Week 4-Assignment 2

Based on hearing this student reading the passage "Whales and Fish" that the student is an intelligent girl who is a strong reader. Since the age of the student is unknown truthfully it is hard to say whether or not the student is a strong reader in comparison to her grade level. However based on her accuracy rate of %94 it seemed that the passage was at the perfect level for her to be reading with a teacher. In addition her self correction rate of 1:4 indicated that she self monitors her reading.When the child read it words seemed to flow for the most part. When the child got stuck she struggled a bit and either was able to figure out the word on her own, or rarely needed the teacher's assistance. It is interesting to note that when the child was asked the differences between whales and fish, the first thing that she mentioned was their difference in size which ironically was not mentioned at all in the passage. This indicates that the child was responding based on prior knowledge and not based on her reading comprehension. In addition she was able to recall that the babies of whales and fish were different and that they both had flippers. Both of these points were mentioned at the end of the story. Therefore this leads me to believe that either these points were the ones that the deepest impression on the girl so she remembered them. Either that or these points were mentioned at the end of the story  and therefore the girl was able to recall them easier. If that were the case I would also suggest that at the beginning of the story the girl was focused more on the technical aspects of reading more than the content. Once she got to the end she was able to also internalize the message that the words of the passage were trying to convey.