report

Assessment Activities Log (Maximum 20 points)

Name _______________TH/FO_________________________

Decoding Skills Assessment

DATE TASK/ACTIVITY TOTAL HOURS

9/05 - Conducted teacher interview with Ms. Carter regarding student’s decoding history and classroom performance 0.5 hrs.

9/07 – Student interview about reading challenges and preferences 0.5 hrs.

9/09 – Observation during oral reading of grade-level passages; noted substitution and omission errors 1 hr.

9/11 – Administered decoding probes from DIBELS and easy CBM 1 hr.

9/13 – Analyzed error patterns (consonant blends, vowel digraphs) and documented results 1 hr.

Total: 4 hrs.

Expressive and/or Receptive Communication Demands in Reading

SEGC 6020 Integrated Instruction: Assessment & Learning

Expressive and/or Receptive Communication Demands in Reading

1. Focus Learner Information

a. Primary Disability

The subject learner, Aiden, has a Specific Learning Disability (SLD) that mainly impacts his reading comprehension and decoding fluency. His IEP indicates that Aiden has a challenge with phonological processing, vocabulary development, and expressive language. These weaknesses affect his performance in comprehending the grade-level texts, recalling the story elements, and building an understandable response orally. He frequently finds it difficult to locate principal ideas, remember details, and place things in a chronological order and thus ends up with an incomplete or disorganized retelling. In his IEP, it is also stated that Aiden responds to visual aids and that to enhance his comprehension and expressive communication, he needs repeated exposure to text.

b. Primary Learning Target

The primary learning target for the reading part is that by the lesson conclusion, Aiden will be able to retell a three-part story (beginning, middle, end) and determine the main details that reflect the overall idea in the story. This is in line with the Common Core State Standard RL.2.2 – which dictates the need to tell stories, including essential details, and show understanding of their main message and with his IEP goal that is centered on comprehension and narratives. This target is also relevant to help Aiden to convey knowledge in terms of coherent oral retellings and connect his receptive and expressive languages to each other.

c. IEP Goal/Benchmarks

The IEP goal of Aiden is based on the fact that under the conditions of reading a short story aloud, Aiden will be able to independently retell events in sequence (beginning, middle, end) in three sessions with 80% accuracy measured through the teacher observation and through a story map checklist. The benchmarks involve the ability to name the main characters, recount at least three details of the story and summarize the main idea using few prompts. These objective targets help him to advance toward narrative understanding and word fluency.

2. 5. Supporting the Focus Learner’s Use of Expressive and/or Receptive Communication

a. Communication Skill (Function)

The communication skill targeted is the retelling of a story in using full sentences and words in a temporal order (e.g., first, next, then, finally). This ability enables Aiden to possess comprehension skills through the ability to understand events verbally and tie concepts together. The edTPA model suggests that the learner should be able to utilize communication skills to gain entry to instruction and demonstrate learning in the language of the discipline, which, in this example, is reading (Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity [SCALE], 2013). Retelling helps in understanding because it involves Aiden to be able to process information in a receptive (listening or reading) and expressive (speaking) manner.

b. How the Focus Learner Uses the Communication Skill

This form of expressive communication skill will be practiced orally through Aiden summarizing stories during guided reading and small-group instruction. Upon listening or reading a brief story, he will fill in a graphic organizer of a story map with the identification of characters, setting, and significant events. Aiden will then retell the story to one of his peers or teachers using sentence starters or transition words. This exercise will enable me to test his comprehension of story structure, as well as his verbal communication skills in terms of sequence and detail. The use of sequence words and the use of complete sentences during the group discussion will indicate the development of Aiden in terms of his comprehension and growing expressive confidence.

c. Expressive and/or Receptive Communication Demands

Aiden will have to deal with a few expressive and receptive communication requirements in a bid to showcase the target skill.

· Demands Vocabulary Academic words such as character, setting, main idea, problem, solution, and sequence words (first, next, then, last).

· Syntax Requirement: The requirements are to build complete sentences with the use of temporal conjunctions to show an order.

· Social Use of Communication: Listening: to be attentive by listening, taking conversational turns, retelling and responding to peers.

· Situational Expectations: Academic tone, vocabulary fitted to classroom conversation, displaying an understanding of the situation by providing answers that are clear and well-organized (SCALE, 2013).

d. Learner’s Expressive/Receptive Communication Skills and Needs

Aiden exhibits some developing expressive communication skills. He is able to respond to direct comprehension and will skip transition words or important details in retelling. His receptive abilities are better; he responds to verbal instructions, recognizes narrative organization when presented with visual ones, and comprehends the plot where questions are read aloud. Nevertheless, the evaluation data indicate that he is able to identify major ideas with prompts but cannot articulate knowledge on his own. The edTPA guidance provided that the learner knows, can do and is learning to do assists in determining the supports needed to facilitate communication development (SCALE, 2013). Aiden is in the process of mastering the ability to structure verbal production and use academic vocabulary independently and has to rely on scaffolded language assistance and explicit training.

e. Instructional Supports

The instruction to promote Aiden in acquisition and/or generalization of this form of expressive communication will combine multimodal and scaffolded supports:

· Visual Aids: Story maps and sequencing cards would serve as tangible resources in order to arrange the events.

· Modeling and Guided Practice: The teacher will model the retelling of full sentences and transition words then leave Aiden to do it independently.

· Sentence Starters and Word Banks: Scaffolded materials will be used to make Aiden use academic words and correct syntax (i.e., First, the story begins when).

· Repetition and Verbal Rehearsal: The use of frequent paired retelling and group discussions will strengthen sequencing and fluency.

· Specific Feedback: To enhance the metalinguistic awareness of Aiden, the teacher will provide positive and descriptive feedback (i.e. you used first and then correctly to indicate the sequence of events).

Reference

Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity. (2013). Making good choices in special education: A support guide for edTPA candidates (Version 2). Stanford University, Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University.