Running head: LITERACY PORTFOLIO

Literacy Portfolio

Rebecca Stewart

USF College of Education

RED 4312 Emergent Literacy

December 5, 2016

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Table of Contents

Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………..…3

Component 1: Attitudes towards Reading……………………………………………….………..4

Component 2: Print Concepts, Letters and Sounds & Phonemic Awareness……………………..7

Component 3: Word Knowledge: Vocabulary and Word Study………………………………...11

Reference Page…………………………………………………………………………………..16

Appendices……………………………………………………………………………………....17

ERAS Analysis Page…………………………………………………………………….17

Yopp-Singer Test of Phonemic Segmentation………………………….……………….18

Spelling Inventory………………………………………….……………………………20

CORE Vocabulary Screener……………………………………………………………..22

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Introduction

I am in a kindergarten class for my field experience. The number of students seems to

vary every time I intern each week, but there are usually 25-27 students. Since this number is

over the requirement of Florida law, which is 18 students in kindergarten, they are searching for

another teacher to lessen the students in the two current kindergarten classes at the school. They

predict that this might happen in the next three weeks. At the school in the kindergarten level,

35% are male and 65% are female. 38% of students are white, 11% are Hispanic, and there is a

zero percentage of black, Asian, and Indian students. In the whole school, 50% of students are

white, 23% are Hispanic, 3% are black, and 3% are listed as “other”. In my kindergarten class

specifically, there are 19 white students, four Hispanic students, one Asian student, and one

black student. I am unsure if any students are gifted, but there are 2 students with autism. There

are also 3 ELLs in this class.

My focus student, who I will refer to as Kayla as a pseudo-name, is a very personable and

nice student. She always wants to chat with her friends, but is mostly good at giving her attention

to the teacher as well. She seems intelligent, because she talks very “matter-of-factly” and likes

to tell you random things that she has learned. She is currently 5 years old, but will be six in a

few months. She has a best friend in the class who she said lives directly behind her. Their

houses are next to each other, and they say they are sisters because they can go to each other’s

houses whenever they want to. They say that they love playing together at each other’s homes

and also playing outside together. Kayla is an emergent reader, and is a 1Y on the IRLA scale.

Kindergarteners are usually anywhere between the lowest level, referred to as “Read to Me”, 1Y,

2Y, 1G, and one boy in the class is even at the level 2G. At the end of the year, they are hoped to

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be at 2Y or 1G. My CT recommended my focus student to me because she is currently a 1Y, and

she said it would be cool and helpful to me to watch her move from a 1Y to a 2Y because you

can really see the transition between those two levels.

Component 1: Attitude Towards Reading

Emergent Reader Attitude Survey (ERAS)

Explanation and Description of Assessment

I administered a survey to my focus student. This survey is called the Elementary

Reading Attitude Survey, or the ERAS. This survey’s purpose is to allow the teacher to be able

to understand their student’s attitude toward reading in order to make instructional decisions

(McKenna & Kear, 1990). It does not measure their ability to read or reading comprehension. It

only measures their attitude toward the act of reading. The ERAS is a series of 20 questions. It

uses a series of four pictures of the character Garfield with four different emotions. This survey

is answered by circling the character that most depicts the attitude that the student feels about

that particular question. There is an extremely excited Garfield, a Garfield that is somewhat

happy, a Garfield that is not very happy, and a very upset Garfield. The child circles the picture

that they most relate to for that particular question. They are told that it is not a test, and they are

encouraged to be open and honest since it isn’t a test. There are ten questions that are asked

about academically related reading, and ten that are asked about recreationally related reading.

The answers are scored using a scoring sheet and the scores’ associated percentile per grade.

These results are used to make instructional decisions based on how the students scored.

Overview of Administration

To administer this test, the teacher sits with the student and goes over the instructions

together. The teacher assures the student that they are doing this because the teacher just wants to

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know how they feel about reading. There are no wrong answers, and it is not graded. Then, the

teacher explains the pictures to the student. Kayla and I did this survey during an activity that the

class was doing. Since it only takes about 10 minutes, it was a perfect timing to do the survey

since she would not be missing out on much. Since I worked with a Kayla, I read the questions to

her since she is in Kindergarten. We went through each question, and she was excited about

getting to do the survey with me because she felt special. I feel like this helped her to be honest

with her answers.

