Through the Lens of a Video Camera: What Three Reading Specialist Interns Saw

and Heard as they Watched and Listened to Themselves Teaching Culturally and
Linguistically Diverse Students
And
How this Inquiry Helped me to Shape a Summer Clinical Experience

A. Introduction
The foreign-born population in the United States is increasing at a rapid rate. The
United States Census Bureau indicates that in the American foreign born reached the
greatest number in the history of the United States in 1990 (United States Census Bureau,
1993) and continued to increase by an additional 57% in the decade between 1990 and
2000 (as cited by Drucker, 2003). While the population of immigrants has grown,
relatively few classroom teachers report having adequate preparation to teach the sons
and daughters of immigrants, many having limited English language proficiency, and are
currently or will soon be populating classrooms throughout the United States ((National
Center for Education Statistics, 2002a). A report to the Massachusetts legislature
(Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, 2009b) indicates
that 57, 000 English language learners are enrolled in Massachusetts public schools and
are the lowest achieving subgroup based on state assessments, graduation rates, dropout
rates, and participation in special education programs.

Specialist teachers of reading are generally considered to be educators with

appropriate training and preparation to provide services to students performing at lower
levels than their peers due to limitations in literacy. Since a large and growing number of
students come from homes where English is not the primary language (August &
Shanahan, 2006) and, as such, require specialized instruction in reading and writing, it is
becoming increasingly important for reading specialists to be adequately trained with the
skills they need to meet the literacy needs of this growing population.

Many teacher education programs address principles of social equity literacy

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teaching to prepare teachers to serve all children, but little is known about how teachers
enact the practices that align with these principles once they become teachers (Kidd,
Lazar, & Steckel, 2010). This presentation focuses more specifically on learning how the
practicum experience of reading specialist candidates can strengthen the bridge between
theoretical principles of social equity teaching acquired throughout the program of study
and the application of these principles into their daily teaching practices.

B. Theoretical Perspective
Reading/literacy specialists are generally prepared with both theoretical
knowledge and practical applications for the development of literacy across the spectrum
from emerging literacy through comprehension of disciplinary content. Yet the specific
strategies and methods for applying these principles with students who are learning
English as a second language may not be applicable in precisely the same ways that have
proven to be successful with native English speakers. Several researchers have provided
comprehensive summaries of relevant principles of language acquisition, particularly for
second language learners. The following paragraphs provide a review of some of the
recurring themes in the literature and implications for practitioners.

Learning to read only happens once in life (Serpa & Lira, 2005). Building on this
notion, students who have accomplished reading in their first language may be able to
transfer the process of mapping phonemes, (language sounds) onto graphemes (printed
symbols): a process that defines early emergent reading across alphabetic languages.
Additionally, successful readers across alphabetic languages aspire to produce words,
phrases and sentences that are syntactically and semantically meaningful to them. Having
mastered these skills in a first language may serve as a bridge for aspiring language
learners to transfer these and other meta-linguistic skills, such as using cognates to access
information and support the comprehension of English text.

While there are many similarities between first and second language reading, “It
would be a mistake to think that learning to read in a second language is simply a
mapping process during which the reader uses the same set of strategies in the same

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manner” (Drucker, 2003, p. 22). The writing of Serpa and Lira (2005) certainly supports
this notion, emphasizing that putting best practices in place with students of limited
English proficiency will require, among other things, that classroom teachers and
specialists take into account a student’s level of first and second language proficiency as
well as the specific culture and background experiences that shape the way the individual
child reads the world.

With this in mind, learning a second language takes time. Social English is
achieved more rapidly than academic English, which can take from five to seven years in
the host country (Cummings, 1979) for students to reach the level of competence required
to learn academic content in a new language. Students who appear to have oral language
competency in a social setting, may be extremely limited in vocabulary knowledge and
consequently at a disadvantage for classroom learning.

Drawing from the report of the National Literacy Panel on Minority Children and
Youth (August and Shanahan, 2006) synthesize the results across relevant studies on best
practices for teaching language minority children. The authors make a distinction
between the achievement of minority language learners with regard to word level skills
such as decoding, word recognition and spelling; and text level skills, such as reading
comprehension and writing. Minority language learners, they argue, generally reach
levels of performance equal to those of native English speakers when it comes to word
level skills, but this is rarely the case for text level skills. Well developed oral proficiency
in the English language, including vocabulary development, listening comprehension,
and English syntactic skills are the foundation for gaining proficiency in English reading
and writing. Therefore literacy programs providing instructional support of oral language
development along with high quality literacy instruction in the key components of
reading are the most successful (p. 4).

