ECE 362 Child Study

XX Assessment Portfolio

Cassidy Wulf
Spring 2017
 Child Demographics
Birthday: May 29, 2011
Lives in the country near XX
Two parent household (married):
Dad
Mom
Only child
Interests: Little Pet Shops and Shopkins
Some of the family goals for XX:
Allow others to speak and do not interrupt
Able to express her emotions
Basics of addition and subtraction
Properly hold scissors and pens/pencils
Understand and read 3-4 letter words
 Why I Chose XX
Due to my travels with the SDSU Meat Judging Team at the beginning
of the semester, I didnt get as much observation of the areas in
which she struggles. So, I chose her based off the fact that I was
interested in her family and figured I could relate with her some as we
both seemed to come for agriculture backgrounds of some sort.
Later on in the semester, I found out that XX writes her Ns and the
J of her name backwards. I was initially going to work on the
correct formation of those letters with her. However, her student
teacher suggested that she needs to work on the pronunciation of
the sounds of the letters of the alphabet. That is actually one of the
student teachers goals for her too, so she said I could work on that
as well. Hopefully by the end of the semester, she will have made
progress in her pronunciation of the sounds of the letters.
 Classroom Demographics
Morning Class (4 & 5 year olds) 8:15-10:30 am
Monday- Thursday
Mentor Teacher: XX
XXs Student Teacher: XX
19 Preschoolers
7 boys and 12 girls
Small Group Demographics:
5 Preschoolers: 2 boys and 3 girls
1 student teacher and 1 assistant teacher
9 Teachers
1 mentor teacher, 4 student teachers, and 4 assistant teachers
Classroom Demographics
(Cont.)
Classroom Routine:
8:15 Arrival
8:15-8:35 Outside Time
8:35-8:40 Transition: Coats off, toileting, wash hands, drink
8:40-8:50 Group Time: Welcome
8:50-9:40 Investigations (in Small Groups) and Free Time
9:40-9:50 Clean-up and Prepare snack tables
9:50-10:05 Group Time: Story and Literacy Activities and wash
hands for snack
10:05-10:20 Snack
10:20-10:30 Small Group Work or Group Meeting
10:30 Departure
 Pretest
Test: Produce the sounds of the letters of the alphabet
I talked with other teachers from the classroom and I received ideas
from them as to what I could do with the pretest. I decided to have a
paper with the physical representation of the letters for the child to
use. As we go throughout the test, I will ask her to pronounce the
sound of the letter I indicate. I will have the same piece of paper in
hand so I will be able to discretely circle the ones she doesnt say
correctly.
Rationale:
This broader pretest allows me to find the more specific sounds of the
letters of the alphabet XX struggles with.
Having a physical representation helps me be able to record the results
more effectively and allows the child to connect the visual representation
with the produced sound.
From there, I will know which ones we need to work on in the future
lessons.
Pretest
Rationale for Planning

I recorded that she had a more difficult time

pronouncing the sounds for the letters: F, G, H, I, L, M,
N, P, Q, R, V, W, Y, and Z. Additionally, she
pronounced C with the /s/ sound.
From these results, I decided to choose 5 of the letter
sounds to focus on because of the limited amount of
time. I chose H, I, R, N, and V. I chose these as they are
part of her name (H and N), or high frequency (I and
R), or the sound of the letter is found in the name of
the letter (V). Because of these reasons, it is important
that she knows and can pronounce the sounds of
those letters.
Lesson 1
 Lesson 1 Details
I decided to start with a less complicated lesson in which she would
only have to recognize the sounds of the 5 letters instead of produce
them.
We will play Feed the Animals, which consists of acknowledging that
the animals (puppets) only eat things that start with a certain sound
and have different pictures of items with the letter they start with on
it. When I ask her if the animals eat something, she will need to figure
out the starting sound in order to correctly answer the question.
Since she only has to identify the sounds instead of produce them, I
hope to see correct answers most of the time. I hope she can
correctly let me know whether or not the animals would eat an item
based upon the starting sound. I dont expect her to answer every
single one right, but I would like to see her answer the majority
correctly.
 Lesson 1 analysis
Results: From the 5 letter sounds I chose to focus on, she was able to
pronounce the sounds for H, I, and V fairly well, but struggled with the
sounds for R and N.
On another note, I had written the letter on the paper with the
picture of the item, so she completed the activity by categorizing
them by sight instead of focusing on the starting sound. For example,
when I would ask her why the animal wants to eat a specific item,
she would tell me that its because it is an R instead of because of
the sound. This was my fault and I now know to not integrate the
written letters with categorization of sounds. When I noticed what she
was doing, I still tried to make sure that we were practicing the
sound, so I would ask her to pronounce the sound the letters made
after she fed the item to the animals.
Lesson 1 analysis

