Professional Documents
Culture Documents
IRI Report
Leah Burgmeier
CI 335
Dr. Lindsay
Fall 2003
Table of Contents
I. Opening Information Page 2
• Name (changed for confidentiality)
• Testing Date
• Student’s Age
• Grade
• School (changed for confidentiality)
2
• Listening Passages 38—
41
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Abbreviated Basic Reading Inventory
General Observations:
The day of the test, Toby walked in with a smile on his face. Still, his demeanor
seemed to be quite anxious. Trying to make his way into the corner of the room, Toby
immediately turned red in the face. Upon sitting down, he seemed to adjust a little to the
crowd of people, but was still uneasy. He was very aware of the many tape recorders that
were surrounding him. As anticipated, it seemed as though Toby was quite nervous in
Before the test began, the students giving the reading inventory asked Toby a
series of questions to make the environment a little more relaxed. Although Toby
answered, the answers were mostly one word responses followed by Toby looking down
at the table. This was something we had anticipated, but tried our best to alleviate.
about the answers he was giving in certain sections, which only created more anxiety. We
responded to this anxiety and frustration by stopping the Graded Word Lists and
beginning at the pre-primer level for the comprehension tests. This seemed to help things
Following the test, Toby was ready to get out of the corner and be on his way. He
did not interact much with us at this time. A few nods to say good bye and he was on his
way.
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Graded Word List Results
Toby did a great job with the graded word list. He finished the test at grade level
six. Although he was still at his instructional level, he grew very frustrated at this point.
Toby had problems decoding the word endings. For example he said thought for
through. This also leads to another problem—sometimes Toby would pronounce a word
that was graphically similar to the beginning of the test word. He said invention for the
word invitation and shrunk for the word skunk. Another problem area was his short and
long vowel, focusing more on digraphs. He changed the short vowel sound of the word
been to a long sound, pronouncing bean. For the word pliers, he pronounced players. It
seemed he had difficulties when the first sound of the word was a vowel. He
and attractive.
Because Toby had difficulties with vowels, especially long sounding vowels, it
would be helpful to work on activities that allow him to focus on these sounds. Such
activities are found in Cunningham’s Phonics They Use. Examples of activities are:
Making Words Lesson (p. 104), What Looks Right (p122), and Changing a Hen to a Fox
(p.92). Tiedt, Tiedt, and Tiedt’s Language Arts Activities for the Classroom offers many
activities that are all-inclusive to work problem areas. One activity in particular is called
Word Analysis Skills (p. 63). This activity involves making word lists from any story. For
example, “list all the words from this story that have long vowel sounds. This would be a
wonderful activity for extra practice with virtually any word analysis.
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Graded Word List Charts: Toby Keith
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Summary of Toby Keith’s Phonic/Structural Analysis on the BRI
Grade Level
We found that Toby’s instructional level of reading was at Grade 3. Toby read
very well, however, he lacked comprehension of the passages he was reading to maintain
instructional performance in the questions asked following the stories. For that reason, we
Phonic/Structural Analysis
Toby’s miscues in reading mainly fell into two categories: different endings and
omissions. He also had one miscue within repetitions, different in both the middle and
end of the word, and reversal. In general, Toby omitted periods at the end of sentences.
This could easily have been caused by his nervousness as he rushed through the readings.
His other omissions, substitutions, and reversals did not change the meaning and were
acceptable miscues. They were good indicators of Toby’s advanced eye-voice span as he
was reading. He maintained good fluency throughout his reading because of the skills he
a high level of performance, getting 60% of his miscued words’ middle sounds correct.
His major struggle was with ending sounds. In each of his miscued words he substituted a
different ending. However, as stated above, all of these were acceptable miscues. The
endings that he changed were not in important words within the story but rather, for
example, changing that to the, or omitting an -s from a word. This is yet another
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Strengths
stressful situation, I believe that he has the capability to read expressively as well. Toby is
confident in his oral reading abilities. He seemed most at ease while he was reading and
Weaknesses
While we weren’t able to press Toby to his frustration level to discover his true
weaknesses, we did uncover some areas where he can concentrate his phonemic work
efforts. Toby excelled at reading beginnings of words, but when it came to the middle and
especially the endings, he needed to take a closer look and determine what the words
really were. The key is to teach Toby the importance of looking at the entire word and not
just getting his cues from the beginning letters. Toby’s reading also lacked expression. As
Global Plan
Toby needs phonemic instruction in middle and ending sounds of words. He will
benefit from a variety of activities which help his look at each letter of the word. One
major activity that would be very good for Toby would be the RIVET activity. He also
would become more advanced in this skill after practicing Guess the Covered Word and
Making Words activities. (He will look at all the letters that create words.) Also, more
oral reading situations in which Toby is reading at his independent level would help him
to develop the expressive reading that he lacked overall. Because his reading is so fluent,
the practice with expressive reading and also paying attention to punctuation will take
him to the next level of becoming an oral reader who is entertaining to listen to.
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Summary of Toby Keith’s Comprehension Performance on the BRI
Grade Level
Toby’s frustration level was at grade level three. His instructional level was found
Strengths
Toby answered 79% of the topic questions correctly in which the title helped him.
For the fact questions, 71% of the oral reading questions and 73% of the silent reading
questions were answered correctly. This isn’t necessarily the highest level of thinking, but
it does require good comprehension and memory in order to recall. It was interesting that
he scored quite well in this area and lower on the higher-level thinking questions. It
seems as though since he could remember facts that he should be able to give some
thought to inference; however, he missed 57% of those questions. He also missed 100%
of the vocabulary questions in which case he would simply give up. Toby often self-
corrected during his oral-reading which is a sign of a good reader and in most cases
someone who has good comprehension. It was surprising to end up with the results that
we did.
Weaknesses
We were all surprised to see that Toby was not able to answer any of the
vocabulary questions. We wondered how he could answer some of the other questions,
but yet not understand important vocabulary. It is possible that he relies heavily on
inference questions would also be useful with Toby and build his comprehension skills.
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Recommendations for Toby Keith
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1. Nifty Thrifty Fifty (Cunningham pgs 165-171)
Using this method, Toby can analyze big words for familiar patterns. Using a words list
will give Toby many examples of common patterns in reading and spelling big words.
The list also gives Toby word chunks to work with, and then breaks up the word into the
prefix and suffix so it is easier for students to spot the patterns. To use this method in the
classroom, the teacher can create a word wall of big words, adding words to the wall
every week. The students can chant the spelling of the new words as they are added.
Then the teacher can break up the words into their stem, prefix, and suffix, explaining
that sometimes small words are found within bigger words. These smaller words might
tell us the meaning of the whole word put together.
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and using prediction strategies will help Toby become involved in the text and increase
reading comprehension.
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increase comprehension on the topic, build background knowledge, and to encourage
spelling.
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Toby in segmenting the beginning sounds, C-V blends, as well as V-V blends. To begin a
word sort lesson, children need to look at words and sort them into categories based on
their spelling pattern and sounds. The children then hunt for other words in books,
magazines, and other print material. Then the children would sort these words into
categories according to their pattern. The teacher guides the student in identifying the
word patterns, and directs the children to locate the patterns. Children can use word sorts
throughout the year by keeping a word notebook and adding word patterns that fit into
the categories as they occur.
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the student inference questions relating the text to their prior knowledge. The students
should provide rationales from the selection to verify their answers.
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emphasizing on the part of the word that remains the same. The students and the teacher
would then discuss the meaning of the new words and to determine if the words are
related. This method will help the students to associate words by how they look and
sound and their meaning. This method will also show students how morphologically
related the English language is and to promote connections between the words.
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