Dillon completed his final practice test in preparation for the FSA tomorrow. He did an excellent job on the practice test, accurately answering all questions. He has shown improvement determining main ideas and key details in a text. Dillon seems relaxed and confident. He shared many of the chants and mantras they taught him at the FSA pep rally. I wish him the very best and hope he "crushes" the test!

Dillon seems to have had a restful and enjoyable school break. He seems relaxed and ready to tackle the FSA next week. In our session, we reviewed test-taking strategies. He also completed a practice session. The practice session covered author's purpose, informational text features, and word usage. He did a great job, correctly answering 15 of 17 questions. Dillon has worked hard to prepare for this exam and is starting to feel more confident in his abilities.

Dillon shared with me that he wasn’t feeling very confident today. He is getting very nervous about the FSA. I reassured him that he would do fine as long as he used his test-taking strategies and remained calm. He did part of a practice FSA in our session that covered retelling, describing characters, demonstrating understanding of text, and determining word meanings. He worked carefully through the passages,used his test-taking strategies, and did a wonderful job. Dillon needs reassurance that he is capable of doing well. He needs to have a positive mindset when he tackles this high stakes exam! Wishing him a restful break!

Dillon brought an FSA practice sheet from his teacher to work on for the first half of our session. His practice consisted of identifying correct word usage. After completing that work, he reviewed poetry and parts of a poem. Dillon also identified author's purpose and the main ideas in poems. He was very focused and worked hard throughout the session.

Dillon started the session with work on his homework packet. He completed the pages on using "precise" words. Then, he continued to work on FSA Practice Test #3. Dillon did a fine job referring to evidence from the text to answer questions. He did, however, have some difficulty analyzing a poem in the test. He was not able to identify what a "stanza" was and also had forgotten some literary terms(alliteration, simile, and metaphor). We will do more practice in this area between now and the assessment.

Dillon began the session one of Practice Test #3 for the FSA. First, he read a passage about the New York Times. After identifying the text features in the passage, he answered a variety of questions about the text. He was able to identify the main idea of the text, recount the key details and determine the meaning of general and domain specific words. He was focused and answered 9 out of 9 questions accurately. Dillon needed to be reminded to read the passage carefully and to use his test-taking strategies. He was focused and on task throughout the lesson.

Today, Dillon practiced close reading strategies for paired passages.
He read two passages about cars. One discussed the positive impact and one discussed the negative impact. He then completed an organizer in which he compared and contrasted the two passages. Next, he read two passages about water. He worked on a graphic organizer which asked him to determine the main idea and three key details in each passage. He did a very good job on this assignment and will need to complete the Venn diagram at our next session.

Dillon arrived focused and ready to work! He did a wonderful job staying on task and using his test-taking strategies to answer text based questions. He worked on reading a friendly letter and identifying word meanings in context. Dillon did an excellent job on today's mock assessment!

Dillon practiced identifying the parts of a poem and the literal and non-literal meaning of words. He reviewed stanza, rhyming patterns, alliteration and onomatopoeia. Dillon was able to answer questions about the text and fill out a graphic organizer with information from the text. He also identified information from the text that was supported by a photograph (illustration). Dillon did a great job in our session!

Dillon started the session with his homework packet. Next, he completed the first session of the FSA Practice Test #2. He scored at the proficient level on this assessment. The standards he had difficulty with were: finding the main idea, identifying key details, and determining the meaning of unknown words. He did well on the questions about text features. He was focused today and worked hard.