Student 2 is an 8 year-old, 3rd grade student.

Before giving this assessment, I had read with him for

the past 3 days so he was excited and ready to read with me again. This student is currently in
special education for reading, writing, and math. In his special education class, he is receiving a
computer based reading intervention so reading aloud with a teacher is something he is not used to.
It is for this reason that he was excited, but I could also tell he was nervous when given the
assessment. In October, when I gave him Fountas and Pinnell’s Baseline Assessment (BAS), he
scored an independent and instruction level C which is the end of kindergarten/ early 1st grade level,
because level D was too difficult for him. During this assessment, he was given a cold read of a
nonfiction book “Trucks,” which is a Fountas and Pinnell level H. While reading this book, he had 11
errors and an accuracy score of 94%. There were 9 meaning errors and 5 visual errors with a couple
omissions and a couple insertions of words. This student had 3 self- corrections which gave him a 1:5
self-correction ratio. The student was able to retell lots of information that he read, including what all
the different trucks were and their jobs. He was able to think about what the author was trying to
teach him which gave him a comprehension score of 5/6. This student didn’t stop at punctuation and
read quickly, often not looking all the way through words. This student had a fluency score of 1/3.
After looking at his fluency score, comprehension score, accuracy rate, and self-correction ratio, this
student appears to be at an instructional level H, which is considered to be a late 1st grade level. If he
continues to make this progress, he’s on track to make a year’s worth of progress this year.

Evidence of strategies Used:

Student 2 used meaning cues the most when he was reading. Out of 11 errors, 9 of them were
meaningful errors meaning that they still made sense. For example, he said “shot” for “shoot” and “in”
for “on.” This shows that he is still making sense of what he is reading. While he mostly used
meaningful cues, he also had some visual errors. This means that the words looked similar. For
example, he said “snowblower” for “snowplow” and “hears” for “hear.” Since the student had
meaningful errors and visual errors, it shows that he is checking for understanding and is replacing
words with words that make sense but look similar to the original word.

Strategies Needed:
Student 2 used meaning cues well, however, he might be overusing meaning cues which is causing
him to make some mistakes. The student is often filling in the words he thinks would make sense to
be right. For example instead of reading “put out fires” he read “put the fires out.” If he would have
looked closely at the sentence and read the words one to one, he would have caught this mistake. It
is for this reason that I believe the student isn’t looking at the words close enough and is trying to
predict what the next part will say. Student 2 is great at understanding what he’s reading, despite his
slower reading pace. Student 2 also needs to work on pausing at punctuation and slowing down
when he reads. This could also help him limit his mistakes.

Next Steps:
Instruction for student 2 should include looking at each word and asking “does that look right?” and
“does that sound right?” Right now, he is primarily using meaningful cues, so getting this student to
also look closer at the words will help him identify when he says the words incorrectly. For student 1
to get more practice on if the words look and sound right, he should do the activity “Stretch It,” (Ellery,
p. 66). This will help him look at each word and have to break it apart. Also, having the student track
with his finger to ensure he’s actually reading the word would also help. It’s important not to have the
student become reliant on this strategy, but to simply start with it. Finally, teaching the student to
pause at punctuation is also an important skill to practice. This can be practiced using the strategy
“Phrase Strips” (Ellery, p. 185).