From Thin to Thick

Observation- Mike
2/20/13 @ 12:50

 

Mike is part of a 5th grade reading group. The group meets in the small area of my classroom (trailer). The trailer has been moved in to accommodate the growing student population at the school. Mike is an ESL student and receives decoding instruction. The students are seated at a kidney shaped table and have their materials out and ready to finish the lesson we started the day before. Mike asks if he can tell Jake what happened yesterday, since he was absent. Mike gives as many details as possible from the part of the story we have already read. The students are very engaged in this series of passages in our SRA Decoding book. The students pick up on the paragraph after deciding who read last. Most of this is done with little direction from me. Mike is sitting up in his chair and has one leg crossed over the other. He is fiddling with his shoestring.
Mike begins reading before it is his turn. The students quickly stop him and Hayden takes his turn by re-reads the sentence. Mike is next. His reading is broken and lacks fluency, but he tries to use expression. The voice sounds forced and could be taking away meaning from his peers that are listening. At the next pause, I addressed the issue with the whole group by asking them not to focus so much on the voices, but instead focus on the words they read.
At the end of the paragraph the group pauses for oral comprehension checks. Mike raises his hand for all questions and continues to play with the shoestring. I have called on another student, but Mike interrupts and asks to make a prediction. He says, "I think what Salt is gonna do is give Mrs. Higgins some treasure if she will let him pass." Making predictions is one of the skills we have practiced during our fluency based lessons. I am very pleased to see that students are thinking about what they are reading.
As part of the comprehension check, I ask Mike if he knows about customs. Mike begins talking about Mexico and how his family travels back and forth a lot when school is out. He doesn't specifically discuss the vocabulary word. The group stops to check understanding of the term and I explain what Mrs. Higgins, the customs officer, is doing. When we begin reading again the group argues over whose turn it is. The students do not usually argue and I have to choose someone to read. I ask Mike to read again. He misses several words and other students offer to help when he struggles to decode. Mike's miscues are mainly vowel errors. He attempts a word several times, each time replacing the vowel sound until he figures out the word. Mike follows along while the others read and is extremely focused, but continues to pull at the string. I don't think the string was distracting because he was able to correctly answer each comprehension question he was asked throughout the lesson.
At the end of the story, I ask students to think about their predictions. Mike quickly interjects and explains that his prediction was wrong. Mike said, "No, Mrs. Higgins didn't have to be bribed. They just explained they found it. They weren't in trouble. They were famous." Again, I could see that Mike was beginning to think deeply about the text.
The students begin their workbook page while I read with individual students. Mike worked quickly and was finished after I read with just two other students. His work was messy, but he answered all parts correctly except for the prefix suffix section. The students are supposed to remove the endings or beginnings and write the root word. Mike wrote the words ending in "e" without the final vowel. I need to work with the ESL teacher to better understand the mistakes that are language related.