Running head: Literacy Profile 1

Literacy Profile

Mallory Browning

Longwood University
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Contextual Framework

Contextual Contextual Factors

Areas
Community,  geographic location: Albemarle County
District, and  community population: 107,702
School Factors  school population: 348
 socio-economic profile: 54.3% of students receive free/discounted
lunch

Classroom Combined 4th and 5th Grade Classroom

factors  physical features: Classroom of 40 students with two co-teachers,
two horseshoe shaped tables for small group, large carpeted area
 availability of equipment: Smartboard, projector
 extent of parent involvement: Average. Attends parent/teacher
conferences, emails
 grouping patterns: Students are grouped depending on both guided
reading levels and word study scores.
 classroom arrangement: Various sized desks and tables throughout
the classroom.

Student N
Characteristics  age: 10
 gender: Female
 achievements/developmental levels: Reading on a 3rd grade level
 culture: African American
 learning styles/modalities: Visual and very motivated learner
 attendance record: Great attendance record

Instructional How do contextual characteristics of the community, classroom and

Implications students have implicated for instructional planning and assessment?

This is thee first year that N has attended the school. She moved from
Staunton at the beginning of the school year. N has never received any
special services. She has shown progress throughout the school year and is
currently on a guided reading level N, showing that she is a full year behind.
Nilaya has great comprehension skills, however her accuracy and fluency are
below expectations. She is an extremely motivated learner that works at a
little bit slower of a pace compared to her peers, and tends to be a little soft
spoken. However, when brought out of her shell in a comfortable setting,
she has shown to thrive.
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Assessment

N was assessed throughout two one-on-one sessions that lasted the span of an hour per

session. She was assessed through the Primary Spelling Inventory and the Qualitative Reading

Inventory. Within the first assessment session, N was assessed within a quiet environment where

she was able to focus and engage within the assessment. However, during the second session, we

struggled finding an available and quiet testing center within the school. Therefore, we had to

settle for a location that had some distractions and loud students, causing less engagement and

focus. The student appeared to enjoy reading and sharing her comprehension, thoughts, and ideas

about what she had read. She showed to have fairly strong comprehension skills, however, has a

slow reading rate that is below expectations. The student showed the most difficulty with the

writing portion of the assessments. She had trouble generating thoughts and getting those

thoughts onto paper in a successful manner. The student’s scores on the following assessments

reinforce what the teachers see in the classroom on a daily basis.

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Student N’s data across assessment suggest that she is working at the transitional level of

literacy. She is working in the late stages of the within word pattern stage of word study. She has

mastered common long vowels and is working to towards mastery of other difficult vowels such

as r-controlled and abstract vowels. J’s silent reading rate exceeds her oral reading rate, however,

her oral reading comprehension is higher than her silent reading comprehension. With this being
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said, her reading rate is below expectations. She is a fourth grader reading instructionally at a

third grade level. It is obvious that N is very soft spoken and isn’t completely confident in her

abilities, however, she is a motivated student who pushes herself to do her best. She struggles

with writing fluency and requires frequent assistance and the use of graphic organizers to

generate her ideas. It tends to take her an excessive amount of time to get her thoughts down on

paper, and she still struggles with common conventions and capitalizations within her writing.

The interview and affective reading scale indicated that she has a fairly positive attitude towards

reading. Her academic score was slightly higher than that of her recreational. She finds joy in

reading personally selected stories, and feels threatened when called on to read out loud in class.

Based on a variety of assessment data, N is reading comfortably on a third grade level.

Her word recognition in isolation scores were at the instructional level for third grade, and

frustration at fourth. Her oral reading rate was 95 words per minute for narrative, and 96 words

per minute for expository, which is slightly below expectations for the third grade level. Her oral

comprehension was 87.5% for both narrative and expository text, and 100% for silent reading.

