Name: J.J
Grade: K
School: Trenton School District
Age at Testing: 6
Examiner: Samantha Clarke
Background Information
J.J is a 6 year old Kindergartner. I have decided to work with this child because he is a
strong student in the subject of literacy. J.J lives with his mother and father as well as a younger
brother. J.J’s mother works with J.J every night with reading and writing activities. He reads at
least an hour everyday with books that he brings from school. J.J is in the level, 1B; which is
about the level at which students are at the end of first grade.
At the beginning of the school year, J.J’s teacher, Mrs. I, said that at the beginning of the
school year J.J had a hard time formulating a sentence; based upon conferencing with Mrs. I, J.J
can now write complete sentences and with plenty of detail. The assessments took place different
times every day based upon when J.J was finished with activities Mrs. I had planned for in class.
Nevertheless, J.J always seemed shy and permissive when asked to testing as well as during
testing. I would ask if he could help me with my school work, and that helped him warm up to
the testing.
In the classroom, J.J always stays on task. He may get distracted from other classmates
who are having trouble with assignments; however, when he writing he is slow but efficient.
When reading he sits on the carpet and reads his 1B books.
Tests Administered
Elementary Reading Attitude Survey (McKenna & Stahl, 2006)
Raw Score
Midyear Percentile Rank
Recreational Reading
24
24/40
Academic Reading
34
34/40
Reading Attitude Total
58
38/80
Elementary Spelling Inventory (McKenna & Stahl, 2006)
Consonants (beginning)
7/7
Consonants (final)
7/7
Short vowels
5/5
Digraphs and blends
6/6 & 7/7
Long vowel patterns
0/5
Other Vowels
5/7
Syllable junctures and easy prefixes, suffixes
4/5
Feature points
35/62
Words attempted
25/25
Number of correct words attempted
5/25
Spelling stage
Early within Word Pattern
Z-Test (McKenna & Stahl, 2006)
Total correct
18/22
Total Miscues
2/22
Total Incorrect
2/22
Qualitative Reading Inventory (McKenna & Stahl, 2006)
Reading Passage
Title
Amazing Water
Readability level
1B
Total Accuracy
100/107
Total Acceptability
107/107
Rate
67WCPM
Informal Phonic Inventory (McKenna & Stahl, 2006)
Consonant Sounds
20/20
Consonant Digraphs
5/5
Beginning Consonant Blends
18/20
Final Consonant Blends
3/12
Short Vowel in CVC Words
10/10
Rule of Silent e
0/4
Long Vowel Digraphs
7/10
Diphthongs
4/6
R Controlled Vowels
6/6
Total
73/93
Tests of Knowledge of Onsets
Subset of Single Initial Consonants
Words Correct
52/57
Book Handling Knowledge Guidelines
All concepts correct except the rule of ‘commas’
Observations During Testing
Book Knowledge
To test book knowledge, I used the Book-Handling Knowledge Guideline test (McKenna
& Stahl, 2006). This test had the student show the teacher where each part of the book is,
different grammar, as well as the bodily language of reading. When J.J took this test, he seemed
to appear confident. He first looked at me with confusion, like a ‘why am I doing this way;’
however, as the test continued J.J started to pick up the pace. He would turn to the cover and
show me where to begin; and, then he would point to each word. The only part of the test that he
did not know was the section about commas. When I asked, “what was this comma for?” He just
shook his head and said, “I don’t know Ms. Clarke.” I, then said, “The comma usually breaks up
the sentence or it comes right before someone uses dialogue in the story.” The purpose of this
test was to see how he understands the sentence structure and how books are supposed to be
read. Through hindsight, I probably should not have done this test because J.J does a lot of
reading in and out of school; so, he probably would know about the structure about books.
Nevertheless, it was interesting to see how he portrays grammar when grammar is not that
essential to the reading process in his grade level.
Fluency
To test fluency, the Qualitative Reading Inventory (QRI) (McKenna & Stahl, 2006) as
well as the Informal phonic Inventory (McKenna & Stahl, 2006) test was performed. The QRI is
an informal assessment that tests word recognition; but more importantly, fluency because it tests
the amount of words per minute as well as the words that are read incorrectly or miscued. The
miscues that are usually preformed during this test are Semantic miscues, in which there is a
break in the melody or fluidity of speech, Syntactic miscues, in which the parts of the word that
are blended or sounded out incorrectly, and Visual miscues, in which the words is either added in
or eliminated. As I was testing J.J, he was able to read about 67 words correct per minute. He
had trouble with the words: ‘vapor,’ ‘weather,’ ‘forms’ and ‘steam.’ ‘Vapor’ and the word ‘form’
was predominate in this passage and he kept saying, “vopor,” for ‘vapor’ and “froms,” for the
word ‘form.’ When he was sounding out the words, he would put his finger on the word and
blended each word. He really portrayed phonemic awareness; which he had the ability to
identify, segment, and blend, words. Even though, he would get the words incorrectly he would
still use his phonemic awareness to help him sound out the miscued words.
