Hannah ClemmonsChild Learning ProfileDecember, 2010

Introduction

Mary is an energetic seven-year-old girl from the north side of Chicago. She is

perceptive, eager and motivated to learn. She lives with her mother in an apartment in

Edgewater. She also has a male nanny who sometimes watches her and helps her with her

homework. She is Caucasian with blonde hair and blue eyes and her home language is English.

Mary is not on free or reduced lunch, but many of her clothes are worn and are often

mismatched. She, however, is very interested in shoes and says that her mother and her have the

largest collection of shoes in the world. Her mother works downtown at a design company. Mary

is very affectionate of her mother and speaks highly of her. The teacher in the classroom is often

in contact with Mary’s mother about her behavior.

The classroom Mary has been placed in is an accelerated second grade class. The teacher

is a strict woman who keeps a strong hold on the class. Most of the children were in class

together last year in the accelerated first grade classroom. The teacher is quick to verbally scold

the children in the classroom, and they have learned to follow her directions unquestioningly.

Mary often mimics the tone the teacher takes with the rest of the class, harshly warning other

students when they are even slightly out of line. She is constantly vigilant of the teacher and her

classmates.

Assessment of Development

Social-emotional Development

Developmentally, Mary is behind the rest of her classmates when it comes to social

interactions. Often, her vigilance in the classroom puts her at odds with her classmates. When

someone or something is out of line, Mary is the first to point it out. She is frequently too caught

up in the actions of others to realize that she herself is out of line. Mary does not appear to

recognize when it is and is not appropriate to correct or assist classmates, and this puts her at

odds with both the teacher and her classmates. Occasionally, if classmates are close enough,

Mary will snatch things from them, push things on them or physically force them back in line.

Mary does not handle conflict with others well. When there are conflicts, Mary’s tone is

often harsh and defensive. This is only complicated by the fact that the teacher does not allow

Mary and others enough time to fully explain themselves. The teacher’s harsh tone is at times

mimicked by the children in their interactions with each other. If conflict becomes too

overwhelming, Mary will become frustrated and react violently, sometimes storming out of the

room or into the corner, shouting or bursting into tears. She does not accept others comments, but

rejects them and mutters to herself about the things that have transpired.

Emotionally, Mary becomes overwhelmed extremely easily. Even when there is not

conflict with other students in the classroom, Mary will become upset over slight

miscommunications. When she is upset, she does not express herself very clearly, and is likely to

get frustrated and give up. She does not seem to regulate her emotions very well, and lets her

emotions get the best of her. Her uncontrolled emotions, especially frustration and anger, often

get in the way of her work in the classroom and her relationship with others.

Physical Development

In classroom activities, gym times and recess, Mary displays signs of normal physical

development. She is thin with long limbs and runs efficiently and without abnormalities. In the

classroom, she maneuvers her body effectively. She often skips and hops, albeit sometimes at

inappropriate times. She enjoys both gross and fine motor tasks as well as any form of

kinesthetic learning that happens in the classroom. Mary manipulates small objects fairly well,

and her fine motor skills seem to be developing as they should. Mary’s handwriting is

inconsistent and a bit of a concern, but I would postulate that this derives more from haste while

writing than a lack of fine motor skills. On a few occasions, Mary has complained of auditory

over-stimulation, but this seems to be more of a social-emotional overstimulation from loud

conversation rather than a hypersensitivity.

Language Development

Mary speaks English at home, and is rarely lost in class for lack of understanding

language. She had very acceptable score on the ISEL-2 in vocabulary, and a perfect score in

word recognition. If there is a word that she does not understand, which is not common, Mary

will ask for the meaning. Mary articulates herself well, even when the emotions with which she

does so are rejected by her peers and superiors. She enjoys both reading and school work,

pouring through both quickly and readily.

Socially, Mary has a keen sense of tone and prosody. She uses many different inflections

during the day, the most predominant of which is sarcasm. Mary is also cognizant of these tones,

occasionally clarifying that she is being sarcastic to classmates when they do not understand.

Sometimes, however, these tones can get her into trouble with both her classmates and the

teacher when they are overused or used at inappropriate times.

Assessment of Content Knowledge and Skills

Reading

Without a doubt, Mary is a good reader. She enjoys reading, is a quick reader, and

understands the things that she reads. Mary pours through texts and relates them to her life. She

enjoys reading, and successfully uses it as a tool to reach new information. Mary has a good

grasp on phonics, as was evident in giving her the ISEL, and uses these skills to inform her

reading and writing. Mary reads aloud fluently and comprehends what she reads.

At times, however, Mary can lack focus in her reading. While she reads effectively and

comprehends what she reads, she reiterates overarching ideas and summaries without much

mention of details. During class, Mary will sometimes read whatever is in front of her, not

paying attention to what it is or what it’s purpose is. I think Mary could benefit from a bit more

focus and attention to detail in her reading.

Writing

Mary’s writing has strong content, and reflects a high level of exposure to literature. Her

narrative writings contain many conventions of storytelling and are exciting and fast paced (see

Halloween Story). Her expository writings are concise and to the point. The writing styles she

chooses are appropriate to the topics and prompts that she writes about.

