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The first time I met Caden, I knew that we were going to have such a great time working together. He is a second grader at Farrell Elementary School. His mother asked me to help him with his fluency. I began by asking Caden about his interests. I quickly learned that Caden loves all kinds of wild animals.

He brought a book from school with him that we read together. This gave me an idea of his fluency levels, as well as comprehension. Attached below if the book Caden brought for our first session.

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I have always meet Caden and his family at McGill Library in the Children's Library. Caden loves looking at all the books there! It is also a relaxing place where we can read at our own pace.
Caden loves when we take reading breaks to use the white boards and draw out the stories that we read. This helps with our comprehension!

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I have had the pleasure of meeting Caden's mother, grandmother, and little sister. They all usually came for our sessions. It was nice developing a relationship with them as well, so I could gain insight to Caden's literacy life at home. Below is the family survey that I talked about with the mom, Nicole.

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It was not long before I realized that Caden does a fine job with comprehension. One of the main ways I figured this out is the number of miscues Caden makes  during his reading.

I was impressed with his ability to change the word "couch" into the word "chair" while still continuing his reading and keeping the meaning of the story!

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Caden loves writing on the white boards in the library. So, in order to study words, I brought dry erase markers! Caden was so excited.
We started by reading a book first. I wanted to base the whole story around the book, because phonics should be in context of a book. We discussed what we thought of the story. While we read, I kept track of words that Caden would struggle with. They all seemed to have the "oo" sound in them. I asked Caden if he knew what these words meant before we studied their spelling, since comprehension is so important. After our discussion, we went over to the white boards and practiced spelling the words, discussing the sounds that they make.
I do not have any pictures from this session because we were so busy working.

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Most of Caden and my sessions revolved around conversation. I learned very quickly that Caden loves to talk, so I used this to my advantage!
I remember very clearly the session that had the best comprehension lesson. It was when we were making predictions to a book called Nate the Great. This is a book that Caden found in the Children's section of the library. He loves mystery books.
Since it was a mystery book, this was the perfect opportunity to make predictions about what could happen in the story.
We read the book and stopped to talk along the way. I would ask comprehension questions as well.
When the book was over, we compared our predictions to what actually happened. This was such a great way to see what Caden took away from the story.

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This is a book that Caden picked all by himself and read the whole way through!

His mom and I were so impressed that he kept going without taking a break. Caden was so happy with himself. It was amazing to see the smile on his face when he finished the book. He even pointed out that there were a lot of rhyming words.

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At the beginning of this course, I was overwhelmed at the thought of teaching literacy in a classroom. Based on my student teaching experience, all I knew were basals and following the district's curriculum to a T. I was excited to bounce ideas off of each other and engage in robust conversation each week.
I have learned so much over the course of just 8 short weeks. I know have a full understanding that comprehension is so important in learning how to read. This is where children get their passion to want to learn more.
I also learned that although phonics are necessary in the mechanics of reading, they do not help or hurt in the beginning stages of reading. They may actually frustrate the child and deter him or her from wanting to continue reading.
Attached is a picture of the components of Balanced Literacy that I am so excited to try in my future classroom.