Running Head: WORDS THEIR WAY SPELLING ASSESSMENT 1

Lisa Reagan

Critical Task: Words Their Way Spelling Assessment

TERG 3701– 2:00pm Spring 2018

Youngstown State University

WORDS THEIR WAY SPELLING ASSESSMENT 2

Table of Contents

Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………………….3

Contextual Factors …………………………………………………………………………..........3

First Assessment ……………………………………………………………………...…..3

Second Assessment …………………………………………………………………....….4

Spelling Assessment …………………………………………………………………...………....4

Analysis and Interpretation of Data …………………………………………...………………….7

Analysis of First Assessment …………………………………………...………………...7

Interpretation of First Assessment ……………………………………………..…………8

Analysis of Second Assessment ………………………………………….………………9

Interpretation of Second Assessment ……………………………………………………11

Translations to Instruction ………………………………………………………………………12

Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………..……………..14

References ……………………………………………………………………..………………..16

Appendices …………………………………………………………………….………………..17

Appendix A ……………………………………………………………..………………17

Appendix B ……………………………………………………..………………………18

Appendix C ……………………………………………………..………………………19

Appendix D ……………………………………………………..………………………20
WORDS THEIR WAY SPELLING ASSESSMENT 3

Critical Task: Words Their Way Spelling Assessment

Introduction

The Words Their Way Spelling Assessment helps teachers and other adequate figures find

out which spelling stage a student is in. This is a great tool to assess what the child knows, uses

but confuses, as well as what the child needs to learn next in their spelling development. There

are certain features associated with each stage that help guide instruction. Each stage indicates

what features the child may struggle with, which helps to show what will need to be addressed

during instruction. The child hears the word and an example of the word used in a sentence, then

writes down how they think the word is spelled. The results aid teachers by deciding on activities

and other resources that will engage the child to become more familiar with these features.

Contextual Factors

Brandon (pseudonym) is a third-grade student who was assessed on his spelling

development through the Words Their Way assessment. It is common for this student to get in

trouble due to behavior. He has been assigned to in-school suspension a couple times and

couldn’t attend tutoring sessions. This child is always present in the school, which shows that he

has great attendance. The first and second assessments were conducted in the library. This place

was chosen because it is generally a quiet place where the students are focused.

First Assessment. The first assessment was administered in the library. There were about

four other tutors in the library with their students. There were some distractions, although the

library has less noise and distractions than the cafeteria. Other tutors were playing games with

their students which were a distraction. Brandon had a hard time paying attention. During the

end of the assessment, he had to be reminded of the word to write down on the paper a couple

times. Although, he was able to complete the assessment without any frustration. The student
WORDS THEIR WAY SPELLING ASSESSMENT 4

seemed to feel indifferent about the spelling assessment. He wasn’t discouraged or frustrated, but

he wasn’t excited about it either. Although, normally he is more attentive than he was during this

assessment. It was evident that Brandon tried his best on the spelling assessment despite the

distractions and some inactiveness. He asked, “why do we have to do this?” which showed that

he was wondering why we weren’t doing a more exciting activity.

Second Assessment. The second assessment was conducted in the library, where there

was only one teacher working with an ELL student. The room was quiet which made it easier to

assess. The other teacher was helping a student with an online assessment. Therefore, they were

silent and not a distraction for Brandon. The student was open to doing the spelling test. He

didn’t show any signs of frustration and showed interest in spelling the words correctly to the

best of his ability. The student made this spelling assessment a competition with the other

student. This made the test exciting to him, although he asked, “why are we doing this again?”

Brandon asked for a bonus word, something his teacher does during spelling tests. A couple

times he asked if he spelled a word correctly. He was told to try his best from what he had

learned during class as well as tutoring sessions. Brandon’s attentiveness provided evidence that

he was trying his best. The results showed much improvement from the first assessment.

Spelling Assessment

The bar graphs below show the data of both of the primary spelling assessments. The

green bars indicate the first assessment as the purple bars indicate the second assessment. Figure

one shows the number of words spelled correctly on each assessment. Figure two shows the

number of feature points the student received on both assessments. Figure three demonstrates the

number of feature points the student received in each feature category. Overall, it is shown that

the student’s knowledge of word features increased between the time of the two assessments.
WORDS THEIR WAY SPELLING ASSESSMENT 5
Graph of Words Spelled Correctly
26

22.29
20
18.57

Correctly
Student
Spelled
14.86

Words
Assessment 1

11.14 10 Assessment 2

7.43

3.71

0
Correctly Spelled
Assessments

Figure 1. This bar graph represents how many words the student spelled correctly on the first

assessment and the second assessment.

