Study Guide for Chapter 5 (Howard Street Tutoring Manual—Morris)
Answer these questions and post the responses into your blog.
1. What grade is Curt in? 3rd
2. Look at the summary of scores in the table on page 170. Notice that there are scores for the grade-level lists of words from the Word Recognition Test (Flash and Untimed) and scores for orally reading grade-level passages (accuracy of word reading, e.g. percentage of words read correctly and rate, expressed in number of words read per minute).
a1. What was the flash score for words at:
first-grade level? 75% second-grade level? 50% third-grade level? 20%
b1. What was the accuracy score at:
1-2 level? 97% 2-1 level? 90% 2-2 level? 84%
c1. What was the rate score at:
1-2 level? 65wpm 2-1 level? 44wpm 2-2 level? 36wpm
d1. Look at the spelling scores in Table 5 on page 172: What was the percentage correct score for:
first-grade words: 75-95% second-grade words: 50-75%
Consider the expected scores in the following tables, then compare those expectations to the scores Curt produced.
a2. With the Word Recognition Test, flash scores are generally interpreted as follows:
90-100% indicates Independent Level
60-85% indicates Instruction Level
Below 50% indicates Frustration Level
a3. Which grade-level flash score is the best choice for Instruction Level? Grade level 1-2 (First grade, second half of the year)
b2. With oral reading accuracy, scores are generally interpreted as follows:
98-100% indicates Independent Level
65-97% indicates Instruction Level
Below 92% indicates Frustration Level
*Note: 92-94% accuracy is marginal; take a close look at Rate.
b3. Which grade-level accuracy score is the best choice for Instruction Level?
Second half of 1st grade, and into 2nd
c2. With oral reading rate, expected grade-level ranges are as follows:
Grade Words per minute
1st 45-85
2nd 80-120
3rd 95-135
c3. What do Curt’s rate scores indicate about his grade-level reading? He is at a first-grade reading level, but it is lower than is actual grade level.
d2. With spelling scores, around 50% correct indicates Instruction Level.
d3. What do Curt’s spelling scores indicate about his Instruction Level. He is still developing the grasp on one-syllable word patterns..
Put all of these scores together, and what do they indicate Curt’s reading level to be? He is at a late first grade, early second grade reading level.
3. Look at the spelling errors that Curt makes. What stage of word knowledge is Curt in? Curt’s errors showed characteristics of the Letter-Name and Within-Word Pattern stages of development.
4. Why do you pick this stage of development? What are the key characteristics? He was able to represent short vowels as well as showed knowledge of consonant clusters. Yet he was unable to mark long vowels in several words.
5. Describe partner reading. Partner reading uses a tutor and a student. They rotate reading pages aloud. The tutor asked questions every so often. Students often feel comfortable reading with partners.
6. Which is harder for a student, partner reading or DRTA? I personally think it depends on the students. Some students may get left out of the class discussion of DRTA and able to learn better with a one-on-one atmosphere. Others thrive in the DRTA and really grasp the comprehension part of reading.
7. In planning a DRTA, what is important about selecting places to stop? It is important to stop at a point where it isn’t ‘awkard.’ You wouldn’t want to stop mid action but right before the action begins. It is helpful for the student to predict what will happen next. This prediction makes the students recall what they already know from the story.
8. In planning a DRTA, what is important about deciding questions to ask? What kind of questions? How many? By asking question, we must choose what to ask in a manner that will tell us what the child understands about the reading. Prediction questions are equally important. This allows them to hypothesize what will happen based on recalling information from past pages.
