17139 Oak Drive Detroit, MI 48080 April 18, 2012 Dear Mr. and Mrs.

King, In February, I gave Darius three different assessments a graded word list, oral reading passage and retelling assessment as well as reading inventory. The graded word list assessment, determines if a child is at grade level in terms of sight words and decoding skills. Out of the 80 words, Darius missed seven sight words and six decodable words. Darius score on the second grade word list is 75 percent; this places him slightly below the norm for a second grader. The second assessment, oral reading passage and retelling assessment is a two part assessment, first Darius read Spotty Swim to evaluate his reading accuracy and then he was asked a series of questions. Darius oral reading rate is 38.5 wpm this ranks him at the middle of first grade with a DRA level between 10 and 12. The third assessment, the interest inventory helps us better understand Darius interest level in reading and gauge how he feels as a reader. The following assessment has taught me that Darius feels he is not the strongest reader and that when he reads he in enjoys nonfiction and reading about Egypt. Based on my finding I taught two lessons, focusing on Darius weak areas in phonics and reading comprehension. For the first lesson we read Clifford the Big Red Dog and focus on long vowel words that end in e or have a vowel pair combination. Long vowel s were pick as an area in which Darius struggled having missed many long vowel words when taking the graded word list assessment. During the lesson students were asked to complete three tasks to reread the story with a partner to practice fluency and highlight long vowel words that followed the pattern, to sort long vowel word by their rule silent e or vowel pair, and to write a written response that required the students to make a personal connection with the text and use the text to support their choice. Darius did well on this lesson and was able to correctly highlight long vowel words in the text, sort words by the appropriate long vowel rule. Darius was also able to make a personal connection with the text and use evidence from the story to back up his reasoning. For the second lesson I selected the poem Everything On It By Shel Silverstien to help Darius on diagraphs sh, ch, and th. During oral reading and during the graded word list assessment Darius missed several words that contained diagraphs. The purpose of this lesson was to have students become familiar with another genre as well as work on diagraphs. Students again were given three tasks to reread the poem and highlight digraphs, to sort word according to sh, ch and th diagraphs, and to use evidence form the text to answer a critical thinking question about the poem. Darius did well on during this lesson and was able to correctly highlight diagraph words; only missing one in the poem and was able to identify and sort word cards without being told the pattern. Darius was also able to use the poem to make a pictorial representation of The Everything Hot Dog and used the poem as backup to his answer a critical thinking question.

Darius has made great improvement in hi reading skills and even recognized long vowel and diagraph patterns with in new text. This has in turn improved his reading accuracy and motivation. Additionally repeat readings of the same text have improved Darius reading fluency and confidence as a reader. A few suggestions to work on at home would be to do paired reading (possibly reading nonfiction selections) of stories at home where you read a page and then Darius reads a page. This makes reading more fun, but make sure to keep reading selections at Darius reading level either late first grade early second grade. Additionally, do a repeat reading of the same text. The repeat reading allows for deeper reading comprehension and better reading fluency. Thank you for the opportunity to work with Darius! Sincerely,

Katie Sine Title I Teacher