Case Study Cassandra Regan Language and Literacy in the Early Years E26.

2001

Part I: I conducted my student teaching in a general education kindergarten classroom in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan. Our classroom consists of a myriad of developmental reading and spelling levels. While many of our students attended preschool, some did not and there are a handful of English language learners and about one third of the class is bilingual. These factors posed a challenge when choosing a student for this case study. My cooperating teacher and I happened to be doing our initial reading assessments when I began speaking to her about which students she thinks would benefit from more focused attention. At first, she recommended a group of students whose self-confidence, she believed, could be improved with more individual attention. However, many of these students were reconsidered because they were frequently removed from class for special services such as speech or occupational therapy. English language learners were also reconsidered for the same reason. Finally, when all of the assessments were completed, I choose Maeve; a higher scoring student on the original list my cooperating teacher recommended. Maeve is an outgoing five-year-old girl that willingly participates in all classroom activities. She is engaged in reading workshop and is eager to share with her classmates. She views herself as a confident reader and often pretends to be bored with the ease of the material regardless of the text level. She works quickly during writing workshop and often asks if she can play or color when she is finished writing. She is confident in her attempt at spelling and very rarely asks for help spelling. She is very attentive during class but is infrequently shares in the whole group setting. Her parents are college graduates and she spends most of her time afterschool with her mother. Her home is

filled with conversation and print materials, as is the classroom. During the class day there is some word study done in a whole group setting. So far there has been no guided reading during the class day but there will be later on in the year. Students that

participate in early morning do both word study and guided reading. Every day the classroom teacher does a shared reading and a read-aloud with the children. Reading workshop and writing workshop occurs almost every day. I worked with Maeve approximately once per week in the afternoon after lunch. If I was reading with her then I would pull her from class during reading workshop and if we were writing I would pull her from writing workshop. This allowed her to make a smooth transition back into the activities of the classroom after our assessments and time together. At first, she was reluctant to go with me and didnt like the idea of helping me with my homework, but my cooperating teacher suggested that I reward her for her effort with stickers. She quickly began to enjoy our time together and after 3 weeks she no longer needed stickers as praise.

Part II: In order to better understand Maeves developmental reading and spelling stages, a number of informal observations and formal assessments were conducted. Observations of the student provided insight as to her regular responses to both academic and social activities. This provided a base level of understanding of Maeve in order to see how her behaviors changed or did not change during reading and writing. Formal assessments were performed in order to receive a full understanding of her literary representation. This depiction will help direct future instruction and by providing There are seven assessments that I

essential insight into her reading and spelling.

conducted with this kindergarten student: concepts about print, alphabetic letter recognition, phonological awareness, qualitative spelling inventory, elementary spelling inventory, dictation for phonological awareness test, and running record. The concepts about print assessment evaluates the childs grasp on some basic concepts about print necessary to read. Children learn these skills through direct

instruction or through extensive modeling. I used the Teachers College Concepts about print assessment using the book Kitty Cat and the Fish written by Annette Smith. This assessment is conducted with every child in the class as part of the initial assessment. This assessment tests the childs understanding of the orientation of the text, that words carry meaning, directionality, page sequencing, letter/word and first/last concept, return sweep, one-to-one correspondence, and punctuation. A book is read to the student and scripted questions are asked as it is read. As a kindergarten student, this assessment was essential in determining Maeves ability to use books or other print materials. This

knowledge is essential to teaching more conventional reading skills. The alphabetic letter recognition assessment evaluates the childs ability to identify upper-case letters, lower-case letters and letter sounds. I used the Teachers College Letter Identification assessment in order to evaluate Maeve. This assessment is conducted with every child in the class as part of the initial assessment. In this

assessment, the child is asked to identify 26 different upper-case letters, 26 lower-case letters as well as 2 lower-case letters in a different font, and the sounds of all 26 letters. Children must learn letter names in order to become proficient readers. It is stated in Assessment for Reading Instruction that fluent readers do not recognize words as whole unitsthey do so by identifying component letters (McKenna & Stahl, 82). It is also important for children to be able to identify letters so that teachers can reference them while giving direct instruction. The phonological awareness assessment evaluates the childs sense that words are a sequence of sounds. It is stated in Reading and Learning to Read that, phonemic awareness refers to an insight about oral language and the ability to segment and manipulate sounds of speech (Vacca, 146). I used the Early Childhood Literary

Assessment System (ECLAS-2) phonemic awareness strand assessment in order to evaluate Maeves phonological awareness. This assessment is conducted with every child in the class as part of the initial assessment. In this assessment, children are asked to recognize rhyme, generate rhymes, clap syllables, identify initial consonants, identify final consonants, blend phonemes, and segment words into phonemes. Each section of the assessment is modeled and practiced with the child with feedback before testing

without feedback.

