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Mouridy
Christina Mouridy
Professor Gordillo
Case Study
October 30, 2016
Child Name: Alyssa
Age: 5
Child’s Demographics:
Alyssa is a bright, shy 5-year-old girl standing at 3 feet 7 inches, 42 inches in
total, and weighing thirty-nine pounds. Her straight, brown hair reaches down to
the middle of her back being paired with tan skin and wonder-filled brown eyes. At
Parkview Elementary School in Milltown, she attends kindergarten where English is
the primary language spoken. Only two minutes away from her school, she lives
with her Dominican mother and Irish father, Raiza and Tom Dunlap, and her 4-year-
old sister, Gabby. Although her ethnicity is spilt right down the middle, the only
language spoken in the house is English. Her parents are happily married who are
incredibly supportive of both daughters as they provide the best childhood in their
power. Alyssa has a positive outlook on life while becoming timid when faced with a
challenging task where she is not completely confident in her abilities. She has
different responses when being around adults and children her own age. Around
adults, she is slower to break out of her shy exterior and willing to listen to orders
from older individuals. On the other hand, she is a leader around her peers and
more willing to direct the play while being reluctant to other’s ideas that do not
appeal to her. Her ability to socialize and make friends easily grants her the tools to
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have others follow her suggestions during playtime. When told there was two
stations set up: one includes dolls and one includes trucks with only an hour to play
where would she spend her time? Her excited response of the dolls only confirms
she gravities more towards feminine items than masculine ones. As her mother
stated, “she is into anything girlie: bows, glitter, dolls you name it.” Looking around
the middle class house, one could see there were more girls than boys living in the
abode.
Reading Readiness:
Child’s Results on the Test
When testing for Alyssa’s Reading Readiness, I asked her mother to assist
answering the social and emotional development section as a result of the session
limited duration. Although Alyssa is sharing by nature, she wants the sharing to be a
two-way street causing the answer to be in between “always” and “sometimes” as
seen on the checklist. As mom stated, “ Eight times out of ten she will share.” Since
her sister is still learning to share, she is less likely to share with Alyssa causing the
road of sharing to be closed completely. Although Alyssa will follow an adult’s
orders, her leadership skills cause her to less likely cooperate blindly with her
peers’ idea. “If her peers are doing something, she is not interested in she will saying
‘I’m going over here guys’ tries to get a little crowd going her way” said by her
mother in an audio recording of the case study at 12:29. Although she is still has a go
with the flow type of attitude, her confidence is brought out when she is around her
peers. Unfortunately when facing new challenges where she is unsure of her
success, her self-confidence begins to deplete as fear step in unlike a task where her
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success is a hundred percent guaranteed. Even if it is an old ability like riding a bike,
she will give up once the wheels get stuck and reluctant to make a mistake in front
of others. This also leads to answer being “sometimes” regarding her ability to finish
task. Although her skills are not the issue in incompletion of tasks, it is the lack of
self-confidence and her willingness to give up easily in order to prevent looking
foolish. As stated by her mother, “It is not that she can’t do it, it is that she gives up
easily” (21:30). With a reminder of her strength to inflate her self-confidence and a
spurt of whine to relieve her fears, Alyssa will accomplish a task to the best of her
abilities. Her self-control is phenomenal in the way she will stop immediately when
an adult says to, which I have experienced first hand while babysitting. Similar to
her self-control, her ability to regulate herself is superb because in virtually every
situation she knows the difference between right and wrong even if she does not
perform it. If she does going down the wrong road, she will conceal the evidence out
of view of the adults as well as hide herself away from sight. Although she fulfills her
responsibilities in terms of school, she becomes easily distracted when told to do an
undesirable task such as clean up the play area.
During the Physical Development section, Alyssa was ready to play and test
her skills because she understood the case study was about her. She was easily able
to run and said, “watch how fast I can run around this table!” As I dictated new large
motor skills to do such as hopping, skipping, galloping, jumping, she continued to
change to the new motor skill announced while going around the dining room table.
