Literacy Profile
Erica Shelley
April 24, 2015
READ 670
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II. Contextual Framework
Cumberland Middle School is located in Cumberland, Virginia. Cumberland County is
very rural area, with few businesses, limited resources and minimal financial opportunities.
Unfortunately most of the time in areas like Cumberland the lack of businesses and jobs means a
lot of people commute outside of the county for employment. A lot of times when you see this in
areas, the education system suffers due to poor revenue within the county. There usually is not a
lot of funds for the school.
When you specifically take a look inside of Cumberland County Middle School, there are
around 430 students. Out of those 430 students, at least 60% of the students are on free and
reduced lunch. This reflects the financial situation within the county as I mentioned above. The
school is currently under their second year of academic review but has set plans in place to move
forward with a great staff working hard to provide the best instruction for their students. There is
a limited ESL population along with a limited special needs population. The principal mentioned
to us that a lot of the time, with those groups of students, if the needs are severe enough they will
find alternative education, because the school system doesn't have the proper resources. The
school uses Pals and iReady tests for instructional level identification, which we know are not
the most reliable. A lot of the factors really effect the students within in the school and
community.
My focal student is a 6th grader named Caitlin. She is a very intelligent 12 year old girl.
Caitlin loves to read and loves school in general which is an odd characteristic for struggling
students. When I first met Caitlin I thought she was just another example of invalid Pals testing
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scores, because her fluency and accuracy was on grade level (if not above grade level). Once I
started testing for comprehension I noticed that there was none. She could read with 100%
accuracy and incredible fluency, but she was not able to tell me anything about what she read.
This is when the red flag went up and I knew I had to work with her on comprehension
strategies. Again, she loves school, so luckily there shouldn't be much of an issue with
motivation.
From what I understand, Caitlin has a good family background but I am still taking into
consideration the community in which she lives when I plan instruction. She seems like she
comes from a supportive family which could correlate with her love for school. One thing I have
to keep in mind is the limited internet access, so Caitlin, along with many other students may not
have access to many resources. I know I have to teach her strategies that she can easily use
anywhere at any time regardless of resources available. Because Caitlin loves school and many
subjects I am looking forward to building off of her background knowledge for each lesson and
let her build her confidence in comprehending different texts.
III. Assessment
As stated, I originally chose Caitlin as my focal student. Unfortunately, with the nature of
real life, her attendance was not consistent. There was a 3 week gap in her attendance. Because
of that situation, I chose to change my focal student to Devondre. Devondre is also a 6th grade
whose struggle is much like Caitlin’s, with comprehension, but he also struggles a little bit with
fluency. Devondre is such a bright student. When reflecting on getting to know Devondre, and
analyzing the data collected on him, I think it’s safe to say that he was placed into tutoring
program because of fluency, comprehension and motivation. From what I gathered from
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Devondre, he has a supportive family at home, who push him to do well in school, but his family
is below the poverty line in Cumberland County. I appreciate that his family wants him to do
well in school because they want him to excel in life and have opportunities they may not have
had.
At the beginning of the semester we gave Devondre several pre-assessments to determine
the appropriate instruction development that would best meet his instructional needs. We gave
the Elementary Spelling Inventory (ESI) spelling test, Qualitative Reading Inventory subtests,
WRI and WRC and obtained a writing sample which we scored with a 6 + 1 writing rubric.
The results of Devondre’s pre-assessments are as follows. The ESI reflected that
Devondre’s instructional level in spelling development is in early Derevational Relations (DR).
He got a total of 19 out of 25 words correct on the ESI. Taking his total correct and his features
score into consideration, is how we determined his placement in early DR. We started at the level
Pre-Primer 1 for the WRI, continuing all the way to upper middle school, which is where we hit
his frustration level. When giving the WRI, he scored 75% at the 4th grade level with words in
isolation timed, and then 95% untimed, showing us that there was this was where we needed to
start our assessment for the WRC. Devondre’s WRC scores depicted that he reads with great
accuracy, scoring 99% correct for both 4th and 5th grade but moving down to 96% in 6th grade.
When you look at accuracy you also have to take into consideration fluency and comprehension.
Devondre’s fluency rates were a little bit slow, scoring 128 WPM for an oral passage at the 6th
grade level. The average score to compare his to is the oral reading rate of 150 WPM at the 6th
grade level. The last portion of the QRI was testing for comprehension. We started at the 4th
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grade level, (using data from his WRI scores) and tested up through 6th grade with oral narrative
and expository texts. There were opportunities for Devondre to look back through the text for an
answer which was scored separately then recalling information without a look back. He scored
75% at the 4th grade level without a look back and 88% correct with a look back, indicating this
was his instructional level that we needed to begin comprehension at. Lastly, we scored
Devondre’s writing sample which showed us that he has strengths in capitalization, punctuation
and spelling, but needs work on adding details and expanding his thoughts.
