Section I: Background Information

AT is a 10 year old in fourth grade. AT is participating in an after-school tutoring program

between her Prince Edward Elementary and Longwood University. She was recommended for
participation by her teacher. AT has been struggling with reading and receives reading support in
the classroom.

AT lives with her family and has a younger brother and older sister. They don’t have any pets,
but she would love to have a chocolate lab puppy. She likes history and reading graphic novels.

During our initial interview, AT said that she has difficulty remembering details when she reads.
Her teachers have assisted her with decoding unknown words and rereading text slower to
increase comprehension.

The initial assessments took place during two after-school sessions. She was very willing to
work with us and share her struggles and activities in and out of school.

Section II: Initial Assessments Administered

● Qualitative Reading Inventory (QRI-V)

● Words Their Way Spelling Inventory (ESI)
● Student Interest Inventory
● Elementary Reading Attitude Survey
● Writing Sample

Elementary Reading Attitude Survey

Raw Score Midyear Percentile Rank

Recreational Reading 30 54
Academic Reading 26 46
Reading Attitude Total 56 48

Graded Word Lists

Grade Level Percentage Scores (100%)

Third Fourth Fifth

Automatic 100 90 85
Total Correct 100 90 85
Functional Level IND INS FR

Reading Passages
Readability Level Third Fourth

Passage (Fiction) A Special Birthday Amelia Earhart

For Rosa (Nonfiction)
(Fiction)

Total Accuracy 100% 100%

Total Acceptability 100% 100%
Rate 161 wcpm 83 wcpm
Retelling >50th % <50th %
Comprehension 4 Correct 1 correct
Explicit 4 Correct 1 correct
Implicit 8 correct 2 correct
Total 6/8 (100%) 2/8 (25%)

Passage Level1 INS FRUS

Elementary Spelling Inventory

Spelling Features Raw Score Percentile

Consonants (beginning) 2/2 100

Consonants (final) 5/5 100
Short Vowels 4/4 100
Digraphs and blends 6/6 100
Long-vowel patterns 6/6 100
Other-vowel patterns 7/7 100
Syllable junctures 4/5 80
Unaccented Final Syllables 4/5 80
Harder Suffixes 1/5 20
Bases or Roots 1/5 20

Feature points 22/53 42

Words attempted 15/25 60

No. of correct words attempted 6/15 40

Spelling stage: Early Derivational Relations

Section III: Summary of Initial Assessment Results

Word Recognition
Qualitative Reading Inventory

The Qualitative Reading Inventory (QRI) is an informal assessment that assesses a student’s
independent, instructional and frustrational reading levels. This assessment provides information
on background knowledge, fluency, retelling and comprehension.

I administered the QRI word list assessment first, beginning with the Preprimer spelling and
increasing until the student reached the frustration level. The student demonstrated 100%
automatic recall from preprimer to third grade. The fourth grade list was at 90% accuracy and
fifth was at 85%. I wanted to add that the student was provided more time to decode words not
read automatically. The automatic recall between 4th and 5th grade word lists was close.
However, when given more time, she scored 100% correct on the fourth grade list and additional
time provided only a few corrections on the fifth grade list.

Fluency
Qualitative Reading Inventory

Based on the student’s word list scores, I selected a fourth grade QRI passage. All passages were
expository. The student read this passage with 100% accuracy at 83 WPM. Because of her
fluency rate and comprehension score, I retested her using a third grade fiction passage. Her
fluency level was 161 WCPM at this passage. During both of her assessments, I noticed that her
prosody was affected by yawning and a lot of repetitions.

Comprehension
Qualitative Reading Inventory

The Qualitative Reading Inventory was administered to assess comprehension. AT had limited
background knowledge of Amelia Earhart, the subject of the fourth grade passage. She was only
able to retell a few details after reading. She answered two comprehension questions correctly, 1
explicit and 1 implicit. When allowed lookbacks, she was able to answer 2 additional questions
correctly. I reassessed her using the third grade fiction passage. During this assessment, she had
more background knowledge and was able to share connections that she had to the concept
questions. Her fluency was in the independent range. The errors made were related to character
names - Joe for Jose and Rose for Rosa.

Spelling Development

Elementary Spelling Inventory

For AT’s spelling developmental spelling level, I administered the Primary Spelling Inventory.
She scored 100%. I assessed her using the Elementary Spelling Inventory. She demonstrated
strong understanding of alphabetic, within word and syllables and juncture concepts. She
confused suffixes such as -or and er and base words such as sivil for civil. I determined based on
this assessment that her developmental spelling level was early derivational relations.

