Ekwall/Shanker Reading Survey Analysis

“The Lonely, Good Company of Books” by Richard Rodriguez, is an expressive narration about the importance of learning through reading. The essay is a narration of his life from his early school years to high school and how he struggled with the general belief that reading books are the main source of education. “Open the doors of your mind with books” (172) he quotes from a poster over his teacher’s desk. He learned early on that books were the key to academic success. Even though his bilingual parents never read for pleasure, they instilled in him the value of books. This idea was repeated by his teachers that reading was the main activity of learning.

The student I worked with is in 5th grade. We did a DRA on a story called “Cry Foul”. This is a great assessment to assess a student’s reading ability in order to enhance his or her literacy achievement. I learned many things about my student that he likes to read adventurous books and books regarding sports. He wants to become a better reader by enhancing his understanding and vocabulary of the text. It’s also a bit difficult for him since English is his second language and a year ago he was taking ESL classes. It’s amazing that he has great goal settings that determines that he wants to become a better reader. The things that I observed about the student is that his oral reading is fluent since he had about three miscues in which one was

Zarennah seems to enjoy reading books that she is interested in her free time. The Garfield Survey shows that she is does not however reading books during her summer vacation, she rather be outside playing. Reading academically is not something that Zarennah enjoys. She feels that the stories do not interest her.

For the statements, “I enjoy reading books and I think reading is very important,” Student N circled thumbs-up. This reflects that the student has a positive attitude when it comes to reading. Student N also circled a thumbs-up for the statement, “I enjoy reading at home.” I asked the student if they read a lot at home and they responded with, “I don’t really read a lot at home. I like video games and watching TV.” I was interested in when or if the student reads at home and what they liked about it. Student N talked about how they enjoy reading bedtime stories sometimes. By their response, I could tell that they preferred reading at home when It involved another family member versus reading on their own. The student also gave thumbs-up responses to “I think I’m a good reader and I don’t have a problem finding books to read.” Student N seems confident in their reading and is aware of what they enjoy reading.

Hailey enjoys reading a variety of materials, but feels she is mostly reading assigned novels that her teacher has chosen for the class. She finds herself reading sometimes outside of the school day. She spends some time reading on her Chromebook, particularly articles or websites, but does not do this very consistently. She stated that she spends less than a hour reading each day, but almost all the reading that occurs is typically for class assignments. She stated that she visits the library within her community and her school infrequently. She thinks that libraries are an okay place to visit, but did state that she is sometimes overwhelmed and not sure what book to pick.

She read her AP Language and Composition summer reading books, In Cold Blood and Eats, Shoots and Leaves, she also read Percy Jackson The Lightning Thief, it was a great book. The school-piece she enjoyed the most was the In Cold Blood project because she was really into the book which really made her into doing the project. She loved how thrilling it was and how it kept her waiting for. The troubles she has read is trying to get into a book that does not entice her in the beginning.

I decided to survey Alanna J, for my informal literacy survey/interview. Alanna is a 7-year-old girl in the second grade. I meet Alanna and her wonderful mother at sneak a peek night. Alanna was very excited to see her new classroom and to meet her teacher. When Mrs. Chaney introduced me, Alanna gave me a big hug. I felt very welcomed and special. On the first day of school, she told me she loved to read. Mrs. Chaney asked her students, “Who wants to be my objective reader?” Alana was the first student to raise her hand to read. She is in the accelerated reading group and does not have an Individual Education Plan. I selected Alanna because she made me feel appreciated and is eager to learn. She has great attendance and I believe she will benefit from extra support.

Nadia was given the Elementary Reading Attitude Survey and for the first half of she was mostly marking really happy. At the end of the survey, she received a 37 for recreational reading and a 29 for academic reading. Nadia loves to read independently and I noticed she doesn’t like reading or answering questions in front of the class. A possible reason could be she is a new student or she lacks confidence in herself.

Sabina is the kindest and most polite student I heve ever seen. She listens carefully to the task has given by teacher. She enjoys listening center during the daily five time. She loves to read books and she reads books very well but unable to answer the questions when ask in english. However, she chooses to demonstrate her understanding with ellustrations of the story. Sabina is working on reading books using expresion and out loud by stopping at punctuation marks.

She does not have much motivation to read, but she is an average reader. Student A told me she enjoys reading mystery and adventure books, she especially enjoys reading the Magic Tree House series. Student A stated that her favorite subject in school would be gym or math. I choose to have Student A read the short story Jessie, Champion Skater. I brought three passages to the school to see which one would fit best with the student whom I was assessing, however this one seemed to fit the student the best.

My 2nd grade partner student seems to enjoy reading. She mentioned that she likes reading at home with her grandma before bed. While at school, she says that she has reading buddies that her teacher picks out for her but she likes to read alone while at school. She likes writing because she can create the story she wants! Some of her other interests include playing on her tablet, looking for new music on YouTube and she just recently started with karate. The information that was given to me from the teacher was that she has some behavioral challenges. From what I have noticed with my interactions with my student is that she enjoys reading but she gets off topic easily. She also pays attention to everything that I am doing when I am assessing her and she doesn’t like when she makes mistakes and is often frustrated or feels that “it’s too hard”. With some positive support on my end, she is usually able to read confidently after some affirmation.

I am basing this assignment on a female student named Suzy. She is in the 5th grade and is an avid reader. Suzy enjoys reading independently reading fiction books on her grade level and sometimes beyond. She has shown that she can comprehend the text and how the text works. She is capable of making predictions and understands that the text is something that influences people’s ideas. When she is not reading, Suzy enjoys spending time writing her own stories. In her writings, she uses vocabulary she has learned from the books. Suzy’s struggle is with reading non-fiction text. She does not enjoy non-fiction and often skims through the pages or passages. This creates a comprehension barrier and results in poor performance on assessments.

My proposed plan of action is to work on reading skills with this student. The main skills that I will work on are main ideas, summarizing, inferences and drawing conclusions. Reading comprehension involves many thinking skills. Readers who understand main ideas make better sense of a text and increase comprehension. When students can use main ideas to summarize information, this helps students recall important points. Making inferences and drawing conclusions are important reading skills. These skills help students derive meaning from language with layers of implied meanings. When students can make inferences and draw conclusions, they gain a richer and deeper understanding of the text.

A reluctant reader is something that most teachers will have to deal with at some point in their career. It can be very difficult for some students to get into the habit of reading for pleasure, it is also common for avid readers to be in a stage where they just do not want to read. This is a situation that I can relate to very strongly seeing as I love to read but sometimes find myself in a “reading slump,” where I struggle to motivate myself

Based on the discussion of Lucy’s personal interests inside and outside of school, it may be motivational and effective to inform reading and writing instruction by using her favorite book series, Jack and Annie by Mary Pope Osbourne. The series follows a brother and series through their time travels to places in the past, the future, and places that are only in their imagination. Lucy lit up talking about the book series and mentioned that she would like to take a magic carpet ride to Paris, France to ride around in an “electric wheel chair.” She made it known that the magic carpet ride would have to take place in the future because in the past there was “no sunscreen and everything was cheap.” Since Lucy enjoys time travel and animals, it may enhance her word and reading study by incorporate book with those themes. The Personal Interest Survey was the first assessment to be administered to the student. The next survey to be administered to the student will be the Elementary Reading Attitude Survey.