1. Vocabulary:Speaking Sample:Vanessa’s as an adequate amount of vocabulary for a child of her age, as well as, being ESOL student. Often times during the interview though she would rather shake her head up or down instead of answering yes or no. There were also times during the interview when she would not know how to answer a question and would just divert her attention to another topic. Due to a somewhat limited vocabulary Vanessa does have a tendency to rely on body language, such as using her hands to signal what she is talking about.
Reading Sample: Vanessa has a fair vocabulary for a Kindergarten age student. In the interview it seems as though she has read the book before so knows the basic premise, although she still has trouble with a few words. In the first sentence she skips of the word “red” and simply says “I see a bird looking at me.” When asked to read the word, she reads it correctly showing that it is in fact a word in her vocabulary. The word “duck” does not seem to be in her vocabulary because she is forced to look at the next page in order to figure out the word. She also stumbles over the word “looking”. She is able to sound out the word “frog”.
Writing Sample: Her writing does not seem limited by her vocabulary.
2. Type/Length of sentences:Speaking Sample: At times during the interview Vanessa would answer simply by shaking her head yes or no. She is however able to speak in complete sentences. At times though, she would have a tendency to speak off topic which makes some portions difficult to understand.
Reading Sample: Her sentences are somewhat short and not very detailed but she does not seem to be afraid of talking. In the book Brown Bear, Brown Bear when they came across a black sheep with green eyes, Vanessa laughed and said, “I don’t like that!” If she is asked a yes or no answer she will nod her head rather than respond with a yes or no.
Writing Sample: Two of the three writing samples contained simple four word statements. The third writing sample showed four words with matching illustrations above the words.
Stages of negation/questions/past tense: Most the interview is easy to understand and comprehend what the child is speaking about. Some of the errors that do occur though are commonly found in other children Vanessa’s age. Example of a mistake would be when Vanessa states, “I not her sister for real” and when referring to macaroni and cheese she states, “I like it when hot.”
3. Pronunciation:
Reading Sample: Her pronunciation is excellent for her grade level. It may be influenced by the fact that she has already read the predictable book, but she does not have a very thick Spanish accent that would contribute to an even more skewed pronunciation of words. Words that she was unfamiliar with such as frog she sounded out and pronounced correctly. In the first sentence she had trouble pronouncing the word looking but it may be attributed to nerves.
4. Cultural/pragmatic appropriateness:
Vanessa has really no problem in speaking the in traditional “English Language” way. She maintains eye contact and throughout the interview remains in a upbeat mood. She does a reveal a misunderstanding the English saying, “Love you like a sister,” which her friend told her. She was confused by this considering that her friend is not her actual sister.
5. Prescriptive aspects of English:
Reading Sample: Vanessa has previously read Brown Bear, Brown Bear before, so she was both familiar with the story and excited to read it. The story did not intimidate her and she had enough vocabulary and background knowledge to read the story aloud with minimal help.
Writing Sample: Writing is legible and follows the conventions of print by going from left to right and using appropriate punctuation. She started both sentences with a capital letter and ended both sentences appropriately with a period. She misspelled beach as “BecH” and incorrectly capitalized the B and H. She wrote the letter h backwards in the words ghost and the. She misspelled the as “thd” and she self-corrected her misspelling of the word goat.
6. Morphemes:She had a few subject-verb agreement problems in the interview. She used the present progressive form of the word get when she said, “when getting home,” instead of when we get home. She used the present tense of the verb give when she said, “other people give me candy,” instead of using the past tense-gave.
7. Phonology:
She uses her phonetic knowledge when writing. She hears the long e sound in beach and spells it as “bech”. She hears the long o sound in goat and spells it as “got”. Although the spellings are incorrect, they show that she is using her knowledge of sound-symbol correspondence to sound out the words as she spells them.
8. BICS/CALP:During the interview Vanessa was very comfortable speaking about school and things that happen while she is there. She struggles however though when it came to answering questions about her personal likes and interests. During these types of questions she had to be guided to find an answer. Also when speaking at a more “conversational” level she has a tendency to go off topic.
9. Reading/oral comprehension:Since the child used in this study is of kindergarten age the book used was a predictable pattern book. Vanessa does show understanding of each animal named next is what is “looking” at the other. In the story Good Night Moon, Vanessa understands that the basis of the story is a bunny saying goodnight to everything. She demonstrates this understanding she when states that she doesn’t go around her house saying goodnight to everything because that would take a long time.
