Abuela Student-Centered Reading Project By: Chelsy DeLaney

Introduction of the Student I choose to complete my self-centered reading project with my own daughter, Hayleigh. Hayleigh is currently in Kindergarten at Prairie View Elementary. Hayleigh has shown a love and interest in reading from a young age, and currently as a Kindergartener, she is reading very well. I choose to complete this project with Hayleigh because as her parent I want to see her succeed and love reading, and through this project I know that I will be able to observe this. A few things I would like for Hayleigh to focus on and achieve during this project are: -Pausing at the end of a sentence, or following correct punctuation. -Ability to sound out words completely, with little to no help. -Notice and point out sight words, such as “the”, “and”, and “is”. -Be able to talk about the story as we go along and after.

Reading Selection The process I used to help Hayleigh select a book was, together we sat down and made a list of Hayleigh’s favorite things, topics, ect, and then we went on the iPad and went to amazon.com and typed in children's books in a few of her favorite topics. On the top of Hayleigh’s list was “Grandma” so on amazon.com we searched for books for children's book for children ages 5-7 that are about Grandma’s. “Abuela” came up on our search. Since I had never heard of the book we went to the Holmen Public Library to check it out, we did that and found that we both enjoyed this book. It was going to be challenging but yet achievable for Hayleigh. Hayleigh has shown signs of being a strong reader and so I felt comfortable allowing her to choose a book that might otherwise be a bit more challenging than I would have liked.

Assessing Reading Level The way I have assessed Hayleigh’s reading level is by taking the information I have received from her classroom teacher and also from being her parent, knowing which books she is able to read, which books she enjoys, ect. I took this information and when we were looking for a book, I searched only for book in the category for children ages 5-7 and in the easy/medium difficulty range. The way that I assessed the readability level of the book was first I read through the book myself, I realized right away that there were some short Spanish lines in this book. I did not feel that it was going to be beneficial to make her struggle though these lines, so I told her that she would not have to worry about the Spanish lines I would read those and we would read them together if she wanted. We then read the book together at the library a little bit just to get an idea where she was at, she did okay, and I new with some practice she would be okay.

Reading Attitude Survey I used this reading interest survey to get some background information on how Hayleigh felt about reading. Reading Interest Inventory 1.How do you feel about reading? Be honest! Explain why you feel that way. 2.What do you like about reading? 2.What don’t you like about reading? 2.Do you have a favorite series? If so, what is it and why do you like it? 2.What topics would you like to learn more about this year? 6. Do you like to read newspapers or magazines? Explain. I Love reading! Because I learn a lot and I love reading and listening to stories. Learning and listening to stories. I like learning to read. When I cant figure out the words. Biscuit & Amelia Bedelia. I like them because they are funny and I love puppies. I don’t know. Anything. At school if we forget to return out books we can look at magazines, I like reading books better. Hayleigh’s Response=BLUE

Reading Questionnaire Which of the following types of books do you like? For each type of book that you like, try to think of an example or a specific topic. This will assist me in helping you find more great books! Examples of Topics or Books You Like Topic:Title: 1. Grandma 2. AnimalsBiscuit Books, Books about real animals. 3. PrincessesCinderella 4. Fairies 5. Girls/Friends I used this reading questionnaire to help me try and figure out what types of books Hayleigh would be interested in. She did better with just telling me about what she was interested in and what she wanted to read about. She was unsure about book titles, I think this is because she is still so new to the library, books, and reading. Hayleigh’s Response=BLUE

Pre-Reading Techniques 1.The first pre-reading technique I used was an activity that I knew Hayleigh would love, that was a coloring sheet activity, I created using the word “Abuela”; called My Abuela & Me, where I asked Hayleigh to draw a picture of her Abuela (Grandma) and herself. This got us talking about what Abuela means and where the term comes from, which lead us to talking about the Spanish culture. 2.I also focused on this book for a couple weeks before starting this with Hayleigh, I made word flash cards. I would read the book to her and as we would come to an unknown word, I would use a word card, with the word written on it, written out how it sounds, and a picture of the words meaning.

Reading Techniques 1.Word Cards- As we would read the book, I would add words to our word cards, to help her become more familiar with the words and their meanings. A few that we struggled with at first were “Abuela”, “Spanish”, & “Swooping”. 2. Talk About It- As we are reading, we always stop to talk about unknown words, what is happening during the story so far, and we discuss what we can predict will happen, based on the story so far. 3.Reading Assessments- I took passages from the book and had Hayleigh read them to me, 3 or more times, each time marking the changes, these assessments are tools that helped me with also what word cards to make.