The above review is intended to broach some of the recurring themes that may be
informative to teachers of culturally and linguistically diverse students. It is also intended
to serve as a theoretical backdrop for the question of how to improve the clinical

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internship experience to better support novice specialists as they prepare for the students
who will populate the classrooms of the future.

C. Methodology
Setting. In order to create a context for the project to be described, the unique
features of the university setting in which the project took place will be described briefly.
The Graduate School of Education is the largest of four schools that comprise the
university and offers opportunities for advanced study in many fields that lead to initial
and professional licenses, Master’s degrees, Certificates of Advanced Graduate Study,
Ph.D.s, and Advanced Professional Certificates. Many of these degree programs are
offered on campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts with some offered in 23 states or online.

The project setting was a seven-week academic summer school program, jointly
coordinated by the University and city of Cambridge. It is within this summer program
setting that many of the University’s elementary, special education, and reading specialist
interns choose to fulfill the practicum requirement for first or second licensure.

Participants. The participants in this project were graduate students who were
enrolled in the School of Education in the Specialist Teacher of Reading Program. The
participants were employed as full-time teachers ranging from kindergarten through
grade three during the academic year and attended classes on campus during evening and
afternoon sessions. At the time of this study the participants were completing their
practicum within the seven-week academic summer program during the summer of 2009.

This project focuses on the experiences of three of the interns in the group as each
of the three was tutoring a different English language learner who was preparing to enter
grade five during the following fall.

Methodological approach. This study combines two research methodologies. The

first, classroom inquiry (Hubbard and Powers, 2003) is the methodological approach used
by the three graduate students who were participants in this study. The inquiry process is

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viewed as the pathway from dilemma, to problem solving, to the empowerment of using
professional expertise. Educators frame a question, identify and try out solutions, collect,
and interpret their data, ultimately leading to an answer of relevance informative to daily
practice.
The second approach, the constant comparative approach of Goetz and
LeCompte, (1981) was used to analyze the data derived from graduate students and their
work with their tutees. According to this method, data are sorted into categories based
upon analysis of initial observations, compared across categories, and refined throughout
the collection process. By examining data produced by the graduate students emanating
from the documentation of their interactions with English language learners, it became
possible to for me to reflect on the practicum experience in general, and draw conclusions
about how it can be improved to better shape the experience of reading specialist interns
with regard to their work with learners of the English language.

Methodological procedures. Serving as the supervising practitioner and seminar

leader for seven interns, I was particularly intrigued by the notion of Sewell (2009)
regarding the use of videotapes to supplement the traditional supervision experience of
observation and feedback. The author argued that close viewing promoted a reflective
stance and enhanced the learning of novice teachers. Applying this to the summer
practicum experience I believed that videotaped segments of instruction would serve as a
lens through which each of the interns could watch themselves (as well as the others) in
practice, and ultimately help each other to construct new insights about the student
learning that was taking place. The original inquiry was not specific to English language
learners since four of the seven interns were tutoring native speakers.

The group of seven interns discussed possible inquiry topics and decided they
wanted to learn more about the effectiveness of their practices with underachieving
readers and writers in general. As a group, the interns chose find out more about the
relationship, if any, between the nature of the questions they asked and the answers their
students provided during guided oral reading lessons and/or teacher read alouds. The
interns decided to pose a collaborative inquiry question: What do I learn about the types

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of questions I ask and the student responses they elicit when viewing videotape of my
instruction during a tutoring session?

With this in mind, the interns viewed and reflected on their videotaped
interactions with their case study student. They used the audio component of the
videotapes to transcribe their questions and their student’s answers. They studied the
transcriptions to seek patterns or trends that would allow them to draw conclusions about
question and answer relationships within the videotaped segment of instruction.

Since such a pressing subset of the training of specialist teachers of reading is the
development of English language literacy skills for a growing population of students with
limited proficiency, I decided to capture the opportunity to look closely at the data
provided by the three interns who were tutoring English language learners. The rest of the
discussion, therefore, will feature the work of three interns with their respective students:
Youngseo, Ranjan and Sughanda, three culturally and linguistically diverse rising grade-
five students at varying levels of English language proficiency.

