Amanda Hetzel

EDUC 6410
Assessment and Evaluation Case Study

Date of report: 9/31/2021 Student name: James*

Report author: Amanda Hetzel Age: 7

School: Walker Arts Magnet Elementary* Teacher: Ms. Apple*

Time period of assessments: 8/29-present Grade: 2 nd

*Pseudonym used for school, teacher, and student names

Part 1: Background Information
The School and Classroom Context
My case study student attends Walker Elementary Arts Magnet School, a pre-k-5 th grade public
school in East Nashville. The school building is a historical landmark here in Nashville. The principal
describes Walker as, “At Walker Arts Magnet Elementary, we see ourselves as a family. We focus on
respecting others, being responsible for ourselves, and creating excitement for learning by infusing the
arts that will last a lifetime. Our teachers and staff have a passion for their students and are leading
students to succeed academically, socially, and emotionally. We believe that our unity, dedication, and
strong academics will prepare every student for middle school and beyond.” In 2021, the school was
given a Blue Ribbon Beacon School for its excellence.
Demographics of the school are not included on the school website, although a survey
conducted by Peabody Vanderbilt states the following information which as estimations, is the year of
this study I was unable to find. There are approximately 228 students that attend Walker. This includes
students in the approximate percentages: 48.7% females and 51.3% males, 0.9% Asian, 84.6% African
American, 2.6% Hispanic, 0.0% American Indian, and 11.4% White. The demographics that I found also
include: 97.4% of the students receive free reduced lunch, 2.2% of the students have ELL program
eligibility, and 11.4% of the students are in special education. Since the school is an Arts Magnet School,
it allows students the opportunities to have art pathways in visual art & design, strings (violin & viola),
physical education, dance, and general music.
Within the classroom that I am working in all 10 of the students are identified as
African-American, 3 girls and 7 boys. Out of the 10 students, three are special education students,
although due to the unwavering times they have never come to class. All of the students are from low
socioeconomic families and according to the teacher, Ms. Apple one student is homeless and bounces
around from family and friends whenever space is available.

Overview of Literacy Program at school and in the classroom

As of this year, all of Metro Nashville Public School (MNPS) have adopted the Wit and Wisdom
curriculum. During the summer all of the teachers went through a week-long training on this new
literacy curriculum. From hearing from my literacy coach, as well as from Ms. Apple, it has been an
interesting transition to this for the teachers. Although they are all trying their best with it. The program
takes about three years to fully be able to teach confidently. Wit and Wisdom is done during the ELA
block of time, which is usually 90 minutes. During this ELA time, 60 minutes is spent on Wit and
Wisdom, 15 minutes is spent on a deep dive into the lesson, and 25 minutes is spent on Foundational
Skills. During these 25 minutes, grades K-2 use a phonics-based program called Tennessee Foundations
of Literacy. This program works to build the stepping stone of reading and literacy that are essential to
ELA learning. Throughout the district for all grades, Personal Learning Time (PLT) is required for 45
minutes per day. During this time students are working independently on their computers on iReady

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(math-based) or Lexia® Core5® (literacy and reading based). Students are required to meet a certain
amount of minutes on these in order to be complete for the week. For Lexia® Core5® students are
required to complete an hour of work time. Much of the school day within the classroom is
literacy-focused. As Ms. Apple had stated to me that even during math time there is a lot of writing that
is included in the lessons.

The Classroom Space

Ms. Apple has created a warm and inviting classroom environment for all learners. As she has
stated to me, her idea for the classroom is to focus on learning, in a relaxed and stress-free
environment. This allows for learning to flow easily and students to build relationships with each other
and themselves as well. Students have their own individual desks that all face towards the front of the
room. As seen in Figure 1.0, the front of the classroom is where learning takes place. There is a schedule
that is updated daily, the classroom rules and calendar, along with a whiteboard, and a space for anchor
charts. On top of that, there is also an alphabet strip for students to refer to. In front of the board, there
is a carpet for students to come and meet for learning as well. On one side of the classroom, there is a
wall of windows and the other side has their lockers and Ms. Apple’s desk. In the back of the room,
there is a kidney table meant for small group work. There are also many shelves that are designated for
the classroom library that is full of books. The students do also visit the library weekly during their
specials time to have a chance to check out a book and bring it home to enjoy. There is also a laptop
cart that the students use daily. Something that is not illustrated in Figure 1.0 is a rolling TV or monitor. I
have not seen this in use while I have been there, but I would assume that it is used during instructional
time. James’ desk is in the third row right next to Ms. Apple’s desk. Although as of today, his desk was
moved to the front of the room in the middle of me working with him due to issues within the
classroom due to other students. During literacy instruction students work both at their desks and on
the carpet. As seen in Figure 2.0 I’ve also had my student draw up a picture of what they thought the
classroom looked like to him. He even put in extra details about how every student is given a number in
the class in accordance with their locker number.

