Literacy Assessment Assignment

On March Thirteenth, a Literacy Assessment was completed with

Carter. He is a five-year and three month old boy in preschool. Carter is

reserved and is a well-behaved child in the classroom. He does not

create problems and raises his hand to answer questions a majority of

the time when he wants to speak. He is always willing to help me with

my homework, and has asked on a couple of occasions if he could help

without my asking. He keeps to himself and loves to play video games

at home. He is especially obsessed with the game Mine Craft. He

talks about the different characters, the weapons they use and what he

does when he play the game all the time. He does not like to play with

others unless they are following his rules, and is very verbal when he

does not want someone to play with him. His social emotional

development is slightly concerning because he does not like to play

with peers and seeks attention and bonding with adults through asking

questions and staying close (he always asks to hold my hand and also

to sit next to me, and eat lunch with me). He is a parent pleaser so

he is mostly concerned with getting the approval of parents and other

adults.

A retelling assignment was completed with Carter on February

21st. First, the story of Three Billy Goats Gruff was read to the child

twice, and then the story was modeled and the child was asked to

retell the story with the figures provided on their own. Carter retold the
story twice, the first time with the book in front of him and the second

time with the figures.

Carter was very excited to work on this assignment. He was quiet

and engaged as the story was read to him and took the book and took

it upon himself to tell the story again with only simple directions in the

beginning. He was verbal during the first retelling and introduced the

book with So there were three sheeps, a little sheep, a middle sheep

and a big sheep. Then, he explained that the little sheep crossed and

then he said Stop right there! Im gonna eat you up! verbatim each

time a new sheep would go across the bridge. He was very excited

when the Big Billy rammed the troll off the bridge and smiled and

laughed. During his second retelling, with the figures, he was much

less verbal but moved the figures in the correct order, murmuring to

himself inaudibly. During this retelling, he did say Now wait for my

brother hes much bigger and easier, and he had not mentioned the

goats talking to the troll during the first telling. Carter scored a 6/15,

which is categorized as the early group on the rubric. He was able to

tell the sequence of events, with details such as the little, middle and

then big sheep, and also what the troll said to the goat. However, he

missed speaking about the resolution and needed assistance with

remembering the ending where they could do whatever they like

instead of cross the bridge whenever they like. He did a better job

when he had the book in front of him and he flipped to each page at
the correct time in the story. He did not track the words with his fingers

at all and the phrases he said were the repeated ones.

During the Literacy Assessment that was implemented and

completed on March 13th, Carter completed the Picture and Name Task,

Concepts About Print Task, and the Alphabetics Letter Identification

Tasks. He was excited to help me with my homework and completed

the picture task with no issues. When he went to pick a book from the

shelf for the Concepts About Print task, he did not choose a C or D

book and became agitated when told to pick a different book. He was

uninterested in both the upper and lower case Alphabetics tasks.

Carter chose a green crayon to draw a picture of him doing

something for the Picture and Name task. He drew two tadpole

figures, one with a sad face and one with a straight line for a mouth,

and then drew a pickaxe and a sword in one of the figures hands. He

explained what he was drawing the whole time. He said, Theres me...

And then I have a sword here in this hand. He then drew a vertical line

with two slanted lines coming from the top of the line (it looks like a

vertical ) out of the other hand on his drawing. He said, And now

I have a pickaxe! To fight snowman skeletons. Can you make me a

villager? I replied, I dont know what they look like! How about you

make it to show me. Carter then drew two circles, one on top of the

other, with two vertical lines coming out of the bottom of the lower

circle. He drew two dots and another arch in the top circle. He then
added horizontal lines on top of the line that connects the two circles

and said, Here, theres his arms. Theyre crossed. Because hes a

villager. Im done. I then said, Do you want to draw any more? You

can keep going if you want. He replied, Okay! Im gonna draw a

chaaasssttt (chest) a-and a bow and aarrrooowwww, and some armor,

and GOLD! And now some snowwbbaalllss, and an applleeee. Oh! And

a keyhole to get in. aaannddd. Hhmmmm oh yeah a diamond

metal sword! Carter drew an oval in the upper left corner of the page

and as he said the object, he added it to the chest. The bow and arrow

was a line and a circle, the armor consisted of lines that look like the

letter H and T. He used the orange crayon to make a small line at

the top of the chest to create the keyhole. He drew some small dots

around the chest when he said snowballs and an apple. He drew a

long vertical line when he said, diamond metal sword. Carter then

asked Hmmmm what else should I do? and I answered Whatever

you want! Do you want to add anything else? And he answered,

Hmm nah I dont think so. He then flipped the paper over to draw

an apartment. The apartment was also green and Carter explained

what he drew as he drew it. The apartment had an elevator, stairs on

the outside (like at his house), chairs, a bed, a chest and a door. He

then colored the outside of the apartment black. He used the side of

the crayon so the strokes came out thick and textured. Carter did not
write his name on the bottom of the page, but a picture of his name

from February 1st is attached.

Carter then chose a book from the shelf and after having to

chose another, more age appropriate one (not a non-fiction about the

Army), he became less enthusiastic. He was distracted and kept asking

when he could read the Army book and after he was told once you

finish this he complied. He was able to identify the front of the book,

the back of the book, where you would begin reading a story, a picture

on a page in the book, a letter, the first letter in a word, and an upper

case letter. Carter was not able to identify the title of the story, a word,

the last letter in a word, a period, or how to read a page. Carter was

able to identify seven out of twelve aspects of the book correctly. He

became slightly frustrated towards the end because he was unsure of

the answers and he knew it. After this task was complete the Army

book was read out loud to him. Then the Upper Case Alphabetics task

was initiated. Carter was able to identify fourteen out of twenty six

upper case letters. He correctly identified the letters P, S, O, X, N, A, T,

B, I, V, D, J, H, and W. He identified K as J, E as C, and Z as H, and did

not know M, F, F, L, U, C, Y, Q, and R. When he did not know the letter

he said I dont know. The Lower Case letters were then identified.

Carter was able to identify ten out of twenty six lower case letters. He

identified p, s, o, x, t, c, i, v, j, and w. He said j for k again, a for l, p for

b and d, and did not know the letters m, n, a, f, g, u, y, e, q, r, z, or h.

After this task the marine, navy and air force books were read aloud to

Carter for helping with homework.

Carter has average knowledge about books and text, and is able

to identify half of his letters. This year the preschool is completing an

alphabet book and are learning about one letter at a time. Many of

these letters I have seen the students work on and many of them

Carter was able to identify. Many of the letters he was unable to

identify had not been taught yet, and a small amount of letters he did

not know had been taught previously in class. To help Carter on list

letter identification and also his book and text knowledge, I would

incorporate a lesson into every read aloud I read to the class. As the

teacher I would make sure to incorporate teaching the students what a

title is and make sure I track my reading with my reading so the

students can understand text and subconsciously learn about how to

track the page and the way that we read. I would also go over the title

of each of the book I read aloud to the students and ask what each

letter is. This will help them to understand the title more and also go

over letters each day. When I become a teacher I will make sure to

incorporate all of these aspects of literacy into my classroom in order

to create a positive atmosphere around reading, and also to make sure

my students are learning how to read. Carter is an emergent reader,

and because of that his diet for instruction should be split evenly
between concept of word, concept of print, alphabetics, phonological

awareness, and writing.