Running head: ANALYSIS OF STUDENT WORK 1

Analysis of Student Work

JaryElly C. May

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

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Abstract

The following analysis of student work (ASW) will be based on the assessment and activity data

that I have collected over the span of ten weeks with my tutoring student, MG. MG has visited

my EDRL 442 classroom each week for ten weeks and we have shared many books and new

ideas together. It has been a pleasure to work with MG and implement strategies that I have

learned in previous courses to aid MG’s reading and spelling development. I have chosen three

out of ten lessons to analyze for the ASW assignment. I have also specified a few of the

strategies I would like to implement into my own classroom because they were engaging,

specifically for MG, and I would like to share them in the future. This ASW also contains my

personal opinions and philosophies about future ASW application and the cycle of teaching,

checking, re-teaching, and re-checking.

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Analysis of Student Work

Student Background

MG is seven years old and she is a first grader. She has 3 siblings, two twin 20-year olds

and one 5-year old. MG lives with both her mother and her father. Overall, she enjoys school and

reading. MG’s favorite books are Pete the Cat books. She also understands how to make

predictions about what may happen in the next page of a book or at the end of the book. MG

engages in the text she is reading, whether it is talking with different voices for the characters or

singing along with Pete the Cat. MG’s favorite parts of tutoring are reading a book on her own

and drawing in her journal. When she grows up, MG wants to be an illustrator because she loves

drawing. On our first tutoring lesson together, MG said “I feel like an artist” and those words

prepared us for the rest of our lessons.

Grade Level Standards and Expectations

Lesson 1- CCSS ELA Reading Foundational Skills: Know and apply grade-level phonics

and word analysis skills in decoding words (RF.1.3). The objective for this lesson was “SWBAT

immediately recognize and read high-frequency words.” MG was given a list of one hundred

high-frequency words and she was asked to read each one at her own pace. By the end of first

grade, she should be able to read each word and use her knowledge of those words to decode

new, more challenging words for second grade reading.

Lesson 2- CCSS ELA Language: Spell untaught words phonetically, drawing on

phonemic awareness and spelling conventions (L.1.2e). The objective for this lesson was

“SWBAT recall understanding of phonemic awareness and spelling conventions to spell words

she may not recognize.” MG will be given a word, a sentence containing that word, and the word

again. MG will spell the word to the best of her ability and then she will be provided with a new
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word. MG will spell 26 words to the best of her ability. By the end of first grade, MG should

know digraphs, blends, long vowel patterns, and she should have an understanding of syllables

and affixes.

Lesson 3- CCSS ELA Reading Literature: Describe characters, settings, and major events

in a story, using key details (RL.1.3) and read grade-level text orally with accuracy, appropriate

rate, and expression on successive readings (RF.1.4b). The objective for this lesson was

“SWBAT read passages with accuracy and answer comprehension questions based on those

passages.” MG read one passage that was at her personal reading level, retold the story, and

answered comprehension questions. Then, she read another passage that was one level below her

personal reading level. This lesson focused on her personal reading level and comprehension for

future tutoring lesson book choices.

Lesson One

The first lesson consisted of assessing by using the High-Frequency Word Knowledge

Survey (HFWKS). This is where I realized that MG recognizes high-frequency words very well.

The purpose of this assessment is “understanding [that] text relies in part on the immediate

recognition of these high frequency words…,[and] logically, can help readers manage text in a

more fluent way” (R. Cooter, Flynt, & K. Cooter, 2014, p. 68). The procedures I followed for this

assessment were to give MG a copy of the HFWKS. Then, I asked her to read the words on the

page in order. While she was reading the words on the page, I was marking any misread words

on my own copy of the HFWKS. When she finished the list of words, the assessment concluded.

Student Performance

MG correctly identified 97/100 on the HFWKS. She identified words such as could,

people, number, part, water, etc. MG misread 3 words; were, there, and no. She read “were” as
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“where,” “there” as “these,” and “no” as “on.” When MG finished reading the words, I asked her

to go back to the ones she missed to reread them and she self-corrected. I believe she was not

taking her time or looking at the words closely the first time through because when she reread

the words, she said them correctly. MG exceeds on the HFWKS.

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Initial Strategy

Since this was the first assessment MG took during the tutoring lessons, I followed

Lemov’s Plan for Error strategy. The strategy states: “increase the likelihood that you’ll

recognize and respond to errors by planning for common mistakes in advance” (Lemov, 2015, p.

60). This was our second lesson together, so I did not have a clear understanding of MG’s

abilities yet. I knew that pushing her towards her frustration level on our second tutoring lesson

would be difficult for her and she might not want to continue. This is why I planned on making

sure she felt comfortable enough to make mistakes and try her best on the HFWKS.