After modeling the difference between trotting and galloping, she was able to
understand the difference and perform them both equally. Although she was
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successful when asked to her walk in a straight line, her feet were not exactly in
front of each other, as a sobriety test would desire. Having Alyssa throw a ball at my
head, chest, and feet tested her throwing capability and another example of
successful hand-eye coordination. She was able to throw and hit each target when
asked. As seen by her physique and ability to perform the motor tasks with ease by
listening and watching where her movements would land her. One could see she
was a generally healthy and vigorous bright, little girl. Fortunately, Alyssa does not
have any auditory or visual defeats. Before testing her fine motor skills, she began to
place the scissors in her left hand, which surprised me due to the popularity of right-
hand dominance. Her mom exclaimed “oh yeah she is a little lefty!” I had her cut
along a previously drawn straight and zigzag line on a narrow piece of construction
paper. At first she used child scissors that were traded for adult scissors with a
warning to be careful due to the child’s dull blade being unable to cut through the
thick paper. Her handling of both sizes of scissors was superb. She was able to cut
the straight line almost completely straight veering off to left towards the end. On
the other hand, the more difficult line being the zigzag seemed was still done with
ease. When she worked her way up to the top of the paper, she cut the last zigzag
with the scissors coming from the top instead of the bottom of the paper because it
allowed her to ensure her fingers safety. After performing both task, she stated that
cutting the zigzag was harder than the straight line. Then I had her color in the lines
of three shapes that I drew on the one of the sides of the zigzag paper. After drawing
a triangle, square, and circle, I have her color in the lines. While coloring she holds
the marker with her index and middle fingers over the top of the marker with her
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thumb and the rest of her hand resting below the marker. She is able to color in the
lines fairly well and without difficulty. After looking at the paper one could assume
she had the greatest trouble with the circle when looking at the paper, but when
asked she said the triangle was the hardest to color. While she is transitioning to
properly holding the pencil with one finger, Alyssa writing improves after viewing
an adult write the word as seen when she writes her name in comparison to writing
her kindergarten sight words after I wrote them. When writing her name, she did
not pause due to forgetting the next letter instead it was remember the shape of the
letter. She remembered to capitalize the beginning letter, A, with the beginning
stroke starting form the top towards the left then a second going from the top to the
right finalized by the final line directly between them. Following closely next to her
first letter, she wrote a correct “l” starting from the top to the bottom in one quick
stroke of the red marker. Although the next letter was correct, her “y” was
backwards beginning with a straight line angled to the right finished with a final
stroke being introduced aside the first stroke finishing slightly past the middle of
the first line. It was also higher than the first two letters written in her name. Her
fourth and fifth letters in her name started identically below the “y” written
properly in one swift “s” motion of the marker. Her final letter was written away
from the other letters primarily due to remember how to write a proper lowercase
“a.” She began with a line straight down the paper starting from the top to the
bottom followed by a curved line starting from the start of her first mark finishing
past the middle of the line similar to how a lowercase “c” would finish. In order to
have copy letters, I wrote two simple sight words that would appear around
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Halloween in order to help keep her engaged: cat and black. Her lowercase “c” was
identical to mine by starting in one swift curved movement. Followed by her
lowercase “a” that vastly improved from her first one in her name, she replicated my
model of lowercase “a” by writing the letter in one motion as opposed to two. Alyssa
began with the curved stroke of the lowercase “a” starting slightly below the first
letter finishing with a line up to meet her starting point then finishing back down to
make the tail of the “little a” as she referred to it. Although her “t” was correct, it
represented an uppercase “t” instead of a lowercase one because it started with one
line down the middle past the beginning letters of the word. She finished the letter
with a straight-line beginning from right to left passing through the top of the first
mark instead of the middle. The lowercase “b” began beautifully with a straight line
starting from top to bottom finishing with a curved line at the middle and finishing
at the bottom of the straight stroke. Her lowercase “l” had minuscule curve to the
right as she was descending down from the beginning of the letter. Although the
straight line of her “a” was ideal, her lowercase “a” in the word “black” was similar
to the “a” in her name due to the abruptly shallow curve of the letter. Her ideal “c”
was identical to the “c” in her written cat. Her final letter began with a swift motion
straight down the paper with a second mark starting next to the first mark and
finishing at the middle of it. She finished with a straight-line beginning where the
first two lines met angled towards the right to form an excellent lowercase “k”. Her
final eye-hand coordination “game” was drawing a stick figure starting with a circle
starting from the bottom. She drew the person’s body with a straight line down the
middle of the circle resembling a lollipop. Then she made a horizontal line starting
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from the left to right going through the center of the straight line to represent his
arms. Her stick person was completed by two strokes starting from the end of the
straight line. One was angled to the left while the other was to the right to depict
legs.
In order to keep Alyssa’s interest while measuring her cognitive
development, I referred to the task to demonstrate visual and auditory
discrimination as “games.” When testing her ability to visual discrimination, I
paired some of the tasks with Assessing Knowledge of Word Study and A
Phonological Awareness Test in order to decrease the repetition and duration of
Alyssa’s time to focus on task where she knew were not games instead tests of her
ability. Her mother’s thoughts about Alyssa’s self-consciousness proved to be true as
seen in the task that seemed to come easy for her in opposition to task that were
viewed as more challenging for anyone her age and even above. For identifying
geometric shapes, I drew a circle, oval, heart, square, rectangle, and triangle on giant
chalkboard door that leads to the garage. Without even tell her, she knew I wanted
her to point to or name the shape as I call it out or pointed to it. She was able to
identify and label every shape including the more challenging ones that cause others
her age to become confused such as a circle and an oval. In order to identify colors,
we looked at a Shapes book while I asked without pointing to the various colored
objects on the page such as a balloon, dress, or hair. She was able to name all her
primary, secondary, and even most of tertiary colors known as little or dark of the
color being shown. In order to test her visual memory, I used flashcards with
different pictures on them from the fast food restaurant Wendy’s. I would test Alyssa
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by showing her a card for five seconds then take it away and have her tell me what
was on the card. She was able to remember ever card showed from helicopter to a
mermaid. In order to test for auditory discrimination, I had her say the animal
sounds as well as listening to a video her mother had to help her girls get
familiarized with familiar sounds such as a bell or toilet. With a smile on her face the
whole time, she was able to identify each sound as it appeared and made the sound
of the animal with ease. Although I tested her ability to rhyme with Assessing
Knowledge of Word Study Skills, I asked her ten sets of words pairs: five rhyming
and five non-rhyming. After being told the rules of the game and how some pairs
would rhyme where others did not, she was able to correctly identify the pairs that
rhyme as oppose to non-rhyming pairs.
