I began this project by asking Kara to read “Be My Valenslime”, by S. K. Arden, aloud. I thought this book to be appropriate for her reading level. Also, it seemed to fit her playful personality.

In order to better assess Kara without interruption I made a copy of the book for my own use. By having my own copy I could follow along and make notes without distracting her concentration. Along with my copy of the book I had prepared a guide as to what I was looking for in Kara’s reading* .

I think a fun exercise would be to ask the class to imagine how their favorite character in their book would dress and have a day when the students can dress up and possibly act out a favorite part of theirs.

d “My Valenslime” I could see by her expressions that she had comprehension for what was going on in the story. Kara was able to demonstrate that she understands the use of punctuation by slightly animating each character. On occasion she hesitated on certain words. This told me that she had problems decoding. A lack of experience with some of these words may have contributed to her trepidation. However, she did successfully sound-it-out on her own.

In my opinion, Kara has demonstrated consistent trouble with decoding. With some of her trouble coming from similar sounding words it would be a good idea, if this was a primary concern, to focus on rhyming words and books.

The book I chose for Kara is one in the Captain Underpants series, “The Perilous Plot of Professor Poopypants” by Dav Pilkey. What child doesn’t like potty humor? It is a Scholastic book which tells me that I can rely on the books’ recommended age range. For “Professor Poopypants” the age range is 7-10 years old.

There were six or so words that she gave up quickly on without even trying to make sense of them; the “itch” sound, as in, sandwich, itch and snatched, were examples of such words. Later in the book she read similar sounding words with greater ease after we discussed the “itch” sound. It also helped if I asked “Have we read other words like this

Some topics in this essay:
Valenslime” Arden, Dav Pilkey, Literacy Acquisition, , Dowling College, Captain Underpants, chapter book, “itch” sound, book appropriate reading, similar sounding words, appropriate reading level, similar sounding, kara read, copy book, appropriate reading, age range, reading material, book appropriate, kara’s knowledge,