Analyzing Student Data Project

CASE 1 - William - 2nd grader

Analysis of Assessment Data

Four assessments were administered to better understand Williams strengths and

challenges in his overall reading comprehension.

Informal Phonics Inventory

One assessment Willam took was a phonics inventory. This assessment shows William's

understanding of letter-sound knowledge. The results of the assessment identifies if William can

produce the sounds that are associated with specific consonants, consonant digraphs, consonant

blends, CVC words, the rule of silent e, long vowel digraphs, diphthongs, and r-controlled

vowels (McKenna & Stahl, 2015) . The assessment can aid in finding phonics William has

mastered and needs to target. Finding mastery and deficits in these areas will help in his

decoding skills and fluency. Decoding and fluency are necessary skills to support his reading

comprehension and are building blocks for his automatic word recognition pathway according to

McKenna and Stahl's (2015) Comprehension Cognitive Model.

William was able to produce 16 of the 20 consonant letter sounds on his phonics

inventory. Producing sounds with these graphemes shows William understands that letters are

symbols that can produce a sound when read (McKenna & Stahl, 2015). Although scoring 80%

shows mastery in this subset, it would be important to review the 4 sounds (/g/, /c/, /qu/, and /y/)

as these sounds are needed for William to decode words (McKenna & Stahl, 2015). William was

able to read 4 out of 5 digraphs and 15 out of the 20 beginning consonant blends. For the final

consonant blends where Willam needed to read blends within a word he read 6 out of 12

correctly. William recognized /sk/ by itself, but was unable to read it within the word bask as
final consonant and shows a need for blending some phonemes in words. In addition to working

on final consonant blends, William could also use instruction on his short vowels. For the CVC

portion of the phonics inventory, he read 5 out of the 10 words correctly. This shows a need to

review short vowel sounds. Letter sound recognition and short vowels need and tend to be

mastered first in phonics (McKenna & Stahl, 2015). Therefore, it would be beneficial for

Williams instruction to be centered around phonic skills starting with consonant letter sounds

and short vowels. Then, instruction should move onto consonant blends and digraphs, vowel

patterns with r and e, and vowel teams. Working on his phonics will aid him in his decoding

knowledge to build his fluency and automatic word recognition which are important components

to his overall reading comprehension (McKenna & Stahl, 2015).

Sight Word Assessment

Another assessment that was administered to William was Frys Sight Word Inventory

(Fry, 1980). This inventory shows Williams ability to read frequently occurring words in text.

It is important for William to quickly recognize these words to see if his knowledge is supporting

or hindering his fluency and comprehension (McKenna & Stahl, 2015). The score from his

assessment shows which words William is able to to quickly read without sounding each word

out (McKenna & Stahl, 2015). Of the first 100 words, he was able to read 95 words

automatically. Looking at each word as a specific skill, William may just need to practice the 5

words he did not quickly recognize and move on the the next 100 words of Frys list (McKenna

& Stahl, 2015). William shows that he has a bank of words that he can quickly recognize

without sounding them out. This will aid him in his accuracy and pacing while reading and

allow him to use more of his cognitive strategies to decode longer words and allow him to focus

on his comprehension (McKenna & Stahl, 2015).

Spelling Inventory

A spelling inventory was also taken to review Williams understanding of letter sounds

and written words. Spelling development and reading have a significant relationship (McKenna

& Stahl, 2015). Looking at the ways that students spell can give insight into what students know

about words. Their knowledge about words links to how they are reading words. Therefore,

focusing on how William is spelling can be useful to his reading instruction (Bear et al, ,2012).

Williams Words Their Way Elementary Spelling Inventory (Bear et al,, 2012), shows

that he is past the emergent spelling stage and able to write the final beginning and final

consonant sounds of each word. He was also able to spell with vowels. William seems to be

working within the letter-name alphabetic stage where his writing uses beginning, vowel, and

ending sounds. In his spelling he is able to recognize placement of vowel, but needs support in

writing the correct vowel. With consistency in spelling words with short vowels correctly he

will enter the within word pattern spelling stage (McKenna & Stahl, 2015). He is already

starting to recognize some blends such as tr and pl. His spelling level seems parallel with

his phonics assessment with the need to read and also represent short vowels, digraphs and

blends.

Qualitative Reading Inventory

Another assessment William took was a Qualitative Reading Inventory (QRI). A QRI

can show a students independent, instructional, or frustrational reading level (McKenna & Stahl,

2015). Using a series of grade leveled passages, the QRI uses accuracy in grade level word

recognition, comprehension, and retelling abilities to help see which level of text will suit

William best. Finding the appropriate level will help center instruction around text that is not too

easy or difficult for William to understand. Within Willams instructional level he is able to be
the most productive in this zone of proximal development, the level of which teachers can best

provide support and grow Willams learning (Vygotsky, 1978).