Language Development Assessment:
Child’s Results on the Test
While performing the Checklist for Assessing Learning Development, Alyssa
did superb by excelling at most of the tasks even ones challenging for her age group.
Along with being able to speak in one- and two-word sentences, she is also able to
read both types of sentences. She can hold her own in a conversation by presenting
her own ideas and unique points. Through the many active conversation during the
numerous babysitting sessions as well as in the case study, Alyssa depict the ability
to speak in full sentences while freely talking to anyone present in the interaction,
which she is also able to read as seen later. As well as the ability to understand the
language spoken to her without the lengthy pauses a younger recipient may require
in order to process the meaning of the words being spoken to him. A conversation
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should have a flow between the participants to prevent the conversation
transforming into a monologue. Unlike some children her age, Alyssa is able to be
fully understood by others due to her ability to use fully formed sentence equip with
appropriate vocabulary for her age group even ahead in some situations spoken
perfect pronunciation. Also discovered during babysitting, she is always able to
understand verbal direction regardless if she follows the orders or not. Although she
does not understand the word “phoneme,” she is able to make every short or long
sounds of each letter while learning about the relationship of the silent “e” and
vowels. In order to test her ability of differentiating similar sounds and identifying
familiar sounds, the mom had a video that gave the sounds of the present day world
as mentioned previously. Also in case this was able testing her ability to
differentiate and identify phonemes, I selected random phonemes from the alphabet
while she deciphered the correct letter. She did fantastic on both task whiling being
more enthusiastic to identify the video sounds than the phonemes. Since she is still
learning about the various ways to form the syntactic structure of a sentence, her
spoken sentences are of various lengths, but she does not include preposition as
expected at her age. Most of her sentences have fully formed ideas spoken with a
point.
Test of Concepts About Books:
Child’s Achievement on Test
Since I used children books from around the house to give Alyssa an aspect of
familiarity, Alyssa identified the title of the books on three separate occasions while
holding books of various sizes. The first two books she selected were missing a
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cover page or had a drop letter that confused Alyssa’s schema of books. The final
book used for a majority of the test was Elmo Visits a Farm, a pop-up book written
with influence from the children’s television show, Sesame Street. First, I asked
Alyssa to show me the front and back of the book. With a confused look as if to say,
“how could anyone not know this,” she pointed to the front of the book then flipped
it to show the back. I said, “I know it is silly, but some kids have trouble with books.”
Then I redirected her to the activity by challenging her to display the title on the
cover and the title page. She simply underlined the title with her finger then flipped
to the inside of the book to reveal the cover page. Lastly, I inquired if she knew
where to start reading. She flipped past the cover page to reveal the first page then
went a step further by pointing to the first sentence.
When testing her conventions of print, she successful answered the
questions with scaffolding only with foreign terminology. By asking her questions
about the aspects of reading instead of simply letting her read, Alyssa was confused
on how the was testing anything because she thought it was common knowledge.
Instead of posing one question, I paired questions that had associated aspects of
literacy. First I asked her to identify where the book is telling the story as well as
where we begin to read. She began by circling the text on the page then pointed to
the first word on the page on the left. By acknowledging reading starts on the left,
she is depicting her understanding of reading occurring from left to right leading
into the next question. While her finger was still under the first word, I asked her
which way we read the words. She continued to move her finger from the starting
word on the left to the last word right as she moved along the page. Once she
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reached the end of the sentence, I asked where she would start to read next. She
moved her finger to the left of the page again while landing on the first word on the
left of the next sentence. Then I turned to the next page that had a long length of the
story to answer my last question: which way do the words go from? At first she did
not know what I meant, then I reworded the question to make the main focus how
the story is read. She goes “oh” then moves her finger from the top line to the
bottom of the page in a straight line.
While testing her concepts about words and letters, she accomplished each
task easily once she fully understood the objective. First I had her underline the
words with her finger as I read them aloud. For the following questions, her mother
offered using a dry erase marker on the book to assist in communication. As I asked
her to circle a word on the page, the dumbfounded look appear on her face again as
she took the green marker and circled one of the words. Then I challenged her to
identify the first and last word on the page. She swiftly circled each with boredom in
her eyes paired with a subtle smile. Finally, I asked her to locate a letter of both
letter cases. At first I used the words “uppercase and lowercase,” which she looked
at her mom with a puzzling look while her mom responded “big letters and little
ones.” The light bulb illuminated above her head as she circled three letters each
referencing the solution to one of the challenges.
The final section concerning concepts of punctuation was found to be the
most difficult for Alyssa simply due to her lack of exposure to this advanced aspect
of literacy. At first I tried to have her identify a period, which she shyly showed at
the end of one of the sentences. When questioned about is purpose, she fell quiet as
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the confidence began to leave her. I tried to ask her about other punctuation marks,
but she said, “I don’t know.” I turned to her mother to ask if she had been exposed to
punctuation marks. Raize explained the children are introduced to punctuation later
in the year. In order to keep Alyssa involved, I simply moved on from this session
leaving it as non-applicable.
