ELD308+Assessment+Portfolio

November 17th, 2011
Jim is a 10 year old 5 grade student at Millstone River School who enjoys collecting Legos and playing soccer. He lives at home with his mom and dad and his two brothers who are 8 and 6. Even though he has siblings he still has his own room. He said he is glad to have a space away from his younger brothers. His mother is a stay-at-home mom and his father takes the train every day to work in New York City. When his father comes home from work he usually helps him with his homework. He has a few jobs to do around the house that include helping with the laundry, drying the dishes and making sure the basement stays clean. He does not have a television set in his room but he says he enjoys watching SpongeBob when he can. Jim usually goes to bed around 9 o’clock. He reported that he is glad that his brothers go to bed at 8:30 so that he can have some quite time.
 * 1. Introduction **

Jim says that he enjoys going to school but sometimes school is hard. His favorite subject is Science and his least favorite is Language Arts. He believes that he is a good reader because he always tries to learn new words and he reads a lot. If Jim could select any type of book he would select realistic fiction. He reported that he does not like to write but he does like to pick topic to write about. He said that if he went to a new school he would want his new teacher to know that he is a very nervous student. He believes that in the future knowing how to read will help him because he will gain lots of information, it will teach him new words and it will tell him about the past and what might happen in the future.

On Novemeber 3rd, 2011 Jim was asked to bring the level book he had been reading recently out into the hallway. The book he had chosen was //On my Honor//. He was first asked to give a short summary of what he had read so far. As he retold he flipped though the book and looked at the pages to help guide his retelling. He was able to give a summary that would be sufficient for someone who had not read the beginning of the book to catch up but there was very little in depth detail.
 * 2. Informal Reading Conference **

Jim was then told to re-read the last few paragraphs he had read in his head and to begin reading out loud when he began the last reread paragraph. At this time a running record of his oral reading was taken and his miscues were recorded. When he had completed a few paragraphs he was asked to stop and do a retelling of what he had just read. He was unable to give a good retelling without looking back in the book to see what he had read.

In terms of comprehension he was able to retell the passage but not in great detail. He had to look back at the book to remember the characters names and what had happened to each character. An example of this would be that he was unsure of which character had fallen in the water and drowned and he asked to go back and look at the book. Once he was able to look back in the book he became more confident about his retelling. He seems to struggle with comprehension more than anything and more specifically he struggles to remember who the characters are and what they do.

In terms of word recognition Jim stumbled over a few words. A few of the words were low frequency words and they all had a suffix. Jim was unable to decode these words without teacher assistance. These words were treaded, repeated and deceptively. He then asked what deceptively meant and was unable to figure out the meaning through context clues. Once explained he then decided that he had actually known that, he had just forgotten. He read in 3 to 4 word phrases and used very little to no expression when he was reading but he did pause appropriately at punctuation. According to Fountas and Pinnell his reading fluency is a stage 3 (pg491). It seems that Jim becomes so focused on the words and decoding that he loses the meaning of the text.

When asked if he thought this book was too hard, too easy or just right he said he thought that it was just right. He also reported that he was enjoying the book and he hoped to finish it within the next 3 to 4 days depending on the amount of time he spends reading it. Jim was then questioned about his reading ability and his strengths and weaknesses. He said that he believed that his reading strengths were that he enjoyed reading and he tried to predict what would happen next. The weaknesses he said he had were word recognition, figuring out and keeping track of where the story is going, knowing what the characters are thinking/feeling and deciding what the characters opinions are.

On November 3rd 2011 Jim was also administered a Directed Reading Assessment. Before the assessment was administered Jim reported that DRA’s made him very nervous. Three different level DRA’s were administered. For each he was asked to first read the passage silently in his head and answer comprehension questions asked by the teacher. He was then asked to read the passage aloud to allow for miscue analysis.
 * 3. Directed Reading Assessment **

The first level given was 3rd grade. He was very easily able to answer the comprehension questions for this passage. He made three miscues during oral reading and all but one were self corrected. Those that were not self corrected did not disrupt the meaning of the story. He read at a very quick pace and in long phrases. This passage was below level for a student like Jim so we continued on to the next level.

The next level given was 4th grade. He was asked to read the passage silently and he answered the comprehension questions easily. Once he had completed answering the comprehension questions he was asked to read the passage aloud and a miscue analysis was completed. In this passage he only made one miscue and that miscue was immediately self corrected. It was determined that this passage was below level for him so he was asked to continue to the next level.

The next level given was 5th grade. Jim read the passage silently but when asked to answer some comprehension questions he was not easily able to remember what he read. He seemed to mix up the characters and he did not answer any inferential question correctly. He was even unable to state who the main characters were. When the miscue analysis was administered it was recorded that he made four miscues which is adequate. Having missed 3 or more comprehension questions it was determined that this passage was too hard for him. He was not asked to continue to the next level.

Based on this information it was determined that 3rd grade level is too easy, 4th grade was also easy for him and 5th grade seems to be frustrational in comprehension but instructional in terms of words recognition. He seems to need a lot more instruction in comprehension strategies then in word recognition and decoding. For Jim instruction should begin on a 4th grade level and work its way to a 5th grade level. For his grade Jim is reading below level.

