Jorge Merino 13 Dr. McKool Assessment Project I.

Introduction Tim is 9 years old and in the fourth grade at Mills River Elementary School. He is an only child who lives at home with his mother and father. Tims favorite thing to do, in his free time, is to wander into the woods and experience the wildlife. He builds forts with sticks and boards. He also likes to go into his fathers greenhouse and water the plants. When I asked him about television he immediately said he loves science fiction shows, like Star Trek. He expressed a strong interest in space. Another activity he loves to do outside of school is read, which he also does a lot in school. He says he reads about three hours a day outside of school in a lot of different places; on the bus, at home, in school, late at night, and at breakfast. Tim shows a strong interest in school, but not in the academic sense. He loves being around his classmates during gym and lunch and loves the opportunities to read. When it is time for academics he turns into a different student automatically, becoming distant. He is, as Donalyn Miller defines, an underground reader. He disconnects from the class when they are working on academics and reads from his book that is hidden in his desk. His teacher has to often take his book away, so that he will participate in what the class is doing. His favorite subject is obviously reading, which in the classroom he has a wide variety in the teachers library, but brings in his own enormous pile of books from home that hoard his desk. When I asked him about science he told me that what he is interested about science isnt being taught. His least favorite subject is morning work because he is tired and it does not interest him. II. Running Record

On February 28, 2012, Tim was asked to real aloud from the novel, Theodore Boone. At this time, a running record of his oral miscues was recorded and a brief comprehension check was taken. When asked about the reading level of this book, Tim said it was an easy book. In terms of comprehension, the student was able to tell me who the major characters were and what was occurring up to the point of which he was going to read for me. After Tim read he was able to retell some of what he read, but was vague; Ike went to bookshelf and thumbed through pages. Judge can call a mistrial In terms of word recognition, Tim did not have any major miscues, but repeated the phrase tell him and omitted three words in total while reading. His ability to read the text fluently and at an appropriate pace didnt surprise me because of his love of reading. He paused at appropriate times by emphasizing the beginning and endings of phrases and also pausing at commas and other internal punctuation. His intonation seems to lack because the book that he was reading requires changes in sound pitch, but Tim read in an almost monotone voice throughout the excerpt. III. Columbia Reading Assessment On March 29, 2012, Tim was administered a Columbia Reading Assessment. When he was administered this assessment at the beginning of the year he was reading at level S, which is at the end of the fourth grade reading stage. At the time of the assessment given on March 29th, he read independently on level T which is the beginning of the 5th grade stage because in terms of comprehension, Tim answered the comprehension questions in a general context. He answered the two literal correctly using information learned from the reading. He answered the first inferential question using one supporting detail. He answered the last inferential question, but gave a one word answer, which I feel he could have elaborated on.

Tims instructional level of reading is in the U level, which is the middle of the 5th grade reading stage. This was clear in terms of word recognition because Tim excelled in this portion of assessment. He is a flexible word-solver and self corrected himself when he would misread a word. He only made two mistakes; one being the omission of the word me, which fit the structure of the sentence. The second mistake was the pronunciation of the word severely. He didnt pronounce the word with the e after r, which could be from the lack of exposure to this word. Tims frustrational level of reading is well into the 6th grade stage of reading because in terms of fluency, Tim held an appropriate pace by reading in phrases and taking into account the punctuation of the text. The books that he reads are in the sixth grade level and he reads them with fluency, but lacks the ability to comprehend the text and retell. His expression reflected the mood of the reading better in the text of the assessment than of the text he read for the running record. This may have been because this was a new text and not a book he had been reading independently. IV. Writing Sample On March 22, 2012, Tim was asked to write a passage on a topic of his choosing. Tim decided to write a narrative story about his first time riding the lift at the Burj Khalifa. (Spelled Khalifa as Clef) After discussing the topic and helping him gain ideas about what to write about his trip, Tim wrote for about fifteen minutes. In terms of content, Tim has excellent organization. He even made a short timeline to start, map out his writing and where it would eventually go. He conveyed a chronological sequence of micro-events, letting the story unfold in a step-by-step fashion. The story starts with the main character in the midst of starting on an exciting adventure to an unknown

setting and time progresses evenly. Tim seems to relive the experience as he is writing, allowing the reader to envision a movie in their mind. The writer has the characters interact in the writing and there are a lot of details allowing the reader to understand the emotions the characters are feeling, which enhances the storys mood and main idea. One weakness is that Tim doesnt use any dialogue, which would make the story more personal and show the internal story of the main characters. Tim has a very advanced word choice, which comes from the plethora of reading and most importantly took many risks. However, he shows a weakness in his spelling. He spells out the target features of each word, which still allows for the reader to distinguish what the writer is trying to say. According to the K-8 Continuum for Assessing Narrative Writing given in class Tim is writing at Level 7. The writers craft is characterized by the story starting right in the story and paragraphed related ideas in the story. The writer tries to show that the event was exciting for the main character. In terms of mechanics, Tims capitalization was perfect. He had control of capitalization in the beginning of sentences, titles, and proper nouns. His control of grammar is inconsistent, most notably punctuation. He lacked heavily in the area of using conjunctions; for example he did not insert any commas before he used the word but. He did have success with verb tenses agreeing and subject/verb agreement. His verb form and use of homonyms was positively persistent, which made his grammar usage approximately fiftypercent correct. His sentence structure was also inconsistent because he seemed to start an idea for a sentence; then, he would rush to get to the next sentence, cutting of the original sentences fluency.

Tim appears be a traditional speller. This means that he thinks about how words appear visually and has memory of spelling patterns from his own vocabulary knowledge. He uses frequent English letter sequences, for example; on the Syllable Juncture Feature List vocabulary assessment I gave him, he spelled compete as compeat. Tim has the most difficulty with words that end in ly and multi-letter vowel words for example; in his narrative he spelled quick as qick and height as hight. He has little difficulty with long vowels, controlled vowels, other common long vowels, complex consonants and abstract vowels, which he was tested on in the Within Word Pattern Feature List in the Developmental Spelling Analysis. He spelled all twenty-five words correctly. Tim should stay on the syllable juncture level to work on his spelling at this stage since he is still developing because he scored an eighteen out of twentyfive. V. Summary

After conducting several informal assessments, I have concluded that Tims strengths as a reader are his comprehension skills and pacing. He has the most difficulty in reading with intonation and intent of reading. To further develop his skills as a reader, Tim should be encouraged to practice what the character is feeling and how to show that while he reads. This can be modeled while the teacher reads aloud. Although I totally agree that children should have a love of reading and practice it as much as they want; there is a time and place in school and reading should not be used to escape participating in school subjects and activities. Tim can be assisted in finding importance of his other subjects by having readings on the subjects that relate to his interests, for example; using characters in the books he his reading for word problems in math or since he likes science fiction have the characters of his science fiction book be on an adventure through space to explore the curriculum of astronomy. Tim should also keep his

books that he is reading in his book bag so there is less access to those books when it is not appropriate. Tims strengths as a writer are his capitalization and sequencing. He has the most difficulty in writing with sentence structure and spelling. To further develop his skills as a writer, Tim should be encouraged to pace himself when he is writing, allowing him to elaborate on his thoughts and rereading what he has written, so he does not cut-off his thoughts. A recommendation I have is having the students work in partners while writing, so they can proofread each others work. Tim should also be encouraged to write down words in his reading notebook that he sees in his readings; that he feels he would have trouble writing later on, so that he is better exposed to different words and practices using them.