Learner Analysis
Demographics
The instructional setting includes 28 second grade students in a rapidly growing suburban Elementary school in Utah. The school has more than doubled its population in the last three years. The population of this school is over 950 K-6 students with over 4% being ethnically diverse. The largest ethnic group of students at the Elementary is White. This is followed by Hispanic (1.5 %), Black (0.6 %), Mixed Students of two or more ethnicities (0.4 %) and Asian (0.2 %) (2011). Approximately 5% of students come from families that are economically disadvantaged. Class sizes range from 24 to 32.
Four students are classified as special education students. Three of the students receive speech therapy. One student is classified as TBI, Traumatic Brain Injury. Tier 1 Response to Intervention is being implemented for at risk students. Data is being gathered for two other students who have been identified as at risk for behavior. The at risk students are the target group of this research and Instructional Design unit.
The area of focus is reading comprehension strategies for non-fiction text. These students are below grade level for reading comprehension. The students are not using strategies while reading, especially while reading non-fiction text. On a comprehension test 68% of the class did not score above grade level. These students are not able to transfer knowledge and information from the text to real life situations, such as discussions about the text or answering questions about what they have read.
Prior Knowledge of Topic
Seventy percent of students scored below grade level in the non-fiction subtest on end of level tests from the previous year. When reading non-fiction books or passages the text str...
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...evel for the students that are not fluent. There are apps or websites that read the stories and highlight the information as students read along. This gives them even more opportunities and practice with implementing strategies and gaining the prior knowledge that is important to understand text structure.
Getting parents involved is essential. Many of the parents are willing to help their children at home and so informing them about the need for experience with non-fiction text is essential. The school is a high ranking elementary school in the State of Utah in the areas of reading, writing, math, and science each year since opening in 2010. Learning activities are supported by parent volunteers who value education. Parent involvement and expectations are high (2012). All of these strengths can be used to give students more experience with non-fiction text.
On October 10th, 2017 at Springhurst Elementary School, I conducted a “Reading Interest Survey” and the “Elementary Reading Attitude Survey.” These surveys were conducted on a 1st grade student, Jax, to determine what his feelings are towards reading in different settings, what genres he prefers to read, and interests. It was found that Jax doesn’t mind reading, but prefers a few different topics. This was evident through his raw score of 30 on recreational reading, and a raw score of 31 on academic reading.
The book Readicide by Kelly Gallagher is the ugly truth of the policies adopted in the school system to prioritized test taking strategies for the most part of the day and killing the enjoyment of students reading. The author points out that students’ reading has shifted negatively and the reading percentage has decreased. Students hate to read and classic novels are slowly vanishing from classrooms. The findings to Gallagher’s discoveries are research based and heartbreaking as the movement of standardized testing has been reinforced in most states. There are too many standards to teach and teachers are held accountable for students testing performance. Therefore, educators are forced to do test preps where students are provided with facts to be memorized and lack of comprehension. The author emphasized that students are no longer able to choose a book for the enjoyment of reading. Students’ interests are no longer taken into consideration. Students are reading less and less at school to make time for test prep. Gallagher says that as an educator and parent young
This mixing of inner-city and suburban cultures creates new challenges for students and teachers alike. Children from the inner city characteristically have lower GPAs, attend very few AP classes and have a dropout rate that is much higher than their suburban counterparts. This has been an area for much exploration and study throughout the years, but yet the trend of a knowledge gap among children seems to continue. Perhaps one area that needs to be further explored is the differences in cultural identity in these two groups of students and its impact on the education these students wish to achieve.
Response to intervention (RTI) is an assessment procedure that consists of a multi-step approach to progressively intensive intervention and monitoring within general education for purposes of improving achievement outcomes and accurately recognizing students with learning disabilities. Components of the RTI process include universal screening, multi-tiered levels of support, evidence-based intervention, and using students' responsiveness to evaluate the status of their progress (Jenkins, Schiller, Blackorby, Thayer, & Tilly, 2013). Universal screening measures for students are not likely to result in definite identification for special education. Before students are placed they must be correctly identified with a precise assessment procedure. Many students who are at risk, or struggle academically are assessed with the RTI model to prevent failure and determine eligibility of services. Students, who are identified as at-risk for reading difficulties are provided with additional instructional interventions, also known as tier two intervention, in addition to their regular curriculum instruction. Students with persistently insufficient response to tear two interventions are given more intensive interventions at tier three levels (Denton, Vaughn, Tolar, Fletcher, Barth, & Francis, 2013). These interventions provided are specific to each individual students needs and implemented in accordance to recommendations from their teachers. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the reading curriculum focusing especially on tier two and tier three instructional interventions of the RTI model.