The Informal Phonic Inventory (McKenna & Stahl, 2006), is a test that sees how a
student sounds out his or her blends. J.J was able to identify majority of blends; however, when it
came time to ‘nr’ and ‘ng’ blends, he would not be able to blend the phonemes. Also, he could
not blend the silent ‘e’. To administer this test, I would put each blend on a sticky note page so
that this test appeared as a game instead of a test. The more J.J and I continued with the test he
picked up the pace and he smiled a few times. Blending phonemes together are a matter of
repetition and practice.
Phonemic Awareness
To test the simplest part of the English language that empathizes the usage of word
sounds, or should I say phonics, I used the Z-test (McKenna & Stahl, 2006), and the test of the
Knowledge of Onsets(McKenna & Stahl, 2006). The similarity of these tests is that they both test
onsets and rimes. Onsets are the beginning of each word like ‘b’, in the word ‘boy.’ And, rimes
or word families are words that have the same ending letters and sounds; like the words ‘cat’,
‘bat’, and ‘sat.’ These words have the same ‘at’ ending. The Z-test had the same onset, ‘z’ with
different endings of the word; but each word had a different ending. Example of the words in the
test included, ‘zick,’ ‘zack’ and ‘zuck.’ J.J seemed a little taken back by the unfamiliar words.
The only part of the test that J.J struggled was the words that end in silent ‘e.’
In the test of the Knowledge of Onsets (McKenna & Stahl, 2006), I would say a word
like ‘brown’ and he would have to say ‘crown.’ The onset is ‘br’ in the word ‘brown’ and the
onset in the word ‘crown’ in ‘cr.’ J.J seemed to go through this test very rapidly. He would look
at me each time I said a word, then look at the word, and then he would say the word. Out of all
the tests administered, even the Z-test (McKenna & Stahl, 2006) that only had about 20 words,
J.J was able to go through this test with strong responses.
Motivation
Out of all the tests, the Elementary Reading Attitude Survey (McKenna & Stahl, 2006) or also
known as the Garfield test was the test that I had the most physical responses. This test could
show how a student feels about recreational reading and academic reading. As I was proctoring
this test, J.J seemed to be looking at the class wanting to get back to centers. There were four
centers in the room with four activities dealing with different aspects in literacy. It appeared that
J.J. wanted to get through this test as quickly as he could. In the test, there was a picture of
Garfield that cat; to which, had a different body language portraying his response to different
aspects of reading. For example, one of the questions were asking like, how do you feel about
reading for fun at home? (McKenna & Stahl, 2006) Then the student would circle Garfield with
a happy face, a bored face, a disappointed face, and a mad face. J.J. picked a lot of happy faces
and disappointed faces. Nonetheless, he started to circle more of Garfields without me asking the
question. Basically, J.J. was rushing through the test without responding to the question
efficiently. When this started to happen, I said, “Let’s slow down and go back a little and answer
these questions a little more truthfully.” When we went back to pervious questions, he started to
answer questions more slowly.
Indeed testing J.J. about his feelings toward reading with help portray reading; however
every day, I would ask him what he read the night before and which one was his favorite book as
well as why it was his favorite book. By asking this question it appears he enjoys books that are
related to science. When it came to the question in the Elementary Reading Attitude Survey,
“How do you feel when you read a book in school during free time?” (McKenna & Stahl, 2006)
a happy Garfield face was circled. This response shows that when J.J. picks out his books he has
a more motivated time reading.