Tutoring/Assessment Space
My time with James is spent in the back of the classroom Tuesday-Thursday from 8:20-9:05. We
sit at their small group kidney table. During this time all of the students are working on their own
computers with headphones so there are minimal distractions when working in the classroom. We work
on assessments, read books, catch up on Lexia® assignments, and write. Depending on James’ mood it
determines how well he will cooperate with us working. Most of the time if I have engaging activities
planned that are not that challenging he will cooperate. Once I present a task that is extremely
challenging he begins to shut down and become disengaged in the lesson.

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The child
James is a second-grade student at Walker Elementary. He is one of the seven boys in the class.
When I first met James, he was somewhat shy. Although after the first day his shyness was gone. He
seemed to enjoy getting to work separately from the rest of the class and doing some “special work”. As
a reader, he has shared that he does not like to read whatsoever. He expressed to me that reading was
difficult and that he would rather spend his time doing something else. Although when asking him about
different subjects that could be explored through literature, he seemed to have a few interests. From
here I took what I noticed and applied that to what we would be working on in weeks to come.
Prior to entering the classroom and beginning to work with James, I had spoken with the
teacher about him. She had stated to me, “I do not know much about James' educational history. He has
attended Walker since at least Kindergarten (I do not know about Pre-K). I think he was virtual and in
the classroom last year for first grade. So far, in Second Grade, James is pretty low in Math and Reading.
He needs lots of assistance because he does not know how to do either one. He still doesn't know how
to correctly write all letters and numbers. He also just writes down random numbers, letters, or lines
for answers for both subjects. He is able to copy information off the board and write it into his
notebook, but he doesn't know what it says. He does have a desire to learn and focuses on our work
very well. He has excellent behavior, even though occasionally he gives you a little attitude. He enjoys
school. He is friendly and gets along well with most of the students. He does need speech classes
because he skips letters/sounds when speaking and doesn't say some letters correctly (especially y, r, and
s).”
Through working with James and assessing him on his knowledge I have noticed many of the
things that Ms. Apple had told me. Although I have found that when working one on one with him, his
speech can be an issue sometimes and other times it is not. I have asked if he has been assessed for
services yet and he has not. I have helped his teacher in filling out secondary paperwork in order to get
an S Team started for him back in November, although I have not heard anything about this since. One of
my biggest takeaways is that he does not read what is on the page and even when pointing to a CVC
word, he makes something up. Therefore, I knew that we would have to start back at the basics of
letters and work from there.
Since James was in kindergarten when COVID-19 impacted the world, he seems to fall into the
learning gap that is affecting many students. Although there is hope that this gap can be closed, it will just
take extra hard work on both the teacher’s and students’ ends.

Initial goals and questions

One initial question that I had going into tutoring was where James’ literacy level would be.
Although through some assessments conducted early on, I have been able to get a grasp of this. I have
also seemed to learn a lot from James working on his Lexia® while I am present about his current
literacy level. He seems to be working a lot on the alphabet and its sounds. From here on Lexia®, James

