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Assessment-Based Instructional Plan

Assessment-Based Instructional Plan

Mary Enwemaya
CILR 621
RPDP Fall 2018
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Assessment-Based Instructional Plan

Introduction

Trevor O., is the student I have been assessing. He is a seven years old boy that attends

Doral Academy Fire Mesa charter school and is my current second grade student. Trevor in all

appearances is a normal functioning child with no known health concerns. He has an older

brother in fourth grade and a younger sister in Kindergarten. He attends school regularly with 4

absences as of November 30th, 2018, 1 due to health and the other due to family vacation. As a

student and an individual, Trevor is kind and hard-working in all that he endeavors. He aims to

be successful and is always enthusiastic to learn and gain feedback on how he can improve on

both his areas of glows (strengths) and growths (weaknesses). I’ve really enjoyed seeing

dedication and the fruit of his dedication as his teacher overall. However, I look forward to

tapping into his full potential during our one-on-one tutoring sessions.

Assessment Data Results and Evaluations

I began my assessment journey with a former student of mine who is currently in 3rd

grade, however due to a family emergency, I had to amend my plan and decided on working with

Trevor. I choose Trevor due to his MAP data (scoring at the 28th percentile, which was below the

required benchmark of 41st percentile) and his DIBELS ORF and nonsense words results fell

below the beginning of the year benchmark as well.

When I provided Trevor with the Primary Reading Survey it was during my after school

math club. In looking at his attitude towards reading, Trevor genuinely enjoys reading

recreationally and academically. His perception of how his family and myself think about him
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Assessment-Based Instructional Plan
reading aloud is a happy one because we provide feedback on how well he is doing and help him

out when he struggles with “bigger” words. However, I was taken aback by the fact that he feels

unsure about when he reads aloud. This opportunity allowed me to see his own perception of

himself as someone who isn’t confident in his reading abilities but made me aware that he was

not shy about putting himself out there to read. Even though he doesn’t like reading aloud at

home or in school, he is willing to do so without being called upon. With that knowledge, I know

that I need to build up his self-perception as confident reader by giving him any and all

opportunities in class and communicating my strategies with his parents to do the same. I

discovered that he feels uncertain when we have reading time in class, so I probed further. In our

discussion, he doesn’t like when we have reading time because he is pulled out for 30 minutes

Reading intervention since he fell below the 41st percentile on his MAP reading. He does not like

the idea of missing various classroom activities during that block1. I reiterated the necessity as to

why he is in the intervention group and he accepted the rationale. However, I informed him that

if he continues with his classroom successes, his next MAP reading test will show all his hard

work and can be exited. As of November 28th, he fell in the 65th percentile, beating the Read by

Grade 3 law of 41st percentile and passing the 2nd grade NWEA MAP Reading Winter RIT 184.2

in which he scored a RIT of 185. In the Fall, he was at a RIT of 164. Trevor surpassed his

expected calculated growth, 7 points by growing 21 points.

Phonological Awareness Test, showed that Trevor had a distinguished understanding of

the linguistic units of reading from “word, syllable, phoneme: rhyming, and phoneme: matching”

level. Trevor did not struggle with any component during the assessment and was very at ease

during the session. During the Letter Identification test, Trevor was distinguished in identifying

1 Due to our conversation, I reorganized my reading instructional block so that he did miss the various activities
(phonics routine, dictation sentence practice, vocabulary tableau, videos that introduce comprehension skills, etc).
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Assessment-Based Instructional Plan
upper and lowercase letters and sounds. For example, we use the letter c to represent the /k/ sound

(already represented by the grapheme ‘k’) and the /s/ sound (already represented by the grapheme ‘s’).

The same occurred with “q” having the sound /k//w/ as in queen and /k/ as in bouquet, marquis, cheque.

After the Letter Identification assessment, I debated as to whether he should be penalized for not

knowing soft “c” and “g” sounds but thought otherwise as I would have to then penalize him for

not knowing the “x”. Ultimately, these two assessments allowed me to see that Trevor has a

competent grasp of alphabetic principle component of reading. Due to his successes in this

critical area, I can focus more on tailoring my instructional plan on the other two critical areas:

fluency and comprehension.

The Early Name Test shows that Trevor is proficient in initial consonant words, however,

he reversed the initial “g” and “j” sounds, which I have noticed is very common with students his

age since “g” does have two sounds. He was distinguished in both ending consonants and

consonant blends. The only consonant digraph Trevor missed was -ck in “rack”. His area of

difficulty manifested itself when he missed two short vowel names and replaced them with long

vowel sounding names “Brad→Braid” and “Rack→Rake”. As it relates vowel digraphs, he

missed one “Gail” and rime, he missed two, “Gail” and “rack”. As mentioned earlier, Trevor’s

struggle areas are very minimal in the alphabetic principles of reading. Though he will benefit

from targeted instruction, the focus of his instructional plan will be placed elsewhere.

