Ashley Louth November 5, 2015 Word Study Assessment The word study assessment is a way for teachers to critically

look at the development of the spelling phonetic awareness of students. This assessment can help teachers identify each students stage of spelling and phonemic development. There are many levels of word study assessments to test the different levels of development of the students across grade levels. Donald R. Bear provides a number of spelling inventories for varying levels in his book, Words Their Way. Mrs. Mulshine gives Developmental Spelling Assessments (DSA) to her students. These are word study assessments that are given between kindergarten and fifth grade. There are four levels of the DSA with each level having two forms. The first level of the DSA is the Letter Name Feature List. This list tests the students ability to recognize initial & final consonant sounds, initial consonant blends & diagraphs, short vowels, affricates, and final consonant blends & diagraphs. The second level is Within Word Patterns. This list tests the students abilities with long vowels, r-controlled vowels, complex consonants, and abstract vowels. The third level of the DSA is Syllable Juncture. This list tests the students on doubling & e-drop with ed & ing endings, other syllable juncture doubling, long vowel patterns with a stressed syllable, rcontrolled vowels with a stressed syllable, and unstressed syllable vowel patterns. The final level of the DSA is Derivational Constancy. This test tests the students with skills of silent & sounded consonants, consonant changes, vowel changes, Latin-derived suffixes, and assimilated prefixes. At each level the students are scored a total for 2 points per word. If the entire word is spelled correctly, the student receives 2 points. If the target feature is correct but not the entire word the student receives 1 point. If the target feature is incorrect the student receives 0 points. If students

score 20 or above they have a firm understanding of this feature test and can move to the next feature test list. If students score between a 12 and a 20, the students are developing these features on the test and this is what teachers should plan to cover in their instruction. If students receive less than 12 points that means the student could be either just beginning to develop these features (if the score from the previous feature test is strong) or they do not know this feature and need to go back down a level (if the score from the previous feature test is unknown or low). The first DSA assessment of Letter Name Features was given to the class in September by Mrs. Mulshine. Based on these results, she gave me a small group of students who were ready to move to the next feature list of Within Word Pattern Features. Each student took a pencil, eraser, and clip board out into the hallway with me. I sat the students in the group in a manner so that they could not see each others clip boards. I then gave each student the worksheet they would write on. Once they each wrote their name and the date I explained the instructions as directed by Mrs. Mulshine even though they all already knew about what was happening. I read a list of 25 words to the students. I first said the word, used the word in a sentence, and then said the word a second time. When every student had finished writing the word down, we moved onto the next word. At the end, I collected each paper and the students went back into the classroom. I then took one of these assessments and made a copy for myself to evaluate. I evaluated this DSA using the method described to me by Mrs. Mulshine. To perform this DSA I took the students out into the hall way and sat them on the floor with enough space between them so that they could not look at each others papers. Then I read from the DSA Form A: Within Word Pattern Feature List. There are 25 words on this list. I read each on by first saying the word, pausing, saying a sentence with the word in it, pausing, and then saying the word a second time. I would wait until the entire group of students had put their

pencils down to show me that they were done before reading the next word. When all 25 words had been completed, I collected each students paper and sent them back to class. I photocopied one DSA sheet and turned the rest into Mrs. Mulshine. I took the DSA Word List, Answer Card, and Student Answer Sheet to begin my analysis of the student I selected to review. To review the students DSA Answer Sheet, I followed the directions Mrs. Mulshine gave me. I first took a separate sheet of paper and numbered it 1 through 25 to represent the 25 words that were tested. I used this separate sheet of paper to first keep track of the students score because this way i f a mistake is made it is not on the students original copy. I gave 2 points for each word if the whole word was correct. I gave 1 point for each word that had the correct feature but was not completely correct. I gave 0 points for words that did not have the correct feature. Once I graded each word, I double checked to make sure I was correct. Then I wrote these scores on the students answer sheet. Next, I put a tally under each feature key that was correct. For example if the student used the correct feature for number 1 and that feature was from I, I would put a tally under the I. For the words that used the features correctly a tally mark would be given. After, I counted the number of tally marks the student received; this score was the students stage score which is out of 25. Finally I totaled the number of points the student received using the point system explained above. This score is the total score and is out of 50 because each word can be worth a total of 2 points each. If the students had a stage score of about 18-20 or higher, Mrs. Mulshine said the student is ready to be tested for the next feature level. If the student scored less than that, they are not ready to be tested for the next level and will have to be retested in this level at a later time. The student that I reviewed received a stage score of 17 with a total score of 33. Five features were tested in this list with 5 words that used each feature. The five features were Long

Vowels (Vowel-Consonant-e), R-controlled Vowels, Other Long Vowels, Complex Consonants, and Abstract Vowels. This student had at least 2 words in each feature correct and had a total of 17 features correct. This means she has a very good base in understanding these features. However, she has not yet mastered all of these features. She had all of the Long Vowels (VowelConsonant-e) correct. She used the feature correctly and spelled the whole word correctly. She used the R-controlled Vowels feature correct 4 times. These words were also spelled completely correct. However, she spelled girl by writing gril. For the feature of other Long Vowels, this student spelled and used the feature correctly 3 times. For the other two words using this feature, the student did not use the feature correctly. For the word coast the student used the long vowel feature of vowel-consonant-e by writing coste; therefore, the student knew that she was hearing a long vowel sound but did not know how to write this long vowel. She also used the feature of complex consonants correctly 3 times. Two of these times she spelled the word completely correct. However, for the word flock, the student wrote flack which shows that she could hear the complex consonant sound of ck but got the vowel sound incorrect for this word. For the word bridge the student did not get the complex consonant sound of dg and only wrote brige. For the word quit the student wrote qwit; this shows that she heard the complex consonant sound of qu but thought that there was a w making the sound instead of a u. The student used the final feature of abstract vowels correct 2 times. She spelled both of these words completely correct. However, she struggled with the vowel sounds for the other three words. For example for the word couch, she wrote coauch making it seem that she did not know which vowel sounds were combining to make the abstract vowel sound of ou. Overall, the student has a good background in the features that were tested in this list. To help this student and other students with long vowels and abstract vowels I could have students

create and look at vowel pattern families. Either as a class or in small groups, vowel pattern families can be created by having students list all the words they know that follow the different vowel patterns. For example we could have the long vowel pattern family of oa and students can list words like coast, coat, float, boat, and toast. I can also do this through a read-aloud by reading a book like Raccoon Tune by Nancy Shaw or Owl at Home by Arnold Lobel. Both of these books use a lot of abstract vowel pattern words. Students can hear these words used and then go through these books and other books to find words to add to the vowel pattern family charts for each vowel pattern family. The features from this test can also be practiced by having word study centers where the students play games to practice phonics. Games like Pick a Blend and Word Sort could help practice and build these feature skills because it will get the students seeing and saying the different features that are present in this list. Pick a Blend could be played with blends and with the complex consonants. The word sort could be used as a reinforcement activity or a follow up activity after students create the vowel pattern family charts I mentioned above.