assessment

The Elementary Spelling Inventory (ESI) was used to assess Beau’s phonics and spelling skills. This assessment consists of twenty-five words that increase in difficultly to resemble developmental stages. This assessment was given in a way that resembles a spelling test. The assessor called out each word and used it in a sentence. After the assessment was given, the test was scored using the matching feature guide.

Tutoring Recommendations based on Spelling Assessment:

After gathering background knowledge and looking into fourth grade standards, I feel that Beau will benefit best with tutoring sessions focused on affixes and bases or roots. He scored lowest in three sections; however, these two are better to focus on for his grade level.

Tutoring Beau on affixes will benefit him. In fourth grade, vocabulary becomes increasingly difficult. Providing Beau with the understanding of basic prefixes and suffixes will help him determine meanings of words he may not recognize. This will help his reading fluency and comprehension.

It is also beneficial to tutor Beau on bases and roots. Along with affixes, this is a key component to understanding more advanced vocabulary. With the knowledge of affixes and roots, Beau will be able to determine meanings of unfamiliar words.

Summative Assessment Results:

Words Their Way Spelling Assessment information:

The Elementary Spelling Inventory (ESI) was used to assess Beau’s phonics and spelling skills. This assessment consists of twenty-five words that increase in difficultly to resemble developmental stages. This assessment was given in a way that resembles a spelling test. The assessor called out each word and used it in a sentence. After the assessment was given, the test was scored using the matching feature guide.

Tutoring Results based on Spelling Assessment:

After intervention, Beau was reassessed using the same measures during Pre-assessment. Overall, Beau improved in various categories. The focus during intervention was Roots, Prefixes, and Suffixes, and Beau improved in these categories on the Spelling Assessment.

Since intervention yielded improvement for Beau, it is recommended that Beau continues to receive intervention in this area.

Part III: Reading Vocabulary, Fluency, and Comprehension

Formative Assessment Results:

Assessment Information:

Fluency & Vocabulary:

Word Reading Fluency: N/A

Passage Reading Fluency: CWPM-136

Comprehension:

Multiple Choice Reading Comprehension: 45%

Oral Language and Vocabulary Observations:

Beau has good communication skills. After getting over initial shyness, he speaks fluently and pronounces words accurately. His communication skills are that of a fourth-grader, and his vocabulary seems to be on the same level.

Summative Assessment Results:

Assessment Information:

For assessment in fluency and comprehension, the assessor used easyCBM, an online system that provides reading and math Benchmark and Progress Monitoring assessments and reports for districts and schools. These probes were developed by Behavioral Research and Teaching (BRT) at the University of Oregon partnered with Riverside, the assessment division of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. The 4.2 reading comprehension assessment consisted of a passage and multiple-choice questions. The 4.2 fluency passage was an oral assessment. The student reads from a passage for one minute while the assessor makes notes of mistakes and where the student stops.

Fluency & Vocabulary:

Word Reading Fluency: N/A

Passage Reading Fluency: CWPM-147

Comprehension:

Multiple Choice Reading Comprehension: 65%

Oral Language and Vocabulary Observations:

Part IV: Instructional Implications (IF-THEN Analyses)

Formative Assessment Results:

List and explain at least 3 strengths you noticed with your tutoring student:

One strength I noticed about Beau’s reading is that he sounds out words he does not recognize. Too often, students will skip a word entirely or wait until someone tells them the word. Beau does his best to sound out unfamiliar words, and he does not mind the struggle. He wants to know that he can do it on his own.

Overall, Beau is a fluent reader. He follows the words and reads them accurately. The only time he is not fluent is if he is struggling with a word. He takes the time to look at the word and tries to sound it out.

Although he does not enjoy reading, Beau tries really hard to be a good reader. If he stumbles on a word, he does not give up. He keeps reading.

List and explain at least 2 weaknesses you noticed with your tutoring student:

After assessing my student, I found that his two weaknesses were both components of vocabulary: roots and affixes.

Beau struggles with pulling apart roots and affixes. He does not seem to have much background knowledge on affixes. Tutoring Beau on affixes will be beneficial to his reading abilities because it will help broaden his vocabulary. If Beau is able to understand certain prefixes and suffixes, then he has a better chance of understanding the word.

