Assessment+Portfolio

ELD 308

I. Introduction
 * Interest Inventory
 * Jane is a 5th grader at Midville Middle School. She lives with her two brothers, her mother, her sister-in-law, her niece and her nephew. She shares a room with her brother. Her mother works 6 days a week. Around the house she helps take care of her niece and nephew, cleans the kitchen and living room, and takes care of her dog. After school her friend usually comes over. On the weekends she has sleepovers with her friends and plays tennis. She enjoys watching a lot of TV and movies in the living room. Last year she played the viola in the school’s orchestra.
 * School Environment
 * Jane likes school because she gets to learn new things and likes her friends. She enjoys the fact that in school it is okay to make mistakes because her friends won’t make fun of her. Jane’s favorite class is Social Studies because you get to learn about history, and what happened many years ago may be similar to life today. Also history tells you about what life and technology was like long ago. Her special study place is at the breakfast table with her brother. He is 12 years old so he can help her with her homework. She has math and reading homework every day. She says she is a good reader because she reads a lot. Also practicing reading every day has made her a better reader. Jane says she likes to read comic books. She likes to go to the public library to look for young adult graphic novels. She says they are funny and interesting. She finds fantasy books fun and interesting because she doesn’t have magic powers, so the stories are fun to read about. She likes to write, just not in cursive. Print is easier for her to write in, and she prefers to write works of fiction. If she went to a new school, she would want teachers to know that she has a very active imagination. If she were helping someone learn how to read, she would tell them that reading things you like help the most. She says that reading books that are about things you like makes you want to read more because it reflects who you are.

II. Reading Performance
 * Running Record/Miscue Analysis
 * On Monday, April 11, Jane was asked to read aloud from the novel A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle which is reported to be a V level book. At this time, a running record of her oral reading miscues was recorded and a brief comprehension check was taken. Before this passage, Jane had a lot of trouble re-telling what had happened in the story so far. In her description she used vague adjectives and told me there are “lots of characters and they’re weird.” In order for her to recall details, she needed to look back in the text. After reading the passage, Jane was able to recall what happened in great detail. When I asked her to retell what had happened in a quick summary, she was hesitant to compile a summary. Jane read the passage fluently and used appropriate intonation on most words. She read in phrases but often neglected to pause at periods, commas and other punctuation marks. In terms of word recognition, Jane relied on grapho-phonic cues to identify the words in the text. For example, while reading the passage she miscued twice and substituted through for though and [Mrs.] Whatsit for which. Errors noted were with consonant digraphs (wh- and th-). Jane said that her strength as a reader is her ability to mispronounce words at times, but grasp what they mean. Her goal is to pause more at the ends of sentences.
 * Directed Reading Assessment (DRA)
 * On March 29, 2011, Jane was administered a DRA. At this time, she read independently on a 6th grade level. In terms of comprehension, she answered both explicit and implicit questions without look-backs in great detail. What I found interesting was that while her fluency in reading was consistent while reading levels four, five and six. Although her comprehension was perfectly independent on a level six, she provided vague answers for level four and missed one explicit question which categorized level four as instructional for her.

III. Writing Performance
 * On December 10, 2010, Jane was asked to write a passage of her choosing. She chose to write a first-person narrative about two important people. She was excited about writing this piece, but wrote quickly without planning.
 * In terms of mechanics, Jane writes simple sentences and misuses punctuation. For example, she does not use a comma to end a declarative piece of dialogue, she did not use an explanation point when two characters “exclaimed,” and two sentences of dialogue do not have any quotation marks. She misused “there” instead of “their,” misspelled exclaimed (exclamed) and used “were” instead of “we.”
 * Jane appears to be a conventional speller. This means that she is on a 5th grade spelling level with her peers. She is able to spell words conventionally and has passed the transitional spelling stage; so, she does not put letters in a word in order to have a letter for every sound. She spelled all words correctly on the 5th grade level spelling assessment. From her essay, it confirms that she is a conventional speller (with the exception of common mistakes).
 * In terms of content, Jane begins with one topic but quickly moves onto something else. The beginning statement does not transition into how it relates to the rest of the passage. The word choice and variety in Jane’s writing is evident. The mechanics prevent the variety from being executed well. The passage is disorganized and the simple sentences should be expanded to be on point with 5th grade level writing.

IV. Recommendations for Future Instruction
 * After conducting several informal assessments, I have concluded that Jane has the most difficulty with comprehension of long passages and the consonant digraphs wh- and th- in reading. In writing, she has the most difficulty with variety in punctuation/types of sentences and dialogue mechanics.
 * Reading
 * 1) Jane was able to comprehend the small passages with specific questions during the DRA. However, she struggles with comprehending what she is reading over a long period of time. I would encourage utilizing different types of comprehension skills with Jane. For example: thinking aloud, predictions, connections, observations, etc. When she has better comprehension tools, the way she organizes information will help her summarize and recall a story quickly and easily.
 * 2) To improve Jane’s consonant digraph miscues, I would suggest a guided reading session with a text that contains several wh- and th- digraphs. Also, a word study that explores the patterns in these types of words would help Jane miscue less and gain a better understanding of what the text is about.
 * Writing
 * 1) A mini-lesson should be taught encouraging and reviewing the usage of different types of sentences. The class can explore what a different type of sentence can add to a story. An interactive read aloud that displays all declarative sentence types versus a story with dynamic sentence choices can give students a view of how the sentences can enhance a story.
 * 2) Dialogue mechanics are tricky skills that need to be taught clearly. Teaching a lesson about the rules of dialogue mechanics could be helpful to both Jane and the entire class. The class could create a colorful example of all the different elements involved in a line of dialogue. Jane has a vivid imagination and has proven to respond well to creative learning methods. Perhaps if there is a vivid chart for her to glance at in the room she would be more inclined to execute the mechanics of dialogue better.