Summary of Results

Kayla’s results are kind of surprising for a kindergartener. At this age, the students are

usually excited to read and they love to read. Recreationally, Kayla scored 28 out of a possible

40 points. Academically, Kayla scored 21 out of a possible 40 points. To score with percentiles,

the student has to be in 1st grade at least, and percentiles do not apply to Kindergarten, so I do not

have any percentiles with Kayla. I have to go off of these scores to make further decisions. I

think the most concerning score for Kayla is her academic score of 21/40. This score is low. That

means that she is not very happy and interested in academic reading. Obviously a child is going

to like recreational reading over academic reading, but these scores are particularly low. Her

recreational reading is also low for kindergarten. I would hope that she starts to improve in both

of these scores using different instructional changes.

Instructional Decisions

An instructional decision that I would make for Kayla is to let her pick out more books

that she really enjoys reading. Kayla expressed to me that she likes to read about animals and

funny stories. She also likes informational books. I believe if she is able to pick from these books

along with her reading level, she will enjoy reading much more. Kayla told me that she doesn’t

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enjoy reading very much because it is hard by herself, but she likes when people read with her.

There can be two kinds of changes with this information. Kayla may be reading above her level,

therefore making it hard enough to not be enjoyable. The teacher may need to assess her reading

level again to make sure that she’s actually reading at her level and not above level. Another

change could be just having someone read with her more often. I have not observed the teacher

reading with her at all, and I have not observed her being conferenced with. I think that if the

teacher spent more time reading with her, she would be more confident with her reading. The

book mentions that in order for students to experience different types of books, teachers in

different classrooms rotates crates of books every couple of weeks so their students had more of

a variety. I think this is a great idea for Kayla to get more exposure to different kinds of books

that she likes. The book also talks about how to conference with struggling readers through a

schedule. The teacher should schedule a few extra minutes with the struggling readers. Kayla

would benefit from this extra reading time with the teacher. I do not believe that she is

struggling; I just believe that she is not very interested in reading. Allowing her to choose the

books she likes, and having the teacher spend more time with her would greatly help Kayla with

her attitude toward reading.

Reflection

Since I have not spent that much time with my focus student, this ERAS assessment

helped me to really understand where she is as a reader. It has helped since I have not seen her

read very much. Now that I know how she feels about reading, I can analyze how she progresses

in the future. I learned that you can’t always tell a student’s attitude toward reading by just

looking at them or even seeing them read. Kayla participates in independent reading and she can

read well when I’ve asked her to read with me. This assessment surprised me when I found out

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how she really felt about reading. It goes to show that each student has a different perspective on

reading that you can’t really tell from the outside. The ERAS can give you a deeper

understanding of the student and it can help you make crucial decisions that are important to

their development of literacy.

Component 2: Print Concepts, Letters, and Sounds & Phonemic Awareness

Literacy Practices Observed

Explanation of How Student Was Observed

I observe my focus student one day a week. The only time that I can really observe her

reading is during independent reading time. In kindergarten, they build up minutes of

independent reading time each day, so since it is near the beginning of school, they only have

about 10 minutes of independent reading time a day. Some days they will have two independent

reading times though, so I get to see her read more often on these days. Each time during

independent reading, I ask her to read to me and she gladly does. I have not seen my CT

(collaborative teacher) do conferences with her yet.

Some literacy practices that Kayla enjoys doing are worksheets, activities, and she also

enjoys reading. She enjoys the reading only if she is interested in the book. Kayla responds to

literacy experiences in the classroom positively. Sometimes she is quiet and passive, but most

times she is engaged. She loves read alouds especially. They do a lot of worksheets and coloring,

and she is really engaged in those activities. With independent reading, she is sometimes passive

and disengaged, but when you ask her to read to you, she will read to you with excitement. A

strength of Kayla’s that I observed is her oral reading ability. When she reads a book that she’s

read before, she reads very fluently and with excitement. Another strength of hers is her

knowledge of letter sounds. When she comes across a word that she does not know, we sound

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out the word together using the letter sounds that she already knows. One area of growth that

Kayla should focus on is her active engagement with reading. I can tell that she really enjoys

coloring and worksheets, but she needs to be more engaged with the reading aspect of literacy.