Data sources. The following data were helpful to the interns as they thought about
the responses of their students and were also helpful to me in my attempt to answer my
own question regarding the strengths and needs of the participating interns, and
ultimately, to learn more about how to enhance the clinical experience of future interns
with regard to teaching English language learners:

1. The Massachusetts English Proficiency Assessment (MEPA) scores that had been
obtained for two of the three students provided information about the level of
English language proficiency.
2. The case study assessment report provided a better understanding of the
instructional needs of the particular student. Each intern completed a case study
report for her tutee during the internship, which included assessment results and
instructional recommendations for the child they were tutoring. The reports
helped the interns to gather pertinent information about the student in area such

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 as word identification, vocabulary knowledge, reading comprehension, oral
language and writing proficiency.
3. The videotapes were approximately twelve to fifteen minutes in length and
provided a vivid picture of the language-based interactions between the intern
and the tutee. The videos were used as the data source for transcribing the
questions asked by the intern and answers provided by the student.
4. Lesson plans served to contextualize the videotaped segment within the sequence
of the activities of the forty-five minute tutoring session.
5. The transcriptions were analyzed for the questions or prompts that were and the
quality of the student responses.
6. The questionnaire was developed by the interns to help them draw conclusions
about the qualities of their questions and the student answers. The completed
questionnaires provided further insights into the interns’ reflections on practice
with regard to the English language learner she was tutoring.

Data analysis performed by the interns. The interns viewed and reflected upon
their videotaped instruction and on the performance of their tutee. They transcribed the
questions they asked and the answers provided by the student. They analyzed their
transcribed questions and placed them into categories: literal, inferential, or prompts
(prompts were defined as paraphrased questions or sub-questions to help the student
formulate a response). The interns used the questionnaire that they developed to reflect
on the relationship of their questions to the quality of student response.

Additional data analysis performed by me. Once the inquiry projects were
completed, I was able to analyze the overall quality of instruction by looking at the work
of each of the interns with her student, and comparing conclusions across the three
participants. This was accomplished by analyzing the relationship of the questions and
answers, viewing the videotapes, and by rereading the lesson plans. The interns’ case
study assessment reports and MEPA information also provided information about the
student’s level of language proficiency and created a context for evaluating instructional
practices. The questionnaires that the interns completed provided me with an

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understanding of their reflections on practice and what they felt they had learned from the
experience.
Categories were derived from the above data. The categories were defined by
examples of language enhancing instructional practices that were embedded within (or
absent from) each of the tutoring sessions. Looking across the three case studies would
make it possible for me to refine my understanding of the relative strengths and needs of
the interns by seeking more specific categories, such as the appropriateness of the
literature selections, whether the interns in general, were able to establish a culturally
relevant conceptual framework for comprehension, develop oral language, and extend
vocabulary. It was my overall goal to learn how to shape the practicum experience of the
interns by helping them to implement what they know about best practices in literacy,
while also acquiring the skills required to meet the special literacy needs of children who
are English language learners.

Limitations and strengths of the study. One limitation of the study may be that the
original purpose established by the larger group of interns was to determine what, if any,
relationship existed between the questions they asked and the answers their students
provided during guided oral reading lessons and/or teacher read alouds. They proceeded
to analyze their transcriptions with this purpose in mind. My purpose in looking across
these data was somewhat different; I was seeking examples of language enhancing
instructional practices that were embedded within the tutoring sessions.

Conversely, that the data were derived from the actual work of interns with their
students in a clinical setting may be considered a positive feature of the methodology.
Each intern was enacting a tutoring session targeted toward the instructional needs of her
tutee. In capturing their questions and student answers, they also captured the language
exchange or discourse that took place with their respective tutee during their session.
Therefore, I believe that the data were appropriately evaluated for both purposes: the
question and answer relationships as well as the presence or absence of language
enriching instructional practices.

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 D. Findings
Youngseo. Is a Korean born child who arrived in the United States in February,
2009. Her family enrolled her in the six-week academic summer program beginning in
July. She was selected as a tutee because of her limited language and vocabulary and her
inability to comprehend books that she was reading. The summer classroom teacher
noted that Youngseo selected books that were below her grade level. Although she was
energetic in the one on one tutoring situation and made attempts to express herself, she
was unfocused and mostly silent in her classroom situation.

Her Massachusetts English Language Proficiency Assessment scores place her at

a level 2, a level at which a student can read and understand simple words and phrases,
and some simple sentences, demonstrate an awareness of some features of written
English and comprehend some simple below grade-level texts. Based on a comparison
with other students who have been in Massachusetts for one year or less, Younseo is
performing as well or better than most.

The case study assessment report completed by the intern revealed that Youngseo
was a fluent reader who could recognize many words in isolation. She was also skilled at
manipulating and identifying the phonetic aspects of language. Receptive vocabulary and
reading comprehension were her weakest areas. A reading attitude survey revealed a high
concept of self as a reader.

