Running head: ANALYZING STUDENT DATA PROJECT 1

Analyzing Student Data Project

Hadley O’Neill

Michigan State University

Case 1: William

Analysis of Assessment Data

Informal Phonics Inventory. The Informal Phonics Inventory measures a student’s

ability to use letter-sound knowledge to decode and pronounce words, or phonics (McKenna &

Stahl, 2015). According to the Informal Phonics Inventory scoresheet (McKenna & Stahl, 2015,

p. 130), William’s results indicate that he has mastered consonant sounds and digraphs; needs

review in beginning consonant blends and diphthongs; and requires systematic instruction in

final consonant blends, short vowels in CVC words, the silent e rule, and r-controlled vowels.

Fry Sight-Word Inventory. The Fry Sight-Word Inventory assesses a child’s ability to

read high frequency words, words that occur most often in text (McKenna & Stahl, 2015),

automatically, in less than a second. William was able to pronounce 95/100 sight words, with

one self-correction. It should be noted that one only has data for the First 100 Words, which

should be mastered by the end of first grade (McKenna & Stahl, 2015). Based on this data, I

would also like to assess him using the Second 100 Words list.

Words Their Way Elementary Spelling Inventory. Spelling inventories require students

to spell unstudied words of increasing difficulty. Inventories are useful as they provide educators

with a window into students’ phonics knowledge by breaking down features of words into letter-

sounds, patterns, syllables, etc. Based on William’s inventory, he knows initial and final

consonant sounds and needs explicit instruction in short vowels, digraphs and blends. He is

developing phonological awareness, the awareness that sounds make up words (McKenna &

Stahl, 2015), and understands the alphabetic principle, “that letters represent the sounds that

make up spoken words” (McKenna & Stahl, 2015, p. 120). Additionally, William consistently

uses vowels when spelling words, an indicator of letter name-alphabetic spelling (McKenna &
ANALYZING STUDENT DATA PROJECT 3

Stahl, 2015). According to the feature guide, he is in the middle letter-name spelling stage, which

is below grade level. McKenna and Stahl (2015) assert that by the end of second grade, students

should have achieved the within word spelling stage.

Qualitative Reading Inventory (QRI). Informal reading inventories measure students’

reading levels (McKenna & Stahl, 2015) by taking into account miscues, fluency and

comprehension. William read a level one passage, first grade. Based on his responses to concept

questions (78%), he had adequate background knowledge to comprehend the narrative. William

had 13 miscues, 9 of which changed meaning, indicating that he is at the instructional level for

accuracy, a component of fluency (McKenna & Stahl, 2015). He read a rate of 91 words per

minute (WPM), 84 correct words per minute (CWPM), which is within the range for first and

second grades according to Table 9.1 on the QRI scoresheet. William was able to retell the story

events using basic narrative structure, but details were limited, 4/21 ideas recalled. He answered

3/4 explicit questions correctly, meaning he could recall specific details that were stated in the

text; however, he struggled with implicit questions (0/2), questions that require students to make

inferences (McKenna & Stahl, 2015). With a total of 3/5 questions correct, William scored at the

frustration level for comprehension.

Goals for Instruction

Goal 1: Phonological awareness. First and foremost, William needs support developing,

increasing and strengthening his phonological awareness. Based on his Informal Phonics

Inventory and spelling inventory data, he needs targeted support in short vowel sounds, blends

and digraphs. According to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS, 2020), one can deduce

that William is reading below grade level. In second grade, students should be working with
ANALYZING STUDENT DATA PROJECT 4

long vowels. They should be able to distinguish between short and long vowels and know

common long vowel teams (CCSS, 2020); these are skills for which William is not yet ready.

Aside from the CCSS, it is critical that one works with William to build his phonological

awareness, as strong knowledge of letter-sounds is necessary to decode and encode unfamiliar

words (McKenna & Stahl, 2015). As an exiting second grader and soon to be third grader,

William will come across many novel, unknown words, all of which will happen at an ever

increasing rate. Strong phonological awareness will set William up to decode words with more

success and improve his automatic word recognition capabilities, a key component of reading

comprehension according to the cognitive model (McKenna & Stahl, 2015).

Goal 2: Knowledge of strategies for reading. Based on William’s QRI assessment data,

he needs support with strategy instruction. His miscues indicate that he was not self-monitoring

while reading. With 9/13 miscues having changed the meaning of sentences, one would hope to

see more self-corrections. William self-corrected only one time, which suggests that he would

benefit from explicit instruction on how to monitor for comprehension.

