An Observation Survey of Early Literacy

Achievement Dr. Kristen R. Pennycuff

What’s the purpose of OS?

• Identifying students with reading difficulties

• Informing teachers as they plan instruction

• Monitoring student progress

What’s the purpose of OS?

• “Carefully recorded observations can lead us to modify our instruction to meet the learning needs of particular children in the formative stages of new learning…” – (Clay, 2002, pg. 4)

What’s the purpose of OS?

• “To improve teaching, teachers need to observe children’s responses as they learn to read and write and watch for: – Competencies and confusions – Strengths and weaknesses – Evidence of processing and strategic activities – Evidence of what the child can already

control.” • (Clay, 2002, pg. 7)

What’s the purpose of OS?

• “In every way the information produced by systematic observation reduces our uncertainties and improves our instruction.” – (Clay, 2001, pg. 276)

Six Subtests • Running Records of Text Reading • Letter Identification • Concepts About Print • Word Reading • Writing Vocabulary • Hearing and Recording Sounds in

Words (Dictation)

Running Records • Student reads text of varying difficulty • Administrator records

– Correctly read words – Miscues – Repetitions – Self-corrections – Appeals for help – Words pronounced by the administrator

Letter Identification • Children identify all upper and lower

case letters – Including printer’s g and a

– Can state by name, sound, or keyword

– Credit given for any of three ways

– Optional sound only test

Concepts About Print • Evaluates child’s understanding of

– Locating the front of a book – Knowing that the print, rather than the pictures, carry

meaning – Directionality – One-to-one correspondence between spoken and written

word – Meaning of punctuation and capitalization terms

• First letter, capital letter, last word

• Four little books with 24 scripted questions each

Word Reading • Three versions

– Ready to Read (NZ)

– Duncan Word Test

– Ohio Word Test • Constructed from Dolch list

• Most commonly used in US

• Two to three parallel lists of words

• Student reads practice word then list

Writing Vocabulary • Students write all the words they

can for 10 minutes • “Prompt the child as much as you like

with words he might be able to write” – (Clay, 2002, pg. 104)

• Score one point for each correctly spelled word

Hearing and Recording Sounds in Words (Dictation) • Examiner reads a sentence then repeats

words one at a time, instructing the student to say the words slowly and to write them.

• “How would you start to write it? What can you hear? What else can you hear?” – (Clay, 2002, pg. 113)

• Student scores one point for each phoneme recorded in acceptable English.