When looking at her mistakes, most of them were omissions of function words or errors based on

the initial sound in the words. Her comprehension scores drastically drop at the fourth grade

level for both oral and silent reading, along with her WPM. In word study, she mastered long

vowels and is now working on on other vowel patterns. Specifically, she is currently working on

r-controlled vowels. She has a hard time transferring these features over to her writing. She is

also struggling with generating ideas and using proper conventions in her writing.

Student N is new to her school this year. She moved from a different school within the

state. She has not been found eligible to receive any special services, and I am unsure if she has

been tested for these services. However, it has been brought to my attention that as of recently,
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she will be receiving additional services due to a lack in progress during this school year; causing

further concern of her teachers.

Student N’s reading is currently at least one year below grade level expectations. Her

comprehension of material read aloud at a third-grade level was slightly below level, and her

listening comprehension is extremely low. Her classroom uses the reader’s workshop model

where she is expected to demonstrate skills learned within a small group setting, then is practice

these skills independently. This is increasingly difficult for her because she needs an increasing

amount of teacher support to complete tasks and generate her thoughts. She meets with her small

group only a couple times a week, but requires much more support that this. She showed to have

a very low listening comprehension score at the fourth grade level. She will require the material

to be chunked into smaller sections with frequent checks by the teacher. Her teachers are orally

presenting information to the students within her class at a fourth and fifth grade level, which

suggests she likely does not comprehend. She will require for information to be put onto paper,

written at her instruction level or below in order for her to best comprehend the information. She

has shown to be a visual learner who benefits from visual representations of information. This

being considered, graphic organizers will help to organize and comprehend information that she

has read. She will benefit from practicing how to transfer learned patterns in word study to her

writing skills, as well as strong exemplar writing pieces.

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Instructional Goals and Instructional Plan

Instructional Goals

Fluency Word Knowledge Comprehension & Writing

Vocabulary
Goals: Goals: Goals: Goals:
-Student N will -Student N will work -Student N will -Student N will
increase her fluency towards mastery of practice using a successfully write
by increasing her “other vowels” (r- variety of with correct
high frequency word controlled vowels) comprehension capitalization and
vocabulary. and inflected endings strategies when punctuation.
at the late within reading a text. These
-Student N will word stage. strategies will -Student N will break
increase her reading include: inferences, down her run-on
fluency by re-reading -Student N will work summarizing, main sentences into
texts on her her way into the early idea, etc. various, more
independent reading stage of Syllables and meaningful
level. Affixes. -Student N will sentences.
increase her
-Student N will -Once Student N vocabulary by -Student N will write
practice reading masters the “other” focusing on without the usage of
longer texts on her vowels that she unfamiliar words random capital letters
independent reading missed on the within a text. where they do not
level, focusing on her assessment, we will belong.
accuracy and move onto the -Student N will
following line-by-line following inflected transfer her growing -Student N will
without getting lost in endings: -es, -ies, and vocabulary word successfully practice
the text. doubling vs. nothing bank to her writing writing in paragraph
skills. form.

-Student N will
practice beginning
sentences with
different words and
sentence structure in
order to add detail
and flow to her
writing.
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Instructional Plan

Lesson Reading for Word Knowledge Comprehension Writing

Fluency

1 General feature: Introduce

R-controlled Essential
vowels Question
Sort categories:
or, ar, ir

Activity: Go over
the sort with
student and make
sure she can read
all words, as well
as knows their
meaning. Sort by
sound first and
then by pattern.
Use headers. Then
have student sort
the words
independently, and
end with the
student completing
a blind written sort
(with
approximately ten
words).