According to the CCSS (2020) for second grade, students should be able to “ask and

answer such questions as who, what, where, when, why, and how to demonstrate

understanding of key details in a text.” Although William could retell what happened in the

passage following basic narrative structure, he struggled to identify many key details and was

unable to correctly answer implicit questions when prompted. These data markers also point to a

need for strategies for reading in order to support increased levels of reading comprehension.

Instructional Strategies

Instructional strategy 1 (goal 1): Picture sorts (from Words Their Way). William’s

spelling inventory and Informal Phonics Inventory show that one needs to work with him to
ANALYZING STUDENT DATA PROJECT 5

develop and grow his phonological awareness, specifically and in the order of short vowel

sounds, blends and digraphs. Picture sorts enable students to acquire, integrate, extend and refine

new word knowledge through exploration and attend to and isolate phonemes necessary to

develop letter-sound knowledge (Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, & Johnston, 2012).

To implement a picture sort, in a small group, the teacher first models the picture sort.

Using a stack of cards, she categorizes the pictures under a determined set of vowels; in

William’s case, one would choose e, o and u as his assessment data suggests he needs support

with said letter-sounds. After explicit instruction on short vowels, William sorts in a small group

and with a partner throughout the week, gradually releasing responsibility by the end of the

week. The teacher progress-monitors each day, and by the end of the week a post-assessment on

the targeted short vowel sounds can be used to assess William’s progress. With this strategy in

place, I would expect to see an increase in William’s letter-sound knowledge which, in turn,

should improve his decoding and automatic word recognition.

Instructional strategy 2 (goal 1): Making words (from Best Practices in Literacy

Instruction). Research suggests that “in order to truly learn and retain strategies, children must

discover them” (Morrow & Gambrell, 2014, p. 205). Making words is suitable for William as he

is below grade level in phonological awareness, and because lessons utilize Guided Discovery

(Morrow& Gambrell, 2014), I can ensure discovery of the specific letter-sounds in which

William needs support.

In William’s case, one would utilize lessons targeting short vowel sounds in CVC words.

In a small group, students engage in the three parts of each lesson: make words, sort words based

on patterns and transfer words. To monitor progress, the teacher collects data on transfer words

to assess and analyze the effectiveness of each lesson. After 10 lessons, I would conduct a short
ANALYZING STUDENT DATA PROJECT 6

post-assessment on the targeted area of instruction to gauge whether the intervention was

successful. If William was successful, this strategy would improve his ability to decode and

overall reading comprehension.

Instructional strategy 1 (goal 2): Backup and reread (from The Cafe Book).

William’s QRI indicates that he is not monitoring his comprehension and unable to recall many

specific details, both explicit and implicit. The backup and reread strategy will teach William to

notice when comprehension breaks down or when a word isn’t making sense, and then reread

with more intention and focus to make meaning (Boushey & Moser, 2009).

To use this strategy, the teacher models and discusses with students what it feels like

when comprehension breaks down; she’s constantly asking herself “Did that make sense?” In a

small group, one would teach William to stop when a word doesn’t make sense, try to fix it up

and then reread slowly for clarity. Small group work around this strategy would be repeated until

William shows ownership of the skill, thereby increasing his strategies for reading, strategic

knowledge and overall reading comprehension.

Instructional strategy 2 (goal 2): Transactional strategies instruction (TSI, from

Best Practices in Literacy Instruction). Morrow and Gambrell (2014) note that strategy

instruction is necessary for students to become self-regulated readers. As evidenced by William’s

miscues, he does not self-regulate. TSI with a focus making inferences and summarizing will

benefit William by modeling how readers are strategic and flexible.

In a small group, using think alouds, the teacher models what happens inside the head of

a sophisticated reader. She also asks questions of students to encourage metacognition, and

gradually releases responsibilities as she progress-monitors. Through summary strategy

instruction, William should improve in his ability to retell using more ideas, and through specific

inference instruction, he should also improve in his ability to answer implicit questions.

Case 2: Sarah

Analysis of Assessment Data

Words Their Way Elementary Spelling Inventory. Sarah can read most words. She

knows advanced letter-sound relationships, common long vowels and affixes. According to the

feature guide, she is in the early derivational relations spelling stage, which is above grade level

based on Words Their Way reading stages (Bear et al., 2012). Sarah needs support in harder

suffixes and bases or roots, a skill that is on grade level, per the CCSS (2020) for fourth grade.

