Lessons Learned: Week 3 at the Learning Academy

On Wednesday, September 16, 2015, at approximately 8:05 AM, I administered the Primary Spelling Inventory to Johnny. This test is extracted from the book Words Their Way by Donald Bear. It is comprised of 26 words with increasing difficulty to test a student's ability to spell words from an auditory cue. Out of the 26 words, Johnny only spelled 17 correclty for a raw score. On the Feature Guide, I used the information from this assessment to figure out which spelling stage Johnny is in. His spellings indicated that he is in the Middle to Late Within Word Pattern Stage; the assessment places him in the Middle. He also achieved a 46 out of 56 feature points, which were calculated by how many features he correctly spelled within the words given. (Ex: the word "fan" has three feature points, f-a-n, while clapping only has one, -pping.)

In my personal thoughts, I believe that Johnny should be in the Late Within Word Pattern stage since he only missed two common long vowels, but got the other five with no trouble. Through my observation and the assessment, I think he has issues with long vowels that contain two letters like "oa" or "ai" because he missed these two sounds by writing "o" and "a-e" respectively. One mispelling that shocked me was the word "blade;" Johnny spelled it with a "d" istead of a "b." This is the first time I've seen him reverse a letter in both his drills and assessments for me. He also does not know inflicted endings unless he has seen the word before and knows how to spell it; I don't believe he can infer when to use them because he only got 2 out of 7 right in this category. (Please see the below images to see Johnny's full assessment.) I would want to begin Johnny's instruction with double letter long vowels to broaden his understanding of them. Besides his weak areas in vowels, I would also want to develop Johnny's handwriting. Ms. Jameson has her class write in cursive during OG, but Johnny wrote the assessment in print.

Observations during Spelling Inventory

- Johnny was very unenthusiastic about being in school or talking with me this morning. He was quiet and completed his assessment quickly.

- He hesitated on the word "wait," which he spelled wrong ("whate").

- Ms. Jameson tells me that Johnny stays up late because of family functions or video games and therefore does not complete his homework. She is in contact with his parents about this.

Observations of the class (Early Release Day)

- Ms. Jameson had me work on a project for her rather than interact with the students.

- Johnny did not need as much assistance or prompting for the procedure of participating in Orton-Gillingham. This method is used in the Learning Academy every morning.

- The class was in slight disarray this morning because the internet was down and they could not complete their morning activities on their iPads.

- Ms. Jameson displayed great classroom management and kept her students in order throughout the morning.

- In OG, the class worked with flashcards today instead of the SMARTboard, and lined laminated sheets instead of whiteboards.

- Ms. Jameson had the students work through individual sounds and one word auditory drills.

- Students stay at their seats all morning and only move to use the restroom, go to specials, or get snacks during snack time.

- Students had to be constantly reminded today to keep their eyes on Ms. Jameson and focus on the lesson; they were very restless.

- Ms. Jameson left the class 45 minutes before I did to attend to student testing, so a sub was there the rest of the time, which was during snack time.

I did not get to read aloud or interact with Johnny or the class much this week because of my task and the early release day. I stayed behind during specials to talk with Ms. Jameson about Johnny and her observations of him during his time in the Learning Academy so far. Her understanding of his need to be at the Learning Academy was limited to one sentence about his slow progress. Ms. Jameson talked to me and my partner extensively about the need to care for your students, but also maintaining a high level of expectations. She told us to create a safe environment for them, to always make sure they are doing well, and find out why if they aren't.

#ortongillinham #PSI #spelling #week3