ECL210+Multimodal+Portfolio+Part+A

**Portfolio Assessment A: Engagement with an early year's literacy learner** 'Zack' was the early year's literacy learner that was used in this study. Zack has a history of reading, and says it's his favourite thing to do. He enjoys reading Dr. Sues books because of the strange and unique words that Dr. Sues uses in his stories. Zack finds Dr. Sues books very funny and entertaining, encouraging his love of reading. Zack also stated he liked reading about sports, however there was no evidence of this when a quick glance at the books in his bedroom was done. Zack comes from a supportive family especially when it comes to reading. This is evident when he revealed that his Mum and Sister both read to him almost every night and vice versa. Whenever his Dad was not busy with work after dinner Zack would usually sit and read the newspaper with this Dad's help and encouragement. Zack also said he reads to his teacher, however it always made him feel worried he might get a word wrong. Zack stated that his Mum was a very good reader as she was able to change her pitch and tone well enough to make Zack laugh. He liked his Mum reading to him over anyone else because that trait made her the funniest reader to him. Zack usually reads after dinner with his Mum and also in car trips to any place, short or a long distance away. When Zack was asked who reads in his family, he stated that both his parents and older brother did. This was quite strange as he had already revealed that his Sister read to him almost every night. His parents read the newspaper every morning and also novels at night. His Brother only ever reads one thing, video game magazines. In Zack's opinion people read so they can increase their knowledge and understanding about subjects and also for entertainment, mainly to laugh. When looking at the Reading Interest Survey (2)1(Hill, 2006-2008 pp 389) that Zack undertook some interesting assumptions can be made. Zack absolutely loves to read, however says he is just an average reader, something that was found out to be false. Zack didn't enjoy reading at school because he was scared that if he made a mistake his friends might laugh. This was the opposite to his feelings about reading at home. He thoroughly enjoys reading at home and tries to read all the hard books, because it makes his Mum happy when he was able to get them right. Zack likes it when people read to him because he gets to read books that he can't by himself. The way in which Zack chose books for him to read was by looking at the size of the text and also the pictures. If the text was adequate in size he would usually read the book, even if it had bad pictures in it. While Zack does enjoy reading it is clear that he wishes to only read within his comfort level unless he is around either his Mum or Dad. This was proven by the fact he feels uncomfortable reading at school and by choosing books based on the font size. The book Zack brought along to the interview was 'Oh, the Places You'll Go'2(Seuss, T 1990). It was obvious that Zack has had this book read to him many times and also read it himself. He was almost faultless with the entire book, and sometimes reading further on than we actually were. Zack mainly had trouble with the longer words in the book, and was almost obsessed with having to get the world right without any help. He changed his rate, tone, pitch to suit the flow of the story, however in the very end he slowed down when words started to get a bit tricky and closer together. The one word he had a problem with, which took multiple tries was 'lag'. Zack kept saying and thinking that the word was leg instead. When using the Reading Fluency Rubric1(Hill, pp 170) Zack was at level four for all areas, however it was only through the obvious practice he had with that book. When Zack was reading 'Harry MacLary from Donaldson's Dairy'3(Dodd, L 2008) the reading skill he showed with the previous book was similar. He still made little mistakes and took the book in great stride. However Zack struggled to pronounce Schnitzel von Krumm, pronouncing it Skitzel every time. Zack again slowed down when the ryhming words became closer together and found it difficult to read so it flowed, saying one word at a time without phrasing anything words in that section. While Zack showed great skill and fluency in his reading, his writing was nearly the opposite. Zack had a great love for reading and enjoyed it immensely, he almost had a hatred for writing. Zack was extremely confident with his reading, however showed no signs of confidence at all with his writing. His writing skills and grammar was below what one would have expected from a child that reads so much. After reading the books Zack was asked to write something about Hair MacLary. Zack wrote a two sentence phrase, using very basic English and struggling to write letters that he could pronounce easily in books. Zack also had trouble spelling simple words that he would see and read everyday in books. The only signs of punctuation that Zack showed was full stops, and he was aware that the first word in a sentence starts with a capital. When conducting the interview about writing Zack's demeanor almost turned 180º. Zack went from being a confident 6 year old who just wanted to read and talk, to a shy and almost timid 6 year old. Zack would only give one word answers generally when answering the questions about his writing, compared to not being able to stop talking about his reading. It was also a real challenge to get Zack to write anything at all. When using the 'Emergent and early writing assessment sheet'1(Hill, pp 290), Zack scored about average. While he was able to show simple sentences with his writing, his punctuation was lacking, not wanting to use any words that contained apostrophes or creating sentences that would require a comma.
 * Multimodal Portfolio**