2 Text title: The General feature: Text title: Weather Task: Complete
Scared Bear Abstract Vowels Text source: graphic organizer
Text source: Sort categories: Online Article by using evidence
Reading A to Z ow vs. ou/ou vs. Text level: Guided from the text to
fluency passages ow/ou Reading Level organize thoughts
Text level: L Activity: Go over M/N end events from the
(Fountas and the sort with reading. Compose a
Pinnell) student and make Content focus: written summary
sure she can read Science about the read text
Skill focus: all words, as well about weather.
Accuracy, as knows their Skill focus:
intonation and meaning. Sort by Highlight
phrasing, sound first and important Skill focus: Write a
appropriate wpm then by pattern. information to fluent summary
for guided Use headers. Then organize using sentence
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reading level. have student sort information and fluency and correct
the words thoughts conventions.
Activity: The independently, and Connections
teacher reads the end with the
text aloud in student completing
order to model a blind written sort
good fluency and (with
the student read approximately ten
the text silently words).
while underlining
and unknown
words to review
before reading.
Next, the student
reads the text out
loud (cold read),
then once more
(hot read) while
tracking and
graphing WPM.

3 Text title: Sara’s General feature: Text title: Task: Fill out
Brother Abstract Vowels Adaptations for graphic organizer
Text source: Sort categories: Survival using text evidence
Reading A to Z ow vs. ou Text source: to determine main
fluency passages Online animal idea and supporting
Text level: L Activity: Go over adaptation unit details. Compose a
(Fountas and the sort with Text level: M written summary of
Pinnell) student and make the the main idea
sure she can read Content focus: with supporting
Skill focus: all words, as well Science details of the text
Accuracy, as knows their while using graphic
intonation and meaning. Sort by Skill focus: organizer.
phrasing, sound first and Main idea and
appropriate wpm then by pattern. supporting details
for guided Use headers. Then Skill focus: Write a
reading level. have student sort summary of the text
the words using the main idea
Activity: The independently, and and supporting
teacher reads the end with the details while using
text aloud in student completing accurate
order to model a blind written sort conventions.
good fluency and (with
the student read approximately ten
the text silently words).
while underlining
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and unknown
words to review
before reading.
Next, the student
reads the text out
loud (cold read),
then once more
(hot read) while
tracking and
graphing WPM.

4 Text title: The General feature: Text title: A Task: Fill out
Pot of Gold Plural Edings Spotted Giant graphic organizer
Text source: Sort categories: Text source: Unit using text evidence
Reading A to Z -s vs. -es found online for to determine main
fluency passages Activity: Go over animal adaptations idea and supporting
Text level: L the sort with Text level: M details. Compose a
(Fountas and student and make written summary of
Pinnell) sure she can read Content focus: the the main idea
all words, as well Science with supporting
Skill focus: as knows their details of the text
Accuracy, meaning. Sort by Skill focus: while using graphic
intonation and sound first and Main idea and organizer.
phrasing, then by pattern. supporting details
appropriate wpm Use headers. Then
for guided have student sort Skill focus: Write a
reading level. the words summary of the text
independently, and using the main idea
Activity: The end with the and supporting
teacher reads the student completing details while using
text aloud in a blind written sort accurate
order to model (with conventions.
good fluency and approximately ten
the student read words).
the text silently
while underlining
and unknown
words to review
before reading.
Next, the student
reads the text out
loud (cold read),
then once more
(hot read) while
tracking and
graphing WPM.
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5 Text title: General feature: Text title: Popular Task:Fill out

Beetles and Bugs Double or nothing Finned Friends graphic organizer
Text source: when adding -ing Text source: : Unit using text evidence
Reading A to Z Sort categories: found online for to determine main
fluency passages VC, VCC, double, animal adaptations idea and supporting
Text level: L nothing Text level: M details. Compose a
(Fountas and Activity: Go over written summary of
Pinnell) the sort with Content focus: the the main idea
student and make Science with supporting
Skill focus: sure she can read details of the text
Accuracy, all words, as well Skill focus: while using graphic
intonation and as knows their Main Idea and organizer.
phrasing, meaning. Sort by Supporting Details
appropriate wpm sound first and
for guided then by pattern. Skill focus: Write a
reading level. Use headers. Then summary of the text
have student sort using the main idea
Activity: The the words and supporting
teacher reads the independently, and details while using
text aloud in end with the accurate
order to model student completing conventions.
good fluency and a blind written sort
the student read (with
the text silently approximately ten
while underlining words).
and unknown
words to review
before reading.
Next, the student
reads the text out
loud (cold read),
then once more
(hot read) while
tracking and
graphing WPM.

