Nicole Bowman

EEU 350
Dr. Seagreaves
I. Background Information and Statement of Rapport
Jane is seven years old and lives in Mohrsville, Pennsylvania. She is in the second grade. She lives with
both of her parents and older sister. She has countless pets, because one of her familys occupations is
dog breeder and bird breeder. At school, she has many friends. She loves school and gets excellent
grades in almost every subject. Her favorite subjects are math and science. Her interests include singing,
reading, playing with her friends, playing games on her iPad and doing crafts. She enjoys reading books,
especially books that have a humorous main female character.
I knew that Jane was more than capable of filling out the reading interest inventory by herself. She
circles yes to enjoying reading time in school. She said that really enjoys reading outside of school as
well. She did say that she doesnt enjoy reading when she is tired. Besides the books that she loves and
already reads, she said she would enjoy reading some animal books. On a scale of one to ten, she said
she was a ten and loves to read.
I know Jane very well. She is my best friends little sister and I have known her since she was born. She
began reading in Pre-Kindergarten and has been a very good student all of her life. Jane and I are very
good friends and I see her once, if not more, during the week, so establishing rapport was not an issue. I
did the assessment on her about an hour after she got out of school. She was very excited to help me
with my schoolwork, so we jumped right into the assignment. After many giggles from answering all the
questions on the student interviews and interest inventory, because I obviously already knew all the
answers to the questions, she was finally ready to sit down and read some stories.

II. Assessment Measure

a. Johns, J.L. 2008. Basic Reading Inventory 10th edition. Dubuque, IA: Kendall Hunt Publishing
Co.
III. Analysis of Data
Having previous knowledge that Jane was an average reader for a second grade student two months
into the school year, I began testing her on the grade one graded word list. On grade one, Jane read all
twenty words correctly, putting her on the independent level. On the grade two list, Jane read all the
words correctly, but read suck for such and corrected herself on the analysis, leaving her on the
independent level. On the grade three list, Jane made three errors. She read drowny for journey,
island, with a short i, for island and could not read the word automobile. On the analysis she did
not correct any of the mistakes, putting her on the instructional level, with seventeen out of twenty
correct.
On grade four word list, she said program, with a short o for program, but did not correct it on the
analysis. She received a nineteen out of twenty correct, putting her back up to the independent level.
For the grade five word list, Jane made seven mistakes, correcting nearly all of the mistakes in the
analysis. She said scarelet for scarlet, finish, but self corrected immediately, center for
century, celebrated for celebration, simple for symbol, dosie for drowsy and she did not
know the word terrace. On the analysis she read scarlet, century, celebration, symbol and
drowsy correctly, leaving her on the independent level. On the grade six word list, Jane read
marrage for marriage, used a hard g sound for gently, then self corrected, gradiate for
graduate, harmony for harmonica, difficult for definite, and yakt for yacht. She did not
correct any of those words on the analysis, putting her at a score of fifteen on the

instructional/frustration level. I began to test her on the grade seven word list, but she reached
frustration level.
I started Jane second grade level graded passage, Bill at Camp, although I should have started her on the
grade four passage immediately. Janes background knowledge was high and she predicted what was
going to happen in the story. Jane made one miscue and the for that, which in context to the story,
the error made sense, sounded correct and the words look visually similar, putting her on the
independent level for this passage. Her self-correction rate was one to zero. Her fluency was rated all
fours on the rubric. In the comprehension questions, she answered all of the questions correctly and
answered with a good amount of detail for each question. She remained on the independent level for
comprehension.
In the third grade passage, The Hungry Bear, Jane simply predicted that the story was about the hungry
bear thats hungry, so I did not rate her prediction very high. Jane made four errors and one selfcorrection. She said cold for cool, which made sense, sounded grammatically correct and was
visually similar to the original word. She inserted the word that, which did make sense grammatically,
but was not in the original text. She said black for back, which just looks visually similar. In the last
sentence she made two errors, in which she read in the attic for the rabbit. In context to the story,
these errors do not make sense, but do sound correct in the phrase, but she self-corrected rabbit to
cabin. This puts Jane right in between the independent/instructional level. Her self-correction rate was
about one to two. Her fluency was rated all fours, despite her few errors. She changed her tone of voice
accordingly and adhered to punctuation and other grammar rules well. For the comprehension
questions, she answered all of the questions correctly, adding more detail for many of the questions
than was necessary. She remained on the independent level for comprehension.

