Write up: Lessons, Assessments, and Reflections Grade Level: K-1

Session 1: Assessment
During session 1, I assessed her using the Sonday System. She did not complete the entire
assessment because she is on a kindergarten reading level, and the assessment goes through all
of the elementary grade levels.

After starting the Sonday Assessment, I noticed that she was proficient in her alphabet sounds,
short vowel sounds, and some digraphs. However, I could not efficiently continue the
assessment with her because she was unable to read words with long vowels, words with the
“silent e” or “magic e”, blends, or vowel digraphs. The “silent e” is typically known in first grade,
so I could tell from this that she was falling a little bit behind. I’m wondering if other students in
her class fell behind, as well, due to virtual learning during the COVID-19 “lockdown”.
Regardless, I knew I had to make sure to cover all of the skills she may have missed during
COVID.

Session 2
During the second session, I had her practice her short vowel sounds just to be sure that she
knew them and could use them confidently. She was so strong with her short vowel sounds, but
she did not know any long vowel sounds. I also focused on the letters ‘b’ and ‘d’ because I
noticed that she got them mixed up during the assessment in session 1. To bring the letters into
context, I read the book, The Dinosaur Who Lived in My Backyard by B.G. Hennessy. As I read
the book to her, I had her point to the ‘b’s and ‘d’s. I had her make a ‘b’ and a ‘d’ with her two
fists, so that she could compare them to the letters in the book. This helped her a little bit! I
originally wanted to do a shared reading with her using this book, but she refused to read it to
me because she did not like to read aloud. I kept this in mind for my next sessions with her so
that I could gradually get her more comfortable with reading aloud to me. Finally, I included a
writing and drawing component with each session because she had told me that she loves to
draw and color. I used her interest in art to give her something to write about.

Session 3
During the third session, I tried to introduce long vowels through a leveled passage that she
read once with me and once alone, but she had trouble recognizing some of the sight words in
it. She did not receive them well, and she tried to decode them when she saw them. I also
wanted to see how well she knew digraphs, so I had her read digraph letter cards to me. She did
good with most of them, but she did not seem too confident when she said the /ch/ and /sh/
sounds. I had her answer some questions about the reading passage in writing after she read it
to me, but because she could not read many words in it, so we had to go back to the text to find
the answers to the questions. I took note of her lack of sight word knowledge here. She was
also still reluctant to read the passage aloud, so I let her whisper read it to herself so that she
felt more comfortable. From this session, I knew what direction to head with her based on her
lack of confidence in digraphs.

Session 4
For the fourth session, I decided to take a step back and introduce her to some blends before
we moved into other vowel sounds and vowel digraphs. I also assessed her encoding skills using
the WADE assessment of decoding and encoding. I reviewed some digraphs with her, just for a
bit more practice with them, and then I introduced her to the welded sounds /ink/ and /ing/. I
read the sound as I showed it to her on a letter card and had her repeat after me. I wrote down
some words with these sounds, asked her to read the words with our new sounds, and asked
her to think of how we could use the word in a sentence. She did really good because she
naturally puts words into context in her head and makes sentences out of them! I did a read
aloud with her, then had her draw a picture related to the story and write a sentence about it. I
had her read her sentence to me so that she could get more comfortable reading aloud. During
session 4, I introduced the sight word app, Endless Reader, to her. I noted in the previous
session that she was unfamiliar with many sight words at her reading level, so I thought she
could use the engaging practice with sight words that the app would give her. The app read a
sight word to her, then had her drag the letters into the word to spell it as it read the letter
sounds to her. Then, it had her put the word in its correct spot in a sentence while it played a
scene on the screen that showed her what the word meant. I had her repeat the word after the
app read it to her, and I also had her read the sentence aloud after the app gave her the
sentence. She loved the game’s silly noises and characters.

Session 5
We reviewed the welded sounds /ink/ and /ing/, and then I introduced her to the welded
sounds /onk/, /ong/, /ung/, and /unk/. I introduced the sounds in the same way as I did in the
previous session. She created a drawing that pictured a sentence she wrote made up of some
new words using the welded sounds! I did a group session during this session with two other
students, so I asked her some comprehension questions about the book I read in the small
group session. She is very attentive when I read aloud, and she gets more engaged with each
story I read to her! I had her use the app Endless Reader at the end of the session again to
practice her sight words.

Session 6
I started my last session with a funny read aloud using a book called The Wonky Donkey by
Craig Smith (illus. Katz Cowley). She was very engaged with this book, as she usually us. She
made the donkey noise when she saw “hee haw!’ printed on every other page. It was so fun! I
also asked her some comprehension questions about the book, which she needed to look back
into the book for. I was okay with her looking into the book because that is a skill she will need
to use in the future! Next, I had her look through the pages of the book Click, Clack, Quackity-
Quack by Doreen Cronin. I asked her to find the words with the sound /ing/ in them, which she
did wonderfully. After this, I introduced her to the welded sounds /ang/ and /ank/ in the same
way as I had been doing for the two previous sessions. After we did some word work with these
sounds, I had her read Click, Clack, Quackity-Quack to me. I was so surprised and excited when
she happily answered “Yeah!” when I asked her if she could read the book to me! She was still a
little nervous once she opened the book and started to read, but her willingness and confidence
to read aloud made me so proud. I had her use the Endless Reader app again at the end of the
session to continue her practice with sight words. During the group tutoring session, I had the
students write sentences, and I noticed that her writing improved a little bit since session 1! Her
word spacing was better, and she used “and” as a conjunction when she was listing items in a
sentence. Previously, she would have just written the objects without using conjunctions at all!

Reflections:
Although I only got to see my student for 6 sessions, I am happy with the little bit of progress
that she made! She still needs some work to be reading on grade level, but I think her
willingness to learn and try things will help her catch up! I am most impressed with the
confidence growth that I noticed in her. She did not look up at me very much or read aloud to
me during the first couple of sessions, but as I gave her more practice, I really feel like she
realized that she can read books. This gave her so much more confidence and I think it gave her
much more excitement to read and to be more engaged with stories that were being read to
her. Confidence in reading may seem small, but it is a critical piece of the puzzle when a student
is learning to read. She also got pretty good at reading the sight words on Endless Reader. By
the last session, she knew all the words in the list she was practicing with! I am so glad I got to
work with my student this semester and see her grow!
 
Learning Style and Interest Inventories:
From the interest inventory, I learned that she liked to read on her own, but not always out
loud. I saw this during some of our sessions when she refused to read to me. She did not go to
the library or bookstore often, so I don’t know how many books she had access to, but she did
say that she liked to read.
From the learning style inventory, I learned that she was mostly a visual learner. She filled in
multiple bubbles for some of the answers, but she explained each answer to me as she filled in
the bubbles. For example, she filled in two bubbles for one question about getting distracted
easily as she said, “Well, sometimes, but mostly no.”
From these surveys, I made my lessons heavy on visuals by using picture books and having her
draw pictures to extend her knowledge of the stories’ events.