Anastasia Krylova Literacy December 10th, 2013 Reader-Writer Portrait Ann is a 4th grader at PS 321 who loves reading

and writing (Ann is a pseudonym). Throughout the course of the Fall 2013 semester, Ann has made significant progress in both areas of literacy. This portrait will discuss who Ann is as a reader and a writer at the start of the year, and her growth throughout the semester. At the beginning of the year, Anns reading level was determined to be a level R in fiction according to the Fountas and Pinnell Benchmark Reading Assessment, which is above grade level. On this assessment, Ann read with an accuracy of 97% and demonstrated satisfactory comprehension. It is important to note that technically, these scores would indicate that this level is too high for Ann, and that she needed to be re-tested on a lower level. However, my CTs analysis was that since Ann understood the story and was able to make inferences about the text, along with the fact that most of her miscues were the result of fast reading and did not influence meaning, that it would be a disservice to consider Ann to be of a lower level. Even though at the time, I was skepticalin the end I agreed with my CT, since Ann has been reading level R (and sometimes higher) books throughout the semester and has demonstrated strong comprehension and interest in level R books. Additionally, in December, Ann was re-tested using the Fountas and Pinnell Assessment on a level S in fiction and read with an accuracy of 98% and satisfactory comprehension, showing growth in her reading abilities. This assessment also evidenced the fact that Ann had made progress on a goal that we had set for her: to pay close attention to all of the words, even the small ones, and to read them aloud accurately. In the December assessment, all of the miscues that Ann made were more sophisticated vocabulary (ex: mercilessly, facade). Anns responses to the comprehension prompts demonstrated that she is able to make inferences, and to analyze authors craft. She is also able to describe the elements of a story, such as setting, characters, plot, conflict, and resolution. The Performance Assessment Abby Takes Her Shot was administered to Ann in September and revealed a number of strengths and weaknesses in the areas of reading comprehension. Ann demonstrated the ability to comprehend text on both a literal and inferential levels. She was able to use evidence from the text to support her ideas (ex: Abby likes cheering for peopleher throat hurt), made simple predictions (At the next game Abby is going to get the ball in the hoop), envisioned the story with some detail, and inferred a simple lesson/theme in the story (Dont be afraid to do something). Ann had difficulty using precise language when discussing character traits (ex: isnt shy, is unhappy, sad), occasionally confuses information when interpreting text (ex: thought Abby was a cheerleader when her brother called her that), was vague in explaining thinking (ex: Usually in stories at the end the main character or any character does something).

Anns On-Demand Personal Narrative Writing Assessment, administered in September, indicated that Ann has a number of writing strengths and areas of improvement. Ann displayed her ability to provide some setting, use dialogue, and to write in cursive. However, Anns writing also showed that she uses setting minimally and only at the very beginning of her writing, her dialogue is almost always followed or preceded by the word said, there is some action but not inner thought, there is no evidence of paragraphing, and the writing lacks a structure of beginning, middle and end. This On-Demand assessment was given back to Ann in November and she was asked to use what she had learned throughout the semester to re-write her narrative. This assessment shows that Ann learned how to include inner thought, she has begun to use more precise language (ex: whispered, rather than said), she spends more time on setting details, and shows an understanding of paragraphing. At the beginning of the year, Ann indicated that she has difficulty focusing on her reading and writing at times and developed a Reading Goal for herself I am usually distracted when I read and I think I need to work on that as well as articulating what she thinks will help her achieve this goalI think I need a quieter place to read. Ann had also expressed frustration with her writing when she feels like she is being evaluated and doesnt know how to make her writing better. She cited her mom as someone who sometimes criticizes her writing and makes her feel self-conscious. In terms of distractibility and feelings of inadequacy in her reading and writing work, Ann has made great strides this year. Ann has increased her writing volume in the school setting almost three-fold and has demonstrated more focus when reading independently, being able to keep focused on her book for longer periods of time. She does continue to have an easier time reading more at home (both time and length-wise), which is consistently evidenced by her reading log. Ann says that she is better able to focus at home, since there are fewer distractions. Ann especially enjoys reading fantasy novels, and doesnt like to read about subjects that she is not interested in. Ann had stated in an interview at the beginning of the year that she reads daily at home for at least 45 minutes, and at least an hour a day on the weekends, however her reading log does not reflect this notion. Ann tends to read 30-40 minutes at home on the weekdays. On the weekends she seems to not read much at all, since there is rarely any progress in her independent reading book when she brings it back to school on Mondays. This semester, Ann has read a number of books, all fiction. She developed a fascination with Roald Dahl books for a few weeks and read The Witches, The Magic Finger, and Matilda. When she first encountered The Witches, she had never read anything by this author before, and loved the book so much, expressing a desire to read more of his work. Currently, she is reading The Candymakers Wendy Mass, which a relatively new book (2011) and is 480 pages long. Anns reading partner also got the same book and the two girls are both extremely excited about reading it alongside each other and discussing it.

