Jamie Ropars 3-28-13 ELD-307 Miscue Analysis The miscue analysis or the running record is an effective tool to use

in determining what level the student is at in reading. Another purpose of this test is it allows the student to read out loud to evaluate reading skills and then to read to themselves to test comprehension. It allows you to evaluate where the student may need help in reading development. Also it pulls together the construction in the authentic and oral reading the student shows. The miscue analysis provides a positive way to assess the students reading level. The class observation occurred during the classes morning work. After the student came in, unpacked, and got settled I asked her to join me in the hallway to help me complete the exercise. I used the same student as I used for my word assessment study. A seven year old girl who just graduated from the ESL program and her initials are VC. We completed this assessment outside the classroom in the hallway. This ensured that she wasnt distracted by the other students in the class. The hallway was good environment for VC to complete the miscue analysis because she felt secure and wasnt worried about sounding smart in front of other students. Instead of a running record, which was the suggested tool for completing this analysis, my cooperating teacher suggested that I use a DRA because that is what he uses frequently and the student would be more familiar with that kind of test. Since she recently graduated from the ESL program, my teacher suggested that I test her at a level twenty. For ESL students that is the expected level of reading they should be at, at this point of the year according to my teacher.

The DRA includes items such as reading engagement that asks questions about books, oral reading fluency, comprehension, and interpretation. Having the DRA packet was very useful. There were questions about what the reader likes to read and it seemed to warm VC up and help her become relaxed to complete the activity. Then there is the provided oral reading section. The third section provides comprehension questions that prove whether the student comprehends what they read on their own. Then at the end the DRA has a sequence that you fill out to calculate the words per minute. The last page I found most helpful when assessing the student. It has a number system 1-4 rating on how well the student completed the given section. While reviewing my findings I realized that VC did a great job with this assessment. She loves to talk, so while asking her about books she was very engaged and had a lot of detail in her answer. VC likes books that are fiction and mainly books that deal with Disney. These questions got VC excited and wanting to read the book that I was going to assess her on. Her oral reading was practically flawless. Adding up her points at the end of the test her oral language points were at the highest end, almost pushing her to the next reading level. VC only missed two words and mispronounced one word on the oral language portion. She also seemed very confident while reading out loud to me, she was not hesitant on the reading. It did not take her long to get through the oral part, she completed it in about a minute and a half. The factor that is preventing her from moving on is her comprehension. Calculating her points, she came up very low on comprehension. The points for comprehension actually show that her reading level should be decreased to level eighteen. VC does read well but does not pick up on the main points of what she has read. She can identify come characters and some details but would miss critical details in the story and the major details. Out of eight major details she only picked up one three of them. Also VC could not remember names just what kind of animal the character

was. Also when it came time for her to recall the story without the book she needed me to ask her many prompting questions to help her recall the story. Some questions I used were, tell me more, who else was in the story, and how did the story end. VC was not able to answer all of those questions she just kept telling me one detail, because you shouldnt be bossy. VC, by looking at these results, seems to only be focusing on the words. She needs to narrow her mind in and retain on what she is reading. She did recently graduate from the ESL program so maybe the issue is that she doesnt understand some of the words that would lead her to the major details in the book. The oral fluency was fine for VC but she does need work on comprehension. This test is great to determine what you need to work on more in the classroom. Some students may be at a level that is too high for them so with this assessment a teacher can decide to move them up or down a level to better address the students needs. Also the teacher will see what level everyone is at allowing them to create helpful classroom activities by partnering strong readers with those not so strong. This will enable fellow classmates to show their strategies for reading that may help their classmates. The DRA is a great tool to test the level of literacy development. Just focusing on VCs needs, she has to work on exercises that have her practice her comprehension. A good activity for that is assigning reading partners and having them read a story and then together answer comprehension questions. That way she will see how other readers pick up on important details as well as get the practice she needs. Another activity is to read a little passage together as a whole class and pick out the important information, that way she has an example on how to pull those crucial facts from a story. VC is not used to doing anything like answering questions after reading because she even said at home all she does is read and read, which is great but she really needs practice understanding what she is reading.