Emily Divan First Time Jitters Meet Zola

Screening Assignment SPED 414

Zola (a pseudonym) is a three-year old student at a local primary school in Urbana. She was born on July 7th, 2010, which makes her rounded age three years 2 months. Her brother attended her preschool a few years ago, and had the same teacher that Zola has now. Zola spends a significant amount of time with her paternal grandmother, and is very close to her mother. Her father, unfortunately, was involved in a car accident that proved to be fatal. At school, Zola is happy, outgoing, yet sometimes quiet. She likes to draw and loves spending time with a teacher. At first, Zola was somewhat reserved in the classroom. However, she has recently made friends with another girl in her classroom, and has since blossomed into quite the social butterfly. Results of the Screening Zola did remarkably well for her age. She is a young three-year old, but scored on the high end for a four-year old. There were only a couple of tasks that Zola failed to complete: building a tower of 9 blocks and drawing a vertical and horizontal line. She impressively completed the verbal reasoning tasks, only hesitating on A bird flies; a fish swims. Her gross motor development is also progressing as expected. She was successfully able to jump, walk on the line, and stand on one foot. She swayed slightly on her left foot, but was able to hold it for the five seconds required. It is clear that Zola is developing well beyond her chronological age of three years and two months. I do, however, worry about Zolas speech articulation. She was difficult to understand on a handful of occasions, and I had to ask her to repeat herself (or repeat what I thought she had said). In context, I can generally figure out what Zola is trying to say, and

Emily Divan

Screening Assignment SPED 414

if Im trying to discern something out of context I have to think about Zolas context in order to understand it. Critique of the Screening Process and Instrument I was lucky to have such a background with Zola before screening her, and I believe that this made it easier for Zola to feel as though I was really playing games instead of assessing her knowledge. Overall, the screening process felt like a quick conversation, a game with Zola. It was a bit difficult to continue the screening and take down comments without feeling like Zola was bored or wanting to know what I was writing (and why). However, I know that this balance of writing and assessing is a skill I will need to develop and become comfortable with. The instrument I used, the ESI-R, was incredibly simple to use and I felt that I could administer it quite simply despite my lack of experience. It is straightforward, gives prompts, and provides recommendations for what to do if the child fails the first attempt. The only problem I had was in regards to the verbal recitation of numbers. When progressing quickly from repeating one number to repeating two, I believe children will be confused if they do not get a prompt of now Im going to say two numbers, but I also believe this would compromise the assessment. I wonder if explaining I will hold up my hand when I am done, so that kids know you are finished saying the numbers, would result in less premature number recitation. Critique of My Performance My background with Zola was incredibly beneficial while I completed the screening. I believe the rapport I had established allowed the screening to feel as though it was simply playing games. I successfully communicated with her parents, and I went as far to ask Zola

Emily Divan

Screening Assignment SPED 414

if she would like to play games with me, even though I already had permission from her mother. Were I to repeat this assignment again, I might have practiced the screening more than once (twice I guess, if you count the time we did it in class). Though I had a better understanding and was not surprised by the tasks, I still had to read what to say for each task. I also hadnt considered taking comments and so hadnt allotted the brainpower to taking notes and doing the screening simultaneously. I was familiar with the instrument, but not enough to really make the screening go smoothly. I would also rethink the way I did the vertical and horizontal line portion of the assessment. I was sitting at a round table with Zola, so when I was supposed to imitate my lines they looked the opposite: my vertical line looked horizontal, and vice versa. Conclusion Overall, I found this first attempt at administering a screening to be an informative and valuable experience. I learned more about a student in my class, I learned more about a specific assessment instrument, and I learned about what I need to do to be successful when assessing and screening my future students. I know I will be sufficiently less apprehensive of screening my students from here on out because of this first valuable, irreplaceable experience.