Instruction Suggestions
Since Alyssa has a strong concept about books, there are only two
suggestions to further her growth. She should be introduced to beginning chapter
books such as the Toad and Frog Series. By introducing advanced books at a young
age, she will have exposure before many of her peers allowing her to continue to
grow her reading capability. Also my transitioning her to books that still incorporate
pictures, she will be more confident in her ability due to the familiarity of the new
challenge. Not only with this assist in language, this may promote self-confidence
regarding literacy due to her strong foundation and advanced knowledge about
reading. Leveled books would be a fantastic way of introducing Alyssa to advanced
books. These books correlate with various grade levels by slowly increasing the
difficulty of the literacy. As Morrow stated, “it is encouraged that children not worry
about a book’s level during this time. These are times when we want children to
choose literature that is of interest to them regardless of difficulty” (Morrow, 329).
These books will allow Alyssa to become more confident and comfortable with
longer books including chapters. Also this will allow her to plan the level of difficulty
for that particular moment and permit her to flow from one level to the next without
a set level.
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Although Alyssa will come in contact with punctuation, it is never too early to
introduce this system. Since she could not identify any punctuation marks and
meaning except periods, it may be helpful to begin building her foundation enabling
her to form schemas about for these marks. When her teacher introduces
punctuation as part of the curriculum to “support children’s growing understanding
of punctuation, capitalization and spelling through modeling and scaffolding
activities and ‘teachable moments’ during child-initiated and independent writing
experiences” (CCSS 2015). These topics are difficulty for children to grasp because they
are often ignored or glanced over in order to focus on comprehension of words and story.
When Alyssa comes in contact with punctuation while reading, it would be beneficial to
point out that every sentence has a mark at the end. During meaningful reading, this is the
prime time to introduce the meaning and use of punctuation. By encourage Alyssa to
point out punctuation, she will become more aware of the uses for punctuation and draw
interest of why certain marks are used in various sentences. When she points out
punctuation directly or indirectly, she should be give positive reinforcement that focuses
on praising her effort instead of intellectual ability.
Letter Identification:
Child’s Performance on the TestWhen asked for a small selection of the alphabet from the book during the
Concepts About Book Assessment, she completed identifying letters without
breaking a sweat. For the Letter Identification Test, I wanted to make it difficult by
incorporating uppercase and lowercase letters from the entire alphabet. Instead of
giving her the alphabet either from a book or hand-written to test Letter
Identification, I used a simply phrase with uppercase and lowercase incorporated
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that contains all the letters in the alphabet as depicted: ThE qUicK BrOwn FoX juMPs
oVer alL tHe lAzY DoGs. Underneath each letter was a line where she had to identify
if it was an uppercase or lowercase letter. All the uppercase and lowercase letters
aligned with each other creating a prominent distinction in height. Before the going
through each letter, I taught her another name for big letter and little letters being
uppercase and lowercase respectfully. Then I instructed her to write an “l” on the
line under the letter if the letter was lowercase. On the other hand, she should put a
“u” if the letter is uppercase. After testing her connection of uppercase with big
letter and lowercase with little letters, I begin asking her to find all letters of each
letter in the alphabet located in the sentence. Then reminded her to categorize it by
writing a “u” or “l” on the line. Similar to her results on the Concepts About Books,
she breezed through selecting the letters upon their names being called. She was
able to correctly identify each letter perfectly, but her difficulties arose during
categorizing the letters as uppercase and lowercase. Although I am going to discount
her incorrect categorization of the “u”s as a result of my writing style, I am going to
credit a point to her for identifying two “u”s in the sentence. Out of the 52 letters
displayed, Alyssa correctly selected all 52 letters meaning her test score is 52/52.
Although her categorization of letter was not a perfect score, her score was not far
behind the previous perfect test. While selecting the appropriate letter case, she did
not display much difficulty while being confident in her answer without being able
to be swayed to her consider when questioned. Also she was adamant on finding all
the letters of the announced letter before categorizing them as uppercase or
lowercase. Out of the 39 letters present in the sentence, she categorizes only four of
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them incorrectly. Since I am going to discount both “u”s present in the sentence due
to my incorrect representation of the uppercase U, Alyssa will still receive a point
for selecting both “u”s out of the sentence. The way I drew the uppercase “U” in
“qUicK” had a tail identical to the lowercase version because my handwriting is a
combination of print and cursive. In the cursive rendition, the uppercase and
lowercase U has a tail whereas only the lowercase U has a tail when writing print. At
first she marked the first “u” encountered in “quick”, which was uppercase including
a tail, as lowercase. After a second glance, she changed it to uppercase because she
could clearly see the letter around it were lowercase. The second “u” was marked as
uppercase despite being lowercase as indicated by the uppercase “m” while being
proportional to the lowercase “j” beginning the word “jump.” Another mistake
occurred in the same word where she made her first mistake. Instead of
categorizing the lowercase “c” in quick as lowercase, Alyssa clearly wrote a “U”
underneath the “c” to depict the letter as uppercase. Although I consider her mistake
to be due to my writing style, the adults who I had identify the “c” with its letter case
all responded with lowercase. The final inaccuracy made on the test was the “s”
marked as uppercase despite being clearly written as lowercase because it was
significantly smaller than the uppercase “G” beside it in the word, “dogs.” When
testing the adults, they collectively categorized the “s” as lowercase. Since I counted
the two “u”s as one, her final score on the categorization of the letter case is 36/38,
which makes 94.7%.
