Child Study Report

Lauren Mroz

Preliminary Information

Preliminary Information
For my child study, I chose a five year old, male kindergartener, who is slightly below average in reading and literacy skills. This boy is not one of the trouble makers in the class, nor is he quiet or too himself. He is in lower percentage of the class in capital and lower case letter recognition and letter sounds. At the start of the year he could recognize 15 capital letters, 9 lower case letters, and had no letter-sound ability. He was re-assessed a few weeks later for this assignment and knew 14 capital letters, 8 lower case letters, and 3 letter-sound relationships. Recently, I re-assessed capital and lower case letter recognition and saw major improvements. He now knows 19 capital letters and 12 lower case letters (letter-sound recognition was not re-assessed). A running record performed by my CT and I a few weeks ago indicated that he is a level one DRA reader. He showed difficulty in 1:1 correspondence and letter-sound recognition. I have also been informed that he does not receive any additional literacy support outside of the classroom. During whole group language arts and literacy instruction, he pays attention and does not goof around with friends sitting near him. However, when it comes to participation he seems to repeat what his classmates are saying. He struggles with letter and number practice in Handwriting Without Tears books. After attempting to write on his own, he gets distracted with drawing or talking to friends at his table. Individual attention is then provided to get him on task and help him learn to write. After a few minutes of guided instruction, he begins to get bored and frustrated. This indicates to me that he is aware of his struggle with writing and most likely doesnt receive help outside of the classroom. When given the opportunity to choose a book to read, his interest lies in the transportation and sports bins. He chooses to read books about cars, trucks, tractors, soccer, hockey, and football. As he reads the books, he simply flips through the pages quickly, observing only the pictures rather than trying to read the text as well. When he goes home he likes to read similar books by himself or with a friend. He has indicated to me that neither his parents nor brothers read with him. However, when given the option to either read or play, he always chooses to play. This school covers both rural and suburban neighborhoods and is labeled as a title one school, meaning there are a large number of students that are low-income. The average income for students attending is $44, 818, with 3.1% of families living below the poverty line. As of 2011, 40% of the students were eligible for free/reduced lunch. The social make- up of the school is 87 % white, 6% Hispanic, 3 % African

American, and 1.5% Asian. There is also about an equal number of boys (49.5%) and girls (50.5%), with a total of 649 students as of June 2011. Currently, in Kindergarten there are about 107 students with a student teacher ratio of 26:1. There are several great factors about this school that benefit both the students and the teachers. They have three special educators, two RTI specialists, one speech and language specialist, a school psychologist, and a social worker. There are three computer labs available with usage determined by grade level. Each of the three computer labs contain between 25-20 Mac computer. Each classroom also has a Mac computer for teacher use, and several for student use. The teacher station is also equipped with an Elmo document camera, color projector, and projector screen to project real-time video of what the teacher does onto a larger screen. Every classroom is also equipped with two microphones on lanyards to amplify the teachers voice over the surround sound in the classroom. In addition, they also provide before- and- after day care, as well as, day care on breaks, holidays, and snow days. The assessments I used with him are as follow: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Observation Concepts of Print Phonemic Awareness Letter/Sound identification Writing sample Reading Conference