Writing Sample
On March 19, 2013, there was an activity in the kindergarten class asking the question,
“What was the author saying in the book?” This question was developed to be a higher order of
thinking question based upon a read aloud. J.J wrote, “The author was trying to say that the
caterpillar ternd into a butterfly. He whent in the cucnd.” What he meant to say was, “The author
was trying to say that the caterpillar turned into a butterfly. He went into a cocoon.” J.J. uses
proper sentence structure: like a capital at the beginning of the sentence, a period at the end and
detail in the middle. Also, J.J asked to see the book when he was trying to write this sample
because he wanted to learn how to spell caterpillar and butterfly. I observed him as he read the
story and picked out the words caterpillar and butterfly. Although, J.J does have trouble with ‘ur’
blend and adding in an ‘h’ in went, as J.J writes, he uses proper finger spaces as well as neat
handwriting. Besides a few spelling errors, his writing is very legible and it has a lot of detail
explaining his thoughts.
Summary and Recommendations
Based upon my findings J.J struggles with silent ‘e’ and identifying unfamiliar blends;
like N-controlled blends or blends that emphasize ‘n.’ Indeed, J.J is one of the students who in
kindergarten are at a first grade level, there is a need to scaffold or build his skills to help him
develop his literacy. I would first start doing repetitive activities that deal with word families that
have a n-controlled blend as well as activities that reinforce silent ‘e.’ J.J’s strongest aspect in
literacy is his ability to write a clear and concise sentences as well as his phonemic awareness.
J.J just breaks up a word and sounds it out as best as he can. The weakest part of his literacy
skills is spelling and concepts of silent ‘e.’ When J.J spells he either adds in letters or eliminates
letters. Also, during every single test, the silent ‘e’ aspect was a 0%; which means, he did not
have the instruction for it yet. My long term goal for him is to be able to accomplish silent ‘e’
concept and try to eliminate the amount of miscues in his spelling. My short term goal for him is
to work on his ‘n’ blends; in which, it is just a matter of practicing the nasal sound when using
that blend. Between the short term and long term goals as well as J.J’s strengths and weaknesses,
J.J will be able to scaffold his already existing literacy skills.
Instructional Plan for Intervention
Mini lesson: In my lesson, the entire class would have a worksheet that portrayed a word
that had a silent ‘e’ word and the same word without the ‘e’ next to the word with the word with
the silent ‘e.’ Next to each word would be an area in which the class would be able to draw a
picture of the word. For example, my first word would be ‘made,’ so I would draw a picture of
something being made into something, in the area specified next to the word. Then, the second
word would be mad; in this case, this word does not have the silent ‘e.’ I would then draw a
picture of a face that is mad. After a couple of examples on this worksheet, I would then have
the students write a sentence with a word that has a silent ‘e’ in it and a word that does not have a
silent ‘e’ in it. Also, all of the words that are on the worksheet will be then put on our sight word
wall, or a wall that has all words that are referenced frequently to build automaticity, for future
reference. This lesson is helping students identify words and understanding how to say words
with the silent ‘e.’
Tutoring Session: Since J.J had very little instruction on the function of silent ‘e,’ this
skill is unfamiliar to him. I would have an assortment of pictures that correlate with a silent ‘e’
word. The objective of this activity is that J.J would pick out the word with the silent ‘e’ and try
to match its picture. This lesson is directed to be repetitious as well as help J.J assimilate the
picture he is seeing to a silent ‘e’ word for reinforcement. Also, he would be sounding out each
word to me; so, that he is getting the right pronunciation and practice of the silent ‘e’ concept.
Practice is key, when learning a new concept like silent ‘e.’ However, eventually the practice
will become memorized and the concept of silent ‘e’ will become automatic. That is what I hope
for.
References
Berger, M. (1996). Amazing Water. New York, NY: Newbridge Communications.
Elementary spelling inventory. (2006). In M. C. McKenna & K. A. Dougherty Stahl (Authors),
Assessment for reading instruction (Second ed., pp. 143-144). New York, NY: Guilford
Press.
Elementary reading attitude survey. (2006). In M. C. McKenna & K. A. Dougherty Stahl
(Authors), Assessment for reading instruction (Second ed., pp. 218-222). New York, NY:
Guilford Press.
Informal phonics inventory: Phonic skills record. (2006). In M. C. McKenna & K. A. Dougherty
Stahl (Authors), Assessment for reading instruction (Second ed., pp. 126`-128). New
York, NY: Guilford press.
Qualitative reading inventory. (2006). In M. C. McKenna & K. A. Dougherty Stahl (Authors),
Assessment for reading instruction (Second ed., pp. 18-19). New York, NY: Guilford
press.
Z-test. (2009). In M. C. McKenna & K. A. Dougherty Stahl (Authors), Assessment for Reading
Instruction (Second ed., pp. 132-133). New York, NY: Guilford Press.