Part 1 Assessment Plan

Demographics

A 12-year old female in the sixth grade in Millville, NJ participated in assessment, and the

implementation of intervention strategies. This student is currently living in a foster home with a

younger sister, and as of the student’s 2011 evaluation, is classified as multiply disabled,

including Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

(PTSD), Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), and possible Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS).

Teacher interview stated that student is up for a re-evaluation of her Individualized Education

Plan (IEP) this year and will most likely receive a referral and be reclassified. Teacher interview

also clarified that the student has other siblings, however they do not live together. Student has

recently moved into a new foster home and displayed a shift in attitude since the change.

The student attends a school in the urban area of Millville, with a population of 6th, 7th, and

8th graders. This school in particular has many resource and special education classrooms.

Throughout the school day, the student is in both resource and inclusion classrooms. The

resource classroom that the student is in for Language Arts Literacy is smaller in size, with about

9 students in total one head teacher and a paraprofessional for support. The resource room that

the student is in for Math is bigger with between 20 and 22 students, in addition to, a head

teacher, and two assistant teachers for further support. For Science and Social Studies, the

student is placed into inclusion classrooms. Student’s previous placement prior to current

classrooms, was a specific learning disability (SLD) classroom.

Academically, the school curriculum implemented for each subject are Read 180 and Scope

for Language Arts Literacy, Big Ideas for Math, Fusion for Science and World History Studies

Weekly. According to the cooperating teacher, the curriculum is higher than any student with
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special education can handle. Student is receiving an Unsatisfactory in Math, in which she

receives modified grading, and is receiving Cs in all other subjects. Observation in math has

suggests that the student struggles with multi-step problems but seems to do well with

multiplication facts. In Language Arts Literacy specifically, it was noted that the student shows

strengths in comprehension, vocabulary, and remembers sight words well. Her weaknesses lie

within decoding and spelling words. Student currently reads at a third or fourth grade level, but

has a second grade level score of 366 in the computerized reading program Read 180.

Student is very social, however, also has been observed as verbally disrespectful in

interaction with both teachers and peers. Student does appear to have friends of her own age but

tends to converse with females over males. Student is also described as consistently off task and

sometimes defiant, which is most present when the student gets defensive. Off task behaviors

include side conversations with peers or self, moving out of her seat, fidgeting with electronics

under her desk, playing with her clothing, hair, and jewelry, and getting up to check her hair in

the classroom’s bathroom mirror. She will often become noncompliant and refuse to follow

directions, when she does not want to do what is being asked of her. For this reason, the teacher

noted that the student’s negative attitude affects her work. Student does motivation to learn at

times as she will ask for help in completing problems, however, she has also demonstrated an

over-reliance on teacher assistance as sometimes she will not even try before asking for help.

Objectives

1. While reading a fourth grade leveled text, student will be able to decode words in order to

read 56 correct words per minute.

2. While reading a fourth grade leveled text, student will be able to decode words in order to

produce at least 5 fewer errors of mispronunciation.

NJ Standards

The following standards apply to the objectives. Fourth grade standards were included

because it is the level at which the student was reading: CCSS: Fourth Grade ELA Literacy

RF.4.4.A. Read grade-level text with purpose and understanding. CCSS: Fourth Grade ELA

Literacy RF.4.4.C. Use context to confirm or self-correct word recognition and understanding,

rereading as necessary.

Assessment method

Preliminary assessment. Informal teacher interview revealed a concern with one

student’s language arts ability, specifically, her ability to decode words, her reading fluency, and

her spelling. Student also reads at a fourth grade level despite being in sixth grade. Teacher

provided a writing sample for reference. In this writing the student spelled the word admit as it

mit, while as wiyel, athletes as athlesa, and catching as caching. This reinforces that the struggle

with spelling, and decoding words. Through a checklist and observation, the student’s silent/oral

reading behaviors were evaluated. These preliminary assessments revealed common student

reading behaviors such as student holds book particularly close to her face, skips words when she

reads and makes frequent word errors. She also has a lack of expression during oral reading, tires

easily of reading, lacks fluency, mispronounces words and will often pause for a lengthy amount

of time while reading, all of which highlighted a lack of strong reading fluency.

Assessment Instrument and Scoring

Assessment descriptions. The student’s reading fluency would be assessed through a correct

word per minute assessment, running record and error analysis. These assessment tools would be

used to clarify the affect reading errors and vocabulary deficit had on her fluency. A correct

word per minute assessment is a curriculum based probe. It is an assessment that measures the
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rate and accuracy of a student reading of an unfamiliar but appropriately leveled text for a certain

amount of minutes. Teacher provides two copies of the text, one for the student and one for the

administer. The student reads the passage out loud while a running record is kept by the person

administering the assessment (Spinelli, 2012, p. 210-213). The student reads for anywhere

between three and five minutes and once the time is up the student is stopped. A running record

tracks particular errors made during reading including, substitutions, omissions,

mispronunciations, and reversals. Error analysis follows a running record. It is a break-down of

the errors made while reading. During an error analysis, errors are studied to identify the specific

types of errors made. The analyzer typically makes note of any kind of patterns that exist among

the errors.

