Nicole Meyer Dr. McKool ELD 308 Assessment Portfolio I. Introduction a. Interest Inventory i.

Jim is a 9-year-old boy in the fourth grade at Millstone Elementary School. He lives at home with his two parents and older sister. Jim has his own room, which is occasionally shared, with his sister when she comes in to play with him. Jims father owns his own company in the engineering business and Jim could not recall his mothers profession. He doesnt have many chores around the house except cleaning the living room after he makes a mess and fixing his bed. After school, Jim does his homework and on Monday he has a Chinese tutor. He also enjoys taking taekwondo classes Wednesday through Friday. Jim doesnt have a TV in his room, which is fine, because hes not allowed to watch TV, play on the computer or play with the iPad on weekdays since those days are for homework and studying. On weekends, Jim and his sister watch some TV and play on the computer. On weekdays, Jim gets into bed around 8:30pm but doesnt actually fall asleep until 9:00pm. On weekends, he gets to stay up later by going to sleep around 10 or 11 oclock at night. Jim isnt involved in any clubs at school since he is busy with homework, Chinese classes and taekwondo. The Harry Potter and Percy Jackson series are some of Jims favorite books to read at home. While hes not reading, Jim also enjoys playing soccer and cricket. ii. Jim states that his favorite subject in school is gym while his least favorite subject is Spanish. Although Jim could study in his room at his desk, he finds comfort in studying in the living room. When asked how much homework he has on a normal night, Jim replied that it depends on the day. Sometimes he has writing and math, other times he has reading to do, but at the end of the night his mother usually checks his homework. Jim says that he considers himself a good reader because he is very interested in reading. His fondness for reading helps him become a better and more avid reader. Jims favorite type of genre is mythology; he loves reading about the different kinds of myths and monsters that live in the stories. In order to improve his reading, Jim admits that he should try to concentrate more on the text because sometimes he loses focus while reading and winds up having to reread a passage or a page. When it comes to writing, Jim doesnt enjoy it as much as reading because he says he has trouble choosing topics for his writing pieces. Even though Jim isnt fond of writing, he claims he is excellent at math and reading and says if he were to help someone learn how to

read, he would want them to know how important it is to reflect on the text. Reading is very important to Jim, he explains that reading helps you find your classroom, do homework and take a test. He also clarifies that reading is crucial when someone wants to find a job and have a career. iii. Through observation of Jim, it was apparent that he was very interested in mythology and fantasy books. When he walked into class the other day, he was very excited to show his peers his giant book of monsters, which included pictures and passages about Cyclopes, mummies, three headed monsters and much more. He would read this book in between his work, which made it obvious that Jim was very intrigued with the fantasies. Jim is a present student in the classroom. He volunteers to share his answers in class no matter what the subject and loves to share his own personal stories and knowledge about a particular subject with the class. Jim helps his peers when needed and can be seen socializing with the other students and reading his reading logbook often. iv. Based on Jims third grade teacher, Jim is a developing writer. Since Jim is an ELL student, he has trouble with writing sentences, for example, Jim needs reminders to reread his sentences to be sure his writing makes sense. In terms of reading, his reading level could be higher but his language barrier interferes. He also lacks the background knowledge needed to comprehend certain texts. Overall, Jim is a self-disciplined child who always completes his homework. He is a hard worker and motivated to do well. He gets very nervous about completing something incorrectly that is why he asks multiple questions to make sure he does something correct. Jim doesnt like too many choices and prefers to be given very exact instructions in order to complete his assignments well. II. Informal Reading Conference. i. On October 20, 2010, Jim was asked to read aloud from the fiction book, Misty of Chincoteague. While Jim was reading, a running record of his oral reading miscues was being taken. Also, Jims comprehension skills and fluency were being monitored and recorded. When asked if Jim liked the book, he claimed that he enjoyed it but hadnt gotten very far in the story; he was only on chapter 1. He explained that the book was just right for him and wasnt too easy or too hard. ii. In terms of comprehension, Jim knew the concept of the story, but had difficulty retelling it. He struggled with the characters names and rarely used them when retelling the story. Also, Jim was struggling with the sequence of events that took place in the story. In the book, Explaining Reading, by Gerald G. Duffy, Summarizing is the creation of a brief retelling of a text. The focus is on describing in brief form the texts major points (Duffy 153). Even though Jim was only on

