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Julianna Dean

Dr. Sparks

SERP 408b

21 February 2016

Writing Analysis

Case study for Brad, a 6th grade student who was asked to write a story. His elaborate picture

suggests that he drew this first to try and get out of writing and then just wrote what he could in

the remaining time. Overall, there is so much that can be said from this short story, but more

would be needed to make a full analysis of the services that would benefit him.

Handwriting: Brads handwriting is not typical for a 6th grader. His letters are all the same size

and he uses capital letters in the middle of his sentences. His a and e in the entire story are

drawn like a circle and then a stem coming from it, like Brad is unaware of how to make the

letter without picking up his pencil. All j and g are reversed as well, along with a circle and

curved stem pattern for the physicality of the letters. Brads writing does seem to stay on a

straight line, and I am curious if he wrote on line paper or that occurs naturally for him.

Spelling: Brad is a very phonemic speller, which is good and bad. The good is that he is aware

that filz (feels) has those specific sounds to make the words; all the sounds of the words are

represented. For helping Brad in spelling, it would be much easier since he already knows his

letter sounds, now it is about teaching him the irregulars and the rules, like silent e and double

e in words like feel. He did spell Honda right which may be from constant exposure and seeing

it on his bike so often. Brad does miss the p in jump throughout the entire piece which makes
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me wonder if there is a speech problem at the heart of this, like he is not hearing the sounds (but

then again, he is a very phonemic speller).

Usage: Brads usage throughout his work is apparent, but very elementary. He has all parts of the

sentence, but again, it is not at a 6th grade level. I was surprised at this as his picture is very

detailed and there were no adjectives to describe his bike or riding it. Since this is such a short

sample to look at (only five lines), it is hard to determine if it is a usage problem or a side effect

of another deficiency, like spelling or vocabulary.

Vocabulary: The vocabulary used was very limited and did not exhibit a strong knowledge of

the topic, again, which is a shock in comparison to his drawing. The word bestest was used and

it is not a legitimate word. In the five lines, Brad uses jumps in three of them, showing that he

does not know another action word.

Text Structure: For this story, there was no intro, middle, or ending; not up to 6th grade

standards. It was a mix of short, repetitive sentences to describe his bike. There is also no order

to his sentences, they could be mixed up and put together again and the reader would understand

the simplicity of Brads story. More accountability during pre-writing could help with this

problem as then he would need to come up with a specific sequence of events.