QRI. As previously outlined, QRIs are informal reading inventories and measure fluency

and language comprehension (McKenna & Stahl, 2015). With regard to Sarah's QRIs, both were

based on informational texts, one narrative and one expository. Table 9.1 in the QRI scoresheet

indicates that Sarah is reading WPM consistent with fourth grade ranges. She made 11 miscues

in her narrative passage (instructional accuracy) and 6 miscues (independent accuracy) in her

expository passage, all of which changed the meaning of sentences. Thus, one can deduce that

Sarah is on or approaching grade level for fluency.

Sarah’s concept questions scores are interesting. In the narrative passage she scored

above 55%, but her expository text was quite low, at 50%. Taking into consideration Sarah’s

limited background knowledge in both areas, it is no surprise that she struggled to retell and

answer comprehension questions. In her narrative QRI, she was able to retell using the narrative

structure but with minimal ideas included (6/47). In her expository retell, Sarah only included

3/57 ideas. Both retell assessments suggest that Sarah has limited comprehension of the texts

despite reading them fluently. Moreover, in both texts’ comprehension questions, Sarah
ANALYZING STUDENT DATA PROJECT 8

answered 5/8 questions correctly, scoring in the frustration range for comprehension. Both

passages she answered 3/4 explicit questions correctly and 2/4 implicit questions. It is clear from

the assessment data that Sarah needs support with background knowledge and vocabulary prior

to reading informational texts and instruction on strategies for reading informational texts.

Goals for Instruction

Goal 1: Background knowledge. Based on Sarah’s fluency data, one can conclude that

fluency in context is not impacting her comprehension. Likewise, her spelling inventory points to

her being able to decode and encode most words at the fourth-grade level; thus, it is reasonable

to assert that automatic word recognition is not what caused Sarah’s comprehension issues.

Conversely, putting Sarah’s concept question percentages together with her miscues

suggest that she lacked background knowledge on both topics, and this most likely contributed to

her low comprehension questions scores (both at frustration levels). For example, based on her

miscues, it is clear Sarah is unfamiliar with words (and places) like Europe and Massachusetts. It

also appeared that she correctly (and repeatedly) sounded out locomotive, but had probably never

heard the word before; same can be said for valve. Additionally, based on the insertions she

repeatedly included around the word west, Sarah most likely does not know what west means in

the context of the passage and United States geography. Therefore, even though Sarah is making

decoding errors, those errors are a result of her lack of background knowledge which means

there is a breakdown in Sarah’s oral language comprehension.

Goal 2: Strategies for reading. Based on the CCSS (2020) for fourth grade, Sarah is

reading below grade level as she is unable to pull out many key details from informational texts,

both explicit and implicit. Her expository retell also suggests that she is below grade level with

regard to main ideas and supporting details, per CCSS (2020). She was unable to identify
ANALYZING STUDENT DATA PROJECT 9

multiple main ideas within the text and their corresponding ideas. Sarah needs targeted strategies

instruction around how to read informational texts with a focus on structure and main ideas and

supporting details. Increasing her knowledge of strategies for reading nonfiction will improve

Sarah’s strategic knowledge in the cognitive model (McKenna & Stahl, 2015) and strengthen her

overall reading comprehension.

Instructional Strategies

Instructional Strategy 1 (goal 1): Listen-read-discuss (from Assessment for Reading

Instruction). The listen-read-discuss strategy was designed to support nonfiction readers with

little to no background knowledge (McKenna & Stahl, 2015); readers like Sarah. To implement

this instructional strategy, the teacher preteaches, via lecture and/or demonstration, the content

students will need to know in order to understand the text orally. Students then read the passage

and discuss. Because readers will have an increased knowledge base on the content in which they

read, comprehension should improve. Essentially, with this strategy, the teacher is aiming to

strengthen and build readers’ vocabularies and background knowledge which will then, in turn,

improve the oral reading comprehension, a major strand in the cognitive model (McKenna &

Stahl, 2015).

With this intervention in place, I would expect Sarah’s overall reading comprehension to

improve. This strategy would most likely improve her decoding, as many or her miscues were

subject-specific and unfamiliar terminology. In addition, after having engaged in the listen-read-

discuss small group, I would expect Sarah to be able to retell with more ideas and correctly

answer more explicit and implicit comprehension questions.