chapter 1 of his book, he wasnt able to sequentially explain the major events or recall much of the main characters names and importance. When asked to retell what he had read so far in his story, Jim replied that it was about two horses that are on a ship that becomes shipwrecked. The horses somehow reach an island where they start living their lives on the island. Later in the interview, Jim explains that the ship belonged to the Spanish and that men came to the island to build houses and start fresh on the island. Jim struggled to fully comprehend the order of events that took place in the story and therefore he has trouble conveying the information back to another person. He knew what the general idea of the first chapter was, but he had trouble sifting through the events to identify the key points of the text. To help Jim comprehend texts, he could use a storyboard or time line to help him sequence the chain of events in the story. He could also create a chart in which he has to identify the main characters, the goal of the story, conflict and resolution. Jim could use a Venn diagram to compare and contrast situations, characters, and other important information in the reading. Jim would also benefit from listening to a teacher model a retelling of a story and explain their thinking so Jim understands the types of information he should be considering while reading. Graphic organizers, diagrams and proper modeling from teachers are all great strategies to help Jim comprehend an eclectic mix of texts more effectively. iii. In terms of word recognition, Jim was able to read the text fairly well. He only miscued about four or five times and the miscues were simple mistake. For instance, when reading the story, he would say, came to, instead of just, to, this is an example of Jim using the semantic cueing system. Jim realized that saying the word, to without the came didnt make sense, so he self corrected himself. Also, he would substitute his own words into the text but would immediately go back and correct himself, for example, Jim said, they when he really should have said, but soon. For this miscue, Jim used syntax and semantic cues to help him self correct since the substitution of words didnt look correct or make sense within the sentence. Another miscue was a substitution of another word completely. Instead of saying, they, Jim said, but soon. These substitutions of words dont make sense in the sentence and were over looked by Jim. Some words Jim realized he omitted or substituted and therefore self corrected through the aide of the meaning cueing system. To help Jim improve his word recognition, flash cards could be made with sight words for Jim to memorize. Since it is the sight words Jim usually miscues, if he memorizes them, he will possibly be less likely to miscue when he approaches them in his readings. When students learn sight words, they gain an understanding about how words are structured and they gain an appreciation for different words.

With the help of flashcards, Jim will be more aware of the sound and structure of the words and will be less likely to mispronounce, omit, or substitute the words. iv. In terms of fluency, Jim read at a steady rate but with a very monotone voice using little expression when needed. In the book, Guiding Readers and Writers, by Fountas and Pinnell, Fluency, is evidence that the reader is accessing the deeper meaning of the text. It is associated with rate, accuracy, and scores on comprehension tests (Fountas and Pinnell 491). When reading, Jim would pause at the end of sentences when the periods directed him to, but he flew right through the sentences without pausing at commas or other forms of punctuation. According to Jims third grade teacher, he is on the P reading level. Based on the estimated oral and silent reading rates chart in Fountas and Pinnells, Guiding Readers and Writers, level P is a third grade level. At the end of the third grade, Jim was right where he needed to be in terms of fluency, reading about 120-140 words per minute and silently reading 150-180 words per minute. Based on the informal reading conference, Jim read fairly quickly so it would be assumed he is progressing from his third grade fluency level to grade four. Also, Jims tone was very robotic which made it difficult to follow the text. Jim seemed to understand the text when he was asked to retell what he just read; he even quoted directly from the reading. Jim comprehended what he was reading to an extent but had trouble explaining it back to the listener in sequential order. Although he didnt have many miscues among a page of reading, his fluency made it difficult for him to comprehend the text to his highest potential. Jim explained that he has trouble getting interested in a story when he firsts starts reading and since he was only on the first chapter, possibly his lack of interest contributed to his lack of comprehension about the text. He believed he would be able to finish the book within a week or two and is very anxious to see what happens to the main characters at the conclusion of the book. Since Jim reads at a fast rate, he tends to miss words or substitute words for other words. To prevent this, Jim could maybe use a flashcard to help him limit the amount of words he reads by using the flashcard as a guide to help him slow his rate of reading. Perhaps, if Jim reads slower, hell read the words more carefully and not miscue as often by substituting or omitting certain words III. Directed Reading Assessment i. On November 3, 2011, Jim was administered a Directed Reading Assessment or a DRA. After the assessment, Jim read independently on a 3rd grade level, instructionally on a 4th grade level and was frustrational at the 5th grade level. For the third grade reading passage,

