Context:

I administered the Early Reading Screening Inventory (Morris, 2003) to a second grade student at Forest Hill Elementary School.  This individual assessment is appropriate for students who can not read yet, or as in my case, not fully on grade level, and also provides teachers with information about what the students know about the alphabet, concept of word, phonemic awareness, sight word recognition, and decoding strategies.  I gave the assessment, scored it, interpreted results, and projected instructional implications based on the data. 

Impact:

The Early Screening Inventory provides teachers with information about students' reading readiness- knowledge necessary to learn to read.  Specifically, it documents what letters children can recognize and write, what sight words children can read, whether children have the concept of what a word is (revealed in the finger pointing task), what developmental stages children are in with respect to an understanding of word knowledge, and whether children have phonemic awareness (revealed in the spelling task), and whether children have the ability to decode regular patterned words.

I hope to use this assessment in my student teaching and future classroom in order to determine students' knowledge of the reading process to better match materials and instruction to individual student needs.

Alignment:

The Reading Assessment assignment aligns with the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction standard 1, indicator 1: The Early Reading Screening Inventory yields data about early developmental stages.   The assessment also aligns with standard 1, indicator 4 by providing data about elementary school children's linguistic and cognitive knowledge that will influence their ability to learn new information.  Standard 1, indicator 8 is also addressed by the inventory. This indicator is met through teachers using their knowledge of the symbolic system of children's invented spelling to interpret assessment data.  The inventory interprets how the data reveals students' awareness of the systems of language and how these impact reading and writing. 

The Early Reading Screening Inventory also aligns with the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction standard 7, indicator 3: Assessment data is used to target and promote student learning.  Additionally, the data from the screening is used to modify instruction to better meet the needs of individual students (standard 7, indicator 6).  this is accomplished when teachers select appropriate materials and instruction to match students' developmental levels in reading ability.  Standard 7, indicator 7 is met by teachers using the assessment tools as an integral part of teaching, to gather information about what students know before designing and delivering instruction with an eye toward providing instruction that matches a student's zone of proximal development.

The Early Reading Screening align with standard 8, indicator 1 because it measures the aspects of the reading process (letter/sound relationships as well as meaning related elements, such a vocabulary) that represent a balanced perspective on reading assessment and reading instruction.  The screening is a tool used in a balanced program.  In the written summary of the assessment, teachers model standard English (standard 8, indicator 6).