Melanie Southard

Literacy Assessment
Brief Background

W is a typically developing kindergarten girl in her language skills. Compared

to her other classmates she is more advanced. She is an eager student to participate
and loves to do assessments. She is a quiet student but when you can get her talking
about something she likes, she is more than willing to share her stories. Although
she is quiet and has some difficulty following instructions of the teacher, she is a
very bright young girl. Whenever we have free time she is always in the dramatic
play area, dressed up as Belle, reading to a stuffed animal. Her love for books and
reading is obvious.

Phonological Awareness Assessment

This phonological awareness assessment, is used to determine the baseline
skills for students to determine if they are beginner or emergent readers. There are
ten different assessments that test letter awareness, sound recognition, oral skills
and comprehension and more. By using this assessment, I can identify W’s strengths
and weaknesses, and then determine the course of action to advance her literacy
skills.
Alphabet Recognition-Uppercase Letters
In this assessment I asked her to identify each of the letters I pointed to. On
this assessment W got 25/26 correct. She only missed the letter I. I think there is a
logical explanation for her missing this letter. On the sheet the letter I looks exactly
like the lowercase L. The uppercase I did not have the horizontal lines on the top
and bottom like they had learned in their alphabet book.
Alphabet Recognition-Lowercase Letters
In this assessment, like the previous one, I asked her to tell me what each
letter was that I pointed to. W got all 28 correct. She even recognized the fancy a and
fancy g. I think this is because we have worked with the nontraditional writings of a
and g before.
Letter Sound Identification
In this assessment, I pointed to a letter or combination of letters and asked
her to tell me what sound each of them make. W got 5/30 correct. In this assessment
she missed the u sound. She pronounced it as an ‘a’ sound. She also missed all of the
blended letters such as sh, ch, th, wh. With each of these combinations she
pronounced the individual letters. So for sh she pronounced the S and then H. This
tells us that she is well aware of each individual sound and she recognizes that there
are two letters together but cannot yet blend the two sounds. Most children in my
practicum classroom have trouble with these sounds.
Rhyme Recognition
In this assessment, I read the two words and asked if they rhymed. Before the
assessment I reminded her what rhymed meant and I gave her a few examples of
words that rhyme and words that do not. She got all 10 questions right in this
section. The previous week we went over nursery rhymes and talked a lot about
rhyming words. This means that she is very aware of sounds of words and
similarities and differences.
Onset Fluency: Isolate the Initial Phoneme
In this assessment, I asked W to tell me the beginning sound of each word. I
gave her a few examples and then we practiced one. She got all 10 correct. This tells
us that her fluency and ability to isolate sounds are great. This is true for most of the
students in my practicum class as indicated by their writing samples in the
beginning of the year. My CT asked them to write a sentence and for each word most
of them were able to write the first letters.
Blending Compound Words & Syllables
In this assessment, I told W two words and asked if she could put them
together to make one word. I gave her two examples. She got all 10 questions
correct. During this time she used her hands to symbolize the words. She said one
word and made a shift. Another word, made a fist, and then while when she put
them together she clapped her hands as if she was putting the words together. I
think because of this motion, she got all 10 correct. This means that she is advanced
in her thinking that two words can combine to make one larger word.
Segmenting Words into Compound Words & Syllables
In this assessment, I gave W one long word and asked her to tell me what two
smaller words were inside the bigger word. I gave her one example. W got 9/10
correct. For the most part, she got each question with ease, except for the word
cloudy. This was tricky for her because there was not two separate words rather
just two syllables. This means that she is capable of dissecting words and
recognizing that words are made up into smaller parts.
Identifying Final Sounds in Words
In this assessment, I read a word to W and asked her to tell me what sound
she heard at the end of the word. We practiced on one word and at the beginning
she was a little confused because she gave me the beginning sound like in the
previous assessment. After I repeated the instructions and gave her another
example she got it. W got a 9/10 on this assessment. She missed the word pick
because she gave me the beginning sound. This means that she is proficient in
isolating sounds at the end of a word.
Print Concepts
For each of the print concepts W was able to perform each of the tasks I
asked her to do. She was able to handle a book correctly, distinguish words from
pictures, tell me where to start reading, which ways to turn the pages and more. I
think she is proficient in print concepts because my CT models this every day. We
have a read aloud right after lunch and every day they talk about how to hold the
book, tracks the words with her fingers and models good concept of word. This
means that she is on her way to be able to read on her own and understanding print
when she picks it up.
Distinguish letters from numbers on a printed page by pointing
In this assessment, I asked W to point to each thing on the page and tell me if
it was a number or a letter. She got all 10 correct. This was extremely easy for her.
This means that she has extremely good letter versus numbers recognition.

