Literacy 765
Assessment Case Study
Andrea Edbauer
July 23, 2018
Eli is a 6-year-old boy, who is about to enter first grade. Reading is a big part of his
family’s life at home, and he has a positive attitude about reading. He views himself as a good
reader, and enjoys reading at both home and at school. Eli has books at home, and visits the
library frequently. He told me that he most interested in reading “army books.” He also likes
books about animals, mysteries, comic books, and funny books. His mother, Karla, said that Eli
will read independently at home for about 10 minutes, and they also read aloud with him. She
cites a short attention span as the main thing preventing him from reading for longer periods of
time.
The first activity that Eli and I completed was to assess his phonemic awareness skills,
using an assessment from Literacy Resources, Inc. Eli was asked to do the following: identify the
beginning sound in a word, tell me a rhyming word, identify the ending sound in a word, blend a
word together when I split it up into sounds, split a word up by sounds, identify the middle sound
in a word, add a sound to a word (add /s/ to the beginning of “and”), delete a sound in a word
(“cup” without /c/), and substitute sounds in a word. Eli scored 75 out of 80 total points on the
assessment, which reflects that he has a strong understanding of phonics skills for a child
entering first grade.
The next activity Eli completed was a word test from An Observation Survey of Early
Literacy Achievement. During the assessment, Eli was given a list of 20 words, and he read 16 of
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them correctly. He successfully read: and, the, has, where, after, let, am, tere, over, little, did,
what, them, like, could, and yes. He incorrectly read pretty as “play,” down as “done,” here as
“her,” and one as “on.” His score reflects a strong understanding of high-frequency words for a
beginning first-grader.
Next, Eli read a few books from The Fountas and Pinnell Benchmark Assessment System.
The first book Eli read was a level E, and it was a bit difficult. He made 19 errors, which means
he read 90% of the text correctly. Eli successfully read many of the high-frequency words in the
story, as well as some more complex words like teacher a nd lunch. Most of his errors consisted
of substituting incorrect words. The substituted words often began with the same letter, and made
sense in the story. For example, in the sentence “Her tooth was very loose” Eli said “Her teeth
were very loose. For some words, he read the beginning correctly, but included a different
ending, or left the ending off. Some examples: “brushes” for brushed, and “want” for wanted.
When trying to figure out unknown words, his first strategy was to look at the picture for clues.
He would often look back and forth between the picture and word, trying to sound out the word.
Eli could retell some of the important information from the story, but struggled to make
connections to the text, and understand why the characters did certain things in the story.
The level D book was a good instructional level for Eli. He made fewer errors, and was
able to read 94% of the book accurately. He self-corrected his mistakes more frequently, and
read sight words correctly. He was also successful in decoding words like pictures and draw. In
fact, most of his errors were on the same few words. He had a difficult time reading the word
write, which he read as “when” and “work.” He also struggled with the word stories, which he
read as “study” and “stares.” Every time he came to these two words, he would pause, and study
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the picture closely. He read the story in longer phrases, and could retell with more detail. He was
successful in making personal connections to the book, as well as inferences about what the
characters were feeling in the story.
Finally, I had Eli do some writing. He was not excited to write, and told me that he did
not like writing. I helped him with an idea by saying, “You were telling me how much you loved
Culver’s earlier. Could you write about that?” He wrote the following sentences: I Lic goiNg to
covrs. eti iscreM. (I like going to Culver’s. I eat ice cream.) Even though he did not write very
much during our short session, Eli’s writing sample reflects many strengths. He began with a
capital letter, included periods in the correct places, had spacing between words, and he spelled
some high-frequency words correctly, such as going and to. When he was trying to spell
Culver’s, he said the word slowly, trying to hear each sound. At first he wrote down “et” for eat,
but he knew that it didn’t look right. He said, “What else is there? An a? An i? I think it’s an i.”
Moving forward with Eli, I have a few suggestions to help him advance his reading. My
first suggestion is to work on the “cross-checking” strategy. When Eli makes an attempt at an
unknown word, he should double-check to see if it makes sense, and if it looks right. He relied
heavily on the pictures to gain meaning, so cross-checking with the pictures would be a great
skill to build on. He should also see if the word that he attempted makes sense in the sentence.
Next, he should see if it looks right. This would be helpful when he reads the beginning of the
word correctly but not the ending. For example, “You said ‘plays’ when you read this word.
Look at it closely. Does it look like plays?” Eli should also continue to build his knowledge of
sight words and phonics skills. He has a strong foundation, and continuing to work on vowel
teams would help him with decoding. He read some vowel teams correctly, such as tooth,
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teacher, and soup. He could find and highlight words with vowel teams in the books he is
reading. Knowing these words could help him decode other words with similar vowel teams.
When it comes to writing, I would suggest finding activities to help Eli enjoy writing. He
will become a stronger writer by writing more often. He can write letters to friends and family
members, and send them in the mail. He can help write a grocery list, or make signs and labels to
place around the house. He mentioned that he is interested in reading comic books, so he may
enjoy writing his own comics, using a simple comic frame. If he begins to realize that writing
can be enjoyable, he may want to write more often. Working on vowel teams during reading will
help Eli use them when he is writing, as well. He knew that the “et” was not the correct way to
spell eat, so knowing which other letters can make the long e sound may have helped him spell
that word correctly. Finally, I would encourage Eli to read his writing back to himself. He left
out the word I when he was trying to write “I eat ice cream.” If he had read the sentence back to
himself, perhaps he would have caught this mistake.
In closing, Eli is entering first grade prepared for grade-level instruction. He has a strong
foundation in early literacy skills, which can be built upon to help him advance in his reading
and writing skills.
