ASSIGNMENT: Assessment Analysis Submitted By: Michael Feher EDRL 442: Teaching Literacy 1 Nevada State College Fall

l 2012 Instructor: Karen Powell

Summary of the Assignment For this assignment, we will be choosing one of the assessment categories used by Miss Keetow and analyzing Miss Keetows class results. After analyzing the data, we will then be arranging her fifteen students into instructional groups while being able to justify our reasons behind it.

Explanation of Assessments There were four assessments used for Miss Keetows class. The first assessment used is known as letter naming fluency. This assessment measures a students ability to name letters. Its as simple as that. Students will be asked to point to letters on a page and will have one minute to name as many letters as they can. The LNF assessment, like every assessment given in Miss Keetows class, is to be given individually. The norm is considered what the average is for an assessment. Since average is 50%, the 50th percentile is considered the norm for each assessment. For LNF, the 50th percentile is 45. The next assessment given is letter sound fluency. For this assessment, it measures students ability to reproduce or recognize initial sounds in a word. Students will have a minute to recognize as many initial sounds as possible. The 50th percentile for this assessment is 30. The third assessment given is phoneme segmentation fluency. This assessment measures phonemic awareness skills. Students are to decode words. Students are to say all the sounds in a given word. For example, if the word is man, a correct response would be /m/ /a/ /n/. The 50th percentile for the PSF assessment is 38. This assessment will also be 60 seconds. The last assessment in Miss Keetows class is Nonsense word fluency. This assessment is much like the PSF assessment, except the words used for this test are make believe. Students will have one minute to say as many sounds as they can for each make believe word. The 50th percentile for the PSF assessment is 30.

Test Results Miss Keetows class consists of seven girls and eight boys. There is the largest range in scores on the NWF assessment. Barbie Dahl had a score on her NWF that 18 points higher than the next best score. She also scored in the 90th percentile on three out of the four tests. Paige Turner needs a lot of additional help since she scored below the 10 th percentile on all four assessments. Harrison Fire scored extremely well on the letter naming fluency, but struggled to reproduce initial sounds. Robin Banks had a great score decoding words, but didnt do as well with the make believe words. Rusty Nales on the other hand, did great decoding the make believe words, but struggled with his PSF assessment. Milo Minute had exceptional scores on all four assessments. There isnt a direct correlation between the PSF assessment and the NWF assessment. You would think there would be since both assessments are having the students decode and say the sounds in each word. For students who cant always tell the difference between real and make believe words, you would think that if one did well on their PSF assessment, they would do reasonably well on their NWF assessment too. About five students showed consistency in these two assessments.

Interpretation of Data The assessment that I used in helping me decide how to group the students was the letter sound fluency assessment. The reason I picked this assessment is because it also ties in with the PSF and NWF assessments as well. If students can do well on the LSF assessment which is naming the sounds of the letters, then you would think they would be able to do well on the PSF and NWF too because those assessments require students to again, name letters. If a student scores well on PSF, they have the potential to score well on the PSF and NWF assessment too. Since there will be five instructional groups, well above average, above average, average, below average, and well below average, students should be placed in the group that their LSF scores produce.

Ive decided to place Barbie Dahl, Milo Minute, Betty Cann, and Rusty Nales in the well above average group. For the above average group, Candi Barr, Al Gee, Rick OShea, and Robin Banks will be placed there. The average group will consist of Ann Chovie, Anna Mull, Harrison Fire, and Ella Mentry. Neil Down and Scott Free will be in the below average group while Paige Turner will be in the well below average group by herself. Although looking at just one individual category to determine what group the students belong in might be very misleading, I tried my best to group the students according to these test scores. The reason I put Paige Turner by herself is because her scores were so low that she needs some sort of tutor or one on one time with the teacher. Being in the below average group would be too challenging for her in my opinion. Barbie, Milo, Betty, and Rusty have the top scores for the LSF assessment which is why I decided to place them in the well above average group. Candi, Al, Rick, and Robin have the next four highest scores which is why I grouped them together. Ann, Anna, Harrison, and Ella are all at or slightly above the 50 th percentile which is why they were placed in the average group. Neil and Scott scored slightly below the 50th percentile and is why I grouped them together. The students scores in the other assessments do vary, but since I am basing my grouping off the LSF score, these groups seem appropriate.

Diagnostic Assessment Knowing the scores of all four assessments for each student would be helpful. It would be helpful to know how much help each student is getting at home. If you know that certain students are getting additional help at home while others arent getting any at all, you might have a better understanding of where your students reading level is at.

Reflection This was a new experience for me. I didnt realize that there are many different ways to evaluate kids on their reading. One assessment simply may not be enough. I think its important to look at all four assessments while grouping students. Simply looking at the data can often be misleading. If a student randomly has one good test score while the others are mediocre, you can draw conclusions about that student. I also learned that these four assessments are vital when it comes to grouping students. You have to have some justification for grouping kids. Giving each student a number or letting them pick their group isnt going to cut it. If you want your reading groups to be successful, you need to put thought and effort into making your groups.