The graph in figure one shows the development of the student between the first and

second assessments. This graph is only for the number of words the student spelled correctly

during the assessments. For the first assessment, it is shown that the student spelled ten words

correctly out of 26. For the second assessment, the student spelled 20 words correctly out of 26.

This means that the student learned how to spell ten of the words he previously missed. These

ten words contain 11 features that the student now knows how to use. The features will be shown

in figure two below. Feature Points Graph

56
50

44.8
40

33.6
Assessment 1
Received
Points

22.4 Assessment 2

11.2

0
Feature Points
Assessments
WORDS THEIR WAY SPELLING ASSESSMENT 6

Figure 2. This bar graph displays the number of features the student spelled correctly on the first

assessment and the second assessment.

The graph in figure two demonstrates how many features the student learned between the

time of the two assessments. During the first assessment, the student received 40 out of 56

feature points. The second assessment shows that the student received 50 out of 56 feature

points. This indicates that Brandon learned ten of the word features through the interventions

during tutoring sessions. A breakdown of the features is shown in figure three below.
Words Their Way Primary Spelling Inventory Feature Guide

7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7
7

6
5.8

5 5

4.6
4 4 Assessment 1
Features
Number

Correct
of

3.4
Assessment 2

2.2 2

1
1
Initial Short Blends Other
Consonants Vowels Vowels
Final Digraphs Common Inflected
Consonants Long.. Endings
Word Features

Figure 3. This bar graph represents a breakdown of the feature points the student received in

each of the feature categories. Data is shown for the first assessment and the second assessment.

The bar graph in figure three demonstrates the data received during both spelling

assessments. Each feature category has seven possible points. It is shown that the student

received all seven points during each assessment on initial consonants, final consonants, short
WORDS THEIR WAY SPELLING ASSESSMENT 7

vowels, and digraphs. On the first assessment, the student received five out of seven points for

blends. On the second assessment, the student received all the points for blends. For common

long vowels, the student earned one more point than he did on the first assessment. Therefore,

now he knows five out of seven common long vowels. For other vowels, the student earned four

more feature points than on the first assessment. This shows that he can now identify six out of

seven features in the other vowels category. The student earned three more points for inflected

endings on the second assessment. This indicates that the student is now aware of four out of

seven inflected endings. Overall, the student received 50 out of 56 points on the second

assessment compared to the 40 out of 56 he received during the first assessment (see appendices

for completed feature guides and student’s assessment tests).

Analysis and Interpretation of Data

The results of the Primary Spelling Inventory Feature Guide assessments showed a lot of

improvement. The first assessment placed Brandon in the early within word pattern stage of

spelling development. The student worked on a variety of interventions for ten weeks, which

allowed him to work on features that the student did not get correct on the first assessment. The

second assessment placed Brandon in the early syllables and affixes stage of spelling

development. The results showed progress as the student passed through the within words pattern

stage and into the beginning of the next stage.

Analysis of First Assessment. The first assessment was conducted on January 31st. The

student received a power score of ten out of 26. This indicates that the student is in the early

within word pattern stage of spelling development. The student received a seven out of seven for

initial and final consonants, short vowels, and digraphs. He uses but confuses blends at a score of

five out of seven and common long vowels with a score of four out of seven. He needs to learn
WORDS THEIR WAY SPELLING ASSESSMENT 8

other vowels and inflected endings because he got few of these correct. He got two out of seven

for other vowels and one out of seven for inflected endings. Overall, he received 40 out of 56

feature points, spelled ten out of 26 words correctly, and received a total score of 50 out of 82

points.