Instructional Decisions

I would recommend that Kayla needs to get more engaged in reading. Since Kayla really

enjoys read alouds, I would recommend that there should be a read aloud every day. This helps

with her excitement and engagement with the book. In a survey done by Sterl Artley, he asked

college students to remember what teachers did that got them engaged in reading. The majority

of them said that read alouds really got them interested in reading (Cunningham & Allington,

2015). I would also recommend that Kayla should learn some more concrete words. She has

expressed to me that reading is hard for her because she does not know how to read. If she knew

more concrete words, it would help build her confidence as a reader. Maybe a reason she is not

so engaged in reading is because she thinks she can’t read well. Knowing these concrete words is

critical to reading development because it allows the reader to be more confident because they

know a few words.

Yopp-Singer Test of Phoneme Segmentation

Explanation and Description of Assessment

The Yopp-Singer Test of Phoneme Segmentation (Yopp, 1995) is an assessment that tests

children’s phonemic awareness, aiming to identify children who have difficulty reading and

spelling. This is a test administered by the teacher with one student. The student is asked to

segment the phonemes words. Children who can do this correctly are said to be phonemically

aware. This is a test for young children who are emerging in literacy, and is not fitting for

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children who already know how to read. It is a test of 22 words, and if a child correctly segments

17 words and above, they are considered phonemically aware.

Overview of Administration

For this test, the student and the teacher sit together and work on the assessment together.

When I administered the test, I took the student out of her classroom and we went and sat in the

“collaboration center”, or a big room with lots of space to work. She is in first grade. I have

never worked with this student before, but she seemed comfortable to work with me. You could

tell that she was antsy to get the test over with, though. I let her pick out where we should sit, and

we sat down, and I went over the directions with her. I told her that I was going to ask her some

words, and I would like her to break the words apart. We went through some examples, and she

was very competent with the examples with little correction, so we continued with the

procedures and went through the 22 words on the test with ease. I gave her feedback on all of her

answers, giving her positive feedback when she was correct, and constructive feedback when she

missed a word.

Summary of Results

My student did very well, only missing two words out of the 22. She missed the word

“grew” by saying /gr/-/oo/ instead of /g/-/r/-/oo/, and also missed the word “race” by saying

/r/-/ace/ instead of /r/-/a/-/s/. Since she scored 20/22, I can state that my student is phonemically

aware, so she is right on track with her emergent literacy. Phonemic awareness is strongly related

to success in reading and spelling acquisition (Yopp, 1995). This indicates that my student is

currently successful in her reading and spelling acquisition. She is still in the emergent stage,

since typically the emergent reader is in Kindergarten and first grade, but she is right where she

should be in her emergent literacy.

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Instructional Decisions

A really great way to teach phonemic awareness in the classroom is to use names. You

can pull names apart into syllables by clapping their name with the syllables that they hear. Since

my student is phonemically aware, an instructional decision that I would make is to just keep

practicing phonemic awareness to eventually master it, since she did miss two words. Although

the words that she missed were on the tougher side, such as “grew” and “race”, she got the rest

of them right, indicating that she’s actually very phonemic aware. I would just build on what she

already knows. These words have some odd and hidden sounds, like the /oo/ sound in “grew”,

and the long “a” sound when it is followed by an “e”. I believe that if she took the time to stretch

each word apart, she would be able to hear each phoneme in each word. To develop in this, I

would recommend that she build on the phonemic awareness skill of segmenting, which is

stretching words out to hear each sound. Phonics spelling also enhances this. Children can write

down each letter that they hear, so they are able to see which sounds the word contains

(Cunningham & Allington, 2015).

Reflection

I do not know much about this student academically or personally since we only worked

together for this assessment. It did inform me on where first graders stand in phonemic

awareness. I learned that phonemic awareness is a natural progression with literacy. When you

are learning all aspects of literacy simultaneously, then phonemic awareness just progresses right

along with it. I also learned that a simple assessment like this one can yield such important

results. This assessment is not complicated in any means; it is very simple and to the point, yet

this assessment enables us to know so much about where they stand in phonemic awareness and

in emergent literacy. With these results, we can pinpoint where the student could use

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improvement and we can catch low phonemic awareness before it starts to grow into bigger

problem.