Motivation/Attitudes

The Elementary Reading Attitude Survey was used to collect information on AT’s attitude
related to academic and recreational reading. AT’s recreational reading score was higher than her
academic score. Her recreational score was in the 54% percentile and her academic score was
46%. Overall, her reading attitude scored in the 48% for her age group. AT enjoys reading
graphic novels, comic books and history. At home, she reads chapter books with her parents

III. Summary of Pretest Results

AT is in 4 grade student in Virginia. She is reading at a third grade instructional reading level.
Her independent level for comprehension is second grade text. AT has an average reading
attitude. Independently, she prefers graphic novels for the pictures.

AT has strong spelling skills, she is currently in the early derivational relations stage. She
demonstrated mastery of short vowel and long vowel patterns. She is working on uncommon
suffixes and base words.

AT’s instructional level is at a third grade level. Her fluency level is above the benchmark,
however it is affected by repetitions at the end of text lines. Her fluency is a reading strength that
should be monitored to help minimize the repetitions.

Reading comprehension is an area that needs additional support and instruction. AT had limited
recall of details during retelling. She also was not able to answer explicit or implicit questions
independently or with support of look-backs. The fiction passage was about a birthday and AT
connected well with this text. She had a high level of background knowledge. She had limited
background knowledge on Amelia Earhart. Her limited amount of background knowledge is
affecting her comprehension.

Recommendations

Since word knowledge and fluency were a strength of AT’s, she needs to maintain her skills and
strengthen her current skills and build knowledge of prefixes and suffixes.

Primary Goal

Increase attention to important details during reading to aid in retelling

Secondary Goal

Increase consistency in her reading prosody by minimizing repetitions.

Fluency and Prosody

Repeated Reading with Echo Reading

Repeated Readings build fluency and prosody. During the lesson, the teacher reads the passage
and demonstrates prosody. Next, the student reads the passage while the teacher times the
reading and collects a running record. After reading, feedback is provided and the student reads
the passage again. If necessary, a third reading can be done.

Reading Comprehension

Comprehension is the reason for reading. AT struggles to comprehend the text she reads. She
retells text read with few details not in sequential order.

Determining Importance/Graphic Organizers

AT does not recall details from the texts that she reads. She has better recall in fiction than
nonfiction text. Using a graphic organizer, the student stops at specific locations during reading,
to jot an important detail in the section or chapter read. Using this strategy and the organizer, she
will learn to monitor comprehension while reading and to reread when needed.

Word Knowledge

Word Chains

This activity will help AT retain and strengthen her spelling skills. Word chains can focus on a
specific skill or several skills. For this activity, I would focus on several skills such as short
vowels and vowel teams

Prefixes and Suffixes

Morphology was an area that was potentially affecting comprehension. This activity would
include common prefixes and suffixes. This activity will support her at her developmental
spelling level and connect to comprehension of text read.

Writing

AT’s writing is limited to a few sentences and very quick. When writing about something she
enjoys her sentences have limited details. She has difficulty writing summaries of text read.

Graphic Organizer
Graphic organizers are useful tools for collecting important details while reading. They can then
be used to write a summary of the test read. Using the graphic organizer from the comprehension
activity, AT will use the information to generate a summary for the text she reads.

IV. Summary of Tutoring

Janel and I worked with AT from February 9th to April 20th. We met for 8 1-hour sessions for
assessment and instruction. Janel and I each taught 3 1-hour sessions. We spent the first 2
sessions assessing and getting to know AT. We conducted a background interview and
administered the QRI and Word Study Assessment. During the last session, we administered the
QRI at the end of our final tutoring session.

It was a pleasure to work with AT. She was eager to get started each week. She shared activities
from her school day and about her field trip to Jamestown. Our tutoring sessions took place
weekly on Zoom sessions.

Based on our initial assessments, our primary goals for AT were to work on her comprehension
and writing. We wanted to maintain her fluency and word knowledge and also provide
opportunities to work on morphology skills to support comprehension. Our tutoring activities
supported objective to increase writing and support her writing.

Timed Repeated Reading

Timed Reading is a common activity to increase fluency. Our objective was to focus on
improving prosody. AT often repeated words and phrases when reading orally. For each of our
sessions, I modeled the selected text and provided feedback. AT read the passage, after I
provided feedback. Then she reread the passage to improve her reading time.

Word Study: Prefix and Suffixes

AT’s word study assessment showed that she is in the early derivational relations stage. To
support her progress in the stage and comprehension, we chose to focus on prefix and suffix
skills to support morphology skills. Instructional activities began with common prefixes and
connecting them to meaning. Each session introduced additional prefixes or suffixes.