Strengths of the Child

Strengths of the Child

One of the assessments administered to the child was Concepts of Print. He did very well on this assessment (11/22), indicating he is familiar with important aspects of reading. The areas he did not know, are nothing that are a worry at the present time. He was unable to point to punctuation such as; period, question mark, and comma. This is not a major concern, as these are concepts that have not been taught yet. The assessment was also provided early in the school year. When asked to identify a capital letter and lower case letter in a recent assessment for report cards, he correctly identified them. This shows that he is paying attention during language arts instruction and is absorbing information. His strongest aspect was identifying parts of the book such as; front and back of the book, title, text, direction of reading, and where to go next at the end of the line. Strength in these areas provides a great foundation for learning how to read. The phonemic awareness assessment also showed his literary strengths. It was very impressive that he receive an 8/8 on rhyme choice and a 6/8 on rhyme supply. This shows his strength in the ability to know if words rhyme with each or not. Building on this concept, he also did very well on rhyme supply. His results indicate that he can not only recognize if words rhyme but use his higher level thinking abilities to recite words on his own that rhyme. Strength in this area will help him as he becomes a more proficient reader. It will also improve fluency when reading. In the time since letter/sound assessment was administered, the child has shown large improvements in capital and lower case letter recognition. This indicates that he has been paying close attention to the language arts instruction, in particular, Alphafriends. A great strength of this child is his persistence and compliance towards practicing and improving his literacy skills. When asked to try writing something again or determining the letter that matches the sound, he does so in good spirit. While he may feel frustrated at times, he continues to practice and complete his work. This is a great quality that will help him progress and achieve his goals.

Areas of Need for the Child

Areas of Need for the Child

The child struggles with interpreting pictures in books for meaning. During my conference with him, he chose to picture read a Halloween themed book called, Were Off to Find the Witchs House. To begin, I had him explain to me what he saw on the cover of the book and use that to predict what the story could be about. His initial description of the cover was very vague and lacked in detail (I see kids). After some prompting, he was able to give a little bit more detail on what the cover of the picture depicted. This indicated to me that while he picture read the book to me, he might need to several prompts on areas of the pictures to look at and elaborate on. As he progressed through the picture read, he really struggled with finding meaning in the pictures. Most interpretations of the pictures were only a few words. With prompts he was able to give slightly more detail, but struggled with this as well (a lot of ums, ahs, and pauses). He also struggles with writing sentences with prompts. As indicated in the writing sample, he is able to draw very good pictures of his text. However, he struggled with copying the sight word writing prompt, I like. Several times he brought his paper to me to be checked and was sent back to his seat to try writing I like again. Once he got this far, it was also difficult and seemingly frustrating as he tried to write the word gym. He was provided assistance with this by means of being told the sound of each letter in the word. At this point, he was unfamiliar with the sounds the letters made, making it difficult to attempt writing the word. A second strategy was applied to assist him in completing the writing assignment. My C.T. explained that gym can also be called P.E. He was then able to correctly write the word P.E.. Sounding out words and putting them in writing is an area of literacy he will need extra practice with. In addition, he is still below average on capital and lower case letter recognition, as well as letter-sound relationships. A letter/sound identification assessment was administered to him in September. Results from it indicated that he knew 13/26 capital letters, 8/28 lower case letters, and 3/26 sounds. These results place him slightly below average. It is also impacting his ability to sound out words for himself when reading and writing.

Instructional Suggestions

Instructional Suggestions
One of the areas this child really struggles with is interpreting pictures for meaning. In kindergarten, this is an important strategy for students to learn. The ability to look at the picture and understand what is happening, provides a reference that aids in the ability to read text. Picture clues can give students the additional assistance they need in figuring out the printed text. Interpreting the pictures is also important for predicting what might happen next in the story. Prediction is a concept that begins in kindergarten and is build upon in latter grades. To help this child strengthen their ability to interpret the pictures for meaning one strategy that can be applied is additional exposure to picture books. As the child is exposed to picture books, the teacher should model how to interpret pictures. A good strategy for this is a picture walk. The teacher can picture walk a book and engage the student in conversation. As the teacher does more picture walks with the student, he can begin to practice interpreting a few pages of the book on his own. Gradually, the teacher should interpret fewer pages and the child should interpret more. Another good strategy to scaffold this concept is providing a lot of prompts about the pictures while he picture reads books. Similarly, the teacher should begin with a lot of prompts and gradually decrease the amount as more books are read. In addition, it might also help if he did activities that required him to practice sequencing pictures. In order to put the pictures in the correct order, he will need to interpret and provide meaning for what is happening in the pictures. Another literacy area that needs improvement is writing. While the student improves his ability to write, it will also help strengthen his other area he struggles with, letter recognition and letter-sounds. As he practices writing and sounding out words, he will unconsciously become more aware of letter-sounds and learn to recognize more letters. At the most basic level, a strategy that could be applied is providing him with short, simple sentences that need to be traced. As he practices tracing the words, he should be encouraged to say the word as he writes it. Drawing a picture that goes along with the text should also help reinforce what he is writing. When the child begins to feel more confident with this, he could try copying text. This will require him to write the letters on his own rather than tracing it. Having the student read the sentence to himself as he writes it and after he writes, will also help reinforce the connection between letter-sounds and words. After these strategies have been practiced, he should be challenged to write when given a prompt, like he did in the writing assessment. At this point he should feel more comfortable with the procedure for writing. The child should draw a picture of what he wants to write about first. Then using the picture as inspiration and aid, copy the writing prompt