The student was able to identify all of the initial consonants, final consonants, short

vowels, and digraphs. Therefore, the student knows these features such as the ones in the words

fan, gum, pet, dig, rob, and so forth. The student used but confused some blends and common

long vowels. For example, Brandon spelled crawl as chrole and tries as chrise which shows that

he doesn’t know the blends /cr/ and /tr/. For common long vowels, the student spelled wait as

wate, dream as dreme, and fright as frite. This shows that he doesn’t know the common long

vowel features /ai/, /ea/, and /igh/. The student needs to learn most of the features for other

vowels and inflected endings. For example, the student spelled chewed as chude, crawl as

chrole, thorn as thurn, spoil as spual, and growl as groul. This shows that he is unfamiliar

with the common long vowels /ew/, /aw/, /or/, /oi/, and /ow/. For example, the student spelled the

inflected endings of chewed as chude, wishes as wishis, camped as campt, tries as chrise,

clapping as cklaping, and riding as rideing. This shows that the student is unable to identify the

inflected endings -ed, -es, -ies, -pping, and -ding. In addition to this, the student received the

feature points for some words but didn’t spell the actual word correctly. These words were coach

as choach, third as thirde, and shouted as shouded. Overall, the student spelled ten words

correctly and 16 words incorrectly (see Appendix A and Appendix B for the completed feature

guide and student sample for the first assessment).

Interpretation of First Assessment. It is evident that the student’s strengths were words

with a smaller number of letters. The student was able to spell all the words that contained three
WORDS THEIR WAY SPELLING ASSESSMENT 9

letters. He was only able to spell four words that contained more than three letters, which were

the words sled, stick, shine, and blade. His strengths also consisted of any initial consonants,

final consonants, short vowels, and digraphs. His weaknesses may be words that contained more

than three letters. Although he was able to spell four words with more than three letters, perhaps

this child has difficulty with words that have more letters. His weaknesses also consisted of

words with the blends /cr/ and /tr/. When the student spelled tries as chise, perhaps he misheard

the word that the given. At this point in the assessment he had trouble focusing. He had difficulty

with common long vowels /ai/, /ea/, and /igh/. Though, he understood the concept of the CVCe

for the long vowel. Other weaknesses consisted of any words with other vowels or inflected

endings, which were the most difficult for this student.

The data showed that the child is in the early within word pattern stage of spelling

development. The students in this stage know consonants, blends, digraphs, and short vowels in

CVC words (Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, & Johnston, 2016). This is true for Brandon, although

he confused two of the blends that he was assessed on. In addition to this, students in this stage

use but confuse silent letters in long vowel patterns (Bear et al., 2016). This is also true to this

student because he used but confused common long vowel features. Although, he had an

understanding of the CVCe for long vowels, but did not spell /ai/, /ea/, or /igh/ correctly.

Students in this stage will not have consonant doubling or have the e-drop for inflected endings

(Bear et al., 2016). Brandon did not understand these concepts, which is another indicator that he

was in the early within word pattern stage. This shows that the student would benefit from

studying silent letters in long vowel patterns, the e-drop, and consonant doubling. Although, the

interventions contained these features, they also covered the other vowel features.
WORDS THEIR WAY SPELLING ASSESSMENT 10

Analysis of Second Assessment. The second assessment was administered on April 9th.

The student received a power score of 20 out of 26. This suggests that the student’s estimated

stage is the early syllables and affixes stage of spelling development. The student received a

seven out of seven for initial and final consonants, short vowels, digraphs, and blends. He uses

but confuses common long vowels with a score of five out of seven and other vowels with a

score of six out of seven, He still needs to work on these features, but he has shown a lot of

progress. He needs to learn more inflected endings because he had a score of four out of seven. If

the child was assessed again, he would need the Elementary Spelling Inventory so that the child

would be assessed on more features of the syllables and affixes stage. Overall, the child received

50 out of 56 feature points, spelled 20 out of 26 words correctly, and received a total of 70 out of

82 points.

The feature points received for the initial consonants, final consonants, short vowels, and

digraphs were the same as the first assessment. The student received all of the feature points for

blends, which he originally missed two on the first assessment. Therefore, he learned the /cr/ and

/tr/ sounds. The student used but confused some common long vowels and other vowels. For

common long vowels, the student spelled wait as wate and fright as frght. This shows that he

doesn’t recognize the common long vowel features /ai and /igh/. For other vowels, the student

spelled six out of seven of them correctly and has a great idea of their features. For example, the

other vowel feature that he spelled incorrectly was the /ir/ in the word third, as it was spelled

thered. Which his attempt on this word in the first assessment was thirde which is much closer

to the correct spelling. The student needs to learn a lot of the inflected endings next. For

example, the student spelled tries as treis, clapping as claping, and riding as rideing. This data

shows that the student is unsure of words with the endings -ies, -pping, and -ding. In total, the
WORDS THEIR WAY SPELLING ASSESSMENT 11

student spelled 20 words correctly and six words incorrectly (see Appendix C and Appendix D

for the completed feature guide and student sample for the first assessment).

