Running head: ASSESSMENT ASSIGNMENT 1

Read 620 Word Study: Assessment Assignment

Brittany Strimple

Longwood University
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Class Overview

I teach at Mechanicsville Elementary which is a Title 1 school located in a community

approximately ten miles north of the city of Richmond, Virginia. My kindergarten class consists

of 21 students, which includes 11 students on free/reduced lunch, 5 ESL students and 7 students

who did not attend a formal pre-school program. One of the students that attended pre-school

was in the Hanover Preschool Initiative program in Hanover County and has an IEP. Six students

receive speech and language services. I also have a group of four students who work with a Title

1 Reading specialist for 30 minutes every day and with a Math Specialist twice a week for extra

interventions. Two of my students are reading on a second-grade level and work with the GT

teacher once a week for 30 minutes.

Because of the wide range of abilities, I have four different reading groups. My groups

range from four students in the Late Emergent Stage who are working with initial and final

consonants, six students in the Early/Mid Letter-Name stage working on short vowels, five

students in Mid/Late Letter-Name Stage working on diagraphs, five students Late Letter-

Name/Early Within Word Patterns working on blends, and one outlier in Late Within Word

Patterns working on other vowels.

Emergent Group

My first group includes four students working on initial and final consonants in the Late

Emergent Stage. These students were given the Kindergarten Spelling Inventory and scored

under ten points. Wesley writes random strings of letters and is therefore in the middle emergent

stage. Mariah scored one correct beginning consonant, two middle vowels, and four ending

consonants. She is using but confusing all phonemes and is in the Late Emergent Stage. Emily

scored 4 beginning, 1 middle, and 4 ending phonemes. She is using but confusing each category
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of phonemes and is also in the Late Emergent Stage. Arabella scored 4 beginning, 0 middle, and

5 ending phonemes. She is using but confusing initial consonants, mastered ending consonants,

and vowels are absent. She is in the Late Emergent Stage. Emily and Arabella will soon begin

working with short vowels and entering the Early letter-Name Stage.

The initial activity I would use to start instruction would be an alphabet concentration.

Because Wesley struggles and Emily is ESL, I would make the concentration game matching

pictures to the beginning letter. After reviewing their spelling samples I would use some letters

they need practice with including g, n, k as well as some letters they all did well on including d,

m, t. The sort can be found in Appendix B.

I anticipate this group needing continued interventions in order to reach Middle Letter

Name-Alphabetic Stage by the end of the year. I expect Arabella and Emily to progress with

their vowels and be working on diagraphs at the end of the year, putting them at the Middle

Letter Name-Alphabetic Stage. Pacing for them would be average since they are very close to

being Early Letter Name-Alphabetic. I am still concerned about Mariah and Wesley. They will

continue to work on initial consonant sorts and identifying letters and sounds.

Instruction for these students will need to include pictures for support, and letter/sound

interactions in a variety of formats (magnetic letters, sorts, repetitive texts, alliteration practices

etc). One specific strategy I would use for these struggling readers and writers would be

predictable sentences where they would read the same words repeatedly and would write the

initial or final sound in words repeatedly. Pacing should be slowed for them, so they can have a

firm grasp on letter-sound correspondence in initial and final consonants. I anticipate Mariah

reaching Early Letter name-Alphabetic Stage since she has shown improvements in ending

phonemes. I anticipate Wesley to continue to be in Late Emergent stage based on his slowed
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growth throughout the beginning of the year. This group is currently working in the Emergent

spelling stage and Early to Emergent reading stage (levels A & B).

Early/Middle Letter Name-Alphabetic Group

My second group consists of two students in the Early Letter Name-Alphabetic stage

(Younis and Joey) and four students in the Middle Letter Name-Alphabetic Stage (Aly, Sewenyi,

Anieliz, and Grayson). This group will be working on short vowels while reviewing initial and

final consonants.

Younis’ scores showed that he has mastered initial consonants, is using but confusing

finial consonants and short vowels, and diagraphs are absent. This puts him in the Early Letter-

Name Stage. I decided to have him working in the group on short vowels even though he scored

5/7 on final consonants. After reviewing the 2 words he missed the final consonants on, I found

he substituted p for b and d for t. These are common phoneme substitutions in kindergarten. I

then looked at his Kindergarten Spelling Inventory and found he wrote all the final consonants

correctly on those words. I decided working on short vowels would be most beneficial for him,

especially because he is ESL and they often need more work on the vowel sounds.