Comprehension

Comprehension was the area of most concern. AT read grade level text fluently. Her prosody was
affected by repetitions at the end of text lines. During our assessments, AT only recalled a few
details from text read and was not able to answer questions. Providing look-back opportunities
allowed her to answer a few more questions without additional support. Comprehension
instruction focused on providing strategies to check comprehension and determine importance.
In these sessions, I taught AT to create a question from page headings to set the purpose for
reading. At the end of the chapter, she stopped and answered the chapter question. She recorded
the answer on a graphic organizer. This strategy was taught for several lessons and the graphic
organizer was used to generate a summary of text read.

Writing

Writing was a secondary concern. When presented with a prompt about a favorite activity, AT
wrote a few sentences quickly with limited details. She struggled with writing about text read.
The goal for our tutoring sessions was to create a summary at the end of each lesson of text read
that day. The activity would also help support her comprehension activities. AT needed support
during the first session to create a main idea and convert the organizer to a summary. By the last
session, she showed improvement in using the organizer to create the summary and was adding
additional details to her writing.

V. Post Assessment / Progress Monitoring Data

Post-Assessments

Time was limited for tutoring post-assessments. Based on the progress made during tutoring, a
4th grade QRI passage on railroads was selected. During the introduction it was quickly apparent
that AT had limited knowledge of railroads and trains. Additional questions were asked to
activate any background knowledge. If time had permitted another text would have been chosen.
Her WPM score was within benchmarks. However, she was not able to recall details or answer
comprehension questions after reading. Look-backs enabled her to answer a few questions
successfully. It is apparent that background knowledge as well her comprehension ability
affected the results of this assessment. If there had been time, I would have reassessed her with
another passage at the 3rd grade level to compare with the pre-assessment.

Fluency Progress Monitoring

AT’s WRC was initially tested at 99% for 3rd grade and 100% for 4th grade. Her reading rate
was affected by repetitions and yawning, however her 3rd grade fluency was 162 WPM. Her
fluency was monitored during tutoring and she showed improvement in her prosody and reading
rate. Her cold reading fluency increased from 118 WPM to 141 WPM during tutoring sessions.

Comprehension Progress Monitoring

AT struggled with recalling details after reading as well as answering questions about text read.
Fluency passages were selected to increase background knowledge and engage interest. AT’s
ability to recall details read from fluency passages increased with additional hot reads. In
reflections, I should have developed focused questions and collected quantitative data for each
repeated read.

Comprehension lessons focused on providing skills to support retention of details. The first
strategy was to set the purpose by generating a question. In creating the lesson, I did not expect
to teach this strategy. From this first session to the last, AT’s ability to generate a question, jot the
answer and recall details after reading improved. In reflection, explicit and implicit questions
should have been documented and data collected.

Writing

AT’s writing began with a few sentences on a topic of interest. It was less when asked to write
about text read. During the last sessions, AT was able to create a graphic organizer

VI. Future Instructional Recommendations

AT showed progress during our tutoring sessions in comprehension and writing. She would
benefit from continuing several activities and adding activities to support her literacy success.

Time Repeated Readings

AT’s reading rate as well as recall benefited from cold and hot reads. With the reduction of
repetition, her prosody improved and she was attending to punctuation. It is recommended that
she continue these activities to strengthen these skills.

Listening Comprehension

AT would benefit from working on her listening comprehension. Progress monitoring and
assessments showed that AT had improved her comprehension of text read, but needed more
instruction. This activity would focus her attention on the text and enable the instructor to discuss
the text, vocabulary and story elements with her. In addition, AT could use a graphic organizer to
jot important details that would later be used to summarize the passage. Secondly, instruction in
listening comprehension would also aid in increasing her background knowledge.

Comprehension

AT should continue to learn additional comprehension strategies. She would benefit from using
graphic organizers to aid in detail retention. She would also benefit from strategies that require
her to identify the purpose for reading. AT would also benefit from the addition of cloze
questions as well as open ended questions.

Writing

AT would benefit from writing about reading using graphic organizers to plan writing and record
details. She needs additional instruction in generating a main idea or topic sentence and
including three more details to support thinking.

Word Study
AT has stronger encoding skills. Her recommended word study focus would be learn to use word
parts to aid reading comprehension. She would benefit from instruction in common prefixes and
suffixes as well as latin and greek roots.

Attitude/Motivation

AT was always eager to work during our sessions. She enjoyed the activities and made progress
over the few weeks we worked together. However, the Attitude Survey showed that her reading
attitude is average. Her academic attitude is lower than 50%. AT needs to build her background
knowledge in content-area topics. She shared that she has an interest in history and enjoyed the
passages on colonial villages. However, she did not have ample background knowledge on
railroads to complete the QRI assessments. She did have limited background knowledge on
recycling and reusing and enjoys repurposing objects in her crafts.