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EDUC 6410
Assessment and Evaluation Case
Study

Date of report: Student name:

December 10th, Laila
2015
Report author: Grade: 2nd Grade
Ayana Fletcher-
Tyson
Time period of Age: 8
assessments:
September 28th,
2015-
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Table of Contents:

1. Background Information
2. Assessments Administered
3. Assessment Reflection and Analysis
4. Summary and Recommendations
5. Implications for the Use of Literacy Assessments:
6. Appendix

Background Information
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America Preparatory School is a K-4th school in East Nashville, Tennessee.

America Prep is an elementary charter school currently serving grades K through 4 th.
Every year, America Prep will add a grade until it expands to a K through 8
elementary and middle school. The school was founded by the Martha OBryan
Center in 2011 and they continue to fund and support the school. Many of the
students come from the Cayce Projects in East Nashville where the Martha OBryan
Center is located. America Prep follows the two teacher model in every classroom
with a Lead Teacher and Associate Teacher. Kindergarten and First Grade are self-
contained and Second through Fourth grade are departmentalized. Two classrooms
per grade are ELA and Social Studies and two classrooms per grade are Math and
Science in 2nd and 4th grade. In 4th grade, there are 4 classrooms: Math, ELA-Fiction,
ELA-Non-Fiction, and Science. America Prep does not have use a basal reading
curriculum; rather, the school has been developing its own curriculum over the past
4 years. America Prep uses a balanced literacy approach every day in the
classroom. The literacy block includes a phonics block using Reading Mastery
and Fundations curriculum, a comprehension read aloud block, writing block,
and centers block with guided reading small groups being pulled by both
teachers while students are in independent literacy centers. Literacy
progress and achievement is measured with unit tests, quarterly interims,
quarterly writing benchmark assessments, the STEP assessment, and the
MAP assessment.

The school environment as a whole is very progress and achievement

oriented and that can be seen in many of the classrooms. Each classroom
must be themed around the teachers alma mater and college and university
life is a big part of America Preps print environment. Laila is a second grade
student and therefore sees two classrooms per day. Her morning class is her
math class and University of Memphis themed. In the afternoon, she is in her
literacy classroom which is Vanderbilt University. Multiple views of the
literacy classroom are pictured below.
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This classroom is extremely warm and child-learning centered. Books and

texts are everywhere and easily accessible. Students have the chances for
challenge during their independent centers during the workshop block and
time for choice during the classs Sharpen the Saw afternoon block on
Friday when all academic centers, play centers, and the library are open to
the students.

When assessments such as interims and unit assessments are given in

this classroom, students are spread out at their tables, the teachers
horseshoe tables, or on the carpet with clipboards. When students are given
the STEP assessment, they are tested individually outside of the classroom in
quiet spaces and nooks around the school. When students take the MAP
assessment, they are tested in the computer lab in a whole group setting.

The Child

I have the pleasure of working with Laila Nettles this year. She is a
second-grade student who is new to America Prep this year. She is a kind
child and has made a few friends especially with the girls who are often in
her reading groups. However, Laila is a quiet child and if she had her
preference, she would prefer to work alone. I often observed during center
rotations working on her work on a clipboard. Most of the time, she will take
the clipboard to a chair that is removed from the group by choice. It also
seems that she also would prefer to spend time with teachers or adults. For
example, she will ask to stay with me for recess when we are working
together instead of going outside with her peers. She is currently below
benchmark goals in both reading and math and receiving daily small group
instruction in both classrooms. She really enjoys the one on one attention of
our time together, but has articulated to me that reading and writing are
tough for her. Her teacher let me observe her during an assessment time and
I noticed that she is sounding out almost every word she reads. While she is
not showing visible or angry frustration, she will frequently say I dont know
this word or Can you tell me what this is? At times, it seems like she is not
focusing during class when the content or questioning begins getting more
rigorous within the lesson.

