TESTING & EVALUATION

EDU 5207

Dr. Enid A. Petriccione

Fall 2010

Written by:

Sarah L. Taggart

Sarah L. Taggart

EDU 5207

Final Paper

12/4/2010

Case Study of an English Language Learner

Description:

“Amy T.” is an English Language Learner, age 10, who sparked my curiosity and compassion from the first day of school. She was very quiet and shy in nature, but wore a huge smile when approached or spoken to. I could tell through direct observations of her that in her silence, she was intently watching the world around her by focusing in on other children in the classroom and always looking directly at a student when they raised their hand to speak. I would call on Amy and she would give a huge smile while simultaneously shaking her head “no.” I decided, as a new teacher, to approach my students’ fourth grade teacher one day, in an effort to get a sense of my students’ strengths, weaknesses, or behavioral issues. While speaking to her, she asked me about Amy and “how she was doing.” I found that odd, but interesting. I proceeded to share my observational findings with her and she proceeded to give me background information on Amy. Amy T. was born and raised in Mexico, and has had interrupted education for the past 5 years. She moved from Mexico to the United States at 4 years old, moved back to Mexico right before she turned 7, moved back to the United States at the end of her 9th year and has been in the United States (and our school) continually for only the past 9 months. She received some formal education in Mexico, but instruction in English was limited if not excluded entirely. I also had the opportunity to have a school translator speak to the father during “Back-to-school” night to ask if Amy speaks and reads in her native language in the home. He said that she speaks and understands more than she reads. However, I requested that he read to Amy in Spanish, whether it be a children’s book or newspaper article or tell “made-up” stories aloud to her in an effort to increase the transfer of her native literacy skills to English proficiency. Due to these exceptional and fascinating educational circumstances, Amy seemed a perfect “subject” for this case study.

Assessment(s):

During the first couple weeks of school, I chose to work with Amy one-on-one while the others worked independently. I “conferred” with other students individually or in a guided group, so that she wouldn’t feel targeted and the others wouldn’t sense that I was giving her a lot more attention. During our meetings, I was able to engage Amy in dialogue about things she was interested in, so as to “break the ice.” At that point, she had never spoken during class in front of the other children, and I wanted to see if she was at all proficient in English. She did speak with me about her interests in complete sentences most of the time, but with limited vocabulary and at a slow rate. She also “code-switched” at certain points during the conversation. Amy’s main interest includes arts and crafts and colors. Turns out, she is quite talented in the area of sewing and knitting, both of which she picked up and learned from her mother and grandmother.

Soon after this, I administered the SWLOM and SOLOM rating scales to Amy. My findings showed that Amy scored Phase II in the SWLOM phases, which is Limited English Proficient, with a written score of 60%. In the SOLOM phases, she also scored in Phase II (Limited English Proficient). Amy’s “Whole Language Proficiency” was 56% of native language proficiency for those students at the same age (10 years old).

For the SOLOM ratings scale, I decided to show Amy an assortment of pictures of people sewing and knitting, including pictures of the materials used and the “finished product” of a sweater. My intention was to prompt Amy to speak about a subject matter she was interested in, while zeroing in on the vocabulary associated with these crafts (i.e. names of the supplies needed and used) and seeing if she can speak in sequential order by realizing that one needs to get certain tools and supplies ready before they begin sewing and knitting in order to produce a sweater. I used this approach because it mirrored the NYSESLAT in certain ways and it made sense to use visuals for someone who seemed to be Limited English Proficient. While administering the SOLOM ratings scale, Amy spoke about the crafts (but with repetitions), struggled with finding the correct manner of expression when she spoke, but did open up to me verbally and spoke more than she had at the beginning, without much prompting. Her vocabulary was limited and she code-switched between Spanish and English often. In the same vein, she would sometimes speak with incorrect word order. In the area of pronunciation and fluency, I misunderstood a lot of Amy’s speech due to the influence of her native language.

As a follow-up to the SOLOM, I administered the DRA2 to Amy. The DRA2 stands for Developmental Reading Assessment, which was created by Joetta M. Beaver and Mark A. Carter, Ph.D (published by Pearson Learning Group). I wanted to see where Amy fell in terms of the area of Oral Reading Fluency and observe her reading behaviors and assess her reading engagement.

Prior to giving the assessment, I was able to determine Amy’s reading engagement based on her “Student Reading Survey.” Amy does not read across genres and could only think of two recent books she read, which were below fifth grade reading level. Her reading goals consisted of “Reading moor” and “Don’t read to fast.”