Re-teaching Strategies

Strategies that I could have used for this lesson include “break it down,” “every minute

matters,” and “own and track.” Break it down is “when a student makes an error, provide just

enough help to allow her to “solve” as much of the original problem as she can” (Lemov, 2015,

p. 268). Using “break it down” would allow MG to self-correct her mistakes with just enough

prompting for her to figure out that she made a mistake. I specifically told her to return to the

three words that she missed, but maybe writing the words on flashcards would have made her

concentrate on one word at a time. This would have let her solve her own mistakes. Every minute

matters means to “respect students’ time by spending every minute productively” (Lemov, 2015,

p. 224). This is very important, especially during assessments such as the HFWKS because

students are able to tell when they are being assessed and sometimes this may mentally turn them

off. For this reason, I would use the “every minute matters” strategy to engage MG and tell her to

try her best. The own and track strategy is to “have students correct or revise their own work,

fostering an environment of accountability for the correct answer” (Lemov, 2015, p. 224).

Similar to break it down, I would use this strategy to help MG learn how to correct her mistakes.
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I mentioned earlier that MG only missed 3 of the 100 words. These mistakes could have been

fixed with careful attention to the words and that is what this strategy would help MG with.

Re-teach and re-check

The teaching section of this lesson was administering the HFWKS. In order to re-teach

this lesson, I used the “own and track” strategy. The reason I used this strategy is because MG is

capable of self-correcting. One activity I used to help improve her high-frequency word

recognition was playing bingo. This was an activity that she enjoys, but also improves her word

recognitions skills. I created the bingo game board to contain the words that MG missed on the

HFWKS and a few of the other words in the list. In order to re-check MG’s mastery of the three

words and the rest of the list, I referred back to the HFWKS and asked her to read through them.

This task only took about 2-3 minutes she performed very well on it, and she did not miss any

words.

Reflection

The “own and track” strategy did work because MG was able to revise her own work.

When I told her the 3 words she missed the first time, she realized that she was not paying

attention when she was reading the first time. When she went through the list of words one more

time, we had practiced the words enough for her to recognize what the words were and she

recognized them immediately. I believe this strategy was helpful for MG because she did not

need help learning the three high-frequency words, but she needed to understand that it was

important to self-correct mistaking those words for other words.

Lesson Two

Our second lesson consisted of the Primary Spelling Inventory (PSI). The purpose of this

assessment is to analyze the results “to obtain a general picture of their orthographic
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development” (Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, & Johnston, 2016, p. 25). The inventory includes

“orthographic features that are most helpful in identifying a stage and planning instruction”

(Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, & Johnston, 2016, p. 25).

Student Performance

MG scored 34/56 feature points on the PSI. For initial and final consonants MG received

7/7 and 6/7. For short vowel, MG received 6/7. For diagraphs, she scored 6/7. For blends, MG

received 6/7. For long vowel patterns, she received 2/7. For other vowels, she scored 1/7. For

inflected endings, she scored 0/7. MG’s stage of spelling development is letter name-alphabetic

based on the PSI.

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Initial Strategy

The initial strategy I used for this lesson was “culture of error” which states “create an

environment where your students feel safe making and discussing mistakes, so you can spend

less time hunting for errors and more time fixing them” (Lemov, 2015, pg. 64). Before

administering this lesson, I began by telling MG that I will tell her a word, a sentence, and I will

repeat the word one more time for her to then write it down. There were several times throughout

our tutoring lessons when I told MG that we would both try our best; she would work hard with

reading and writing, and I would work hard to be a good teacher. Before I began the PSI, I let

MG know that she should try her best to spell the words and that would help me become a better

teacher as well. This definitely allowed her to see that the tutoring lessons were learning

experiences for the both of us.

Re-teaching Strategies

The re-teaching strategies that I could use to improve this lesson are “at bats,” “exit

ticket,” and “do it again.” At bats states “because succeeding once or twice at a skill won’t bring

mastery, give your students lots and lots of practice mastering knowledge or skills” (Lemov,

2015, p. 188). The PSI was helpful in demonstrating MG’s areas of improvement. It was clear

that she needed help with long vowel patterns, so that is what we worked on. An exit ticket is

used to “end each class with an explicit assessment of your objective that you can use to evaluate

your (and your students’) success” (Lemov, 2015, p. 190). The exit ticket activity that I would

use to help her improve her spelling was writing in her journal. The next strategy I would use is

“do it again” which is give students more practice when they’re not up to speed- not just doing

something again, but doing it better, striving to do their best” (Lemov, 2015, 373). For this
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strategy, I would use different types of engaging activities that focused on spelling, especially

words that were missed in the PSI.