Initial Goals and Question

Since Laila is not reading on grade level and seems to be struggling

with foundational skills from Kindergarten and First Grade, her teacher and I
are most curious to see where the breakdown in knowledge is. Her teacher
has asked me to determine if Laila has adequate phonological awareness
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skills. We are wondering if it is a phonemic awareness problem that is

affecting her ability to decode words quickly which in turn is slowing down
her fluency which affects her comprehension of the texts. Her teacher is also
worried about her sight word knowledge and would like to know is that she
just doesnt know them and is trying to decode each word as she sees it or if
it is a deeper problem with her ability to automatically recognize words. We
are also wondering on which cuing system she is most dependent on,
whether that is meaning the semantic system, syntactic clues, or the visual
of the text itself. We are both wondering if we are able to show progress in
these areas she will naturally have better comprehension of what she is
reading or if that is also a problem area for her. Perhaps she also has not
heard and used adequate vocabulary which would also hold her back on
comprehending various texts. We may also need to determine if she
possesses the strategies necessary to achieve deeper comprehension of
texts.

Ms. Loren and I have many questions that we have synthesized into a
few goals. Our primary goal of this case study is to determine what Lailas
literacy foundational skills are. We believe we must understand her
foundation first before we can make decisions about what interventions will
be most effective. Her teacher has asked that I start with determining if Laila
has adequate phonemic awareness skills and adequate ability to transfer
those skills to higher order tasks .
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Assessments Administered
Date of Assessment Additional Overall Results Locati
Administrati Title Notes (i.e. on in
on Title and Appen
Level of dix
Book)
9/29/15 Pre-Primer 1 Pre-Primer 1: Tab 1
and Pre- Independent Level
Primer 2/3 Pre-Primer 2/3:
Word Lists Frustration Level
10/13/15 Reading By Sounded 10 correct from Tab 2
Analogy out/attempte High-Frequency
d to sound Word List (0/3
out almost all correct from 1st
low-frequency grade list)
words 6 correct from Low
Frequency Word List
(0/3 correct from 1st
grade list)
10/14/15 Garfield When looking Full Scale Raw Tab 3
Elementary at the mildly Score: 71
Writing upset picture Percentile Rank: 26th
Attitude of Garfield,
Survey student
associated
the picture
with the word
lazy
10/15/15- First Dolch Sight 10/15/15- 125/220 Left
Administration Word List correct Pocket
11/10/15- 11/10/15- 162/220 in blue
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Second correct folder

Administration
10/19- Phonological Student has not Tab 4
10/20/15 Awareness mastered Concept
Skills Test of Spoken Word,
(PAST) Rhyme Production,
Syllable Deletion,
Phoneme
Segmentation,
Phoneme Deletion
of Initial Sound,
Phoneme Deletion
of Final Sound,
Adding Phonemes,
and Phoneme
Substitution of
Initial Sound
10/28/15- First Z-Test On first 10/28/15- 10/37 Tab 5
Administration administratio correct
11/6/15- n of the test, I 11/6/15- 5/37
Second reminded correct
Administration Laila to sound
the words out
after word 2.
Did not
remind her on
second
administratio
n
11/5/15 Informal 57/93 correct Tab 6
Phonics
Inventory
11/6/15- QRI Pre- Pre-Primer 1: Tab 7
11/11/15 Primer 1,2, Independent (Total
and 3 Accuracy and Total
(Narrative) Acceptability) and
Instructional
(Retell/Explicit/Impli
cit questions)
Pre-Primer 2:
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Instructional (Total
Accuracy)/
Independent (Total
Acceptability) and
Instructional
(Retell/Explicit/Impli
cit questions)
Pre-Primer 3:
Instructional (Total
Accuracy and Total
Acceptability) and
Independent
(Retell/Explicit/Impli
cit questions)
11/11/15 Heres How I Tab 8
Feel about
Reading
Survey
11/11/15 Tell Me What Tab 9
You Like!
Survey
11/12/15 Informal Stopped Short vowels Real Tab 10
Decoding testing after Words: 8/10
Inventory Consonant Short vowels
Blends and Nonsense Words:
Digraphs 5/10
section Consonant Blends
because she and Digraphs Real
reached Words: 3/10
frustration Consonant Blends
level) and Digraphs
Nonsense Words:
4/10

