Observation Survey Case Study

Heather Beaver CRIN E09 October 14, 2010

Observation Survey Case Study

Observation Survey was administered to *Caitlyn (*name has been changed) in the second grade at 9:30 am. The following results were gathered.

Attitude/Interest Inventory

I received very little information from Caitlyn when I administered the Attitude/Interest survey. She was very quiet, and only provided brief answers to each question. She would often shrug her shoulders to indicate that she did not know how to answer the question. For example, she did not know what games she likes to play, or what she does with her friends during and after school. I asked her if she likes to play tag or play with chalk during recess and she did say yes. I also learned that she used to have a small pet dog at home, though she could not tell me its name. She said that she plays an instrument, but she does not remember what it is. When I asked her what she likes about school besides lunch and recess, she smiled and quietly said “I don’t like school. It’s boring.” Though I asked her to consider things like art class or spending time with her friends, she shook her head, and maintained that she does not like school.

During the Attitude/Interest interview, I wanted to gather some information about Caitlyn’s reading preferences, so I finished the survey by asking her some questions about books and reading in general. When I asked her about what kinds of books she likes, she quietly told me that she likes to read about animals, but would not provide me with any other information when I asked follow-up questions. Finally, when I asked her what she could do to help another student learn to read, she again shrugged her shoulders. I continued to gently question her, and she eventually told me she would “read to them” or “help them sound out words.”

Letter Identification Test

Caitlyn had no difficulty with the Letter Identification test. She easily provided me with the correct alphabetic name for each letter, and she did not pause at any point during this assessment. She used a sheet of paper to guide her from row to row, and pointed to each letter with her finger. Caitlyn got a perfect score for this test, showing that she easily recognizes all capital and lower case letters. The fact that she was able to recognize “a” and “g” in different fonts suggests that she has had enough exposure to print to recognize what each form of these letters looks like. Caitlyn’s score of 54 out of 54 places her in Stanine Groups 6-9 for students who are seven years old.

Word Reading Test

I administered the Word Reading Test to Caitlyn, and again, she completed this test quickly and accurately, with no hesitation. She pointed to each word as she spoke it aloud to me. Her perfect score of 15 out of 15 places her in Stanine Groups 6-9 for seven year old students. These results suggest that she is familiar with common sight words, which is an important part of reading accurately.

Concepts About Print (CAP) Test

I used Marie Clay’s book No Shoes when I gave Caitlyn the Concepts About Print test. Overall, she scored 16 out of 24 points, which places her in Stanine Group 3 for seven year old students. The CAP test shows that Caitlyn has a strong grasp of word and letter concepts. She was able to recognize capital and lower case letters, and she could isolate single letters and words within a sentence. She was able to point to individual words as I read them aloud, and she noticed sentences with altered word order and words with altered letter order. She also understands how to use a book. For example, she knew the correct orientation of a book and its pictures, and she knew that one starts to read on the left page at the top line.

Caitlyn struggled with return sweep during this test. Though she knew where to start reading on a page, she was not able to tell me which way to read on the line, and where to go after I finished that line (Items 4 and 5). She had similar problems with direction when the text was inverted (Item 9), nor was she able to recognize the altered line sequence tested for Item 10. Caitlynalso does not appear to understand the role of punctuation marks within a text. She would not offer any responses for Items 15 through 18, which test the student’s understanding of the function of question marks, periods, commas, and quotation marks. As I asked her each question about punctuation, she shrugged her shoulders or shook her head, indicating that she did not know the answer.

Writing Vocabulary Test

I administered the Writing Vocabulary test to Caitlyn, and she wrote consistently for almost the full ten minutes. When she set down her pencil, I asked her if she could write any more words, but she insisted she was finished. Overall, she correctly spelled 17 words out of 20 words (she wrote the word river twice). This score puts her in Stanine Group 2 for seven year old students. While this is a low Stanine Group for her, I think that it is important to note the types of words that she chose to write for this test. Instead of writing a lot of short, high frequency words, she chose a number of more difficult words. For example, she spelled dolphin,playground, Sunday, and Monday. She correctly spelled dolphin, which probably demonstrates a personal interest of hers (something for me to consider as I think about texts to read with her). Ifound it interesting that she wrote “James River,” which her class is studying insocial studies. These results suggest that while she was writing, Caitlyn was thinking about words that she had heard in school recently, or words that are perhaps meaningful or familiar to her in some way.