Writing and Reading across the Curriculum. Laurence Behrens and Leonard J. Rosen, Boston: Pearson 2011. 274-279
Hispanics will represent more than one-quarter of school-age children in the United States by 2025. These children are more likely than others to be educationally and economically disadvantaged. Presently, 36 percent of Hispanic students live in families whose income is below the poverty line. As a result, Hispanic students are concentrated in high-poverty, largely racially isolated schools, and they often have limited access to the resources needed for academic success, such as highly qualified teachers, small classes, 21st century technology, and modern school buildings.
Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum. Tenth edition. Edited by Laurence Behrens and Leonard J. Rosen. New York: Longman Publishers, pp. 371-377, 2008.
Strategies necessary to comprehend informational text are different from those needed to comprehend literature (source), and since adults primarily read informational texts, these skills will be beneficial as students grow older (Kane, 2008). Moreover, since prior knowledge is necessary to understand texts (source), each subject requires its own reading skills.
Writing Assignment Two Introduction Special education includes addressing students’ academic needs as well as their behavioral needs. A student with a disability is not exempt from disciplinary measures, as students with can be suspended and even expelled from the school environment. More specifically, students with emotional disturbance can display maladaptive behaviors. These maladaptive behaviors can generate unsafe learning environments. More importantly, the creation of an effective behavior intervention plan (BIP) is imperative.
Even when low-income schools manage to find adequate funding, the money doesn’t solve all the school’s problems. Most importantly, money cannot influence student, parent, teacher, and administrator perceptions of class and race. Nor can money improve test scores and make education relevant and practical in the lives of minority students. School funding is systemically unequal, partially because the majority of school funding comes from the school district’s local property taxes, positioning the poorest communities at the bottom rung of the education playing field. A student’s socioeconomic status often defines her success in a classroom for a number of reasons.
"The Value of Children's Literature | Education.com." Education.com | An Education & Child Development Site for Parents | Parenting & Educational Resource. Web. 20 Oct. 2010. .
It is important that when selecting complex text educators look for specific factors that would meet each reader’s needs. These factors include language proficiency, background knowledge and experiences, and level of motivation. Depending on the factors mentioned, the educators can differentiate the instruction to meet the needs of the students where they could read a text and apply strategies learned. It is important to understand the text complexity because we do want readers to read text which are not challenging enough or that are extremely challenge that would make their self-efficacy low. Therefore, when Fisher & Frey (2012) stated the factors to take into consideration when selecting a text are established, readers would interact with the text. Moreover, the use of comprehension strategies like question and answer relationships (Reutzel & Cooter, 2016) would help the readers comprehend the text as they read
comprehension instruction: A comparison of instruction for strategies and content approaches ―[Electronic version]. Reading Research Quarterly, 44(3), 218–253.
The concepts included in providing a more diverse, multicultural education are requiring teachers to review their own issues and prejudices while expanding their knowledge of the many cultures that make up the classroom. These efforts help the educator recognize the various individual and cultural differences of each student, as well as gain an understanding on how these differences impact the learning process. The purpose of this paper is to reflect upon individual and cultural difference research and why diverse students struggle to succeed in school. Furthermore, I will share some instructional approaches I could implement in the classroom to accommodate diverse students. Finally, I will discuss the responsibility of educators in addressing the issue of how our o...
I attended a second grade class at Smallville Elementary on February 22, 2014; the class began promptly at 0855. There are 26 children in this second grade class. There are 15 male students and 11 female students. The student diversity is 2 Hispanics, 1 African-American, 1 East Indian, and 1 New Zealander (White but with an extreme accent). Three children were left-handed.