William read a level one narrative passage. Before Willam read the text he was given a

few concept questions to gauge his prior knowledge of the topic. He was able to show

familiarity of the topic, but did not provide a prediction to the text. Reviewing Williams fluency

results, he read 91 Words Per Minute (WPM) during the oral reading of his leveled passage with

12 miscues. William falls above the instructional first grade WPM, which shows that this is an

independent passage in regards to his fluency. Many of his miscues changed the meaning of the

text. However, there are other areas of the QRI that William could grow in. William had trouble

retelling details of the story and instead gave a general summary of the text. His response was

accurate of what he read, but could answer more questions such as the setting and plot of the

text. His retelling along with his answers to his comprehension questions showed that he can use

some additional attention to comprehension strategies.

Common Core State Standards

In regards to Common Core State Standards (CCSS) foundational skills in phonics for

second grade, William is behind for his grade level. The common core state standards for second

graders explain that students should be distinguishing between long and short vowel, vowel

teams and one syllable words (National Governors Association for Best Practices, Council of

Chief State, 2010, RF.2.3.A-B). According to William's Informal Phonics Inventory, he was not

able able to read CVC words containing short vowels, apply the the silent-e rules, or long vowel

digraphs. For narrative readings the standard state second graders should be able to focus on key

ideas and details in the text. Specifically they should be able to ask and answer such questions

as who, what, where, when, why, and how to demonstrate understanding of key details in a
text (National Governors Association for Best Practices, Council of Chief State, 2010, RL.2.1).

With Williams retelling responses during the QRI, William does not show grade level

proficiency is this areas.

Goals for Instruction

Goal 1 - Decoding abilities

Reviewing all of Williams assessments holistically, William would benefit most from

reviewing phonics. His goals would align with CCSSs foundational skills for phonics and word

recognition to know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words

(National Governors Association for Best Practices, Council of Chief State, 2010, RF.2.3). From

his sight word inventory he shows an ability to memorize words and quickly recognize them.

However, he shows difficulty in recognizing short vowels and blends which will cause him

difficulty in decoding longer words that would hinder his pacing and accuracy in his fluency.

Therefore, it would be best to focus one goal on phonic recognition.

Focusing on this goal will mature Willams decoding skills. In reference to the Makenna

& Stahls (2015) cognitive model, decoding is an essential skills for William to become fluent in

contexts he is reading and allow him to build on his automatic word recognition. When William

is able to decode these words he can add them to his sight word bank and start to automatically

recognize these words, which will allow William to put more energy in comprehending what he

is reading (McKenna & Stahl, 2015).

Goal 2 - Comprehension of text

Retelling gives a gauge of comprehension. Given the very little detail William gave on

his QRI, he would benefit in learning or relearning strategies to aid in his reading

comprehension.
 A goal I would focus on is to help William construct meaning of text through retelling

strategies. On his assessment Willam only gave a general statement of the text. William read a

narrative piece of text, but was not able to share some important components of a narrative.

Reviewing elements of narrative would be beneficial in Willams growth in understanding to

create meaning as he is reading different types of text.

Instructional Strategies

Instructional Strategy (Goal 1) - Decoding abilities

To starting filling William's gap of some letter sound consonant recognition and short

vowel sounds, William could benefit in using Word Study Notebook (Bear et al, 2012). This

notebook would be a collection of word banks that are organized by letter-sound patterns.

William can create lists and review the 4 sounds (/g/, /c/, /qu/, and /y/) that he miscued on his

assessment. Writing and repeating the sound pattern in his notebook will help aid in mastery of

his letter recognition. After he mastered his letter sounds he can move onto recording CVC lists

by vowel patterns. After mastering each set of word patterns and sounds he can continually add

onto his notebook and record additional patterns. The notebook can show his overall progress as

he is able to read and write words by families.

Instructional Strategy (Goal 1) - Decoding abilities

In addition to the Word Study Notebook, another way to target Williams growth in

phonics is following an integrated word study instruction. William can practice the CVC and

other letter-sound patterns he struggles with using card sorts. Beverly Tyner (2009), gives card

sort lists to systematically help students in their word study. To start, William can use lists that

focus on middle short vowel patterns. For example, a short a and short u sort has words such as,

cab, mad, bat, mud, run, bus, and gum. These activities help isolate the sound the short vowels
make and the letter that represents the sound. For each sort William should be given header cards

to show an example of the sounds William should focus on during the sort. Then, William can

sort cards and place them in their appropriate columns. Sorting by sound can help William

familiarize himself with the letter sound relationship each vowel represent within words.

