Subject C
Summary of the Findings by Type The most significant finding for Subject C was in the Morphological Word Analysis assessment where a 46% point gain from the pretest to the posttest scores was realized. The student exhibited more understanding in segmenting words into morphemes with appropriate identification of whole word, affixes, and root or base word definitions. Although identifying the root or base word was initially difficult, this student showed progress in determining the meaning, as evidenced by the overall definition provided for the words. The greatest gain was in identifying the affixes and their meanings, then altering the meaning of the morpheme with the addition of the affixes. The scores on the writing sample using the Six Traits rubric showed a 33% point gain in writing quality from the pretest to the posttest. In a breakdown of the scores for each trait this student’s scored a satisfactory score in each of the Six Traits on the rubric. In the posttest, this student improved in 5 of the trait areas and received a proficient score for ideas, organization, voice, word choice, and sentence fluency, and maintained a satisfactory score in conventions. This particular student has difficulty with spelling and tends to spell more difficult words phonetically, and this resulted in a lower score for the conventions. The story this student wrote was about a time help was given to someone in need and about taking care of a cat. The sentences and the story itself were well structured with appropriate voice and word choice clearly present in the writing and supported the purpose of the writing. The development of the ideas resulted in a quality piece of writing showing a marked improvement in the course of this study. Subject C’s TOWL-3 results did not show any major gains, however the pretest had already yielded a high score leaving little room for any significant changes in spontaneous writing scores for the 3 subtests. The subtest revealed that her writing skills performance with regard to conventions was not as proficient as in the other subtest areas, where the same score was maintained. This is aligned with the conventions score on the Six Traits rubric where no improvement was made from the pretest to the posttest in that area. This student would benefit from more work on spelling rules, grammar, and vocabulary. Clearly this student is imaginative and exhibits good writing skills, her overall writing would improve with the addition of explicit scaffolded instruction in these areas.
This student made significant gains in Six Traits writing and word analysis according to the scores received on both assessments. The score for the TOWL-3 left very little room for improvement as reflected in the total score for spontaneous writing. Summary of the Findings by Feature (subtests) Subject C Subtest Pretest Score Posttest Score
This student exhibited very little change in the pretest and posttest scores according to the results of the spontaneous writing subtest of the TOWL-3 (Hammill & Larsen 1996). No gains were made on the contextual conventions subtest, which measures spelling, punctuation, and capitalization in the writing sample, as this student continued to struggle with spelling, resulting in a score not in line with the other high scores in contextual language and story construction. The contextual language subtest measures the student’s ability to use multisyllabic words correctly giving points for vocabulary. Points are also given sentence structure and grammar. The story construction subtest measures the student’s ability to organize the writing sentence fluency and a clear beginning, middle and end. This student was clearly a creative writer and uses language well. Explicit instruction in spelling is warranted for this student.
Discussion of Pre/Post Change for Subject C:
This student showed minimal differences between the TOWL-3 (Hammill & Larsen 1996) pretest and posttest, maintaining high scores in all but one subtest, falling short as a result of spelling mistakes. The area of contextual conventions was somewhat lower than the scores on the other pretest and posttest subtests, as spelling was a weakness for this particular student even though her idea development was good with appropriate voice and word choice. This student’s pretest scores in the Six Traits of Writing (Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, 2011) produced satisfactory scores. This indicates that the writing was at a moderate level, and in the posttest, the written piece of helping feed a neighbor’s cat produced proficient scores in all areas except conventions. This result is aligned with scores on the TOWL-3, which show this student’s weakness in the area of conventions and particularly spelling. In elaborating and giving more detail to the story, this student improved her scores in organization, word choice, voice, and idea development. The story included inner thoughts of wanting to do a good job in taking care of the neighbors’ cat. According to the score on the word analysis assessment, more scaffolded and explicit instruction in adding affixes to words would help this particular student. Although this student showed improved understanding of the meaning of the affixes, she lacked the ability to appropriately add the affix to the root or base word. This is also aligned with this student’s need for spelling instruction. Improving her knowledge of word parts and how to construct words properly would increase this student’s spelling skills. Analysis/Discussion of Subject C's Change (Response to Intervention) Student C was already an accomplished student with regard to English language arts, even though she is one of the younger children in the class. She admittedly needed work on her spelling, and it was my intention to help her improve that by showing her how to look at word parts for meaning as this would give her a better understanding as in how word parts come together to form complete words and are related to other words with similar meanings. It is unclear if this intervention had any positive effects, as she did not make gains in her conventions portion of the tests. However, it is clear that more intervention in spelling and grammar would have improved this student’s spelling. Examples from Results to Support Analysis Subject C wrote a simple paragraph for the pretest about how she helped bring food over to a neighbor’s house after they lost power. She used words like “generator” and “refridgerator,” but the story lacked detail and her voice was not clear in the writing. In contrast, this subject’s posttest writing included four well- organized paragraphs about how she took care of her neighbor’s cat. Her story included dialogue with the neighbor and internal dialogue as well. “As I walked across the street to my house I said in my head, I won’t let you down, I won’t let you down.” Her paragraphs included sequential phrases, such as “on the first day” and “three days later,” making it well-organized and easy to read. She also described the cat and included detail on how the fed the cat: “ I slowly opened the can of cat food. I put it on a paper plate and put it on the house steps. ‘That was easy’ I said to myself as I came inside.” She explained her nervousness when the cat didn’t eat right away. She explained to the reader her feelings about this responsibility in well- organized, fluent sentences, and lost points only for conventions, in which she made some spelling errors. |
