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Julia Wilson
TLS 357
Sung Eun Jung
7 December 2018
Written Report
For the assessment case study this semester, I worked with two students, Patricia and
Ryan. Patricia is my English Language Learner case study student, and I visited her home for the
home engagements. My other case study student, Ryan, is on a behavioral plan for his
inappropriate and disruptive behavior in the classroom. These are the two children I assessed for
this assignment.
The first student, Ryan, is not on an individualized education plan, IEP, yet. He is being
consistently watched and observed to determine whether or not he needs to be on an IEP for his
behavior. For his assessment, I focused on math and literacy to determine whether or not he was
understanding the content and material being taught in the classroom. For his math assessment, I
wanted to see if he could count up from a number other than one, from the kindergarten math
standards. For the literacy assessment, I wanted to see if he would be able to decode sounds and
blend them together to make a word, specifically rhyming word, also from the kindergarten
reading standards.
I assessed Ryan outside in the hallway at a table with just me and him so that there were
no distractions from the other students inside the classroom. I assessed Ryan at about 10 in the
morning for both math and literacy. I assessed Ryan’s math skills orally and we used sentence
strips with words on it for his literacy assessment.
For the math assessment, I asked Ryan to count as high as he could. He counted to 20 and
then stopped. I asked if he could count any higher and he nodded but said he did not want to.
Then, I asked him to start from the number 5 and count to 11. He continued to start at the number
one. After he counted, I would repeat “start from the number 5 and count to 11” numerous times,
however he continued to start from the number one. My interpretation of this is that his
understanding of numbers and their meaning is very low, and we need to build on his
background knowledge of numbers and what they mean so that he can succeed in this area of the
standard in the future.
For the literacy assessment, I used sentence strips that I cut up and wrote different
rhyming words on, ending in -at. I put them in front of him and asked if he noticed anything
about the words. He did not. I then encouraged him to sound out the letters that he sees in the
word. He was able to see the letters but could not sound them all out correctly. He was
unsuccessful with decoding the sounds and trying to blend them together to make a word. I
decided to intervene and help him because I did not want him feeling like he failed. We worked
on all of the words together and at the end I said, “did you notice how all of those words
rhymed? Let’s try them again!” and we worked through each word again. My interpretation of
this assessment was that his reading comprehension level is very low. He is not being read to at
home, and that shows in this assessment.
To help Ryan successfully meet the standards by the end of the year, he needs to have a
lot more exposure to number fluency during math time. He would benefit from counting
activities, as well as understanding numbers and their meaning. For literacy, he needs to be
reading more books throughout the school day, as well as more encouragement sent home about
the importance of reading to your children at night. He would also benefit from rhyming
activities, which we have recently started doing daily to give exposure to all the students.
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The second student, Patricia, is an English Language Learner who speaks Spanish at
home with her family. She is able to understand English in the classroom and can follow
instructions given by the teacher. If there is something that she does not understand, she follows
the actions of her peers. She is very bright and is on her way to being bilingual and biliterate.
I assessed Patricia on her math and literacy skills as well, at around 9:30 in the morning.
We sat at the same table as I did with Ryan in the hallway, to minimize distractions from the
other students in the classroom. I assessed using the same materials for literacy as I did with
Ryan, the sentence strips of rhyming words ending in -at. For math, I did a different assessment.
I used square manipulatives and had her count the amount she was given and then she was asked
to count on from that number.
For the math assessment, I brought out a tub of squares and gave her 12. I then put them
in front of her and asked her to count how many squares she had. She started counting them out
and when she did this, she lined them up, so she knew which squares she had already counted.
After she counted all of the squares in front of her, I asked, “how many squares do you have?”
and she said, “12”. I asked, “how do you know?” and she replied, “because I counted”. Next, I
handed her 5 more squares and asked her, “how many do you have now?” She was able to count
on from 12 until she reached 17. My interpretation of this is that she pays attention in class and
focuses on her work when we do math. She was very focused and understood the questions she
was being asked. She was successful in that she was able to count on the number of squares she
had when she was given more.
For the literacy assessment, I used the same sentence strips that I used with Ryan. There
were 5 words that all ended in -at. My goal was for Patricia to be able to sound out the letters that
she saw in the word and then blend them together to make the word. She was able to sound out
the letters that she saw, however she was unsuccessful when it came to blend them together. I
used the same tactic with Patricia that I used with Ryan. I helped her sound out the letters and
blend them together and we, together, decided that these are all rhyming words. My
interpretation of this is that she is also not being exposed to enough literature outside of the
classroom. I do not think she reads at home or is being read to by an adult.
To help Patricia successfully meet the kindergarten standards, I think her number fluency
and comprehension is at a great spot. She needs to continue her learning habits during math time
and she will continue to be successful with her math work. With literacy, she needs to be
exposed to more to literature. Even nursery rhymes and other forms of children’s books with
rhyming words will influence her academic career immensely. She will be able to start reading
and comprehending words for herself.
The entire assessment process has been incredibly useful. As a teacher, specifically in
kindergarten, there is a lot of assessment that needs to be done. Planning the assessment and
implementing the assessment has been such a valuable piece to my learning that I will continue
to carry on throughout my teaching career. I was able to understand my case study children a lot
better and what their specific academic needs are. I think that assessment is crucial in the early
years because we want to make sure every child is given an opportunity to succeed. Through
assessment, that seems possible because we are given many ways to see how they are
understanding the material and content in the classroom.
I have grown tremendously through the entire assessment process. I was able to conduct
an initial assessment, plan the assessment, implement the assessment, and determine the next
instructional steps all on my own. I had very little guidance from my mentor teacher, so I was
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able to complete this assignment on my own. I think that helped me a lot learn about my own
teaching style as well as be able to determine my own strengths and weaknesses.
My strength during the assessment was helping the children during the literacy activity
when they were not understanding of how to complete the task. I think that was beneficial
because then they were still able to feel like they were successful and were able to understand the
task by the end. My weakness was having them expand on their thinking. I know I need to work
on asking more open-ended questions to have them explain their thinking, and it something that I
will continue to work on.
My biggest suggestion would be to encourage reading at home with their children more.
This will improve many children’s literacy abilities. I also think we, as teachers, can implement
more rhyming activities and reading activities throughout the day. For math, I think introducing
number fluency and helping them understand the meaning behind numbers will allow them to be
able to count on from a number other than one. This is important so that when they are
introduced to addition and subtraction, they will be successful from the beginning.
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