Kate Goudzward

Literacy Profile Report

Introduction
First of all, I want to say thank you for allowing me to use your child, by giving
consent, to help me conduct a literacy profile project. I could not have done it without
their help and I am very appreciative. Below is a description of what we did over the
course of the second half of this semester.
My name is Kate Goudzward and I am a teacher learner at UTC. I am pursuing
my degree in middle grades education with an emphasis in English and Social Sciences.
For a class I am in currently, we were assigned to perform a literacy profile project on a
student of our choice. The purpose of this assignment was to allow me to test drive a
few formative (not for a grade) procedures with a young reader. The four different tests
that were conducted were Interest Inventory/Literacy Diagnostic, IRI Process, Reading
Performance Assessment, and reading comprehension think-aloud.
Interest Inventory Findings
The first formative procedure I conducted with Christian (6th grader) was the
interest inventory diagnostic test. I gave him a printed piece of paper with several
questions on it. I explained to him that I appreciated him helping me and that we would
review his answers together after he was finished. I asked various questions such as,
How many hours do you read a week at home? Another question I asked was, How
much do you enjoy reading on a scale from 1-10, 1 being the least and 10 being the
most? I also asked him, What is the first book you remember reading on your own as a
child? The last question I asked him was, What is your favorite genre of books to

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read? The answers that he gave me varied across the board. He ranked his enjoyment of
reading at an 8 on the scale, but only read for less than an hour a week at home. This
caused me to question his true enjoyment of reading and made me wonder why he does
not read more at home for enjoyment if he enjoys reading that much. After we talked a
while through his answers, I gathered that in order for him to read and enjoy the text he
is reading, it has to capture his attention and be printed for him because he preferred
written text over digitalized.

Informal Reading Inventory (IRI) Process Findings

While gathering materials for the IRI process, I chose three different leveling
texts. I went to readworks.org and selected on text that was an informational text for 5th
grade. I chose a 6th grade level text that was fiction, and then I chose a higher level 7th
grade level text that was nonfiction. After each of the readings are questions to be
answered. Some of the questions are questions that can be answered by looking and
searching back through the texts, and then some questions are inferential questions.
When I performed this formative procedure with Christian I gave him the option
to read the text aloud to me or read silently. He chose to read silently. I observed him
while going through the process. I noticed that he did not read with a pencil or did not
make any physical marks on the paper. He did not have any trouble with the 5th grade
informational text. He was able to do it relatively quickly and answer the questions that
came directly from the reading well. The inferential questions took him just a bit longer
but he was able to perform and answer the questions fully. While reading the 7th grade
fiction text that I handed him, I noticed that he read with his finger moving across the

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pages. I watched his finger to see if he would reread with his finger but did not see him
doing any rereading. He did well answering the questions, however his inferential
answers were more vague, but I do not think he had reached frustration level in the least.
We moved on to the 7th grade nonfiction text, and things changed quickly. He continued to
read with his index finger and had to reread one section of the text. I asked him why he
did that after he was finished and he said, Because I didnt understand what the words
are. Right then, I knew that he was having trouble with the text. He started looking at
the questions and looking back through the text but was not writing anything. I gave him
a few more minutes and when he was not really writing anything I told him that was
enough information for me. The 5th grade text was on an independent reading level, the
6th grade text was instructional, and the 7th grade level was hitting his frustration level.
Reading Performance Assessment Findings
When trying to decide on an appropriate text for this portion of the formative
assessment, I started thinking back to when I was in 6th grade and tried to recall what all
books I read and what activities we did with the stories in class. I recalled reading The
Giver which is a text appropriate for an ELA classroom. I selected a passage from the
middle of this book and entered it into a word document and ran a Lexile report on the
section. After seeing that it was appropriate I then chose a passage (with the help of a
teacher pay teachers lesson plan) and gathered questions from the passage. While we
were reading, I prompted Christian to make marks and notes as we read with his pencil.
For the before reading question, I asked a question about the cover of the book.
What could they predict the story might be about based on the cover of the novel? For
the during reading I asked a comprehensive question that came directly from the