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seems to be working on his initial consonant sounds and onsets, and rimes. Moving on from this my
biggest question would be where to move on to next. I can see that there is a lot of room for growth,
although I am questioning the proper steps of learning foundational skills that would build up towards
James’ ability to read and write. As stated previously, Ms. Apple has highlighted that it is hard to
understand James many times. This is one thing that she has asked me to work on with him. Although I
am not a speech teacher, I have noticed this through initial assessments, and work on which letter
sounds are hard to pronounce/remember (B, D, G, J, K, N, Q, U,V, X,Y, Z). I plan on working hard on
these letters along with the rest of the alphabet so that they are clear and that they will be memorized. I
can see this as being a stopping point for now, but hopefully, we will be able to strive past this.
This year I have many aspirations to grow James as a literacy student. Every week I try my best
to plan meaningful lessons that will help him to increase his knowledge. I like to keep in mind his
interests, as well as try to make activities engaging. This allows James to not be overwhelmed and
discouraged. I will continue to plan extra work for each week that relates to what we are learning about
so that he will have a choice in what we get to do each tutoring session. I hope that by the end of the
semester I can have James reading confidently out loud and to himself. I also plan on building an even
stronger bond with James throughout the year.

Part 2
Assessments Administered

Assessment Date Notes Scores Appendix

Tell Me what 8/31 Introduction survey 3.0

You Like
(McKenna/Stahl,
Form 10.2, p.
251)

How I Feel 9/1 Reading survey 4.0

about Reading
(Mckenna/Stahl,
Form 10.1, p.
250)

Book-Handling 9/15 Although James is Orientation of book concept: ✓ 5.0

Print carries message concept: ✓
Knowledge not able to read, he
Directional understanding concept: ✓
Guidelines understands most Speech-to-print match concept: ✓
(Mckenna/Stahl, reading conventions. First and last concept: ✓
Form 4.2, p. Left page read before right concept: ✓
98-100) Period recognition
concept: ✗

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 Question mark recognition concept: ✗
Exclamation point recognition concept: n/a
Comma recognition concept: ✗
Quotation mark recognition concept: n/a
Lower case concept: ✓
Letter concept: ✗
Word concept: ✓
First and last: ✓
Capital letter: ✓

Alphabet 9/28 This has been a Uppercase: 24/26 6.0

Recognition constant work in Lowercase: 24/28
(Mckenna/Stahl, progress since the
Form 4.3, p. beginning of the year.
101)

Hearing and 11/10 Raw Score: 12 7.0, 7.1

Recording National Percentile Ranks for
Sounds in First-Grade Students in the US: 7%
Words
(Mckenna/Stahl,
Form 4.5, p.
105-106)

Words Their 11/9 Words Spelled Correctly: 0/26 8.0, 8.1

Way Primary Feature points: 9/56
Spelling Total: 9/82
Inventory (PSI) Spelling Stage: Early Letter
for K-3 Name-Alphabetic

Multidimensional 10/19 Pete the Cat: Pete at Dimension 1: nonfluent 9.0

Fluency Scale the Beach by James
(Mckenna/Stahl, Dean
Table 6.2, p. 165) -read book to the
student first, before
reading on their own

Assessment Reflections & Analysis

Affective Inventory: Tell Me What You Like
Tell Me What You Like was the first assessment that I ever gave to James. I gave this assessment
on the first day of tutoring. I thought this assessment would be beneficial for planning future tutoring
sessions. This assessment helped to tell me what topics that James is interested in. The topics given in

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the assessment ranged from sports to technology, as seen in Figure 3.0. The assessment shown in Figure
3.0 is in my handwriting because I copied it over from the original copy due to privacy concerns as well
as my ability to scan it. When James completed this I told him to pretend like he was his teacher and he
got to grade each category ranging from A being his favorite to F being his least favorite. Since James is a
reluctant reader, I read each of the category topics to him and he would write the letter/grade on each
line. I also wrote little side notes for his reaction to some of the categories. For the bottom part of the
assessment, I wrote down other topics that James and I discussed after that he is really interested in and
would want to read more about. One thing that surprised me when reviewing this assessment was the
way that he wrote out his letters. I did not specify to him at the beginning of the assessment that he
should write them in uppercase or lowercase. As you can see in Figure 3.0 he has a mix of both
uppercase and lowercase letters. Since I rewrote James’ answers, I tried my best to copy exactly what he
had written on his copy of this assessment. Although when I was assessing him on this, he did confuse
his letters of b and d. When I saw him writing these letters out on his assessment I had him explain his
choices in this and this is when I could tell when he was confusing his b and d letters. I would ask him if
this is close to being one of his favorite things (B) or do you not really like it (D). This is when James
would respond with the opposite of what he had written down, therefore I would have him erase the
letter he had written and change it to the proper letter in which he meant to answer the question in.
Overall I thought that this was a very effective assessment that I have given James. This assessment has
allowed me to strategically plan out meaningful lessons that James would enjoy during tutoring. When
incorporating these topics into lessons I know that I will have James’ full attention and he will not give up
on the work that we are doing.

