Welcome to RDG 568 SCSU Lecturer Mike Rafferty

1. Welcome to RDG 568 SCSU Lecturer Mike Rafferty

2. Please let’s start with: Name?What is your position?How many years have you been an educator? What district/school do you work at? What is your favorite food? Why? Be prepared to introduce your partner to the group!

4. English Journal 80 Years Ago Obstacles to Reading To arouse a taste for good reading is admittedly half of the province of the teacher of English, but that the present time furnishes particular obstacles to general and earnest reading among young people, no one can deny. Our chief recreations are automobile-riding and moving-pictures. With the building of more garages than homes in the United States during the past year, reading has inevitably lost some tricks in the game. As for the movies, whatever they may be as an educational force (and strong claims have often been set forth) frequent attendance upon them fails to increase a child’s power to read with understanding—and consequently with pleasure. Ida E. Melson. “Current Reading as a Stimulus.” EJ 13.6 (1924): 389–96.

5. All grown-ups were children first. (But few remember it). If you tell grown-ups, "I saw a beautiful red brick house, with geraniums at the windows and doves on the roof...," they won't be able to imagine such a house. You have to tell them, "I saw a house worth a hundred thousand francs." Then they exclaim, "What a pretty house!" Grown-ups like numbers. When you tell them about a new friend, they never ask questions about what really matters. They never ask: "What does his voice sound like?" "What games does he like best?" "Does he collect butterflies?". They ask: "How old is he?" "How many brothers does he have?" "How much does he weigh?" "How much money does his father make?" Only then do they think they know him.

6. “Teacher expertise is the most important factor  in improving students' learning.” (Darling-Hammond & Mc Laughlin, 1999)

7.    Novice                           Expert          As teachers, we all are on a continuum of growth and development with variation in breadth and depth of knowledge, instructional skills and strategies, and dispositions toward teaching and learning.

8. Discussion Web Which area are you better equipped to informally diagnosis students’ areas of difficulty? Reading Writing

9. Procedure • 5 minutes: In pairs discuss your answer and support each position • 10 minutes: In group of 4, introduce your partner with the group and share their expertise.

10. Assessment Trade-Offs • Norm-referenced • Comparability • Group administered • Informal • In depth information • Individually administered

11. Discussion Web What elements of skilled readers and writers are easiest to hardest to impact? Discuss and rank • Context • Instructional Setting • Instructional Practice • Instructional Resources • Assessment Practices • Learner • Prior Knowledge • Knowledge about read/write • Attitude /Motivation • Correlates of Skilled Performance (see pg 22-55)

12. Procedure • 5 minutes: In pairs rank the factors according to the two of you. • 10 minutes: In group of 4, share order and unanimously choose one answer. Develop a persuasive argument to present to the whole group.

13. What Research Tells Us • Study Valencia & Riddle-Buly (2004) • Understand the “garden variety” test failure - those students typically found in the regular classroom who are experiencing reading difficulty • Targeted word identification (decoding), meaning (comprehension and vocabulary), and fluency (rate and expression)

14. Tests Administered • Woodcock Johnson -Revised (WJ-R)Letter-word Identification and Word Attack subtests • Qualitative Reading Inventory - II (QRI-II)Reading Accuracy, Acceptability, Rate, Expression, Comprehension • Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT-R)Vocabulary Meaning • State Fourth-Grade Passages Reading Accuracy, Acceptability, Rate, Expression

15. Tests Administered • Woodcock Johnson -Revised (WJ-R)Letter-word Identification and Word Attack subtests • Qualitative Reading Inventory - II (QRI-II)Reading Accuracy, Acceptability, Rate, Expression, Comprehension • Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT-R)Vocabulary Meaning • State Fourth-Grade Passages Reading Accuracy, Acceptability, Rate, Expression

16. Tests Administered • Woodcock Johnson -Revised (WJ-R)Letter-word Identification and Word Attack subtests • Qualitative Reading Inventory - II (QRI-II)Reading Accuracy, Acceptability, Rate, Expression, Comprehension • Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT-R)Vocabulary Meaning • State Fourth-Grade Passages Reading Accuracy, Acceptability, Rate, Expression

17. Cluster Analysis

18. Cluster Analysis

19. Research indicates…. • Performance on tests of fluency and verbal knowledge/reasoning predict scores on the FCAT (Torgesen, et al) • Younger students (5th grade) who fail state reading tests are more likely to show weaknesses in fluency and vocabulary/ comprehension (Valencia and Riddle-Buly) • It is less likely that low-performing students will be weak in all critical areas but will show profiles of strengths and weaknesses (Valencia and Riddle-Buly)