Instructional Strategy (Goal 2) - Comprehension of text

To focus on his goal of retelling of narrative texts, William should focus on strategies that

help him remember the most important parts of the story. Graphic organizers, such as story

maps, can allow William to see how important information in a story is organized. The maps

highlight the key features of that text such as, setting, characters, setting, problem, goal or plot,

and resolution. Story maps will allow William to engage with the text and monitor his reading

(Gambrell & Morrow, 2015).

Instructional Strategy (Goal 2) - Comprehension of text

Another instructional strategy to use to support retelling is modeling essential questions

for William to be thinking about as he is reading. Lessons centered around these features will

help William remember these important elements as he is reading. Han (2005) focuses on five

essential questions to be modeled when thinking about texts:

1. What is the title of the story?

2. Who are the characters?

3. What happened at the beginning?

4. What happened in the middle?

5. What happened in the end?

During instruction it would be helpful to continually review these questions with William

as he is reading new text. Helpful reminders to these questions could be posted on an anchor
chart or on an index card that is readily available as he is reading. To monitoring his

understanding it would be good to ask these questions after he has read the text as well (Han,

2005). These questions can aid in his ability to predict and monitor what he is reading to support

retelling.

CASE 2 - Sarah - 4th Grader

Analysis of Assessment Data

A spelling inventory and two Qualitative Reading Inventories (one narrative and one

expository) were administered to evaluate Sarahs strengths and weakness in areas that support

her reading comprehension.

Spelling Inventory

Bear et al.s (2012) spelling inventory was give to help determine Sarahs developmental

spelling stage. In the list of 25 words, each word becomes more challenging in spelling

elements. The assessment shows which letter and sound patterns she understands and which

areas would be helpful to target (McKenna & Stahl, 2015).

Sarah showed proficient understanding of letter patterns from the emergent through

within word pattern stage. She only made one miscue on the long vowel pattern in the word

float and omitted the letter a. Sarahs spelling inventory, shows that she is leading into the

derivational relations spelling stage (Bear et al, ,2012). In this stage, she has shown mastery of

multisyllabic words and common affixes. Her inventory shows spelling errors in more

challenging suffixes such as, -ure, -ate, -ent, -ize, and -tion. Additionally, she is using s to

represent the soft c sound and could use review in when to use s or c to represent /s/.

Qualitative Reading Inventory (Narrative)

 In this assessment Sarah was assessed on her fluency and reading comprehension of

narrative texts. The assessment was composed of questions about her prior knowledge of the

topic, fluency in her reading, retelling skills, and questions that showed what she understood

from the text.

The assessment showed that Sarah had some prior knowledge of some topics occurring in

the text and made a focused prediction of the text. She read 71 WPM with 5 miscues which puts

her within the fourth grade instructional reading level. Two of her miscues, Massachusetts and

frontier, could be due unfamiliarity of the words. Her comprehension questions showed that

she was understanding many explicit details from the text. Some answers she is direct in sharing

that she does not know. It was interesting that during her retelling and responses she kept

referring to the west side of town in reference to location, but west in the text is referring to

western areas of America. Her retelling was simplistic and covered a few explicit details. Level

four would be an appropriate instructional reading level based on her fluency, retelling and

answers to comprehension questions for narrative texts.

Qualitative Reading Inventory (Expository)

Sarah also took another Informal Reading Inventory that focused on her comprehension

of expository texts. Sarah did not show a large amount of prior knowledge to the Early

Railroads text and scored 50% on the concept questions. During the reading of the text Sarah

read 76 WPM with 8 miscues. At this WPM is still within fourth grade instructional reading

range. Many of Sarahs miscues were on words that were topic specific, such as locomotive

and value or had to do with how to read types of numbers in text. In her retelling of text she

shows a misunderstanding about what she read sharing a long time ago, horse pulled trains..

Sarah has the misconception that horses used to pull trains. Through her comprehension
questions she is able to answer some implicit and explicit details, but does not remember some

important details to the text and got 5 out of the 8 questions correct. In reference to these

questions she is at a frustrational level. Overall, Sarah seemed to be challenged by some of the

implicit questions where she had to use the text and inferential knowledge to answer the question

correctly.

Common Core State Standards

In regards to Common Core State Standards (CCSS) Sarah meets grade level

expectations in some areas within the fourth grade level. For example, she was able to use

combined knowledge of all letter-sound correspondences, syllabication patterns, and

morphology to read accurately unfamiliar multisyllabic words in context and out of context,

such as decoding the word locomotive (National Governors Association for Best Practices,

Council of Chief State, 2010, RF.4.3.A). Although she was able to decode the word she

lacked some understanding of how to recognize and apply new words that hindered her

comprehension of the text (National Governors Association for Best Practices, Council of Chief

State, 2010, RI.4.4). In regards to narrative texts, Sarah was able to answer implicit and

explicit questions, but could still use instruction on adding details in her recalling. At the

fourth grade level she should be able to refer to details and examples in a text when

explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text and

describe in depth a character, setting, or event in a story or drama, drawing on specific

details in the text (National Governors Association for Best Practices, Council of Chief State,

2010, RL.4.1, RI.4.1, RL.4.3). Sarah should target strategies for implicit and explicit use of

the text in narrative and informational text. Although the assessments are snapshots of her
reading abilities, they show that Sarah could highly benefit in support of vocabulary

instruction and expository readings.

