Assessment+Portfolio

Monique Kuhl April 12, 2011 Fostering Language and Literacy Development Assessment Portfolio ** I.  ****  Introduction  ** Jane has four people living at her house including herself. There is one sister, her mom and her dad. She has her own room in her house where she has a desk to herself. Her dad works from home. He fixes computer bugs for different websites. Her mom assists in testing medicine. She has some chores around her house, which is washing the dishes every night, dusts furniture every week; sweep floors and takes out recycling. After school Jane horseback rides, does homework, participates in girl scouts, watches TV, and plays with her dog. Every night she has reading for twenty minutes, a math sheet, and word study. She does not have a TV in her room. She said she doesn’t watch much TV but when she does she watches cooking and baking shows. Jane’s bedtime, during the week is at 8:30 and at 9:00 on weekends. She does not have an allowance. She belongs to a few clubs, which are girl scouts, softball, horseback riding, and art classes. She enjoys collecting erasers and bottle caps Jane says that she enjoys school. Her favorite class is Social studies, reading and writing. Her least favorite is Math. She thinks she is a good reader. She believes that reading a lot has made her a good writer. Her favorite subject to read about are animals. She thinks that looking up words is the best way for her to become a better reader. She loves to write, but prefers realistic fiction. The thing she would like teachers to know about her is that she loves animals and class discussions. If she was helping someone read she believes the most important thing to teach is to teach him or her words that they don’t know. Knowing how to read will help her read instructions. She also wants to be a writer. ** II. **** Reading Performance  ** On March 1, 2011, Jane was asked to do an Informal Reading Conference. She read the book __Moon over Manifest__. The book was Historical Fiction book. The reason she chose this book was because her mom selected it for her. She believes that the book is a little hard for her, but she was pretty fluent. According to Jane this book is about a girl whose father works on a railroad track. He sends her to Manifest and finds a cigarette box that has notes about a spy. There is a note that says, “Leave well enough alone”, which makes the characters think that somebody is spying on them. She read part of the book and was able to self-correct the few times she made a mistake. After she read she was able to repeat what she had read. She states that there was a letter from Jinx to his friend. It said he will be back soon and will also need to stay alert for the Ratter. She believed that she finish the book in two weeks. Jane believes that her strengths are that she loves to write. She wants to learn to communicate better and problems solve more. Jane was asked to do her DRA and began with the Level four. The passage Jane read was called “Amelia Earhart”. She scored a 5 without- Look-Backs putting her in the frustration level and a 7 With Look-Backs putting this level at Instructional. She was then asked to read the Level Five story called “Margaret Mead”. She scored a 7 Without Look-Backs putting her at Instructional Level and an 8 With Look- Backs putting her at an Independent Level. After this she was given the Level Six story entitled “Pele”. She scored an 8 Without Look-Backs making level six an Independent Level. ** III. **** Writing Performance   ** Jane’s Teacher provided three writing samples from during that school year. She also provided each draft leading up to the finished product. Her first piece is called “Girl Scouts” which is a Personal Narrative. The original piece was written September 23, 2010. Her final draft was completed October 13, 2010. Jane added much more descriptive language between each draft which shows she understands that you can improve your writing. In every draft Jane was able to use punctuation and capitalization throughout every piece. She seems to be a traditional speller. She does not seem to have difficulty with spelling however, in her final piece she does misspell maybe. Jane has a very clear idea of organization of her story. Jane wrote a personal essay about Girl Scouts on December 14, 2010. She drafted out each paragraph on separate pages. She made an improvement between this piece and her last. She has strong ability in her mechanics. Jane also has improved in her writing from her last piece because she few spelling errors, one of these errors is the word community. She has difficulty with more complex words. The final piece that Jane wrote is entitled “Animals at the Pound” which was written on January 6, 2011.This was a speech writing piece. Jane has an understanding of mechanics while writing. She has shown progress in every aspect. Her spelling has problems when adding an ending on the words. Jane has had organization in all of her stories. ** IV. **** Recommendations for Future Instruction   ** After conducting all of these informal assessments I have concluded that Jane has a slight difficulty with reading. There seems to be a disconnect with her assessments. She improved as the tests went on and I am not sure how. For Jane the following objectives should be addressed. 1. Reading a. Jane needs to be more confident in her ability to read to have more fluency. b. Jane will work on pronouncing words while reading aloud. 2. Writing a. Jane will properly use quotations in her story. b. Jane will learn how to properly spell more complex words.