What Mary’s writing often lacks are punctuation and capitalization. Her writings are

articulate and descriptive, but typical conventions are often forgotten. Mary does understand

these conventions, and will show them correctly on grammar worksheets and tests, but she fails

to apply this information to the writing she does during Writer’s Workshop. I think Mary would

benefit from meaningful editing, as well as more specific instruction or facilitation about how

conventions of print make writing easier to interpret.

Math

Mary excels in mathematics, finishing worksheets faster and more accurately than many

of her classmates. She seldom uses manipulatives, and usually chooses to do simple addition and

subtraction problems mentally, sometimes counting quietly to herself. She is able to successfully

understand word problems and find the math technique the problem calls for. She can identify

most major shapes, understands how to create and use graphs and charts and can describe

different place values and what they represent.

One thing Mary has difficulty with in math is her attention to detail and discipline.

Worksheets are often messy with sloppy handwriting. Mary does not take the time to check or

correct work, but turns it in as quickly as she can, rushing through many problems. While this

works temporarily with simple problems, these habits may catch up with her later when

problems become more complex. Mary would benefit from learning specific strategies to use

while doing mathematics to help her articulate the math she is doing and make it more clear to

others, as well at to help her write her calculations more neatly and check them.

Science

Although they do not have Science very often, Mary is actively engaged in science when

it is presented to the class. Mary hypothesizes, experiments and researches science topics with

excitement. She is beginning to develop an understanding of living things and of fossils, the two

topics that have been covered in science so far this year. Mary understands age-appropriate

scientific language, and uses this vocabulary to think about and discuss science concepts.

Mary would benefit from exposure to more hands-on science activities. The two I have

seen her participate in in the classroom have been very exciting for her, almost too exciting. On

one occasion, she became overly excited and caused problems for some of her classmates. It

would be beneficial to provide Mary with extra support during highly engaging activities to help

her regulate her excitement and the actions her excitement provokes.

Social Studies

As with Science, Social Studies is not explored much in Mary’s classroom. When there is

time for Social Studies, students study Vietnam and the community in which they live. As is seen

in her Social Studies report, Mary is beginning to construct an understanding of Vietnam as a

country and how the Vietnamese culture compares and relates to her own culture and life. I

believe that when given the opportunity, Mary will be able to apply these skills to other cultures

and information.

As with Science, I believe that what will drive Mary’s growth in this area will be

exposure to more Social Studies curricula. In addition, more authentic experiences with the

information will help solidify Mary’s growing understanding of the social sciences. With more

exposure, Mary will be able to extend her constructions to encompass more information and

more points of view.

Samples of Student Work

ISEL-2

On the ISEL-2, Mary performed above the 50th percentile on the spelling portion, with

all but one of her mistakes involving missing a double consonant or vowel. As mentioned

previously, she did not miss a single word in the word recognition portion of the test. Mary

performed exceptionally well on the fluency snapshot, reading accurately at over twice the WPM

rate of the average. She also performed well above the average on the extended response,

successfully synthesizing the story in the first two sentences of her response. Again, during the

second timed accuracy test, Mary excelled, reading with 97% accuracy at a very quick pace,

scoring above average on the comprehension questions for the passage. Lastly, Mary scored at

the 50th percentile on the vocabulary snapshot.

I chose to include this screening in the learning profile because it shows that Mary

surpasses reading expectations for her grade level in many ways. In administering the screening,

I was also able to see that Mary is excited to read and to learn things she is not familiar with, like

new vocabulary words. She is also motivated to do well and perform better than her peers.

Fossils Research Guide

This is a worksheet the students filled out to help themselves research fossils prior to a

field trip to the Chicago Children’s Museum to learn about paleontology. I chose this sample for

science work because I think it shows a clear progression of posed questions that stay on topic

and are relevant to the things the class had been studying. The answers in the boxes are clear and

concise, without too much irrelevant information. The entire paper is on topic and completed

with clear ideas. Sentences are used appropriately, as are note forms in the small boxes for the

answers of the questions. This form demonstrates effective focus and appropriateness.

This is a photograph of Mary examining fossils of dinosaur bones while on the class field

trip to the Chicago Children’s Museum.

Halloween Story Writing Sample

These selections are a draft and then a final piece of a Halloween Story the class wrote

during Writer’s Workshop. The first draft, written on notebook paper, was corrected by the

teacher and then returned to the student to rewrite in a published form to post on the bulletin

board outside of the classroom. I chose to include both pieces because they each show unique

characteristics. The draft shows Mary’s inattention to writing conventions such as punctuation

and capitalization, as well as her difficulty with spelling (which was not reflected on the ISEL).

The final draft of the story does demonstrate that Mary takes the corrections into consideration,

but also shows her elaborating on her story, and continuing to make the same types of mistakes

in the unedited parts of the story. The well defined writing space and lines also emphasize Mary’s

haphazard handwriting and how it detracts from her story.

