Marcus, who will be assessed has a pet cat whom he loves and talks about. He also enjoys sports and outdoor recreational activities, often engaging in these after school with his family. In class, Marcus enjoys fictional stories, often recounting spontaneously what the story is about, retelling its content to his peers and other adults. He takes initiative and reads familiar texts to his peers and adults with expression and fluency. In this assessment, I intend to explore his understanding of prior knowledge and elements in a story by using parts of a simple sentence to identify the plot, characters, beginning and end as well as any problem or resolution. Prior to starting the reading session, we will explore open-ended questions such as “How can your experiences connect with this story?” and “How may camping look different across different places?” We will take turns to read, one page at a time after discussing the front cover, illustrations, pausing to observe visual representations in the pages to help him answer the open-ended questions below: 

”What do you already know about camping and what questions will you have?” 

Marcus enjoyed the text because “this cat is so special and can go camping with his friends. My cat went camping with me but not with his friends” and “the pictures are really cute”. The level of challenge in reading this text was appropriate as he was able to read most of the sentences and unfamiliar words with some assistance. Marcus enjoyed reading the text independently thereafter. He was engaged and found some words challenging to him in the written form, applying blending and segmentation to decode and read these, seeking help from me when he could not read it fluently.

Summarising- When asked to recall the story, he was excited to retell the main events in in the correct sequence. He formed structured sentences using sequencing vocabulary such as “first”, “then and “last”. He knew where to find the beginning and end of the story by flipping to the pages near the front and end pages. Thus, he applied his understanding of print concepts to complete this task accurately, sequencing ideas presented (ACARA, 2019). The assessment tool, a story map, prompts students to summarise narratives using a structure that enables them to identify critical elements of a book (Krauss et al., 2010), such as the setting and characters. It helps them to identify and connect the beginning, conflict and resolution in a narrative text type. Marcus enjoyed completing the interactive map which allowed him to listen to the virtual cat’s instructions in simple steps. It assisted him with prompts such as “What happens at the start?”, “Is there a problem that makes the story interesting?” and “How does the story end?”. Marcus used drawings occasionally to replace words, while supporting them through the use of oral language (Sibhekinkosi, 2018). At present, Marcus is able to identify and present key information in the text, retelling its structure in the predictable manner of simple narratives (Connor, 2004). He uses summarising as a comprehension strategy to build “literal meaning about events, ideas and information in texts by drawing on growing knowledge of context, text structures and language features” (ACARA, 2019).  

Both in and out of school, Marcus enjoys reading non-fiction magazines, take home readers, short narratives and environmental print. He often engages in discussions and responds to narratives with peers, sharing his experiences with family and classmates. He reads a range of narratives as well as non-fiction text, recognising that “fiction books can really help you”. He often reads “at home with mum and dad, sometimes I read my favourite stories to my little brother” and “draws stories”. This further relates to Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory in which drawings are a tool in the abstraction of language and children are unique co-constructors of meaning (Vygotsky, 1978). Importantly, it builds on the pre-alphabetic stage of reading through meaningful interactions with environmental print involving man-made and natural features for real-world literacy tools (Ehri, 2005).  Such practices can be part of formative assessments (Hill, 2006) which are evolving and can be shared with peers to reflect on growing literacy skills rather than in a summative manner which is based on a dominant perspective of the assessor. 

Children can have strengths, as Marcus has shown, that may propel acquisition of further literacy skills in other aspects (Hill, 2006). It is critical to use child-centered practices and their ‘funds of knowledge’ to establish individualised literacy goals (Smith, 2010). As such, educators consider child-initiated literacy practices and include their voices in learning activities (DEEWR, 2009).  

The specific long term literacy goal for Marcus is increasing his ability to engage with text as a participant and user while expanding his decoding skills. Learning objectives are to understand and apply a range of text-processing strategies to decode, using punctuation, questioning and phonetical knowledge which will enable him to develop semantic, grammatical and phonetical knowledge for other text processing strategies as a participant (ACARA, 2019) so he can monitor how meaning-making when reading into literal presentations of pictures or context is insufficient (Krauss et al., 2010).