Workshop Notes - Literacy

Workshop Notes - Literacy

Administering the Observation Survey (Marie Clay) 

Text: An Observation Survey of Early Literacy Achievement

COMPLETE IN ONE SITTING

WORK IN THIS ORDER OF TESTS

Generally, allow a 3 second wait time before moving on.

No teaching or prompting, e.g. even if a child says 1 or stick for l. This is an assessment. No commenting.

Think conservatively with all tests e.g. use the lowest stanine

Keep comments very brief.

Ways to improve my teaching

• Shared book:
• Talk about capital letters, lower case, question marks etc. Ask, “What is this?”
• Where is the start of the sentence? The end of the sentence? Where do I start reading? Where do I go now (at end of line etc)? Where is the first word, last word? etc
• Fast word Friday (and daily for LR, IS) – see page 112.
• Big Book: Say a word and ask, “What is the first sound?” “What is the last sound?”
• Prompts – self-monitor; monitor/check (e.g. re-read); search for information; find the information; use the information; self-correct by cross checking; self-correct by using M, then S, then V. See the prompts handout
• Model strategic activity e.g. make a mistake in big book, model noticing and then re-reading (two skills)
• Make a mistake in big book, search for information and find information – see see ‘Teaching for Strategic Activity’ handout.
• Do not prompt children to “sound it out” (able readers may be prompted to chunk – see ‘Teaching for Strategic Activity’ handout.
• Watch for passive learning e.g. JS – we need to develop strategic readers.
• Incorporate writing into reading sessions e.g. text response e.g. picture with sentence etc.

1.      Letter Identification

• A name, sound or a word beginning with the letter or sound are all acceptable.
• Record as A (alphabetic); S (sound); W (word) and I.R. (Incorrect Response).
• If a child gives multiple responses, only score the last response.
• See p.86 of the text for what to say during administration.
• Associate sounds are acceptable e.g. ‘city’ for s or ‘k’ for c.
• If a child gives two responses, mark each one with a small 1, 2 etc in the letter/sound column.
• Scoring: subtotal each column. Total out of 54.
• Age bands on stanines: 6.01 = 6 years and 1 day.
• Confusions write similar fraction what they said / the correct answer e.g. p/q or p/b
• Comment: what is the major thing the child can do e.g. The child can identify most letters by sound.

2.      Concepts About Print

• See page 44-45 & 47 of text. Again, no prompting or commenting (e.g. “good work!”)

3.      Word Reading Tests (do both tests)

Clay Word Reading Tests (p. 93 onwards in text)

• Use one list only. Use alternative tests for subsequent testing.
• Don’t use the test for teaching.
• Record attempts/incorrect responses to the right or tick if child is correct.
• Incorrect responses can be annotated as per a running record (SC, sound cue etc)
• Comment: what is the major thing the child can do e.g. The child can read most/some/a few words.

BURT (available from NZCER)

• Norms used: right hand side – circle ‘boys and girls’ (unless at a single sex school)
• Continue test until child gets ten words consecutively wrong.
• Less than 20 results – write ‘N.S.S’  or Not Statistically Significant.
• Don’t count sounding out unless the child then says it as a whole word, e.g. “t-o-l-d, told”. Record an incorrect response if ‘t-o-l-d’.

4.      Written Vocabulary Test

• Start with a blank page. Turn over the header of the test document. Don’t write columns etc.
• Use a room/area without environmental print (posters etc).
• Prompt the child every time they stop. It is not a memory test. Say words e.g. me, up, to, it, is, in etc or “Do you know any days of the week?” “ Do you know any names?” etc. DO NOT give rhyming words, e.g. cat, mat, sat etc
• Record the attempts on a separate piece of paper. At the end of the test, write the intended word underneath child’s attempt.  
• Reversed letters: count as correct except when a letter could represent a different letter e.g. Dab for Dad is incorrect.
• Count capitals / lower case and words missing apostrophes as correct.
• Words written left to right are correct if a child wrote them in that order (signal with an arrow above, showing where they started and which direction they wrote) – see page 108.
• Record how long the child wrote for.

5.      Hearing & Recording Sounds in Words

• See instruction script on p.118. Scoring sheet p. 120.
• Record what the child does on a post it note, add to test later.
• Write the actual sentence under what the child has written, word for word.
• Substitutions are correct if a substituted letter matches the sound e.g. bas for bas would score 3; cum would be correct for come (3 points); skool is accepted for school.
• If vowel makes a different sound, it is not counted e.g. vary scores 3 (v,r,e) while very scores 4 (v,e,r,y).
• See special notes re: scoring repeated words, p.122 of text.
• Comment: e.g. ‘Child is able to record dominant sounds/ initial sounds etc’ (see page 122).

Running Records

• Page 56 onwards of text.
• Three seconds then tell word so child moves on.
• In NZ, we teach using continuous whole texts   i.e. reading books, story writing.
• Must be a seen text i.e. it has been a guided text with a teacher.
• Again, no prompting or commending. Record now, and teach later.
• Conventions p.60-63 (or see handout sheet).
• Don’t score until you’ve completed the RR (child has finished reading).
• Names and proper names are only recorded as an error the first time (one error max per text).
• Only give the child the title before completing the running record.
• When a child makes an error then self-corrects, only count self-correction not the error, but analyse both.
• Hyphenated words are counted as one word only.
• Child pronunciation – count as correct e.g. hosptible for hospital; gunna for going is correct.
• Second self-correct after re-read is recorded as s1 (see Mushrooms for Dinnerexample).

Analysis

• M = child showed awareness of meaning of the text and sentence.
• S = child showed awareness of the structure of the sentence.
• V = child showed awareness of any visual part of the (initial letter, shape of the word, last sound).
• Don’t analyse omissions and insertions (because you don’t know why they made the error).
• Child references picture = has no impact on analysis. Don’t include it in analysis. Do note in comments though, e.g. ‘child searches in picture’.