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Anna Holcomb – Literacy Assessment

Overview of your student

The student’s pseudonym is Sarah, and she is in her second year of Pre-K, about to go to Kindergarten.

Assessment 1
The first assessment I did with Sarah was picture drawing and name writing. The purpose of this assignment
was to develop language skills needed to describe the picture she was drawing, as well as seeing her ability to
write her own name. It is important for children to begin developing their oral language skills to help develop
their vocabulary (Tompkins, 2018, pg. 244). When doing this assessment with Sarah, I felt that this was
something she was very comfortable with, and she didn’t even see it as an assessment. The only thing that was
challenging with her, was when asked, she refused to put her name on the bottom of the paper, and insisted it go
at the top, as this is how she did it in class. The student correctly described the picture, without even being
prompted to. Sarah was excited to talk about her picture and went into incredible detail about what was going
on. There were no problems with understanding this assessment. This assessment addressed Virginia Literacy
Foundation Block 1: Oral Language as well as Virginia Literacy Foundation Block 6: Writing.

Assessment 2
The second assessment I did with Sarah was concepts about print. The purpose of this assignment was to
analyze whether or not my student was an Emergent reader, or a Beginning reader. I was able to determine her
skill by analyzing what she was and was not able to identify of the print book, and her “growing awareness of
the alphabetic principle” (Tompkins, 2018, pg. 121). This assessment was difficult because I felt like Sarah was
struggling and wanted to help her more than just assess her. It was also a challenge to keep her on task, as she
didn’t find this task very interesting and was constantly getting up and running around. The student was able to
do a number of the tasks correctly, and seemed interested in the pictures in the story, and was easily able to
point them out. Sarah struggled with identifying any of the word and letter tasks. I’m not sure if it was too
above her level, or if she was just distracted by the environment we were in, though I tried to keep her on task.
She seemed frustrated when I kept asking her to point to different parts of words or letters, as she thought they
were all in the top right corner of each page. The assessment addressed Virginia Literacy Foundation Block 5:
Print and Book Awareness. The student was able to interact with the book by holding it and turning the pages.
Additionally, she was able to correctly show me how to turn the pages, and which direction we would read the
book in.

Assessment 3
The third assessment I did with Sarah was the Alphabet task, Letter Identification of uppercase letters. The
purpose of this assessment was to determine how much she knows about the alphabet, and her ability to name
each of the letters. This is important as “being able to name the letters of the alphabet is a good predictor of
beginning reading achievement” (Tompkins, 2018, pg. 118). Again, she seemed to be uninterested in this
assessment, as opposed to the first assessment, likely because she wasn’t doing what she wanted to at that
moment, make art. She told me during this assessment that “this is boring” and she wanted to stop. She was able
to identify most of the letters in her real name (not the pseudonym). There was a point in the assessment where
she stopped telling me the letter, and just guessed “A” for each one, this continued until I pointed out to her she
had already gotten “A”, and this letter can’t be “A” and asked her to try again. I chose to do this assignment,
because based on the previous assignment, it seemed like this was something she needed to work on. It seemed
as if she wasn’t able to identify letters or words, but in this assessment she excelled. This assessment addressed
Virginia Literacy Foundation Block 4: Letter Knowledge and Early Word Recognition.
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Summary
In summary, Sarah excelled in the assessment in which she was asked to draw a picture and describe it.
During the assessment, she was able to write her name, and draw a detailed picture, while describing the
different aspects of her piece. In doing this, she showed that this was something she was proficient at. I would
recommend linking this oral language developmental skills, to further developing her vocabulary. In the future,
I imagine word walls will be encouraging for her to develop her word skills, and in the future, implement those
words into written text (Tompkins, 2018, pg. 244).
In the second assessment, Sarah did okay, but is showing signs that she could use improvement. She scored
6/12 on this assignment. The skills she was missing include: “Show me where we would begin reading the
story, point to a word, point to the first letter in a word, point to the last letter in a word, show me an uppercase
letter, and point to a period, what is this?” All of these activities have to deal with the printed letters and words.
This likely concludes that she is more on an emergent writer. To expand on her skills, it would be helpful to use
“modeled and shared reading and writing activities”, as they help reinforce these concepts about print
(Tompkins, 2018, pg. 121).
In the final assessment, Sarah did well, but got stuck a few times. She scored a 13/26 on this assignment. She
was able to get several of the letters in her name but got stuck at one point guessing the same letter for multiple
different letters in a row. To further develop her skills, I think she should explore alphabet books, and teachers
and families should read this to her. She seemed to enjoy going through the book, and I think that an alphabet
book could help reinforce how the letters look and their names, while also working on the skills being
developed in the second assessment.
Assessment 2:
Assessment 1:

Assessment 3:

Work Cited:
Tompkins, G. E., Smith, C., Campbell, R., & Green, D. (2018). Literacy for the 21st Century: A balanced
approach. Pearson Education.
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RUBRIC Name: Anna Holcomb

Self- Final
Evaluati Score
on

Grade-level Appropriate 5-6 3-4 0-2 6

Assessments The choice assessment is
grade-level appropriate.

Professional language 5-6 3-4 0-2 4

and presentation The language used and Some of the language used Most of the language used is
images presented are is not professional and/or not professional and/or
professional in nature. One some of the images are some of the images are
complete document is difficult to read and are not difficult to read and are not
uploaded into Canvas on facing the correct way. facing the correct way.
time. There are multiple There are multiple
documents uploaded. The documents uploaded. The
rubric is not attached at the rubric is not attached at the
end of the document. end of the document.

References to course 5-6 3-4 0-2 6

readings The course readings are Course readings are minimal Course readings are
cited (APA) in natural and are lumped together at missing.
ways and a reference page the end of the summary or in
is included. one location.

Assessments were 5-6 3-4 0-2 5

administered accurately Attention was given (and Majority of parts are
is evident through the Parts are missing in the missing in the assessments.
summary and artifacts) to assessments. Levels are not Levels are not provided.
the appropriate provided.
administration of the
assessments.

Thorough summary 5-6 3-4 0-2 6

There is a section for each A few pieces of information The majority of pieces of
of the assessments. The from each assessment is information from each
process and results for missing. It is not clear how assessment is missing. It is
each assessment are you would move this student not clear how you would
clearly explained. The forward based on the results move this student forward
next steps based on each of each assessment. based on the results of each
assessment are described. assessment.