A Teacher's Job

Teaching should be full of ideas instead of stuffed with facts

(unknown)

Today's session was awesome...I actually accomplished what I had planned to do with my student. This is great, because it means that I'm either getting better at giving tests, or my student has gotten my assessment routine down pat, or as Mar pointed out earlier, could it be because he knew all those goodies were waiting to be munched on during breaktime? At any rate, I now have a pretty good feeling where he's at as far as instructional level in reading. I just need to assess him a little bit more, and then, I'll be on my way to starting my diagnostic case report.

I want to end this posting by wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving and to let you know how much I value your friendship and support. May God Bless you all!

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MAGECal Support!

www.gods-inspirational-world.com

We're half way there and I don't how I could've done this without all your support! It's been such an experience thus far, I look forward to writing my diagnostic case report, as I'm sure all of you are! I just want to wish everyone a HAPPY THANKSGIVING!! Like what my post says: I Thank my God upon every rememberance of you. -Philippians 1:3

The End...or is it?

While we've all for the most part finished gathering our data, we still have the huge task ahead of writing up our Diagnostic Case Reports.  It's the end, but it's not!  I'm confident that we've all accomplished all that we've needed to, even despite the curveballs thrown our way.

(Taken from http://www.webseoanalytics.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/summary-almost-there.jpg)

I'm glad that I can finally pin down the Reading Levels of my student.  Now I'm in a better place to devise my plan of attack for next semester.  It's exciting as I envision what the next year holds for us.  I know it's going to inspire us more as we see our harvest growing before our eyes.  The rewards will surely be there, that reason why we teach.  We're seeing glimmers of it now, but get ready for explosions of knowledge!

I want to share Baba Dioum's quote, "In the end we will conserve only what we love.  We will love only what we understand.  We will understand only what we are taught"  (http://thinkexist.com/quotes/with/keyword/the_end/).  How great is it for the students that they have such caring and wonderful teachers in you that are expanding their horizons of understanding and, in doing so, are expanding their capacity to love!  Love you all, Team MAGEC!

With each step we take...

"Four steps to achievement: Plan purposefully. Prepare prayerfully. Proceed positively. Pursue persistently." - William Arthur Ward.

This final session has given me an idea of Kayara's strengths and weaknesses in regards to phoneme awareness and phonics. The Reading Success Network assessment book I used today has helped me to recognize where I need to begin as far as strategies for next semester. Once she becomes more fluent in areas such as consonant blends and short vowels, it will help her with her reading fluency. All the sessions we have had for this semester was a great learning experience. I have a better understanding of the hard work and documentation that reading specialists need to do. The final product for this course is taking everything we assessed and compiling it into a diagnostic report. It will give us the chance to brush up on our writing skills that we have acquired from our undergraduate courses. Good luck to us all.

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ED643 Diagnostic Case Report Criteria and Happy Thanksgiving!

If you can read this, thank a teacher.
~ Anonymous Teacher ~

Dear ED643 Students,

Happy Thanksgiving! I'm sure that your students are grateful for all that you've done for them. As you continue to work closely with them with the various reading sessions (especially during next semester), they will READ with a more positive disposition. Keep up the instrumental work, and don't forget that you must include the following in your diagnostic case report before it can be approved:

1. For the interview with the child, it is not enough to list the child’s responses. You must also analyze the responses to describe what the data reveal about the child’s perceptions of him/herself as a reader and writer.

2. Determine the independent, instructional, and frustration levels on graded word lists, oral reading of narrative and expository, silent reading of oral and expository, as well as listening comprehension.

3. Compare these levels and analyze the data to describe the child as a reader in the conclusion of the report. Ensure that you also summarize the child as a writer in the conclusion. List and describe the recommended strategies for both reading and writing.

4. Provide an analysis of the miscues that the students made on the graded word lists and the passages. Read the section in the QRI-4 on how to analyze the miscues.

Do your best to include the aforementioned, so that you can prepare a quality Diagnostic Case Report to share with the parents. Good luck!

Best regards,
Dr. Rivera

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Thanksgiving image source: sierratradingpost.com

Finally, some clarity.

Orchestras have become used to the emphasis on the separation of layers, of the ultimate precision and clarity. - Esa Pekka Salonen

Today was good, I was able to determine, with clarity, with separate layers, my student's independent level. He ran roughshod over the level three readings. I'm going to test him incessantly on the level four to see if he can hit instructional, but we'll see, I'm not sure where to put him if he test at frustrational at both levels five and six. Regardless, I was excited that he read the Shortcuts this week, and hopefully found that he can recall information that he reads when prompted. I also had him choose which type of reading to do today, the expository or narrative, and he chose the narrative, so for fun reading, over the break, I'm going to try and find some good fourth grade narrative books and stories I can have him read at the beginning of the semester, and some fifth grade books for him to read toward the end. I might look for boxing since he mentioned he likes PXC fighting. We'll see what I can rustle up while I'm in the states. Anyway, it was nice to get a little more clarity on that as well. That's all for now.

