Crystal BarnhillREAD4463.02Spring 2008

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School District: Denton ISDSchool: Newton Razor Elementary/Extended Day Program

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Denton ISD is located in Denton County, Texas and is one of the fastest growing school districts in the state. It encompasses 30 total facilities, including 16 elementary schools. Newton Rayzor Elementary is one of these elementary schools, with 612 students enrolled from grade levels pre-k to fifth. The school houses a diverse group of students with a slight majority of students being from Hispanic descent.

The Denton ISD Extended School Program provide “academic enrichment, recreational activities and homework study/tutoring time”. Each elementary school in the district, including Newton Rayzor Elementary, offers this program from 3pm-6pm every weekday when school is in session.

My name is Crystal Barnhill. I am currently attending Texas Woman’s University as an elementary education major. My dream is to become a 2nd-4th grade teacher in a North Texas elementary school. I am currently a senior and on my way to finishing my degree. After I receive my certification and graduate, I plan to secure a teaching position and initiate my course work for my Master’s degree. Continuing my journey of being a lifelong learner is of great importance to me.

I am a mother of two beautiful daughters, who are ultimately my inspiration for choosing this career path. The second I became a mother, I realized how precious and invaluable our youth is to the whole community. Through their future actions, our world will change. My optimal goal is to give these youth all the knowledge and experience they need to create a better future for all of us.

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As I gradually realize I am getting closer and closer to my dream of being a teacher, I realize how much I still have left to learn. I also realize how much I have learned in the seemingly short time I have been an interdisciplinary major. Through activities and real world examples, such as this case study I feel more competent and ready to enter into my first classroom with confidence. As I was putting together my summaries together, I could not believe how much I noticed when I took the time to compile the information and use what I have been taught. I do not feel that I am “at the top of my game” by any means, but do feel that I am slowly but surely really beginning to understand concepts that we learn about in a real world context. As I completed this case study, I also thought of how all of the interactions and time spent with students in this age group, I will grow to better understand them as a whole person, not only what they may/may not know cognitively.

Student: “Sally”Grade:SecondAge:

7 years oldFamily Structure

Primary Caregivers: Mother and Step Father

Siblings: 2 older brothers and 1 younger sister

Other Caregiver: Father (visitation every other weekend)

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Assessments- “About Me” Survey

Assessments- DRA: Reading Engagement

Sally’s Literate Identity continued to change throughout the sessions we had together. I believe factors ,such as friends being present, swayed her to voice that she did not like reading or being read to. This being said in both assessments, the “About Me” survey and the “Reading Engagement” portion of Sally’s DRA, she voiced that she actually did enjoy independent reading and even explained to me during the DRA how she choose texts for personal reading. She seems to enjoy independent reading far greater than read alouds (from the teacher or herself). I believe this might have to do with Sally’s confidence in her literate capacity, making any skills not mastered visible while she is reading aloud. She seems to have a shortened attention span which makes holding Sally’s attention harder when reading aloud to her or a group of students. I believe her confidence is beginning to build because on repeated occasion (while by ourselves and included in the “About me” survey) she told me that reading was one of her favorite subjects.

Assessments- Oral Reading #3

DRA: Oral Reading

Assessments- Oral Reading #2DRA: Oral Reading

Assessments- Oral Reading #1Running Record

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Assessments- Oral Reading #4

DRA: Oral Reading

Assessments- Oral Reading #5

DRA: Oral Reading

Sally’s oral reading is at a developing stage that is normal for her age and grade level. She has mastered the strategy of repeating for improved comprehension and ability to read unfamiliar words. She also relies heavily on phonological strategies, such as sounding out the letter sounds of a word to try and “crack the code”. When reading unfamiliar books, Sally tends to read slower and choppier with less fluency, although with familiar books I have even observed her using intonations in her voice, such as when she was reading her part in the Reader’s Theatre play.