The videotaped instruction captured a segment of a shared reading of the book

Chester’s Way by Kevin Henkes. Viewing the video revealed that at times Youngseo was
very engaged and particularly responsive to visual information such as pictures in the
text, but was also unfocused at times when the she was unable to follow the language of
the book during the read aloud. Analyzing the answers provided by Youngseo revealed
five correct out of twelve questions asked. The correct answers, whether inferential or
concrete were aided by the illustrations, which served to support the plot. The lesson plan
indicates that a written retelling of the beginning, middle, and end of the story was
conducted as a follow up activity. Table 1 below represents the questions and answers

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that were captured in the videotape during the tutoring session and transcribed by intern
#1. Table 2 represents the questionnaire used by the intern to guide her self-analysis. A
constructive evaluation of strengths and instructional limitation with regard to the
language needs of the tutee follows.

Table 1. Question Tracking Chart Used to record Intern’s Questions and Youngseo’s
Answers
Complete the chart by listing the questions you ask during the tutoring session and the
student’s responses
QUESTION RESPONSE TYPE OF QUESTION
Why do you think they said They were going to call and Concrete
they were busy? play.
Why didn’t they want to play? They were going to call. Inferential
What do you think? No response Prompt
Why are they hiding from her? They think it is scary. Concrete
Why does she look scary? She is like a monster Prompt
What do you notice about the It is Lilly Inferential
cat?
What did Lilly do? Where did She surprised them. Concrete
she go?
Do you think they are going to They made another best friend Inferential
be friends?
Why do you think so? They are going to be friends Inferential
and stay over each other’s
houses.
What did she put on there? Sandwich Concrete
Did Chester, Lilly and Wilson They are going to run away? Inferential
want to play with Victor?

Table 2. Inquiry Project Questionnaire answered completed by Intern #1

1. Reflect on the types of questions you asked your tutee. What types of
questions did you ask?
In the video snippet I asked twelve questions. Two of these questions were
prompts. The remaining ten questions were divided evenly between inferential
and concrete questions. My case study student is an English language learner.
I believe this affected the amount of concrete questions that I asked.

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 Throughout the story I was trying to ascertain her understanding of the literal
concepts in the text. By asking questions I was also modeling that it is
important to think about the meaning of the story while reading.
2. Was there one type of question that seemed most effective based on the
accuracy of the student’s response?
Based on the student’s responses, concrete questions seemed to be most
effective. She was able to answer most of the questions accurately using the
text for support. Based on her answers I was able to ascertain the student’s
ability to understand the vocabulary and concepts in the story. These
questions helped me to see the student’s deeper thinking. Upon analysis of her
responses, however, one can see that the inferential piece of questioning was
more difficult for this student. Her answers to these questions were short and
somewhat unfocused.
3. Now that you are aware of the types of questions you ask and the
student responses elicited will you do anything to change your practice
and future planning?
Asking good and thoughtful questions is a vital part of teaching effective
reading strategies. After watching this video, I realized the types of questions
asked vary with the student and the instruction that is needed. In the case of
my video snippet, I was working with an English Language Learner. This
necessitated my questions to be a balance between literal and inferential. For
this student the concrete questions needed to be asked to ascertain
understanding. If my case study student were not an English language learner,
the balance of questions asked may have been different. Reflecting on myself
as an instructor gave me insight into how important it is to differentiate every
aspect of instruction based on student need. Something as simple as the
questions that one asks can have immeasurable benefits to a student when

Constructive Evaluation of Strengths and Needs of the Intern #1. While the text
chosen for the lesson is a well-loved selection for young children, the plot required too
many inferences for Youngseo to access without significant frontloading prior to the
shared reading. It is commendable that this intern comments on the need to move fluidly
between concrete and inferential questioning, and although she does state that she tried to
extend Youngseo’s understanding with inferential questioning, the self-analysis reveals
that the questions were primarily for the purpose of evaluation. One roadblock preventing
Youngeo from more accurate and elaborated answers to most of the questions is her
limited listening comprehension and her limited ability to articulate her thinking due to
lack of English vocabulary. The follow up written retelling was completed interactively,
and with the interns help, Youngseo was able to include some important events and

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express them in simple sentences.

A pre-reading activity using manipulative objects, such as stick puppets to

dramatize and talk about the plot as well for teaching and practicing related vocabulary
could potentially support comprehension and language development, helping Youngseo
to produce more expressive and accurate responses both in her oral answers and in the
written retelling that followed. Youngseo’s responses to illustrations provided a
particularly rich opportunity for using and extending oral language, an opportunity that
should be captured as she responds to other selections in the future. Also making a direct
connection to Youngseo’s own experiences coming to a new place and the challenge of
fitting in with other children who have different customs, games, and ways of doing
things might have helped her to better access the theme of the story.

