10

Nicole Ruggiero
Dr. McKool
ELD 308
Assessment Project
I.

Introduction
Jim is an 8-year-old third grader attending ABC Elementary School. He
lives with his mother, father, and 10-year-old brother. Jims parents both
have jobs in New York, so Jim and his brother are often supervised by a
nanny until his parents get home. Jim has his own room and his jobs around
the house include: making his bed, washing the dishes, and taking out the
garbage. He also receives an allowance of $5 per week if he completes his
chores. After school, Jim reports that he tends to do his homework, have a
snack, play on the computer, and then have dinner. After dinner, he usually
reads, plays Minecraft, and then goes to bed after reading a bedtime story.
His bedtime is around 8 or 9 oclock at night. Jim reports that his brother
often tends to go to bed much later than thatsometimes as late as
midnightbecause he reads for hours at night. Jim also belongs to a hockey
and football team outside of school. Other things that Jim likes to do in his
spare time are: go bowling, play on the computer, play outside, read, write,
and pet his cats.

Jim reports that he likes school. His favorite subject is physical

education and his least favorite subject is Spanish. When he is at home, he
tends to study or do his homework assignments either in his room, in the
kitchen, or on the computer desk. His nanny helps him with his homework by
checking it and telling him what is wrong after he finishes. Jim considers
himself to be a good reader. When asked what helped him to become a good
reader, he responded that the game Minecraft helped him because in the
game people can send messages back and forth to one another and in order
to send a message back to a person, you must first read and understand it. If
given a choice, Jim would select mystery or adventure books. Some things
that Jim thinks would make him a better reader are if he read the newspaper
and if he read for an extra ten minutes per day. Jim also has a very positive
attitude toward writing. He especially likes to write pieces about himself
because that is the subject that he feels he knows the most about. Jim
reports that if he were helping someone learn how to read, the most
important thing that he could do is to recommend books for that person to
read. Jim recognizes that reading can help him in the future in a lot of ways
but most importantly, it will help him prepare for college. Lastly, Jim thinks
that it is very important for teachers to know about the things that he likes.
II.

Independent Reading Conference

On October 26, 2014, Jim was asked to read aloud from the novel
Geronimo Stilton: Shipwreck on the Pirate Islands by Elisabetta Dami. At this
time, a running record of his oral reading miscues was recorded and a brief
comprehension check was taken. This book is ranked at an O reading level,
which is normally the level that third graders read about midway through the
school year. He chose this book because his brother likes reading this book
series and recommended that Jim try reading them and then Jim got hooked.
Jim likes these books because they are chapter books that contain a lot of
pictures. Jim would consider this book to be between hard and just-right for
him to read. When asked what he thought the reason for that was, he said
that some words in this book are hard for him, but others are easy for him to
read.
In terms of comprehension, Jim seems to be getting most of the main
ideas out of his reading. Before Jim started reading, he was able to give a
strong retelling with a detailed explanation of the events that had transpired
before the passage that he was about to read. After reading, he was able to
retell most of the important parts that he just read. However, he was missing
some points that were important to the storyline. He was also able to make a
prediction about what was going to happen next without prompting. He
predicted what was going to come next based on what had already
happened and also the picture that was on the next page.

In terms of word recognition, Jason made a total of 6 miscues across 3

pages. All of the miscues were uncorrected. There was high graphic similarity
for four out of the six miscues (e.g. stared|started, those|these, hid|hide,
message|massage), some graphic similarity for one of them (e.g. forget how|
forgot to), and no graphic similarity for the last one (e.g. then|first). The
miscues that had high or even some graphic similarity suggest that Jim uses
visual strategies to solve words. The miscue where Jim substituted then for
first seems to indicate that Jim sometimes uses morphemic strategies,
which are those that focus on constructing meaning from the text (Fountas &
Pinnell, 2001). There were only two instances in which the miscues
significantly changed the meaning of the text. (e.g. stared|started &
message|massage). When asked what strategy he tends to use when he
comes across a word that he does not know, he responded that he tries to
sound them outwhich is known as a phonemic strategy because it
requires students to analyze letter-sound relationships (Fountas & Pinnell,
2001). Based on the fact that Jim tends to use the phonemic and visual word
solving strategies more than the morphemic strategies, it seems like Jim
might be over-relying on the print as a source for constructing meaning from
the text, when he should also be focusing on the events happening in the
story as a source for meaning.