After administering the DRA, it turns out Amy did score in the same realm as what was determined by the SOLOM. As she read aloud, she conveyed some meaning, took inappropriate pauses, and read at a rate of 55-64 words-per-minute, which placed her under an “instructional” phase for literacy. Her percent of accuracy due to the number of miscues was 96%, which means she made 6-7 errors during her oral reading, which included making substitutions that were often visually similar (e.g. saying “fur” instead of “fear,” “slide” instead of “slid,” and “shattered” instead of “chattered”). Her overall comprehension score fell under instructional---instructional at a 2nd grade reading level.

In the SWLOM ratings scale, I asked Amy to write her thoughts using the same prompt as the SOLOM. She generally wrote short sentences with limited grammatical structure, did not organize or sequence her thoughts in logical order, primarily used present verb tense throughout her writing, relied on her native language for translation (code-switched in written form), and used basic sentence patterns, with almost no variation. As a follow-up to the SWLOM, I administered the writing baseline to Amy.

Please look at the results on pgs. 5-6 attached below as an Exhibit to this Case Study.

P.S. 126X

The Dr. Marjorie H. Dunbar Elementary School

175 West 166th Street, Bronx, New York 10452

Telephone: (718) 681-6120 Fax: (718) 681-6131

PrincipalAssistant Principals

Nadine Kee-Foster Shelley Debin

Gina Langley

Dawn Stevens

**Case Study Exhibit**

Baseline Reflection Piece

Student:“Amy T.” Date: 9/16/2010

Teacher: Ms. TaggartClass: 5-504

Description of Baseline Piece:
Day 1: On day one (9/13/2010), students were gathered on the carpet and told to write about any topic they wanted to. They were given paper and pencil, returned to their seats and wrote about a topic of their choice without any guidance.
Day 2: Students were gathered on the carpet and told that they were going to be given a chance to revise. Students were given their writing from day one and a colored pencil to make any changes.
Day 3: Students were gathered on the carpet and told that they were going to be given a chance to edit and publish their work. Students were given their revised paper back and a different colored pencil. They were also given additional paper to publish their work. Students then shared their stories.
Strengths: (Please note the strengths using the lens of the Six Traits of Writing and the NYS Standards)
Trait / Strengths
Ideas /
  • “Amy T.” attempted to develop a general topic.
  • “Amy T.” attempted to develop a few clear ideas.

Organization /
  • “Amy T.” attempted to develop an introduction and conclusion.

Voice /
  • “Amy T.” occasionally speaks to the reader.

Word Choice /
  • “Amy T.” attempts to allow the reader to begin to see what the she is describing.

Sentence Fluency /
  • Few sentences are constructed in a way that enhances the meaning.

Conventions /
  • Spelling is sometimes correct.
  • End punctuation is sometimes written correctly.
  • Few words are capitalized correctly.

Presentation /
  • “Amy T.” understands the use of white space on the page which allows the audience to focus on the text and message without distractions.

Goals:
Traits / Goals/Next Steps
Ideas /
  • “Amy T.” will develop a topic sentence for each paragraph.
  • “Amy T.” will begin to develop ideas that are clear, focused, and answers readers’ questions.

Organization /
  • “Amy T.” will continue to use transitions to link one paragraph to the next.
  • “Amy T.” will develop an inviting introduction and conclusions.

Voice /
  • “Amy T.” willbe able to try new words and develop interesting images

Word Choice /
  • “Amy T.” will begin to use active verbs.
  • “Amy T.” will stretch her writing by using different types of words.

Sentence Fluency /
  • “Amy T.” will be able to start sentences differently.
  • “Amy T.” will be able to use different types of sentences.
  • “Amy T.” will proofread her paper to ensure that her piece can be read easily.

Conventions /
  • “Amy T.” will use past tense verbs in her writing when necessary.
  • “Amy T.” will use paragraphing.
  • “Amy T.” will be able to correct basic grammar errors when revising.

Presentation /
  • “Amy T.” will present a piece that is overall pleasing.

Analysis of Data:

I gained valuable insight from the ratings scales in corroboration with the other assessments. For one, I realized that Amy’s lack of vocabulary, poor sentence structure, and below-level oral reading fluency has been influenced by her lack of prior knowledge on many things academically as well as her very limited exposure to academic English throughout her school-career up to this point. She does, however, respond well to visual representations of academic concepts. Socially, she seems to be able to express herself with ease, although still with structural errors, due to her interest in and/or her ability to be comfortable with the individual she is communicating with. From my initial evaluations using the assessments described above, I would conclude that Amy writes the way she speaks and needs to be worked with on an individual level initially while simultaneously put into social situations within the classroom that allow her to listen to her peers and speak more often. She will also need continued and structured modeling of academic concepts and a variety of visuals. I will also need to scaffold concepts for her, teach grammar directly as well as in context, and begin intensive instruction in word study.