Joey’s scores reflected that he is using but confusing initial & final consonants and short

vowels, and diagraphs are absent. I placed him in the Early Letter Name-Alphabetic stage. I

reviewed his Kindergarten Spelling Inventory and found he scored on all his initial consonants.

On his Primary Spelling Inventory, he substituted t for d, w for r, and c for g. Just as in Younis’

case, these are common substitutions. He did spell 3/7 short vowels correctly, which shows me

he is ready to continue to work on those vowels. Younis and Joey will continue to work on final

consonants while working with short vowel words, especially using word families. I anticipate

them to both be at the expected middle letter name-alphabetic stage by the end of the year.
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Anieliz, Grayson, Sewenyi, and Aly have all mastered initial and final consonants and are

using but confusing short vowels and diagraphs (Grayson’s diagraphs are absent). Overall, the

group’s blends and/or long vowels are absent. This places them all in the Middle Letter Name-

Alphabetic Stage.

After reviewing the spelling inventories, I found that five out of the six students missed

the word fan and that most missed the short i in stick and/or dig. Knowing these were the areas

they were having difficulty in, I decided to start them with a short a, i, u sort that includes -an, -

in, -un words. The sort can be found in Appendix C. I chose to include pictures in the sort

because Younis, Sewenyi, and Anieliz are all ESL students and would benefit from seeing the

pictures in addition to hearing/seeing the words. I believe the pacing for this instruction will be

average. I do not see a rush to get to diagraphs, since half of them are using and confusing them

already and we still have the whole second half of the school year to go. This group will be

Early/Middle Letter Name Spellers and therefore I would anticipate them to be reading in the

Early/Middle Beginning Stages (Level C-E texts).

Middle/Late Letter Name-Alphabetic Group

I have one student in Middle Letter Name Stage (Ka’mya), two students in Middle/Late

Letter Name (Jayne and Micah), and two students in Late Letter Name (Jacob and Max) that

would benefit from practice with diagraphs. Jacob has mastered initial and final consonants, is

using but confusing diagraphs, blends and common long vowels, and inflected endings are

absent. He is in the Late Letter Name-Alphabet Stage. He missed two different diagraphs in his

spellings -sh and -th and would therefore benefit from a diagraph review.

Jayne knows initial and final consonants, short vowels, and diagraphs. She knew one

blend and all common long vowels were absent. She is in the Middle/Late Letter Name-
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Alphabetic Stage. Although she could begin working on blends, I choose to place her in this

group to strengthen her short vowels and diagraphs as she scored 6/7 on both. She only knew one

blend and therefore might become frustrated in that group. I think exposing her to a couple

blends while working on diagraphs may best suit her needs.

Micah knows his initial and final consonants, short vowels, and diagraphs. His blends are

absent and he correctly spelled one long vowel, other vowel and inflicted ending. He is

Middle/Late Letter Name Stage. I did not want to place him in the blends group since he scored a

0 in that area. I believe he can be exposed to some blends while working on his short vowels and

diagraphs, just like Jayne.

Ka’mya knows her initial and final consonants and short vowels but only used one

diagraph correctly. Blends were absent. She is in the Middle Letter Name Stage. Even though

she only spelled one diagraph correctly, she has been working with diagraph blends in small

groups. I think continued practice will help her carry over her diagraph knowledge to her

spelling.

Max’s scores reflect that he is using but confusing initial consonants, knows final

consonants, short vowels, diagraphs, and blends are absent. He is in the late Letter Name-

Alphabetic Stage. Max has been receiving speech interventions since he was 3-years-old. He is

often very difficult to understand when speaking. His speech often effects his spelling and I

believe this is the case with his initial vowel substitutions. He substituted r for w and j for g.

Because his blends were absent, I would continue to introduce them while working on diagraphs.

Students in this group missed a range of diagraphs. I therefore wanted them to sort

multiple diagraphs instead of focusing on one specific diagraph. Jayne and Micah could also use

some short vowel work as well. I therefore chose a Short Vowel with Diagraphs Sort to begin
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instruction. The sort uses vowels a, i, e and diagraphs sh, ch, th. It can be found in Appendix D.