Instructional Strategy 2 (goal 1): Using picture books to build background

knowledge (from Overcoming Textbook Fatigue). Morrow and Gambrell (2014) assert that
ANALYZING STUDENT DATA PROJECT 10

students who have greater background knowledge on a topic will comprehend informational text

differently than readers who do not possess that knowledge. Therefore, it is critical that when

there is evidence of limited background knowledge in readers like Sarah, the teacher intervenes

to support that reader. To do this, teachers can utilize content-specific picture books (Lent,

2012). Using visual images, illustrations, art and words enables readers to make connections to

the content being presented (Lent, 2012).

Similar to the listen-read-discuss strategy, the teacher shares a picture book that

represents the unknown subject matter prior to students reading the passage or book

independently. In her small group, the teacher uses an interactive read aloud structure to preteach

and build background knowledge and vocabulary that readers will need in order to orally

comprehend the text. With this intervention in place, again, I would expect Sarah’s overall

reading comprehension to improve as result of increasing her oral language comprehension

capacity.

Instructional Strategy 1 (goal 2): Collaborative strategic reading (CSR, from Best

Practices in Literacy Instruction). Based on the ideas recalled in her retells, when one compares

Sarah’s narrative non-fiction QRI to her expository QRI, it is evident that she was able to better

comprehend informational texts that use a narrative structure, or story structure. This suggests

that Sarah may comprehend fiction better than informational text. I would be interested to see

fiction QRI data for Sarah to gain further insights into her reading and knowledge of strategies

for reading, specifically. In the absence of that data, however, it is still important to note that

successful readers read expository texts differently than fiction texts (McKenna & Stahl, 2015),

and based on her performance, one can deduce that Sarah needs targeted strategy instruction

regarding how to read expository texts.

CSR teaches readers to use four strategies while reading nonfiction texts. Strategies

include

● previewing: students learn to activate background knowledge;

● click and clunk: readers skim the text for possibly tricky or confusing words and

determine their pronunciation and meanings using fix-up strategies;

● get the gist: students summarize during and after reading;

● wrap up: students construct questions about the text (Morrow & Gambrell, 2014, p. 257).

To implement this strategy, in a small group, the teacher models and then gradually releases

responsibility to students throughout the week(s) based on progress-monitoring data. Once Sarah

has autonomy over CSR strategies, she should be able recall and retell more implicit and explicit

ideas from the text. CSR should build Sarah’s knowledge of strategies for reading, thereby

improving her strategic knowledge for reading informational texts.

Instructional strategy 2 (goal 2): Paraphrase chunks, then put it back together (The

Reading Strategies Book). Sarah’s expository QRI retelling score shows that she has limited

knowledge of the main idea/supporting details structure of expository texts (3/57 ideas recalled).

The paraphrase chunks, then put it back together strategy specifically targets the skill of

determining main ideas and supporting details (Serravallo, 2015). To teach this strategy, in a

small group, the teacher models how to chunk informational text, paraphrase, note-take, and

synthesize. One tenet of reading expository texts in annotation, it helps slow the reader down

and process new information (Serravallo, 2015). This strategy teaches Sarah how to note-take

and then use her notes to determine main ideas and supporting details.

With this strategy in place, I would expect Sarah to significantly improve in her ability to

determine main ideas and supporting details, recall key ideas from texts and correctly answer
ANALYZING STUDENT DATA PROJECT 12

implicit and explicit comprehension questions. This strategy should increase Sarah’s knowledge

of strategies for reading and, in extension, her strategic knowledge and overall reading

comprehension, as outlined in the cognitive model (McKenna & Stahl, 2015).

References

Bear, D. R., Invernizzi, M. R., Templeton, S., & Johnston, F. (2012). Words their way: Word

study for phonics, vocabulary, and spelling instruction. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson

Education, Inc.

Boushey, G., & Moser, J. (2009). The Cafe book: Engaging all students in daily literacy

assessment and instruction. Portsmouth, NH: Stenhouse Publishers.

English Language Arts Standards (2020). Retrieved from http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-

Literacy/

Lent, R. L. C. (2012). Overcoming textbook fatigue: 21st century tools to revitalize teaching and

learning. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Morrow, L. M., & Gambrell, L. B. (2014). Best practices in literacy instruction. New York, NY:

The Guilford Press.

Serravallo, J. (2015). The reading strategies book: Your everything guide to developing skilled

readers. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Stahl, K. A. D., & McKenna, M. C. (2015). Assessment for reading instruction. New York, NY:

Guilford Press.