Affective Inventory: How I Feel About Reading

How I Feel About Reading was another assessment that I gave to James at the very beginning of
tutoring. I wanted to gauge how he felt about reading. Knowing that James struggled with writing as per
what Ms. Apple had told me, I decided that it would be best if I made this assessment more of a
conversation with James’ rather than having him write out the answers to this. I wrote out his answers
to each of the statements the way that he had told me them, as seen in Figure 4.0. It became very clear
within the first two fill-ins that James does not like reading and that he had a negative attitude about it.
James thinks that reading is boring and a waste of time. He told me that he would rather be doing
something else than read. Although it surprised me that when I asked him what his favorite book was he
was able to give me the answer of Superman. He then told me for the next fill in that he liked books
about superheroes and things that happen in real life. From these answers I began to assume that James
liked to look at the illustrations/picture more than the words that were written in the story. When
looking at the responses that James put down for the fill-ins of 6-10 I could tell that my assumption
would be correct that the illustrations and drawings were something more that James liked and that he
too liked to draw himself. When I asked him if he would like to draw over reading he answered very

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quickly with a yes. Overall looking at this assessment I can tell that James does not like to read and I
understand that from a personal level. Reading can be very challenging when a student does not
understand how to do it and comprehend the information that is being presented to them. Although
over time I can positively say that James’ enjoys being read to and is able to comprehend all of the
information that is being read to him.

Emergent Inventory: Book-Handling Knowledge Guidelines

The Book-Handling Knowledge Guidelines is an assessment tool used with students that are not
completely able to read a book on their own, although it can assess the student on their knowledge of
how a book is supposed to be read. It also assesses the student to see if they can recognize certain text
features. For this assessment I allowed James to pick out a story from his class library. He chose the
book Tattoo Tales X-Men Spellbound adapted from a comic by Christ Claremont adapted by Jim
Thomas. Prior to me assessing James, I made sure that I had read through all the guidelines of what I
would have to ask James, as seen in Figure 5.0. While asking James the assessment questions I tried my
best to record under each question his response. James understood how a book should be held and
where the front cover was. He undertook that print carries meaning and the direction in which I should
be reading the text. From reading with James I can tell that he loves to preview the illustrations before I
even start to read to him, he loves to comment on them. This tells me that he realizes that the
illustrations go along with the text I am reading him and he understands this concept. James also
understood the concept of the first and last parts of a page and that I have to read the page on the left
before I read the page on the right. The one part of this assessment that James struggled with was
punctuation. Some of the concepts that were written in the assessment I could not assess James on
since they were not a part of the story. James struggled with identifying a period that ends a sentence.
When I had asked him this he had told me that it was a question mark. Although I could tell that he was
unsure of his answer. When I asked James to point to a question mark he was able to identify what this
was although when I asked him what it meant he did not know this. Similarly, when I asked James if he
could find me a comma he could not identify this text feature and he did not know what it meant. James
was able to identify lowercase letters in the story. He told me a few different letters that he saw on the
page. When I first asked him this question I had used the term little letter and he looked at me confused.
Although when I reasked him to point to a lower case letter he was able to identify it right away. The
final task of the assessment was for James to identify the concepts of letter, words, first and last letter,
and a capital letter. James was confused when I had given him the cards at first for him to single out a
letter on the page for me. I then showed him what I meant and he was able to show me a word and
then two words. Following this, he was able to show me the first and last letters of work along with a
capital letter. This last task surprised me because when I used the term capital letter James understood
this right away instead of me saying uppercase letter. Where in contrast he was not able to identify a
little letter unless I said the term lower case letter. I feel that the results of this assessment show that

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James understands the proper book handling skills that it takes to read. After this assessment, I still
continue to ask James similar questions to this assessment to make sure that he is completely
understanding all text features when it comes to reading a story. I believe that in understanding all of
these features James could become a successful independent reader one day.