Jim tended to read in spurtshe read fluently at times and then he

would start slowing down at other times. He read in long phrases and paused
appropriately at punctuation, however he did not use proper expression or
intonation when he read the dialogue. He read fast, but he read very quietly
and the longer he read, the quieter he became. Overall, however, Jims
fluency during this informal reading conference was adequate for his age.
III. Developmental Reading Assessment
On September 24, 2014, Jim was given a Developmental Reading
Assessment. At this time, he read instructionally at a level Mwhich is
usually the level at which second grade students read by the end of second
grade. When a student reads instructionally, this means that he is able to
read and comprehend text with guidance and support. Considering this
assessment was given within the first moth of third grade and Jim is not yet
independent in reading advanced second grade material, Jim may
experience some difficulty reading third grade level material at this moment
in time.

In terms of comprehension, Jim is on an instructional level. He scored

an 18 out of 28 possible comprehension points. The scores for the
instructional level range from 14 to 18, so this means that with more
instruction, Jim will most likely be able to move up to the next levelthe
independent level. Some things that Jim did well are that he gave thoughtful
predictions that went beyond the text, he used text features to describe each
character in the story using at least two specific details, and he gave
accurateif undetailedresponses to the literal comprehension questions.
The areas that Jim needs to work on are the scaffolded summary, the
scaffolded summary vocabulary, interpretation, and reflection. When Jim
gave his summary, he used his own words and included some important
characters and events, but he was missing some information that was
important to the story. It was also clear from his summary that he had a
basic understanding of some of the key words and concepts from the text,
but not all. When he interpreted the text, it was clear that he had some
understanding of the important text implications, however he did not include
any supporting details that would back up his opinion. Finally, when asked to
reflect on the most important event in the story and give a reason for why he
chose it, he chose a less significant event and gave a very general reason for
his choice. Overall, Jim has adequate comprehension skills, but there is room
for improvement in this area.

In terms of word recognition, Jim is on an independent level. He read

196 words and made a total of 3 miscues, which gives him an accuracy of
98%. His miscues consisted of two word substitutions and one word insertion
all of which were uncorrected. Both of the word substitutions were visually
similar (e.g. her|his & bell|ball) and they did not interfere with the
construction of meaning. Before the word ball, there was the word jingle
which probably explains why he said bell insteadbut in his summary, he
wrote ball, so he still comprehended the actual text. These miscues show
that Jim uses both visual and morphemic strategies. The low number of
miscues along with the fact that the miscues were visually similar shows that
Jim seems to closely monitor the text as he reads. Also, at one point in his
reading, Jim stopped and repeated a word, which shows that he problemsolves words using the rereading strategy.
In terms of fluency, Jim is on an independent level. He scored 13 out of
a total of 16 points for oral reading fluency. He read 196 words in 1 minute
and 21 seconds, giving him a WPM of 145 and making his reading rate on the
advanced level. He read very fast and made very few miscues in that time
with an accuracy of 98%. As he read, the expression that he used reflected
the mood, pace, and tension of the story at times. Other times, he lapsed
back into to simply reading the text with no expression whatsoever. Also,
most of the time, Jim read in longer phrases and heeded most of the
IV.

punctuation. Overall, oral fluency seems to be one of Jims stronger points.

Writing Sample

On September 24, 2014, Jim was asked to write a personal narrative on

a topic of his choosing. Jim decided to write a story about a time that he and
his family went on a vacation to Michigan. Jim has a very good attitude
toward writing, so he immediately began writing as soon as the task was
assigned. He wrote continuously for approximately 20 minutes. His writing
sample was then assessed using the New Jersey Registered Holistic Rubric.
In terms of content, Jim seems to have an adequate command in this
area. His personal narrative has an opening and closing and his writing has a
clear, single focus. Jims organization of his writing shows that he has an
adequate command of organizational skills. There were some lapses in
organization that made the story seem a little disjointed at times, but most
of the story seemed like a logical progression of ideas. He included multiple
transition words that marked the progression of time, including sometimes,
but, and once. Jim also included appropriate details about his trip to
Michigan, like the good and bad parts, how long they usually stay there, and
the types of things they do there.

