Analysis of Two Children’s Literacy Development

Question 1: relevant/important characteristics of each child; why select each child-child's background - age, birth date, family, past experiences that related (major illness, retained in first grade)

Question 2: questions about the child's literacy development (only questions or statements - what I wanted to know, I wanted to gather information about, etc.) AND assessment tools used to answer these questions (only tools - no findings yet)

Question 3: relevant features of each child’s ability to read and write; but REMEMBER to include all FOUR areas of literacy: reading, writing, listening, speaking; this is also where you will analyze work samples-What I found out about the child's "developing capacities to produce and understand oral language for a variety of purposes in a variety of settings"

-speaking and listening was how I interpreted this question!

-I cited evidence gathered while doing assessments (running records, alphabet letter and sound recognition, phonemic awareness) of how his voice and attention were (body language connects here - relaxed, attentive, good eye contact, etc.), how he answered questions, sounds he could produce, and also gathered during other times - informal conversations at lunch, recess, during class meetings, in small groups, formal times, such as sharing a story, during informal times with peers, both in the classroom (as when he and a friend read together so that the child could handle books that were a bit too hard for him) as well as at recess, lunch, etc.

-What I learned from assessing the child's developing capacity to read - This was where I pulled in info gathered from all the assessments - letter-sound, running records (both word recognition (include his self-correction skills - or the lack thereof - the child I used would substitute a word with the same beginning letter for the word he didn't know which told me he was focusing more on the graphophonic clues and not on the semantics or syntax) and comprehension - be specific about how he answered questions about the

text - any inferences made, complete sentences or bare minimum words and phrases?), phonemic awareness. I was specific about the pieces he read, the level he landed at, the word recognition level and comprehension level.

-What I learned from assessing the child's developing capacity to write - This was the first place I referenced any of the writing samples that are included in the evidence for this entry and I only referred to the unassisted piece we did early on that I used to determine his beginning writing level (using the rubrics in the State Dept's Literacy Assessment guide - early emergent/emergent, developing, early independent, and independent). I analyzed his spelling errors (such as cunit for couldn't, coost for closet, terher for teacher - which led me to conclude he was attending to the beginning and ending letters and sounds but not the middle - I later connected this to activities done in reading and writing to focus on vowel patterns and word families.) I also pulled in the information gathered from Richard Gentry's Spelling Grade Level Placement Tests (which are also part of the SDPI lit assessment guide) to compare to what I'd found in his writing - he showed up at the same level on both.

Question 4: child's attitude towards most literacy-related activities; remember, discuss all FOUR—read/write/listen/speak -I cited his relationship with his friend that he buddy read with and researched with (which allowed him to read more difficult books) and then several of the written pieces used as evidence, connecting these to his attitude about writing them - research on bobcats, journal letters, pen pal letters, response log notes. I was honest about his attitude being enthusiastic or lukewarm, relating this to the subject being written about and his choice in the matter (research and pen pal letters were pursued enthusiastically as were journal letters complaining about his older brother but response log notes could be meager if the science or social studies activity didn't particularly move him). I finished this section with a few sentences about his attitude towards speaking and listening - again, body language, some fidgeting, smiling when he shares a thought, his asking of questions and responding to others that indicating he's attentive.

Supporting Literacy Development –

Question 5: fairness/equity/access-I did one short paragraph that said our materials and daily routines supported his lit dev in many ways and then proceeded to a long sentence that listed all the activities from beginning to end of the day, concluding with "___ has many opportunities to grow in reading, writing, speaking, and listening."

Question 6: what ways did materials/daily routines support each featured child’s literacy development-Reading activities that support the child's lit dev - Be specific and follow the order of your lead paragraph in what you describe - everything from how you do your phonics activities to read to time, poetry charts, word family studies, guided reading groups, visual aids like a "Helping Hand" or other list about strategies to use to handle challenging words, etc. and how the child worked within these activities. For example, my child had some negative self-esteem problems about his reading from having been retained in first grade. When I did a running record with him, I started a little too high and he bombed and seemed anxious. So I started him out in a lower group to boost his self-esteem, then worked him for awhile in both the lower and on level groups, and then moved him up to the group that was on his level. Mention if you borrowed any of your ideas from anyone (looks good for professional collaboration). I focused quite a bit on working with word families in my writing in this section, as this connected directly to Sean's problems with focusing on the middle of a word for spelling and reading. At the end of this section, I cited his most recent running record, what I'd found, growth he'd made, his increased attention to clues in the text, etc.

-writing activities that support the child's lit dev - I worked my way through the day (as this was how I'd listed my activities in the lead paragraph for this section), citing what he wrote and the purposes of his writing - the phrase I used was - ____ has many choices to make as he writes for many different purposes. I explained how journals worked, how our personal dictionary worked, how we use the writing process, how we do research, how we write notes in our response logs and for what types of activities, citing the evidence used for this entry all the way through. I also wrote about different purposes - the response logs being for gathering thoughts, questions, and ideas, the pen pal letters for beginning and continuing a relationship and learning about a person in another place, etc. One rough draft had the "marks" of our corrections made as we had conferenced so I explained our process in working together to find mistakes, those he found independently, those I guided him towards.

Question 7: what instructional strategies; explain why you’ve chosen them; describe how they connect w/assessments stated in the previous section-activity I'll use in the next _ weeks to support the child's lit development - I described a Spellers' Workshop that focused on different word patterns each week, with individual children substituting words they want or need to know for any words they know already (shown by pretest). I connected this to the child's continued need for work on vowel patterns and families as he reads and writes.

Question 8: family activities to support lit dev

-I described our reading calendar and reading response forms, the procedure for using them, support materials sent home (such as a bookmark that has 3 cards to flip around to indicate how much help the child thinks they'll need on the book they've checked out - Listen to me read, Read with me, or Read to me. - they flip it to the support level they think they'll need and insert it in the book they check out.)