Emergent Inventory: Alphabet Recognition

The Alphabet Recognition was one of the first real assessments that I gave to James. This
assessment has 26 letters both lowercase and uppercase randomized to assess the student's knowledge
of the alphabet. When giving this assessment to James I had him tell me both the letter and the sound
that the given letter made. We have been working on this for the longest time because his teacher said
that he struggled very much with this. James has some speech issues that have not been formally
diagnosed yet although it can be seen in this assessment. I gave James the letter sheet and I recorded his
responses on a post-it note. After assessing him I transferred his answers to the actual letter sheet, as
seen in Figure 6.0. When reviewing the uppercase letters I can tell that James recognizes almost all 26
letters. The two letters that he struggled with here at G and Z. Although prior to this assessment James
has struggled with saying the letter G. When he says this letter and its sound it almost sounds like a Q,
although I know that he is trying to say G. For the letter Z James said the letter G and the sound for G.
This was interesting to see because in the prior line he did not say the letter G for G. When looking at
the lower case letters James seemed to struggle a little more. A constant struggle for James throughout
the past few months even after this assessment has been identifying the lower case letters of b and d. I
know that this is a common issue with many students his age. He always confuses the two for each
other. The only other struggle that James had in the lower case letters was lower case letter g. As stated
previously this could be due to his speech issue. I recorded his answer as q although it could have been
James’ attempt at saying the letter g. I found it interesting that the assessment included a scripted letter g
in which James did not know what it was. He is used to seeing his letters in print and not script. Overall
James put in his best effort towards this assessment and has shown to make progress in his alphabet
recognition.

Emergent Inventory: Hearing and Recording Sounds in Words

Hearing and Recording Sounds in Words is an assessment that tests students on their ability to
listen to a text first and then during the second time they will listen and write down word for word what
is being read to them. When I am reading the text to James the first time I read the story with fluency.
The second time I will read it word for word slowly to make sure that he is keeping up. When assessing
James I decided to read to him Form A. This seemed that it would be the easiest to assess James on.
Prior to assessing James, we went over his alphabet chart that he would have placed in front of him
during every tutoring session. He would be referring to this during the assessment. Following our
alphabet review, we proceeded on to the assessment. For the first read, I had James have his pencil

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placed down to assure that I had his full attention. During the second read, I made sure to read at a slow
and steady pace. As seen in Figure 7.0 you can see the words that James wrote down, underneath his
handwriting is my own transcription of his handwriting so that I would be able to look over it again. On
the right-hand side are the actual sentences that I read to him. Seen in Figure 7.1 is the actual assessment
that I read from. After James finished the assessment I went through and recorded the letters that he
wrote that corresponded to the actual text. Upon reviewing the results, James received a raw score of
12 out of 37. When comparing that to the National Percentile Ranks for First-Grade Students in the
United States seen in Figure 7.2, James' fall score means that he would fall into the 7th percentile. It
would be interesting to see his results later in the year compared to this initial assessment. Due to time
constraints, I was not able to assess him a second time to compare for this case study.