and practice sounding out the word(s) he wants to add to complete the sentence. Throughout all of these strategies, it is important that the teacher has the child read the sentence to them when the assignment is completed. This will help to reinforce the connection between letter-sounds and the words.

Reflection

Reflection
Conducting a child study report was a really great experience for me. As compared to the other students in my Kindergarten class, I truly feel like I know my childs literary strengths and weaknesses best. In addition, I also learned more about his learning style and personal life. By knowing his educational strengths and weaknesses and a little bit about him personally, when it comes to teaching him, I can apply strategies that will help him best. The child study has exposed me to more language arts and literary instruction than I have ever had before. Through this exposure, I have learned the importance and difficulty in teaching literacy. Especially in early grades, the range of student ability and exposure with literacy is large. I feel like this could be a daunting task for teachers as they plan to teach literary basics, such as; capital letters, lower case letters, letter-sounds, sight words, writing simple sentences, and beginning reading. My experience with this assignment has taught me that one of the best ways to plan for teaching this is by getting to know your students personally to understand factors that may affect their education. Additionally, the importance of literary assessment provides an understanding for the teacher on where each student lies on their literary exposure and knowledge. By doing this child study, I was able to practice giving several different kinds of assessments to my student. This exposure will help me determine which assessments to properly do with my students. The importance of conducting several different assessments and re-assessing students throughout the year is my greatest take away from this assignment. It is through the six assessments I did with my child, that I was able to learn his strengths and weaknesses. The assessments I did, like Concepts of Print and Letter/sound Recognition, set the foundation for how I proceeded with other assessments and assignments. I noticed that because of my knowledge on his weaknesses, I make an effort to assist him with writing assignments. I also make sure to provide him opportunities to practice letter/sounds during language arts instruction by calling on him to answer a question or participate in an activity. I also provide my C.T.s with the results from the assessments, which gave them further insight on how to approach teaching him. We have sent home extra practice sheets for him and make sure to include him in participating during instruction on lessons he struggles with. Based on this assignment, I have learned that when I have my own classroom, doing diagnostic and formative assessments will be a priority. Results from this child study and other assessment assignments have shown the importance and benefit in

assessing students. A teacher, who is aware of where a student is at academically and how they progress, will be effective. By doing assessments, I will be able to track student growth on a more individual basis. In my opinion, this is one of the most crucial aspects of teaching. Each student is different and therefore learns differently. In order to make sure every individual learns the information, the teacher needs to know the best strategies to reach that student and be aware when a concept is not being understood. This can be done by paying close attention to results from assessments. Even though time is a huge factor, I firmly believe that when assessments are used correctly and not excessively, they are a crucial aspect to effectively teaching each student and I will be using them as much as possible. Overall, this child study was a lot of work and time consuming. However, I feel like it has benefited me as a future educator. I now have a good collection of literary assessments and background experience on how to use them. All the time and effort put into this child study was worth it and can be modified and used in my future.