Assessment procedure. The text selected will be at the baseline level of the student. For this

particular case, the student will be reading fourth grade leveled texts, and read for three minutes

while I keep the running record of the mistakes made for later error analysis. Timing will be

done through the timer on my android cell phone as the student and I sit outside of the classroom

on chairs in the hallway during the double period of Language Arts. This will be done in an

attempt to reduce distraction. When the student completes the three minutes of reading, she will

be stopped and the scoring will follow. Substitutions will be marked with a line above the word

in the text and the word the said instead will be written in above it. Omissions will be marked

with a line above the word in the text and a shorter line above that, to signify nothing was said.

Mispronunciations will have that same line above the text words, above which the attempted

pronunciation will be written out. Self- corrections and Repetition are tracked as well, but do not

count as errors. Repetition will be signaled with an R at the end of the phrase or word and an

arrow that points back to the point at which the repetition began. Self-correction is simply
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demonstrated with a SC above the word that prompted the self correction. Words that are read

correctly will be marked with a check mark above them. Error analysis will simply be the

studying of the types of errors made.

Assessment Scoring. The first step in scoring this assessment is counting how many words

were read in total. Once that number is identified, the number of errors should be counted. As

stated earlier, errors in this assessment include substitutions, omissions, mispronunciations, and

reversals. Each error counts as one error against the student. Repetition and self-corrections

should not be counted as an error against the student. The same error on the same word should

only be counted once (Spinelli, 2012, p. 210-213). Once the number of errors are calculated they

should be subtracted to get the number of correct words read in three minutes. The final step is

dividing that number by three to get how many correct words were read per minute. Once

completing the running record and correct word per minute, error analysis will begin. Correct

word per minute and running records will produce data that breaks down the type of errors that

the student made while reading. Running record will be examined and a chart of two rows

documenting the mistakes made will be created. The word in the text will be on the left column

and the errors made by the student will be in the right column. This allows for comparison and

analysis of the types of error made, in order to understand the type of intervention that

instruction will be centered around. These assessment tools will be used for pre-assessing to

determine the specific type of intervention to be implemented, as well as for the post assessing to

evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention implemented.

Part II Intervention and Results/Implementation

Interventions

In analyzing the student’s errors, it was discovered that many of the errors were substitutions

and mispronunciations, highlighting a vocabulary deficit within the student’s performance. This

struggle with vocabulary led to intervention implemented in the form of vocabulary instruction

and listening preview through teacher modeling. Many of the words that produced errors

involved vowel diphthongs or were words in which the student added unnecessary vowels. The

vocabulary instruction would involve about ten to fifteen words from the text being read, that

had similar characteristics to these errors, in addition to other error patterns observed in the

assessment results analysis. These words would be placed onto white flash cards in black ink

and reviewed with student for about 20 minutes. Words in the set of ten vocabulary words

included bizarre, especially, beckons, exhausted, intensify, charitable, divulge, creepy,

extraordinary, and immigrated. Within the student copy of the text, the vocabulary words would

be highlighted in pink for clear distinction from the rest of the text on a background that was

either white or light gray. Listening preview through teacher modeling would follow the

instruction. I would read the text first and then the student would be given the chance to read the

text.

During Language Arts Literacy period, the student comes into the resource room which is

relatively small in size but has about seven to eight students and two teachers in it. The students

are placed into groups for centers and the period proceeds. They rotate through each center. In

order to limit distractions, the student and I sat in an area directly outside the classroom, in chairs

that sat next to one another. Instruction began with about three to five minutes of conversation.

This time was used to build some repertoire with the student and allow her to feel comfortable
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working with me for the day. After short casual conversation, clear expectations were set for the

instruction that was to follow. Student was given the vocabulary cards and asked to read each

word and definition aloud. One word at a time, with support if needed, the student read through

each vocabulary card. After each word, student was stopped and asked to make a connection. For

example, one of the words was immigrated. Student was asked if she had heard that word before,

maybe in History, and she shook her head no. In providing context and exemplifying a

connection that could be made I said, “well my ancestors at some point moved here or,

immigrated from various places such as Italy, Spain, Poland and Ireland.” Discussion about this

word ensued and then the review of the words continued with a pause between each for building

connection.

The vocabulary cards were flipped through three more times after the student initially

looked through them. It was turned into a game as the student became more familiar with the

words I began to quickly hold them up in front of her as she said the word without support. I did

this several times, encouraging the student to move faster each time. Any word that was

mispronounced or student was unsure about was reviewed a few more times each round in order

to ensure the student could understand and correctly read and pronounce each word. The

vocabulary instruction lasted about twenty minutes. The next aspect of the intervention and

instruction involved a listening preview of the text through teacher modeling. Student was

handed the text with the vocabulary words highlighted. First I read through the passage, reading

slowly and clearly, ensuring pronunciation was emphasized. After this, the student was timed for

three minutes and instructed to read as much of the passage aloud as she could, to the best of her

ability. I completed a running record as she read, and once the three-minute mark was hit, the
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student was stopped and I proceeded to score her performance. That, overall, took about ten to

fifteen minutes.