11/13/15 Running We Like Lexile 180, F&P F, Tab 11

Record Kites by the Grade level: 1st
Berenstains Grade
Accuracy Rate: 62%
49 errors out of 129
words
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11/16/15 Running Biscuits Day Lexile 260, F&P H, Tab 12

Record at the Farm Grade level: 1st
by Alyssa Grade
Satin Capucilli Accuracy Rate: 76%
31 errors out of 134
words

Assessment Reflection and Analysis

As I began work with Laila, I knew I needed to start with the QRI word
lists to get a baseline idea of what level books we would be reading for
assessment purposes or for fun purposes during relationship building times.
While Laila is a second grader, based on conversations with her ELA teacher,
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I knew I needed to begin with the Pre-Primer word list. As it was my first
assessment to give her, I wanted to build confidence in her and start off on a
strong note. Based on that data alone, I had a suspicion that Lailas struggles
with reading included a severe lack of word recognition skills and the
phonemic awareness to be able to decode unknown words with fluency. After
I administered the QRI word list, I gave Laila the Reading By Analogy
assessment. She read most of the words on the low-frequency list by either
sounding them out or using the first letter/sound to supply a word that
matched visually. This pattern of reading words by visually matching a word
to the first letter/sound continued throughout the rest of Lailas assessment
results.

The next assessment given was the Garfield Elementary Writing

Attitude Survey. This assessment was eye opening as it gave me many ideas
of how to work on writing with Laila next semester. She was reported the
most interest in writing when the writing involved personal diary or journal
writing. I also was extremely glad to see that Laila was extremely interested
in becoming a better writer. However, Laila rated most questions that had to
do with academic rating (for example how would you feel if you could write
more in school or how do you feel writing a long story or report in school) the
mildly upset or very upset Garfield picture. Another telling choice by Laila
was that when asked the question how do you feel if your teacher asked you
to go back and change some of your writing, she marked the very upset
Garfield. I think this is good data for me to know that she is upset and
discouraged by the editing and revising process in writing.

Next, I gave Laila the Dolch 220 sight word list on two different dates,
about a month a part. On the first date, she read 125 out of 220 words
correctly and on the second date, she read 162 out 220 words correctly an
improvement of 37 sight words. Both times the only list that she read 100%
of the 25 words correctly was the List 1 words. Many of her mistakes
occurred because she was reading only the first letter/sound and matching a
word that was similar length and perhaps the same ending sound. For
example, she read down as done both times, came as come both times,
and went as what both times. She read would as world the first time
and word the second time. There were also some words that seemed as if
she was reading them backwards or reading from the middle of the word. For
example, she read now as on both times. She also read five as very the
first time the list was given. Another thing that I noticed was that some of
the words she read correctly except for replacing the vowel sound incorrectly.
For example, she read let as lit the first time the list was given, she read
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grow as graw both times, she read wash as wish both times, and she
read show as shop both times. Finally, the last thing I noticed as she went
through the word lists, especially on the last 3, she would look at the first
letter and then just guess a word and not self-monitor if that word made
sense with the following letters she saw. For example, she read because as
break and together as think both times as well.

Next, I administered the Phonological Awareness Skills Test. After

listening to Laila sound out many words that should have been in her sight
word knowledge and sometimes get the letter-sound correspondence
incorrect, I was curious about her knowledge of more foundational reading
skills. While all skills but two tested on the PAST should be mastered by the
end of 1st grade, Laila had mastered half of them 8 out 16 skills. She was
able to recognize rhymes, complete rhymes, blend syllables, segment
syllables, isolate the initial sound and final sound, blend the onset and rime
of a word, and blend all phonemes in a word. However, Laila had not
mastered concept of the spoken word, producing a rhyme, syllable deletion,
phoneme segmentation, deleting the initial or the final phoneme, adding
phonemes, and substituting the initial phoneme.