In terms of mechanics, Jim seems to have only a partial command in

this area. Jim has mastered punctuation, but there were patterns of errors in
capitalization and spelling evident in his writing. He the punctuation he used
included periods along with one exclamation point at the ends of all of his
sentences. Considering capitalization, he only capitalized the first letter of
the sentence for two out of the eight sentences he wrote. For example, he
wrote evry year we go to mishgin Also, Jim has not yet mastered the
concept of capitalization of proper nouns, as can be ascertained when he did
not capitalize the m in mishgin. He did, however, capitalize the word I
in one of his sentences. Jim also tends to use upper cases in inappropriate
places. For example, he wrote: the Bad part is These data show that Jim
does not have a good concept of the proper use of capitalization.
Jim also shows an adequate command in sentence structure. He had
some variety in the kinds of sentences he wrote and most of them were
correctly written. Some, however, were missing verbs. For example, he
wrote: the Bad part is it a 16 hour drive. In this instance, he wrote it a
instead of it is a or its a. Jim also demonstrated a strong command in
the area of usage. There were no noticeable mistakes in this area. Lastly,
Jims handwriting is very poor. He tends to write very lightly and sloppily on
the page. He often does not close the loops of his letters the way that they
are supposed to be. For example, his as can look like us and his gs can look
like ys.

It appears that Jim is in the middle of the Within Word Pattern spelling
stage. This means that at this point in time, Jim has mastered the spelling of
words with common long vowels in the middle, but he has difficulty spelling
words that have short vowels in the middle of them. For example, when Jim
was asked to spell a word with long vowels in the middle, bright, he was
able to do so, but when asked to spell a different word with another vowel in
the middle, chewed, he spelled it as chude. Jim has most difficulty with
words that have suffixes and/or roots. For example, when asked to spell the
word opposition, he spelled it opsison. When Jason writes in his writers
notebook, he tends to spell phoneticallyusing sound-letter relationships.
Some examples of the misspelled words include: wonse|once, evry|every,
cosine|cousin, coclate|chocolate, fuge|fudge, and restronts|restaurants.
V.

Summary

After conducting several informal assessments, I have concluded that

Jims strengths as a reader are word recognition and oral fluency. He has the
most difficulty in reading with comprehension in the areas of retelling,
interpretations, and reflections. To further develop his skills as a reader, Jim
should be taught explicit comprehension strategies that can be employed as
he reads. According to Miller (2009), teachers should teach comprehension
strategies and literary elements that students could apply to a wide range of
texts. This will help Jim to comprehend texts better because he will have
specific strategies that he can use when he is struggling to derive meaning
from a text. Jim should also be encouraged to make personal connections to
texts in order to comprehend them better. According to Duffy (2003), if we
have prior knowledge about a topic in a text, we can use strategiesor plans
to construct meaning based on our experience Even if Jim were taught
good comprehension strategies, he may not be able to use them if he cannot
relate to them, so making connections to texts based on his personal
experiences can help him do this. Guided reading groups could also help Jim
with comprehension. Guided reading would be useful because it is designed
to help individual students learn how to process a variety of increasingly
challenging texts with understanding and fluency, (Fountas & Pinnell, 2001).
In his guided reading group, Jim would receive one-on-one as well as group
instruction alongside other students who are having similar problems, which
could be very beneficial for him.

Jims strengths as a writer are his content and usage. He has the most
difficulty in writing with mechanics, more specifically capitalization and
spelling. To further develop his skills as a writer, Jim should be encouraged to
read more often and use mentor texts as models to follow in order to
improve his own writing. According to Miller (2009), reading has been shown
to improve students writing and grammar. The more Jim reads, the more
exposure he will have to proper uses of capitalization and conventional
spellings. Another strategy that might be beneficial for Jim is peer editing.
According to Fountas & Pinnell (2001), the writing workshop allows students
to consider the writing of others and to provide thoughtful comments and
support. The students can teach one another in this way. This would be
especially effective because students often value feedback from their peers
than teacher feedback. Concerning Jims spelling, it would benefit him
greatly if he did more word sorts that are geared toward his strengths.
According to Fresch et al., (1998), when word sorts are designed to teach
toward strengths, students are able to build on prior knowledge and develop
new approaches for spelling words. These types of word sorts will greatly
improve his ability to spell new and challenging word with increasing
accuracy.

Resources
Donalyn, M. (2009). The Book Whisperer. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Duffy, G. (2009). Explaining reading: A Resource for Teaching Concepts,
Skills, and Strategies (2nd Edition ed.). New York, NY: The Guilford
Press.
Fountas, I., & Pinnell, G. (2001). Guiding Readers and Writers. Portsmouth,
NH: Heinemann
Fresch, M., Wheaton, A., Zutell, J. (1998). Thinking aloud during spelling word
sorts. The National Reading Conference Yearbook, 47, 285-294.