IV. Summary of Data Analysis and Reading Levels
After reviewing and reflecting upon the data collected from Devondre’s pre-assessments,
it was obvious to me that we needed to help him with fluency some but mostly with
comprehension. When talking with Devondre, he was aware that he struggled some with
comprehension. Because Devondre has a struggle with fluency, it’s harder for him to
comprehend the text when reading because he’s so focused on reading word for word. When it
comes to his writing, as mentioned earlier, I could see his strengths in the grammar of writing,
and with that we used his strengths to help out his weaknesses in writing.
Although Devondre is capable of decoding 6th grade words when given extended time, his
oral reading rate is below grade level. He scored 128 WPM for the oral reading rate on the grade
level narrative text. The data collected on his WRC depicts that he has great accuracy, but
struggles with the fluency aspect some, which in return, has an effect on his comprehension. He
scored 75% on the 5th and 6th grade oral comprehension sections of the assessments. He
surprisingly scored higher on the 6th grade oral comprehension with 88% correct using a
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Narrative text, but then dropped to 63% when given a grade level Expository text. When taking
all those factors in to consideration I decided Devondre would benefit best starting with 4th grade
instruction for comprehension and fluency.
By calling Devondre’s instructional level at 4th grade, I know it will help him fill in some
of the “holes” he has with comprehending different texts and help him become more fluent when
reading. As mentioned previously, I think motivation also plays a small role in Devondre’s below
grade level placement, but with that, by showing him he can be successful, it will give him the
confidence he needs to boost the motivational factor. (That and bringing interesting text
selections to get him hooked and engaged). I can tell that he needs a little confidence booster
because even in answering some of the questions from the assessment, he seemed hesitant, so
again, focusing on other factors like motivation and building confidence will also be helpful for
him. He mentioned that he loves history, but that sometimes it’s a lot of reading, so I am hoping
by teaching him to read to learn, and to improve his fluency, he can enjoy history more along
with other subjects.
Artifacts
Section 4.1—Student Interest Inventory
As mentioned previously, Devondre is undecided about reading. He doesn’t love it, but
doesn’t hate it. He describes it as not being his favorite subject, because it’s hard at times, but
he doesn’t mind it. I can also tell from Devondre’s answers that he is aware that he reads at a
slower pace at times and that it is discouraging to him. To my surprise it doesn’t affect his
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confidence in reading as much as I thought it would, but I still think there’s room improving
his feelings about reading.
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4.2—Individual Reading Inventory
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WRI
Flash Untimed
PP 100 100
P 95 100
1 100 100
2 95 100
3 90 100
4 75 95
5 85 100
6 70 90
UM
60 85
HS --- ---
Devondre’s scores of the WRI helped me determine where to start the oral reading passages.
According to the scores, I need to start with a 4th grade passage, because this is Devondre’s instructional
level. The range for instructional level is stated as falling between 14-17 words identified automatically,
and a total correct between 70-85%. If you look at the highlighted portion of my chart above, you will see
that Devondre has 75% accuracy, untimed which places him at the instructional level. Even though
Devondre went up to 85% accuracy on the 5th grade WRI assessment, he went back down to 70%
accuracy on the 6th grade WRI assessment, which showed me inconsistencies. His independent level is at
3rd grade, scoring 90% accuracy untimed, where as his frustration level starts at 6 th grade, scoring 70%
accuracy, untimed.
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QRI-5: Word Recognition in Context (WRC)
When administering the WRC I used “The Drill” protocol sheet which gave me direction
in giving the WRC assessment. As stated previously, the data from the WRI showed that I needed
to start Devondre off, with a 4th grade passage. I started with an oral reading passage, using a
narrative passage, using Devondre’s instructional level. I discovered that his fluency was slow.
On the 4th grade, narrative passage he read with 99% accuracy, and scored 75% in
comprehension. When moving from the 4th grade to 5th grade passage, he scored the same time, 2
minutes and 30 seconds for each passage, which I thought was interesting. He also still had 99%
accuracy and a 75% score in comprehension. When I gave him a 6th grade, narrative passage, he
scored 96% accuracy and 88% comprehension, and did the same for the Upper Middle school
oral passage. This was very surprising to me as the results were somewhat inconsistent with the
WRI assessment scores. When analyzing the data from WRC, I still decided to start instruction
on 4th grade because Devondre scored 75% in comprehension and even with a look back scored
88% which showed me this was a good place to start.
