Section 8

Assessments for reading: reading passages that were designed specifically to assess inference.
Helen did very well on her reading needs assessment so one of her goals that were set to increase
her level of inference. In order to prepare Helen for the assessment, her intro activity was
discussing the topics of each reading passage to help her focus. I wrote down her responses to the
questions in the passage which also gave me more insight into Helens speaking abilities. I also
designed a series of other, inference-based questions to ask during a retell so that I could mark on
a checklist whether or not she go the correct answers. In analyzing these results, 10 of her 12
answers were correct, based on yes/no answers designed this way to focus specifically on content
rather than vocabulary. Further instruction on inference should be to solidify and maintain her
skills and she performed as well as or better than the goal I set for her. This was also evident
when I assessed her ability to choose topic sentences: also inference-based but helpful with her
class lessons on paragraphs. Here she scored 4/5.
Assessments for writing: In order to prepare Helen for speaking lesson/assessment, a writing
assignment she was given was to complete a graphic organizer to describe her brother (topic of
her speech). She did well writing toward academic content in that she clearly understood what
senses she was asked to support and how to do so. I determined that she listed details about her
brother but also at the same time used supports as she would be in her speaking assessment.
Helen also received lessons in simple, compound, and complex sentences, so an assessment for
her was her work on the Smartboard labelling subjects/verbs of clauses and labelling sentence
types. In this exercise, Helen did not make any mistakes with subjects and verbs. I was surprised
that she did not score as well on the online test in which the questions were basically similar. I
determine that Helen needs supports such as a teacher nearby who can verbalize to and with her.
Hands-on seemed to better for Helen, and again, I believe talking through some of the questions
suited her. One recommendation I have for her is to talk out in either L1 or L2 the test questions
when faced with online or paper testing. In her prompt response, she included topic sentence,
body, and conclusion, which tells me that she is aware again here of academic language. While
she did make some syntax errors, it is clear that she attempted to construct simple, compound,
and complex sentences.
Assessments for speaking: Helen was given opportunity to ask and answer interview/get to
know you style questions about childhood/growing up. She was comfortable doing so and
enjoyed the experience. Her affective filter is very low. Another assessment was for Helen to
provide words associated with childhood based on a beginning letter. This assessment took much
less time than I had anticipated as she was able to provide a word associated with childhood for
nearly each letter of the alphabet relatively quickly. I did not have to show her any visuals and
only twice or so did I ask her leading questions, such as quilt- asking for another word with
blanket beginning with a q, she reported that she did not how to say it, but that it was spelled
QUITE. This tells me that her vocabulary skills are strong and it is her lower speaking level than
can inhibit her. While Helen is not hard to understand, I expected more poor pronunciation from
her. I was pleasantly surprised by the results of the rating scale. Helen was assessed on her
speech about her brother with a rubric adopted by the school and used in every class, at least
once per year. She did meet her goal of moving from acceptable to good in the area of
enunciation and I believe that the prior lessons helped her confidence. Further lessons should
seek to build her confidence and reinforce it.
Assessments for listening: Helen was assessed by writing words that were orally pronounced
to her. She did poorly the first time, and I was glad I chose a cloze activity to help her with word
meanings. Many of the words were unfamiliar to her as she did not do well on the cloze. She
asked to translate the words before I could suggest it, and using L1 support was what she needed.
She did much better on the second attempt at the cloze. A further assessment was asking
Helen/reviewing with her the beginning and end consonant sounds of the words of her initial list.
I noticed that she knew each word began with a p and she also recognized at first the ph spelling
of /f/. I looked at her word endings and determined that she knew in most of the cases what
sound ended the word. I believe from this that she recognizes most English phonemes.
Overall, I see that Helen is perhaps above average for a level two when considering academic
language. When Helen studies, she also learns quickly new words and definitions. I would make
certain that a teacher did not rely on this because Helen will be successful in this way, but rather
the teacher should continue to provide meaningful and engaging lessons and bridges to keep her
engaged. I suspect that if Helen were a native English student in our classrooms, she would learn
new things as asked and on her own, but being an ELL, we have to keep in mind how to foster
her intelligence.
Further lessons for Helen would include exposure to new vocabulary. Once Helen sees them,
she learns them. I also believe in this whole-heartedly for non-ELLs. In my opinion, the best way
to become a great speller is to be a reader! I see with Helen the sociolinguistic method of reading
working well.