I performed a running record for two students who are
English Language Learners. One is a Spanish speaking and the other is from Nepal
and speaks Nepalese. Both are in the 7th grade. I used the Burns Roe
Informal Reading Inventory and ended up using grade level 5 for the Spanish speaking
student, and grade 1 for the student from Sudan based off of how long they have
been in the country and their level of English proficiency.
The first student, whose primary language is Spanish, has
been in the states since birth, but Spanish is the primary language spoken at
home. She did a good job on her passage
and read 125 out of 131 words. She missed words that were in the higher level
vocabulary range: demolished, wrecked, radiators. Two of the other words she
missed were sigh words: to and our.
For the word demolished, she tried to sound out the
beginning of the word, looked at me and then skipped the word. I would say that
meaning interfered with her being able to understand the word. If she looked
around at the context clues, she could have inferred what the word was based
off of her background knowledge and the beginning sound.
Wrecked was pronounced /wreck-ed/. She made the word two syllables.
This shows that the student is unfamiliar with the sounds that –ed makes. She
needs to be taught all the sounds of –ed and when each sound takes place.
As far as the sight, I believe that she was going too fast
and just overlooked the words and said them incorrectly. She said the words
correct when she saw them in other parts of the passage.
The other student from Nepal has been in the states for less
than one year. The family are refugees
from Nepal, and her parents died shortly after coming here. Currently she is in
foster care, and has not consistently gone to school based on the fact that she
has been transitioning from one home to another.
I gave this student the first grade passage and immediately
it became clear that she had no idea what was being presented to her. It
appears she has had very little instruction on reading English. This student
only knew the words I and the. She had no other knowledge of the words. I didn’t even make this students continue
reading because the look that appeared on her face explained how she felt.
After this testing I went and spoke to the ELL teacher at our school. The teacher is only at school in the mornings
for 50 minutes and then leaves to go to other schools. I asked if this student
was receiving any phonics or phonemic awareness and she informed me no because
of all the different levels of ELL students that are in the class. I hate to
think that this student is not receiving the type of services that she needs. She
needs to have direct systematic instruction in phonics and PA. It is such a shame.
Britany,
ReplyDeleteWhat a sad story. All students need assistance, it is sad they are not getting it. You make a good point and that was good of you to observe her frustration level and stop before it got worse. Is there a peer mentor who may be able to help her? I am currently tutoring a fourth grade student in phonics and phonemic awareness because she missed this instruction due to illness in her early grades, and I have been pleased that she is progressing. These components are so important!
Anna
how do you teach alphabet your child in your country? could u help me by commenting please. I m from nepal.
ReplyDeletePuspa,
DeleteAre you talking about the sounds of the alphabet or writing it?
If you are talking about the sounds for reading and writing you would begin with phonemic awareness and phonics. Phonemic Awareness is where you learn that words are made up of individual sounds, which are called phonemes. This is all done orally. An example would be to know that the sounds in the word cat are /k/ /a/ /t/. The other part is phonics and that is that letter sound correspondence. This is the visual one. You see a word and you know that the letters make a specific sound. Here is a video of what I mean. It is very juvenile so I apologize, but it shows the letter sounds relationship.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saF3-f0XWAY
The English language is very tricky because many of our letters have a variety of sounds depending on how they are use. Also, some of our words do not follow the rules and these are called high frequency words (Dolch words) and cannot be sounded out, so often time you just have to memorize them.
Here is another website that might be useful for phonics.
Hopefully I helped answer your question. Please let me know if you need anything else.
Sorry....
DeleteHere is the other website:
http://www.abcfastphonics.com/
That makes me really sad to see a 7th grader struggle to that degree in the area of literacy. If the teacher is only in the school for 50 minutes, does she provide ideas for the teacher to support the student? What are the plans to catch this student up? Is she in RTI?
ReplyDeleteI cannot imagine what this student is going through. Sometimes trauma gets in the way of learning English, even the trauma from moving to a new country, and this student has experienced the greatest loss. Is she receiving mental health services? Certainly...
ReplyDeleteI agree that this student needs intensive phonics and PA therapy. We are sometimes a student's biggest advocate (even if we are not the classroom teacher); good for you for asking the ELL teacher about interventions for this student. You may also want to ask the classroom teacher or interventionist. I fear what may happen if this student does not receive correct interventions ASAP.