My plan for instruction would be to address diagraphs at a quick pace and then introduce blends.

I anticipate this group working in Middle/Late Letter Name-Alphabetic Stage and Middle

Beginning Reading Stage (reading level D, E texts).

Late Letter Name-Alphabetic/Early Within Word Pattern Group

My last group consists of one Middle/Late Letter Name student (Baleigh), three Late

Letter Name students (Charlotte, Anthony, Aaron), and one Early Within Word Pattern student

(Brynn). All but one of these students know diagraphs, are using but confusing blends, and most

common long vowels are absent.

One student, Aaron, knows diagraphs but blends are absent. I believe he would fit best in

this group because he correctly spelled all his features from initial consonants to diagraphs. If I

kept him in those groups, he would not be challenged and become disengaged. Baileigh uses

initial/final consonants and diagraphs and uses but confuses short vowels and blends. I placed

her in the Middle/Late Letter Name-Alphabetic stage. Her spelling inventory showed she missed

both short i vowels. I decided to place her with this group because she can still work on short i

vowels while learning blends. She is reading on the same level as other students in this group and

I believe she would become disengaged if in a group working solely on short vowels.

Charlotte and Anthony both know digraphs and are beginning to use blends. I anticipate

them needing to work on blends more and possibly beginning to work on common long vowels

by the end of the year. Brynn already knows many blends and scored 5/7. She has also started

using common long vowels and scored 3/7. I anticipate her working on blends for a short period

then moving on to common long vowels and other vowels.

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Because everyone missed the blends dr and tr and Baliegh needs work with short i

words, I decided students would begin working on a Two-Step Sort with Blends and Short

Vowels. The sort would consist of initial consonants r, t, and d as well as the blends tr and dr.

The sort can be found in Appendix E. The pace would be average since they are already working

in the area they are expected to be at by the end of the year. This group is in the Late Letter

Name Spelling Stage and I would anticipate them being in the Late Beginning Reading Stage

(reading level F and G texts).

Bahar is an outlier in the Late Within Word stage. She knows all features up to common

long vowels and uses but confuses other vowels and inflected endings. I have placed her in this

group because they are the highest level in the class. She did miss one common long vowel oa. I

therefore would have her working on a long o pattern. The sort would consist of o-e, -oa, and -

ow words. I selected this sort because she already knows o-e and -ow. This would allow her to

focus on the -oa feature. The sort can be found in Appendix F. I anticipate Bahar to be reading in

the Late Transitional Reading Stage and be in Level L and M texts.

This group of learners is more advanced than others in the class. It is important to

challenge them more by having them discover multiple ways of sorting their words, giving them

more words/categories to work with, and having extended independent activities for them to

engage with. Some activities include word hunts within texts, brainstorming additional words

that fit the pattern, and set homework routines.

Conclusion

Through administering, scoring, and analyzing the class spelling inventories, I was able

to create instructional groups and design specific activities to begin instruction based on features

that students are using but confusing. This activity has helped me become a better instructor by
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deepening my understanding of purposeful assessments and has strengthened my differentiation

and scaffolding skills.

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References

Bear, D., Invernizzi, M., Templeton, S., & Johnston, F. (2015). Words their way: Word study for

phonics, spelling and vocabulary instruction (6th Ed.), Boston, MA: Prentice

Hall/Pearson. ISBN: 978-0133996333

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Appendix A
Classroom Composite
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Appendix B

Beginning Consonant Concentration Game

g n k

d m t
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Appendix C

Short a, i, u sort

-an -in -un

Man
fin bun

pin
run
fan

win
can Nun
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Appendix D

Short Vowels with Diagraphs

that ship check

chat chill shed

shack this shell

chap chip then

than thin them

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Appendix E

Two-Step Sort with Blends and Short Vowels

r t d tr dr

rack tack dug trick drum

rag tag dip track drill

rash tap duck trap drag

rip tick dog trip drip

Headers are for instructor to identify the sort.

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Appendix F

Long -o Patterns

o-e oa ow ow

rope road blow now

woke boat grow cow

close soap know

stone soak slow

phone couch throw

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Appendix G

Charlotte’s Spelling List Front

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Charlotte’s Spelling List Back

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Appendix H

Charlotte’s Spelling Inventory