Quote Credit:

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/clarity_2.html

Image Credit:

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The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet

(Aristotle)

We're nearing the end of our assessment sessions with our students and I'm feeling very insecure right now, maybe because try as I may, I know that I haven't conducted nearly enough tests to properly diagnose him. I'm pretty sure I know where his functional and independent levels are at, but without the right amount and types of assessments, I wouldn't be doing him justice by second-guessing his reading levels. So, with his parent's permission, I'll be conducting more everyday after school, starting next week.

Our situation is not due to a lack of willingness to cooperate, but rather on the contrary. He's gets really excited and motivated to start our sessions; it's just that he's a slow reader and tends to get distracted and lose his concentration on the task at hand. And, because of the way that he is, his attention span is rather short. It'll be interesting to see what happens with him next semester, and how far he'll be able to progress. I have no doubt that he'll eventually make progress in the development of his literacy skills, but how much progress remains to be seen.

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Working Alone!

http://res.binscorner.com/i/inspirational-quotes/part-003.jpeg

Although my student did not show up today, I plan to call and reschedule for a meeting next week. I did get a chance to start my Diagnostic Case Report, which I felt was a productive start. Sometimes it's such a pain when things don't go your way, but I have learned to accept things, think about it, get over it and like the quote says: " Get ready for success."

Patience is a virtue!

As each session progresses, I see more and more ways that I could help my student understand his readings better.  He can almost understand the concepts but just seems to need a little more time and prompting.  I think that a part of the reason he is doing better in these latest readings is that the concepts are a little more familiar to him (toys and birthday parties).  I don't think that he knows that he can rely more on his prior knowledge or that it is a resource that he can tap on as he thinks about the readings.  I didn't want to "contaminate" his assessment results the first time around, but I do want to make it clearer to him that his existing schema is invaluable!  We're making great progress, but we'll see if I'll have enough data to go on as we wrap up our clinic assessments.

(taken from http://www.offthemarkcartoons.com/cartoons/1994-11-09.gif)

I think that as my impatience to show him more strategies to help him do better, I should keep in mind this quote by Liberty Hyde Bailey, "A garden requires patient labor and attention.  Plants do not grow merely to satisfy ambitions or to fulfill good intentions.  They thrive because someone expended effort on them" (http://wiredthoughts.com/blog/2010/05/14/patience-quotes/).  The time and effort we put in now will help give us a more solid direction when we get to work more concretely with our students next semester.     And our case reports won't get done if we don't put in the necessary work now to gather all the data we can. We'll get there sooner than we think!  Go, Team MAGEC!

Hurry Up and Wait

Col_3:12 Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience,

Quote Citation http://live.e-sword.net/app/

I am upset that I am behind in sessions, just as I made one up, I have to make another one up. Frustration. But, I have my plan, I just have to execute and be patient with it. I must admit as well, I am excited to see where my student will place on each assessment. I am also excited to see his writing samples as they will be different than the samples I have from him in my Social Studies class. I hope that he takes some time to look over the Shortcuts I give him over the weekend, I also hope he studies for our map test in my Social Studies class. He told me today that he is quite busy at home with chores and household business. I might speak with the mom to let her know that he has homework for our reading clinic. Hopefully things will turn around a bit for us and we can get back on track. For now, I must be like the cat, wait, wait, wait, then atttack! With lots of assessment. Yeah.

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"Real strength comes from within"

"Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength."-Arnold Schwarzenegger

What a day! It all started with the morning. I was one of the teachers selected to participate in the testing being administered to determine what areas our students need improvement in regards to Language Arts and Math. My poor students were not even permitted to use calculators or rulers. The testing took about an hour and then back to D.I. schedule. I was able to get off during the early afternoon to go to my jury service. Although it was just an orientation, it seemed like forever. All I kept doing was looking at the time because I really hoped to get out on time to pick up my student and bring her to the clinic. Thank the Lord for his blessings and giving me the strength to get through a hectic day. However, tomorrow is the presentation for the Language Arts Conference so that is just half the battle of a busy week! My student was such a joy today. She was able to help me determine that level two was her frustration, level one was independent, and the primer is her instructional level based on three different assessments from today. I know though that she was getting tired so I decided I better wrap it up. Once again, I thank God for guiding me to get through today.

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