The children perform all tasks in this assessment orally.

This

assessment tests the skills that teachers want children to have in his or her repertoire of reading strategies. Phonological awareness is a precursor to reading instruction, and phonics instruction (Vacca, 148). The qualitative spelling inventory analyzes a students unedited and uncorrected writing in order to locate their level of spelling development. Within each stage, there is an ascending gradient: early, middle, and late which distinguish which features within each stage has been mastered by the student. It also evaluates the students ability to transfer oral language to written language. I used the qualitative spelling checklist from Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, and Johnston found in McKenna & Stahls Assessment for Reading Instruction. I chose to use this assessment in order to gain further understanding of Maeves phonological skills in order to plan explicit instruction. The elementary spelling inventory, like the qualitative spelling inventory, analyzes a students unedited uncorrected writing. The elementary spelling inventory is comprised of twenty-six words elevating in developmental stage (consonant-vowelconsonant pattern through words with inflected endings). This assessment is designed to evaluate the students mastery of spelling features that are relevant to spelling. It also evaluates the students ability to transfer oral language to written language. I chose to use this assessment in order to gain further understanding of Maeves phonological skills in order to plan explicit instruction. The dictation for phonological awareness test assesses the students ability to approximate spelling, to the best of their ability, based on the phonemes the student is

able to hear and recall. The following sentence was dictated to the student and she was asked to write it to the best of her ability: I ate a big slice of care with some ice cream at the party. The sentence was read orally and repeated as necessary. The sentence was not read word by word. Invented spelling can be a useful way to evaluate phonological awareness, alphabetic knowledge and some concepts of print and can be a beneficial supplement to more formal phonological assessments. The running record assesses the students development in terms of reading fluency, comprehension, and word identification. The child is observed as they read a leveled text out loud. As they read, their accuracy is recorded and later analyzed. Miscue analysis is evaluated in terms of meaning (semantic), structure, and visual (graphophonemic) elements. This assessment is completed multiple times in order to gain a full understanding of the childs instructional level while identifying areas in need of explicit instruction.

Part III: According to the concepts about print assessment, a quantitative analysis of the students performance on the task reveals only one error. She accurately identified the front and back of the book as well as correctly identified where the story begins portraying her understanding of orientation and layout. She accurately identified the picture and the words portraying her understanding that print carries a message. She correctly displayed directionality. I read the first word, Kitty and asked, Where do I read after this? while pointing to the word kitty. She pointed to the following word displaying directionality. I then pointed to the last word on the page, fish and asked, where do I read after this? She paused for a moment before turning the page and pointing to the first word. This also displayed her strong grasp of directionality. She was able to accurately identify one letter and one word as well as the first and last letters in a word. Her ability to identify correctly demonstrated her strong grasp of the letter/word and first/last concept. After reading the top line of text on a page I asked her, Where do I read after this? She correctly displayed her understanding of return sweep by pointing to the first word on the next line of text. On the following page, I read the first line of text and pointed to each word as I read. I pointed to the following line and said, Point to each word as I read this line. She accurately completed the task displaying her

understanding of one-to-one correspondence. Finally, I finished the story and when I finished I pointed to the period and asked, Do you know what this is called? She did not know. I asked, Do you know what this is for? She said no. These two questions are recorded as one point. This displayed that she has not mastered the understanding of

punctuation. According to the alphabetic letter recognition assessment, the student was above grade level, at the time of the assessment, according to the benchmark chart provided at the bottom of the scoring chart. Maeve was able to identify all twenty-six uppercase letters as well as twenty-six lower-case letters. She self corrected the lowercase letter l after mistaking it for the uppercase letter I. She did not make an attempt to identify the letters q or g but did correctly identify g. Of the twenty-six letter sounds she was asked to identify, she accurately identified eighteen. Of the errors made, three were vowels: I, U and O. Of the consonants, she count not identify the sounds for H, Q, C, N, and G. She has progressed since the time of the assessment in September. The teacher and I have observed this through informal observation. She can now (in November) identify all of the letters both upper and lowercase. She can also recall all of the letter sounds except for Q. According to my cooperating teacher, this response is

satisfactory as Q rarely makes a sound on its own so the childs inability to produce such a sound is reasonable.