Vietnam Report

This is a report written about Vietnam as a Social Studies project. The prompt given for

this assignment was very vague, and reports ranged from half a page to six pages, were both

handwritten and typed and many included pictures or drawings. I chose this sample because it

shows a good synthesis of information about Vietnam. I think this is particularly successful

coming from such a vague prompt. One thing I find curious about this report is the way in which

only the top quarter of each page is used. It shows, as the writing sample does, some of the

handwriting skills Mary has yet to acquire.

Summary

Mary is an avid learner. She enjoys helping others and being active in the classroom. She

is interested in the things that others are doing. She is excited to encounter new information and

to continue succeeding in school. Mary is proud of herself and of her family. She enjoys active

learning, but is also successful working alone on worksheets. Mary is emotional and passionate.

She works quickly and pushes herself to do well in all subjects.

In the classroom, Mary is the first to offer help to others. She is constantly cognizant of

the things going on around her. She assists both the teachers and her peers. Sometimes, she

attempts to help even in situations where her help is not solicited or even wanted. She takes on

more responsibility than she is asked to, and is often able to rise up to the challenge.

Mary is in an accelerated classroom for a reason. She enthusiastically engages in

academic material. She is eager to learn new concepts. She is excited about school and enjoys it.

Mary is above grade average in most content areas, and was in the green on all of her pre-

assessments for the year. Mary reads particularly well, and does so often. Her ability to read

above grade level helps her in all academic aspects of the school day.

Mary works well when she is working alone. She is self-motivated, she works diligently

and pushes herself to finish her work. She works quickly and independently, sometimes working

while the teacher is still explaining the activity to the rest of the class. She is also very

competitive when it comes to school work, and enjoys being done quickly. When she is working

alone, Mary has less of a tendency to be distracted or held back by others. She is able to work in

the way that she wants at a pace she has chosen, and she enjoys this.

Mary also likes to help others around the classroom. Mary is the first to volunteer for an

extra job or to walk with a classroom to the office. Sometimes, these extra activities will take her

out of the classroom or out of participation for significant amounts of time, but Mary is usually

able to recover any instruction that she missed. Having jobs around the classroom helps Mary

have something to concentrate on and helps her feel like she has responsibility in the classroom.

Mary’s biggest weakness is her lack of self-regulation. Her hyper-vigilance about her

classmates often gets her into trouble, even if it is rooted in the best intentions. She misses out on

a fair amount of instruction when she is concerned about something going wrong with someone

else. This preoccupation not only disadvantages Mary, but distracts her classmates as well. Many

times it makes her classmates and the teacher upset or angry with Mary.

Often times, Mary is more worried about what is going on with others in the classroom

than she is about what is going on with herself. At times, I have observed her chastising another

student for not doing something she has not yet done herself. When this happens, Mary can miss

whole chunks of material because she is worried about taking care of a problem someone else is

having that probably wasn’t consequential in the first place. If she were able to regulate herself

more efficiently, she would have more of an opportunity to be productive in the classroom.

When Mary gets frustrated with a situation, it often distracts her for a long while after the

incident is over. Sometimes, her frustration will last for the rest of the day. This frustration

occasionally even catalyzes other negative interactions. Things are often complicated by the

reactions of classmates and the teacher to Mary’s behavior. If conflict in the classroom is not

resolved, it can loom over everyone for the rest of the day.

These social difficulties hinder Mary’s interactions with her classmates, and affect the

way that she learns while working in peer groups. Without a great amount of teacher facilitation,

Mary is often unsuccessful when working in collaborative groups, and since group work occurs

seldom in the classroom she is in, she does not have a supportive environment in which to

practice these types of social interactions.

Because Mary excels academically, she often falls under the radar. However, there are

certain social and emotional aspects in which she performs well below grade level. Many of the

problems Mary has in school stem from conflicts with the teacher and with her peers. I believe

Mary would benefit from specific scaffolding to improve these interactions and relationships.

Improving these relationships could potentially benefit Mary in many different ways throughout

the day.

It may be beneficial to develop a way to help Mary assess when she should and should

not offer assistance to others. Helping Mary to stop and think before interfering with others’

interactions in the classroom may aid Mary in differentiating between pertinent problems and

those it would not be beneficial to worry about. I believe that Mary would enjoy having the

special task of identifying these moments and then discussing them with the teacher or another

mentor and that it would help her develop self-regulation.

Mary could also benefit from instruction that will focus on fostering more discipline and

order in her academic work. Starting with her handwriting, it would help Mary to have

explanations as to why being more neat and organized with information will help her better

communicate her ideas. These new strategies would help Mary to work more carefully and

consciously, creating more thoughtful work.

Mary is a hard worker and makes a conscious effort to improve her performance in many

areas. I believe that when proper scaffolding and explanation are provided, she will be able to

make great improvements in the areas which she is currently lagging. Creating specific goals will

help both Mary and her teacher to focus on the roots of problems rather than dealing with their

consequences on a day to day basis. Quantifying and qualifying Mary’s difficulties is the first

step toward helping Mary overcome these difficulties in the classroom and in her life.