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Section 4.3—Qualitative Spelling Assessment
Devondre is a pretty strong speller. When looking at his spelling assessments it was
determined that he best placed into early Derivational Relations. He struggles some with
harder suffixes like –ate, and –ize. There is also a clear confusion of some base and root
words such as –pleas and –confid. Overall he’s got a great grasp on consonants, short
vowels, long vowels, blends, diagraphs, etc. I would recommend modest instructional pacing
for spelling because Devondre is a strong speller. If someone (like me) would take the time
to do some sorts and word study, he could easily excel past DR. Because Devondre was
already on grade level with spelling, I chose to not make spelling a focus of my instruction to
lend more time for comprehension and writing.
Using but Confusing
Student answer: rippen Word: ripen
Student answer: sellar Word: cellar
Student answer: pleature Word: pleasure
Student answer: fortunite Word: fortunate
Student answer: comfident
Word: confident
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Section 4.4—Written Language
Writing Trait Score Evidence
IdeasThe content of the piece, the main theme, together with the details that enrich and develop that theme.
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The idea he came up with was clear and his writing of on that topic was focused and everything he wrote made sense and clearly had to do with his topic.
OrganizationThe internal structure of a piece of writing, the thread of central meaning, the pattern of the ideas.
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His story flows well and the organization easily goes through his story as he ages. For his story this organization is appropriate. His story has a conclusion that makes sense but there is not really an introduction.
VoiceThe feeling and conviction of the individual writer coming out through the words.
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His use of voice came through during his writing. I could hear him when I was reading it. Although I am not sure of his intended audience, I would assume it was written as a personal narrative, in which case his voice was appropriate.
Word ChoiceWord choice is the use of rich, colorful, precise language that moves and enlightens the reader.
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All of the words in his writing made sense and were appropriate, but they were pretty boring. He did not really make an attempt to add exciting or detailed words to his writing.
FluencySentence fluency is the rhythm and flow of the language, the sound of work patterns.
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The flow of his writing was very good and smooth. He did a great job with his sentence length with adding quotes and longer sentences.
Conventions The mechanical correctness - spelling, grammar and usage, paragraphing, use of capitals, and punctuation.
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His conventions were nearly perfect. His spelling and grammar were correct and there were no run on sentences or phrases.
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Devondre has a good foundation of writing skills. His writing sample depicted good
Organization, acceptable sentence length and almost perfect conventions of writing. He took his
time and really put effort into his writing sample. One thing I took note of was that his paper was
not very descriptive. There wasn’t an effort in making the sample exciting using descriptive
words. Devondre had a good conclusion, but didn’t start out the story with an introduction. With
those points being said, overall, Devondre is a pretty strong speller and I have a good sample to
go off of to start writing instruction.
Section 4.5—Student
Interests and Affective
Mea- sures
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V. Instructional Goals
For Devondre, when looking at word knowledge, I want to work with him on using the
words he knows in isolation when reading in context. There were several times that he knew
words during the WRI, but then did not recognize them on the WRC assessment. To support this
I will introduce new words to him before reading and encourage him to remember those words
when he comes to them in the text. When looking at another instructional goal, Devondre has
pretty good fluency so he does not need a lot of work in this area. His only need is to continue
building up his fluency in higher level texts. This will be achieved with repeated readings and
keeping a graph to track his fluency.
In regards to comprehension, Devondre needs help remembering actual facts from what
he reads. He does pretty well with implicit questions but forgets the actual facts when trying to
answer questions that are explicitly stated in the text. I will accomplish this by having him high-
light or note where he finds the answers to the questions in the text and having him stop after
each paragraph to discuss the facts of it. Each lesson will also have preselected vocabulary
picked out that I will review before he reads each time. Giving him the vocabulary beforehand
will help him, especially if he comes across the words and doesn’t know them, but also simply
because he’s building more word knowledge.
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Lastly, Devondre needs to work on his ability to respond to a prompt when writing. The
first sample I got from him was a response to a prompt where he wrote one sentence. I got an-
other sample in which he got to choose the topic and he wrote me a whole paragraph. His me-
chanics are very good, we just need to work on adding details to his writing. I will do this by
having him plan out his writing with a main idea and details graphic organizer.
Knowing that Devondre struggles with comprehension is a useful thing to know when
planning my lessons. There are many techniques I will use such as Before-During-After tech-
niques when introducing the text selections. For instance, when introducing a text I can ask him
what he knows about the topic or person, create a KWL chart, maybe do a version of a book or
passage walk, then introduce the vocabulary. I would also introduce a comprehension strategy
such as making connections, predicting, inferencing, etc., Once I have done the “before” part, I
will then monitor Devondre’s reading and make sure he is implementing the comprehension
strategy. He will be able to do things such as high light, underline, use graphic organizers, etc., to
show me that he is utilizing the strategy while reading. After he finishes the text, we will com-
plete our KWL chart if one was used, talk about the text, the strategy and how it helped, and
move into our related writing activity.
