Entry #8

David is an ESL student. His mother speaks only Spanish and his father is bilingual.  David is at the instructional level of reading. Several of his mistakes appear to be visual errors.  He makes these errors both  with and without self corrections. Most often this error presents itself in the form of  predicting a word based on the first letter of the word. For example, steam is tried first as "stem." This displays that he is using his concepts of language to predict words based on visual cues, such as beginning letters, word length and surrounding words. Several times throughout the passage David does self-correct these types of errors. This skill implies that he is beginning to recognize that meaning and structure are also important decoding skills.  Areas to focus on in future instruction would be activities that support the development of his skills in meaning and structure. He is at a level where he is recognizing that visuals cue are not enough to carry the passage.  Helping him build other skills will add to his toolbox not only building decoding skills but also add to his level of comprehension. In future assignments, David can work on grammar and language structures. This could be completed through mini lessons that help enforce grammatical rules as well as key differences between his native language, Spanish, and English.




 Angie is a dual language speaker. She is fluent in Arabic and English. Although Angie is fluent in English her vocabulary is shallow and this leads to several errors in her running record. Many of Angie's mistakes occur in the areas of meaning and structure. Angie does well visually although at times she makes errors that appear to be based on visual cues such as predicting the word based on length and beginning letters.  Angie's major issues develop because her vocabulary lacks words and meaning.  She consistently misses the term "tectonic" throughout the reading. This demonstrates that she has no prior knowledge of the term or concept so cannot hold on to the word, given by the teacher nor can she determine the word based on structure.  This could be due to her lack of academic language as well.  Although most would describe Angie as bilingual, she is truly fluent in Arabic and possesses social language in English.  In her writing I noticed that she writes just as though she was speaking. She lacks academic terms and transitions.  In future instruction, Angie needs work that helps to build her vocabulary. These assignments could involve specific word studies, practice with synonyms and antonyms. She could also practice on grammatical rules and orthography.