Michelle Lanford- Nov. Post-Conferences

I started conferences with my focus group by doing an Interest/Attitude Interview. This provided me information about the students' home life with questions such as: Who lives with you, Do you have any jobs at home, What do you really like to do at home, Do you ever read at home, When do you read at home, Does anyone read with you, Do you have a bedtime, Is there a tv in your room, What are your favorite shows, Do you have pets, etc. It also gave me information about school with questions such as: Besides recess and lunch, what do you like about school. Are you a good reader, What makes you a good reader, If you could pick any book what would it be, Do you like to write, What is your favorite thing you have written about, etc.  I felt like this would help give me a little more insight into each student's life as a learner. Then I completed an IRI for each of these students to see where they are and what they can do as of now. I found out that most of them are pretty good at decoding and "word calling," but when it comes to comprehension they are lacking. They could recall a few of the literal details but they really struggled with inferential questions. I know from this that I need to focus on this area of reading with this group. I also accessed the listening comprehension of each student in my group by reading the passage aloud. It was interesting to see that all of them could answer more questions correctly after I read it aloud. This tells me that these students have the reading capacity to improve.