Interpretation of Second Assessment. The student showed a lot of progress in spelling

development on the second assessment. The student’s strengths are shown through the initial

consonants, final consonants, short vowels, digraphs, and blends. He has shown growth in

spelling words that have more than three letters. Perhaps he has gained confidence in spelling

longer words. He received all of the points for these features and has learned all of the blends

from the Primary Spelling Inventory. Brandon’s weaknesses are shown through the common

long vowels, other vowels, and inflected endings. He needs to work on the features /ai/, /igh/, /ir/,

-ies, -pping, and -ding. Although, he learned 11 features that he spelled incorrectly on the first

assessment. On the first assessment, he spelled third as thirde and on the second assessment, he

spelled it as thered. The reason for this is uncertain, perhaps he guessed the feature /ir/ on the

first assessment and didn’t know it well enough to remember for the second. The student may

have forgotten to place the /i/ in fright to get the spelling of frght, although it is improved from

his attempt on the first assessment which was frite. His attempts of spelling clapping as claping

and tries as treis showed improvement from the first assessment. The spelling for the word

riding as rideing was the same on each assessment. This is the same case for the word wait

which was written as wate on both assessments. On the second assessment, it was evident that

the student erased and rewrote the word, perhaps he knew that it was incorrect but couldn’t think

of the feature that is used in the word. Inflected endings still show to be the most difficult for this

student to grasp.

The data shows that the child is now in the early syllables and affixes stage of spelling

development. The students in this stage know blends, digraphs, short vowels, and vowel patterns
WORDS THEIR WAY SPELLING ASSESSMENT 12

in one-syllable words (Bear et al., 2016). This is correct for this student because he was able to

identify blends, digraphs, and short vowels. Although, the vowel patterns that he spelled

incorrectly in one-syllable words were wait, fright, and third. Students in this stage use but

confuse ambiguous vowels, consonant doubling, and the e-drop (Bear et al., 2016). The student

learned most of the other vowel features but seemed to be confused with /ir/. He gets confused

with consonant doubling as well as the e-drop. Students in this stage will have a few things that

are completely missing and some deletion of reduced syllables (Bear et al., 2016). This is true for

this student because he missed the /ai/, /igh/, and /ir/ sounds in the assessment. Although, it does

not seem that deletion of reduced syllables is evident. This information shows that the student

could benefit from practicing the features that he missed such as the /ai/, /igh/, /ir/, -ies, -pping,

and -ding. He would also benefit from features in the Elementary Spelling Inventory. If he were

assessed again, he would move on to things such as syllable junctures with open and closed

syllable patterns. The student may need to work on the inflected ending feature -ies from the late

within word pattern stage.

Translations to Instruction

Brandon was given many interventions and materials to help him further his spelling

development. These activities helped him by exposing the student to features that he uses but

confuses as well as features that he needs to learn. A game that is of immediate benefit to this

child was the Roll a Word Phonics Dry Erase Activity (Evans, n.d.) which was revised to include

inflected endings. This dry erase game is great for students learning to spell. The teacher

provides the word dice and the dry erase sheet to write on with a dry erase marker. The child

rolls the dice to add an inflected ending to the base word. Next, the child has to decide if this is a

real word or not as well as if it is spelled correctly. This activity would be great to use for
WORDS THEIR WAY SPELLING ASSESSMENT 13

practice of inflected endings. For example, one of the word dice will contain base words and the

other will contain inflected endings. The students would roll the dice, write down the word, and

decide if it is spelled correctly with the inflected ending. If it isn’t spelled correctly, they will

write the correct spelling. This game was selected because the child needs more help with

inflected endings. It would benefit Brandon by showing him how the inflected endings are used.

For example, if the base word is try the child will have to roll the dice to find inflected endings

that would work for this word. The ending -ies would be on the dice. If the child gets an ending

that doesn’t go with the word, they will write it down and check the box that says it isn’t a real

word. This activity was used a couple times, but it is evident that he needs more practice.

Although, his spelling of the word tries improved from chrise to treis.