Instructional SuggestionWhen I first arrived at the house, Raiza prepared a lovely dinner that she
insisted I consume before testing Alyssa. While I was eating, Alyssa energetically
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hopped over to me asking if it was time for testing. In order to keep her enthusiasm
for the test, I set up the “game” while finishing my meal because it is important to
give the child opportunities to be the leader. As stated in The Intentional Teacher a
large portion of a child’s life is planned by parents, children should be given the
opportunity to plan “that is, the chooser begins with a specific goal or purpose in
mind that results in the choice and treat children’s plans with respect” (Epstein, 35).
If Alyssa wants to do work now, she should be given an assignment to do because
she decided to voice her request for duty. By looking over this vocal desire, it may
diminish her drive to perform task that result in responsibility rather than fun.
During testing, Alyssa was quick to identify the letters by scanning each word in the
sentence before categorizing the letter case. Upon hearing my instruction to
categorize the present letter before finding the remaining letters of the announced
letter, she would not be sway to adapting a new strategy even if it was time efficient.
After a few failed attempts of introducing my timesaving strategy, I simply let her
finish the test using her own formulated strategy. Since she would finish the test
successful using either strategy, I remembered to provide children opportunities to
discover their own style of learning. “While the adult’s solution may be more
efficient or effective, simply telling the child what he should do would deprive him
of an opportunity to learn and develop confidence in his independent problem-
solving abilities” (Epstein, 38). Allowing Alyssa to discover her own solution is
incredibly important especially at this age where growth in all area is occurring. She
should be given opportunities throughout her day to plan by making intentional
choices. Regarding letter identification particularly, she should continue to create
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meaningful connections between letters and words as she had mastered simply
letter identification. Simply letter identification activities such as letter puzzles that
would assist her younger sister in letter identification will no longer promote
growth for Alyssa because her knowledge of letters has transformed from this
meaningful game to simply repetition. Although her letter identification is superb,
letter case still requires meaningful practice before reaching mastery. As depicted in
Literacy Development on page 142, there are many ways of promoting meaningful
connection. For Alyssa, I have selected: magnetic upper-and lowercase with a board,
tactile letters, clay for shaping letters, and letter stencils. As well as letters in various
fonts, she should begin to be introduced to cursive handwriting. Another task would
be to ensure that Alyssa can write everyone in her nuclear family including their last
name, Dunlap.
Phonological Awareness Assessment
Child’s Performance on the TestWhen testing her Phonological Awareness, I wrote the words out for certain
task on child-ruled paper enabling her to be familiar with on aspect of the new
challenging task. At this point, she understood these were tests of her literacy ability
causing her to becoming less confident in her skills to perform the new tasks. In
order to help get her prepared and keep her spirits high, I had her get make an
“angry face” to show she was ready for the challenge ahead! After making her angry
face, her confidence returned to her eyes depicting her confidence and competence
working together to allow her to succeed to the best of her ability. Before testing her
ability to distinguish spoken words, I wrote all the sentences out on the child ruled
paper. Then I introduced the game by modeling the sentence “I like apples” by
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underlining each word as I said them. After acknowledging she understood the
game, I instructed that I was going to say the words first and then she is going to
repeat them while underlining each word again. I spoke at a steady rate slower than
normal conversation while she underlined each word distinctly. At first she simply
repeated after me without underlining a second time. After reminding her to
underline while she spoke as well, she spoke slower as she focused on two tasks at
one of underline and speaking. She was able to underline each word creating clear
separation between each word as I read. To test her rhyming ability, I simply had
verbally interaction with her stating the objective of the game. Although I told her
she would have to categorize the pair of words as rhyming or non-rhyming, she
began to say every pair rhymes after being introduced to the game by a rhyming
pair. When I reminded her not all the pairs rhymed, she listened closer to hear if the
words actually rhymed or not. She categorized each pair properly including the pair,
food and yellow, which she categorized as rhyming at the beginning of the game
when she was under the false notion all the pairs rhymed. Although her ability to
understand and distinguish rhyming versus non-rhyming pairs was expected, her
result in the next task of formulating a word that rhymes with a prompt was
astounding. The speed of her response when prompted with a word to rhyme was
incredibly quick regardless of the difficulty. She was asked to create a word that
rhymes with the following list: dog, light, sad, jump, and eat. Each word was
presented one at a time. Her responses are as followed: frog, bright, mad, bump, and
meat. Her responses were more complex than I anticipated especially towards the
more challenging words as the game progressed. All the words on her list were real
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words said with proper pronunciation. Also I was taken back when she responded
with a word that I did not think about such as jump. Her rhyming ability is superb
especially by her ability to provide real word instead of formulated language. Since
she is only at age five, syllables seemed to be the most challenging aspect of
phonological awareness. I presented the words slowly while placing emphasis on
the syllables. In order to assist in understanding the objective, I modeled the word
“good-bye” due to the familiarity of the word. The easiest words were compound
words or easily heard such as kitten, cellphone, or paperclip. She was able to hear
the words as the syllables were deconstructed. On the other hand, words that
heavily related on each syllable to be understood caused difficulty such as table or