VI. Evidence of Research Base: Individualized Instructional Goals
In “Assessing and Correcting in Reading and Writing Difficulties” by Thomas Gunning, he
talks about how fluency can depict how quickly a student decodes and how that time can effect a
students’ ability to process information in a text. Devondre’s fluency is right on the fence of hin-
dering his comprehension. So far, all my assessments have shown that it isn’t affecting him but
as he moves up further into middle school, if he doesn’t get practice with fluency some, that gap
will get bigger and bigger. To help Devondre become a more fluent reader I am going to have
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him read passages in chunks, conduct repeated readings and practice reading orally and silently
so he gets practice with both types of reading (Gunning, 2009, pg. 303). Those strategies are
some Gunning talked about in addition to increasing the amount students are reading, to help
with fluency.
The practice with fluency will also help Devondre practice word knowledge. Devondre has
great accuracy when reading, but for the words he misses, I will get him to sound out the word.
Sometimes just by having him look at it again is all he needs to do. When thinking about how to
build on Devondre’s fluency I referred to Gunning’s balanced language systems idea, that stu-
dents should be using graphophonic, syntactic and semantic systems to decode words (Gunning,
2009, pg. 101). I will examine my students’ errors and allow for him to take note of his mistakes.
If there are common, repeated mistakes, I will then take a step further to bring in more practice
with words in isolation to help increase the automatic recognition of words.
As mentioned previously, even though Devondre’s fluency is below grade level, it hasn’t af-
fected his comprehension as much as I would have suspected (yet). Thomas Gunning is a big ad-
vocate of accessing a students’ background knowledge before giving a reading passage, and also
giving the student background information on the passage. From my own personal experiences I
have seen just how much of an effect this can have on a student’s comprehension and fluency. It
helps to give them background knowledge of a story because reading is easier for students when
they can make connections, or have an idea of what they are reading before they do so. I also
plan to model my reading and writing for Devondre which is something else Thomas Gunning
talks about. “It is essential that the processes of reading and writing be explained and modeled
with lots of opportunities for guided practice and application” (Gunning, 2009, pg. 373). With
those ideas, I plan to incorporate modeling, pulling from my students schema, giving proper
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background knowledge, teaching comprehension strategies, etc., into every lesson I create to
specifically tailor to Devondre’s needs.
As mentioned previously, Devondre is a pretty strong writer. I will incorporate graphic orga-
nizers and have him plan out his writing to help with the planning process. Devondre’s writing
sample was pretty well organized, but I saw room for improvement in the flow of his ideas.
Thomas Gunning mentions how students can use graphic organizers to gather their thoughts be-
fore writing. I plan on specifically using the ones listed in his text, like semantic maps, pictorial
maps, and venn diagrams. Graphic organizers can also be used to help build vocabulary, which
will also help in Devondre’s writing. I also plan to model my writing just as I would my reading.
“One way of guiding students’ writing is to model the process” (Gunning, 2009, pg. 471).
VII. Instructional Plan
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VIII. Tutoring Log
Devondre had perfect attendance and attended each tutoring session. There were no
scheduling problems when working with him, which made tutoring a little less stressful.
Day Time
1/28 45 minutes (assessments)
2/4 45 minutes (assessments)
2/11 45 minutes (lesson and finishing up assessments)
2/25 45 minutes (lesson)
3/11 45 minutes (lesson)
3/18 45 minutes(lesson)
3/25 45 minutes (lesson)
4/1 45 minutes (lesson)
4/15 45 minutes (assessing)
IX. Literacy Lessons and reflections
This portion of my literacy plan is submitted separately due to difficulties placing the lesson
plans in this section.
X. Progress Monitoring and Post Assessments
For lesson 4, I conducted an informal running record. I was excited to see that Devondre was
showing improvement. I could tell that strategically choosing texts for Devondre was really mo-
tivating him. Devondre’s fluency improved slightly from our first meeting, and also improved in
comprehension. He went from 75% correct on a 5th grade passage to 85% correct on a 5h grade
passage. It was great to see his improvement in just a few short weeks. There was also a little bit
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of improvement in his writing. The graphic organizers seem to really help him gather his
thoughts, and also give him something to re-visit when we pick back up on the writing.
