Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Mariah Brashar
December 3, 2017
Table of Contents:
Student Background … …
Student Temperament … …
Student Interests … …
ASW Objectives … … 7
Book Introduction … … 11
On Teaching Literacy … … 14
On Conversation … …
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Target Student Introduction:
The target student for this assessment portfolio, Jhodessa or JoJo, is a six-year-old,
Alaska Native girl. She is currently enrolled in the first grade at Nunaka Valley Elementary in
Anchorage, Alaska. She attended kindergarten at the same school last year. She struggles with
several behavioral issues, including difficulty controlling impulses and concentrating. Jhodessa
is a warm and affectionate student with a tendency to withdraw when she feels threatened.
Jhodessa is drawn to literature and stories about animals and Alaska. She is a
moderately capable reader at the first-grade level with few misconceptions about the
mechanics of English written language. However, when faced with difficulty, JoJo has a
tendency to become frustrated and resistant to continuing the challenging activity. She attends
a reading intervention class with a reading specialist, in which JoJo has made noticeable
progress over the last month. The specialist uses dialogic techniques and positive
reinforcement.
In our work together, Jhodessa has shown interest in reading and being read to. Her
excitement can be sustained for reasonable periods of time if she is actively involved in a
successful endeavor (for example, if she is reading a book within her level of comprehension).
She has insights to offer about illustrations, text, and the meaning of books. She enjoys drawing
and is drawn to colorful pictures and creative activities. She also enjoys writing and likes to
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Concepts about Print:
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Assessing Student Work:
This emergent writing sample was collected in the first grade at Nunaka Valley Elementary. The
student, Jhodessa, was one of several students whose work was analyzed. The ASW is a process
reflecting the analysis of all samples. However, the names and writing samples of classmates
other than Jhodessa have been removed. The data was left unchanged and is included within the
Jhodessa:
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ASW Student Data:
Jhodessa: demonstrated partial competence in this assignment. She was developing the
objectives for this assignment.
Student work will be considered proficient if there are word boundaries, correct capitalization, correct
punctuation, and illustrations that relate to or support the print. Letters should resemble or approximate
conventional forms and text should be writing left to right (as in standard English)
The assessment gives students the ability to demonstrate their understanding of the conventions of print
and illustration.
Johnny, Landon, Alena Troy, Maia, Aveya JoJo Valelai, Riley, Delaney, Natalie, Clark,
Holden, Camila, Michaela,
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Met Developing Not Yet
progressing work samples incomplete work samples
best quality work samples
-Includes end-of-sentence punctuation -Includes clear word boundaries -Includes printed words/statement of
-Every word is attempted -Every word is attempted idea
-Includes beginning of sentence -Includes some correct capitalization -Print contains the message
capitalization or punctuation -Includes capital letters and lowercase
-Phonetic approximation of spellings -Phonetic approximation of spelling letters or punctuation
-Clear word boundaries -Illustration supports or relates to -Contains at least one word
-Consistent letter spacing statement -Left to right directionality evident.
-Print contains message -Print contains the message
-Illustration supports or relates to -Understandable statement
statement -Consistent letter boundaries
-Doesn’t contain repeated words (and -Left to right directionality evident
and and)
-Organized thought
Does not include conventional Does not include multiple-thought Does not include conventional
spelling. sentences/statements. spelling.
Does not include multiple-thought Does not include punctuation Does not include multiple-thought
sentences/statements. variation (?!) sentences/statements.
Does not include punctuation Does not include conventional Does not include punctuation
variation (?!) capitalization throughout statement variation (?!)Does not include
illustration that supports or relates to
Does not include punctuation statement.
Disordered capitalization/punctuation
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Instructional Strategies/ Next Steps
What will you focus your instruction on for the student or students in each group?