happy. She needed to remember the beginning syllable in order for the final syllable
to make sense. Deconstructing into syllables went smooth due to the assistance I
gave her. Since she did not have a firm understanding of syllables, I taught her the
tool of putting her hand under your chin to feel for syllables. After instructing her
that chin dropping is an indication of a syllable, she was able to understand how
many syllables would be in a word. Once hearing a word, she would repeat it then
say the number of times her chin dropped positively correlating with the amount of
syllables present. Although on the paper, she did not grasp the idea that letters at
the end are also syllables. I think she used the line as a divider of the syllables
instead of a representation of the syllables. Since she is young, I gave her the full
point for identifying how many syllables are in a word as long as they are close to
the proper placing. When testing for initial sound, she was able to provide the
correct sound including compound sounds such as /ch/ for chocolate and /sh/ for
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shy. When testing for phonological awareness, phonemes also posed problems due
to her lack of exposure. As I paused between each sound, she did not understand at
first that by saying the sounds at a quicker pace the word would be revealed. After
initially saying the sounds, I would increase the speed slowly until she was able to
understand without simply telling her the word. The only word she was not able to
figure out was “actor,” which she thought was excitedly responded “cror.” Not only
may Alyssa not often come in contact with this word, it also starts with a vowel
causing the first phoneme to be softer than the others in the activity. Again due to
her lack of foundation regarding phonemes and my inability to fully convey their
meaning and purpose, she did not perform well on counting phonemes and was
unable to understand the concept. I will not be counting this section because it was
simply too advanced without proper scaffolding, which I do not feel like I provided.
She did not understand the marks could go in between the letters and not every
letter receives a mark. As seen in her results on the paper, she placed a mark where
she thought the phoneme was usually one in between every letter while leaving the
end without a mark similar to deconstructing syllables. She had more success with
switching phonemes than counting them. In order to assist her, I wrote all the words
on paper to depict only one phoneme was changing to create a new word. The
model word was rat transforming into hat. I showed by removing the “r” and
replacing it with an “h” a new word would form: hat. From then on I wrote the word
down with the phoneme she was replacing the initial sound with. By writing fan
then an “r,” I may have confused her to believe she was suppose to replace the
ending of the word instead of the beginning. This caused her to respond with the
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word “far” than “roar,” which I am discounting because she did not fully
comprehend the objective of the task. She was able to successful transform the list:
sit, trip, sew, and break to pit, grip, bow, and make. Once she fully understood the
task, she was able to accomplish each task with little assistance. After discounting
the task and words that posed difficulty due to their advanced aspects, her final
score is 38/38, which is 100%.
Instructional Suggestion
Although the majority of Alyssa’s difficulty is due to the advanced literacy
objectives without a proper foundation for success, it is important to take this
opportunity to begin to introduced these advanced topics while building a
foundation to ensure the next occurrence can be used to promote meaningful
learning. Before providing activities for meaningful learning, Alyssa needs to be
introduced to phonemes and syllables before attempting to use them. “Those letter
sounds and combinations of letter sounds are referred to as phonemes” (Morrow
160.) She should also have a strong understand of phonics simply meaning an
understanding that is a connection between sounds and letters. Since there are at
least 44 sounds for 26 letters, it is difficult for children to have a strict
understanding of phonics due to the irregularities and exceptions. The analytic
approach to phonics may be an entrance into this advanced literacy. In this
approach, “each letter is not isolated but taught within the context of an entire word
so as not to distort its sound. Words are also looked at to find patterns or chunk so
that children can sound out one sound and then a group of letters together to
decode a word” (Morrow, 167). Another helpful way to build phonics is by having a
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strong understand of vowels and consonants. The easiest way to encourage
meaningful learning is by having Alyssa formulate and write books and poems. This
will allow her to use phonological awareness and creativity independently to convey
unique storylines. Poetry will allow Alyssa to further her knowledge of rhyming and
syllables by creating various types of poetry. Another useful method to promote
creativity while combating reluctance is wordless books that have an explicit story
line using pictures instead of words. “These books are good for children who are age
5 and older. The child creates a story by reading the pictures” (Morrow, 329). These
books will give Alyssa a topic to start with while still allowing freedom to use her
imagination to formulate the text.
Language Development Test
Prompt: Tell me all about your Halloween.
(The Italic text is Alyssa while the standard font is me.)
I’m going to trick or treat a lot. Well of course I am going to trick or treat a lot. Of
course I’m gonna go to trunk or treat. What’s trunk or treat? Like you trick or treat
with trunks. You know like you go around a parking lot like somewhere a big parking
lot like by my school’s parking lot and then you like there’s like everyone’s some
people’s trunks are like parked and then you’re like trick or treating in there in that
parking lot and you are wearing your costume. What’s your costume? Butterfly! It has
a little butterfly belt so it’s like a black belt like this color black and it wraps around
and like there is a little butterfly on the side right here. And it has like a blue top. It
looks like wings on the bottom of the skirt and like the skirt in the middle of the skirt it
is like this color black. It is like kind of color black without this like pink strip. It doesn’t
look like this because this is um a bat this is like a bat girl. And it comes with wings too.