The book My Three Best Friends and Me, Zulay (Best, 2015) was of immediate benefit to

this student. After reading the book, the student went back through to find words with common

long vowels and other vowels. The genre of this trade book is a realistic fiction picture book. It is

about a young girl who is blind. The setting is based in a school, where Zulay finds ways to

overcome her disability. Although the student has a good grasp on short vowels, he needs

practice spelling words with long vowels. An example of a common long vowel is shown in this

sentence, “…Ms. Seeger, who leads us to our door” (p. 6). The word leads shows an example of

the common long vowel feature /ea/. Another example of a common long vowel feature is shown

in the sentence, “I feel with my knees for where the chair fits…” (p. 8). The word chair is an

example of one of the common long vowel feature /ai/. Throughout the book, there are many

words with features of common long vowels which is why it was selected. This item could

support the student with what is used but confused. By searching for words with these features

could benefit the student by writing down words with the features and being exposed to them. It
WORDS THEIR WAY SPELLING ASSESSMENT 14

helped Brandon learn the /ea/ feature for the second spelling assessment by spelling dream

correctly since he spelled it as dreme on the first assessment.

A technology-based activity that benefitted the student’s spelling was the app called Spell

Friendzy: K-8 Grade Vocabulary Builder (WS Publishing Group, Inc., 2017). This application is

a great tool for young children who need a resource to improve their spelling development. It

allows students to compete in spelling competitions as a single-player or in multi-player mode.

Videos and lessons are available in the app for at home use, as well as, flashcards and other

materials. Students practice words at their level and compete with others around the world. The

student is given a sentence with a blank word. Multiple choice answers are provided for the child

to pick the word or correct spelling of a word that fits in the given sentence. It is great for long

and short vowels. This app is great for independent practice for features that the student uses but

confuses. For example, a sentence that is provided in the single player mode is “the car seats

were _____.” The possible answers are heated, heeted, heatad, and heteed. If the student picks

the correct word that is heated, he shows that he understands the common long vowel feature /ea/

as well as the inflected endings -ed. The student gets to move up levels as they progress. This

app was selected because it will benefit the student by exposing them to features and

immediately seeing if they were correct or not. The student also gets to see the correct answers

immediately after an answer is chosen.

Conclusion

The student improved in their spelling development from starting at the early within word

stage and progressing to the early syllables and affixes stage. This shows that the interventions

improved the child’s spelling development by exposing him to activities, games, and books that

contained features that he used but confused as well as features that he needed to learn next.
WORDS THEIR WAY SPELLING ASSESSMENT 15

Although there are a couple word features that the student still doesn’t have a grasp on, further

interventions would help this child. Inventions included word sorts, games, books, and

technology-based engagement. The features that the student learned through the interventions

were blends, common long vowels, other vowels, and inflected endings. The blends that the child

learned were /cr/ and /tr/. The common long vowel that is now known is /ea/, although he needs

more practice with /ai/ and /igh/. The other vowels that the child learned are /ew/, /aw/, /or/, /oi/,

and /ow/, although he needs more practice for the vowel /ir/. The inflected endings that the child

learned were -ed and -es. He showed improvement in learning -ies, -pping, and -ding, but needs

further invention for these features. He learned 11 features that he struggled with before the

interventions. Overall, the student showed great progress through the interventions and would

continue to have grown through more inventions involving these features.

WORDS THEIR WAY SPELLING ASSESSMENT 16

References

Bear, D. R., Invernizzi, M., Templeton, S., & Johnston, F. (2016). Words their way: Word study

for phonics, vocabulary, and spelling instruction (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ:

Pearson.

Best, C. (2015). My three best friends and me, Zulay. New York, NY: Farrar Straus Giroux

Books for Young Readers.

Evans, S. (n. d.). Roll a word phonics dry erase activity. (n. p.): Cafemom Family and Parenting

Publisher. Retrieved on March 20, 2018 from https://www.fantasticfunandlearning.com/

roll-word-phonics-dry-erase-activity.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=pinterest

&utm_campaign=tailwind_tribes&utm_content=tribes

WS Publishing Group, Inc. (2017). Spell friendzy: K-8 grade vocabulary builder (Version 2.0)

[Mobile application software]. Retrieved on March 20, 2018 from http://itunes.apple.com

WORDS THEIR WAY SPELLING ASSESSMENT 17

Appendix A

First Assessment Feature Guide

WORDS THEIR WAY SPELLING ASSESSMENT 18

Appendix B

First Assessment Test

WORDS THEIR WAY SPELLING ASSESSMENT 19

Appendix C

Second Assessment Feature Guide

WORDS THEIR WAY SPELLING ASSESSMENT 20

Appendix D

Second Assessment Test