Kristin Sarboukh March 26, 2013 Word Study Assessment

A word study assessment is a critical part in evaluating childrens literacy development. The purpose of this assessment is to help teachers understand what a child knows, what they do not, and where they need support in regards to spelling. While from the outside, it may look like a simple spelling test, a word study assessment is so much more. There are many different types of evaluations such as Words Their Way and Developmental Spelling Analysis (DSA), just to name a few, but they all assess very similar things. The DSA is designed to assess a childs understanding of letter name concepts, within word pattern concepts, syllable juncture concepts, and derivational constancy concepts. Based on the results, a teacher knows what she needs to focus on with her students, either on an individual level or as a whole class. For my word study assessment, I tested a third grade child in Miss Schroecks class named Nihari. She is eight years old with a pretty good spelling understanding and is spelling at an average third grade level. Nihari and I stayed in the classroom to perform the test. We went to a small table at the front of the room while the rest of the students were independently reading throughout the classroom. Miss Schroeck was doing running records with the students while I performed the spelling inventory. The room was very quiet, with almost no one talking, which allowed Nihari to focus all of her attention on the test. Altogether, I administered three different level tests to find out what Nihari really knew and where she was struggling. Once Nihari and I were all set up and both sitting at the front table, I began my assessment.

To perform the assessment, I used a standard step by step methodology that is routinely used for this type of assessment. First, I brought Nihari over to the small table at the front of the classroom. Because the room was so quiet, we were able to stay in the classroom with the other students while they read independently. I explained to Nihari that I would be reading her words and she would spell them on the paper that was provided. I told her this was not for a grade, nor was she being tested; it was simply to help me grow as a teacher. She seemed excited so I handed her the first paper and began with the letter name word list. This was a list of twenty five words and I would read the word, read the word in a sentence, and then read the word again. After she finished those twenty five words, I read her another twenty five from the within word pattern list. Again, once she finished with that list, I read her another, the syllable juncture list. I repeated the same process all three times of reading the word, reading the word in a sentence, and then reading the word again. If this test was being done to actually assess Nihari, I would have stopped after the second list of words because she got five wrong out of the total of twenty five. However, for educational purposes, I wanted to see how she would perform one level higher so I gave her the third list simply to see how she would perform. I then scored all three tests and analyzed my results. This assessment showed that Nihari has many strengths in regards to spelling. In her first test assessing letter names, she scored perfect on all twenty five words. Not only did she grasp the important concepts of each word, but she also spelled the whole word correctly. This stage looks for understanding in areas such as initial and final consonants in words like got and map, initial and final consonant blends and digraphs in words like ship and fast, short vowels in words like bet and mud, and affricates in words like jet and drum. In the second assessment of within word patterns, Nihari excels in the area regarding long vowel

sounds such as cute and grape as well as in the area of r-controlled vowels such as glare and hurt. She also has a good understanding of other common long vowels such as in steep and might. Lastly, in the third area, syllable juncture, the one area Nihari surpassed was in long vowel patterns (stressed syllables) in words like explode and survive. This last area was beyond what she should be able to do at a third grade level, and had I been assessing her for real, I would not have even tested her on this, but it was wonderful to see she could grasp such a difficult concept. While Nihari did very well with this assessment overall, there were some areas where she struggled. Nihari showed a few weaknesses in her spelling inventory. In the second assessment that has to do with within word patters, there were two areas that she still needs to work on. These areas are complex consonants that have to do with words such as bridge and quite and the area of abstract vowels in words such as couch and stood. She was only able to score a three out of five in these two areas when each child should be getting fives or fours at the very least. Because she was struggling in these two areas, if this assessment was real, I would not continue onto the third assessment that had to do with syllable juncture. However, I did simply for my own educational purposes and saw that she scored twos and threes in every area except the long vowel patterns (stressed syllables) where she scored a perfect score of five. Because she was not ready to move on to this third assessment, these scores were for the most part, expected. Some of the areas in this third section were doubling and e-drop with ed and ing in words such as swimming and trotted, other syllable juncture doubling in words such as pilot and minnow, r-controlled vowels (stressed syllables) in words such as furnace and burden, and unstressed syllable vowel patterns in words such as fountain and salute. However, because

the areas in this third assessment should not have even been tested, I would not focus on these struggles as negatives. Nevertheless, these results can be used for future instruction. These findings are crucial in telling a teacher where to go from here with a particular student. Because Nihari excels in the area of letter names, this is something I would not work on or even mention with her. There are also a few stages in within word patterns such as long vowels and r-controlled vowels and in syllable juncture such as long vowel patterns (stressed syllables) that she has exceeded in. This tells me that I would not have to go over these topics with her. I would check to make sure she continues to prosper in these areas, but would not talk about it with her because it is something she understands. I would expect her to continue to understand this concept even with more difficult words. Regardless of if she spells the more difficult word wrong, she should get these patterns correct. However, in the areas she did not do so well, I would only focus on the second assessment because the third was too advanced. The two areas to be focused on would be complex consonants and abstract vowels. Depending on how the rest of the class was doing in these areas, I would either teach these concepts as a whole class or on an individual basis. These notions can be reinforced through spelling word lists which force students to learn how to spell the words and then understand the patterns. Another way to strengthen these areas may be to have a list of words demonstrating these concepts and tell children they need to use these words in whatever they are working on in their writing class such as stories or poems. The use of these words over and over will help students learn them and learn the overall concept. Once Nihari mastered these two areas, I would then reassess the areas and move on to assessing the third and see how she did then. Word study is a very important assessment in the development of a child. I believe it should be assessed at the beginning of the year to see what each child is coming into the grade

knowing so that it could be used to inform instruction, and then, at the very least, toward the end of the year to see how far the students have come. This assessment is so important because how a student spells is greatly reflected in his or her writing. If a student does not know certain spelling concepts, they may be more inclined to use simpler words because they cannot spell the more complex ones. This will, in return, hinder the writer as a whole which is why it is so critical. Thanks to the results of these assessments, Miss Schroeck can focus on what skills each student, like Nihari, needs to build upon in order for them to succeed in the future.