Evidence of Research Base: Individualized Instructional Goals (Lesson Planning)

The first goal that student N is working towards is associated with reading fluency.

According to Gunning (2018), before students can recognize words rapidly or automatically in

order to gain fluency, they must first achieve accuracy. This accuracy can be met when provided
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with ample practice. One of the instruction goals for student N is that she will increase her

reading fluency by re-reading texts on her independent reading level. According to Gunning

(2018), this technique of repeated readings fosters the learning and instantaneous recognition of

high-frequency words, and allows students the opportunity to achieve accuracy as well as

fluency. By completing repeated readings (hot and col reads) each week, student N will be

working towards becoming a fluent reader. Specifically, the goal is to have student N reading

text at her independent reading level (Fountas & Pinnell level L) with the appropriate fluency of

between 100 and 150 WPM.

Student N also is also working towards goals that involve word knowledge. According to

Gunning (2018), word knowledge and spelling is constructive, conceptual, and progresses

through various phases. Considering this, it is vital that spelling instruction matches students’

level of word knowledge. Student N’s word knowledge goals were constructed specifically to her

needs illustrated through the PSI assessment. According to Gunning (2018), a valuable activity

for fostering a conceptual understanding of spelling and overall word knowledge is word sorting.

Student N will use this word sorting technique to reach her individualized goals of mastering R-

controlled vowels, other vowels, and inflected endings. These goals will be reached by

encouraging her to see the meaning connections within the spelling of each of these words and

sorts, as suggested by Gunning (2018). Lastly, patterns are especially useful elements of spelling

and word knowledge, because once students can spell one-word pattern, they can build off of

that knowledge in order to spell other words in that pattern (Gunning, 2018). Student N will use

this concept of spelling patterns in order to reach the goal of mastering R-controlled vowels

(specifically or, ar, ir), abstract vowels of ow and ou, and the inflected endings of –es vs. –ies as

well as doubling vs. nothing with –ing.

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Comprehension and vocabulary knowledge are another element of literacy instruction.

Student N will need to practice utilizing a variety of different comprehension strategies when

reading in order to increase her comprehension abilities. This goal is supported by Kilpatrick’s

(2015) findings that directly teaching reading comprehension skills and strategies demonstrates

benefits for students with poor comprehension. It is important to model utilizing comprehension

strategies and scaffold these skills in order for students to understanding that reading isn’t simply

the ability to sound out words, but to find meaning within the words. Actively utilizing and

practicing these comprehension skills will further her comprehension abilities. According to

Kilpatrick (2015), vocabulary is central to comprehension. Therefore, teaching vocabulary can

improve comprehension. In order for student N to comprehend read text, it is important that her

vocabulary knowledge is boosted and supported when reading text at her instructional level.

Lastly, when students can transfer their decoding skills of vocabulary terms to their encoding

skills by writing the words, they show great understanding of the concept. In order for this to be

accomplished, students must explicitly focus on vocabulary when reading and comprehending

text.

Lastly, N’s writing goals include successfully writing a paragraph that contains correct

conventions including capitalization, spelling, and punctuation, that also consists of well

thought-out sentence structure without run-on sentences. N’s initial writing showed that she had

strengths of good overall ideas and use of strong vocabulary words. However, the following

weaknesses were noted: capitalization, punctuation, run-on sentences, lack of detail, and writing

in complete paragraph form. According to Gunning, it is important to include the five steps of

the writing process: prewriting, composing, revising, editing, and publishing. The writing portion

of the tutoring sessions support these steps in order to help increase her writing abilities. For
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instance, prewriting is being practiced when completing graphic organizers for main idea when

reading, whereas the remaining is completed by composing the writing, reading it aloud, and

making any final edits and revisions before finalizing the writing.

