Literacy Profile

Jennifer Quigley
EDU 533

Observations
Abby is a 3rd grade student in Geneva, IL. I chose to observe her for this assignment because I do
not readily have access to other students as I am not a teacher. I have used her as my guinea
pig for other teaching classes and she has been very cooperative. In conversations, Abby is a
little bit reserved. Her mother says that she is usually quiet with strangers but is very talkative at
home and with her friends. She is able to maintain conversation with me, asking and responding
to questions with more than just a one-word answer. She talks about her day, things that have
happened to her recently, and things that our conversations have reminded her of. In school,
Abby reports that she enjoys reading more that writing but that writing is ok. She is reading
The Whipping Boy currently. Abby maintains an A-B average in school and seems to be
developing normally in social aspects as well.
STUDENT INTEREST SURVEY

Student Name:__Abby H.________________________

Dominican Student: __Jennifer Quigley______________

1. What do you like to read when you are not in school?

some books, sometimes magazines I dont really read that much except
when I have to for homework
2. What else do you like to do when you arent in school?
Abby is part of an acting group and she meets 1 or 2 days per week and likes it a lot. She
also likes to hang-out with <her> friends.
3. How much television do you watch every day? What programs or shows do you like to
watch?
She likes to play WII and her favorite show is iCarly. Her mother limits her TV
watching to after 5:30 unless it is raining- a couple hours
4. Do you use a computer at home? What do you use it for?
looking at stuff <like what> pictures and videos on you tube

5. What computer games do you like to play?

Doesnt really play games on the computer. Plays Guitar Hero on WII.

6. Do you use e-mail? If so, who do you write to?

No

7. What are your hobbies?

Playing with my friends & acting/singing/dancing

8. What do you like to do when you are with friends?

talk about stuff and hang-out at the park. Sometimes we watch TV or movies

9. What is your favorite food?

Pizza

10. What are your favorite kinds of clothes?

Abercrombie and GAP but mom doesnt buy it for her often

11. How do you feel about school?

its okay (she doesnt really understand this question)

12. What is your favorite subject? Your least favorite subject?

Favorite: music class Least Favorite: math

13. What are you really good at?

Acing/dancing/singing

14. What do you know a lot about?

Acting/dancing
15. What would you like us to know about you?
My name is Abby and I am in 3nd grade <anything else?> no

16. If you could be anyone, who would it be?

A girl in her acting class that she looks up to- she wants to be able to dance as well as her
one day.

17. If you could go anywhere, where would you go?

Disney world (she went there last year for the first time)

Writing Sample: (journal writing on what student did in school recently)

"Dear Mom and dad,
I had a fun week at school. We had 4th grade buddies. It was fun. I
also past to H on rocket math. And I think I aced on the spelling test.
We made galaxy's in art class. It was fun. And I remember the balled
egale's in our backyard last year. We had computer lab and the head
phones hurt my ear's. We have been learning about spiders. We had a
bus evacuation drill. I wish I could have the best lunch ever with dippin
dot's. We have been reading Ananis the spider stories.
Love, Abby"
Total words- 101
Pluralization errors, Words misspelled (balled, egale); Lack of descriptive language
In analyzing Abbys journal writing, I discovered a several things about her as a writer.
Abby seems to be a thoughtful writer and tries to include many details in her writing. While there
are spelling errors, 98% of the words that were written were spelled correctly. Abby had two
incomplete sentences in this sample however, 83% of her sentences were complete. Abbys
writing was also free of run-on sentences. One compound sentence was present. Abby did not

