Based on Mary’s QRI-5 assessments, the instructional focus
for the remainder of her third grade school year should build upon her strength
in word identification to improve reading comprehension and recall. While she demonstrated proficiency in reading
accuracy at the second grade level, Mary was unable to achieve nearly the same
levels in recall of supporting details of the expository passage titled “Whales
and Fish”. The resulting “frustration level”
assessment score of her recall and comprehension abilities indicates a strong
need for intervention.
The constraints of time of this last quarter of the school year
will be a large determining factor in the intervention provided to Mary. Without the benefit of several months to
administer intervention, assess the student’s progress and adjust the
instruction, the intervention will be structured daily for four weeks. We will use a team approach to provide varied
instructional technique while adhering to a common objective of helping Mary
achieve proficiency in recall and comprehension at the second grade level. The classroom teacher or a reading resource
specialist will work with the student individually for twenty minutes each day.
These sessions can be scheduled in the
student’s school day and/or before the school day starts. Her parents should be informed of the
assessment results and the desired objective.
With their support, the intense, short term intervention for the
remainder of the school year can be accomplished.
The structure of the intervention will focus on short,
second grade level narrative and expository passages of starting with familiar subjects
before advancing to unfamiliar topics.
This strategy of using passages of familiar subjects will help Mary
practice activating her prior knowledge to comprehend her reading. By utilizing narrative and expository
passages, Mary will have opportunities to develop skills in story structure, main
idea, retell and recall from different forms of text.
At each twenty minute session, the teacher will ask Mary
read a selected passage aloud to monitor her reading accuracy and frustration
level. This read-aloud will also allow
the teacher to pause for instruction and emphasis to aid comprehension. After
completing the passage, the student will be prompted to verbally recall the
main idea and as many supporting details as she can remember utilizing a
graphic organizer as a guideline to the discussion. The teacher will ask additional questions to
assess the student’s understanding of the passage. After this unaided activity, the teacher will
instruct Mary to apply the “look back” strategy to verbally share additional
details from the passage. To end each
session, the teacher will repeat the main idea and supporting facts that Mary
recalled about the passage to demonstrate her comprehension and recall skills and
to reinforce her abilities to build confidence.
As the student makes adequate progress in comprehension and
recall as determined through close monitoring by the team, Mary will be tasked
with independently completing graphic organizers with and without using “look
back” on paper. Her written work will be
then reviewed verbally by the teacher to ensure Mary was able to express her
thoughts clearly to demonstrate understanding.
By scaffolding the task, the teacher can provide early support through
verbal interaction and prompts before gradually reducing such supports as the student
works more independently. By keeping
records of Mary’s recall and comprehension from each session, the team will be able
to assess her daily results and chart her progress through the four week
invention.