Tutoring Beau on roots is also beneficial. This, along with tutoring affixes, will help Beau break down unfamiliar vocabulary. This will help when vocabulary becomes increasingly difficult. Having these skills will help Beau understand more complex vocabulary.

Summative Assessment Results:

List and explain at least 3 strengths you noticed with your tutoring student:

After Beau’s interventions, I noticed how much his reading and spelling improved. When he had to read aloud, he was much more confident. Beau spoke up instead of whispering, and he read with more prosody. The intervention Beau received focused on roots, prefixes, and suffixes; however, this too affected his overall ability to read.

Beau’s fluency during reading also improved after intervention. After understanding that words can have roots and affixes, he understood that he could break apart complex words he came across while reading. This became a strength of his because Beau is now able to read more complex words by breaking them apart.

After receiving intervention, Beau started to break apart more complex vocabulary. From this strength, he is reading more fluently. This also helps his comprehension abilities, because Beau understands word meanings after breaking them apart by roots and affixes. Overall, intervention on roots and affixes has benefited Beau’s vocabulary, reading fluency, and comprehension.

List and explain at least 2 weaknesses you noticed with your tutoring student:

While intervention has benefited Beau in many areas, there are two weakness I noticed relating to his reading abilities. He is beginning to comprehend what he is reading better, but he is still not reaching grade-level comprehension. Continued tutoring focused on reading strategies would be beneficial for Beau.

Another weakness I have noticed is Beau’s dislike of reading. It is important for all students to find some form of love in reading, but Beau does not want to read if he does not have to. This could be resolved by encouraging him to read texts related to his interests. Before assessing Beau, I found that he enjoyed gaming. Providing him with text that focuses on his interest would allow him to practice his reading skills, and, in turn, make him a great reader.

Part V: Tutoring Sessions Overview

CIR 412 Formative/Summative Assessment Form

Student’s Name (First Only): Chance

School: XXX Baptist School XXXX, TX

Examiner: Kimberly Easterling

Age: 9

Grade: 4th

Date of Assessment (may take multiple days): September 19, 2019, September 23, 2019, September 25, 2019, September 27, 2019, September 30, 2019, October 2, 2019

November 19th, November 21st, and November 22nd.

Part I: Assessment of Interests and Motivations

Summary of Student’s interests and/or motivations for reading (up to 2 brief paragraphs):

Chance indicated that he likes to read books, such as Pete the Cat, Dog Man, and Bad Kitty. Chance is in fourth grade, but all the books he mentioned are first through third grade level books. He expressed that he likes fiction, but he also likes to read stories about real life situations and people. Chance likes to read because it’s fun, and it takes you places. Some of Chances other interests are mystery, adventure, fantasy, and funny books.

Chance’s motivations for reading vary. He does not necessarily read to comply with his teacher’s requirements or to get good grades. His answers on the MRQ indicate he avoids reading for schoolwork and is not highly motivated for social reading, but he does like to share what he reads with his friends and parents. The survey also shows that he is not a competitive reader and does not like hard challenging books, long involved books, complicated stories, or books with words that are too difficult. Chance likes to use his imagination to make pictures in his head when he reads. If he is interested in the topic, he is more likely to read the story. Chance indicated that being a good reader is a little different from him, but it is important to him to become a good reader. He does not feel that his reading grade is an indication of how well he is doing in school.

Summary of Student’s background knowledge if assessed (up to 1 brief paragraph):

Chance’s background knowledge in phonics and spelling is limited. He has dyslexia and struggles with reading and spelling and has struggled since first grade. He has not retained enough information from instruction to master skills for his grade level.

Informal evaluation of verbal skills (up to 1 brief paragraph):

Chance has excellent verbal skills and expresses himself very well. His vocabulary knowledge is good; he has a well-developed lexicon. Chance has a creative imagination and shares his thoughts on things he may envision or image. He has no problems expressing himself verbally. He communicates very well with other children and with adults.

Part II: Phonological Awareness/Phonics and/or Spelling Assessment

You may find that you need to use the PAST to assess phonological awareness or The Phonics and Word Reading Survey if your student struggles in these areas. If so, include information on those results.