I also administered the Z-test to Laila to see how she would apply her
sound knowledge to nonsense words. The first time I administered the
assessment, I reminded Laila after two words that she should be sounding
out the words to the best of her ability. As she read, I tried to get down all of
the words she said instead of the correct word. A few times the vowel sound
was wrong. For example, the word was zell and she read it as zill.
However, most often she would read the z plus the vowel and then make up
a word from there instead of reading through the word. For example, when
she saw zank, she read it as zack.

The next assessment I administered was the Informal Phonics

Inventory. Laila could identify and produce all consonant sounds. She also
knew 8 out of the short vowels in CVC words. However, Laila struggled with
the rest of the portions of the test. She correctly identified 2 out of the 5
consonant digraphs sounds. She knew 7 of 20 beginning consonant blends,
and she was not able to identify any final consonant blends and ng. She
could apply the rule of silent e only once out of 4 times and could read long
diagraph words 1 out 10 times. Laila was unable to recognize any dipthongs
and r-controlled vowels and al. Laila scored a 57 out 93 which places her on
the long end of scores that fall under the Review category for this
assessment. However, because she scored a 0 in so many categories, I
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would say that she falls under the Needs Systematic Instruction category for
many phonics skills.

After this assessment, I spent several days testing Laila on various

narrative QRI passages. These passages yield interesting results. Laila was at
an instructional level on the Pre-Primer 1, Pre-Primer 2, and Pre-Primer 3. On
the 1, her reading accuracy was independent under both total accuracy and
total acceptability, but her comprehension was instructional. On the 2, her
reading accuracy was instructional under total accuracy and independent
under total acceptability, and her comprehension was instructional. On the 3,
her reading accuracy was instructional, but her comprehension was
independent. The main conclusion that I drew from the QRI reading tests is
that Laila needs a lot of strategic word recognition and word solving help so
that I can get a better idea of where she is comprehension wise with texts.

After the QRI tests, I administer some interest tests so I could better
choose books for Laila next semester for our instructional small groups. I
gave her the Heres How I Feel about Reading Survey and the Tell Me What
You Like! Survey. There were 2 answers that struck me as extremely
interesting on the Heres How I Feel about Reading Survey. Her response to
how she feels her friends think about reading is that it is boring. While she
said that she likes when her mom helps her read because it makes it more
fun; she also stated that the worst thing about reading is that she doesnt
really know that many words and that her mom tells her to start over and
read again.

The next assessment I administered also gave me more information on

her phonics skills and ability to apply her letter-sound knowledge to decoding
known and unknown words. I administered the Informal Decoding Inventory
to Laila but only gave her the first three sections Short Vowels, Consonant
Blends and Digraphs, and R-controlled Vowel Patterns. Laila got 0 out of 20
correct for the 10 R-controlled Vowel Pattern Real and nonsense words. I
stopped testing her as she had reached frustration level. Many of the words
she said on the Consonant Blends and Digraphs section shared an initial
sound and final sound with the actual word printed. For example, Laila said
think instead of thick and click instead of check. However, when she got
to the R-Controlled Vowel Patterns section, the words she said only shared an
initial sound with the actual printed words. For example, she said story for
the printed word stork, temps for the printed word turf, and funny for
the printed word fird.
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Finally, the last assessments I administered to Laila were 2 different

running records. The first running records I administered was We Like Kites
by the Berenstains which is a first grade level book. Laila read the book with
a 62% accuracy rate. After doing a miscue analysis, I noticed that most of
Lailas miscues occurred because she was using her visual cuing system and
then guessing from there instead of also looking at the context and meaning
of the story to help her problem solve the word. This trend continued with
the second running record, Biscuits Day at the Farm by Alyssa Satin
Capucilli. Laila read this first grade level book with 76% accuracy and again
most of her miscues occurred from the use of just her visual cuing system
and no self-monitoring.