Caitlyn misspelled three words that she attempted for this test. She omitted “r” in childrens, an “s” in Tuesday, and she inserted an “e” in shows. All of her letters in this test are formed correctly, though she is still learning the rules about when to capitalize letters. “James River” is capitalized correctly, and so are Sunday and Monday, and the name “Sam”. She incorrectly capitalized “dog,” “playground,” books,” and “dolphin.” She did not capitalize her attempt to write “Tuesday.” While writing her vocabulary words, Caitlyn would pause from time to time after writing a word to think of a new word. I did not notice her using any visible problem-solving strategies to sound out words, but by choosing to write longer, more complex words, it is clear that she was taking some risks in her writing choices. It is possible that Caitlyn chose words that she is familiar with and has encountered in text before, and many of these words were spelled correctly. This does not mean that she necessarily understands the orthographic patterns present in the words that she chose, so going forward, it will be interesting to see if she can apply these patterns in other situations. She is a slow writer, which explains why she only attempted 21 words in 10 minutes.

Hearing and Recording Sounds in Words

I administered the Hearing and Recording Sounds in Words test to Caitlyn. She had a perfect score, correctly hearing and writing 37 out of 37 phonemes. This places her in Stanine Groups 6-9 for seven year old students. Caitlyn made only one error of insertion (she spelled coming as comeing) which did not impact her overall score on this test. She wrote the whole passage as one sentence instead of placing a period after coming and capitalizing it to start a new sentence. However, this test only sought to determine if the student can analyze phonemes and record them on the paper. Caitlyn had no trouble with this test. I read the sentence through twice very slowly, and she recorded what she heard. I did notice her mouthing the sentence to herself so she could remember it and write out all the words. She worked slowly but steadily, and did not need any prompting from me to complete the task.

Text Reading

I had Caitlyn read the DRA book series starting with What Is Red? As I began each new book, I asked Caitlyn the introductory questions provided in the protocols, which required the student to look at the pictures and describe what the book may be about. I had to prompt her a few times to look at the pictures and continue to tell me what was happening. Caitlyn did not use connecting words such as an, then, or but when making predictions, and she only looked at the pictures on the left page. Thus, she only used information from half of the text when making predictions about the stories.

Caitlyn read with 100% accuracy until Level 4. Her errors in the early levels of the books were typically minor, and did not impact comprehension. For example, in Level 4, she substituted looks for looked. She also self-corrected two errors in this text, and she continued through the next few levels with relative ease, and only minor errors. As the texts got longer with more involved sentences, she started to use her finger to guide her. The final text level that I attempted with Caitlyn was Level 24, though I could have feasibly stopped her at Level 20. While she made 13 errors on Level 20, I decided to test one more level, since some of the errors were minor and would not have compromised comprehension. However, Level 24 was too difficult for her, and she read it with almost no fluency.

My analysis of Caitlyn’s errors reveals that she relies heavily on visual information in her reading. In Level 20, for example, she substituted look for looked. Similar errors with verb endings were common for her throughout all the text levels. Many times, she relied solely on visual information. For example, in Level 24, she substituted yellow for fellow, andalmost for most. As early as Level 4, she also substituted her for here. When she neglected information, it was often syntactical. Caitlyn did not use any visible problem-solving strategies while reading. For example, she rarely sounded out words. When she came to words she did not recognize, she would pause for a few seconds, and move on. While she read fairly accurately through many of the books, Caitlyn lacked fluency. Even at the easiest text levels, she did not vary her tone to reflect punctuation in the text, adjust her pace at any time, or show the emotion reflected by the characters in the story. She did not differentiate text with dialogue from other types of writing, and her reading did not indicate to me that she understood the message of the story. Overall, her reading was “choppy.”