Spelling Inventory: Words Their Way Primary Spelling Inventory (PSI) for K-3
The Words Their Way Primary Spelling Inventory is an assessment used in kindergarten through
third grade. This assessment requires students to spell a list of 26 words in sequential order by difficulty
in order to determine the spelling stage in which he/she is developing. The words are grouped by
features, such as initial and final consonants, short vowels, digraphs, blends, common long vowels, other
vowels, and inflected endings. Each of these categories are recognized by which spelling stage the student
would fall under. Upon testing James on this list, we were able to get through the first 15 words before
the task became too difficult for him to complete. Knowing that James gets frustrated easily when
challenged, I decided that it would be best to split this assessment into two days. Even when splitting the
assessment into two days, the assessment took 10-15 minutes to complete each day. It is interesting to
look at James' writing of these words (Figure 8.0) when compared to the actual words. James' own
handwriting is seen on the left-most side of the page, the middle column is his retelling to me of the
letters he wrote for each word, and the right column is the actual word (this part was written after the
assessment was completed). He is able to identify some of the initial consonant sounds and some of the
final consonant sounds. James seems to struggle with identifying the short vowel sounds within the word
although he is able to place a letter there, it is not the correct vowel. This can be seen in: fan, pet, dig,
rob, and sled. To help James with his spelling, he always has an alphabet chart in front of him to help aid
him with his spelling as well as a remembrance of the alphabet letters. When looking at James' work
overall, he was not able to spell any of the words that he was tested on correctly. Upon getting to words
that included digraphs and blends, I wanted to challenge James' spelling abilities because sometimes in his
work he can unexpectedly get something correct. Although when proceeding on with some of these
words 8-15, James was not able to identify certain aspects of the words and I decided that it was best
that we conclude the assessment. Based on this information (Figure 8.1), I determine that James is in the
early letter name-alphabetic spelling stage. James would benefit from a review of initial and final
consonant blend words, as well as working on CVC words that focus on identifying the short vowel

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sounds. From there we could begin to work on diagraphs. When focusing on these two categories James
could develop into the “Middle Letter Name-Alphabetic” spelling stage.

Fluency Assessment: Multidimensional Fluency Scale

The Multidimensional Fluency Scale is a helpful assessment tool in rating a reader’s fluency ability.
This specific scale measures students reading fluency in four dimensions: expression and volume,
phrasing, smoothness, and pace. James read the book Pete the Cat: Pete at the Beach by James Dean as I
scored his fluency based on the scale (Figure 9.0). Since James is a reluctant reader and struggles, the
best way for me to go about this assessment is for us to read the story several times. The first time I
read the story slowly, although with fluency while pointing at each word as I read it. The second time
James will echo each sentence after I read it. The third time we read the story, James and I will take
turns reading the pages of the book until we finish. Finally, I assess James, while he independently reads
the whole story to me. While this reading process seems like a tedious process it works for James,
although his fluency is still lacking. This one assessment took a whole session to get through. During
James' independent reading of this story, he lacked expression and the words within each sentence were
extremely choppy. He tried his best to follow the words on the page with his finger, although I could tell
that he was heavily relying on the illustrations to help him to decode the words. He paused many times
when he got to sight words that he did not know and would turn to me for help. This all indicates
that James is a non-fluent reader.

Summary and Recommendations

Working with James over the past three months I have been able to form such a strong
connection and bond with him. I love working with students one-on-one and getting to know them on a
more personal level. This allows me to truly see who they are not only as a student, but also as an
individual. During these past three months I have been able to administer assessments to gain a better
understanding of his reading and literacy abilities, while also learning about his personal life outside of
school that is important to him. Besides the assessments that I have given to James I can tell that he can
be a hard worker, although when challenged with a difficult task James will give up without even trying. I
have been approaching some of the harder tasks such as spelling in the best way possible to not have
James give up so easily. I want to instill some more academic confidence in him and his abilities because I
think once he gains this sense of trying at hard things he will strive as a student. One of my favorite
things that James and I have done together over these past three months is read the book series of The
Magic School Bus. James had shown me one of the books when I gave us some free time to read
towards the end of one tutoring session. From that day on James would constantly ask if we could read
more of this book series. James thoroughly enjoys reading this series and even though these books can
be long he sits there paying close attention to every detail in the story. He also has shown me good
recall skills because some of the books would take two days to complete. After we could complete a