As I monitored Amy in the area of mathematics, I was very pleased to score her in the 80th percentile on both chapter tests. This area was definitely one of her biggest strengths, as math seems to be a “universal” language for most students who speak languages other than English. I believe her success is, in part, the result of visual scaffolding in the Math textbook’s pictures, graphs, and charts and the technology pieces I presented the class, as well as the my use of realia to demonstrate addition, subtraction, multiplication and division concepts. However, Amy did struggle in the area of Number Sense and Place Value when it came down to changing a number from standard form into written form. Her weaknesses in spelling, blending letter sounds, and limited prior knowledge of structural and grammatical norms were often a barrier to her writing the place values correctly. For example, she would write “nine bilons” instead of “ninety billions”. In this case, I went over the concept of suffixes with her, a concept she had never heard before as well spelling patterns. In spite of some of her weaknesses in spelling and literacy within mathematics, I believe that Amy will score a 3 or 4 on the NYS assessment in May if she continues to maintain her progress.

Application of Data to Guide Instruction:

With these insights and goals in mind, I continued to monitor and assess Amy’s progress during the next eight weeks. During the Reading and Writing workshop, I did a read-aloud almost every day and used “think-alouds” to model comprehension strategies. I also modeled fluency in my reading and I made sure Amy had a “front-row” seat on the carpet each time I read. I also paired Amy with a strong reader during the Literacy blocks, so that she received support from a peer her own age. In response to Amy’s DRA results, I made sure to build her reading engagement by teaching her strategies to build reading stamina as well as teaching her how to use a reading log to monitor her book selection and set reading goals. In terms of her oral reading fluency, I modeled and taught her how to read in longer, meaningful phrases with appropriate expression and introduced her (and the rest of the class) to Reader’s Theater as an outlet for building this desired expression. During “word study,” I modeled and supported how to take words apart (onset, rime, syllables, etc.), decipher unknown words and had Amy work with partners at the “Living Word Wall,” which is a magnetic board with foam magnetic letters that can be manipulated to form new and unfamiliar words while the partner says the word aloud or uses it in the context of a sentence. To support Amy’s comprehension, I taught and modeled for her how to describe characters, how to activate prior knowledge and use clues within the story to infer, and how to make and confirm predictions within a story. I also guided her in locating specific details within a story.

I made sure to “read-aloud” across genres. In this respect, I wanted to make sure to incorporate the “content” areas of social studies and science, which would serve as the non-fiction texts. I would read a passage and chart my thoughts and organization on chart paper for all of the students, especially Amy, to see. I would draw graphic organizers on the chart paper and teach the class, especially Amy, how to utilize graphic organizers while they worked independently or in groups. In order to lower Amy’s effective filter, I encouraged her to write notes on the social studies passage in Spanish if she so desired in an effort to build more fluency of understanding. I would then ask her to bring her “Spanglish” notes to me during our one-to-one conferences, so that I may go over structure and grammatical form explicitly with her. I would then have her orally present her ideas to me and I would write them on paper in the correct grammatical structure. By my doing this, I was able to show her what her written notes and ideas looked like side-by-side my notes. This visualization seemed to help her. I would then allow her to practice by verbally communicating ideas to her very slowly. As Amy would write my words down, she took her time, and eventually over time with a lot of practice, was able to construct the sentences using correct grammatical structure.

Eight weeks later…

Taking into account my analysis and application of Amy’s data to guide instruction, I administered the SWLOM and SOLOM again after eight weeks had past. My findings showed that Amy increased to Phase III in the SWLOM phases, which is Limited English Proficient, with a written score of 76%, an increase of 26 percent. In the SOLOM phases, she also scored in Phase III (Limited English Proficient). At the end of the ninth week, Amy’s “Whole Language Proficiency” increased to 76% of native language proficiency for those students at the same age (10 years old).

I have learned an incredible amount during this language and literacy assessment process. I am hopeful and confident that I will use this knowledge to shape and improve my teaching of English Language Learners throughout my career. I have been exposed to a plethora of assessment tools and have learned how RTI can positively impact a student’s performance over time no matter what educational circumstances surrounded them initially. It is imperative to build upon a student’s existing strengths and be able to identify their weaknesses early on, so that the instruction is personalized to them and their needs. I also must mention that effective and intensive RTI instruction is best implemented when parents, staff, and the child receiving the support is open and flexible to trying and learning new things. The instruction was extremely effective for Amy due to her cooperative nature and positive attitude. The compassion of some of her academically-stronger classmates who were willing to support and challenge her was also a key component to Amy’s personal and academic successes. Amy can now explain verbally and in written form (with more ease and confidence) the sequential process she takes when sewing or knitting.

1