PAST/Phonics Word Reading information (up to 1 brief paragraph explaining the assessment tool used & results):

I administered The Phonics and Word Reading Survey to Chance. He performed well on the tasks listed for first and second grades. Although, he made errors when reading some vowel pattern words, such as silent e and r-controlled vowels. I started with the primary grades because Chance has dyslexia, and I wanted to find a good base for determining the skills he has mastered. He scored 17 out of 30 on vowel digraphs and diphthongs. He read a little over half of the words correctly with prefixes and suffixes scoring a 16 out of 30 in this section. We stopped the assessment at task 8 because it seemed to be getting a little difficult for Chance to continue reading some of the words.

After the tutoring sessions, I administered The Phonics and Word Reading Survey with Chance. The results reflect growth in all areas, except closed syllables words with short vowels/single consonants and vowel-r syllables. His most substantial growth is in the areas of reading words with long vowels and vowel team syllables. The results reflect an increase in reading words with long vowels from 4 out of the 18 words administered on the assessment to 11 out of 18, and he increased in reading vowel syllable words from 5 out of 18 to 13 out of 18. The areas of concern, at this point, are complex consonant patterns, mixed syllables with consonant-le, and vowel r-syllables. Chance would benefit from more explicit instruction in phonics to improve his reading skills.

Tutoring Recommendations based on PAST/Phonics Word Reading (up to 2 brief paragraphs discussing what specific areas to focus on for tutoring based on PAST/Phonics. Ex: 1 paragraph on blending phonemes and 1 paragraph on long vowels)

Based on The Phonics and Word Reading Survey, Chance would benefit from additional instruction in vowel patterns. Instruction on phonic generalizations would be extremely beneficial. He misread many words with long vowel patterns, vowel digraphs, and diphthongs, so I believe starting with long vowel patterns, such as vowel teams and r-controlled vowels would be beneficial to him.

The next step would be to proceed to more advanced phonic generalizations. In my opinion, this would increase his word recognition and reading fluency. When students move up in grades, they sometimes forget what they have learned about phonics generalizations, or they do not apply their knowledge to their current reading skills. A refresher in phonic generalizations for vowel patterns would be a good starting point for Chance’s tutoring sessions.

Chance misread most of the words with inflected endings, prefixes and suffixes. He got sixteen out of thirty words correct on this part of the assessment. It is my opinion that he would benefit from instruction in this area. Increasing his knowledge of morphemes would help him improve his reading comprehension and vocabulary knowledge. All the components of reading work together to increase fluency, and the goal is to increase Chance’s reading fluency skills.

After the completion of Chance’s tutoring sessions, he was reassessed. Based on the reassessment, I would recommend more extensive and explicit instruction with spelling and phonic generalizations. He would benefit greatly with more differentiated instruction in these areas to accommodate his learning needs.

Words Their Way Spelling Assessment information (up to 1 brief paragraph explaining the assessment tool used):

The assessment tool I used for spelling is from the Words Their Way textbook called the Elementary Spelling Inventory. Chance was eager to spell all the words on the list, so I administered all twenty-five words. He spelled five words correctly out of the twenty-five.

. Chance shows very little growth in spelling. The Words Their Way Elementary Spelling Inventory and Feature Guide was used to assess Chance before and after his tutoring sessions. According to the results, Chance has improved with reading inflected endings, consonant blends, and diagraphs. Although, the results reflect growth, the growth is minimal.

Fill in chart below:

Tutoring Recommendations based on Spelling Assessment (up to 2 brief paragraphs discussing what specific areas to focus on for tutoring based on spelling assessment. For instance, 1 paragraph on Greek/Latin Roots and 1 paragraph on Inflected Endings)

Based on the spelling assessment, Chance would benefit from instruction in long vowel patterns and vowel teams. It appears one of his reading weaknesses is rooted in his word recognition of vowel pattern words. For his tutoring session, we will concentrate on phonic generalizations, specifically vowel patterns.

Another area of concentration for his tutoring sessions will be instruction on blends and diagraphs. He scored a little over fifty percent accuracy when spelling blends and diagraphs on the inventory. My focus would be to improve his phonics skills because at his grade level, he should have mastered most phonic generalizations already.