Spelling (If applicable)

I was not able to perform a spelling assessment on W because her writing
skills are still very early. See Below.

Writing
When taking the writing sample, I called W over during free time and I asked
her if she could help me with a project. She smiled and gladly accepted. We went
over to the back table and I handed her a paper with lines on it. I told her we were
going to write about what she did this past weekend. As seen by her sample below,
she has moved away only writing the first letter of each word. While writing out
each word she sounded it out. Some words are more readable than others so I wrote
what she said at the bottom.
Retelling
This retelling assessment took place on Friday, October 21st during indoor
recess. W was playing with her friends in the dramatic play area when she was
called over to do the retelling assessment. She sat down at the table and we went
over the task. She was shown the book, Three Billy Goats Gruff, and she exclaimed, “I
have that book”. The book was read to her two times, the first time we read the
words, the second time we made sure to play very close attention to the pictures in
the book. Next, we went over what the different pictures were and one retelling
example was shown to W. It was now W’s turn to retell the story using the pictures.
At the beginning of the task, W was very excited to do the retelling. Every
time she has been called over to do assessments she is more than willing to
participate and loves the praise she receives for participating. Throughout the
reading of the book, W had a smile on her face the entire time and when different
voices were used to be the different goats, she laughed hysterically. Once the initial
retelling was done and she was asked to retell the story all by herself, her mood
changed. W is typically a quite student and more on the shy side. This was shown
more when she had to do the retelling on her own. She started to feel the pressure
on her and therefore became quiet. Multiple times throughout the retelling, she had
to be asked to speak up and use her words instead of only manipulating the pictures.
For the retelling assessment W received a score of four out of a possible
fifteen. In W’s retelling of Three Billy Goats Gruff, she skipped the first two sections
of the story. W did not mention the setting or any of the characters in the story. She
also failed to talk about the story problem. She began her retelling with Little Billy
trying to cross the bridge. In the first episode, she took the smallest goat and walked
him across the bridge saying “Little Billy tries to cross the bridge”. This is all she said
about episode one. She did not mention anything about the troll living under the
bridge and how the troll wanted to eat the goat. She moved onto episode two,
moving Middle Billy across the bridge and said “Middle Billy tries to cross the
bridge”. She once again does not mention the troll or how the troll wants to eat the
goat. She moved onto episode three and moved Big Billy across the bridge. She says
“Big Billy tries to cross the bridge”. W was given a score of 1 for sequencing of major
events because she lacked detail in her descriptions as well as the interactions
between the goats and the troll. Next, W partially mentions the resolution of the
story. She says “He pushes the troll into the water”. She received a 2 for the
resolution section since she did comprehend and act out the majority of the
resolution. Lastly, for the reaction of the characters, W received a 1. Her response
was “They get to eat the grass”. She received a 1 because of the vital information
missing such as the goats can cross the bridge whenever they like. This adds up to
her overall score of 4. Throughout the entire retelling, W was assisted in her
sequence of the story. Several times she needed to be prompted about what
happened next.
Overall, W has little story language based on this assessment. After talking to
the cooperating teacher about the results, she informed me that they have never
done any retelling assignments before. They have not been exposed to the structure
of a story in their schooling experience before. This would explain why W scored the
way she did on this assessment. W is a very smart girl and with more direct
instruction, would be able to score a 13-15 easily. The next step for instruction
would be to dissect the parts of stories. It is easy to overlook the setting and
character if they are not explicitly taught. Doing activities the encourage students to
recognize the specific parts and sequencing of stories will help them get a better
grasp on retelling stories. You could also have the students create their own stories
by giving them a template to fill in. This stresses the importance of each part and
how we need all of them in order to write a story that makes sense.
Recommendations for Teaching
Based on the assessments completed with the child and the data collected
from the results, the W appears to be in the beginning stage for literacy. I think W
would be considered in the very early stages of the beginning stage. I would classify
her in the beginning stage because she received close to a 100% on all of her
phonological awareness assessments. She also has impeccable concept of word and
is starting to write more letters in the words she uses. While she only knows how to
read a little over 20 sight words, she still has a firm grasp on concepts of print, the
letters of the alphabet, and phonological awareness. In order for W to continue
growing in her literacy adventures, her diet would look like: 40% fluency, 20%
comprehension, 20% word study/vocabulary, and 20% writing. For fluency, we can
work on repeatedly reading familiar texts and choral and echo reading. For
comprehension, we can do concept sorts, practice predicting, retelling activities and
listening to stories. For word study, we can work on word sorts, sorting by
beginning sounds, sorting by rhyming and short vowel spellings. Lastly, for writing,
we can practice dictating sentences, writing for sounds, and picture captions.
Overall, in my opinion I would focus heavily on word study since she does not have a
wide range of vocabulary that she can read yet.