Component 3: Word Knowledge- Vocabulary and Word Study

CORE Vocabulary Screening

Explanation and Description of the Assessment

One assessment that was used for this component is the CORE Vocabulary Screening.

The CORE Vocabulary Screening (Milone, 2008) is an assessment that measures how well

students know grade level words as they read silently. It is completely vocabulary knowledge

without the use of comprehension. Students need specific vocabulary knowledge so they can

read texts that correspond to their reading level. This screening can help teachers know which

students are behind on vocabulary development and it allows them to make instructional changes

to help those students.

Overview of the Assessment Administration

I sat down with my focus student during independent reading time, so the room was very

quiet. I explained to her the purpose of the assessment and the directions. I told her that this was

not a test, and I just wanted to see how well she knows the meaning of words. I explained to her

that I will say a word, and I will give her three options of which the word most likely means. I

showed her on the assessment paper as I explained this to her. She understood, and I gave her a

sample question, which she got correct. I circled her answers for her. We went through all of the

words on the page very quickly. She did not seem nervous or scared, and she moved through the

assessment with ease.

Summary of Results

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My focus student, Kayla, seems like she does very well with her vocabulary. This test

was designed for first grade students, and Kayla is in kindergarten, so she is on track with where

a first grader should be. There were 30 words on the test, and she scored 23 of those words

correct. I almost feel that if she took her time answering the questions and really thinking about

them a little longer, she would have gotten more correct. Kayla’s score is considered to be at the

“benchmark” of her grade, which means that she has adequate vocabulary knowledge for typical

reading of grade level materials. Keep in mind that Kayla is at the “benchmark” for first grade

even though she is in kindergarten.

Instructional Decisions

Read alouds and independent reading are one of the best ways to build vocabulary. “As

children listen to text being read aloud by the teacher and read independently, they will have lots

of opportunities to add words to their meaning vocabularies” (Cunningham & Allington, 2016).

My CT does both of these very often, so these strategies should definitely be maintained.

Students should also be able to see a word wall, or even be able to use an interactive word wall,

at all times. Word walls are great ways to reinforce words that the students have been taught. The

student can always refer to the word wall when trying to remember a word. They can also use an

interactive word wall; by this I mean a wall that they are able to grab words off the wall and take

them to their table, or be able to grab a paper with all of the words on them so they can bring it to

their desk. Graphic organizers with pictures representing the word can also help with vocabulary

so students can see a physical picture that corresponds to the word.

Reflection

For this assessment, I was actually very surprised with how well my student knew the

vocabulary. I went in with the expectation that she would not be able to know all of the words

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because this assessment is above her grade level, so it did not apply to her completely. I figured

that the scoring would not be accurate because of the grade difference. She surprised me by

scoring so high, which would have been high for a first grader. I am very impressed by my focus

student and it makes me realize how well the kindergarteners are doing with their vocabulary

growth.

Primary Spelling Inventory

Explanation and Description of the Assessment

The Primary Spelling Inventory (PSI), seen in our course’s text Words Their Way (Bear,

D. R., Invernizzi, M., & Templeton, S., & Johnston, F., 2012), is a spelling assessment designed

for kindergarten through third grade. This is an assessment that measures the spelling of

emergent readers. There are 26 words ordered by difficulty to test the different features of

spelling. For emergent readers and kindergarten, the teacher may only call out the first five

words of the assessment because the children are not at the more advanced stages of emergent

literacy. They may not be able to spell most words, so five words are enough to analyze.

Overview of the Assessment Administration

Students should not have studied the words, and they should be assured that it is not for a

grade. I told Kayla that I just wanted to see if she can spell a few words and that it is not for a

grade, it is just for me keep so I know how she is doing with her spelling. Kayla and I sat down

together to do this assessment while everyone was doing a worksheet. She seemed a little

hesitant because she knows that she is not very good at spelling. I altered the administration a bit,

also. I asked her to spell the words to me and I wrote down her response on a paper. I did it this

way before because she told me that she couldn’t spell, so it kind of deterred her from wanting to

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do the assessment with me. I told her that it would be quick and that there were only five words.

