Assessment Study

ETE 322
By: Bailey Bartley

Student Information
Name: Andrew McClure
Age: 9
Grade: 2nd
Reading Level: not determined, as I was unable to do a running record
with Andrew
Introduction
Andrew is a very bright young boy, whose family moved to America
from South Africa at the beginning of the school year. He is very
interested in animals, dogs in particular, and loves being outside. He
loves to talk about Africa and all of the differences he has noticed
between America and South Africa. He speaks with an accent, which
sometimes makes it difficult to understand what he is saying, but his
home language is English. He knows some Afrikaans, but only what he
was taught in school in South Africa. He is very mild-mannered, and
fairly easy to work with when he is given a task. He works very well in
a one-on-one setting, and has a lot to say when prompted, but
otherwise is quiet. In the classroom, Andrew often seems lost or
confused and needs a little extra guidance ever now and then to finish
his work.
Assessment Results
The first three assessments were conducted on Thursday, October 9
2014 at 12:00 pm.
The first assessment Andrew did was the interest inventory. Andrew
answered all of the questions asked, and further explained many of his
answers without being prompted to do so.
The second assessment Andrew did was Concepts About Books
(Morrow, 2012, p. 180). The book used for the assessment was Mars
Needs Moms by Berkeley Breathed. Andrew correctly answered all of
the questions in level 1: Concepts about Books. He correctly answered
four out of five questions in level 2: Conventions of Print. He correctly
answered all seven questions in level 3: Concepts about Words and
Letters. In level 4: Concepts about Punctuation Marks, Andrew could
identify and explain the use of a period and question mark. He could
not identify a quotation mark or a comma, but knew the purpose of
both.
The final assessment Andrew did on the 9th was Dolch Sight Words. He
made six errors on the pre-primer list, skipping the words funny and
one, saying come instead of make. He had few hesitations or selfcorrections on the pre-primer list. Next Andrew was given the Primer
list. He had more hesitations and self-corrections on this list, and
towards the end became visibly frustrated. Andrew had 9 errors on this
list. Many of the errors occurred because he would start to say a word,
become confused and then move on.

When we were finished with the assessments, I read Mars Needs Moms
to Andrew.
The second group of assessments took place on Friday, October 24th
2014 at 12:00pm.
The first assessment Andrew did was the Test of Alphabet Recognition.
Andrew pronounced all of the names and sounds of the correct, except
for the following: he self-corrected the name of the letter V, he said ex
for the sound of the letter X, and said the names of J and M as G and N
respectively. When Andrew read the lower case letters, he had many
more errors than with the capital letters. He pronounced the name of b
correctly, but when asked what sound the letter made, he confused b
with d. He made a similar error with q, confusing the name and sound
for p.
The next assessment Andrew did was The Phonological Awareness Test
2 (Morrow, 2012, p. 181). Andrew correctly answered all questions for
Concept of Spoken Word, Rhyme Recognition, Syllable Blending,
Phoneme Isolation of Initial Sounds, Phoneme Blending and Phoneme
Substitution. He answered 2/4 questions for Rhyme Production
correctly, listing pay as a rhyme for pain and cone as a rhyme for
candy. Andrew correctly answered 1/4 questions on syllable
segmentation. He did separated the syllables in basket as bask-ket,
fantastic as fan-tastic and helicopter as helo-copter. He only had one
error for phoneme segmentation. When asked to isolate all of the
phonemes in the word ship, Andrew said /sh/-/ip/.
The final assessment conducted was the Yopp-Singer Test of Phoneme
Segmentation. Andrew excelled at this assessment, only making two
errors of the 22 words he was given. His first error was in adding a w
sound to the end of no, and when he pronounced the phonemes in the
word in, he pronounced it as /ee/-/n/, though that is partly because of
his accent and the way that he pronounces the flat i sound.
Areas of Strengths/Needs
Andrews areas of strength are concepts about books, concepts about
words and letters, and the purpose of punctuation marks (i.e., a
comma is a pause, a quotation mark shows that someone is talking).
Andrews areas of needs are sight word recognition, differentiating
similar letters such as d and b, p and q and j and g, and rhyme
production.
Strategies to Help Move Child Forward
Some strategies that I would recommend to help Andrew with his areas
of needs are word walls (Morrow, 2012, p. 151), alphabet flashcards
and a whiteboard with markers (Morrow, 2012, p. 163), and rhyme
matching games and providing books with lots of rhymes in the
classroom (Morrow, 2012, p. 159).