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Oral Running Record:
ORR Conference:
Jhodessa completed eight Oral Running Records. After the first of these records, I met
with Susan Andrews, the instructor for this course, to discuss the record and what the next
steps in the ORR process should be. She instructed me on choosing appropriate books, giving
records. After starting with a book (Black Bear Cub) that was far above her instructional reading
level, we were able to use the leveled books to find a set of books with which she was much
more successful. While the initial record was very informative and she put in a great deal of
effort and used her considerable skills to decode much of the text, subsequent books in the A-B
suggested. In the included record, a short description of the book introduction is included as
the back page of the record sheet. The book introduction process proved to be very helpful not
only in orienting Jhodessa to the book, but in helping to pique her interest.
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Oral Running Record Sheet:
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Book Introduction:
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Summary of Jhodessa’s Current Academic Understandings:
Over the course of this semester, Jhodessa has progressed noticeably in her
understanding of reading. She started the semester with a strong understanding of the
JoJo is also a strong narrator and illustrator. She is interested in creating her own stories
and can match illustrations with text successfully, as one can see from the Assessment of
Student Work example. She performs best when given the autonomy to create something
original without extensive restrictions. She is excited by writing and is an active artist. If one can
harness these interests, Jhodessa will likely develop her skills in writing and drawing.
While her sight-word recognition and phonetic decoding skills have progressed and
improved, she has also gained some understanding of using illustrations as a reference point.
She shows more interest in reading than she did at the beginning of our time together. She also
has much more success in using the various tools in her tool box. She is working on testing out
words to see if they make sense, and self-correcting if she finds that a word she’s guessed
Jhodessa still struggles with perseverance, but with her recent successes during the Oral
Running Record process, she’s gained a moderate amount of confidence. As she gains
confidence, she seems to also be gaining interest and enthusiasm for reading. The more
literature that she is exposed to that is geared towards her interests, I believe the more she will
be interested in reading.
In reading closely with JoJo, I have been able to identify some of her misunderstandings
and repeated mistakes, such as her reliance on phonics as a decoding device at the expense of
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understanding. I have also been able to increase her positive associations with reading and with
being read to, which seems to be her biggest stumbling block. Together, we have identified
methods she might use when she is unfamiliar with a word (such as looking at the first letter
and thinking of a word that might fit with the story or the picture and make sense).
Over the past four months, I have learned a great deal about what young children
attend to while they are engaged in reading or listening to a book or story. A teacher’s
teacher can tune into differences between students, then she may be able to identify individual
needs, interests, and misunderstandings. Through careful analysis of student work, a teacher
can identify what the students are attending to, as individuals. If one can begin to see what the
students are attending to, the one can begin to see what elements might be helpful to expose
To use Jhodoessa as an example: as I worked with JoJo, I found that she consistently
used one main “tool” to figure out unfamiliar words. She sounded them out! Often, as we
English readers are well aware, words do not sound the same as they phonetically should.
When I realized that JoJo needed some other tools, I was able to direct her towards using
illustrations and thinking about whether or not a word made sense within a story or sentence. If
I hadn’t been able to work closely with JoJo and to look at her work with an eye for what she
might be focused on, I may not have noticed that she was in need of some other strategies.
When teachers can give students that kind of one-on-one attention, they are able to tune into
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the differences that make learners unique. It is tuning into those differences that allows us to
On teaching literacy:
In teaching literacy, it is important that we do not “begin at the beginning” with letters
and sounds, but rather begin that the end with literature! If we hope to interest our students in
reading, we should engage them in stories: both in actively listening and discussing books, and
in writing their own stories (however limited their writing abilities may be): an interest for
On conversation:
together, we can teach them the skill of thinking together about a book – one of the best ways
to understand the most complex concepts in our world. If we treat our students as valuable
contributors, authors, and literary critics, we can imbue them with the confidence and interest
to delve deep into what they are learning and to search for meaning. If we do not allow and
encourage conversation in our classrooms, we cannot hope to break the pattern of our
students always looking to us, the teachers, for explanations and answers. We must teach them
that they are the authors of their own answers, and that those answers are legitimate,
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