Ranjan. This student has been attending school in Cambridge, Massachusetts for
two years since he and his family emigrated from Nepal. It was observed that Ranjan was
an enthusiastic and hardworking student with wonderful background knowledge that he
relied upon to help him with his language and comprehension of texts. He was selected to
become a case study student because he was about a year behind in his overall reading
level and would, therefore, benefit from individual tutoring on a daily basis.

The Massachusetts English Language Proficiency Assessment scores for the fall
of 2007 and the spring of 2008 (the last scores available) indicate a substantial
improvement from beginner into the intermediate category during his first year in the
country. Listening comprehension stands out as his strength, with writing and speaking
approaching expectations. Reading was his area of greatest need.

The case study assessment report completed by the intern revealed that Ranjan
was having particular difficulty with word identification, particularly with specific
orthographic patterns and with multisyllabic words in general. The intern notes that
building on and providing links to Ranjan’s background knowledge, pre-teaching
vocabulary to develop understanding of key content words, and helping Ranjan to

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understand and use non-fiction text features to enhance comprehension are critical
instructional needs as well.

The lesson plan included an activity to practice decoding multisyllabic words

containing /sion/ and /tion/ that were extracted from the text entitled Our West, to be used
in the guided oral reading activity that followed. The videotaped instruction captured a
segment of the guided oral reading featuring the hardships faced by pioneers as they
travelled west. Viewing the video revealed that, although he seemed to be struggling
during the brief oral reading that was captured on the tape, Ranjan was quite engaged
with the main ideas of the text regarding the decisions that were made by American
pioneers as they travelled west. His responses, ranging from simple yes or no answers to
fairly elaborate answers, were shaped by the way the questions were asked. Table 3
represents the questions and answers that were captured in the videotape during the
tutoring session and transcribed by intern #2. Table 4 represents the questionnaire used
by the intern to guide the analysis of her questioning. A constructive evaluation of
strengths and instructional limitation with regard to the language needs of the tutee
follows.

Table 3. Question Tracking Chart Used to record Intern’s Questions and Ranjan’s
Answers
Question Response Type of Question
We can confirm our Yes Explicit
predictions as we are reading.
Do you remember what our
prediction was?
We did make a prediction that Yes Explicit
this was a Native American
helping the pioneers. Was our
prediction correct?
Do we know what salmon is? A fish Explicit
How about venison? What do Pause after first question. Explicit
you think? I’ve heard of it. I know venom
We read that pioneers faced To cross rivers, take food and Explicit
some big decisions. What stuff, supplies out of wagons.
were some of these big The men would probably
decisions? swim and bring their carts
through. Unload the supplies
through the river and stuff.

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Do you think it was difficult to
make these big decisions?
How come?
We also see this piece of paper
on this page.
What do you think this piece
of paper is?
Yes Implicit
Because if wagon was like
pretty much heavy, and the
river was really deep the
wagon would probably sink
and they wouldn’t have stuff
and wouldn’t have food.
Looks like sandpaper Implicit
Maybe someone writing a
letter

Table 4. Inquiry Project Questionnaire answered completed by Intern #2

1. Reflect on the types of questions you asked your tutee. What types of
questions did you ask?
I asked many questions to monitor Ranjan’s comprehension as he was
reading. The explicit questions that I asked elicited yes or no answers and
could be easily pinpointed in the text we just read. I did not necessarily ask
the student to describe why he chose yes or no. The questions that were not
explicitly in the text and encouraged him to think past the written language
were questions that helped him understand the text and the difficulties the
pioneers faced. These questions encouraged him to think critically about the
hardships the pioneers faced. I also learned that I give many leads when
asking questions by questioning in a different way or narrowing the question
down. If I had allowed the student to think over the question and allowed for
more wait time, I think he could have come up with the response on his own.
2. Was there one type of question that seemed most efective based upon
the accuracy of the student’s response?
I noticed that the answers given by the student were most effective when I
began by stating a sentence to build the student’s schema or background
knowledge, then following up with a question. For example, I made the
statement: We read that pioneers faced some big decisions. Then I followed up
with the question: What were some of these big decisions? This type of
questioning elicited the best responses.
3. Now that you are aware of the types of questions you ask and the
student responses elicited will you do anything to change your practice
and future planning?
I will certainly try to develop the student’s background knowledge. I think this
helped Ranjan develop a more detailed answer. I will also make sure that
when I ask explicit questions, I try to delve deeper into the student’s
understanding of the text by asking for more detail instead of accepting a yes
or no answer.