Word walls would help Andrew with his sight word recognition by
providing a list of important words on the wall at eye level with the
child, making the list easily accessible, and helping Andrew recognize
them more quickly (Morrow, 2012). It will also help him to be able to
use the words on the wall more frequently in his writing. The teacher
can emphasize the importance of these words by referring to the wall
whenever a new word is introduced to the class, and by organizing
small group activities in which students are to write a story using a
certain number of sight words on the word wall.
Alphabet flashcards will help Andrew not to confuse the sounds
of lower case letters such as b and d (Morrow, 2012). On one side of
the flashcard, the teacher should write the letter, and on the back, a
simple sight word that contains the letter on the front. To make it
easier to recognize the letter, the teacher could underline the letter.
These flashcards will help Andrew to see the difference between the
two letters, and will give an example of the sound when it is actually
used in a word. A whiteboard would help Andrew learn to use the
letters himself. The teacher should focus on one letter, lower-case p,
for example, and have Andrew first practice writing the letter and
sounding it out, then once he is comfortable with that, the teacher
should have him create words that have p in them. Then, Andrew
should say the word out loud so that he can hear the sound it makes
within the word.
For rhyme construction, one strategy that might really help
Andrew would be for the teacher to write all of the letters of the
alphabet on note cards, and make two or three sets of them. Then, she
can use the notecards to create words, and have the children fill in
blanks to create words that rhyme. For instance, if the teacher puts the
letters c-a-r up, then underneath it she might put just a-r up, and have
Andrew decide which letter should go at the beginning of the word to
make a rhyme. Once Andrew grasps the concept of creating simple
rhymes like this, the teacher could change the letters she leaves out in
the rhyme. For instance, instead of leaving the first sound off of a word,
she might leave the ending off so that Andrew has to put the ending to
match the one above for a rhyme.

Classroom observation notes:

Wednesday, October 8, 2014 1:00pm
All of the desks in the classroom are placed in a U-shape around the
white board, with the desks on the side facing the outside of the
classroom. Andrew sits in the front row of desks facing the board.
Ms. McClenthen: Okay, class. Yesterday we drew cards for our friends in
Haiti. Do you remember what we put in the cards?
Child: Pictures of Jesus
Ms. M: Yes, we put pictures that showed how Jesus loves them. Did
anyone put anything else in their card?
Andrew: I drew a dog and a baby Jesus.
Ms. M: Good, Andrew. Ho did you let the person you were writing to
know that you drew the picture?
Andrew looked around the classroom, and shrugged his shoulders
Ms. M: What about you, John? How did you let the person know that
you had written on the card?
John: I wrote my name!
Ms. M: Right! So it sounds like we have some good cards going out in
the mail. Today were going to talk about another kind of mail that we
sometimes get. Does anyone get any mail that looks different from the
cards were sending?
Susie: I get letters from my grandma!

Ms. M: Thank you, Susie but please remember to raise your hand. What
does your grandma say in the letters to you?
Susie: She tells me the exciting news going on.
Ms. M: Those sound like very nice letters. Were actually going to write
letters today in class! Everyone please come up to my desk and grab
a piece of lined paper, and you will need to pull a pencil out of your
desk for this activity.
Children get paper and pencils out, Ms. M. turns on the SmartBoard
Ms. M: What is a good way to start a letter? Chris?
Chris: dear
Ms. M: Very good. Im going to write my letter to Joe. So on the first
line of my letter, Im going to write Dear Joe. What should I put after
Joe?
Georgia: An apostrophe?
Ms. M: Not quite. Whats the thing that looks like an apostrophe but its
down low?
Andrew: A period?
Ms. M: Not quite. Were getting closer, though. Whats the symbol that
means theres a pause?
Andrew: a comma?
Ms. M: Yes! Very good Andrew. So what should we say after we have
our introduction?
Anthony: Whats up?
Ms. M: Yep, so after we say Dear Joe or whoever youre writing to, you
can tell them whatever you want. What should we talk about in our
letters? I know, what is coming up at the end of this month?
Class: Halloween!
Ms. M: Okay, so were going to write about Halloween in our letters.
When were all finished writing, how to we let them know we dont
have anything else to talk about? Lisa?
Lisa: You could say love, Lisa
Ms. M: Exactly! And just like up above, were going to need a comma in
there but its not going to go after the name this time. Can anyone tell
me where its going to go?
Lisa: After love!
Ms. M: Yep! So now we know how to write a letter so Im going to give
you guys time to actually write one. Were going to write these to a
friend or relative, okay? If you have any questions, Ill be walking
around the room and I can help you.
The children begin writing their letters, asking Ms. M. for help spelling
words, which she then writes up on the board. During this time, I
noticed that Andrew did not write a letter, but scribbled all over his
paper.