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Writing Sample #1: Main Idea Graphic

OrgWriting Sample #4:

Web Character Relationship

Analysis

Writing Sample #5: Reader’s Theatre

Script (Partial)

Writing Sample #6: “About Me” Survey

Writing Sample #3: Cause and Effect

Chart

Writing Sample #2: Anticipation Guide

Sally is an emergent writer and usually writes using strategies such as word sounds to construct the letters in that word. Looking at her “About Me” survey, Anticipation Guide, and Reader’s Theatre Script Title all showed evidence of her emergent knowledge of the silent “e” at the end of some words. Also, repeatedly in Sally’s work she rotated the lower case “d” into a lower case “b”. Words like “read” look like “reab” in my of Sally’s writings. This is of course only a few examples of what the assessments show, but is a good example to my placement of her being an “emergent writer”. Sally does sometimes resist writing as she seems to be much more open to artistic expression. This also is due to the fact of her continually changing literate identity and her confidence in herself as a capable writer and reader. Sally’s directionality of sentences seem to be mastered, as well as some forms in sentence structure. All assessments below show examples of Sally using nouns and verbs and putting them into complete sentence structures.

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Written/Drawn Response #2

Written/Drawn Response #3

Main Idea Graphic Org

Written/Drawn Response #4

Character Relationship

Analysis

Anticipation Guide

DRA: Comprehension and Retelling

Written/Drawn Response #1

As the multitude of examples below show, “Sally” does not have any problems responding to texts after reading or listening to a story. The critical thinking involved with her literary responses are what might be lacking, although she is at a “normal” stage of development in this area for her age/grade level. For example in many of her written/drawn responses to texts (some not shown), she patterned her picture to look very similar to one out of the actual text. On very few occasion did Sally create an original piece of artistic response to a text. Sally’s retelling skills are superior for her age group. During the DRA Assessment, she orally recalled many of the “important” parts to the story as well as on several occasion remembered main parts of past texts that we read together.

Literate Identity

Composing/

Constructing Text

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Literate Identity

DRA Assessment Overview (Online)

Oral Reading

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DRA Assessment Overview (Online)

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DRA Assessment Overview (Online)

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DRA Assessment Overview (Online)

Composing/ Constructing

Texts

Responding to Texts

Composing/ Constructing

Texts

Responding to Texts

Composing/ Constructing

Texts

Responding to Texts

Responding to Texts

Responding to Texts

Composing/ Constructing

Texts

Composing/ Constructing

Texts

Responding to Texts

Responding to Texts

DRA Assessment Overview (Online)

Responding to Texts

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DRA Assessment Overview (Online)

BackDRA: Focus for Instruction

Overall, I believe Sally will be a very successful student .With the assistance in learning new techniques to help her in her struggles in reading and writing, she will learn to enjoy personal reading even further and increase her confidence and motivation in the language arts. Sally has a few strategies “under her belt”, but will be greatly helped as she acquires numerous strategies in reading and writing. She will gain competence in fluency as she practices her skills and they grow to become automatic processes for her. She has a great literary “base” established: using correct directionality, noun/verb relations in her sentence structure, a majority of letter formation correctly written, and much more. The following skills, noted in the below DRA Assessment form, would be things that I would focus on with “Sally” if I were her general classroom teacher: “Model how to infer during shared reading and read alouds” and “demonstrate and teach student how to support opinion with details from the text”.

Henkes, K. (1996). Chrysanthemum. HarperTrophy.

Marshall, J. (1988). Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Dial.

McAfee, O., Leong, D. J., & Bodrova, E. (2004). Basics of Assessment. Washington,

DC: the National Association for the Education of Young Children.

McNulty, F. (2005). If You Decide to Go to the Moon. New York: Scholastic Inc.

Numeroff, L. J. (1985). If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. Laura Geringer.

Paratore, J. R., & McCormack, R. L. (2007). Classroom Literacy Assessment. New

York: The Guilford Press.

Parish, H. (2005). Amelia Bedelia Bookworm. HarperTrophy.

Readinga-z.com. (n.d.). Running Record Assessment Tips. Retrieved October 2006,

from Readinga-z.com: www.readinga-z.com/newfiles/levels/runrecord/runrec.html

Schools, S. P. (2006). Developemental Reading Assessment: K-3. Retrieved April

2008, from www.seatlleschools.org:

http://www.seattleschools.org/area/literacy/dra/dra-overview-and-directions.pdf

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