Reading Assessment

Guada reads often in English. She enjoys reading, and selects typical teenage girls texts. She has read Stargirl, (with guidance) and other stories about relationships, love and friendship.  She loves reading and writing. Whole group reading is effective for her, and she much prefers that, because she gains more from it when she is read to than when she reads alone. She does not like to read out loud in groups, because she does not like feeling inadequate about her pronunciation. When she reads a book that is at her reading level, she reads independently and enjoys it. She often walks to and from class with a book in hand as she continues to read. 

She reads much more in English than in Spanish. She has texts at home in Spanish, and repeatedly asks for texts in English. She has the ability to read in Spanish, but her motivation to learn English is strong and reading provides her a safe, non threatening place (as opposed to speaking) to learn.

Depending on the text, Guada can gather main ideas. When the text is appropriate for her, she can recall facts and easily summarize. No matter what language it is in, she tends to summarize (in speech) in Spanish. She does not offer information about a text until she is asked, although often I tend to think this is her timid personality rather than a lack of comprehension. 

In Spanish, she can read a text like "Casa en Mango Street" but due to the metaphorical language and complex ideas, she cannot understand what the stories are about. 

When a text is too high for her (like many of the texts she gets in other classes) she cant often gather details. For example, when reading Touching Spirit Bear, she understood that Cole was on an island, but didn't understand the background story or the details what happened when he arrived. 

In Spanish her fluency is higher. She reads with more intonation, but still struggles to be a completely fluid reader. With more common, conversational phrases, she reads with more intonation and pace. She pauses and corrects herself when she comes across difficult words (investigación, asistente). In Spanish, her fluency rate would be a 4. 

In English, she reads at a much slower rate with little if any expression. Her pronunciation often gets in the way of her fluency. When she comes across a problematic word she simply stops. Sometimes she can pronunce a word but doesn't know the meaning. In English she reads at level 1 fluency. She reads rather independently at the 3rd grade level, but does come across vocabulary words that are unknown (seesaw, trudging). She continues reading most of the time if she can pronounce the word to see if the word really is important for the story. Guada understands punctuation in print, but does not often use it all the time in her writing in either Spanish nor English. When given instructions in Spanish or English, Guada can apply concepts to either language.