Self Evaluation

One of my strengths during this process included forming a good professional

relationship with the student I was working with every day. I was able to find out his likes and
dislikes and use that to implement strategies that included his interests. By doing this, he was
more excited to read and try whatever I had created for him that day. Another one of my
strengths included coming up with creative and fun visual activities for the student. He expressed
to me at the beginning of working with him that he is a very visual learner, and that he did not
enjoy reading much because looking at words was “boring”. I was able to find and create
strategies that brought reading to him in a new way which included many visual aspects such as
highlighting, starring, visual cards, etc. I believe that my strategies were more successful because
of the visual aspects that I implemented to keep him engaged.

An area I believe that I need improvement in is knowing where exactly to have students
stop when assessing them, and what frustration level is for different readers. I still struggle with
wondering whether I had the student stop at an appropriate place when reading word lists and
passages, or if I should challenge them more to keep going. I never want the student to feel like I
am intentionally making them read past frustration level, but I also understand that some students
need to be challenged more. This is definitely an area that I am working to improve on going
forward into my teaching career.

I have learned many new important lessons about reading intervention by completing this
case study. One very important lesson that I have learned is how important it is to get to know
your students you are working with on an individual, personal, basis. By doing this, you open up
a new relationship where the student is less afraid to make mistakes, and they feel more
comfortable trying new strategies and techniques to improve. Interviewing them, asking
questions about their family, interests, likes, dislikes, and what they love or hate about reading
and writing are all ways that you can get to know a student. It unlocks a gate for communication
and the potential for a child to earn your trust. This builds the foundation for you to know what
your students need academically and personally. A second thing that I have learned is that it is
important to learn about language in order to fully understand where the student is struggling in
reading and why. The more that I learned about language, which includes alphabetic principle,
phonemic awareness, phonics, spelling, morphology and vocabulary, the more effectively I was
able to implement strategies that would be effective. I have learned that a strong predictor of
reading comprehension is having a knowledge of words and how they work.