Two samples of Jim’s writing were collected. One was a piece from the 1st day of this school year (September 6th, 2011). This piece was to be a letter from the students to the teacher about how they were feeling the year would be. The second piece was from an activity done in class in which the students were given a Jolly Rancher and asked to use their senses to write a descriptive paragraph. Both pieces are original and unedited.
 * 4. Writing **

In terms of content, Jim had a very limited word choice. In both pieces he started his sentences all the same way and kept reusing the same phrases. In first piece he kept repeating the phrases “you get to.” In fact he used this phrase three times in four sentences. In the second piece, even thought the students were instructed to try and find something else to call the Jolly Rancher besides “the Jolly Rancher”, he began four out of five sentences with the phrase. Although his writings were organized in a logical way they were not very interesting. The passages were very repetitive and not easy to read. In the first piece however he did give a lot of examples of why he thought 5th grade would be fun.

In terms of mechanics, Jim seems to have made progress since the beginning of the year. In his letter from the first day of school he did not capitalize anything but the first letter of the paragraph and he used very little punctuation. He seemed to have no concept of capitalizing I or using an apostrophe in the word I’m. This non-use of punctuation lead to many run-on sentences and made the paragraph hard to read. He also used the phrase “im gonna know” toward the end of his paragraph. His use of slang seems to suggest that he does not understand how to separate his language outside the classroom from the language he should be using inside the classroom.

In the second sample however he seems to have gained some sort of knowledge of proper capitalization and punctuation. In this essay he seems to struggle with noun-verb agreement. One example of this would be his final sentence “The Jolly Rancher look like 3-D shaped. He also added in the word like between look and 3-D. He also uses “like” a lot when he is speaking. This is something that should be addressed. He also, again, had no variety in word choice.

In terms of spelling Jim seems to be a transitional speller. He exhibits some knowledge of correct English spelling but he also spells by sounding out and using visual cues. When he spells words he thinks about how the word would look. When administered a Ganske spelling assessment he incorrectly spelled each type of word at least once but categories he seemed to have the most difficulty with were: doubling and e-drop with ed & ing, other syllable juncture doubling and r controlled vowels (stressed syllable).

After completing several informal assessments I have found that Jim’s strengths as a reader are that he really enjoys reading and he seems to be quite good at decoding. He stated to me on quite a few occasions that he very much enjoys reading and he understands the more he reads the better he will be at reading. He also showed a great willingness to learn new reading strategies and I believe that this willingness to learn is a major strength for Jim.
 * 5. Summary **

One serious difficulty that Jim is having is in comprehension. He seems to read the words but have almost no idea what he has read when asked to retell. I think that he is much more focused on decoding then actually understanding the text, especially when the words are hard for him. His main area of weakness is remembering characters and what they do. In both instances where he was asked to do retellings he had to look back in the book or passage to even remember the names of the characters. When asked to identify motives of characters he said he could not remember who that character was. I think that he is a student who would benefit greatly from the use of graphic organizers. One type of graphic organizer I would suggest would be a character analysis chart. It is my belief that with this chart he would be able to organize the characters appearance, traits, challenges, and role in the story. This could be easily taught and would help him a great deal.

One other suggestion I have is to teach him to chunk words. He seems to have problems decoding words that have suffixes. I would teach him to recognize the suffix, cover it up and read the root word, then add the suffix. After a while it will become natural for him to look at the root word first in order to decode these words.

The final suggestion I have would be to try to increase his fluency. Some suggestions I found for increasing fluency in the Fountas and Pinnell book are to “encourage students to read together, engage in shared reading of short texts or poems, or perform Readers Theater (pg 492).” Reading short rhyming poems out loud encourages reading in phrases because of the rhyming pattern. Readers theater encourages fluency because it allows students to have an opportunity to read and reread a passage silently so that when students read aloud they know what they are reading and are more fluent. Also teachers need to make sure they are always modeling fluent reading when they read to students.

Jim’s strength in writing is that seems to have lots of good idea for what to write about. He told me that thinking of ideas for what to write about is his favorite part of writing. His difficulties in writing are that he does not have a varied word choice and he needs to learn new ways to begin sentences. In his writing he seems to repeat the same words or phrases over and over quite a few times within each passage.

As for writing I would suggest a few different minilessons about punctuation and capitalization as a review but I think once this is reviewed he will continue to improve. The most important thing for him to learn at this point is varying his word choice and how he starts his sentences. A student like Jim would benefit from a few different minilessons on sentence starting and using a thesaurus. I would also suggest giving him a thesaurus to keep in his desk so that he will stop repeating the same words over and over again within his writing. Also, a list of sentence starters copied into his writers notebook would help him to see that there are many ways we can begin sentences. For spelling I would encourage him to use a dictionary when he is writing his papers. I would also suggest a minilesson on vowel sounds (e and a) and doubling letters. It would benefit him greatly to keep a dictionary and a list of commonly misspelled words with him to use when he is writing. Finally I would suggest a lesson on ed and ing ending words.

Overall, Jim is s student who is very eager to learn and who would benefit greatly from all of the above suggestions. He is also a student who is aware of his weaknesses and is looking for ways to improve. His biggest problem area overall seems to be comprehension and this is something that can be taught in many different ways. The best way I can think of for him would be graphic organizers. One other area where Jim needs a great deal of help is varying his word choices in witting. Keeping a thesaurus with him in his desk should help him to start making better word choices.