Notes
Coaching Session #3 – Take Action
Coachee: Mika Roark
Date/Time: Thursday, February 26, 2026, 12:30 p.m.
Next Coaching Date/Time: Wednesday, March 11, 2026, 12:30 p.m.
Overarching Goal:  I will work with five students that are in a fluency support group by providing supplementary passages and texts that match the topic of the curriculum (for example, space or immigration) to assist students’ knowledge of the vocabulary found in assessment passages about the topic. I will track students’ progress by using their December CBM fluency scores as the baseline. My goal is for each student to improve their score 5% by March 13, 10% by April 17, and 15% by May 15.
Reviewing the Teaching Video:
Coachee reflections: Mika was looking for accuracy in the students reading during the lesson because it was not the first time students had read the text. She said that the focus during the lesson is accuracy because without accuracy, the other elements of reading fluency are difficult to work on. She shared the elements of fluency at the beginning of the lesson using graphics to support the students. The students are ELL students and need that support. Mika discussed the difficulty students are having with phrasing during reading. She also noted that vocabulary is the most important part of preparing these students to read passages because they don’t have the background knowledge they need nor the schema to attach new words and meanings to.
Coach reflections: The video shows Mika talking to the students about the elements of fluency using graphics to support them. While the video was difficult to hear, I could hear her ask the students to find words they did not know or were unsure of either how to say them or what they mean. I could also see her support a student by chunking an identified word that was unknown to the student. When one of the students was reading, they used a finger sweep to read.
Questions to consider:
Would it help to hear a fluent reader who is very good at phrasing such as Martin Luther King? Martin’s Big Words is a picture book resource that might be good to use as well.
Would it be possible to highlight phrases in a passage using different colors to demonstrate to students what phrasing is and looks like and then sounds like?
Based on our reflections, is there anything we need to change about the overarching goal? After discussing her goal with the school psychologist and Title I reading teacher, Mika may change the percentages for reading goals, but we will determine a change after the mid-March assessments are completed and we see where students are then. One student has been removed from the group to a skills-based group; there is another student who may be moved to a different group, as well. Again, a determination will be made in March.
What is working for your student? For two students, confidence has increased and that is assisting them in becoming more fluent readers.
What is challenging for you or for your students? Background knowledge for the words that are in the texts is very challenging. The current topic is space travel, and the students just don’t have schema to connect the new learning. The next topic will be immigration. Mika is worried about how the topic will impact her students who are largely EL students.
Have you determined any progress toward goal during the past week? Yes, there has been an increase in confidence.
Are you confident that students will make the improvement we are striving for by mid-March? We believe the goals may be too lofty; we will adjust them mid-March if we need to.
Do we need to change anything about the goal at this time? Yes. In addition to CBM fluency scores, Mika will be using FastBridge assessments. She will be determining the baseline from this week’s testing and then move forward with using this assessment alongside the CBMs.
Working on Next Steps
Keep working on steps toward goal that you want to meet by mid-March.
Create video for this goal of your teaching and student learning.
Read the Schutz and Hoffman article if you have time.