Janine Lorenzo

Dr. Chelsey Bollinger

18 March 2019

Literacy Assessment

A. Student Overview
Benjamin is a typically developing four-year-old preschooler. He is of Hispanic heritage.
He can speak both English and Spanish. He speaks English at school and Spanish at home.
He loves to play with cars and is interested in dinosaurs. He does not like sitting at a table
doing art activities. He prefers playing or reading on the floor. He likes listening to stories.

B. Assessment 1 – Picture and Name Task

The purpose of this assessment is to determine if a child can draw a picture and verbally
describe what they drew and what it means. Another purpose is to see how well they can write
their first name. Before I performed this assessment with Benjamin, I went to him while he was
playing with trucks by himself. I asked him if he would come do an activity with me at the
yellow table. It was challenging to get him to come to the table, but eventually, he obliged. I put
a piece of paper in front of him and offered him a basket of markers and asked him to draw me
a picture. He grabbed the green marker, took the cap off, and started drawing. Without even
asking him, he said he was drawing a tree. Benjamin was able to articulate his drawing and
knew to use a green marker to draw a tree. I then asked him if he could draw something else to
go with the tree, but he refused. Next, I asked if he could write his name. He said he could not
write his name. I told him I would help him write each letter. I grabbed his name card and
pointed to each letter. He kept saying “I can’t do it.” But then when I showed him how to write
the first letter of his name, he decided to attempt to write it. He attempted to write each letter
of his name as I modeled it. He wrote it in different areas of the paper instead of in a line from
left to right. The foundation blocks involved in this assessment are Block 6: Written Expression,
A) Distinguish print from pictures and C) Print first name independently. Moving forward, I want
to work on helping him learn how to write individual letters of his name so that he can
eventually write his name independently. I also want him to be able to use more colors and
details when drawing.

C. Assessment 2 – Concepts About Print

yes Show me the front of the book

yes Show me the back of the book
no Show me the title of the story (then read the title to the child)
yes Show me where we would begin reading the story
yes As you finish reading a page, show me a picture
yes After reading another page, show me a letter
yes Show me a word
yes Show me the first letter in a word
yes Show me the last letter in a word
yes Show me how I would read this page (directionality)
no Show me an upper-case letter
no Point to a period, what is this?
TOTAL 9/12

I chose this letter recognition assessment because I noticed that Benjamin likes to sing
the alphabet and points out letters often, especially if it is the first letter of his name. The
purpose of this assessment is to determine if a child knows the parts of the book as recognize
letters, words, and directionality. While Benjamin was playing during centers, I asked him if he
wanted to read a book with me. He gladly came over to the reading corner with me. I let him
choose a book from the reading corner. I thought that letting him choose the books he wanted
to read would help him keep engaged and interested during the assessment. He chose two
dinosaur books. We started with one of them. I asked him to point out the front and back of the
book and he was able to do this task easily. He was not able to point out the title. Once I started
reading, I quickly realized that the book was just a bunch of pictures of different dinosaurs and
their names. I had a difficult time pronouncing most of the dinosaur names. I decided we would
just look at the different pictures of the dinosaurs, and then move onto the next book. The next
book was a fictional story about a dinosaur. I continued the assessment with this book and
asked Benjamin to point where I should begin reading. He was able to point out the first word
on the first page. He successfully pointed out a picture as well. I asked Benjamin to point out a
letter. He pointed out the same letter as his first name. He then pointed out other letters which
started with the names of his classmates. I then asked Benjamin to tell me what the first and
last letter of the word “small” which was printed on the book. He was able to say “s” as the first
letter and “l” as the last letter. He was not able to point out an uppercase letter. I motioned my
finger from left to right and said “is this how I should read the sentence?” and motioned it from
right to left with my finger. He motioned his own finger on the text from left to right as the
correct direction to read. He did not know what a period was or what its purpose is. I tried my
best to be discreet as I was going down the checklist. He only questioned me once about it.
After the assessment, we ended up reading two more books together. Moving forward, I would
like to point out the title of every book I read to him until he is able to point it out himself when
I ask him to. I will also try to teach him what a period is and what it is used for. Foundation
blocks
D. Assessment 3 – Letter Recognition (Uppercase and Lowercase)

The purpose of this assessment is to determine if a child can recognize upper and lower
case letters. My CT had me conduct this letter recognition assessment to every child in the
class. I sat down with each child individually. I used a piece of construction paper to cover the
rows on the bottom. I pointed to each letter and had them tell me what letter it was if they
knew. I marked the ones they knew with a dot. My case study child, Benjamin did very well on
this assessment. He knew the most upper and lower case letters out of all the students in his
class. When I got to the letter of his first name, he got excited and said “That’s my letter, B!” He
thought the lowercase “q” was a “p” and the “b” was a “d.” He also thought the lowercase “l”
was a number one. Moving forward, I would like to review lowercase letters with him,
especially the letters he missed and the letters that are mirror images of each other like “b” and
“d.” Foundation blocks