Observation - Practice ELA Test

My case study student took a practice ELA test in her regular class. In the ELA block, the instructor works with students on the listening portion of the practice test. As ELA students, they receive a few accommodations: the ELA students are tested separately, the reading selection is read 3 times instead of twice, and the ELA students are able to use a word-to-word translation dictionary (without definitions). Reading #1 - teacher ordered pencils down and prompted students to listen to the story. Before the 2nd reading, teacher prompted students to write down the title, any characters or setting they may remember and get ready to take notes. Reading #2 - while reading at a slower pace, the teacher paused slightly to allow students to listen/decode and take notes simultaneously. After the 2nd reading, the teacher reviewed some of the notes taken by the students. On an easel, the teacher outlined some of the basic elements of a story and prompted students for specifics from the reading selection they had heard, "The Voice of Rigo", including characters, setting, problem and solution. Jane again was hesitant to write anything down without specific prompting from the teacher. As I have observed, Jane had trouble with an article of speech when she said "at the car", instead of "in the car". The teacher continuously prompted students to review their notes to help with comprehension strategies and to help answer questions. Again on the easel, the ESL teacher prompted students with a "Planning Page" which can help with sequencing of events: What happened at the beginning? What happened in the middle of the story? What happened at the end? A variety of graphic organizers are available to educators that can help students organize information for better comprehension. As students continued with their practice tests, I was able to work directly with Jane on helping her use her notes to answer comprehension questions and retell the story in her own words. I verbally prompted Jane with the information we needed to convey and offered multiple samples of ideas and sentences that she might consider using. Jane would say an idea verbally and seemed to take a few minutes to determine if it was in fact what she wanted to write on the paper. After Jane wrote a sentence, I had her read it aloud. This strategy provided Jane the opportunity to catch her own mistake and correct it herself when she omitted a word. This was one of the first times I worked so closely with a student. When Jane was asked if she was pleased with her work she gave a great big smile. It was quite a nice moment for me.