Practicum in Reading Assessment and Tutoring

I completed my first special education field experience in the Fall 2020 semester, which was exciting. While I was unable to complete my partnership in the physical classroom due to the coronavirus pandemic, I virtually tutored a fifth-grade student in reading and language arts for three days a week for thirty minutes. During the tutoring session, I focused on building the student’s reading comprehension using the Question-and-Answer Relationship (QAR) strategies. Each week, I would focus on one or more different types of questions the student will encounter and how he will answer those questions using modeling, guided practice, and independent practice. In addition, I used various resources to find reading passages and format my instruction to meet the student’s learning needs.

Before I started my tutoring session, I conducted my pre-assessment on the student. First, I use the Qualitative Reading Inventory (QRI) word list to determine the student’s instructional level for the reading passage. Then I had the student read passages from the third to the fifth-grade level. The pre-assessment led me to focus my tutoring on reading comprehension and slowing down the student’s reading pace since he tends to read fast. Following his pre-assessment, I developed three learning goals centered around reading comprehension, reading fluency, and vocabulary and these learning goals were the foundation of our tutoring sessions. After seven weeks, I have developed a strong relationship with the student I have been working with and saw the growth in his reading comprehension and reading fluency. When I conducted the post-assessment, he read words from the second to a sixth-grade level word list and his reading comprehension improved on the third and fifth-grade level passages. The recommendation I had at the end involved using the QAR strategies for fourth-grade level passages and improving his reading fluency.

This partnership experience taught me the importance of being flexible. Even when I have planned out my lesson for the tutoring session, there were times when I have to adjust those plans, and it was okay. When I am in the classroom, my students will learn and complete activities at a different pace, and there will be situations that occur during the school day. Being flexible enables me to adapt and accommodate to new situations and changes that occur. The second thing I learned is to let the students have a voice in the learning. Students have many ideas about activities and resources they want to see in the classroom. There are things that students suggest that I, as a teacher, did not even consider, and this approach helps to build a strong relationship with students because they will see that I am validating their ideas and incorporating them into the classroom. I enjoyed this experience, and I cannot wait to use the lessons I learn as I continue my education and teaching career. I have included the presentation of my tutoring session below: