Nicole Ruggiero Professor Rich ELD 307 Word Study Assessment The purpose of this word study assessment

is to pinpoint the strengths and weaknesses that a student possesses and determine the particular stage of spelling that he or she falls into. By ascertaining what stage a particular student is in, teachers can then inform instruction to meet the needs of certain students and help them gain the knowledge they need in order to progress to later stages of spelling development. By examining the types of words that a student misspells and spells correctly, a teacher can determine the current developmental level of the student and the areas in which he or she needs to improve. It is very important that students become familiar with the common spelling features as opposed to memorizing a list of spelling words. Students need to be able to master various spelling patterns so that they will be able to transfer this knowledge to their reading and writing when they come across words that they are unfamiliar with. If students are accustomed to recognizing and analyzing specific spelling patterns, they will be able to encode and decode unfamiliar words by drawing upon their knowledge of spelling features. I assessed a seven-year-old first grade student attending a suburban elementary school in Central Jersey. He is in a class with 22 students14 boys and 8 girls. My cooperating teacher recommended that I focus on this student because he is fairly proficient in literacy. He is also very proficient in mathematics and tends to participate in groups discussions often, even though he is relatively quiet during large group instruction. I assessed this students knowledge of spelling features and patterns during readers workshop and through this assessment, I will try to ascertain the spelling stage(s)

that This student is currently in. The Primary Spelling Inventory assessment tool can be used in kindergarten through third grade. It includes a list of 26 words that are ordered by difficulty and specific spelling features contained within the words. It also includes a check sheet that is used to help determine the spelling stage that a certain child is going through at the time of assessment by breaking down the spelling features that are required to spell each of the words and turning it into a point system. To administer this assessment, the student must first be pulled out of the large group to either a back table or out into the hall. The teacher will then say each of the words one by one, use them in sentences, and then repeat the words once again and the student will write down how he/she thinks the words should be spelled. If a student misspells at least 5 or 6 words, the teacher should stop calling out the words, unless the child already know how many words there supposed to be on the list. Also, if a student spells 20 or more words correctly, it is recommended to use the Elementary Spelling Inventory. After the student is done with the assessment, the teacher will look at the types of errors the student made and try to determine, using the check sheet, where the student falls in his or her spelling development. This student did really well on the Primary Spelling Inventory assessment. He only misspelled four words toward the end of the assessment. Ideally, I would have liked to do the Elementary Spelling Inventory with his as well sine he spelled more than 20 words correctly, however the amount of time I had did not permit me to do so. From this assessment, it can be ascertained that this student is proficient in initial and final consonants, short vowels, diagraphs, blends, long vowel patterns, and most of the other vowels and inflected endings. The things that he struggled with are ow, -ies, and -pping

and he missed the p in camped. This student spelled the word growl as grouw which shows that he knows that the letters o and w should be included in the word, but has not grasped the concept that they should be together to form ow. This means that he is not quite past the late Within Word Pattern stage. However, he is also exhibiting spelling patterns indicative of the beginning stage of the Syllables and Affixes stage because he was able to successfully add inflected endings except for ies (tries/trys) and -pping (clapping/claping). From these results it seems that this student is in the process of transitioning from the late Within Word Pattern stage to the early Syllables and Affixes stage. Since the only thing that is keeping him in the Within Word Pattern stage is his incomplete knowledge of the ow spelling feature, this is the first area that I would focus on. After this has been mastered, I would then like to work on inflected endings with him. Also, since This student added an extra u in with the o and the w and successfully used the ou spelling feature, I think it would be very helpful to make an individualized lesson differentiating between the ow and ou spelling patterns, that builds upon his prior knowledge.

Individualized Lesson ow Spelling Pattern First Grade Rationale: I am teaching this lesson to help this student to differentiate between ow and ou spelling patterns. Standard: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.1.3 Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words. Objectives: SWBAT Demonstrate knowledge about the sound /ow/ makes Use the correct /ow/ spelling pattern when given a word (ou vs. ow) Distinguish appropriate /ow/ spelling patterns on a given a worksheet with at least 90% accuracy Materials: Flash cards with:
o

o o

ou and ow words: about, allowed, around, down, found, house, how, now, out, town, loud, cow, clown, cloud, mouse, frown, brown, growl, proud, mound, shower, crown, shout ow and ou letters on them: a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, l, l, m, n, p, r, s, t (so that each of the words above can be spelled out when combined with one of the ou or ow cards)

ow worksheet ow sentence sheet

Procedure: Call this student and any other students having this same difficulty to the back table. Activate prior knowledge by showing the student(s) the ou and ow flashcards and ask them what sound each of them makes (they make the same sound). Hmmso they make the same sound, but there are two different spelling patterns. Then show him (or them) the different word flashcards one by one and ask them to read them to see if they are able to read (and pronounce) them correctly. Mentor, teach and model: Then spread the letter cards and the ov and ow cards out on the table and tell them that you are going to read some sentences with /ow/ words in them. I want you to listen carefully to see if you can hear them, because I am going to ask you spell them with these letter cards. Use the OW sentence sheet and read the sentences as many times as necessary for the student(s) to hear all the words if there are multiple in the sentences. (What /ow/ words did you notice?) If students do not say all the words, ask: Were there any other /ow/ words in the sentence I just read? and if they still do not know, read it again and tell them to Listen again, carefully. Record the spellings that the student(s) come up with to use as an assessment. If they misspell a word, show them a card with a word that has a similar spelling pattern and say, this word is spelled the same way as this

one (If students are still not getting it, write the sentence down on a sentence strip and have them make observations, compare, and use their letter cards to make the same spelling. o Could also point out that the ou in brought is not a /ow/ word Individual Application: Give the student(s) the OW Worksheet to work on individually. Closure: Bring student(s) back to the table to go over the worksheet or compare answers if there is more than one student at the back table and ask the student(s) to make conjectures as to when ou is used vs. when ow is used. Guide them to the understanding that ou used in the middle of words and ow is used toward the end of words with either a consonant or nothing on the end. Use the word cards to illustrate point.

Assessment: Evaluate the spellings that the student(s) generated during the activity at the back table and record them on the sentence sheet. Then, compare those to the accuracy of the student answers on the worksheet. Reference: http://www.syracusecityschools.com/tfiles/folder712/ou%20ow%20activities%2 02.pdf

Read each of these sentences out loud and have the students spell out the /ow/ words. Record misspellings above the misspelled words. Repeat as many times as necessary.
Underline the words that have an

ow sound in them.

How brown is your cow? I had to bow at the end of my dance. There is a mouse in my house. The queen wore her best gown and a gold crown. Dont frown and growl. The cloud brought a shower of rain. Learn to swim so you dont drown. Dad gave Mom Mum a bunch of flowers. I like to go to town when it is late night shopping.

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The words in the box all have an

ow sound in the middle.

or o u ?

Read each sentence and find the correct word in the box to help you fill in the gap with an ow spelling pattern o w allow ed house cow found lou d mou ntain how ou r

I f _ _ nd my lost pen under a book. Will you show me h_ _ to tie my shoelaces? The music was too l _ _d so I covered my ears. When we went to the farm we saw lots of c_ _ s. David and I both brought _ _ r pets to school today. I live in the last h _ _se in the street. Sir Edmund Hillary climbed the highest m_ _ntain in the world. Because I had been naughty, I was not all_ _ ed to play with my friends.

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