Tutoring Log

Tutoring with student N took place during one hour weekly sessions. The sessions took

place on Monday afternoons from 1:00 to 2:00 pm. The sessions took place at student N’s

elementary school. The sessions began February 3rd and ended March 9th. The preliminary

assessments were started on February 3rd and were completed on February 10th. The assessments

were divided into these two sessions and took a little over two hours to complete. For the sake of

time, student N completed the writing assessment during the first tutoring lesson for word

knowledge that took place on February 21st. Please see tutoring log in the appendix.

Literacy Lessons & Reflections

Through the various tutor sessions and time spent with student N, I was able to gain

insight of areas in which she encounters difficulties. One of the first things that I noticed during

the tutoring sessions was the amount of time that it took student N to complete tasks. This was

especially evident with writing. I noticed that she has many great ideas in her head that she can

verbally share, however, she struggles when asked to transfer those thoughts onto paper. She

demonstrated that her reading comprehension was strong while highlighting important

information within a text, and was able to verbally answer comprehension questions. She was

then able to transfer those important components of reading onto graphic organizers. However,

when asked to create a summary in paragraph form while using these supports set up for her, she

took an extensive amount of time to complete this task and required a substantial amount of

teacher support. This was monitored through providing weekly writing opportunities.
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Considering this unexpected difficulty, I was required to stray away from the initial pacing and

long-range plan that I had originally put in place for writing. Instead of moving on with the

pacing guide, I wanted to make sure to solidify independence of the writing goal that was set in

place.

I also learned that student N isn’t very confident in herself and her abilities and is very

soft spoken. When working with her at the beginning of our tutoring sessions, I noticed that she

would hesitate when answering questions, even when she knew the correct answer. I worked

each week to ensure her that she was in a safe learning environment where it is okay to not

always know the correct answer, as well as ensure her that she is smart and has an abundance of

knowledge in her brain in order to provoke confidence. I also had to actively work to keep her

engaged by making learning engaging and asking deeper thinking questions, otherwise I would

notice that she would lose focus.

Recommendations
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After completing the various tutoring sessions with Student N, there are a number of

recommendations that have been set in place to continue her progress. When provided explicit

and systematic instruction upon word study features, Student N showed improvements with word

study. However, when transferring the words over to written form, she demonstrated some

difficulties. It is recommended that she continue working on writing out her word study words in

order to solidify the word patterns through encoding. According to Nevada (2010), often times

when students learn words and word patterns in isolation without connecting them to written or

spoken language, they are not able to then transfer their knowledge since they are never taught

the skills to do so. Instead, they are merely memorizing how to spell the words for their spelling

tests. This also connects to her overall writing skills; which I suggest she continues to practice

writing for a variety of purposes (creative, persuasive, informative, entertaining etc.) in order to

increase her writing fluency.

Another intervention suggestion for Student N to continue is chunking materials that is

read into smaller portions in order to increase her overall reading comprehension. Chunking of

text refers to the “strategy of breaking down information into bit-sized pieces so the brain can

more easily digest new information.” (Anggraeni, 2015). At each chunking point, Student N

benefits from taking a break from reading and discussing what she has just read and learned from

the text. To begin, passages should be broken up into “chunks” for Student N, then once she feels

comfortable, the teacher may allow her to chunk texts in a way that is natural for her. In addition,

it is suggested that Student N continues to actively complete graphic organizers during and after

reading a text in order to organize and comprehend her thoughts better. According to Rajan

(2013), learning through visuals and organizers helps students in comprehending texts more

effectively and meaningfully.

