Assessment+Portfolio

I. Introduction

Jim is a nine year old student currently in fourth grade. He lives at home with his mother, father, and four other siblings. Jim has two older sisters and an older brother along with another sister younger than him. His father is a business man who works five days a week while his mother is a stay at home mom. During the school day she runs errands for the family. Jim is expected to help around the house by doing the dishes after dinner. He also is expected to bring his clothes from the laundry room to his room after his mother folds them. There he promptly puts his clothes away in drawers and the closet. After school, Jim likes to play basketball in his driveway. On the weekends he plays competitively with a team. Jim doesn’t play one specific position but is flexible and rotates as his team needs him to. In addition to playing basketball, Jim enjoys watching TV and playing the bass. He normally watches about 3-4 hours a day. Most of the time he watches anything one of his family members puts on. He does not have a specific favorite TV show for this reason. Currently Jim does not have a TV in his bedroom. He shares this bedroom with his older brother. They have bunk beds to optimize the space available. Since Jim shares a room, he finds it easiest to study in the basement. If he is struggling with homework, his father usually helps him. Jim gets a lot of homework each night but a little in each subject area. On weeknights, Jim normally goes to sleep around 10 PM. This time varies more on the weekends. Jim does not collect anything significant but for entertainment he loves to draw. He uses any medium available to him and will draw when given a free moment.

Jim is partial to school. His favorite subjects are gym or art and his least favorite subject is Language Arts. He doesn’t enjoy writing. On a typical school night, Jim is assigned a lot of homework in all of the subject areas. Jim considers himself a good reader. He feels this way because as a nine year old, he loves to read. His parents also read to him and his siblings when he was younger. This strengthened his love of reading. Jim’s favorite book genres are comics, drama, or historical fiction. He feels the only way to become a better reader is to read more. Opposed to reading, Jim does not enjoy writing. He has not found a writing assignment that he has enjoyed more than another type. Since Jim does not enjoy writing, he would want teachers to understand that one of his best traits is that he is a good reader and enjoys reading. In order to help someone learn to read, Jim would give them an assignment to carry out. This assignment would consist of being read to by a peer or an adult, and then reading to themselves. Jim feels that knowing how to read will help him write his own books and get a job in the future.

II. Reading Performance

a. Running Record/Miscue Analysis On March 24, 2011, Jim was asked to read aloud from the novel //Mick Harte Was Here//. This book is at a high fourth grade reading level. The words are easier to understand but there is an emotional level students need to be at to read this book. At this time, a running record of his oral reading miscues was recorded and a brief comprehension check was taken. Jim was barely able to give a retelling of the book previous to the section he read aloud. He needed much prompting to explain the story in a more concise manner. Jim also looked back to specific chapters in the book to aid in his retelling. In this retelling, Jim gave a simple synopsis of the book and did not include many implicit details. He included explicit details related to the characters and back-story. While reading a passage, Jim read quickly but paused at all punctuation and used slight voice inflection for dialogue. Since he was reading the text quickly, Jim did not comprehend all that he had read aloud. He had trouble discussing the passage after he had read it.

In terms of word recognition, Jim had exhibited a pattern of particular attention to syntactic cues. For example, he substituted “diner” for “dinner”, “mother” for “father” and “gripped” for “griped”. The errors noted were substitution of one word for another with an extremely similar spelling. These substitutions did not change the semantics of the passage. b. Directed Reading Assessment (DRA)

On March 20, 2011, Jim was administered a DRA. At this time he read independently on a 3rd grade level, instructionally on a 4th grade level and frustrationally at a 5th grade level. In terms of comprehension, Jim answered most of the literal questions easily. He struggled with finding and understanding the answer to one explicit question. Jim also answered three of the four inference questions correctly without a look-back. However, on a 4th grade level Jim had more difficulties answering the explicit questions than the implicit questions. This shows that he can take the hidden meaning away from text but has trouble detecting the direct information given. III. Writing Assessment

On October 20, 2010, Jim was asked to write a personal narrative. He chose to write a story about a time he was left alone after school. Although Jim expressed his least favorite subject is writing, his classroom teacher said, “He is a strong writer and writes stories quickly.”

a. Mechanics In terms of mechanics, Jim makes minimal mistakes. Jim capitalizes the beginning of each sentence and “I” throughout his entire narrative. The only thing Jim did not entirely capitalize was the title of his narrative. In terms of punctuation, Jim had trouble using quotation marks correctly. He did not use beginning quotation marks on his first set of dialogue and he did not use quotation marks at the end of his second set of dialogue. Jim also did not begin a new paragraph for his second set of dialogue or the following sentence. One thing Jim did correctly in his use of dialogue was the use of capitalization in the beginning of each quotation. Jim correctly placed all of the commas and periods throughout his narrative and dialogue. Jim’s sentence structure is correct although he used the word “but” to begin many of his sentences. His use of “but” makes the sentences seem like fragments and continuations of the previous sentence. One thing missing from Jim’s personal narrative is the use of paragraphs. Although his story flows nicely, Jim could have used paragraphs to make the narrative more appealing to the eye.