Goals for Instruction

Goal 1 - Vocabulary

Sarahs QRIs showed that she had a harder time understanding elements of text where

she had to construct meaning of new words. Not understanding the vocabulary results in some

misconceptions explicit and implicit questions for both narrative and expository texts. Students

who understand more of the words they are reading about will be able to make more sense of the

text (McKenna & Stahl, 2015). It is also interesting to note that she is in the derivation spelling

stage where parts of words can give meaning. Therefore one goal would be to focus on her

reading vocabulary of domain specific words to support her in her Oral Language

Comprehension (McKenna & Stahl, 2015).

Goal 2 - Comprehension of text: explicit and inferential understanding

Sarah needs support in answering explicit and inference questions in expository text.

Sarah was reading at a fourth grade instructional level, but her comprehension was at a

frustrational level for the expository text. It would be helpful to give Sarah strategies of

understanding informational text to help her become more familiar with how these text are

organized. Targeting this goal, Sarah can extend explicit information in text and create implicit

knowledge and text to self connections (McKenna & Stahl, 2015).

Both of these goals aid in Sarahs Oral Language Comprehension according to McKenna

& Stahl (2015) cognitive model. Without mastery of vocabulary and lack comprehension

strategies, Sarahs overall comprehension will suffer. Therefore, targeting these goals will

support her overall reading comprehension.

Instructional Strategies

Instructional Strategy (Goal 1) - Vocabulary

One way to aid in exposing Sarah to new vocabulary and meaning is to preselect

vocabulary that will be essential to given text before reading a text. It would be helpful to have a

visual aid, such as a picture or the vocabulary word written on an index card to represent these

new vocabulary words. Also, if any words have affixes within them to help support meaning it

would be good to review those concepts in the new vocabulary. Previewing and building

meaning for these words will aid in Sarah understanding and use of the word while reading the

word in text (Tyner & Green, 2012).

Instructional Strategy (Goal 1) - Vocabulary

Another way to strengthen Sarahs vocabulary is through read alouds. Reading out loud

to Sarah is a way of giving her the opportunities to develop new-meaning vocabulary (Gambrell

& Morrow, 2015). Listening to books that are beyond Sarahs existing and oral vocabulary gives

them exposure to new vocabulary and concepts. After read aloud it is vitally important to

discuss the new vocabulary to strengthen understanding and use of the new words through

questioning, adding information, and describing thinking (Gambrell & Morrow, 2015).

Instructional Strategy (Goal 2) - Comprehension of text: explicit and inferential understanding

To support understanding of different text structure, it is beneficial for Sarah to preview

text. Before reading expository text, Sarah can get support of understanding the text by

discussing any prior knowledge she has to the the topic or pictures presented in the text. Also, it

would be important to go over important text features such as the glossary, table of content,

headings, and bolded words (Duke, 2003). Identifying these unique features will help Sarah

understanding the meaning and purpose of expository text while she is reading.
Instructional Strategy (Goal 2) - Comprehension of text: explicit and inferential understanding

Another way to aid in improving Sarahs reading comprehension of expository texts is to

build her strategies on explicit and implicit questioning by using teacher-generated questions.

These questions should help Sarah focus on important parts of the story. Exposure to these

questions will help her learn about different types of questions she should be asking while she is

reading text and give her models of how to answers these types of questions (McKenna & Stahl,

2015).

References
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for phonics, vocabulary, and spelling instruction (6th ed.) Upper Saddle River, NJ:
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Duke, N. (2003). Reading to learn from the very beginning: Informational books in early
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Fry, E. (1980). The new Instant Word List. The Reading Teacher, 34, 284-289.

Gambrell, L.B. & Morrow, L.M. (2015). Best practices in literacy instruction (5th ed.). New
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Han, J. (2005). Retelling as an effective reading comprehension strategy for young ESL
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McKenna, M.C. & Stahl, K.A.D. (2015). Assessment for reading instruction (3rd ed.) New
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National Governors Association for Best Practices, Council of Chief State. (2010). Common
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Tyner, B. (2009). Small-group reading instruction: a differentiated teaching model for
beginning and struggling readers (2nd ed.). Newark, DE: International Reading
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Tyner, B.B. & Green, S.E. (2012). Small-group reading instruction: differentiation teaching
models for intermediate readers, grades 3-8 (2nd ed.). Newark, DE: International
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Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.