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 Constructive Evaluation of Strengths and Needs of the Intern #2. Ranjan lacks
oral reading fluency due to his challenges with word identification. It is commendable
that the case study report identifies the specific gaps in his knowledge of orthographic
patterns and structural analysis and you focus attention on these specific areas of need. In
addition, this student needs to read materials at a reading level that he can access more
easily in order to practice his word identification skills. Selecting a nonfiction piece for
Ranjan at level Q may have been too much of a challenge, but several supports were put
into place to help him. For example the intern read aloud to him when he was struggling
and provided support with vocabulary when it was clear that he needed it.

Other supports, such as pre-teaching the key vocabulary, particularly with this
content related selection, and helping Ranjan to create a framework for understanding the
historical context and purpose for moving west would also have been beneficial. There
was a great opportunity to capture the personal similarity in his experiences moving to a
new country, and the decisions that his family had to make in the process. Reading aloud
and then having your student reread the same passage, or reading chorally; fading back
when he is reading smoothly, or joining in when he is faltering is another method for
providing scaffolding with a challenging text.

In the self-analysis the intern recognized that Ranjan relied on his existing schema
and therefore, she reiterated a point that had already been established in the text as a
prompt or platform for him to build upon as he attempted to construct his answer. His
most elaborate verbal responses came as a result of this technique of prefacing a question
with language from the text, and from another question that invited Ranjan to provide his
own interpretive insight.

Sughanda. Sughanda immigrated to Cambridge Massachusetts six years ago with

her family when she was four years old. She was selected for tutoring during the summer
of 2009 because the Cambridge Public School data indicated that she was approximately
one year below grade level expectations. Sughanda reports that she enjoyed the summer
program and has returned this year for the second time.

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 There were no available MEPA scores for this student, most likely due to being
discontinued in the category of English language learner. Deeper analysis derived from
the case study assessment report performed by the intern as part of the seminar
requirement indicates that Sughanda demonstrated fluent written expression with
attention to the conventions of grammar and spelling. Her comprehension of language, as
measured by listening comprehension was an area of relative weakness impacting her
overall performance. Comprehension of expository text presented a particular challenge.

The videotaped instruction captured a segment of an instructional conversation

Goldenberg, date) based on the book Elaine and the Flying Frog, by Heidi Chang about a
Chinese American girl feeling out of place in Iowa and befriended by her frog-loving
science partner. Viewing the video revealed that both intern and student enjoyed sharing
their interpretive thinking in an egalitarian manner, with the line blurring between
questions and answers. The result was more of a comprehension building conversation
than a question answer session. Table 5 below represents the questions that served to
prompt or scaffold the student’s responses. Table 6 represents the intern’s analysis on her
approach to building this comprehension conversation and her thoughts and readings
regarding a comparison between conversational discourse and questioning for the
purpose of evaluation.

Table 5. Question Tracking Chart Used to record Intern’s Questions and Sughanda’s
Answers
Question
Tell me about what was
happening
And why was she really happy?
Prefaced the conversation, then,
What happened with the
conversation with her Dad?
It’s okay to revisit the book.
How did he decide he might be
able to help her and Mary Lewis?
And why was it importat that the
Response Type of Question
Elaine was acting like a frog Prompt
because she was really happy
For their project she had an idea Inferential
She was really jumpy and she Prompt
tripped a lot and um…(pause)
He went to his workshop which Literal
was the basement and he could
help her, he could make like a
kite, a, yah, a flying kite, that was
a frog.
Because they wanted it to be like Inferential

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Kite be a frog?
Let’s talk about what happened
with the tea? What was going on
with the tea?
Did she really know about
Sammy?
But…
I was thinking about this scene
and the issue when Kelleen
noticed Elaine’s rice at lunch.
How was the way Mary Lewis
reacted to not seeing tea in
teabags different from the way
Keleen reacted? How that felt for
Elaine?
So, I’m thinking that Mary Lewis
was opened to new kinds of
things and do you think Mrs.
Chow felt comfortable explaining
about the tea?
a frog and they always wished
they could make the frog fly.
Well, um, Mrs. Chow said if a Prompt
stray tealeaf was in your cup, it
meant you have a boyfriend and
Mary Lewis was surprised that
she (Mrs. C) knew about Sammy
in the fourth grade
No, but she (ML) thought so… Inferential
Um, and ah, Mary Lewis hadn’t
seen that kind of way of making
tea so she learned. Also she was
very interested in it, so she
wanted tea instead of juice.
She (ML) acted interested. She Inferential
didn’t act like Keleen, like
grossed out, I think. She acted
very interested and surprised.
Keleen acted like she was grossed
out by it. She thought it was
weird.
She (Mrs. Chow) felt comfortable Inferential
explaining about the tea. She
didn’t feel uncomfortable because
no one was saying it was weird.