For lesson 7 I gave a 5th grade reading passage on Harriet Tubman. Devondre has been read-
ing about different people from the past during our meetings and we had previously read a bibli-
ography on Harriet Tubman. The passage I selected for the post-assessment was another passage
on Harriet Tubman, but this one had to do with her life after the Underground Railroad. It was a
familiar topic, but a new passage. After Devondre finished reading, when I asked him questions,
I was pleased to see how much he comprehended. He scored 100% on the comprehension ques-
tions and improved his fluency by 30 seconds from the beginning of our tutoring sessions to the
post assessment. I was so excited to see the growth he made, and showed Devondre the scores.
He was so proud of himself.
XI. Review of the Research
After completing the tutoring experience I can see that there were several specific things that
helped Devondre succeed. As mentioned in my instructional goals the use of graphic organizers
and modeling really helped my tutee. I would recommend that Devondre’s teacher continue to
model reading and writing for him along with continuously monitoring for progress. Fluency
work should also be incorporated into his reading instruction through re-reads and appropriate
instructional level texts. Devondre one day mentioned his love of technology (just like other stu-
dents) so incorporating reading and writing with technology would definitely be a powerful tool
for success. Devondre also needs proper amount of answering time when given a question. A lot
of the times in our tutoring sessions, the other student would answer before him, so I learned to
specifically ask Devondre questions at times, and prompting him as needed. I saw the Devon-
dre’s need for success and a confidence booster, and by taking his interests and creating lessons
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around that, he was able to quickly engage and succeed. I would highly recommend opportuni-
ties for choice when it comes to reading material and writing topics because I noticed when De-
vondre was given choice, he was highly motivated. With that, I know that there is a curriculum to
learn and to follow but by incorporating student choice somewhere in the lessons, it will really
help him. During our meeting times we worked on comprehension strategies. Devondre was
somewhat familiar with some of the strategies like predicting and making connections but I
would recommend a continuous use of those strategies and also allow for Devondre to pick and
use the ones that work the best for him. Thomas Gunning refers to this as a “Balanced Use of
Strategies” which really creates student success (Gunning, 2009, pg. 331).
XII. Report Writing
April 24, 2015
Dear Mrs. *******
I have really loved working with Devondre this semester. He is a joy to work with and such a smart, talented student. It took me a few weeks to get him warmed up to our routine, but after he got used to it, he jumped right in. I specifically tailored each lesson to Devondre’s needs according to my assessments and reflected upon each lesson I gave him. Each time we met I saw improvement in Devondre in many aspects. For each lesson we focused on fluency, comprehension and writing.
At our last tutoring session, I administered a final assessment to indicate Devondre’s areas of growth. The data reflected that Devondre’s fluency improved as well as his comprehension and writing. Aside from academics, Devondre’s attitude towards reading has also improved as his confidence was built in his successes. In January Devondre scored only 75% correct in comprehension on a 4th grade passage, and in March he scored 85% correct on a 5th grade passage. With our last assessment, Devondre scored 100% on the 5th passage. He also knocked of 30 seconds from his previous fluency score from the beginning. I am confident to say that Devondre will easily be able to begin reading accurately on grade level.
In the beginning of tutoring, as mentioned earlier Devondre seemed disengaged. After conducting the assessments and student interest survey and also the self-efficacy survey, I knew I needed to find things that interested him. With that, each week I picked a new passage for us to read about people from the past. (Devondre expressed his love of history). We tied those passages and questions into our essential questions, “Does history matter? Do things of the past affect us today?” Devondre was so engaged in each reading and actively participated in each lesson. He became more confident in answering questions and even started referring back to the text. It was great to see his growth and engagement.
For future recommendation, I would say to find anything history related or comical. Most of our passages we read in tutoring were history passages, but Devondre mentioned how he also loves comical stories such as “Diary of a Wimpy Kid”. I took note that it was important for him to have a choice in what he
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read and to engage him by using those interests. Here is a list of books that I thought would be of interest to Devondre that he could read to continue his growth. The following books are all historical fiction.
Island of the Blue Dolpins (Instructional) The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World (Independent) The Mystery of Rascal Pratt (Instructional) Number the Stars (Independent) On the Wings of Heroes (Independent)
Again, I thoroughly enjoyed my time working with Devondre. I am so very proud of the progress he made throughout the course of our visits and I feel sure he will continue to succeed. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions! My number is 434-547-2507.
Sincerely,Erica ShelleyM. Ed. CandidateReading, Literacy, and LearningLongwood University
References
Gunning, T. (2009). Assessing and Correcting Reading and Writing Difficulties (5th ed.). Boston,
Massachusetts: Allyn & Bacon.
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