use many adjectives to describe her week and instead used simple, objective statements. All of
the sentences that Abby wrote that were complete began with a pronoun. Finally, Abby seems to
have difficulty with changing the spelling of words from singular to plural form although she
does recognize the need for pluralization.
After reviewing the common core standards for third grade writing, I found two
additional areas that may need to be worked on with Abby. First, since Abby is currently using
linking words to begin sentences and thus creating incomplete sentences, she should be
instructed on the place of a linking words in sentences. Secondly, while a beginning to this
writing sample is present, it lacks a clear progression of events and a closure. Abby needs to
works on using temporal words to show progression of events in her writing and ways to sum up
the writing to create a closure sentence.
After analyzing the writing sample, I talked with Abby about what I saw as strengths and
weaknesses of the sample and how she could improve her writing in the future. As mentioned
before, I told her that her spelling was good and she used punctuation correctly. I would work
with her first in correcting the pluralization errors that were present in her writing as this would
probably be the most immediate need for her to perform at a third grade writing level. Abby
should also work on her use of adjectives and descriptive language to make her writing more
interesting to the reader. It should be noted that Abbys lack of descriptive language may have
been due to the nature of the prompt or the fact that it was given on a Friday afternoon as a final
activity for the week. It is also clear that Abby is attempting to write more complex sentences
that do not start with pronouns. I would suggest words to her that are good for beginning
sentences that are not pronouns and would help her vary her sentence structure. Over all I think

that Abby has a good basic skill set and needs instruction on ways to make her writing more
meaningful and engaging to readers of her writing.
Running Record Analysis
A running record for Abby was performed with a passage from chapter one of the book,
Charlottes Web. She will be reading this book for school later in the year according to her. The
Book Wizard on Scholastic.com measured the grade level for this book to be 4.9. Because
Abby is currently in the third grade, this would be an advanced text for her to read. I chose to use
this passage however, because it is at a slightly higher grade level than the book she is currently
reading.
In administering the running record, I noticed one important thing about her oral reading
skills. In reading, Abby spoke in a monotone voice. There was no inflection in her voice and she
completely ignored punctuation in expression. Her pronunciation of words sounded almost
robotic and usually enunciated every syllable. There were several times during reading that Abby
did not pronounce words in contractions as written and instead stated the two words separately.
Overall, this would be considered an appropriate instructional text. Abby read this excerpt
with 95% accuracy and a 1:1 self-correction ratio. Abbys errors included some insertion, tense,
mispronunciation, and word-form errors. Most of these errors did not significantly affect the
meaning what the sentence that she read.
Abbys reading performance was also analyzed. There was one instance of selfcorrection and one phrase that she re-read to ensure that it was read correctly. Abby used all three
types of cues and miscues throughout her paper. Abbys use of the term talked instead of talk
was a structural miscue. Her substitution of the word like for of involved both meaning and

structural miscues. Substitution of the words soaped for sopped and outdoors for outside
was due to visual miscues. Despite the presences of miscues at an instructional level, Abby was
able to accurately recount the story well and give details about what she read indicating that her
comprehension was good.
In order for Abby to improve her reading skills, I would address structural and
grammatical issues rather than comprehension. Spelling might also need to be addressed.
Instruction in these areas would likely improve both Abbys reading fluency and writing fluency.
Reflection
Being that I have never taught in a school, I have never done a literacy profile before and did not
know what to expect. Creating a literacy profile taught me several new things about students and
teaching in general.
The most obvious thing that I noticed was the disparity between reading and writing
skills. At the same time that I was completing my literacy profile, I was performing classroom
observations for this same class. I noticed that in both that I tested and the students that I
observed, reading skills seemed to be much more advanced than writing skills. To me , this raises
the question of why? Why, if this more advanced writing was modeled to students in the books
they read, was this not picked up better? It seems students that may be far above their grade level
in reading could be such underwhelming writers. Are we not teaching writing skills as well or as
frequently as reading? I know that grammar and writing skills were not explicitly taught much at
all in my observations although students were given time every day to write in journals.
Another observation that I made in the course of this assignment was about the
correlation between errors in reading and in writing. From looking at Abbys reading and writing

errors, I found that many of her mistakes were structural in nature. It makes good sense that
errors in reading would generalize to writing (and vice-versa) but I had not thought of this
before. Because of this generalization, it makes sense too that if a teacher was to teach the skill in
either reading or writing, both would improve.
A final thing that I took away from this assignment was the importance of
individualization of assessments. I know that we have talked about this a lot in class and it was
evident in this assignment as well. It is very important for teachers to remember that each student
is unique and that no teacher should have a one-size-fits-all philosophy, especially in the area of
literacy.