I love the wings I mean the wings looks so sparkly. the wings look amazing like sparkly
I just love the wings. Gabby has the same costume.
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I’m going to trick or treat a lot.
1. Well of course I am going to trick or treat a lot. (12)2. Of course I’m gonna go to trunk or treat. (9)
What’s trunk or treat? 3. Like you trick or treat with trunks. (7)4. You know like you go around a parking lot. (9)5. Like somewhere a big parking lot. (6)6. Like by my school’s parking lot. (6)7. And then you like there’s lik4e everyone’s some people’s trunks are like parked.
(13) 8. And then you’re like trick or treating in there in that parking lot. (13)9. And you are wearing your costume. (6)
What’s your costume? 10. Butterfly!(1)11. It has a little butterfly belt so it’s like a black belt like this color black (16)12. And it wraps around (4)13. And like there is a little butterfly on the side right here. (12)14. And it has like a blue top. (7) 15. It looks like wings on the bottom of the skirt (10) 16. And like the skirt in the middle of the skirt it is like this color black. (16) 17. It is like kind of color black without this like pink strip.(12)18. It doesn’t look like this because this is um a bat this is like a bat girl. (17)19. And it comes with wings too. (6)20. I love the wings I mean the wings looks so sparkly. (11)21. The wings look amazing like sparkly I just love the wings. (11)22. Gabby has the same costume. (5)
Results
Average length per t-unit: 9.5 words
Total number of words spoken: 209
Number of different words: 87
Number of different adjectives: 13
Number of different adverbs: 6
Child’s Performance and Improvement Suggestions
Despite having distractions from her sister, being recorded, and seeing a
dictation, Alyssa told an enthusiastic story about her Halloween with convey specific
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information that weaved into her next topic. However the longer she spoke without
my response, she became less comfortable with the conversation as it transformed
into a monologue. In order to assist the story, I asked questions when she seemed to
come to the end of that section. For example, after telling me about having to wear
one’s costume to trunk or treat, I asked her about her costume for the spooky event
that she went on to describe in full detail. She used various adjective, adverbs,
conjunctions, and even prepositions to covey the detail about trunk or treat and her
costume. Although her sentences had well formulated detail, they were long and
often spoken without punctuation. With many children this age, Alyssa has adapted
prepositions and conjunctions such as “like” or “and” entwine new topics together in
order to assist with being understood. She is able to remember events in great detail
especially ones that bring enjoyment even if they are new experiences such as new
costumes. A T-Unit is “an independent clause with all its dependent clauses attached
that is helpful in measuring a child’s language complexity” (Morrow, 509). Her
average t unit length was nine and a half words.
In order to continue the growth of language complexity, children need to
hear the language being modeled from various sources at school and home. One of
the easiest ways to increase language complexity is by using complex and proper
language around Alyssa as often as possible. Language modeling may even
incorporate difficulty words found in child or adult literature. Although her
language with growth and become complex with age and effort, it is important that
she has opportunities to use this language especially if it is new. By providing
meaningful activities and moments to use this language, Alyssa will have a greater
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chance of remember this new, challenging content. Two simply ways of promoting
complexity are by writing one’s work and asking about specific events with detail.
When Alyssa writes or creates a writing work regardless of its complexity, she
should read it aloud to practice phonics and promote language development.
Another way is by asking about specific events that are meaningful to her life such
as interests, shows, school, and questions about the life. She should feel comfortable
to talk about anything without fear of looking foolish for mistakes especially since
this is a true fear for her. Overall, her language is probably better than average, and
her language is developing wonderfully due to her parent’s support.
Parent Survey
Since Alyssa and Gabby are still learning to read, small print usually found in
magazines and written messages are not the main focus of reading. Instead the
parents supply a plethora of materials for their daughters to practice meaningful
literacy. As seen by the check in A Parent-Involvement Framework, there is a space
at home for books and magazines located in the basement. Mostly filled with
children books of all varieties including picture, chapter, pop-up, rhythmic, folklore,
fairytales, and concepts. The only book type I have not personally seen at their
house is Issue Books. As mentioned in Types of Children’s Books, “A new trend in
children’s books is the introduction of controversial issues facing society today.
Examples of topics include divorce, abuse, sexuality and war. Debate surrounds
whether or not children should be exposed to these at a young age.” These types of
books allow children to have an understanding that life is not a fairytale. In life there
are events that cause grief and suffering, children are often shielded from knowing
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about until self-discovery from usually a written source. By introducing these events
early in life while reading, children are given a safe environment to show emotion
and ask questions with whom they trust most, their parents. At the moment, they do
not subscribe to a child’s magazine and most of the reading material is located in the
two towering bookcases within the basement. In between the bookcases, the
parents build four selves packed with fluffy stuffed animals to be used. There is a
dollhouse on the floor along with many dolls to choose from including Barbies,
Bratz, Disney, and many more that I failed to identify. Although they don’t have tape
recording that I know of, both girls have tablets filled with educational shows and
lessons. Unlike the reading material, writing supplies is located in the kitchen as
well as the table in the basement. The girls especially Alyssa know the location of all
the materials necessary for literacy.