Table 6. Inquiry Project Questionnaire answered completed by Intern #3

1. Reflect on the types of questions you asked your tutee. What types of
questions did you ask?
The majority of questions asked the student to use inferential thinking. Only
one question could be regarded as soliciting literal information. Three points
were also posed. However, overall, many questions were prefaced with my
own thinking and the sense of exchange was more conversational than
question-and-answer. The conversational tone is most likely a product of
several sessions Sughanda and I spent exploring this narrative text. One of my
practicum goals was to become comfortable with a comprehension
conversation rather than the “comprehension check.

2. Was there one type of question that seemed most effective based upon the
accuracy of the student’s response?
It’s difficult to rate the questions in terms of the student’s responses. As the

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 conversation continued, Sughanda had so much to say. When transcribing the
exchange, it is encouraging to see that she did so much of the talking. It also
appeared that earlier in the exchange she needed to “warm up,” but soon did
much elaborating. She may have been initially nervous with the videotaping.
As the conversation ensured, her responses to inferential questions were rich
with detail, her own interpretation, and insightful thinking.
3. Now that you are aware of the type of questions you ask and the student responses
elicited will you do anything to change your practice and future planning?
When reflecting upon the types of questions and Sughanda’s responses, I fell
fairly confident that the exchange encouraged her own interpretation of the
events. The question I am pondering is, ‘What were my questions like at the
beginning of the Summer Compass Program?’ I am wondering about this
because it seems to me that Sughanda and I had a meaningful exchange, much
like what happens in a book discussion group. But, how did we get to this
point? Did we both grow together? Was I able to recognize what she needed
to engage fully in the literature and then further to express herself with
clarity?

I think it may have been helpful to have had some footage from an early
tutoring session to compare with this one. I have also been thinking a lot
about my readings in the Fountas and Pinnell Teaching For Fluency and
Comprehension. I think about where I am on the spectrum as the text presents
scenarios of different types of exchanges between teachers and students. I was
most taken by the notion of a comprehension conversation vs.the typical
comprehension check. I also feel strongly that we should expose students to
quality literature where there is much to ponder and share. Insight into the
students thinking is truly evident when they are able to share their inferential
insights. There have been occasions when a student’s response may seem
erroneous at face value, but may in fact, reflect original and insightful
thinking.

Viewing the videotape and transcribing and analyzing the conversation were
worthy activities. Despite the limitations of the summer program in terms of
time this inquiry project offered time to reflect on one’s practice. The
perpetual cycle of reflection, exposure to new information. and exchanges
with students nourish the teaching soul and keeps it fresh and new. I will
certainly try to develop the student’s background knowledge

Constructive Evaluation of Strengths and Needs of the Intern #3. The

conversational approach to this session captured an exemplification of effective
development of language and comprehension, precisely the area of relative need revealed
within the student’s literacy profile. The literature selection was certainly appropriate for
a fifth grade girl who could relate to the protagonist’s experiences of immigrating to a
new country. The intern provided impressive scaffolding by prefacing many questions

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with her own thinking, thereby providing a stepping stone upon which Sughanda could,
in turn, present her interpretive thinking. The intern makes the point that quality literature
(and in this case culturally relevant, quality literature) in addition to the conversational
format of the session served to stimulate original and insightful thinking on the part of
her student. In listening closely to the vocabulary of Sughanda’s responses, it seems that
there were times when she was grasping for words to express her ideas. For example,
when describing the process for making tea Sughanda said, “…that kind of way”, and the
words “grossed out” and “weird” were used more than once. While these words are
typically pre-adolescent choices, substituting more precise vocabulary would serve to
build oral language and improve the overall quality of this student’s response.

In the self-analysis the intern also comments on the progression of tutoring

sessions and wonders how the discourse patterns may have changed over time, allowing
tutor and tutee to fall into a conversational pattern.

E. Conclusions.
The students. There were similarities and differences with regard to the level of
English language proficiency and overall literacy profile of the students being tutored by
the interns participating in this study. It was advantageous to have three rising fifth
graders, all three of them having achieved literacy in their first language. At the time of
the study, Youngseo, from Korea, had been in the country for only four months.
According to her MEPA she was performing at a level 2, an impressive level compared
with other children who had been present in the state for one year or less. She was a
sojourner who would be returning to her home country after her parents completed the
work they were doing in Cambridge. Ranjan arrived from Nepal two years prior to the
study, and according to multiple measures had made substantial progress during that
time. Sughanda, also from Nepal, had been in Cambridge, Massachusetts for six years.
She told her tutor that she was a fluent speaker of both English and Napalese.