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passage that we had just read together. For the after reading question, I asked a
question that covered the overall theme of the book. I asked what how they saw examples
of conformity and nonconformity in their daily lives. Christian did a good job making
predictions about the front of the cover. I was not looking for one specific answer, I was
just wanting him to start preparing and pondering about what we were about to do. My
hopes were that the question would spark his interest and want to read a section of the
story to see if we could answer our question by the text chosen. The in text question was
no problem for him. He was able to answer it confidentially and precise. The final
question that forced him to think about the overall theme of the book stumped him a little
bit. After I probed him and led him in the right direction he understood what I was
asking. I think this happened due to him not reading the full text. I do not think he would
have had trouble if he had read the entire novel, or maybe it was not an appropriate
question on my part.
Reading Comprehension Think-Aloud Findings
As I prepared the reading comprehension think aloud a poem instantly came to
mind. I demonstrated for Christian a poem that I had previously annotated. I showed him
in the poem where I had made a connection, asked a question, and responded based on
emotions in the poem. I did not perform a Lexile report on the poem because I knew that
it would be appropriate and I believe certain poems can be used at all ages and be
comprehended in different (but good) ways. I related this back to his Interest Inventory
because Christian stated that he enjoyed all different genres of texts. I thought this would
be a good variation.

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As I modeled what I had done in the text, I could see him watching me intently. I
do not believe that this concept has ever been taught to him (as it wasnt to me in 6th
grade). He seemed slightly confused as to what I was doing so I paused and told him
what the purpose of reading with a pencil was. I told him that it helps the reader to
comprehend and stay in tune with the reading and doesnt allow the reader to fall
asleep while reading.
When I let him try, I stuck with the same poem I had just done so he could redo
and practice what I had just done. I did this because I did not think he was ready to fly
solo on a brand new text just yet. He did a good job thinking of an emotion to the snow
and it did not take him long to write burr beside the word snow. The connection he made
to the bird that could not fly was him after he twisted his ankle playing basketball, which
was very similar to the model I gave him. He could not come up with a question from the
poem. This relates back to his overall struggle of not being able to infer and go deeper
into the texts at hand. He does great with comprehensive questions, but inferential
questions really get him hung up.
Recommendations
If I was Christians ELA teacher currently, I would work with him (and the entire
class) on inferential questions and how to appropriately answer them. I think that he was
so worried about getting the correct answer that it was hard for him to infer and make
personal connections to the text. I think that this would not be uncommon among the
other 6th grade honor students in his classroom. As a future teacher, I want to ensure
students that there is room for creativity and personalization in their answers! Hall
states, "Reading identities often made available to students are limited to:

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poor/struggling, average, and good/excellent." (Hall, 2012) I want to assist in making
other and better presumptions of student readers.
Reflection and Conclusion
This experience of participating in this literacy profile project was very eye
opening. This was very good experience to have this test drive before I enter the real
world and do not know how or where to even start when trying to assess a students
reading levels. Before this assignment I was unaware of how to accurately level a text
and what was appropriate for a student and what was not. If I were to do anything
different, I think that I would have made the Reading Performance Assessment with a
different text. I still got some data from my test, but I think it may have been more
beneficial and easier to assess Christian if I would have used an informational text
instead of a novel. For the future and my potential ELA class, I will not begin a day into
the semester or school year without giving them an interest inventory. From this semester,
I have gathered that this is so crucial in an ELA classroom. It gives the teacher learner a
baseline to base the student from. It allows one to know why they like to read, or perhaps
the opposite. It gives the teacher insight on what materials and resources they have at
home for future assignments for the class. It is so crucial! The interest inventory is the
biggest takeaway, personally, from this assignment.

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REFERENCES
ReadWorks.org | Reading Passages. (n.d.). Retrieved November 22,
2016, from http://www.readworks.org/books/passages
ReadWorks.org | Reading Passages. (n.d.). Retrieved November 22,
2016, from http://www.readworks.org/books/passages