The First Day: Observation and Assessment

On Wednesday, September 2, 2015, at approximately 8:15 AM, I administered the Elementary Reading Attitude Survey (ERAS), also known as the Garfield Survey, (McKenna and Kear, 1990), to Johnny. Johnny is in sixth grade under Ms. Jameson, but just transferred into the Learning Academy this year from another school. Since this is Johnny's first year in the Learning Academy, I was intrigued to see how his take on reading was as he had not been exposed to this type of learning before. First I will give the factual information about Johnny's results to the ERAS and then I will give my observations of his emotional response.

A quick debrief of the ERAS: The ERAS is divided into two different attitudes towards reading: Recreational and Academic. The student answers a series of 20 questions geared toward either attitude by rating their responses using the four Garfields. Each Garfield represents a particular emotion (excited, happy, slightly upset, and angry) and a value of 1-4 (the value of one being the lowest and four the highest). Once these scores are converted into a numerical format, they are added and then converted once more to get percentiles of each score and the full raw score.

On the ERAS, Johnny scored a raw score 24 on both the Recreational and Academic attitudes. This demonstrates that he finds both types of reading equally as interesting. Added together, these equal a full scale raw score of 48. Using the table provided with the assessment, these numbers placed Johnny at in the 29th percentile for the full scale, 25th for recreational, and 42nd for academic. His answers usually consisted of one of the middle Garfields (two or three), but his answers did include ones and fours as well.

As for my observations Johnny's emotional response, he was very closed off when I gave him the ERAS. He was hunched over, didn't speak anything unless I asked him directly, and kept his eyes on the paper when he was being administered the test. I addressed him that this test was not going to affect his grade, and I wanted only his sincere answers. Ms. Jameson also expressed to Johnny this test was not to assess him, but to help me with my class. He showed little response to this except a small nod. Even with this lack of response, I am very sure that Johnny was following along because of one action taken by him during the assessment. I had two different forms of the test, so the test I gave Johnny had one question worded differently than mine. He immediately pointed this out to me when I read the question to him and he noticed the questions differed.

At approximately 10:00 AM on the same day, I admistered an Interest Inventory comprised of 14 questions made up by myself and a partner during one of my classes. From the moment I began this test, Johnny lit up like a lightbulb. His eyes widened, used his hands to illustrate, and smiled. He answered my questions with little hesitation and always wanted to elaborate. Johnny displays a wide variety of interests and likes. His favorite TV channel is Cartoon Network, which shows his favorite TV show The Amazing World of Gumball. In addition, he likes watching movies, like the Lego movie, with his two older sisters on one of their laptops. He's dying to see the movie Ant-Man and the rest of the Marvel movies that he's missed, even though his favorite superhero is Batman. When I began the questions of "What's your favorite...," Johnny became very animated and had some curious answers to my questions. Like most sixth graders and college students alike, his favorite food is pizza with his favorite topping: bacon! I couldn't help but laugh with Johnny when he exclaimed his favorite animal is a tiger because, "It's so fluffy!" He also likes turtles because he thinks the word, which he pointed out on the wall, sounds much like the animal when you say it. He went on a tangent telling me about his favorite sport, baseball, because he got to see lots of stadiums when he was at camp one year. He and Ms. Jameson shared a high five when he announced his favorite team is the Red Sox. Johnny has also been to monster truck rallies, Nascar stadiums, and Daytona Beach.

Moving into more school related questions, Johnny became a little less excited, but still was a lot more open about his answers than on the ERAS. He mentioned he doesn't like getting up so early for school because he's used to sleeping in during the summer. He doesn't speak any other languages, just English. His favorite subject in school is math because it challenges him. He found that the standardized test in math last year was very easy for him, so he likes the subject. He only reads, however, the 20 minutes he does for school a night on his iPad or Kindle. Still, he loves to read mystery books, and claims that his favorite series has the number 52 on the front, but couldn't remember the title exactly. I recommended that he read the Boxcar Children due to his interest in mysteries and his age range. When I said this, he recalled the time his first grade teacher read the first book to them in class and how much he liked it. I felt this was a good indication of his potential to be a successful reader.

------------------

Observations of Classroom from 8 AM to 9:20 AM

8 AM to 8:30 AM: Lexia/Read Naturally

Ms. Jameson is a very observant teacher. She keeps a close eye on her students and helps them when they need assistance. She readily uses supplies in her classroom to accomodate to the students. During the Lexia reading placement test, she helped the students set up their iPads so the students didn't have to lean over to see the screen. During this time period, Johnny's eyes kept wandering around the classroom. He leaned his head on his head, ran his hand through his hair, and scratched his forehead several times. He couldn't really sit still or keep the iPad on the table and put it in his lap to read for a while. Nearing the end of the assessment, Johnny shakes his head and tries to focus. Yet, I find that he has his head down on the desk by 8:30 and I'm unsure if he finished the assessment or not. When Ms. Jameson is ready to transition, she firmly states her instructions and doesn't allow for deviations.

8:30 to 9 AM: Orton Gillingham (OG)

One of the unique aspects of the Learning Academy is the implementation of a teaching method called Orton Gillingham. I will be taking a class on this method later in the semester to strengthen my understanding of it and be able to use it in my future classroom. In line with this, Ms. Jameson swears that OG works and has improved a student from not reading at all to being able to read independently by the end of the school year. Therefore, Ms. Jameson takes these lessons very seriously, but she always allows time to review something the students' don't understand. She frequently helps Charlie since he is very unused to the strange and new motions/actions used during OG.

- Johnny refers to the posted cursive before writing his own

- Student next to Johnny, Adam, helps Johnny with his writing often

- Ms. Jameson stops her teaching several times to teach Johnny how to do the motions

- Ms. Jameson uses other students to model the motions of OG

- Johnny doesn't engage in this lesson very well, either because of confusion or lack of motivation

- He fidgets a lot and doesn't watch Ms. Jameson

9 to 9:20 AM: Snack/Read Aloud

It is important to read aloud to your students every day, as this models thinking, reading, and proper etiquette along with a lot of other skills. Johnny responds very well to the read aloud. His hand is the first one up when a question is posed and he is very engaged with the characters and plot. He sits quietly and listens easily to Ms. Jameson as she reads A Long Way from Chicago by Richard Peck. She stops at certain parts to ask the students' questions about their predictions or what they remember from previous readings. She also helps them find the meanings of words through context clues and other hints throughout the book.

9:20 to 10 AM: Specials (Music)

Music wasn't a very engaging subject in the Learning Academy today. The students were crammed into a small classroom with another class and the teacher sat them in double rows. Johnny was seated in the very back where the teacher could not see him or his friends from where she was sitting (refer to diagram of Music Room). Because of this, he and his friends often would poke each other in a small game. I eventually went to stand behind them, as well as the other pre-service teacher shadowing with me, so that they would calm down and try to pay attention. The lesson for music that day was about old songs that were "handed down" over the generations like "She'll Be Comin' 'Round the Mountain" and "There's a Log." Several students were participating and doing the motions and noises for the songs, but the majority found it difficult to follow along. The students in the back row and most of the female students didn't participate at all in the sing alongs or games. By the end of the class, most of the students were ready to dash out of the room and return to their classes.

#observation #firstday #ERAS #Garfield