The parents provide meaningful activities for literacy involving independent
and social aspects depending on the task or game. They read and direct daughter’s
attention to important information for the reading material such as books,
magazines, and newspapers both online and in print. Not only do they take turns
reading, they also pause to discuss the story while looking at the pictures if they are
present. While babysitting, Alyssa has told me about visiting the library to select
books to bring home. Although their mother has discussed books the girls are
interested in, they have personally told me stories about family and things they are
going to do such as gymnastics. Raize discusses any written material she comes
across with her children in simply or complex ways depending on various elements.
Mail is one of the most important written resources to introduce because it builds
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the child’s foundations of the postal system. Although the parents left number five
blank, any type of reading and writing can be a model for your child because it
depicts how important theses skills are for life. Raize points out print found in the
environment such as when she ask where they got the burgers from while pointing
to the “Wendy’s” bag. While writing they do not talk about how they are writing
their daughter’s names, their daughters especially Alyssa have a strong sense of the
formulation of their names. It may be beneficial to correct Alyssa from making the
“y” backwards even though it will be self corrected in time. As well as pointing
environmental print outside of the home, familiar prints in brand names and
instructions of various kinds are important. Since she is fairly familiar with
environmental print of all kinds, she should be moved on to reading instruction of
all types in order to get in the habit of reading the instructions before action and
increase independence. It is always a helpful way to cement meaningful moments in
ordinary events. When the girls are old enough to write small print, the parents will
start to make lists as suggested in the checklist.
In order to foster positive attitudes toward reading and writing, it is
important to reward your child’s attempts at reading and writing despite the level of
perfection. While supporting Alyssa’s success and attempts at literacy, Raize and
Tom answer any questions posed about reading and writing. Although it is difficult
to continuously make literacy a pleasurable activity, it is important a child learns
that reading opens new doors to knowledge that would remain closed otherwise. As
important as literacy being meaningful and enjoyable, the parents understand their
daughters’ accomplishments of completed work should be present around the home
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to promote a sense of encouragement and accomplishment. By visiting school,
volunteering, and attending programs, Raize and Tom displays to their daughters
how important their education is while depicting support for any issue that may
arise. When visiting school and speaking to their daughters’ teachers, Raize and Tom
ask if they can volunteer in any way while posing concerns about Alyssa’s literacy
skills. Although they do not visit their children during school hours, they always
want to know more about what their daughters are learning at school and ways to
promote growth in these areas at home. Since English is the language spoken at
home, Alyssa does not have any difficulty communicating with the school similar
their ability to write and read in English. Luckily, she has not depicted any difficulty
with hearing, visual, or other issues.
Summary
Throughout the assessment, Alyssa’s behavior could be described as excited,
focused, enthusiastic, and confident. When being faced with an easy task, she
confidently answered the questions without being swayed by my attempts to
confuse her. On the other hand when faced with a more difficult challenge, she
would be more reluctant to perform the task eagerly especially after an extended
period of time. As her mother stated, Alyssa only needed me to engage in some
humor of “putting an anger face on” in order to succeed at the task. This simple
action expelled the fear while allowing her confidence and competence to work
together. Alyssa is grasps new concepts easily especially when conveyed to her in a
meaningful way that unloads unknown knowledge. When deconstructing syllables,
she adopted the tools of putting one’s hand under the chin to feel for the syllables.
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This led her to accomplishing the task while beginning to understand about
syllables. For example she felt two drops when saying “today” allow her to know
there are two syllables in the word. Also she is incredible bright as seen by her
ability to see through my game quickly. Although I introduced all my tests as
“games,” she saw through the façade. Although I was taken back by her ability to see
through my cipher, this instance was a refreshing reminder that children of all levels
have an understanding of how the world works. Instead of trying to hide tasks,
Alyssa can conquer the task better when motivated and has a full comprehension of
the objectives. When encountering new challenges, it is important to promote
intrinsic motivation, “which is the desire to engage in behaviors for enjoyment,
challenge, pleasure, or interest” (Morrow, 320). This will promote Alyssa to take
initiative to face challenges of all types.
I thoroughly enjoyed this experience because it gave me an understanding of
my weaknesses and strengthens as an educator. Although I am excellent at keeping
a child’s attention, I do not know how to assist them in accomplishing a task when
they are incredibly reluctant. When I first attempted the Language Development
Test, Alyssa did not want to do it especially when I was attempting to have her
create a story from a picture instead of simply convey a personal story to me. Also I
fully understand how important having a complete comprehension of the teaching
objectives and how to instruct a child while incorporating their strengths and
weaknesses.
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References
Epstein, Ann S. The Intentional Teacher: Choosing the Best Strategies for Young Children's Learning. Washington: National Association for the Education of Young Children, 2007. Print.
Morrow, Lesley Mandel. (2015). Literacy Development in the Early Years. New
York, New York: Pearson Education, Inc.
"Types of Children’s Books." Types of Children’s Books. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Oct. 2016.
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