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story, I would have James draw me something that happened in the story to prove his recall. His
illustrations were very detailed and he would tell me about each tiny detail after finishing the picture.
Based on the results from the assessments outlined in the previous section, I have created
individualized recommendations that will support James’ motivation and continue to help him to develop
into a positive and more proficient literacy learner. Since James is a reluctant reader that doubts himself
in his abilities I recommend that he continue to review and build on his prior knowledge of the alphabet.
This is a major stepping stone in building James into a more adept literacy student. Working on his
alphabet letters as well as identifying them as the beginning sounds to words and blending them together
to form a complete word. Upon building off this James will begin to start to add more words to his
knowledge bank which will lead him to build upon his literacy abilities and begin to read. Along with this
I would like to work on James’ abilities to sound out words. This will also help with his spelling abilities.
In sounding out words James will be identifying the separate parts/syllables of words. This will also help
him with beginning to read. Secondly I think it would be best to work on James with sight words. These
words may be a little more difficult to sound out compared to some other words. Although these words
seem to pop up more often in texts and writing. This will help James to improve overall on his literacy
skills in both reading and writing.
Furthermore, I recommend that in order to build up James' ability to read he should always be
reading with someone. While this person is reading with James they should be tracking the text with
their finger in order for him to follow along. At the same time the reader should also be asking James
questions about the text in order for James to build more comprehension skills that he will need to
become a better reader. My hope is that by the end of this year James will be able to read books and
that his attitude towards reading changes for a more positive outlook. Moreover, I think that throughout
the course of this year I would like to see James’ confidence grow in his literacy abilities. I can tell that he
is a bright student and that when he sees that he is improving in his reading and writing capabilities he is
able to complete tasks more efficiently and does not complain. I think that when given the opportunity
to show himself as a confident learner and receive positive feedback, he will want to continue to have
this feeling.
Implications for the Use of Literacy Assessments
Overall, I think that literacy assessment is necessary to learn about students. When looking at
the results from each student and the assessment that they took, it can help me as a teacher understand
where they struggle and what they understand. This helps me figure out the best way to approach each
and every student and how I can help them to grow to be a more successful academic literacy student. I
can see myself using both effective inventories to help me gauge my students' likes and dislikes at the
beginning of each school year. This will give me just a glimpse of how they view literacy. I can also see all
of the other assessments to be useful tools to gain a more individualized understanding of every student
in my future class. At the beginning of each school year it is not like you are given a manual on each
student and where they are. This is for me to figure out who they are and what they are capable of. In

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using assessments especially at the beginning of each school year to understand a student. I also argue
that reviewing that data of the assessments is equally as important. Upon reviewing assessments, I can
get a more thorough understanding of what the student knows.
After reviewing assessments, I will be able to make more individualized decisions for the
students. I can see myself using these decisions to work with students either in a small group or
one-on-one to help them progress in their abilities. From here I can also see how progress monitoring
would be extremely beneficial and important. Since many of the assessments that are shown in the
previous sections, I can see myself giving many of these throughout the year to see the progress that
students are making.This again will help me in my planning for students more individualized instruction to
help them grow. By the end of the year I would love to see students mastering these assessments and
moving on to more challenging ones such as informal reading inventories and writing assessments.
I do have a few technical questions about assessments as a future teacher. How is there enough
time to assess students? I know that the school day is only so long and that many of the assessments
require you to test the students one-on-one, therefore how is there enough time to get through an
entire class. I further begin to question if grouping students by ability based on assessments would be a
good idea. Sometimes students may be having an off day or they may have testing anxiety. If these factors
were in place it could skew their results of an assessment and would not be the best indicator of their
abilities to work in a certain group.
Altogether I can see using assessments in my future classroom as a positive tool. They can be
helpful for a multitude of reasons, although knowing each in every student is my main goal as a teacher. I
want to see each of the students that are in my classroom achieve to their fullest potential and become
more successful students. Learning is a tedious process that happens throughout the year. Every student
learns at their own pace and my end goal is to see them prosper.

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Appendix
Figure 1.0 Ms. Apple’s Classroom

Figure 2.0 Jame’s Drawing of the Classroom

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Figure 3.0 Tell Me What You Like!

Figure 4.0 How I Feel About Reading

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Figure 5.0 Book-Handling Knowledge Guidelines

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Figure 5.0 Book-Handling Knowledge Guidelines cont.

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Figure 6.0 Alphabet Recognition

Figure 7.0 Hearing and Recording Sounds in Words Student Work

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Figure 7.1 Hearing and Recording Sounds in Words Teacher Copy with Markings

Figure 7.2 Hearing and Recording Sounds in Words National Percentile Ranks for 1 st Grade Students in
the US

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Figure 8.0 Words Their Way Primary Spelling Inventory Student Spelling

Figure 8.1 Words Their Way Primary Spelling Inventory Score Sheet

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Figure 9.0 Multidimensional Fluency Scale

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