In terms of the literacy needs presented, it was interesting to look at three students
with very different overall profiles. Youngseo was skilled at the manipulation of English

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language phonemes and word decoding, but was understandably weakest in receptive
vocabulary, comprehension of language, as well as the ability to express herself using
oral language or writing. Ranjan, was very strong at listening to and comprehending
language, with his greatest area of need being recognition and pronunciation of specific
affixes, including those marking tense, and decoding multisyllabic words. Sughanda
demonstrated relative strength in word identification and demonstrated greater need in
language comprehension and overall fluency. Both Ranjan and Sughanda were
performing at approximately a year below grade level expectations, and as rising fifth
graders their limited vocabulary and challenges with comprehension of expository text
presented potential obstacles to their future academic success. All three of the students
enjoyed and profited from the benefits of the individualized tutoring provided by the
reading specialist interns during the 2009 summer practicum.

Scaffolds to support the development of language. The interns provided some

examples of supportive scaffolding to their English language learners. Illustrations in the
text served as a support for Youngseo who was unable to follow the language of the text
or the sequence of the plot during the shared reading. Re-reading to Ranjan helped him to
better understand the vocabulary of a challenging expository text. In spite of limitations
in her expressive vocabulary, an instructional conversation proved to be an excellent
scaffold for Sughanda and encouraged her to use language to express her interpretations
of a very appropriate selection of literature. It was clearly advantageous to move from a
question and answer format toward a more interactive conversational format. This
format, also called a comprehension conversation (Fountas & Pinnell, 2006), seemed to
elicit oral responses of greater quality, particularly in the case of the more advanced
language user, and promote opportunities for the teacher and student to co-construct
meaning.
For both Ranjan and Sughanda, the intern’s technique of prefacing a question
with a statement served to model language use, and seemed to help the student think
about and construct an answer. This was especially true in the case of Sughanda, but
present in a more limited way in one example with the work with Ranjan. Open-ended
questioning also resulted in relatively well-elaborated answers for Ranjan, as compared to

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the questions that could be answered with simple yes or no.

There were, in addition, some clear needs for scaffolding that were not present. In
two of the cases the need to create comprehensible input (Krashen, 1982) by building
background knowledge and pre-teaching vocabulary emerged as a theme. Having
selected the Lilly book by Kevin Henkes, more pre-reading work in the form of
vocabulary development, dramatization of plot, and connecting the theme of the story to
Youngseo’s experiences moving to a new country and making new friends would have
been appropriate scaffolds. Youngseo responded well to illustrations, creating an
opportunity to use and extend oral language. Ranjan struggled with the readability level
of the text, partially due to the expository text structures and with the vocabulary. As with
Youngseo, considerable frontloading would have served to scaffold Ranjan’s
comprehension and response. Pre-teaching the vocabulary, setting a conceptual
framework for westward expansion, and how establishing how his personal experiences
moving to a new country were similar to the experiences of the pioneers would have
been helpful for him.

In two out of three cases, the interns became aware of the potential limitations of
the materials they had selected for instruction. Youngseo might have been better able to
comprehend a nonfiction concept book, simplistically written yet presenting facts in a
mature and engaging fashion. Since Youngseo was interested in animals and the moon, a
selection with one of these topics with vivid illustrations would be advantageous for
future sessions.

As the interns reflected further on their work they provided some final
wonderings: How will Youngseo’s limited English proficiency affect her socially a she
enters the fifth grade? What are the most effective procedures for teaching vocabulary to
English language learners? How can the conversational tone be engaged in discussions
around nonfiction text?

F. Implications

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 This inquiry identified the relative strengths and weaknesses within the
instructional practices of three talented reading specialist interns as they made their best
efforts to tutor students who were learners of the English language. Specific examples of
the scaffolding provided or needed to enhance comprehension and response may help
university supervisors, mentors and seminar leaders who are working with interns in a
clinical setting.

In many ways, these findings help me in my own struggle with how to make the
clinical experience a stronger bridge between knowledge of theory and its application to
the challenges of practice. For me, the question regarding how can we better prepare
mostly monolingual English speaking reading teachers to meet the challenge of teaching
literacy to children who are aspiring toward greater levels of English language
proficiency may be folded into another pervasive question: How is good literacy teaching
of learners of the English language different from good literacy teaching in general?

The interns in this study applied what they knew about good practice, but in a
sense, we all needed to look at what they already knew through the lens of a video
camera in order to determine how greater attention to selecting and making personal
connections to literature, teaching vocabulary, and scaffolding response, for example,
could make a difference in the particular work they were doing with their English
language learners.

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