Report+On+The+Early+Years+Learner

**REPORT ON THE EARLY YEARS LEARNER**   **//*It is important that the student’s profile is read which is located on another page, before reading this report that analyses the child’s ability.*//**

The situations in children’s lives have dramatic effects on their learning abilities. Variables relating to “cultural experiences, knowledge, capabilities, age and gender,” can change a student’s learning process. (Hill 2008, p.191) Learning differences can then create a school environment in which children arrive at different starting points. (Victorian Curriculum Assessment Authority 2008) Therefore, it is crucial that teachers understand difference, in order to achieve successful pedagogical planning and improved student performance.

Rupert’s current knowledge about reading and writing shows he understands they can be used as in a meaningful context. It was important to find out his level of understanding because it can “save time, and avoids repeating information that he already knows”. (Hill 2008, p.390) His answers were incredibly family orientated with few responses involving people outside of his immediate family. He likes reading at home because he doesn't like the added pressure of feeling he has to perform. This alone can contribute to his negativity towards reading. Rupert understands that reading can be used for both enjoyment and for people to find out information. The concept of writing for Rupert is all about storing your thoughts so that you can remember what happened.

When reading with Rupert, two books were read. I selected one and allowed him to pick one. I noticed signs of his unenthusiastic outlook towards reading almost straight away. It was solely reflected by the book he picked. When asked to pick a favourite book, he didn’t have one and then just decided to get his school reader like it was a household chore. The excitement factor was just not there. For information on the book Rupert picked, please view the page ‘//**Inside, Outside Book Review’**//located on this wikispace.

I asked Rupert to tell me what he knew about the book, he knew that the author wrote the book for a purpose and the illustrator drew the pictures. He also commented if you couldn’t understand the writing you can always look at the pictures to get the meaning. This last bit of feedback was good as it showed me that he knew that there are multiple ways to derive the meaning from a book and understand the context. "Being able to hear the language, perceive differences in the meaning and articulate language is fundamentally important to read and write." (Cloonan, 2009) We then read 'Through the Magic Mirror' that was more difficult as he made some more errors. I chose ‘Through the Magic Mirror’ as it was a book made for enjoyment and allowed kids to engage with their imagination while it still provided some challenging multiple syllable words. (See //**‘Through the Magic Mirror Book Review’**//for more information)

After completing the majority of the book, I asked Rupert some literal, interpretive and influential comprehension questions in order to gain an insight into his understanding of the story. It is important that children can “extract and construct the meaning from the text” (Hill 2008, p.190) into a meaningful form. In response to the literal questions he found the answers by opening the book and reading each line until he found the answer that matched. He was able to correspond to the question I was asking, and then engage with the written content to find the appropriate answer. The interpretive question proved a little different as he soon realised that it was not an answer he was going to be able to find. Rupert then displayed a solid thought process as he realised that the world through the mirror was different to the world Toby was in. This is one of the key concepts behind the surreal storyline of ‘Through the Magic Mirror’. The inferential question posed quite a problem for Rupert; he had trouble coming up with an answer. While there is no one correct answer, his answer that “Toby wanted something interesting to do because his house was boring” //(**Reading /Writing Assessment of the child**)// showed that he was thinking about why the book’s meaning revolved around the surreal world.

Rupert completed an activity on the text which involved him writing a few sentences and drawing a picture. Rupert described the world through the mirror as opposite; which again displayed an understanding, however he directly copied text of the front off the front cover. He wasn’t sure of the spelling and as a result wrote some of the words with capitals and others without. It was a combination of his own writing and the text from the book. He wrote some simple yet meaningful sentences about the book with punctuation that showed me he was at the early writing phase of literacy development. (Hill 2008, p.6) As Rupert is in the early phase of writing, only one of the writing assessment sheets located in Hill (2008, pp.290-2) could be deemed as an appropriate assessment. The more complex writing assessment sheet is used to assess children already at or above the transitional stage. Therefore the emergent and early writing assessment sheet was the only one I used to assess Rupert’s reading. Rupert was able to write more than one sentence with the full required punctuation but copied the writing from the text. Therefore, my assessment was as follows: · Written language = Several sentences with punctuation = Score of 5/6 · Ideas = Copies writing = Score of 3/6 · Text conventions = Punctuation used appropriately = Score of 4/6

