Reflection #7

I visited my classroom that I will be student teaching in last week to get to know my CT better. She is great! I know I will learn a lot this coming year. One thing she showed me was a type of literacy test/evaluation for students who struggle in reading. The evaluation is done on a palm pilot. The student reads a selected text and that same text appears on the palm pilot which the teacher has. Every time a student misses a word, says it incorrectly or asks for assistance the teacher can touch the word on the screen and it is highlighted. The palm pilot program also keeps track of how many words per minute the student is reading. When the evaluation in over, the teacher transfer the information from the palm to the computer. It is all there, from the whole year. The program keeps track of the student's progress in the form of charts and graphs. This is great to be able to show parents their child's improvement or their child's lack of improvement. It is concrete information. I had the opportunity to view the evaluation of one ELL student. He was new at the school in the beginning of the year and had just moved from Japan. He did not know any English. At the beginning of the year, my CT said he was reading less than 5 words per minute. This time, he read 113 words per minute (The benchmark for 2nd graders is 90 words per minute). What an improvement! The evaluation looks at fluency and comprehension. Another student was still struggling very much in reading. He is reading 9 words per minute (This student is not ELL and does not have a learning disability, but social/behavioral issues). My CT was meeting with his mother after school. She had all the print offs of charts and graphs ready to show the mother. This program is great for meeting with parents because like I said before, it is concrete information, it is not an opinion. I am looking forward to using this program in the fall!