According to the phonological awareness assessment, Maeve has reached or exceeded the benchmarks for her age at the time of the assessment. She identified five out of six rhymes correctly, incorrectly stating that cat and mat do not rhyme. She accurately generated rhymes for four out of six poems. She did not try to finish the rhymes for the poems: I really like, to ride my ______ and Yes, you may take, a piece of ______. She accurately generated the following rhymes: The big green frog, hopped on a bog. Dont run in the hall, or you might crawl. If we want more, well go to the door. I like to run, I think its fun. She accurately clapped and counted the syllables for five out of the six words. She did not accurately clap the correct number of syllables for watermelon but she did accurately identify the correct number of syllables for the words: Apple, dinosaur, toe, banana, and macaroni. She accurately identified the initial consonant sounds for all eight words: see, key, toy, boy, pie, door, ship, and mud. She accurately identified the final consonant sounds for all eight words: luck, love, bath, hat, kiss, gum, rip, and head. She was able to accurately blend all of the dictated phonemes to create the words: food, time, cat, rock, paste, and speak. This is an important skill for early readers to have in their repertoire in order to decode new words through recognizable phonemes. She was able to accurately segment five out of the six dictated words. She accurately segmented the words: mice, coat, dog, fan, and toast. She

segmented spoon into sp-oo-n rather than s-p-oo-n. The phonological awareness assessment depicts the student posses the sense that words are a series of sounds and those sounds can be manipulated. Her ability to identify and generate rhymes shows that she can determine which words have similar ending

phonemes and which do not. Her ability to correctly identify syllables points to her sense of onset and rime demonstrating her readiness for explicit phonics instruction. Her ability to identify initial and final consonants provides insight into her developmental reading and writing level. Her ability to blend phonemes into words demonstrates her readiness for reading instruction and explicit instruction in decoding words. Her ability to segment phonemes from words demonstrates her readiness for phonics instruction, which will add to her catalog of reading and decoding strategies. From this assessment I have learned that the student does not need much more development in phonological awareness before explicit reading instruction can begin.

The qualitative spelling inventory is a checklist used to analyze the students unedited, uncorrected writing in order to assess her developmental spelling level. She does not scribble on the page and always expresses key sounds (such as the b in bed) in her writing, which demonstrates that she has mastered the emergent stage. She always includes the beginning consonant sounds and often includes a vowel. She also

demonstrates logical vowel substitutions. This demonstrates that she has mastered the early letter name-alphabetic stage and is developmentally within the middle letter name alphabetic stage. This means that she correctly spells beginning and ending consonants, spells frequently occurring short-vowel words, and her concept of word is fully developed. She uses, but confuses, short vowels, consonant blends, and digraphs. Silent letters are absent as are preconsonantal nasals such as the a in float or the m in lump.

The elementary spelling inventory illustrates the students performance on the assessment task. According to the feature guide, the student accurately spelled 0/8 words correctly but received 9/18 feature points. She accurately demonstrated the skill to write the initial and final consonant sounds. However she was unable to identify the

appropriate short vowel sounds. She was unable to accurately identify the digraphs sh and wh. She was able to identify the blends fl and pl but not mp, tr, and dr. The student wrote: bad instead of bed, hap instead of ship, wan instead of when, lap instead of lump. While she was able to identify the phoneme of the long vowel sound, she was unable to identify vowel digraphs such as oa and ai as evidenced by her spelling of float as flot and train and hran. While she was able to identify the phoneme of the long vowel sound, she was unable to identify the long vowel and silent e as evidenced by her spelling of place as plas and drive as griv. The elementary spelling inventory reinforced the previous findings that the student falls within the middle letter name-alphabetic developmental spelling stage. This is evidenced by her accurate identification of beginning and ending consonants and partial spelling of digraphs and blends. She uses, but confuses, short vowels, consonant blends, and digraphs. Silent letters are absent, such as the a in float. Preconsonantal nasals are also absent, such as the m in lump.