After Reading Techniques 1.Summarizing & Reflecting- After reading parts of the book I would stop Hayleigh from reading, and we would go over the part that we just read. I would ask Hayleigh a series of questions: -What does this picture look like, what do you think this picture is trying to tell us? -What do you think is going to happen next? -What do you like to do with your Abuela? (I would always try to ask questions also that were specific to what was just talked about in the story) 2. Read Aloud- After reading the book several times, we enjoyed reading the book together out loud. I would read a page, then Hayleigh would read a page.

Running Records =I will read =Took a second to sound out = Change to, corrected on line = Did not know, skipped. /= One minute cut off. For this particular reading record Hayleigh was able to read 53 words per minute, and 49 words were correct. This gave her a 92% reading accuracy rate.

Running Records =I will read =Took a second to sound out = Change to, corrected on line = Did not know, skipped. /= One minute cut off. For this particular reading record Hayleigh was able to read 53 words per minute, and 47 words were correct. This gave her a 88% reading accuracy rate.

Comprehension The ways in which I would check for comprehension where through some of my before, after, and during reading techniques. I would commonly ask Hayleigh a set of questions about what just happened, or what she thought was going to happen next. Example: Q: “Hayleigh what did the little girl and her Abuela do to see the city?” A: Fly over the city. I would also use my word cards, during reading, to see how well she was sounding out words that were common to the story, such as words like “we’d” or “they’d”. I wanted to see how well she was remembering words that we would commonly go over and sound out or talk about with our word cards. Reflecting after we would finish reading was also a tool I used, we both actually really enjoyed this, it was a time we used for Hayleigh to talk about what she enjoyed about the book and what questions she had, all while I was observing how well she understood and what she took with her after reading.

Fluency During this project this was something I wanted to help or observe Hayleigh with. I wanted her to be able to pause when needed, and read with little to no help and flow through the sentences. For this project I felt that Hayleigh's fluency was great for a child in Kindergarten who is new to reading. She did much better than expected. I do feel that this book was a great set up for a child with beginning reading skills as the sentence structure was set up well, with very short small 5-6 word sentences and then a space to the next line. It made it easier for her to know when to stop. She also had a good flow when reading, I would encourage her to only pause for a short second to try and sound out a word, give it her best, or skip it and move on. As she would skip words, pronounce them wrong, or say something else, I would add this word to our word cards for practice. I would try not to intervene to much, unless she was really stuck or very close, I would give her a start to a sound, most of the time that was all she needed. Before starting this reading project, I feel that I was modeling fluent reading to Hayleigh by reading this book and others aloud to her before asking her to read to me, I wanted to show her and allow her to hear from me how the book should sound, what words would and should sound like.

Word Identification Hayleigh did very well with word identification, she was able to point out many of her sight words that she is learning in school in the classroom. Those words really helped her move along in this book. She did well after only a couple times of reading the passages in this book with the word cards, she was able to practice these harder words and also sometimes refer back to a card for a visual of how the word could be sounded out.

Strengths & Areas of Improvement Hayleigh had many strengths when it comes to reading a few that I thought were really great for her age were: 1.Being able to sounds out words on her own in just a few seconds. 2.Being able to move on if she did not know a word, she was able to sound it out the best she could and keep going it did not hold her up 3.Willingness and excitement to learn and become a better reader, she really enjoyed this project and the time we spent together on it. She was always willing and ready to learn, she did not give up or get discouraged. Areas of Improvement: I feel that Hayleigh could work on her words such as “they’d” “we’re” and other words that are similar to this, she was unsure of these and would commonly change them from “we’re” to we are. I felt this was great she knew what it needed to sound like but was unsure why the word was the way it was. I would teach this to her with flash cards, I would create a matching game that would have the shortened word version on one card and the longer on the other and allow her to match them up so she could recognize what the shortened words stand for.

Strategies Reading Accuracy: 1.Practice, Practice, Practice! 2. Time Repeated Readings 3.Letter Patterns 4.Use readers theater Reading Rate: 1.Practice, Practice, Practice! 2. Timed Repeated Readings Prosody: 1.Model prosody readings 2.Have children listen to readings on tape or disc.

Reflections I feel that I was able to provide a supportive learning environment for this project, as I did it with my daughter in our home. Each day/night we would read from this book and when we did this, we always went in her room and sat on her bed or on the floor and read together and she read to me and allowed me to observe her reading. I did my best to make it a comfortable and quiet place for us to read with little to no distraction. I used scaffolding during this project by starting off with reading the entire book to Hayleigh and allowing her to just listen. Each time we would read or complete and activity for this book I would provide less and less help up until the end when I would not intervene during her reading at all, I would allow her to skip words, sound them out, and say whatever she felt the word should be and we would create word cards to learn the words later. I feel that this not only encourages her to try her best but it also allows her to learn herself and encourages self- monitoring.