Nicole Ruggiero ELD 307 Professor Rich Oral Language Assessment The purpose of this oral language assessment

is to determine the areas of oral language in which a particular student is proficient and those in which the student needs more guidance in order to raise their proficiency level. The skills that are assessed in this assessment are essential because they are used in daily life. By determining which skills students need to work on and providing additional assistance, the students will then be able to apply the oral language skills they develop to their daily interactions, which will improve their communication skills. Oral language skills are essential because oral language is usually the primary way that people interact with one another. By ensuring that the students increase their oral language skills, teachers are essentially increasing the ability their students to communicate more effectively with one another and giving them the knowledge base that will help them to become active members of society. I assessed a seven-year-old first grade student at a suburban elementary school in Central Jersey. She is in a class with 22 students. I observed this student during readers workshop, writers workshop, mathematics lessons, snack time, and any other breaks in instruction. Miss Savage recommended that I focus on this student because she has good oral language skills. She is generally very quiet during instruction and the times that students are supposed to be quiet, but when she is with her friends or when Miss Savage is encouraging partner or group work, she is quite verbal. This student seems to be a little bit shy, but prompting her really helps to illicit responses from her. Through this assessment, I will try to ascertain the areas in which this student needs additional assistance and design a lesson that will hopefully help her improve in that particular area.

The oral language assessment pages found in Kidwatching by Gretchen Owoki and Yetta Goodman are a very useful tool to help teachers determine the areas that reflect the strengths and weaknesses of their students. Each category of oral language is broken on these sheets so that specific observations can be made and recorded. Using these assessment pages, I was looking for whether this student shares stories, retells events, explains how to do something, creates imaginative worlds, enjoys language for its aesthetic value, plan events, expresses her feelings, and/or takes leadership roles. Whenever possible, if I did not observe this student participating in these activities I tried to prompt her to see if she was capable of doing them and I recorded my observations and the dialogue that she used. I will then use that dialogue and the observations I recorded to tailor a lesson that will fit her needs. Through my observations, I was able to learn many things about this student. She is very good at retelling events. She was able to retell certain events that occurred in her book she was reading and what happened in music class in such a way that I was able to understand what happened. I prompted her to tell me what was going on in the book she was reading and she told me that it is about what father penguins do when the mother penguins are away. She said: They take care of the eggs while the mother hunts for food. I also wanted to see if she could retell real life stories as well, so I asked this student what happened in music class and she told me that they played the Snowflake Song on xylophones and learned about Louis Armstrong. She was able to tell me what happened, even if she used minimal details. Next, I asked her how she got the answer to a math problem and she explained that she looked at the problem and got the numbers from the word problem and created a number sentence with those numbers. This shows that

she is able to give oral directions on how to solve a problem. I also observed her helping one of her peers with a problem and giving him directions. Along those same lines, when she works with others, she is able to plan with them efficiently. She planned with her group during readers workshop about what books they were going to read and in what order each person was going to read. As she and her group were planning during readers workshop and she realized that the way her group was planning meant that she was going to have to read last, she said: Aww...Im always last with a sad look on her face. This shows that she is able to orally express her feelings to others. I also observed her taking leadership during writers workshop when they had to read books and take note about what the authors did to engage their readers. During the short planning stage of this workshop, she took leadership in her group because no one was being productive, and said: We have to agree on a book, and then once they agreed, she said: I will read first. This student has many strengths but she also has a few weaknesses. I did not observe her engaging in creating an imaginative world with oral language or enjoying language for its aesthetic value. When it comes to sharing stories, this student is able to do so, however the stories she tells are very basic and lack in depth details. For example, she told me a true story about how she went to the doctor, got a sticker, and then went to subway for lunch. While, there are some details in this short story, there are not nearly enough to interest her listeners. From my observations, I have noticed that this student is particularly adept at retelling events, explaining how to do something, planning, expressing her feelings, and taking leadership. Her weaker areas seem to be creating imaginative worlds, enjoying oral language for its aesthetic value, and including specific details in the stories that she

shares with others. Using this information, I would like to create a lesson about the importance of including details when sharing stories with others. Even though this student took the initiative to share a personal story with me, she lacks the inclusion of details that would make her story telling more interesting. So, the lesson that I would like to implement to help her with this would foster the inclusion of details in her stories.

Adding the Details: First grade Rationale: I am teaching this lesson to help students to realize the important role that details play in a story and introduce a strategy about how to be sure to include them in their stories. Standards: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.1.4: Describe people, places, things, and events with relevant details, expressing ideas and feelings clearly. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.1.5 With guidance and support from adults, focus on a topic, respond to questions and suggestions from peers, and add details to strengthen writing as needed. Objectives: SWBAT Share stories orally with their partners, using details. Answer who, what, when, where, why, how as it pertains to the story and their writing and include the answers as details in their stories. Materials: When You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff Who, What, When, Where, Why, How Sheet (see attached) Correction Tape Pencil Procedure: Call this student and a partner (and any other students who are struggling with this same area) over to the back table. Tell them that we are going to read When You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff. Activate prior and knowledge and ask them what they remember about this book if they have ever read it before. Then, tell them that we are going to read this book and think about how we can add some extra details to help the author make her point. Read the first 2 pages If you give a mouse a cookiehe is going to want a glass of milk. They have already been introduced to Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How, so I will model: Hmm.. So when the mouse is given a cookie, he is going to want a glass of milk. Why would he ask that? Oh, maybe because eating the cookie made him thirsty. Now I wonder who he is going to ask to get him a glass of milk because he cant get it himself. Oh, maybe he will ask the boy in this picture. How will he ask him? I think he will ask him politely. Okay so, when the mouse is given a cookie, he will politely ask the boy for a glass of milk because he is thirsty. Im going to write that on the correction tape (write it and place over the words). I think the author will appreciate that I am adding more detail to her story. Model the same way for When you give him the milk, he will probably ask for a straw and bring out the Who, What, When, Where, Why, How sheet to

help me come up with details and use the correction tape to cover up the actual words on the page. Making sure to explicitly say those words. o How: the mouse will ask politely again, why: he cant pick up the glass because it is too big, what: a straw, when: after the boy gives him the milk, who: the mouse (where: in the kitchenoptional). Now hand out the sheets to the students have them do this for at least four more sets pages, having each partner alternate so that they can each come up with 2 more detailed sentences and I will write down what they say on correction tape and place it over the actual words. (Could have this student and her partner turn and talk for the first 2 and do them together and then have them each do one individually) Individual Application: Then, send them off to apply the strategy of including more detail to their own individual writing. They can either write with more detail or use the correction tape to revise their old writing. Closure: When there are about 5 to 10 minutes left of the period, call the students back to the table and ask them to share what they have written, pointing out the details that they have added or changed. End by asking them how they think adding the details helped their writing and how doing that will also help their story telling.

Assessment Assess students by the details that they added to the book and their own writing. In order to figure out the extent of the detail content, all or most of the who, what, when, where, why, or how questions should be able to be answered by just what they say or wrote and should not require additional prompting.

Questions for Details Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?

Questions for Details Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?