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Initially, student N’s fluency scores report that she is considered independent for words

per minute at the second grade level. Through tutoring sessions with repeated readings, Student

N has shown growth in this area. To continue this growth, it is suggested that she continue re-

reading familiar texts at her independent level while focusing on prosody, expression, rate, and

understanding. According to Gunning (2018), repeated readings increases students high-

frequency word vocabulary; fostering instantaneous recognition over time. Repeated readings

also have shown to improve student’s ability to achieve accuracy, therefore, fluency (Gunning,

2018).
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Teacher Report

Name: Student N
Grade: 4th Grade
Tutor’s Name: Mallory Browning
Dates of Tutoring: February 3 – March 9, 2020

Student N participated in 4 out of the 6 in-school tutoring sessions that were planned

during the spring semester of 2020. The cancellation of school due to the COVID-19 virus

required our tutoring sessions to be cut short. Student N participated in sessions that included

oral reading practice to build fluency and silent reading to foster reading comprehension.

Writing instruction and practice complimented the comprehension work. Word knowledge was

also addressed in the tutorial; Student N studied r-controlled vowels, various abstract vowels

such as ow and ou, and plural endings with double or nothing.

Informal reading assessments conducted at the beginning of the semester showed Student

N to be reading on a third grade level. Her word recognition in isolation showed that she knew

most third grade words but approximately half of a sample of fourth grade words. Her oral

reading rate was fairly slow (87 words per minute) and demonstrated some attention to phrasing.

An analysis of her oral reading miscues showed that she sometimes miscalls simple function

words (e.g., what for want). The analysis of her oral reading miscues also showed that she rarely

self-corrects even when meaning is compromised. Her spelling met grade level expectations.

Notable spelling errors included r-controlled vowel patterns (e.g., THONE: thorn), abstract

vowels- specifically ow and ou (e.g., GRAL: growl), inflected endings (e.g., TRYS; tries), and

plural endings with double or nothing (e.g., CLAPING; clapping).

Considering the lack of time and instruction, assessments were not administered at the

end of the tutoring sessions in order to determine Student N’s overall growth.
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It has been a pleasure working with Student N this spring. I am disappointed that I did not

have more time to work with her- she is a wonderful and hard-working student. Attached is a list

of books that would be appropriate for Student N to continue practicing over the summer.

Report Prepared by:

Mallory Browning
Graduate Student
Longwood University
Reading, Literacy, & Learning Program

Book List

 Giraffe Problems by Jory John

 Fruit Bowl by Mark Hoffman
 Interrupting Chicken and the Elephant of Surprises by David Ezra Stein
 Sarabella’s Thinking Cap by Judy Schacher
 Hidden Figures: The True Story of Four Black Women and the Space Race by Margot
Lee Shetterfly
 Ivy and Bean by Annie Borrows
 Junie B Jones by Barbara Park
 Mercy Watson to the Rescue by Kate DiCamillo
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Works Cited

Anggraini, R. (2015). The Effectiveness of Using Chunking Strategy to Improve Students’

Reading Comprehension at The Second Year of Smp Negeri 2 Barombong. ETERNAL

(English, Teaching, Learning and Research Journal),2(2), 299-312.

doi:10.24252/eternal.v12.2015.a11
D, P. S., & Rajan, P. (2013). Using Graphic Organizers to Improve Reading Comprehension

Skills for the Middle School Esl Students. Canadian Center of Science and Education.

Gunning, T. G. (2018). Assessing & Correct Reading and Writing Difficulties (6th ed.). Boston,

MA: Pearson Education.

Kilpatrick, D. (2015). Essentials of assessing, preventing, and overcoming reading difficulties.

New Jersey: Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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Appendix

Tutoring Schedule

Date Time Notes

2/3/2020 1:00 – 2:00 (1 hour) Assessments

2/10/2020 1:00 – 2:00 (1 hour) Assessments

2/21/2020 1:00 – 2:00 (1 hour) Word Study
Lesson/Assessments
2/24/2020 1:00 – 2:00 (1 hour) Comprehensive Lesson
3/5/2020 1:00 – 2:00 (1 hour) Comprehensive Lesson
3/9/2020 1:00 – 2:00 (1 hour) Comprehensive Lesson