Results and Summary of Performance

The data and results of the pre and post assessments showed slight growth in the student’s

correct word per minute performance. The score indicated the on the pre-assessment the student

read 172 words in three minutes with 17 mistakes, resulting in 51 correct words read per minute.

After intervention of vocabulary instruction and listening preview through teacher modeling, the

student read a total of 192 words in three minutes with 12 errors, resulting in 60 correct words

read per minute. During intervention, it was observed that the student was sitting up straight and

following the flashcards closely, responding in a quick manner, suggesting interest in instruction.

Once reading began, she moved her eye across the page in a quicker manner and she sat up

straight with the book an average distance from her face smiling, suggesting confidence. The

tables below provide summarized results in the scores of the pre and post assessment (Table 1)

and the results of the error analysis conducted for each assessment (Tables 2.1 and 2.2). The

figure below compares the pre and post assessment results and the total number of error (Figure

1.)

Table 1
Pre and Post Assessment Result Summary
Total Words Read (three minutes) # of Errors CWPM

Pre-assessment 172 words 17 errors 51cwpm

Post assessment 192 words 12 errors 60cwpm

Figure 1. Comparison of Pre and Post Assessment Results

Table 2.1
Pre-Assessment Errors Analysis
Words in Text What Student Said Type of Error
Encounter Incarit Mispronunciation
Octopus Octupis Mispronunciation
Meander Mender Mispronunciation
Can’t Can Substitution
Occasionally Oceanal Mispronunciation
Edge Edges Substitution
Foliage Fallage Mispronunciation
Turns Turned Substitution
Expanse Expand Substitution
Continue Count Substitution
Charred Char Substitution
Threatening Threat Substitution
Is ------ Omission
Looming Looking Substitution
Attracting Attratnating Mispronunciation
Off Of Substitution
Trudge Trude Mispronunciation
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Figure 2.2
Post Assessment Error Analysis
Words in Text What Student Said Type of Error
Heard Seen Substitution
Sits Sisters Substitution
This The Substitution
Spread Sparead Mispronunciation
Say Said Substitution
We’ll Well Substitution
Town Downtown Substitution
Porter Potter Substitution
Founded Found Substitution
Begins Begs Substitution
Fades Feeds Mispronunciation
Large larger Substitution

Interpretation of the Results and Next Step

Interpretation and implementation of results. The results of the correct word per minute

assessment can be interpreted to identify the student’s reading rate versus her reading accuracy,

which based on pre-assessment results above, determined a need for further support in

strengthening the student’s reading fluency. These results were used to set instruction objectives

that was tailored specifically to the level that the student should reach by the end of instruction.

The running record and error analysis results assisted in deciding the specific skill that needed

more support and therefore, clarified the type of intervention that was required. During the error

analysis, I was able to note a pattern in the errors made. Seven of the errors made were

mispronunciation and nine of them were substitution. In taking a closer look at the words

substituted, it seemed that many of these errors could suggest inattention, as many of these

substitutions left out or added endings to text words. Many of the words that created

mispronunciation errors were words with diphthongs and multi-syllable words. The particular
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attributes of the word mispronounced aided in the creation of the vocabulary flashcards for the

instruction. I was able to identify words in the new text that had similar attributes and pull them

out for review before the student reading.

The frequent mispronunciation led to the implementation of listening preview, as the

correct pronunciation would be heard before the word was encountered during the student’s

reading. In interpreting these results, it was apparent that the student would benefit from

vocabulary instruction and listening preview through teacher modeling. The error analysis that

followed the post assessment showed significantly less error of mispronunciation. Substitution

errors made up ten of the twelve total errors made, the other two were mispronunciation. The

post assessment results are crucial as support for the evaluation of the effectiveness of the

intervention strategies on the student’s performance. The post assessment results made evident,

that the intervention produced a higher word per minute in the student’s reading fluency.

Instruction recommendations and next step. Based on the pre-assessment and post

assessment results, my recommendations would be to continue these strategies of intervention

with the student. When looking at the results of the pre and post assessments, the student

showed an increase in the amount of correct words read per minute, words read overall in three

minutes, and a decrease in the number of errors, particularly mispronunciation errors.

Vocabulary instruction and listening preview through teacher modeling, according to evidence,

counteracted the student’s vocabulary deficit and therefore the effect it had on her word fluency.

As the student’s vocabulary skills grow, it could be constructive to involve the student in the

vocabulary word selection. This makes the student a part of the instruction and adds words that

the student knows they do not know. I do, however, also feel that this intervention, though

successful in some aspects, does not fully support other aspects that effect reading fluency. In
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analyzing the post assessment result, it is important to notice that the student’s errors were

heavily categorized as substitutions. Many of these substitutions were either an addition or

omission of letters within the word and could be suggestive of inattention. Systemic error

corrections and repeated reading are other strategies that could strengthen the student’s reading

fluency in the future. Overall, I believe that vocabulary instruction was proven beneficial and

should be continued in the future.

References

Spinelli, C. G. (2012). Classroom assessment for students in special and general education (3rd

ed.). Boston: Pearson.