FRAMEWORK FOR ASSESSING STUDENT’S BEGINNING LITERACY

Student Name: / NTCF ESL Reading Level:
NTCF ESL Writing Level: / Date:
Task description: Student (Eleanor) relating her story to teacher
Teacher comment / Action

Meaning/concepts of literacy

  • Does the learner enjoy stories/books?
  • What is the learner’s level of attention to the story?
  • Does the learner understand that letters and words relate to sounds?
  • Does the learner attach meaning to/purpose to writing (eg reading own writing back)?
/ -It is not known whether this learner enjoys books and stories. Only the child’s teacher could comment on learner’s level of attention to stories/books.
-Can’t say whether child understands that letters and words relate to sounds (Child’s teacher would know this)
-E does attach meaning to her writing as evidenced by her ‘reading’ it to the teacher. However, her meaning would not be consistent with the letters she writes. / -Write a model sentence after the child attempts writing such as this – talking through the words as they are written and have the child copy it.
-Find and compare similar letters in the child’s own writing and the teacher’s model
-Make cards of E’s frequently used words
Understanding of conventions
  • Does the learner understand and use conventions appropriately?
-direction of writing
-spaces
-upper/lower case
-simple punctuation.
/ Looking at the writing and copying that E has done she
-knows that letters go in a line (i.e. it is presumed that she started from left to right)
-has no concept of spacing (strings of letters)
-uses both upper and lower case but is not aware of the difference (I Went, I and W are the same size) / -Talk through the practice of spaces between words. Point out where the spaces are in the teacher’s model.
-When scribing say ‘Now I am leaving a space”
-Say each word as written
-Talk about capital letters in group –negotiated writing (when they occur and why)

Reading behaviours

  • Does the learner know the English alphabet? (List the range of letters recognised.)
  • What is the range of vocabulary recognised by the learner (eg environmental print, words relevant to personal experience)?
  • What strategies does the learner use to approach new vocabulary (eg guessing from context, using knowledge of grammar, sounding out words)?
  • What texts does the learner use/access? Note things like familiarity, length, type, author (self, class), level of understanding etc.

Writing behaviours

  • Does the learner make approximations to writing Roman Script?
  • Does the student copy print (eg letters, words lists, and sentences) and associate the print with meaning?
  • What is the range of words used by the student? How familiar/common are the words used?
  • What are the features of the text produced (eg topic, length, type)?
/ -E is using Roman Script
-E is able to copy print but she does not associate the print with consistent meaning
-E does not have any words in her written vocabulary yet, only her name. As a result text types are not relevant / -Talk about written texts as having consistent meaning (eg I’m writing this today, it says … Yesterday I wrote and it still says …)
-Display all the children’s stories in a written up version. Read through frequently and ask which is whose.

Degree of support required

/ Action
E requires total support in writing. At the moment she is doing two things:
-taking risks in writing and producing unrelated strings of letters (a developmental stage)
-copying shapes of letters correctly with no understanding of consistent meaning attached to letters/words / -Write E’s own stories onto individual cards. Have her sequence them by matching the teacher’s model, and saying words as she does
-Start matching the letters she writes to those in the teacher’s model
-Have her write the sentence again providing scaffolding at the word level, and searching for and copying the individual letters until she is confident to add them without support.
I we_t fi_ing

Reproduced from Observation Guide (Beginning Literacy) in the NLLIA ESL Bandscales, 1994, pp F3.