The student I interviewed is my cousin Keira, who is very energetic and interested in

school. Her interest in school may be due to her mom being a teacher, although that it just a

possibility. She is in 5th grade and just turned eleven a month ago.

The following assessments were administered, the Elementary Reading Attitude Survey

(ERAS) and interview, the 3-Minute Fluency Assessment, the Words Their Way Spelling

Inventory, and the PA Domain Scoring Rubric for Writing.

Keira willingly participated for all of the assessments that were administered without

complaint. She was happy to help and was extremely cooperative when I was working with her

on each assessment and stayed on task the entire time. There were people talking around us

which was a possible distraction, but she was able to block it out and stay focused. She was able

to correctly hold her pencil and apply the correct amount of pressure when writing, as well as

writing at an appropriate size.

Keira’s recreational reading is in the 71st percentile. Her academic reading is in the 90th

percentile. Lastly, her full-scale reading is in the 84th percentile. This showed me that Keira is

above average in all three-reading category percentiles. Keira is interested in reading and also

enjoys it, except for if it is during summer vacation, when she would be playing, or if she is

asked to read aloud. Her reading interests are books about sports and the beach as those are two

of her favorite things. Keira is also a very motivated reader; she has a very positive view and

outlook on reading as a whole. In this area, Keira does not really have anything that she has

difficulty with or anything else she could benefit from as she already really enjoys reading and is

motivated to do so.
 Keira earned a 5 on a 6-point rubric for comprehension. She was able to recall a

comprehensive summary of the passage, presented in a logical order and or/ with a robust set of

details, and includes a statement of main idea. She did not need to be prompted further after

being asked to retell what she remembered and if there was anything else she could recall.

Comprehension is a strength for her based off of the score she earned and ger detailed response

she gave after reading. Again, I do not think she has much that could be improved in

comprehension as she almost earned a perfect score. The only thing she could improve would be

connecting the text to her own life or another text she has read.

Based on her results for her spelling assessment, Keira is at the late syllables and affixes

stage of spelling. Keira’s Zone of Proximal Development is the harder suffixes feature and this is

where I would begin instruction as she has a very good grasp on all of the other features prior to

this one. Starting instruction here would give her a review prior to moving to the next spelling

stage as she had a few small errors prior to the harder suffixes feature. Her spelling on her

spelling assessment was better than the spelling on her writing assessment although her writing

assessment was from her personal journal and not an academic journal which may play a factor

since it was written for fun. Keira’s spelling strengths are in the initial and final consonants, short

vowels, digraphs, blends, long vowels, other vowels, inflected endings, syllable junctures, and

unaccented final syllables features. Although, she could benefit from some review of long

vowels, other vowels, inflected endings, syllable junctures, and unaccented final syllables

features because she had a few minor errors as well as more instruction on the harder suffixes

and bases or roots features.

In fluency, Keira earned a 3 on a 4-point rubric for expression and volume, as she made

the text sound like natural language through most of the passage, only occasionally slipping into
emotionless reading. Her volume was also generally appropriate throughout the text. Keira

earned a 3 on a 4-point rubric for phrasing and intonation because she read with a mixture of run-

ons, mid-sentence pauses for breath, and some choppiness, with reasonable stress and intonation.

For smoothness, Keira earned a 3 on a 4-point rubric due to occasionally breaking her smooth

rhythm because of difficulties with specific words and/or structures. Keira earned a 4 on a 4-

point rubric for pace because she consistently read at a conversational pace and had an

appropriate rate throughout her reading. She is strong in the areas of word recognition accuracy,

her fluency, comprehension, and pace. I think Keira did well overall, but if there is something

she could improve on it would be reading order, phrasing and intonation, and smoothness.

Keira scored 4 out of a possible 4 points in the focus domain, putting her at the Advanced

level. She had a sharp, distinct controlling point about a single topic- the storm during her trip-

with evident awareness of task. In the content domain she scored 4 out of a possible 4 points in

this domain, putting her at the Advanced level. She had substantial, specific, and illustrative

content demonstrating strong development and sophisticated ideas. She talks about things

happening because of the storm such as high winds, being “sand blasted” due to the wind, large

waves, and losing power. In the domain of organization is Keira scored 2 out of a possible 4

points, putting her at the Basic level. She had an inconsistent arrangement of content with

attempts to transition. She scored 3 out of a possible 4 points in the style domain, putting her at

the Proficient level. She had a generic use of a variety of words as well as sentence structures

that may or may not create writer’s voice and tone appropriate to the audience. Some of her

sentence structures could use some work and sometimes she sounded as though she created a

writer's voice while others did not sound like one. In the conventions domain Keira scored 2 out

of a possible 4 points, putting her at the Basic level. She had limited control of grammar,
mechanics, spelling, usage, and sentence formation. She sometimes capitalized words that did

not need to be capitalized, did not capitalize some words that should have been capitalized,

misspelled some more difficult words, such as “definitely” and “hurricane”, and stopped some

sentences too soon. Keira had a few main strengths; she was especially strong in the focus and

content domains and fairly strong in the style domain. She also had a few areas that she could

benefit from more practice or instruction which were the organization and convention domains.

I think the most pressing areas for improvement are the organization domain in writing

and also the conventions domain of writing. There are a few strategies that could be used at

school that would help Keira improve in these areas, such as framed paragraphs, transition

words, and writing conferences. Framed paragraphs are skeleton formats that contain

information about the main ideas and provide transition words that guide organization and

development of supportive details. Transition words are used to help improve students writing as

they help stories flow more smoothly and provide logical organization. Writing conferences are

where students share and reflect on their writing, often part of the revision stage, that is often

done in pairs, small groups, or with the teacher.

There are also some strategies that could be used at home as well to help Keira improve

in the organization domain of writing. Those strategies are more writing at home and also writing

cards and emails. Writing more at home will help Keira develop stronger organization skills as

there are also strategies teaching this skill at school. Doing this at home will continue building

off of what was learned at school. Writing emails or cards is also a good strategy because she can

tell stories or write about something that happened to her. This gets her writing but also helps to

get her writing the events in order to be able to tell the story that will make sense to the recipient.
 Keira is a very strong reader, and I found a few books that I think she may like and want

to check out based on her interests. One of the books I think Keira would be interested in is

Hockey Record Breakers by Jess Myers because I know that a specific sport that she is interested

in is hockey. She may also like Girl’s Hockey by Chris Peters as she and her older sister play

hockey in addition to just liking the sport. Keira’s favorite professional hockey team is the

Philadelphia Flyers so she may enjoy reading The Philadelphia Flyers Hockey Team by Glen

Macnow. Another book she may like is Breakaway by Alex Morgan as it is a memoir of Alex’s

soccer experiences that inspire young girls as she is a star Olympic athlete and Keira plays

soccer. Keira may also like Surf Dog Miracles by Meish Goldish because she likes the beach but

is also an animal lover.

What I learned from completing this assignment was that Keira is interested in school,

enjoys reading, and does not have any problems when she is asked to do assessments. She really

enjoys both reading and writing and she is a pretty good speller as well. She can also read

fluently, not just fast but also accurate and she is able to comprehend what she read. I was also

able to get a much better understanding of how student’s work and skills are assessed as I was

able to practice assessing her myself.