Jim made no miscues while reading aloud and he only missed one question when he was asked who the main characters were in the passage. Jim named only of the main characters when there were four. Even though Jim had choppy fluency while reading the passage, he paused at all punctuation. When reading the fourth grade passage, Jim only made one miscue while reading aloud by substituting the word, with, for the word, that. When asked particular questions about the story, Jim missed two questions. One of his answers was unclear and wouldnt make sense to someone if he were trying to retell the story. The other question, Jim knew the answer, but he needed some help finding the right words to explain what he was saying. During this passage, Jim paused at punctuation and was animated when reading quotes in the story using different tones and pitch when speaking. When Jim was asked to read the fifth grade passage, Jim read the entire passage and than after he was done, he went back to the beginning to reread some of the story. He even said at the beginning of the assessment that this passage was confusing. When reading aloud, Jim miscued 11 times, making mistakes that included omitting words, substituting his own words, inserting new words and some self correction. He kept substituting the word, bleacher for the word, Belcher. He would omit words like, the, new, they, and who. When asked questions about the story, Jim missed three questions. When he was trying to explain his answers for all three of the questions missed, he gave a lot of information about the story but never fully gave the correct answer. Jim is reading instructionally on a fourth grade level, which is great since he is in fact in the fourth grade. One problem Jim has to work on is his fluency, he sounds very robotic and sometimes that causes him to stutter over his words and repeat or omit certain words in the text. Jim should continue to read grade level books so he can fully comprehend certain vocabulary and be very aware of sight words so he doesnt exclude or substitute those words when he reads aloud. IV. Writing Sample i. On September 7, 2011, Jim was asked by his fourth grade teacher to write a personal narrative with no support. Jim and his classmates had forty-five minutes to write about anything they desired. The next day they had another forty-five minutes to proofread their narratives and make any corrections they felt necessary, again with no support. The purpose of this writing piece was to see how much information the students had retained from the third grade. Jims narrative is entitled, The Trip to the Hotel, and describes a trip he took to San Francisco, California with his family to see his cousins graduate from high school.

In terms of content, Jim started off his narrative with a quote, Prepare for landing, prepare for landing. Using a quote to grab the readers attention was an excellent way to start off his narrative and demonstrates that Jim understands that he has to have an attention grabber at the opening of his writings. Jims sequence of events was a little hard to follow, he started off by talking about what he saw on his flight to San Francisco and continued to discuss his trip to the hotel. Although the reader could understand the sequence of events, the way he wrote them was a little choppy and out of order. After describing his trip to the hotel, Jim gives the reader the reason why they were going to San Francisco in the first place. This was a good decision, instead of initially telling the reader the purpose of the trip, Jim waited to draw the reader into his narrative before revealing the purpose of the trip. Jim also used two quotes in his narrative, which helped the narrative come alive. Jims word choice wasnt very extensive, but he used words like, long and good to describe his flight into San Francisco. Jim didnt use any figurative language which, links one thing with another in ways that help us compare them (Fountas and Pinnell 411) such as similes and metaphors. Jim used several quotes to entice the reader, yet he neglected to use descriptive words to describe the Golden Gate Bridge, the hotel room or scenery that he saw which would have helped enrich his narrative. After Jim wrote the first draft of his narrative, he was given a chance to review his own work, and after revision, Jim added two more sentences to enhance his writing piece. For instance, Jim added the sentence, We had a long, good flight and we had seen a lot of interesting things like tall buildings and surprisingly I also saw some cars. The second sentence was a conversation Jim had with his mother which he described using quotation marks, which became Jims second quote for his narrative. Jims writing piece was good, but his organization was a little difficult to follow. To help Jim with his organization, if Jim first wrote down the major events he wanted in his story, this list would help him keep his thoughts in order. He could refer back to this sequential list while writing his narrative so he didnt mix up his information. Also, Jim tried to use certain words to enrich his writing like, good, and long when describing the plane flight. Jim could use a thesaurus to help him find descriptive words to enhance his writing pieces. In terms of mechanics, Jim corrected a few misspelled words on his first draft, yet he still missed the majority of the misspelled words in the narrative. Jim misspelled words like, prepare, by spelling them, preaper. He made some simple mistakes when he spelled certain words, for example, when spelling the word announced, he spelled it, anounced. Also he spelled the word, famous as, famos.