In the fourth grade passage, Fire and Animals, her prediction level was not very high. Jane made three
errors and one self-correction. In the first sentence, Jane omitted the words a and one. She read
sprayed for spread. These words are visually similar, but do not sound grammatically correct. She
read hurred for hurried and then self-corrected. She repeated a three word phrase. After reading
this passage, she was right in the middle between independent/instructional. Her self-correction rate is
one to four. Jane still received all fours on the fluency rubric because although she made a few errors, it
did not affect her prosody. In comprehension, she answered two questions wrong. The first question
was a factual error, the second was inference. Her level was independent/instructional, with emphasis
on the instructional.
In the fifth grade passage, The Mystery, Janes prediction level was more towards the middle of the
scale. She knew what the word mystery meant and that perhaps the characters in the story were
going to solve the mystery. Jane made six errors and self-corrected once. She said huded twice for
hooded and wized for whizzed, but self-corrected. She pronounced the name Nita with a short
i and continued to mispronounce the name for the continuation of the story. She said Rosie for
Rose, which makes sense considering both are names of people. She read the for her, which
makes sense and sounds correct, but is not visually similar. She omitted the word had in the final
sentence. Her self-correction rate was seven to one. She was on the instructional/frustration level, with
emphasis on the instructional. Her fluency was still good, but I rated her all threes because the difficulty
of some of the words disrupted her fluency. There were occasional breaks in rhythm, although not
many. Her rate was not consistent throughout the passage. In the comprehension questions, Jane
missed one question, which was inference. She did not give as many details when answering the
questions. She still performed at a independent level.

In the last passage, grade six, Keep Your Distance, Jane did not have any background knowledge of the
story because she did not know what the word distance meant, although she could read the word. She
made five errors and one self-correction. She said concerned for considered, which made sense and
sounded correct because it was the beginning of the story, but the words may have looked visually
similar because she is only in second grade. She said he instead of there, but the error was made at
the beginning of the sentence. For the word colossal, she attempted to sound out the word, but I told
her the word after some struggle. She said inferial for inferior. She said behav for behavior, but
then self-corrected. She said tardness for toughness, attempted to sound out the word before I told
her. Her self-correction rate was one to six. She showed a lot of trouble reading through the passage
because the words were hard for her to understand because she didnt know what they meant.
Although she struggled through some parts, I gave her all threes on the fluency rubric. She read with
some choppiness and loss of rhythm, but still inflected her voice and adhered to punctuation well. In
comprehension she got three and a half questions incorrect. Two and a half of the incorrect questions
were factual errors, and the last one was the vocabulary question. This left Jane on the level of
instructional/frustration, with the emphasis on instructional.
IV. Interpretation of Data
Jane did very well on this assessment piece. She could have continued, but I stopped her because she
was having difficulty understanding the vocabulary, which directly affected her comprehension.
According to the Summary of Miscues chart, she showed particular difficulty with different middles,
different endings and words that were different in several parts.
Jane used all three MSV to monitor her reading throughout. The majority of her miscues made sense
and sounded grammatically correct. In the few the miscues that she self-corrected, she used visual cues
to help her correct her mistakes.

Jane self-monitored very well. Although her self-correction rate was not very high, she only made a few
errors in each passage, never entering the frustration level. She rarely hesitated when reading, only
when she came to a word that she did not understand.
Janes comprehension level was excellent, staying within the independent and instructional levels the
entire time up until the sixth grade level. Although some of the words she did not understand, she still
understood the passage as a whole. She continued to answer the majority of the questions correctly.
The patterns showed that the lack of understanding vocabulary, towards the end, did directly affect her
ability to understand the questions, but she only showed major difficulty with this on the sixth grade
reading passage. The main questions she showed difficulty with were the factual questions, the
inference questions and the vocabulary questions, as the passages got progressively harder. She only
missed twelve percent of the factual questions, forty percent of the inference questions and twenty
percent of the vocabulary questions. She did not miss any of the topic or evaluation questions.
Despite her difficulty with some of the larger words, she maintained great fluency through all the
passages. The only times she paused were to decode the larger words in the passage. Her fluency did
become weaker as she read through the higher level passages. But for a second grader, she did
exceedingly well. She constantly adhered to punctuation. When reading, she had great prosody. She
enunciated when appropriate, especially in the story regarding the forest that was on fire.
Her word recognition, comprehension and fluency as a whole were great and were all hand in hand. She
was strong in all of those areas. Her areas of need are the larger words and vocabulary, but we must
keep in mind that she is a second grader and is not in need of any immediate help. The words were just
far too advanced for her reading level.
V. Statement of Levels

All throughout the levels, Jane remained in the independent and instructional levels, or in between the
two. After she reached the seventh grade word list and immediately began to struggle with the words
that she did not even know what they meant, I stopped her and made the decision that she had tested
high enough. There was no need to continue any farther.
Independent level: third grade
Instructional level: fourth grade through sixth grade
Frustration level: seventh grade
In regards to a rationale, the interpretation and data support the levels of this assessment. As a whole,
Jane performed well for a beginning second grader. Her comprehension levels were very high, despite
her lack of vocabulary. Jane enjoys reading and the practice she does daily allowed her to excel greatly
in this assessment.