Assessment using BSLA Oral Narrative

 I have chosen three students to assess.  Two females, one male.  They are all five years old.

On a practical note, I had a bit of trouble with Vosaic.  The first recording I made had no sound, so had to redo the assessment a day or two later.  Then, when I looked at the transript, it hadn't picked up the child at all.  It was 83% me, and the rest was silent!  I could hear what the child was saying, so had to manually add in what they had said.  This took quite a while, cos I had to move where I was picked up in order to get the child's responses in.   I'd made the three recordings by this time, and it was very time-consuming going through each one.

I went and sought the advise of the boss, and he suggested that next time I get a clip-on mic for the kids to wear,  I hope I don't forget to do it.

Onwards and upwards!

Student A:  Female

Conclusion ..... has a solid overall comprehension of the story's main ideas (character, setting,

fall, and Nana's care) but misses or mixes some sequence/details (the timing of the

sling vs. food, and occasional word choice). This indicates a developing understanding

with room to strengthen detail recall and precise vocabulary. Suggested label Area

of Strength Area of Improvement Research: Research on early reading

comprehension and oral retell shows children often recall main ideas before

finer sequence and detail (Paris, 2005; Cain & Oakhill, 2007). Repeated exposure and

guided retelling improve accuracy and detail recall (McKeown & Beck, 2004).

Student B: Female

Conclusion ..... accurately recounts the main sequence, and answers explicit comprehension questions. She gives appropriate responses showing literal comprehension: who the story was about, and why Tama stayed with Nana. She understood and verbally summarized key plot events and reponded correctly to direct comprehension questions. Her retelling occasionally uses compressed or partially nonstandard phrasing.

Things AI told me I was doing well over students A and B

• Frequent scaffolded questioning

• Clear lesson structure

• Immediate corrective feedback

• Use of prompts to support narrative skills

• Positive reinforcement and praise

Some suggestions for improvements were:

• Reduce teacher talk and increase student output by using more open-ended

prompts and wait time

• Invite the student to ask questions and predict outcomes or retell in their own

words

• Give students time to talk about things that happened in the story

• Encourage fuller sentences and more precise vocabulary when retelling

These are good suggestions, but as the oral narrative was read for me, and the

questions were pre-prepared, I had no control over inviting the students to ask

questions or predict outcomes, but this is something I will definitely be conscious

of in future times of reading.

Student C: Male

This child has very challenging speech, and consequently It was impossible to understand his responses to the questions. Vosaic could not transcribe his words, and I was wondering if there was another way to assess his oral languge. I remembered a resource a collegue created a few years ago, so will use this.

We'll see how things go....