Lesson #5

The final lesson with this student went really well.  He was doing a great job of following directions and completing everything I asked him to do.  The goal of today's lesson was to see how the student had progressed and practice some of the phonics skills that he was still struggling with.

Running Record
The student was reading a level K book.  He read with a 96% accuracy rate.  However, I noticed that he wasn't self correcting at all.  This led me to believe that although he was reading with good accuracy that maybe he isn't ready to move up to the next level.  I talked to the student's teacher and she said she wasn't going to move him up quite yet.

One thing I noticed about the student's running record is that he very rarely uses the structure cue system.  However, he is now using meaning much more often than he used to which is wonderful to see!  One thing that I feel the student did really well during the running record was his use of expression.  A specific example was that when he came to an exclamation point, his voice went up to show excitement.  One thing we talked about that he needs to improve on is looking through the entire word when he comes to a word he doesn't know.  We then talked about how he can "chunk up" the word to help him.

Phonics Practice
To work on the student's phonics skills, we clapped multisyllabic words together.  He did a wonderful job with this and I could tell this came very easily to him, so I explained to him that he can use this method of chunking up the words to help him with his reading.  Instead of clapping the words aloud, he could separate the syllables by pointing to each syllable in the word.

We also did a Systematic Sequential Phonics lesson.  The lesson focused on words that included vowel teams, which is something the student is still struggling with.  He is able to pick out the vowel that makes the sound, but he has a very difficult time knowing when to add a second vowel.  I think this is something that will come with more practice.

What I learned
Overall, I have learned a lot through this experience.  One very important lesson that I have learned is that not all students are motivated to learn on their own.  Some students need a lot of praise and rewards in order to complete a task.  Knowing that doing the task will help them learn isn't enough motivation for some students.  In these cases it's extremely important not to give up on the student.  It is so rewarding to see students grow and progress in their learning!

I am very thankful for having had the opportunity to work with this student over the course of the semester.  I have learned multiple different strategies that I can apply when I become a teacher and have a struggling reader in my class.  Not only that, but I have also learned the importance of building a relationship with each and every one of the students that we work with.