Rupert’s reading also had to be assessed. The two books he read he completed at 98% accuracy and 94% accuracy. Due to these percentages one was classified as an easy book the other as instructional. As one book was easy, I could also work out his fluency rate. If you refer to the **//running records//**, it can be seen that Rupert’s errors were predominantly visual so there is more development needed regarding the visual interpretation. Rupert often self- corrected and repeated words in order to keep momentum. (Indicator of a student at VELS reading progression point 1.5) Rupert read word by word and paused for long periods the majority of the time. The combination of self-correction and reading word by word suggests he is at the early phase for reading in literacy development as well. (Hill 2008, p.6) Only occasionally was any stress or emphasis used. Syntax errors and meaning-based errors also occurred as when he read “saw himself in a room” instead of “saw himself in a mirror”, but the meaning still made sense. Or when he read “Kate said” instead of “Kate and” it was still complying with the sentence structure.

I assessed Rupert’s reading with the reading fluency rubric. (Hill 2008, p.170) (see **//Reading/Writing Assessment of the Child//**) Rupert’s classification was as follows: ·    **Rate: Level 1** - Rupert read at the same slow pace and didn't display any variation. ·    ** Phrasing: Level 1 ** - He didn't string any phrases of words together, he just worked on each individual word one at a time. ·  ** Pausing: Level 1 ** - Rupert skipped over punctuation particularly commas and full stops like they didn't exist. · ** Stress: Level 2 ** ·  <span style="font-size: 90%; font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;"> ** Intonation or expression: Level 2 ** - Stress and Expression have been assessed as Level 2 as he really did understand the meaning of the books he was reading and did at times emphasize and change his volume, tone and pitch at appropriate moments. Finally, the VELS standards and progression points are vital to considering a child’s ability. Each level indicates the ability that the child should be demonstrating in reading, writing, speaking and listening. Rupert is showing signs of approaching level 2 development. He recognises that the authors construct the texts and he distinguishes between real and imaginary which was proven by ‘Through the Magic Mirror’. He has developed many strategies for reading texts,"for example using semantic, syntactic and graphophonic cues" (Victorian Curriculum Assessment Authority 2008 ). He also self corrects himself and can interpret textual information and solve problems by thinking of potential solutions. He was also incredibly good at getting the initial letter of a word when attempting new words. Therefore, Rupert is level 1 approaching level 2, the progression points can be used as a more accurate indicator.

His speaking and listening are adequate of level 2 standard as he listens and responds appropriately to what he was being asked as displayed in the reading and writing interview, he took the question and derived an answer. His sentences linked ideas and contained frequently used words, all correctly spelt. His punctuation was good and his capitalisation was affected only because he copied the text off the book.

It is essential that we understand that learners can incorporate abilities from different levels, level 1 reading but a level 2 of writing etc. The VELS progression points are a good indicator. As there is a difference in ability from a child at level 1 compared to one at level 2, progression points are used at smaller intervals to check their gradual progress. Between each level there are three progression points at the .25, .5 and .75 marks. Rupert has reached the progression point 1.5 in reading and writing as he has displayed the five points selected for each category. (Victorian Curriculum Assessment Authority 2008) However, he does not have the capacity to compose any more than a few sentences and his spelling and capital letter use often contain errors, so he hasn’t reached the 1.75 writing progression point. My assessment was that Rupert was generally around 1.5 for writing and reading and approaching 2 for speaking and listening.

Overall, this study of a student has made evident the strengths and weaknesses that need to be accommodated for when teaching literacy. It also must be acknowledged how essential it is for teachers to distinguish the level of their students. If assessed properly by using the right assessment tools, we can save time, plan more effectively pedagogically and heighten the results of our students.

<span style="display: block; font-size: 120%; font-family: 'Arial Black', Gadget, sans-serif; text-align: center;">Student Profile Through The Magic Mirror Book Review Inside, Outside Book Review Reading & Writing Interests Survey Reading & Writing Assessment Of The Child Running Records Or Go Home To Access Portfolio Assessment B