Mabel Tang

March 2, 2016
CIL621
AE#3

Student Data

Student is named ABG. She is in a full day kindergarten class this year. She

started kindergarten at four years old and is currently five years old. She is one of

the youngest in the class. She comes from a Hispanic background, but is not coded

as an ELL. ABG has an older sibling in third grade that helps her with her studies.

Her mother and grandmother are also teachers. ABG is doing well with her

academics and has no behavior issues according to her teacher. ABG is reading

books for beginning readers independently and will occasionally ask for assistance.

According to the STAR reading assessment, ABG is reading at a 1.2 level (a first

grader in their second month of school).

Protocol/Assessment

This assessment is from the Words Their Way program. It is the primary

spelling inventory (PSI) used in kindergarten through third grade to determine

where your students instructional level is in terms of spelling. By determining their

level, instructional approaches can be made in teaching phonics, vocabulary, and

spelling to improve literacy skills (Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, & Johnston, 2008).

To begin, administer the spelling inventory. Depending on the grade level, you may

use the primary, elementary, or upper-level spelling inventory. In this case with

ABG, I administered the primary spelling inventory. The student will require a paper

and pencil and the test proctor will require the PSI words list. It is recommended for

kindergarten or other emergent readers, you many only need to call out the first

five words. In late kindergarten and early first grade classrooms, call out at least 15

words so that you sample digraphs and blends (Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, &

Johnston, 2008). For ABG, I planned to administer only the first 15 due to her

reading level, however I administered the entire list due to her persistence. Once
Mabel Tang
March 2, 2016
CIL621
AE#3

the PSI is administered, score it using the Words Their Way Primary Spelling

Inventory Feature Guide. The guide will provide information on what spelling stage

the student is currently at. From there, the teacher can utilize the recommended

instructional approaches provided in the book or create their own instructional plan.

Results

According to the feature guide, ABG is in the within word pattern spelling

stage. At this stage, the teacher should focus instruction on long vowel patterns

with review on blends. ABG mastered all initial consonants (point value 7 out of 7),

all final consonants (7 out of 7), all short vowels (7 out of 7), and all digraphs (7 out

of 7). For blends ABG scored 5 out of 7 and for long vowel patterns ABG scored 3 out

of 7. Since ABG completed the entire primary spelling inventory, the feature guide

shows that ABG knows 2 out of 7 other vowels and no inflected endings. Overall,

ABG spelled 10 out of 26 words correctly and scored 38 out of 56 points.

Conclusion/Assessment Standards

From this spelling inventory, I was able to determine what spelling stage ABG

is currently at and what spelling patterns she requires more instruction on. If I was

ABGs teacher, then I would be able to plan and tailor phonics/writing instruction for

her in order to improve her literacy skills. I was also very surprised that ABG knew

other vowels such as ow and or since I am aware that those vowels are not

taught in kindergarten. I am also surprised that she did not know some of the

inflected endings since -ed has been introduced in kindergarten.

In terms of the assessment protocol, I believe it was easy to follow and to

administer. The PSI words list provides detailed instruction on how to administer the

assessment. The protocol was short and simple to read. If a person were to pick this

assessment up, they would be able to administer the assessment without problem. I
Mabel Tang
March 2, 2016
CIL621
AE#3

think the only challenge was reading the word with proper pronunciation and

annunciation. For example, the word camped sounded like camt for ABG as I

watched her sound out the word. Though the assessment provides a sentence

paired with the word, ABG did not use context clues to help her. Overall, the

assessment did not take long and ABG quite enjoyed herself.
Mabel Tang
March 2, 2016
CIL621
AE#3

References

Bear, D. R., Invernizzi, M., Templeton, S., & Johnston, F. (2008). Words Their
Way. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.