Based upon my results, I will focus on the sounds of the

letters N and R for my next lesson, but also keep
practicing the other 3 letter sounds.
The next activity we will do is called Muffin Tin
Learning. This activity will not consist of categorization,
since that is where I made a mistake last lesson. This
lesson simply coordinates a sound with a letter.
Lesson 2
 Lesson 2 Details
This lesson consists of a muffin tin with a piece of paper in each
compartment with one of the letters we are practicing producing the
sounds for written on the piece of paper. She will try to toss a coin
into the compartments. When she makes it into one of them, she will
produce the sound for it. If she gets it correct, she will get a point.
I planned this lesson because I wanted to shy away from
categorizing sounds and rather just focus on having her produce the
sound related with a specific letter.
12 points are possible and I wish to see her get at least 8 points (8
letter sounds correct). We could complete the activity a couple of
times if she would like.
 Lesson 2 analysis
This activity moved too fast and because the coins would land in the
same compartment more than once, I didnt keep track of a score.
Instead, I made note of what letter sounds she struggled to
pronounce (N and H) and which ones she succeeded pronouncing
(R, V, and I).
Additionally, she was not that engaged in the activity and asked to
go to free play. Because of this, I decided to try having my last lesson
with her at a different point during the day. I will probably give her
the option of when she wants to complete an activity.
My next lesson will be at a different time during the day and will focus
on basing the letter sound off of a picture of something that starts
with that sound instead of producing the sound off of a visual of the
letter. Maybe thats where shes getting confused, especially with the
sound for the letter N. I will definitely focus on the sound of the letter
N as she has struggled with it in both lessons and not focus as much
on the sounds for the letters V and I as she has succeeded at them in
both lessons.
Lesson 3

Scan in your lesson

 Lesson 3 Details
Maybe she gets confused when the sound of the letters is
incorporated with the written letter because she tends to say the
sound by producing the sound at the beginning of how you say the
name of the letter. I am going to try a lesson that focuses mainly on
pictures and what sound that certain thing begins with.
This lesson consists of worksheets for every letter for the sounds we
have been working with. Each worksheet has multiple pictures of
items/animals on them, some beginning with the focus sound and
some that do not begin with it. A big picture in the lower right
corner of the pages will be the example that indicates what sound
she is looking for. When she completes the sound correctly for a
picture, she will put a sticker on that circle.
I will begin with the sound for N as that is where she needs the most
improvement. Then, we will work on the sounds for R and H as she
has been a little inconsistent in her successfulness in them between
the two lessons so far. We may do a refresher on the sounds for V
and I, but I dont see that as important as she has mastered those
sounds during both lessons.
I wish to see her pronounce the sound for N at least half of the time
and to be consistent with producing the sounds for R and H
correctly.
Lesson 3
Lesson 3 analysis

We started with the worksheet for N. She got 4 out of the

9 correct, which is a little less than what I was hoping, but
I am satisfied with it. Next, we did the worksheet for H
and she got all of them correct. I had my papers out of
order, so we actually worked on the V worksheet
instead of the R one, which is the one I initially wanted
to focus on also. We ran out of time so of the 3 images of
something that starts with V, she got all of them correct.
For the post test, I will print out the same paper with the
letters of the alphabet that I used for the pretest. I will
point to the letters that we have been studying and ask
her what sounds they make.
I will have her produce each sound 3 times.
Post Test
 Post test Analysis
I was hoping to see her pronounce the letter sounds for V
and I 3 out of the 3 times, the letter sounds for R and H 2 out
of the 3 times, and the letter sound for N at least 1 time.
She pronounced the sounds for H, R, and V correctly all 3
times. She only correctly pronounced the sound for I once
and she didnt pronounce the sound for N correctly at all.
She has definitely mastered the sound for V. R, N, and I
have proved inconsistent and she needs more help with the
sound for N.
Throughout this process I made a few mistakes in what I have
planned, but I believe mistakes are great because we, as
teachers, can learn from them and use them to improve our
future lessons. If I hadnt made the mistake of writing the
letter next to the picture in the feed the animals activity, I
wouldnt have known to not focus on that in the other
lessons.
If I were to do this in the future, I would try to leave out the
names of the letters in the activities as much as possible so
there is not much confusion between the names of the
letters and the sounds of them.
Recommendations

My recommendations would be to continue to

practice certain sounds of letters that she really
struggles with, such as the sound for the letter, N, and
to not associate the name of the letters with the
lessons. In some cases, the physical representation of
the letter should not be included. For example, in one
of my lessons, I wanted her to organize things based
on sounds, but I had written the letter on the paper
too so she basically sorted based on sight instead of
auditory sounds.
I think these recommendations would benefit her the
most and would lead to the most intended results. She
would improve her ability to recognize and pronounce
letter sounds.
 Teacher Reflection

The activity is extremely valuable for many reasons. First of all, it

taught me to plan and reflect upon lessons. Also, it taught me
to learn from my mistakes and build up from them. Next, it
helps one see how teaching affects outcomes. It was a great
feeling to see improvement by the end of the post test. Lastly, it
was a special way to connect with one child.
I definitely think that teaching just one child doesnt give an
accurate idea of what it is like to cater to a whole classroom of
students, but it does give us great insight into what the process
of teaching looks like. I guess I wonder if it will be possible to
have one-on-one time with each student and if so, what the
best strategy to do that would be. Maybe the best thing to do
would be to try to get to each child during a time of free play
or something of that sort. I think it will be important for me to
remember that when I record the performance of a child,
there may not be the progress that I was looking for. However,
that doesnt mean Im a bad teacher. It just might mean that I
need to reflect upon what I can do in order to work towards
progress.