On Wednesday September 30th, 2015 we spent the day in The Learning Academy again. After we were done with morning work, Tia and I went and made copies of DIBELS fluency tests to give to our students to produce a running record. A running record is when the student reads a passage or text for a given amount of time and you record every word that they struggle with, words that they omit or add in, and words that they get correct. Today, I didn't just focuse on Jackson during his DIBELS assessment though because Ms. Swan asked Tia and I to work with a new student, Max. So we tested him as well and then looked at his work afterwards.
When I gave Jackson his DIBELS reading assessment it took him 2 minutes and 18 seconds to read the first paragraph. I stopped him from reading the rest of the text because it seemed that Jackson was very distracted and nervous. Whenever the classroom got very quiet, so would Jackson. He would start studdering or stop reading all together. I figured it would be better to stop him sooner rather than force him to painfully read the entire passage and not look foward to working with me again.
Jackson self corrected the words empty, soar, teenager and some. He started to sound the words out and worked his way through them by splitting the word up by syllables. This seemed to be a very helpful and effective method for Jackson because then when he worked through the tough word, it helped his confidence and he would start reading more fluently. I did notice that Jackson would add sight words in sometimes when he did add words in. He added in the word the, to and a quite often. Jackson did this when he was rushing or trying to get through the sentence quickly.
I really feel that doing the DIBELS tests with him once a week can improve his fluency and reading comprehension because the more he practices away from the rest of the class, the more confidence and specific instruction he can receive from me. He doesn't have to worry about his friends making fun of him because he doesn't read as well as them.