Summary and Recommendations:

Combining the data from the running records and the QRI test results, I
have come to the conclusion that Lailas independent reading level is at a
beginning to middle of year Kindergarten level and that her instructional
level is that of a beginning of year 1st grader. As I write this case study, Laila
will be in the midst of the STEP level assessment that is administered by her
teacher. She is working to pass the Step 4 which is a beginning of year first
grade reading level. This aligns with my diagnosis that she is reading and
comprehending independently at a STEP 3, the end of year kindergarten
level and will need instruction starting at the First grade level. Another big
conclusion that I reached from assessing and working with Laila this
semester is that almost all of her reading miscues stem from her not reading
through the whole word. When she comes to a word that she needs to
problem solve on a list, she will use the first sound and then guess a word
from there. Since she is just guessing a word based on its beginning sound
and not self-monitoring to ensure that word makes sense as a real word, the
words she says often do not fit in the context of the sentence or story.

While her instructional reading level is that of a beginning of year first

grader, I also feel that I will need to prepare instruction that addresses some
kindergarten phonemic awareness and phonics skills particularly the skills
addressed in the PAST assessment. Laila will need to work on phoneme
segmentation and manipulating phonemes so that she is able to decode and
encode words and recognize familiar word parts or patterns even if an initial
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or final sound is different. She can use those familiar word parts or patterns
to help her read the word even if the parts of the word are unfamiliar.

What I also noticed that is concerning about Laila is that she is not able
to transfer her knowledge of the letters and their sounds to unfamiliar or
nonsense words. Her first instinct is not to sound out the sounds for the
letters she hears, but instead it is to guess based on the first sound. It will be
important that we work on word attack strategies and building our
confidence in using the strategies we do know or learn so that we are able to
make our best attempt at reading the word on the page. We will also need to
work on asking ourselves self-regulating and self-correcting questions while
we are reading such as Does this sound right to me? so that as she reads
with the use of her strategies, Laila is also continuing to check her
comprehension of the text and ensuring what she says is makes sense with
what she already has read and said.

One strength I noticed and that I feel Laila can use to build her reading
and writing skills upon is her love of diaries and journals. In her writing
assessment, Laila marked the most excited Garfield to represent her feelings
regarding writing in a diary or journal. Also, during times when we just had
conversation, Laila asked me multiple times if she could write in a diary
during our time together or if I had a diary for her to read. Since she has
such a high interest in this particular type of book and writing already, it
would be great if her writing time could be supplemented by writing in a
diary. Perhaps she could either earn that time as an independent center or
her rough drafts for papers could be written in a journal so that she feels like
her work is her own and private.
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Implications for the Use of Literacy Assessments:

Through administering so many different assessments, this semester, I
feel more comfortable with a variety of the assessments. I especially found
the data from the Phonological Awareness Skills Test and the Informal
Phonics and Decoding Inventories because they gave such a complete look
at what a student can and cannot do regarding the pillars of phonemic
awareness and phonics. I also found the Reading By Analogy test and the Z-
test promising as they gave valuable information about a students ability to
transfer knowledge from familiar text to unfamiliar text. All 4 of these
assessments seem promising as tools for diagnosis. Both the Informal
Phonics and Decoding Inventories also seem promising as tools for progress
monitoring.

However, I did not feel as if the running records I gave were as helpful
to use as perhaps the QRI or the STEP assessment her teacher provided for
me because I did not have a sense of what she retained from the text. I did
however like the fact that the running record provided so many
opportunities for a teacher or literacy coach to do miscue analysis and have
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multiple pieces of evidence as to what cueing systems a student is using

most often to problem solve a word. I believe that a running record would be
a promising tool for progress monitoring to see if word-solving instruction
was effective.

Appendix:
See next section.
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