoding. This student enjoys

looking through picture books, makes great connections to the text and does a good job self-

correcting while reading. The willingness to improve and excitement to read is something

Student A shows every time we work together. However, she struggles with adding and/or

changing endings to words, adding words while reading and reads at a very slow rate.

My district administers a reading benchmark called Fountas and Pinnell Benchmark

Assessment System in the fall. This system is leveled A - Z, and students are to progress through

the levels to be proficient in their reading grade throughout their grade levels. This benchmark

system tracks accuracy rate, self corrections ratio, fluency score, and comprehension. Student A

is currently reading at an instructional Level E within this system. Level D was independent and

Level F came out as hard for Student A. This level puts her about four levels behind being

proficient for 2nd grade. The graph below will show Student A scores when benchmark was

found to be at her instructional level.

 Fountas & Pinnell Benchmark Assessment: Summary of Scores

Category Scores Need

Words Correct/Accuracy Rate 167/171 97%

Self-Correction Ratio 1:0

Fluency (key 0-3) 3

Comprehension Satisfactory

Level of Instruction Level D Easy

Category Scores Need

Words Correct/Accuracy Rate 181/198 91%

Self-Correction Ratio 1:9

Fluency (key 0-3) 1

Comprehension Limited

Level of Instruction Level E Instructional

Words Correct/Accuracy Rate 163/201 81%

Self-Correction Ratio 1:4

Fluency (key 0-3) 1

Comprehension Unsatisfactory

Level of Instruction Level F Hard