Elizandra is an ELL student who just moved to Charlotte County. She knows about 20 letters (sometimes she forgets letters or remembers them), and about 12-15 letter sounds. This makes reading and writing difficult for her. I chose this activity one-on-one with her after completing a lesson on story elements and sequence, and she struggled even though it could be drawn instead of written. Her pictures and the words she did form did not align with the story read. For the past two weeks I have been reading 0.5 level AR books with her. She still struggles with comprehension though. I decided to break it down even further into simple paragraphs with corresponding worksheets.
The first story we read was about a girl going back to school. It was a longer paragraph and she struggled to remember "classroom" and instead said school. The visuals above the pictured words did help her eventually make the connection. I then decided to move on to the worksheet pack about Field Day Activities. It was a First, Then, Last style paragraph, but she did much better with recollection of the activity names and story sequence. She likes to say things are easy when she understand or does well at something on her first try. However, when I turned the packet to the writing page, you can audibly hear her sigh and her face changes. She struggles with writing if it is not copying off the board. Although, she did do amazing with this assignment.
After completing the sequencing worksheet and story retelling worksheet, I reviewed the story to check her comprehension by asking questions. She recalled all of the information in order. The only thing she struggled with was how to say "tug-of-war". But, many children these days have never played that game. Next time, I would maybe build prior knowledge on the activities(tug-of-war) beforehand so that a student has the prior knowledge.