Assessment Portfolio

Nora is an amazing second grader. She is an energetic and loving kid. She was diagnosed

with ADHD this year but is not medicated. She has a love for reading but does not like writing.

The following assessments were administered:

Elementary Reading Attitude Survey (ERAS) and interview

3-Minute Fluency Assessment

Words Their Way Spelling Inventory

Conventions of Writing Developmental Scale

My student was extremely excited when I told her I wanted to interview her. She wore

her best clothes for the interview and was so excited. She talked very fast during our interview. I

did not watch her during her writing assessment as I was given a copy of a writing assignment

from her teacher. Her 3-minute fluency assessment went very well, and she was very excited as it

was reading which is her favorite. Her comprehension went very well as she was able to

remember most of the story without prompting. Her spelling inventory she was not excited for

and just wanted to get it done.

Nora has a love for reading but unfortunately, I am unsure how accurate my ERAS scores are.

She circled the happiest Garfield for every question without even thinking about what I asked.

She had a raw score of 40 for both academic and recreational reading. It came to a raw total

score of 80. She scored in the 99th percentile for academic reading and recreational reading. Her

total percentile was in the 99th percentile. Nora loves the Diary of a Wimpey Kid book series.
She does not like to read books too many times as she gets bored very easily. She likes to read by

herself and likes to read actual books and not on a tablet.

Nora’s comprehension score was rated at a 4. She was able to recall most of the story

without prompting after reading it. She was able to identify the main idea of the story with

supporting evidence. She was also able to recall most of the story, but it was not organized. I

only asked her if she was able to recall the color of the apples from the story.

Nora was given the Primary Spelling Inventory from Words Their Way. Based on her

results, Nora is at the early letter name-alphabetic stage of spelling. In the early letter name-

alphabetic stage children tend to focus on the letters that have the most prominent sound in the

word. The children in this stage tend to miss the middle letters because vowels are not easily

heard in words. Since Nora is a very phonetic writer, she would tend to write the wrong vowel

for a word as she could not hear it. I would start my instruction with short vowels. She seemed to

miss them, as they are not easy to hear. She also really struggled with long vowels which I would

move on to after short vowels. In her writing sample you could tell she would also mix up

vowels and write the phonetic spelling of words she did not know like she did on the spelling

assessment.

Nora did very well on the fluency portion of the 3-minute reading assessment. On the

word reignition accuracy Nora read 76 words in 60 seconds and made 2 errors. She read 97.37%

of the words correctly. This means that the text is at her instructional level. Instruction level

means they are on grade level for reading. For reading fluency rate Nora correctly read 76 words

in 60 seconds. The expectation for mid-second grade is 50-100 correct words per minute. For

reading fluency expression Nora’s expression and volume was rated at a one. She read words to

get them out to make it sound like natural language. She also read in a quiet voice at times when
she was unsure of the words. Nora’s phrasing and intonation was rated at a two. She read in two-

and- three phrases, which made the reading sound choppy. She also failed to stop at commas and

periods. Nora’s smoothness was rated at a three. She occasionally would break a smooth rhythm

because she was having difficulties with specific words. Nora’s pace was rated at a three. She

read at an unsteady pace. It was a mixture of a fast and slow pace.

Nora’s writing was assessed using the Conventions of Writing Developmental Scale.

Nora is at level 6, the transitional stage of writing. In her snowman story every word had a

vowel. She also spelled some high frequency words correctly like “made,” “I,” “am,” and “to.”

Her sentences are also not complex and not every sentence begins with a capital. She did not

follow the assignment and only wrote three sentences and not four sentences like the teacher

said. Her sentences did not follow what the assignment had asked for. The snowman never

actually went to school. Every sentence ends with a period. Her spacing is ok but not correct in

some sentences. She also wrote more than one sentence.

For Nora’s instruction I would focus on phonics. She has amazing phonemic awareness

but when she hears a letter it is usually left out. One strategy I would use is vowel stars. The

objective is to help students learn how to blend letters to make sounds. A vowel star is where

there are two consonants in the middle, and the vowel is missing, and each point of the star has a

vowel. The student has to see what vowels fit to make a word. Since Nora has ADHD one

strategy is to give her gum, which is allowed in her school, while doing assignments to help her

focus. Another strategy is called there-in-one. There are two stacks of cards, one stack is

consonants, and another stack is vowel. You pick two cards from the consonant stack and one

from the vowel stack. They have a paper that has two sides, one side is nonsense words, and one
side is real words. If those cards are able to make a word a student writes it down on the real

word side and if it doesn’t make a word, they write it done on the nonsense word side.

Teaching books are a great way to help students outside of school. It would help my

student if she would work on a phonics teaching book for 10 minutes each day, especially during

the summer. Any progress that was made we do not want it to be lost during the summer.

Reading at home every day helps with language development. The teacher and parents could

work on finding books that stress certain vowel sounds and focus on that vowel sound for a

week.

Since Nora has ADHD, I consulted my sister to see what types of books she is able to

focus on. Nora never gave me an answer on what books she likes. She did tell me she would try

Cam Jansen when I recommended it before. The books I would recommend for Nora are

• Young Cam Jansen and the Lost Tooth By:David Adlern Illustrated by:Susanna Natti

• Young Cam Jansen and the Double Beach Mystery By:David Adler Illustrated

by:Susanna Natti

• Polo: The Runaway Book By: Regis Faller

• Beezus and Ramona by: Beverly Cleary

• Tomboy Trouble by Sharon Dennis Wyeth

Nora has a lot of strengths when it comes to reading. She struggles in writing and spelling,

but she is not too far behind from where she should be. With some extra help she will be able to

improve.

I have learned so much about my students. She is so good at reading even though her writing

skills lack substance. It really surprised me, but it might be because she is not reading at her skill
level, or she is not interested. It could also be because she is a very phonetic writer so when she

does not hear a letter it is not written. These assessments really opened my eyes to how many

topics go into ELA. Also, some students are good in some areas and other areas they struggle in.