Jennifer Yates Professor Rich ELD 307 February 27, 2014 Oral Language Assessment The purpose of the

oral language assessment is to judge if the student is at the appropriate level of oral language development for their grade level. The purpose of the Oral Language Assessment is to. It can also be used to determine their strengths and weaknesses regarding oral language development. The student that I observed was Sofia, she is in Miss Belmontes third grade class at Wicoff Elementary School in West Windsor, New Jersey. She is one of two students in the class that are classified. She is a very bright child and seems to do well with her reading and writing skills, but her oral skills still need work. The methodology that I used to assess Sofias oral language was through a check sheet that can be found in Kid Watching by Gretchen Owocki and Yetta Goodman, on pages 110-111. The way I assessed her oral language skills was through listening to her Love Essay, which was presented to her mother at the Love breakfast. I also listened in on her conversations when she was with friends, and when she was volunteering to answer questions in class. When observing the class I noticed that the students demonstrated the ability to show emotions during the love breakfast. I also noticed that the students chose to work in pair, instead of by themselves, when the option was given. I also noticed that during the class only two or three students took the lead, while others tended to require prompting before they participated in class discussions. I also noticed that the students took every opportunity they were given to

share a story about their weekend, or what they did the night before. They also used non-verbal hand signals to communicate with each other when they had a connection. During a class discussion of their realistic fiction stories, they expressed their points of view, as well as asking two questions about someone elses story. After observing Sofia for two days I noticed that she has a lot of ideas, but sometimes has a hard time getting them out. She stutters at some points, more so when talking in front of the entire class, and she takes long pauses in between some of her words. I also noticed that she says um often. One of the big problems that I noticed when she was talking to friends, as well as in front of the whole class, was that she does not know how to summarize her thoughts. When retelling a story she tells even the smallest of details and will continue talking longer then she should. I noticed that most times it would take a teacher to stop her. I noticed that she works well in groups, but sometimes her group members become restless when waiting for their turn to talk. The way that I would use these findings to inform instruction would be to conduct an individual lesson with Sofia that teaches her how to summarize, as well as why it is important. I would use the findings to help Sofia become better at sharing stories with her class, as well as answering basic questions. She adds irrelevant details and makes her stories longer then the need to be, I would use this finding to inform instruction and create a lesson plan for teaching her how to summarize things, as well as why it is important. I would make sure that in my lesson I use one book that is shorter and easier to summarize, as well as one book that is longer so that she can see that even long stories can be summarized into a sentence.

Individualized Lesson Plan: Subject/ Topic: Summarizing Rationale: To teach the student to summarize so they will be able to know to exclude irrelevant information when talking with friends, answering questions and sharing stories. Standards: SL.3.2 Determine the main ideas and supporting details of a text read aloud or information presented in diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively, and orally. SL.3.4 Report on a topic or text, tell a story, or recount an experience with appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details, speaking clearly at an understandable pace. Objective: The student will be able to summarize her sentences and will be able to determine which information is relevant and which is not. Materials: Strega Nona by Tomie dePaola and The Quiltmakers Gift by Jeff Brumbeau Procedures: Engagement/ Anticipatory Set: Ask the student if she knows why summarizing is important. If she does have her explain to me why, if she does not then explain to her why it is important. Mentor: Teach and Model: Tell the student a story about an event that occurred over the weekend that includes excessive amounts of detail. Then demonstrate a summarized version of the story and demonstrate the somebody-wanted-but-so method.

Guided Practice: Read Strega Nona with the student and at the end work with the student to create a summary that follows the somebody-wanted-but-so method. Independent Application: Ask the student to read her independent reading book and create a summary for her book. Closure: Ask the student if she has a better understanding of how to summarize and if she understands why it is important to summarize. Assessment: Give the student The Quiltmakers Gift to read and then have them create a summary using the somebody-wanted-but-so method, making sure that irrelevant information is excluded.