Alicia Govannicci Professor Rich Word Study Assessment March 20, 2013 I have seen word study done

often in Mrs. Mulshines first grade classroom. It is important that students work on enhancing their word study understanding. The teacher must be able to find the students strengths and weaknesses when it comes to word knowledge. Therefore, the purpose of the word study assessment is to see what a student truly knows. It helps find the areas where a student excels, and where better instruction is needed to help the student progress in phonics. As students word knowledge becomes stronger in spelling, it will help them move on to becoming fluent readers. I chose to do the word study assessment on Veronica. I would like to see what spelling level Veronica is at. She is a six year old in Mrs. Mulshines first grade classroom. When I see word study being done in Mrs. Mulshines classroom, it is usually done in groups according to the students word knowledge. Each group focuses on a different word feature. The classroom has a wide range of spellers and I chose to do the word study assessment on Veronica because after observing all of the students, I felt that her spelling skills were average in comparison to the rest of the class and wanted to see if I was correct in thinking that. The methodology of this word study assessment focuses on assessing a students word knowledge through spelling. A Primary Spelling Inventory (PSI) was used to conduct the word study. The PSI lists 26 words that are organized from

least difficult to most difficult. I asked the student to spell each word that I recited to him on the blank sheet of paper that I provided. Starting with the first word listed, I would say the word once, use the word in a sentence appropriate for a first grader, and then repeat the word. I did not have to go through all of the words. I just had to go through as many words as I could until the student misspelled at least five words. I, however, assessed the student until she misspelled eight words so I could get a better understanding of where her strengths and weaknesses were. I ended up going through thirteen of the words with Veronica. I never told Veronica whether or not she spelled a word correctly after she was finished writing each word so that she would not be discouraged or hesitate to spell the next word. I conducted the assessment individually on Veronica, at a desk outside of the classroom, after her lunch period. When conducting this word study assessment, I made sure that Veronica did not study the words on the inventory in advance so that I could make sure I was assessing what she truly knows. Veronica had spelled five out of thirteen words correctly. After assessing her, I found that I was correct in thinking that her spelling was average compared to the rest of the first grade class. She had no problem writing the initial consonants and the final consonants of the words. She also did a good job with the short vowels. She only had trouble with the short vowel u in the word gum. She put an a instead of the u. Veronica seemed to have the most difficulty with long vowel patterns. She struggled with the long vowel patterns in the words wait, shine, dream, blade, and coach. With the word dream, she also had trouble with the blend dr. Instead she wrote jr. The digraph -ch in coach was also a struggle

for her. She had put -th instead of -ch. Coach was the last word I asked her to spell and I could tell she had the most trouble with this word. She did not pause or hesitate before writing any of the other words after I said them. She only paused and thought about the word coach before writing it. Since Veronica had the most trouble with long vowel patterns I think I would focus on teaching this the most. To teach this, I would probably review both long vowels and short vowels first. I would then move on and go over the long vowel patterns that are most common. I would have the students repeat words with long vowel patterns and words with short vowels so that they can hear the difference. When the students break up into their word study groups, I would have Veronica be in the group with the average students, since I see long vowel patterns being a common problem with a lot of the students spelling. I would have this group focus on sorting words that have long vowel patterns from words that do not. I could use activities that we learned in class like, Guess My Rule, Pick a blend, and Word in a Bag, to help the students in the group learn and practice the long vowel patterns. After a lot of practice with that, and seeing that the students understand long vowel patterns I may do a review of them and also of blends, digraphs, and short vowels before I move on to teaching other vowels. I would move on to teaching other vowels next because they are a feature that is seen the most in the next chunk of words on the PSI.