Re-teach and re-check

The strategy that I implemented on lessons after this one to improve MG’s literacy was

“do it again.” The reason why I chose this strategy was because I would be able to use different

activities to focus on the same things; spelling. Most of the words I used for the activities came

directly from the PSI. I used spelling bingo first. For spelling bingo, I gave MG a word and she

spelled it on a sheet of paper. If she spelled the word correctly, she would be able to shade in the

word on the bingo sheet. If MG did not spell the word correctly, we would review the word, she

would spell it correctly, and then she would be able to shade in the word on the bingo sheet.

Another strategy I used was spelling battleship which contained words from the PSI and she

would call out a letter and number to either receive a letter from my board or guess which word

we were spelling. This was also an exciting activity for MG. She did not realize how much

spelling practice she was receiving because she was enjoying the activities.
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Reflection

Overall, aiding MG in spelling was interesting because I was able to find different

activities that she would find interesting. There are many resources online that I knew she would

enjoy, but we were only limited to eight activities and MG wanted to repeat a couple of those

activities. I feel there were more strategies and activities that I was able to find to help MG with

spelling. By the end of our tutoring lessons, she understood the difference between ending “-ed”

words and “-t” like “camped” rather than “campt.”

Lesson Three

Our third lesson consisted of the Comprehensive Reading Inventory (CRI) assessment.

The purpose of this assessment is to “more accurately assess students’ true abilities in oral and

silent reading comprehension, decoding abilities, vocabulary knowledge, reading fluency, and

prior knowledge” (R. Cooter, Flynt, & K. Cooter, 2014, p. X). There are several procedures to

this assessment. First, MG read a level 3 passage silently. While she was reading, I was
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completing the “error types” sheet and noting any miscues. When MG finished reading, I asked

her to tell me what happened in the story. As she was retelling the story, I checked her

comprehension with the questions that were provided on the “assessment protocols” page. When

she was done retelling the story, I asked her 4 of the 8 questions she did not address before. After

these procedures I continued to a level 4 passage, followed the same steps, and concluded with a

level 5 passage. MG did not complete the level 5 passage because it was at her frustration level.

Student Performance

MG has many of the fundamental behaviors of reading including left to right

directionality, one-to-one matching, and searching for clues. She uses word attack behaviors such

as mispronunciation (invented word substitutions), she attempts to self-correct, and she “sounds

out” or segments words. MG uses the visual cuing system the most. For example, she read

“locked” rather than “knocked” and “was” rather than “saw.” MG’s oral reading fluency is

mixed phrasing. On the level 3 passage for silent reading comprehension MG was able to answer

4 out of 8 questions without support. This level’s text was too hard with 4 unanswered questions.

In oral reading accuracy, level 3 is at MG’s instructional level. She had a total of 4 errors out of

100 words with a 96% accuracy rate. This passage is at MG’s instructional level because the

passage was not easy or too hard for her; it was adequate and there is room for improvement. In

this case, I would not ask MG to continue to the next reading passage level.
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Initial Strategy

The initial strategy I used was “without apology” which is “embrace- rather than

apologize for- rigorous content, academic challenge, and the hard work necessary to scholarship”

(Lemov, 2015, p. 122). I used this approach because I knew the CRI was going to be a more

time-consuming assessment and it would feel like she was being assessed rather than doing

things that interest her like the the lessons prior. At the beginning of the assessment, I let her

know that it would be important for her to try her best so that I would be able to find books that

are at her reading level and that she would like to read. I told MG that I knew the questions

might be difficult and she might become tired of reading the passages, but to try her best because

I knew that she would be able to become a good reader.

Re-teaching Strategies

The strategies that I would use to reteach this lesson and help MG improve her scores

would be “stretch it,” “strong start,” and “excavate error.” The “stretch it” strategy is “reward

“right” answers with harder questions” (Lemov, 2015, p. 108). This strategy would allow MG to

start answering questions at a low level and be scaffolded into responding to more challenging

questions. The next strategy is “strong start” which is “design and establish an efficient routine

for students to enter the classroom and begin class” (Lemov, 2015, p. 356). I felt this strategy

would be important to implement because MG had already been completing different types of

assessments each week and it was necessary for her to be prepared for this final, major

assessment for tutoring. Having a strong start will allow her to keep her mind focused on literacy

and becoming a better reader each week. The third strategy I would use is “excavate error” which

is “dig into errors, studying them efficiently and effectively, to better understand where students
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struggle and how you can best address those points” (Lemov, 2015, p. 72). This strategy would

allow me to really look at MG’s data and decide which areas she needed more improvement on.