b. Spelling On September 8, 2010, Jim was given a Ganske spelling assessment. Based on this assessment, Jim appears to be a syllable juncture speller. This means that Jim spells most single syllable words correctly and has difficulties spelling words with multiple syllables. His essay confirms this as he spells “tired”, “weren’t”, and “shrugged” incorrectly. Jim has difficulties with words that have a second syllable that doesn’t sound exactly how it should be spelt. Jim may not be able to hear the syllable break in the word to spell it correctly.

C. Content In terms of content, Jim chose to write a personal narrative of a time he was frightened. He used first person in the correct context throughout the entire piece. Since the narrative is short, Jim did not fully develop his characters. They are introduced in a timely manner and it is clear whom each character is and how he or she is important to the story. Jim included the elements that create an interesting story. His plot was well developed with a beginning, middle, and end and he created a conflict and resolution. Jim’s story flows without interruption. He used words that are easy to understand and do not complicate the story. He used one cliché, “it scared me to death” in his narrative. Instead of using a cliché, Jim could have created an original simile or metaphor to use. There is only one instance where Jim used a simile. This is in the first sentence when he compared getting off the school bus to getting out of school. This simile could be made stronger by comparing getting off the school bus to something with a bigger meaning. There are other times throughout his narrative that Jim could have used similes or metaphors to use more imagery in order to convey his meaning. Jim used the word “but” to begin many of his sentences. The use of “but” frequently makes Jim’s sentences seem unclear where they begin and end. In all the instances, Jim could take out the word “but” without the story losing its meaning. Jim used “but” to begin many of his sentences in his personal narrative because Jim begins most of his sentences with “but” when he speaks aloud in class or to peers.

IV. Recommendation for Future Instruction After conducting several informal assessments, I have concluded that Jim has the most difficulty with comprehension and word recognition in reading. I have also concluded that Jim has the most difficulty with dialogue and sentence structure in writing. The following objectives should be addressed:

a. Reading 1. While Jim reads I would give him graphic organizers to fill out for each chapter of the book. He could use many types of graphic organizers and decide which one is easiest for him to use. Using a graphic organizer will allow Jim to process a passage of information directly after reading it. A graphic organizer will allow Jim to remember and understand the information better if he writes it down and can use the graphic organizer as a reference sheet. Another strategy I would use is to have Jim find connections he can relate to in his current book. If Jim wrote these connections down either in his writer’s notebook or on post-its to place in the book, he may comprehend the story better. Making connections to books allows students to remember the content because the information then becomes relatable and interesting.

2. To help Jim with his word recognition, I would teach a mini lesson on words that look alike but are not the same. I would explain to students that if students know the spelling of one word and this word is spelt differently, they cannot be the same word. Students would be asked to use dictionaries if they came across words they did not know. In this mini lesson, students would also be instructed to use context clues. Understanding how to use context clues allows students to know if they are reading the correct word and understand its meaning. Students would be told that context clues should not be used as the only method to discovering new words but is a helpful strategy. Also, I would individually work with Jim on finding words he did not know how to pronounce and/or what their definition was. I would find words that Jim struggled with while reading and ask Jim if the word he read in their place makes sense in that context. I would then ask Jim to dissect the word and notice if there were any prefixes and suffixes. If he responded yes, I would then ask him to notice the other letters present in the word. I would ask him to try and sound out those letters and see if he could understand the meaning of the full word through context clues and the dissection.

b. Writing 1. To improve Jim’s use of dialogue, I would sit down with him one-on-one and show him examples of dialogue found in fictional stories. I would then ask Jim to tell me what he notices about the punctuation used. Together we would create a list of rules of when, where and how to use punctuation correctly in dialogue. This list would be written down and could be taped to the inside cover of Jim’s writer’s notebook. Once I felt Jim was using dialogue correctly for a long enough period of time, I would remove the cheat sheet from the inside of his folder. 2. To improve Jim’s sentence structure, I would take one of his previously written stories and sit down with him individually. I would ask Jim to read aloud his personal narrative. When he finished reading, I would ask Jim if he felt his narrative flowed well. If Jim said yes, I would ask another question pertaining to the repetition of words throughout his narrative. My goal would be to make Jim understand that he repeats the word “but” throughout his narrative many times. I would have a conversation with Jim about his use of “but” and explain that it should only be used in the middle of a sentence, not to begin a sentence. Then I would ask Jim to read aloud his narrative without the use of “but”. This would make him see that his narrative flows well without “but”.