River and Ali (pseudonyms) are both in kindergarten at a parochial school. At first, my priority was getting to know River and Ali and their interests. I used the information gained during this first encounter to plan lessons that incorporated each students’ interests to make their learning more appealing. After talking to their teacher and listening to both River and Ali read some of their favorite books, Guided Reading Level (GRL) A seemed an appropriate level to being instruction (Richardson, 2009; Fountas & Pinnell, 2011). I used Boushey and Moser’s 2009 Reading Conference Form to document River’s and Ali’s reading behaviors, progress, and needs, which I noticed during our meeting times. After conducting several oral reading processes, …show more content…
The central focus skills were accuracy and automaticity (and comprehension), with the literacy strategy of cross-checking and increasing high-frequency vocabulary recognition. When River and/or Ali go stuck decoding a word, I often found myself telling them to chunk the words into different parts (i.e. yes//ter//day). Most words that the students encountered, at the GRL A consisted of high-frequency words (I, am, is, etc.) and CVC words (Consonant-Vowel-Consonant words). The specific skills modeled and employed to improve accuracy and decode unfamiliar words included: cross-checking, checking the beginning and ending sounds, chunking, and stretching and blending sounds (Boushey & Moser, 2009). I also had the students practice their high-frequency words and inventive spelling, many times in the form of a game (e.g. POP for Sigh Words, Hang-man, Letter-Word identification), to help with their accuracy as well as fluency. Before, during, and after reading the focus was always what the story about (and the connections students could make to their life experiences). Ali enjoyed the Letter-Word Identification game, played on whiteboards. The game required Ali to identify a letter/digraph, the sounds of that letter/digraph, and numerous words with that …show more content…
River and Ali made improvement of their automaticity of high-frequency words. This improvement was made because they have read and identified them multiple times with ease in the context of real and meaningful books. I also conducted running records (RR), to evaluate River’s and Ali’s reading and determine the central focus. After finishing my time with the students. Both students began to implement self-correction into their reading, through the strategy of cross-checking and identifying the beginning letter/sound of the