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New York University
Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development
Department of Teaching and Learning
Spring 2015
MASTERS: LITERACY SPECIALIST
LIT C GE 2991 Early Childhood/Childhood (Birth through Grade Six) Literacy
Practicum, 4 credits
LIT C GE 2992 Middle Childhood/Adolescence (Grades 5-12) Literacy Practicum, 4
credits
Class Schedule: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 4:00 - 6:35 Georgiou Library
Instructor: Katherine Stahl, Ed.D.; Tel: 212 998-5204; [email protected]
Teaching Assistant: Mickie Kramer Kerson; [email protected]
Office Hours: Tuesdays and by appointment
Introduction
This practicum is designed to enable you to develop and refine your proficiency in
organizing effective literacy teaching and learning in schools. You will gain experience
developing literacy instruction that is informed by your assessment of students’ learning
through both careful observation of students and through the administration of
appropriate assessments. You will also develop skills in communicating information
about students’ learning and their progress to school personnel and to parents. The
practicum involves a twice-weekly internship. During this time you will teach individual
or small group lessons based on the learning needs of the students. This model of
instruction is likely to be used in schools as Tier 2 or Tier 3 instruction within a Response
to Intervention framework.
Working toward meeting professional standards
The professional standards guiding the work of this practicum are the Standards for
Reading Professionals (2010) developed jointly by the two key professional organizations
in the field of literacy education – the National Council for Teachers of English and the
International Reading Association. You can view these standards on the IRA web site:
(http://www.reading.org/resources/issues/reports/professional_standards.html). We will
be referring to these five standards especially #s two and three in our work together. The
standards focus on:
1. Foundational Knowledge
2. Instructional Strategies and Curriculum materials
3. Assessment, Diagnosis, and Evaluation
4. Creating a Literate Environment
5. Professional Development
The performance for literacy specialists described in this standards document will guide
our work together and your assessment of your progress as a developing literacy
specialist.
Citizenship and Professional Responsibilities
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We need to be mindful of issues of confidentiality concerning the information we collect
about student literacy performance and learning needs. Be aware of the importance of
punctuality and professional attire.
Assigned Texts
Required texts for the course are the same texts that you used for the assessment course.
You will be assigned some review reading and you are expected to identify relevant
assessment and teaching resources from these texts to support your work with the
students.
An Observation Survey of Early Literacy Achievement
Clay
Assessment for Reading Instruction
McKenna and Stahl
Reading Assessment in an RTI Framework
Stahl & McKenna
Qualitative Reading Inventory – QRI – 5
Leslie & Caldwell
Intervention Strategies
Leslie & Caldwell
Words Their Way: Word Study For
Bear, Invernizzi,
Phonics, Vocabulary and Spelling Instruction
Templeton & Johnston
Powerful Writing Strategies for all Students
Graham, Harris, Mason
& Friedlander
The ABCs of CBMs
Hosp, Hosp & Howell
Additional articles on reading disability and tutoring interventions will also be assigned.
Assignments and Grading:
Attendance, punctuality: Since your students are reliant upon you, it is imperative that
you attend every session and that you arrive punctually In the event of an emergency or
an illness preventing you from attending your session, directly contact your client
and your supervising faculty by noon on the day of the session.
Informal Literacy Observation Portfolios (20 points and 25 points= 45 points total):
Prepare a Preliminary Literacy Observation Portfolio describing your student’s literacy
profile according to QRI IV Chapter 13, 14 and McKenna/Stahl Chapter 10/appendix
(due February 24th). Complete a Final Literacy Observation Portfolio (due May 8th). The
Final Literacy Observation Profile should include a pretest and post-test results,
interpretation, a summary of tutoring and recommendations. Both portfolios should
include a cover letter that you craft to each child’s parent describing the child’s
development and the teaching plans. See samples.
Instructional Record Sample (3 points X 10 = 30 points total): (Lesson Plans for the
week are due to me electronically via NYU Classes every Monday at noon.) YOUR
LESSON PLANS THAT YOU ARE WORKING FROM DURING SESSIONS MUST
BE PRINTED. Additionally, they must be collected in an organized way and available
upon request at any time. Maintain and be prepared to submit a record of the lessons that
you designed and taught in response to the learning needs of your focus student. Include
an analysis of the outcomes of the lesson in terms of the progress each student made plus
documentary evidence where possible.
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Lesson Frame Components: Name and grade level of student, Text/Level- Rationale for
Objectives; Objectives and Acquisition or Consolidation of each objective-- Activities (35)- Assessment- Future Directions- Reflection- References
A simple lesson frame that has worked for others must include a few basics. Lesson
objectives should be stated in observable, behavioral terms and be directly tied to
assessment indicators. For older students, three to five activities should occur during the
lesson, including connected text reading. For first graders, there could be as many as 810 activities within an hour. The completed lesson plan itself should look like a working
copy with handwritten notes reflecting your student’s responses, your teaching points,
modifications and adjustments during the lesson. There must be an indication of how the
objectives will be assessed. Include a brief reflection at the end of each session’s
description related to what went well for you as the instructor and what went well for
your student, followed by a description of tutoring challenges for you and
activity/learning challenges for your student within that lesson. This may be handwritten
immediately after your lesson. All lessons must be kept in an ongoing neatly organized
notebook that the supervising faculty might request at any time.
