Jackie Hibma ED 320-05 November 9, 2011 Child Study Report Preliminary information: This report contains information gathered

about a fifth grade girl. She displays the abilities to choose appropriate level books and read independently for comprehension. She summarizes books she is reading and talks about books she looks forward to reading. During writing, she enjoys writing about her younger sister. The school she attends is a suburban school with 71% white, 13% Hispanic, 13% black, 2% Asian/Pacific Islander, and < 1% Native American students. Fifty percent of the students receive free or reduced lunch. The attendance rate is 96%. The student-teacher ratio is 18. This information was found on www.greatschools.org. In assessing this student, I recorded my observations of her in class, I conducted an interest/attitude survey to learn how she feels about reading, I held a reading conference with her, and assessed a sample of her writing. Strengths of the child: The student is new to the school district this year, but she has made couple of good friends who she enjoys talking to and laughing with. She likes to help out the teacher and was worried she would lose out on this because she was absent for three days while she was supposed to be the class assistant. This student likes to read. She talks to me about the books she is reading and loves going to the library. She is able to summarize for me what she has read, and she is able to pick books to read that are at an appropriate reading level for her. She listens to reading recommendations that I make and that she overhears from other students. She is concerned with comprehension while reading, she makes sure to reread and read slowly. In her writing, she likes to write about her younger sister. She is able to stay on topic while she is writing. It is evident from her revising and writers conferences I have had with her that she asks herself if her writing makes sense. Her writing is legible and she is concerned with working neatly on her work.

Areas of need for the child: The child has difficulty in writing fiction with a clear beginning, middle and end. The writing sample included in assessment four shows that she has revised it to make sure it makes sense, but the story needs to have a beginning, middle and end. She struggles with spelling which is evident in assessment one from looking at her writing in her writers notebook and her spelling test scores. When she is given a chance to rewrite from a rough draft, she is often able to fix the words in which the letters get switched around for her. For spelling tests, she received 70% on the first one and 35% on the second one as evident in assessment one. This shows me that she needs to practice learning and studying the spelling patterns. In her reading, she is not asking questions while she is reading. During the writing conference, I asked her if this was a goal of hers and she said no. Assessment one shows that oral round robin reading during class can be difficult for her because she is not familiar with the vocabulary. Also, it showed that she received 60% on her multiple choice story quiz based on her knowledge of what happened in the story. Instructional suggestions/strategies: The student needs to start writing her stories with a clear beginning, middle, and end. The hamburger bun strategy found online from dese.mo.gov/divimprove/curriculum/.../lesson_three_ edited.doc would be a good strategy for her to use. This strategy encourages the child to think about a hamburger in a bun as a metaphor for writing with a beginning, middle, and an end. The top bun represents the beginning of the story, the hamburger bun represents everything in the middle of the story, and the bottom bun represents the end of the story. She can use this as a prewriting organizational strategy, by drawing a picture of a hamburger bun and patty in her notebook before writing. Then, she can jot down a few words or sentences next to the top bun (beginning,) patty (middle,) and bottom bun (end.) When she begins to add more details and paragraphs into the middle of the story, she can think about these as different toppings, such as cheese, lettuce etc. Then, she can add these to her hamburger bun chart as well. When she begins writing, she can use these prewriting notes to help her write with a clear beginning, middle, and end for her stories. This student needs to start asking questions while she is reading. This will help her comprehension of academic reading from the textbook for language arts, math, science, and social studies. The more she comprehends the reading, the better she will do on story quizzes and other assignments. It will also help her when reading higher level books that do not have pictures. The strategy of questioning would be a good strategy for her to use. In this strategy, the student writes down questions she has while reading. This can be used while she is reading for fun or academic reading. The student records questions she has while reading, then writes

possible answers and categorizes the answer by how she came up with them. The categories include, A= I found the answer in the text!, BK= My background knowledge helped me, I= I am inferring (I am assuming this is the answer based on my prior knowledge) the answer to the question, D= By discussing the question I discovered the answer, RS= I need to research further to answer this question, C= I am confused!, and KR= If I keep reading I may discover the answer. If she uses this strategy, it will help her realize the parts of text that do not make sense to her and encourage her to continue question whether she comprehends informational text in the future. Reflection: During this child study report, I learned that assessing children takes time. That it is a process that includes continuing to collect data and continuing to question what the student needs from me as a teacher. This process encouraged me to look at all of the data and make a decision about what the student needs instead of just basing my decisions on my first judgment. It taught me to focus on a few areas that the student needs the most support in. After I have made decisions about what strategies and lessons to teach the child, I think it is very important to continue kidwatching to observe whether the lessons I have taught are benefitting the student. If the student is not improving, do I need to teach the lesson in a different way? Do I need to introduce a new strategy? Or do I need to reassess where the students areas of need are and work on a different area? In observing and thinking about what this student needs, I learned that spelling is not something that is based on pure memorization. I learned that spelling patterns are taught and learned and help students as they spell out words. I also learned that when students are not writing in complete sentences, there may be some other area that is more of a need to them. I learned that teaching to a students most important needs may help her with other things she is struggling with. For example, as I encourage this student to use the hamburger bun strategy this will allow her to make a rough draft of her work. I have noticed that when she makes a rough draft of her work that she can focus on paragraph structure, complete sentences, and misspelled words in the more final drafts. Using the hamburger bun strategy as a prewriting strategy may also help her sentences, paragraphs, and words because she has already written out her ideas once and thought about if they look correct or make sense. These assessments have helped me to think about teaching to the individual child. It has shown me that it is possible to have instruction that meets the needs of individual children even though I may have a class with 28 students. It has helped me think about teaching children strategies based upon their needs, and grouping children in order to teach children with the same needs the same strategies. I have learned that a literacy teacher can be a teacher who encourages individual students at their different levels based on their needs. I have come to appreciate the importance of

conferencing with students in both a reading and a writing setting. As a literacy teacher, I will teach students strategies in the conference based on my initial reactions, but also spend time reflecting upon the data I have gathered. I will use this data to teach small groups of students strategies based upon their needs, and to also teach a whole group mini-lesson based upon what I see multiple students needing instruction in.