Although Jim misspelled a lot of words, he was usually missing one letter or added an unnecessary letter. The reader could still understand what Jim was writing because he would spell phonetically irregular words. Phonetically irregular words are words that are spelled differently than how they sound; yet a reader could still decipher the misspelled word. For example, Jim wrote the word, pictures as picters because Jim knows that er makes the same sound as, ur. The word pictures is spelled differently then how it sounds, so Jim misspelled it using the wrong combination of letters to make the ur sound, yet the word was still decodable to a reader. In terms of punctuation, Jim would sometimes use commas when appropriate, and other times he wouldnt. For instance, when describing the flight to San Francisco, Jim says, We had a long good flight. There should be a comma separating the two describing words, good and long. Although Jim neglected to use commas in some appropriate places, he used quotation marks at the end of his narrative to explain the excitement in his mothers voice when she told Jim that she wanted to live in San Francisco. Jim did very well with capitalization; he knew to capitalize the first letter of the first word of a sentence. He also capitalized San Francisco, the only words he forgot to capitalize that needed to be was the name of the Golden Gate Bridge. Jim has potential to be a great writer; he just needs more guidance when it comes to spelling, organization and word choice to enrich his narratives. To help Jim with his spelling, Jim could underline any words in his writing he may be unsure about. For instance, if Jim were unsure how to spell the word, prepare, he would spell it how he assumes it is spelled, and than using those words, create flashcards for Jim to study. Jim also had a tendency to write a word correctly at one point in his writing and than misspell is again at another point in his writing. Jim should get in the habit of rereading his writing very carefully so he can be sure that if he spells a word correctly once, he spells it correctly throughout the entire writing piece. On October 27, 2011, Jim was asked to take a spelling test from the Kathy Ganskes book, Word Journeys. Jim was asked to spell twenty-five words ranging from words like, furnace, to tennis. Out of twenty-five words, Jim properly spelled nine words correct. His mistakes were understandable since the majority of his mistakes were from using blends that sounded the same as the blend used in the word. For instance, when spelling the word, compete, he spelled it, compeat. He knows that, ea makes the same sound as a plain, e; therefore he used that blend instead of a plain e to spell the word. According to Kathy Ganskes, Word Journeys, Jim is in stage foursyllable juncture spelling. These students are writing what they learn and they write to, Persuade, explain, describe, summarize, and question (Ganske 17). Children in this stage tend to E-drop and

double. For instance, when asked to spell the word piling, Jim wrote, pilleing. Jim also spelled the word, polar as, poler, which is categorized as unstressed syllable use. Jim appears to be a transitional speller, which means Jim, Spells many words conventionally and makes near-accurate attempts at many more (Fountas and Pinnell 7). Jim has the most difficulty with words that contain blends that can sound like other blends. For instance, Jim has trouble spelling words like mayor and fountain because the or in mayor sounds like 'er', which would explain why Jim spelled mayor and mayer. Jim spelled the word, fountain and fontain because the only sound he heard was the o sound, but didnt recognize that ou can also make the o sound. Jim has less difficulty with certain sight words. For example, sometimes Jim spells certain words correctly that he may spell incorrectly. When spelling the word trample, Jim spelled it correctly, based off of Jims previous misspelled words; it would be assumed that he might spell the word like, trampel. If Jim knows the word by sight, he has no problem spelling it correctly. Since Jim seems to have a problem with vowel digraphs, a writing mini lesson could be created to help him and other students learn vowel digraphs, such as, IE, EA, OO, AI, EE, OA, OU. This mini lesson could incorporate making a vowel digraph chart in which the students had to find words that included these digraphs and than categorize them under the proper digraph. When Jim is writing, he can refer to the list of digraphs and start to memorize the words and their structure so when he has to spell a word with similar digraphs, hell know which one to use. V. Summary i.

After conducting several informal assessments, I have concluded that Jims strengths as a reader are pausing at punctuation, reading with enthusiasm while reading quotes, and some self-correction. He has the most difficulty in reading fluency and comprehension. To help Jim further his reading skills, he should be encouraged to use a flash card to help him slow down his rate of talking so he sounds out the words hes reading so he doesnt miscue. Also, to help Jim comprehend the texts he reads, he should pause after reading a few pages and write down the major events in sequential order, referring to the book if needed. This will help strengthen Jims sequencing, retelling and comprehension skills since he is pausing every so often to reflect and understand the text. Jims strengths as a writer are his use of quotes, capitalization, and using an attention grabber at the beginning of his writing to entice the reader. Jim has the most difficulty as a writer with sequencing, spelling, and his lack of descriptive language. To help further develop Jims writing skills, Jim should be encouraged to use a thesaurus to

help him find describing words to deepen his writing piece. Also, he should use flashcards with sight words and words with vowel digraphs on them to help him memorize particular words he tends to spell incorrectly. To help Jim with his sequencing skills, if he listens to his teacher model a retelling of a story and than practice it himself, he will better understand how to retell a story. In addition, Jim could also write down the sequence of major events occurring in his writing piece so he has an outline to follow when he writes his narratives. This will ensure that he wont write events out of order as well as help Jim work on his organization skills.

References Duffy, Gerald G. Explaining Reading. New York: The Guilford Press, 2009. Print.

Fountas, Irene C. and Gay Su Pinnell. Guiding Readers and Writers. New Hampshire: Heinemann, 2001. Print.

Ganske, Kathy. Word Journeys: Assessment-Guided Phonics, Spelling, and Vocabulary Instruction. New York: The Guilford Press, 2000. Print.