Notes
Coaching Session #7 – Reflection and Commitment to Change in Practice
Coachee: Lora Brzezinski
Date/Time: May 14, 2026 8:00 a.m.
Overarching goal with student: Student P will engage in whole group (5 minutes/day), small group (25 minutes twice a week), and DRI group instruction (10 minutes once a week) for 3- and 4-syllable word decoding. The strategy used will be to deconstruct the multisyllabic words then recode so that reading the passages becomes more fluent for P. In addition, reading the passage multiple times during the week will improve fluency for the student. P’s baseline WPM is currently 94. The goal will be to improve to 99 WPM by March 17; 104 WPM by April 15; and 109 WPM by mid-May. Improvement will be tracked using progress monitoring that occurs every 2.5 weeks. The student’s progress will also be noted through FastBridge assessment.
Results since coaching began:
1/9/2026: 116 WPM
3/2/2026: 120 WPM C: 80% R: 83.33%
4/2/2028: 98 WPM C: 60% R: 66.67%
4/15/2026: 111 WPM C: 80% R: 66.67%
Final Assessment Results:
CBM Fall: 74 Winter: 94 Spring: 106 ( not quite our goal)
Fluency Progress monitoring
103 wpm Recall: 3/6 50% Questions: 9/10 90%
Listening to him on both tests, he did read for meaning and self corrected a few times.
Areading test
Fall: 463 Winter: 486 Spring: 498 He met his predicted score even though it was not the benchmark score of 513. He is in the 97th percentile in growth which is amazing!
Problem of practice goal: I want to layer fluency work with comprehension work for P. so that we can track the data to see if increases in his fluency scores improve his comprehension scores. Students are tested on two elements for comprehension—recall and comprehension questions. There are six points possible for recall and 10 comprehension questions. I want P. to score at least 5/6 on recall and 8/10 on comprehension questions by mid-May.
We discussed having P. return to the 120 WPM mark as a mini-goal.
Coachee reflections:
Coach reflections: Lora has started using QAR with her students focusing first on the “Right There” questions within text. She requires students to find evidence in the text and use bookmarks to demonstrate where they have found the answers to the “Right There” questions. They have begun working on inferencing skills so students can work on higher levels of questioning required in the QAR activity. We also discussed Porter’s progress. Details appear below.
The Problem of Practice is a lot like setting a SMART goal.
- A focus on the instructional core,
- Our work on the goal is actionable,
- Action toward the goal is directly observable,
- The work is connected to a broader strategy of improvement, and
- The work is high-leverage and may result in important changes to instruction and student learning
Focus questions:
In what ways have you been able to work on comprehension with students? How is that playing out? Implementation of QAR has begun. The students have worked on comprehension for “Right There” questions on a passage they have read multiple times. They are required to demonstrate where they found the answer in the text using bookmarks and showing Lora the answer. This reinforces the need to find evidence in the text for their answers to these kinds of questions. Lora has begun working on inferencing with the students, and they are finding this challenging. They are looking for clues within the text to support a response to other kinds of questions within the QAR activity. She helped them understand inferencing by using text the students were reading about the Iditarod. The story does not tell what the weather is like or what the people need to wear in Alaskan weather. To help explain this to students, they talked about what our weather is like in the winter and what we need to wear during that season. Students are still finding inferencing difficult.
How has focusing on retelling and comprehension impacting P.’s performance and fluency? P. is listening to himself read and now notices when he miscues. He is also able to figure out when the text is not making sense to him. He is doing more reading for meaning than he was before.
What do you still need to do to accomplish your goals with P.? What assistance do you need? Lora and P. will continue to work on “Right There” questions. For comprehension questions, Lora takes the text away when she is assessing for that skill. She does record P. reading so that he can hear what it sounds like.
What is the evidence that you can use to demonstrate progress toward goal? In the next two weeks, Lora will be administrating progress monitoring, FastBridge assessment, and WPM though the CMB. In addition to recording P. reading, we discussed Lora conducting a miscue analysis with P. that that he can see what kinds of miscues he makes when he read.
What has P.’s reaction been to working on retelling and comprehension? Sometimes he gets frustrated because their work is conducted at the end of the day when he is tired. When he gets an answer correct, he is really excited and lights up. Lora is reading a Percy Jackson book to the students. They are also reading some Greek mythology texts. P. responded to a part of the Percy Jackson text when he understood what had happened to Arachne. He is beginning to apply connections between texts which is exciting to him. Lora did note that P.’s negative social behaviors have increased to the point that she had a phone conference with his mother voicing her concerns about how his behaviors are impacting peers’ willingness to work with him and be his friend. His family is taking him to the doctor soon.
Working on Next Steps
Work on implementation of your goal for problem of practice by the next coaching session.
Keep working on steps toward goal with your identified student that you want to meet by mid-May.
You can create a video if you like, but that is no longer required.
At the final coaching session, we will discuss what P.’s needs are for the summer months and going in to the next grade level.