In Second grade, as a grade level, we administer DIBELs fluency benchmark tests, three

times a year and use it as a progress monitoring2 tool for students who fall below the benchmark

goal. The BOY DIBELS fluency benchmark is 52wpm and Trevor was at 29wmp. During the

administration, Trevor would mumble his words. When encountering unknown words, he would

2 Through his weekly progress monitoring, Trevor has consistently increased his fluency word count to
59wpm.
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Assessment-Based Instructional Plan
pause until the word was given to him or he was urged to move on. He did not read with prosody

and was often fidgety but from our post-fluency conversations it was because he was

uncomfortable reading aloud and I was a “new” teacher. As I have observed Trevor in class and

one on one, he has gotten comfortable with me and confident with himself as reader and a

readability skill. Reading fluency is the bridge between reading words and comprehending those

words being read. Trevor’s score on the DIBELS assessment (29wpm) falls well within the “at

risk” category. Caldwell and Leslie argue, “Reading speed is rather an indicator of two things:

that the reader is able to recognize words automatically and that he or she can process meaning at

an acceptable rate.” Trevor is not a fluent reader and therefore struggles to assign meaning to

what he is reading. Within his reading plan, he must have a fluency component to build the

bridge between the words he reads and their meaning.

Trevor was given the Word Recognition Inventory 21(C). On the list he had difficulty with

the word “delicious” but self-corrected, with a score of 25/25. I kept him on this word list

because when I moved him to word list 22(D), he scored 21/25 as he struggled to sound out

multisyllabic words such as “ambulance, patient, enemy trouble”. His informal reading inventory

for both his silent and oral reading passages began at 21(C). At this oral reading level, his word

accuracy and comprehension both fell at the independent level, without difficulty in literal and

inferential questions. There weren’t any noticeable miscues. His silent reading 21(C) he also fell

into the independent comprehension level. However, a move to 22(D) oral reading text, his

accuracy was on the instructional level and comprehension on the independent level. Miscues

were evident in the oral reading with Trevor replacing “a”→”the” and” “he”→ “and”. His silent

reading text of 22(D) placed him at an instructional level. He struggled with one word meaning

and one inferential question.

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Assessment-Based Instructional Plan
When given the Qualitative Spelling Inventory (QSI), Trevor showed strengths in both

initial and final consonants, short vowels, digraphs and blends. Though he struggled in common

long vowels (4/7), his main struggle areas were “other vowels and inflected endings”. He scored

in the middle stage of the “within word pattern”. On his informal writing sample, he has a main

idea with details present, but they are not developed. There is no variation in his sentences, as

such, they all start the same, however, he does convey his feelings.

Instructional Plan/Goal Setting

In reviewing the assessments given, Trevor has gaps that need to be addressed to ensure

his successful journey as a reader, as such Goal 1: His QSI placed him in the “within word

pattern” middle stage of spelling. He will work on common long vowel sounds in words as well

as inflected endings. Goal 2: Trevor needs to increase his overall fluency based on the DIBELS

benchmark for second grade. His Fall 2018 fluency was 29wpm compared to the expected

benchmark of 52wpm. With progress monitoring, his fluency has increased to 54wpm, however,

he is not reading at second grade level and needs to make the Winter DIBELS benchmark of

76wpm to be at the same level as his peers. “Students who can read text passages aloud

accurately and fluently at an appropriate pace are more likely to understand what they are

reading both silently and orally” (Opitz & Erekson, 2015, p. 272). Lastly, Goal 3: Based on his

recent NWEA MAP reading assessment, Trevor needs to work on is vocabulary acquisition.

Though he met the second-grade benchmark for the Winter, his area of growth and target will be

focused on vocabulary to enhance his comprehension. “As children advance in concept and

development, their vocabulary development advances because the two are interrelated” (Opitz &
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Assessment-Based Instructional Plan
Erekson, 2015, p. 213) as such, “vocabulary is a key variable in reading comprehension and is a

major feature of most tests of academic aptitude” (Opitz & Erekson, 2015, p. 213). This will be

done through various activities such as vocabulary in context, vocabulary tableaus, use of

dictionary and thesaurus, etc.

Tutoring will be held two days a week for one-hour sessions each. These sessions will

include (1) word study that includes word work, pattern sorts, word meaning, and writing sorts

with initial focus on common long vowel patterns, (2) fluency activities using reading

instructional level material that includes reading aloud by me, Trevor, or other

auditory/technology assisted devices and (3) comprehension that includes guided reading, oral

and silent reading of books for Trevor’s age and interest, vocabulary instruction, and application

of comprehension strategies/skills to either narrative or expository text. Trevor will be able to

convey his reflections and summaries both orally and written.

Conclusion

As needed, Trevor will be re-assessed to monitor his progress. The goal of the

assessments is to celebrate growth and address areas if instruction that may need to be adjusted.

With this intervention plan, I hope to interpret Trevor’s reading assessments, address his reading

needs and with structured and directed instruction, move his reading level where it is supposed to

be at given times of the year. He dedication is evident with the interventions that are already in
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Assessment-Based Instructional Plan
place and I am sure that targeted after school intervention will promote his success in reading as

it has done in math.

References

Northwest Evaluation Association (201). 2015 NWEA Measures of Academic Progress

Normative Data. Retrieved December 1, 2018, from NWEA:
https://www.nwea.org/content/uploads/2015/06/2015-MAP-Normative-Data-AUG15.pdf

Opitz, M.F., & Erekson, J.A. (2015). Understanding, assess, and teaching reading: a diagnostic

approach. Boston: Pearson.

Oregon, U. o. (2010). DIBELS Benchmark Goals. Retrieved December 1, 2018, from DIBELS
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Assessment-Based Instructional Plan
Data System: https://dibels.uoregon.edu/

Schudt Caldwell, J., & Leslie, L. (2009). Intervention Strategies to Follow Informal Reading
Inventory Assessment. Boston: Pearson Education, Inc.