Student Response to the Assessment

Caitlyn was difficult to engage during the assessment. While she offered information when asked to do so, she often gave simplistic responses, such as in the Attitude/Interest Inventory and when I asked her questions before the DRA reading assessment. Since she was very quiet throughout the assessment, she did not “think out loud” or ask for help at any time. She used paper to guide her along during the Letter Identification test, and she also used her finger to help her read starting at Level 14, but these were the most obvious strategies she used during the entire test. Since Caitlyn read to Level 24 in the DRA books, she may have been impatient to be done by the end of the Observation Survey. It is difficult for seven-year-olds to remain focused at one task for an extended period of time, but she did not complain or appear frustrated. When I offered to let her stand up and move around for a few minutes, she said she did not want to. Overall, Caitlyn was quiet, but she also seemed eager to do what she needed to do to help me with this test.

Analysis of the Results

The results of Caitlyn’s Observation Survey indicate that she has a good grasp of letters and sight words. She knew all the letters in the Letter Identification test, andshe also received a perfect score on Word Reading test. During the text reading test, she read with reasonable accuracy up to Level 18, and often relied on visible information when she had a reading miscue. She is able to hear and record phonemes, since she received a perfect score on the Hearing and Recording Sounds test. While she got a low score on the Writing Vocabulary test, she attempted several difficult words. Her errors on this test were the result of a single letter insertion or omission. It is important to note her omissions on the Writing Vocabulary Test, particularly in reference to the Hearing and Writing Sounds Test. When Caitlyn heard the words spoken to her orally, she was able to hear each phoneme and correctly print it on the sheet. When she had to recall words on her own, however, she sometimes missed certain sounds.

The CAP test shows that Caitlynstruggles the most with various aspects of print used in books. Specifically, the results show that she does not recognize various punctuation marks, or know what purpose they serve within a text. This was confirmed by her general lack of fluency while reading the DRA books, particularly when she did not adjust her tone or pause at the appropriate places. These CAP results also indicate that she has difficulty with the directionality and return sweep while reading. However, I do believe Caitlyn understands these concepts. During oral reading, she had no problems with directionality and return sweep. Caitlyn also wrote her words in lines from left to right during the Writing Vocabulary test, and used return sweep to continue writing a new row of words on the next line. Despite her inability to identify this concept about print in the CAP test, she clearly applied it while writing lines of vocabulary words.

Implications of the Results

Easy Text Level

Level 16 is the highest level of easy reading for Caitlyn. While she did make a lot of errors while reading levels 12 and 14, these were not errors that would impact comprehension. For example, in level 12, she substituted Miss for Mrs, and mispronounced a name. I was concerned during level 14 when she skipped the end of a sentence that continued onto the next line. However, reviewing the text, that portion of the sentence did not alter the overall message of the sentence. I continued with her to Level 16, which she read with 99% accuracy. Caitlyndid not reveal much information to me about her personal interests, but she does like animals, and I did notice that she was more interested when she read Animal Homes at Level 16, and she spent more time previewing the text before she started reading. When I select an easy reading text, it must be something about animals, preferably a non-fiction book.

Instructional Text Level

A good instructional level for Caitlyn is Level 18. When choosing an appropriate instructional level, I had to make an informed decision. I could technically start her instructionat Level 20. Caitlyn made 13 errors at Level 20, which put her below 93% accuracy, but only half of these errors were significant enough to impact comprehension, (for example, substituting pat for patted or look for looked). My biggest concern with level 20 was Caitlyn’s lack of fluency. Her reading was slow and monotone,and it did not flow in a way to suggest that she was making sense of the words. In addition, she made some errors that a comprehending reader would have self-corrected. Most notably, she substituted furry for fur, and she said chickenmunk for chipmunk. Her self-correction rate at Level 20 was 1:7.5 which was very low. This is further evidence that she did not understand the text. Given this information, I believe that it is best to start instruction at Level 18. Despite the fact that she read with 96% accuracy, she read with very little fluency, as with Level 20, and did not self-correct at all. Given all of this information, I think it is appropriate to start Caitlyn’s instruction at Level 18.

Features of Instruction

An instructional level text for Caitlyn will need to support her use of visual and meaning cues to solve words; challenge her to use grammar conventions during reading; and develop reading fluency and comprehension. Texts should support Caitlyn’s use of visual and meaning cues by including words that are reasonable for her level of proficiency in reading and spelling. By introducing new vocabulary, she will be challenged to use visual and meaning cues to solve the new word accurately. She should find the subjects in these books interesting, so she can bring background knowledge into the reading of the text. This background knowledge will also aid her in constructing meaning from the words.