While we honor the value of the teacher read-aloud, your students should be doing the
heavy lifting during the session. If you are occasionally doing the reading, there needs to
be a very good reason. Often the mark of a good lesson is a high ratio of student talk to
teacher talk. Marie Clay spoke to her teachers through headsets. Your words should be
intentional, direct, and explicit. Measure what you say and plan what you will say and do
before the session. You should constantly be asking yourself, “Why am I doing this?”
At any point in the lesson, be prepared for an observer or me to ask that question.
You must include some form of progress monitoring to insure that what you are doing
with your student is working. This might consist of one or two forms of general outcome
measures (timed maze, randomly mixed Dolch words, oral reading fluency tasks) and a
bi-monthly running record of a short text for the first graders. Progress monitoring should
be quick and require less than 10 minutes of your session.
Formal Observations (5 points X 3 Observations=15 points total) You will have ongoing
formal and informal observations. In particular, we will be looking for the ways that you
have used assessment to inform the instruction and are striving for a cohesive learning
trajectory over time. We will also be looking for the application of evidence-based
instructional methods that have been introduced in the other courses in your program.
These students need to make accelerated progress. Maximize the potential effectiveness
of this intense learning opportunity by applying instruction that is proven to yield literacy
improvement. There will be four scored formal evaluations.
Video Lesson Analysis (10 points) Video record a 15-20 minute lesson segment. It should
be the main instructional reading component and feedback during a single tutoring
session. (You might want to practice with a few recordings independently using your
computer or i-pad, but I am hoping that our TA will be able to assist you with this
process for the formal assignment). Select a minimum of 5 minutes and maximum of 10
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minutes of the lesson to transcribe, analyze, and provide as evidence/data for completing
the Video Analysis Reflection Sheet. More details will follow.
Calendar Overview
Date
Topic
Tutoring and other
Assignments
Tuesday, Jan. 27
Overview Reading Disability
Tutoring and the Clinic
Experience
Developing an assessment plan
Read: Defining Disability
Dyslexia and the Brain
Spear-Swerling
Thursday, Jan. 29
Intervention Models
Paired Reading Video &
Demonstration
Read: Tutoring Models
Specific directions for selection
provided in class on 1/27.
Tuesday, Feb. 3
Intervention Models
Lesson Plan Implications
Tutoring Begins
Begin assessments
Thursday, Feb. 5
Diagnostic Assessments and
Choosing Reading Levels
Review of Teaching Toolkit
Deep Assessment
Tuesday, Feb. 10
Completion of most
assessments
Lessons Begin
O1, O2
O3, O4
O5, O6
O7, O8
Thursday, Feb. 12
Tuesday, Feb. 17
Thursday, Feb. 19
Tuesday, Feb. 24
Fishbowl Debrief
Alyssa--WILSON
Fishbowl Debrief
Preliminary Literacy
Observation Portfolio Due
Thursday, Feb. 26
Tuesday, March 3
Fishbowl Debrief
Effective Instructional
Feedback
Fishbowl Debrief
Video Discourse Analysis
Fishbowl Debrief
Spring Break
MIDPOINT of Semester is
Spring Break
O9, O1
O2, O3
YOUR CHOICE
Fishbowl Debrief
YOUR CHOICE
Fishbowl Debrief
Guest Speaker
O1, O2
O3, O4
O5, O6
O7, O8, O9
Thursday, March 5
Tuesday, March 9
Thursday, March 11
Week of March 17
Spring Break
Tuesday, March 24
Thursday, March 26
Tuesday, March 31
Thursday, April 2
Tuesday, April 7
O4, O5
O6, O7
O8, O9
No Tutoring
Make-up sessions
(Building locked)
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Thursday, April 9
Tuesday, April 14
Thursday, April 16
April 21
Thursday, April 23
V9, V8
Planning Posttests
V7, V6,
V4, V5
V3, V2, {V1 (6:45)}
April 28
Guests: Building Brainiacs and
Keys To Literacy Tutoring
Writing the Final Case Study
Thursday, April 30
Celebration Readiness
May 7
Final Literacy Observation
Portfolio Due By 6pm
O=Observation
V=Video Analysis Conference with Viewing
Selection of Reading for
Celebration/Begin Assessments
Teaching & Testing
Practice for performance
Last day of tutoring
Teaching & Testing
Practice for performance
Performance Celebration