I reassessed Chance after the completion of our tutoring sessions. This time, I did not administer the entire spelling inventory, only the first 10 words. According to the spelling inventory, Chance has had very little improvement with his spelling skills. Some of the contributors for this could be the difficulty he displayed staying on task during the tutoring sessions and absences from school between tutoring sessions. Also, his dyslexia could be a major factor.

Part III: Reading Vocabulary, Fluency, and Comprehension

Fluency & Vocabulary: Formative Summative

Word Reading Fluency: 39 CWPM 3-9 Not available higher than 3-9

Passage Reading Fluency: 54 CWPM 4-1 90 CWPM 4-2

Comprehension:

Multiple Choice Reading Comprehension:

Formative: Chances score on the MCRC was 18 correct out of 20 questions with a score of 90%.

Summative: Chances score on the MCRC was 12 correct out of 20 questions with a score of 60%.

Oral Language and Vocabulary Observations (up to 1 brief paragraph)

Chance has good oral language skills. He communicates effectively with the use of a good working vocabulary. He verbally knows a vast amount of vocabulary words and their meanings, but he has difficulty reading the words in print. He has some weaknesses with phonological awareness and would benefit from phonics instruction. His pragmatics, syntax, and semantics appear to be well developed. His understanding of morphology and phonological awareness seem to be the weaker areas, but overall, his oral language is well developed.

Part IV: Instructional Implications (IF-THEN Analyses)

If I work with Chance on his knowledge of phonic generalizations, such as vowel patterns, blends, diagraphs, diphthongs, infected endings, prefixes, and suffixes, then he will increase his mastery of these skills. If he improves his mastery of phonics skills, then he will increase his word recognition and enhance his reading fluency.

I recommend the same instruction as I previously recommended in the formative assessment. The only difference is that Chance needs extensive explicit instruction in spelling and phonic generalizations. If Chance improves his weaknesses in these two areas, he will increase his reading fluency and comprehension skills.

Motivation and interest are two areas of vital concern for Chance. It is crucial to find ways to motivate Chance because he displayed low interest and low motivation for doing the work needed to improve his literacy skills. Our tutoring sessions were difficult to complete and took longer than necessary because of his difficulty focusing and staying on task.

After the tutoring sessions, Chance’s reading fluency improved vastly, but his comprehension decreased based on the results of “only” one comprehension test administered. His knowledge of phonic generalizations shows growth and improvement, but his spelling inventory shows minimal growth.

List and explain at least 3 strengths you noticed with your tutoring student. (at least 3 brief paragraphs. 1 paragraph per strength)

When assessing Chance, one strength I noticed is that he uses self-correcting skills frequently. He may misread a word, but when he notices that it doesn’t sound right contextually in the sentence, he rereads it to figure out the correct word.

A second strength I noticed is that Chance has good comprehension skills. As he read the comprehension story, he seemed to grasp the context and understand the events that unfolded. He scored highly on his comprehension test, only missing two out of twenty questions.

A third strength I noticed is he has a good working vocabulary. Most students who struggle with reading have difficulty with vocabulary, but he seems to have a well-developed working vocabulary and lexicon.

List and explain at least 2 weaknesses you noticed with your tutoring student. These will be the focus of your tutoring sessions lessons. (at least 2 brief paragraphs. 1 paragraph per weakness)

When working with Chance I noticed he had some difficulty reading vowel patterns. He read short vowel sounds for long vowel sounds quite often during the assessment of The Phonics and Word Reading Survey. He struggled when reading diphthongs and vowel diagraphs, but overall, most of the weaknesses I observed were in phonics generalizations.

Another weakness I observed was his difficulty pronouncing many multi syllable words and words with prefixes and suffixes. Although, he did not have problems with compound words, he had difficulty with spelling words correctly that contained prefixes or suffixes during the spelling inventory. Also, Chance shows weaknesses in spelling for vowel teams and r-controlled vowels. Spelling is a major area that Chance needs improvement and growth.

Part V: Tutoring Sessions Overview

Please note the above is a plan. For the formative assessment report, you will fill this out with your initial ideas for a tutoring plan based on your assessment and the 5 components of reading. Once you have completed all sessions, you will fill this chart out for the summative assessment report with what you actually did in your tutoring sessions.