Notes
Allyson Achity and I met for our second coaching session on Thursday, February 5 at 4:00 PM. We are in the examining influence phase of the Vector model and and we spent a great deal of time discussing ideas that she has for implementing change in her classroom as it relates to reading instruction. Allyson is concerned about students’ reading comprehension and is especially concerned about their ability to read and answer 2 part questions–those that ask the students to provide answers to the first part of the question, and then in the second part of the question, to cite evidence from the text that led them to their decision.
We also discussed the quadrant model and she is interested in assessing students to determine the quadrant in which they might fall. We will explore assessment options, particularly in the area of language comprehension.
As we discussed the “sphere of influence,” one of her concerns surfaced. She is not sure that students have had explicit instruction in comprehension strategies in grades prior to her fifth grade. They definitely have had instruction in decoding, but not as noticeable is any explicit instruction in comprehension. She discussed that time could be allocated for this, but time for instruction is an issue, particularly with a pacing guide which is helpful, but sometimes difficult to keep on pace if instruction has to be repeated.
Between this meeting and our next, Allyson will research strategies for explicit teaching of comprehension. To that end, I shared some resources with her. Allyson will also survey her students to determine what problems they are having in answering the 2 part questions. We will define our dream goal at our next meeting.