Throughout the semester, Ann has learned how to develop theories about characters and to support the theories with evidence from the text. At first, Anns theories were more ideas that were directly stated in the text, which demonstrated her ability to think literally about the book, but a weakness in thinking inferentially. With the help of whole-group, small-group, and one-on-one instruction, Ann has matured into a reader who can read between the lines and make inferences about the characters, which are then termed theories. It helps Ann to use sticky notes to do this work, marking the places in the text that provide the evidence for her theories and then transferring them into her Readers Notebook. When she feels that she has enough strong evidence, she shows confidence in declaring her theory to be claim. (Another sign of progress, since in the beginning she demonstrated a lot of self-doubt any time that she made a statement, raising her voice at the end of the sentence, squinting her eyes, fidgeting, and saying I dont really know often.) As a nonfiction reader, Ann still has a lot of work to do. The nonfiction reading unit began in the last weeks of November, so I was unable to observe the full scope of Anns strengths and weaknesses with nonfiction text. However, according to the interview conducted on November 20th, 2013, Anns experience, knowledge and interest with nonfiction text is limited. Ann was only able to name a couple of nonfiction book series and had a difficult time retelling what the books were about. Ann did display some understanding of nonfiction book elements, such as the glossary, index, pictures and captions. In terms of writing, Ann loves to write stories about events that have happened in her life, and says that she has a difficult time writing about topics that are not of interest to her or that she cot relate to. This is evidenced by the times in class when the students were provided with the plots for their Realistic Fiction pieces, and Anns volume and enthusiasm about writing decreased significantly. When able to free-write, usually for homework, Ann loves writing about her travels, interesting evens that she attends, her family members, dogs, and events from her own life. Ann is familiar with the writing process. She knows that she has to first draft her writing, revise it, edit it, and then publish it. Ann is also familiar with different genres of writing and has practiced informative writing and fictional writing throughout her career at PS 321. She has written personal narratives (all about me pieces), small moments pieces, biographies, autobiographies, etc. Just as with reading, Ann tends to write more at home when she is given a writing assignment than she is able to complete at school. At school, she sometimes has a difficult time getting started on her writing and sometimes requires teacher assistance to help her come up with ideas and to organize her thinking. As evidenced by her work samples, her home writing assignments are always longer than the school writing assignments, probably due to the fact that at home she is able to find a place with fewer distractions. However, it is important to note that compared to the beginning of the year, Ann has become a much more focused writer

and is now more independent when it comes to identifying topics, developing a plan for writing, and remaining focused on her work. Ann is a self-described crazy, talks a lot and silly type of person, and this is evident in her behavior at school. She is often seen giggling with her classmates, experiencing difficulty hearing directions from the teacher the first time they are given, becoming distracted with conversations and objects in her vicinity (her own hair, for example), and due to this distractible behavior often does not complete her assignments in a timely mer. As with reading and writing stamina, Ann has made progress since the beginning of the year. She is still the same person, and loves chatting with her friends or playing with her hair during whole-group instruction, but she has become a much more serious and independent studentdemonstrating great care in completing her assignments and putting effort into everything that she does. I believe that the classroom teachers firm classroom management style, as well as Anns developing confidence as a reader and writer have both contributed to this improvement. Throughout this semester, I worked closely with Ann in both reading and writing. I conferred with Ann every chance that I got, and found that she is a student who is very responsive to one-on-one instruction. In her writing, Ann was able to demonstrate right away that she has a clear sense of using dialogue, knows how to focus on small moment and write long about it, and uses some sensory details to help her reader envision the story. Ann is also skilled in writing in cursive. The work that Ann and I focused on this semester was developing setting and weaving it throughout her writing, incorporating inner thoughts and actions into dialogue, using speech words other than said, and increasing the volume of her writing. The artifacts in the Case Study Binder show evidence of Anns growth in these areas. Overall, Ann is a dedicated reader and writer. Even though at the beginning of the year I was convinced that the biggest obstacle to her academic success would be her difficulty with focusing on her work, I was glad to be proven wrong on this point. With some firm direction from an experienced teacher, and with the support of frequent one-on-one conferences with me, Ann was able to make substantial progress both in her reading and writing abilities.