I called out the words, and she spelled them as best as she could.

Summary of Results

Kayla’s spelling was okay, but she did not get any words correct. The first word was

“fan”. She spelled it “faea”. This tells me that she got the initial consonant f and the short vowel

a correct. The second word was “pet”, which she spelled “pae”. She got the initial consonant p

and the short vowel e correct. For the third word “dig”, she almost got this word correct by

spelling it “deg”. She got the initial consonant d and the final consonant g correct. She was also

very close with the vowel. The fourth word was “rob”, which she just spelled the first letter r

because she didn’t know the rest. For the final word “hope”, she spelled it “hbeo”. She got the

initial consonant h and the common long vowel o-e correct as well. In conclusion, she does very

well with the initial consonants. She also got some short vowels correct. She needs to work on

the final consonants and the short vowels as well.

Instructional Decisions

To improve spelling, students must practice spelling of course. This can be done by doing

instructional activities, since students get nervous about spelling. Fun activities are good for this

subject for this reason. Some specific activities are from the textbook Classrooms That Work:

They Can All Read and Write (Cunningham & Allington, 2016). Some activities are called

“Guess the Covered Word” and “Making Words”. For the first activity, students see the initial

consonant of a word, but the rest of the word is covered up. The students have to guess the

missing word by thinking of the word that makes sense in the sentence and also thinking of the

spelling of the word simultaneously. For the second activity, it is known that children love trying

to figure out a hidden word out of a bunch of scrambled letters. They manipulate letters to make

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many different words with the same letters. This allows them to use their brains to think of the

different ways that they can spell words with the same letters. Teachers can manipulate this game

many different ways that makes it fun and challenging for students, which is great.

Reflection

For this assessment, I was kind of nervous that my student would not be able to spell the

words. I already know that my kindergarten class is not very good with their spelling, and most

of them are still at the early stages of reading. Some still don’t have their alphabet down yet

either. I was very happy to find out that she is very good with the beginning letters of words. She

hears the beginning sound of the word, and with her alphabet knowledge, she was able to figure

out the letter. It seemed like she was also trying to sound out the word, which is a very good

starting point to spelling. I believe that once the class starts practicing spelling, she will be able

to pick it up very quickly.

ELL Recommendations

For ELL vocabulary practice, an activity like "Preview-Predict-Confirm" would be great

to use (Cunningham & Allington, 2016). Basically, this activity is just connecting visual images

to vocabulary words, and helping students predict what they will read. Visual images are great

for ELLs because they can connect a visual image to the word that they are learning, so it will be

very helpful to them. It is also important to pair this ELL student with other students who are

empathetic and supportive, so they will feel secure and comfortable while working with their

peers during this activity. Classrooms that Work says that visuals are a gold mine. There is so

much information that can be learned from a single visual, especially one with captions and

labels. Once they learn how to read labels, graphs, and diagrams, etc., they can learn a lot of

information from just one visual.

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References

Bear, D. R., Invernizzi, M., & Templeton, S., Johnston, F. (2012). Words their way: Word study

for phonics, vocabulary, and spelling instruction. 5Th Edition

Cunningham, P. M., & Allington, R. L. (2016). Classrooms that work: They can all read and

write, 6th Edition. New York: Pearson.

Mckenna, M. C., & Kear, D. J. (1990). Measuring Attitude Toward Reading: A New Tool for

Teachers. The Reading Teacher SELECTIONS, 43(8), 626-639. doi:10.1598/rt.43.8.3

Milone, M. (2008). CORE vocabulary screening. California: Academic Therapy Publications.

Primary spelling Iventory. (n.d.). Retrieved June 23, 2016, from

http://www.csus.edu/indiv/s/sellensh/319a materials/primary spelling inventory.pdf

Yopp, H. K. (1995). A Test for Assessing Phonemic Awareness in Young Children. The Reading

Teacher SELECTIONS, 49(1), 20-30. doi:10.1598/rt.49.1.3

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