Re-teach and re-check

The re-teach strategy I decided to use was “excavate error.” The way I did this was

through checking MG’s CRI assessment data and find out what she had most trouble with. MG is

a great reader and was able to read high-level text, but she struggled with comprehension. More

specifically, MG struggled with retelling the story. I knew that this is a fundamental skill that

MG must understand how to do and every time we would read a story, this is what we focused

on. At first, we would complete a few worksheets together, but by the end, she was able to

complete them on her own. I also found a wonderful resource online called “roll and retell”

which is an activity where the student rolls a die and answers the question that correlates with the

number the received. When I introduced MG to this activity, she definitely enjoyed it and wanted

to continue to roll the die. Each time we read a story, we completed activities such as the “I can

recount a story” worksheet and this is how I was able to recheck MG’s comprehension of the

story and ability to retell a story.

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Reflection

MG enjoyed the strategies and activities I used for reading comprehension, but I do not

think she enjoyed them more than the spelling activities. I believe this is something I will need to

work on in the future in my own classroom. It is important for me as a teacher to find resources

and activities that will interest my students and engage them while also being resources that will

help them move onto higher reading levels. Overall, I saw great improvement with MG’s

retelling abilities and attention to detail in a story in order to answer comprehension questions or

simply retell the story.

ASW Future Application

Since my time spent tutoring with MG, I have learned many strategies and activities that

can be applied to my own classroom. One thing I feel our education courses have not taught us

well enough is how to collect data and use that data to help our students. We have heard about

the different types of assessment and how formative assessment helps us as teacher with our

instruction, but I believe these tutoring lessons have allowed us to apply what we have learned.

The ASW has helped me understand the data I have collected and reflect on the decisions I had

to make as the “teacher” during the lessons. I have heard of data collection and making

instructional decisions to meet student needs, but I would definitely like to speak with my mentor

teacher and understand how she collects data as well. I believe that having an ASW for each

student in my classroom may sound time-consuming, but it allows me to focus on student growth

educationally, behaviorally, artistically, and more. There may be different aspects of this ASW

that I would add in my own classroom such as how certain activities or strategies benefitted

students. If the strategies or activities did not benefit students, I would need to make more

changes to my instruction in order to better meet those individual needs. The ASW has also
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encouraged me to keep track of student progress. I was able to see MG’s growth over a 10-week

span, so I cannot imagine how this type of practice would help me in my own classroom. The

ASW can be updated each quarter, semester, or trimester, so adding visual graphs and artifacts

that I would be able to show students and their parents would demonstrate how much the student

has improved. I will use the ASW as a tool in my classroom to prepare my instruction and seek

needs among my students that must be assisted in order for them to become better readers and

writers.

Philosophy- Teach, Check, Re-teach, Re-check

I have understood the significance of consistent teaching, checking, re-teaching, and re-

checking. This is a cycle that must be followed in order to ensure that students are understanding

the content. If students are not understanding content, then teachers are responsible for finding

new methods that would eventually lead to mastery. In my opinion, this cycle should repeat until

the student has learned the target standard and/or objective. Students such as MG are in first

grade, so if they are not building on a strong literacy foundation, then they may fall behind their

peers to the point of losing interest in trying to become better readers and writers. For this

reason, I would implement this strategy, especially for the mastery of skills that are essential for

the rest of the school year and the students’ primary education career. I believe that

differentiation is a category that falls under this cycle of constant teaching, assessment, and re-

teaching. The reason why I believe differentiation is part of this cycle is because each student is

different. In a content area where one student is finding success, another student is struggling,

and vice versa. It is a teacher’s responsibility to know where students lie on a measurement scale

and help students who are struggling reach the target goals. Students who have mastered content

must be challenged and move up the measurement scale. There is always room for improvement
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in a classroom, but a teacher would not recognize that need if they do not consistently check their

students’ progress. I understand that moving onto a new subject area and keeping the classroom

on pace is important, but making sure students are learning what they are supposed to be learning

is also important. I will use this cycle in my own classroom to ensure that students are generally

at the same levels and reach out to students that are perhaps struggling. If I do not implement this

cycle into my classroom, I am not allowing students to learn and improve. Instead, I would

actually be causing more harm to their education. For this reason, I understand what this cycle

means to my future students and I will ensure that students understand the content.
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References

Bear, D. R., Invernizzi, M., Templeton, S., & Johnston, F. R. (2016). Words their way: Word

study for phonics, vocabulary, and spelling instruction. Boston: Pearson.

Cooter, R. B., Flynt, E. S., & Cooter, K. S. (2014). The Flynt/Cooter Comprehensive reading

Inventory-2: Assessment of K-2 reading skills in English and Spanish. Boston: Pearson.

Lemov, D. (2015). Teach like a champion 2.0: 62 techniques that put students on the path to

college. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, a Wiley brand.

Roll and retell. Retrieved April 11, 2018 from

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_mieVEhjKG5cjJKclRGUEFYa0U/edit