Literacy Assessment

Information of Child (for Pre-K)

The student from my practicum that I chose to do my assessment on is Lebanna. She is a

4-year-old in a pubic preschool. Lebanna lives at home with her mom, dad, and two sisters in a

rural county. She started attending the VPI program at Kugh H elementary school in the

beginning of the 2018-2019 school year. Lebanna has brown hair and brown eyes, has a slight

thick weight. She pronounces words loud and clear.

Picture and Name Task (for Pre-K)

The goal of this assignment is to have the student draw on a piece of paper and to write

their name. The student will then tell the examiner what they drew, and the examiner will record

it. There are two significant purposes of the picture and name task assessment is the first is

name-writing. According to Vukelich, this is important because at this stage of development (4

years) the student should be passed name recognition and working on naming letters and forming

letters (p. 132). The assessment allows the examiner to see where the student is at this point of

development in order to make growth plans. The picture portion of the assessment serves the

purpose to convey that pictures, just like words also provide a meaning and it teaches them how

to story tell on their own.

Making the student write their name utilizes the 6th foundation block of Virginia literacy

called written expression. Specifically, it works on part c) name writing (p.16).

 Lebanna drew a picture after we did the concept about print assessment. Her picture was

about the book The Birthday Cake. She drew in red, a balloon, in black, “coca” (soda/coca cola),

and in green, ice cream (“cone”, “decorations”, and “big person ice cream”). Lebanna only wrote

the A in her name when asked to write her name on the back. I asked her “what is the A for?”

She responded, “my name!”

I gave this assessment to several students at the art center. They tried to make me 3D art

or use stencils. The art that they provided for me was not appropriate for this assignment

therefore I had to make some evaluations to my approach. When I worked with Lebanna we sat

at the math table with only the tools we needed, paper and crayons. I limited her options before

we started. She sat the whole time and gave me her full attention. This had an emphasize on the

importance of certain assessments needing to be done in a quiet place. I also gave her this

assignment immediately after we read together for the concepts about print assessment. I did this

because also when I performed this on students before Lebanna, I had some tell me they didn’t

know what to draw or just used stencils. This way I figured she would have ideas fresh in her

head to draw. She did end up drawing pictures about our story The Birthday Cake by: Jillian

Cutting.

Concepts About Print Task (for Pre-K)

 The task of this assessment is for the student to respond to the following questions bellow

during a reading of a simple level book. The examiner is to begin by telling the students they are

going to read a book and that the student’s help in needed. The questions are asked throughout

the book. According to Vukelich, the purpose of this assessment is to provide the understanding

that print has meaning and represents spoken words (p. 52). It also serves the purposes of seeing

where the student is developmentally at book holding, page turning, and other concepts (p. 52).

This assessment covers all the components of the 5th block of Virginia Literacy Foundation,

called print and book awareness (p. 15).

Title: The Birthday Cake by: Jillian Cutting

_____ Show me the front of the book

_____ Show me the back of the book

_____ Show me the title of the story (then read the title to the child)

_____ Show me where we would begin reading the story

_____ As you finish reading a page, show me a picture

_____ After reading another page, show me a letter

_____ Show me a word

_____ Show me the first letter in a word

_____ Show me the last letter in a word

_____ Show me how I would read this page (directionality)

_____ Show me an upper-case letter

_____ Point to a period, what is this?

TOTAL 10/12

After I asked the question “show me where the front of the book is” she took the book and while

pointing said “the is the front, this is the back, this is the spine, and these are the pages.” She

pointed with me to all the words in the book. When she could not tell me what a period was I

told her. Then she said “aww I know a period!”

I felt comfortable giving this assessment. There was one thing I was unsure of. When I asked the

first question, she took the book and answered 4 questions without prompting. If this were a real

assessment, where it mattered for her would I accept those answers or would I have to ask them

again since this is a word for word assessment? Some assessments require the proctor to read the

assessment straight from the test, is this one of those? I was unsure and just accepted her 4

answers by moving on to the next question. Maybe this was just an example of an assessment

being too easy for a student. Next time I can use a higher-level book and ask different questions.

Uppercase Letter Recognition Assessment (for Pre-K)

This task of this assessment is to present alphabet index cards (random order) in front of child

and ask them to name each letter. The task is very simple and straight forward. An examiner may

also use the print out below, but I made and use index cards because I thought they would be

more effective in keeping the student’s attention. The purpose of this task, is to see where a

student is at with their phonological awareness. Print awareness and letter recognition is an

important bases for phonological awareness, Vukelich says phonological awareness is “a product

of vocabulary development” (p.132).

This assessment covers the 4th foundational block of Virginia Literacy. This block is

called letter knowledge and early word recognition. I think specifically from this block part a) of

identifying 10-18 letters correctly was implemented in this assessment(p. 14).

I chose this assessment because I thought it was age appropriate, concepts wise and time

wise. I am happy I chose this assessment, I initially thought she would do almost perfect on this

exam. Upon planning for this I was going to do both capital and lower-case letters. However,

time did not allow me to make lower case index cards. I think it was a good idea to just start with
the upper case, I was able to see that she still has letters that she can work on before moving

forward.

These are Lebanna’s scores the black checks are the ones she got correct and the red

marks are the ones she got incorrect. Bellow I recorded what she said instead for the ones she got

incorrect. Lebanna had an answer for every letter even the incorrect ones. I think it is clear that

she has a well-developed print awareness and understands that each of these letters have

meanings.

The letter What they said

P B

E L

T Y

Q U

Z S

J Y

R B

Y U

Overall, I think that these assessments may have been on the easier side for Lebanna. I

think concept of print and the picture task was on the easy side while she needs to work on

righting her name and recognizing all upper-case letters. She was not a student to get frustrated

or give up. Lebanna appeared cheerful from start to finish. When I sat down with her I told her

she was going to help me read a book, she responded “I can’t read” in her regular tone of voice

and continued to try each task confidently.

 Citations

Virginias foundation blocks for early learning: Comprehensive standards for four-year-
olds. (2007). Richmond, VA: Dept. of Education.

helping your children learn language and literacy birth through kindergarten fourth
edition. (2008). United States, Pearson Education