Meredith Mothershead

Literacy Assessment

Introduction:
Christian is a student in the Full Day class at the JMU Young Childrens Program. He is
four years and 5 months old. Christian is a child that has behavior issues, and rarely does what is
asked of him. This is why it was difficult to have him sit to focus and complete the assessment.
Although, after he was finally sitting and began the assessment, he seemed motivated and
interested in doing well on the tasks that he was given.

Three Billy Goats Gruff Story Retelling:

As he was read the story of the Billy Goats Gruff, Christian took the pictures and acted
out the story as it progressed. He took the troll and placed it under the bridge, and then as all of
the goats attempted to cross the bridge in the story, he would drag those corresponding goats
across the bridge. After the story was read once, I asked if I could use the pictures in order to tell
the story again using them, however Christian told me no, and that he could tell me the story.
Christian did not give the setting and characters of the story. He did not say Once upon a time
or give the names of the goats.
Christian said that there was a troll that was under the bridge, though he did not mention
why the goats were trying to get to the other side of the bridge. Then, Christian took the little
goat picture and said, This guy didnt make it. Christian did not say that the troll was the
reason that the goat could not make it over the bridge. Then, he skipped the middle goat and took
the biggest one and said, The Big guy tries to cross but this guy (the troll) fell in the water!

The big one knocked it over. After he said this, I asked him what happened next, and he said,
The movie is over. From this statement, I can conclude that Christian has seen a movie based
on this story, and could have been doing a movie retelling instead of a story retelling. This could
have had an effect on how well Christian remembered the story of the Billy Goats Gruff, because
he had seen a movie, and heard me read the story. This could have positively affected his
performance on the retelling assignment because he had multiple exposures to the story to
choose from in order to remember the details and plot. I can infer from this retelling that
Christian has minimal story language and only a partial understanding of the story.

Picture and Name Task:

When asked to draw a picture, Christian first said, No! and ran away. Later in the day,
Christian decided to draw the picture on the white board. He took a green marker with his right
hand and drew a circle with a smiley face inside it. He then gave the circle legs by drawing
two straight lines going straight down from the face. He then drew three patches of hair one on
the top and one on each side of the head. When asked what he drew, Christian said, Ricky!
Upon further prodding, he explained that Ricky is his older brother and that is who he drew the
picture of. When asked to write his name under the picture that he drew, Christian said, No!
and ran away.

Concepts About Print Task:

Score: 7/12

Christian was asked to pick out a book from the shelf that he wanted to read. He chose
Froggy Bakes a Cake by Jonathan London. When asked to show the front of the book he pointed
to the front cover, and then did the same to the back cover when asked to show the back of the
book. Then, when he was asked to show where the title of the story was, he turned the book from
front to back in his hand twice before pointing to the title of the book on the front cover. When
asked to show where we should start reading the story, Christian turned to the first page of the
book and pointed to it. After being read the first two pages of the book, he was asked to show a
picture, to which he pointed to an illustration of the main character, Froggy, and said, Here!
After being read another page, Christian was asked to point to a letter, and he pointed to the letter
O in the word Flop! which was part of the illustration and a lot bigger than the rest of the
words on the page. Christian turned the page and was asked to point to a word, to which he
responded by pointing to the first word on the page. Christian performed all of these tasks well
and seemingly without any trouble. However, when asked to show the first letter, last letter, and
an uppercase letter in a word, he just pointed to different whole words. He also was not able to
show the direction that someone would read the page. Finally, when asked to explain what a
period was after being shown one, he said, Its a dot!

Alphabetics:
Score: 22/26
Christian was shown the large letter sheet, and as I pointed to each letter, he said what
that letter was. Because he is in preschool, he was given the uppercase letter sheet. Christian
missed four letters, saying C instead of S, P instead of B, B instead of D, and U instead of Z.

Classification:
Christian would be classified as an emergent reader. He pretend reads, shows interest in
books, can retell a simple story, and can make some predictions. While reading the book Froggy
Bakes a Cake, he showed a lot of the emergent reader characteristics. He made good predictions
throughout the book when asked probing questions and he was able to retell The Three Billy
Goats Gruff without much difficulty. Christian also shows a difference in writing and his
drawings, as well as can recognize that difference in other students work as well. He has not
shown the ability to write his name yet, however when asked to write his name on drawings or
other work, he does try and it is apparent that he is learning and understands the concept. While
Christian does not show every characteristic of an emergent reader, he is displaying most of
them.
To help Christian with his emergent reading skills, he can continue to participate in read
alouds, trying to track print, encourage him to retell stories after hearing them, having access to
picture and alphabet books, continuing to encourage him to write his name on his work and to
practice writing, and modeling writing to teach him handwriting skills. One strategy that the
teacher already is using that will help Christian with his writing skills is encouraging him to
journal. He draws a picture and writes what he is going to play with at the beginning of each day
and then gets to reflect back at the end of the day with what he did play and what he liked about
that day. The entire class does this, and it is helping to develop writing and oral language skills
when the teachers ask questions about what the students are writing and they get to explain their
thinking.