According to the dictation for phonological awareness test, the student has not yet mastered the skill of accurately identifying all phonemes in a given word or sentence. Of the thirty-seven phonemes in the sentence I ate a big slice of cake with some ice cream at the party. Maeve was able to accurately identify and represent twenty-four. She demonstrated 65% mastery of the sentence. 80% is considered mastery. Upon hearing the sentence, the student wrote: I a a b sls a kak w sm is cm a the prd. As an early reader, she demonstrated a great amount of phonemic awareness and skill through this assessment. This assessment supports the initial alphabetic letter recognition assessment, which illustrated the students difficulty with some letter sounds such as g. It also illustrates her firm grasp of directionality and return sweep. This supports that Maeve is in the middle letter name-alphabetic developmental spelling level. This means that she correctly spells beginning and ending consonants and her concept of word is fully developed. She uses, but confuses, short vowels, consonant blends, and digraphs.

The analysis of the running record indicates a pattern within the students errors that highlights instructional goals in oral reading fluency and word recognition. There were a total of three errors out of thirty-one running words. Analysis shows the students accuracy rate is 91% indicating that the assessment falls within the childs instructional level. It can be concluded that the student falls within the early reading and writing phase within the partial alphabetic reading phase. Characteristics of this stage are seen in the students miscues words with the same partial letter-sound cues, such as winter and wind. She was also able to identify the st in storm. The students miscues were analyzed in terms of meaning (semantic), structure (syntactic), and visual (graphophonemic) elements. Miscues that are semantically and syntactically acceptable are storm/cloud, winter/wind, and thunder/lightning. Using the pictures allowed the student to substitute words that did not alter the meaning or grammatically accuracy of the sentence. The area of concern for the student is the graphophonemic element, the students ability to decode the word in order to read it.

Part IV: The seven assessments conducted have allowed me to obtain the necessary information to create an accurate literacy profile of the student. Each assessment, while different in intention and function, provides complimentary information about Maeves reading and spelling development. After analyzing the assessments, it is accurate to conclude that the kindergarten student is an early reader in the partial alphabetic developmental reading phase and an early writer in the middle letter name-alphabetic developmental spelling stage. The assessments have also provided significant insight into the students literacy strengths and weaknesses. Strengths: It can be concluded from the assessments that Maeve has a firm grasp on concepts about print. She understands the orientation of the text, that words carry meaning, directionality, page sequencing, letter/word and first/last concept, return sweep, and oneto-one correspondence. She has mastered the skill of identifying and recalling letter names and sounds. She possesses above average phonological awareness skills as

demonstrated by her achievement of reaching benchmarks that were not expected to be met until November or later. She has demonstrated her ability to identify and generate rhymes, clap syllables, identify initial and final consonants, blend phonemes, and segment phonemes. She is able to identify and write most consonant sounds in her writing and making logical assumptions for vowels while writing. With respect to cueing systems, the student attempts to use semantic information in the form of pictures and storyline in order to decode unfamiliar words. At the word level, the student is able to

detect how some letters correspond to sounds in the unknown words pronunciation. Areas in need of improvement: Patterns of weakness are illustrated through the analysis of the students writing and spelling assessments as well as the oral fluency assessment (running record). At the word level, the student uses but confuses short vowel sounds. This trend is found in the students spelling inventories as well as the dictation for phonological awareness assessment and the running record. In terms of oral fluency, the student relies heavily on the pictures in order to decode unknown words rather than focusing on the graphophonemic elements. Recommendations: Based on the numerous assessments, a few recommendations for instruction have been developed. First, the student should be given explicit instruction in short vowel

sounds. I have begun word study of the short a utilizing word sorts with the cvc pattern that rhyme. She has responded positively to this intervention and the new knowledge is evidenced in her writing. She would benefit from more explicit word study and word sorts would create meaningful experiences for self-discovery. This type of instruction would not only draw attention to her deficient understanding of short vowel sounds, but it will help develop her experience with letters (as many of her letters are written backwards). This will help move her from the middle letter name-alphabetic stage to the late letter name-alphabetic developmental spelling stage. Secondly, as she develops a greater understanding of short vowel sounds, she should be encouraged to focus on decoding unknown words by segmenting the phonemes then blending the words. This

would help move her from the partial alphabetic phase to the full alphabetic developmental reading phase.