CARL'S STORY AS A STUDENT Carl is nine years old, and his birthday is in May. He came to Beach School in third grade. He previously attended a private school (Aurora) in Oakland. Carl has always lived in Oakland, and the family recently purchased a house in Piedmont, and moved Carl into the Piedmont school system. Carl skipped first grade at Aurora because of his high academic abilities in kindergarten (in his words, "I guess I was kinda smart"). Carl's parents were born here in the United States, and are of Chinese descent. He lives with both parents and his younger sister. At the end of last year, Carl took the STAR tests. In the English/language arts component, he scored a 345, placing him at the high basic level. His lowest areas were in reading comprehension, and literary response and analysis; his highest area was in writing strategies. In the math component, he scored a 396, placing him at the high proficient level. His lowest area here was in measurement and geometry; his highest areas were in place value, fractions, and decimals, algebra and functions, and statistics, data analysis, and probability. His national percentile rankings were: reading 29%, language 60%, spelling 42%, and math 57%. The average is 50%. Carl's third grade spring semester report card shows that, for reading, writing, written language conventions, and listening and speaking, he was "meeting the standards", with the exception of "reading and comprehending grade level material", where he was "approaching the standard". (Although his report card reflects average to high language abilities, he was referred to me by his current teacher as one lacking in academic English proficiency). For all other subject areas, he was "meeting the standard", with higher marks on "works independently" and "follows directions". Since he entered Beach School, Carl has been seeing a Speech and Language specialist, and a Reading Resource specialist.

CARL'S STORY AS A LANGUAGE LEARNER Carl's native language is English. He told me his parents do not speak "Chinese", as Carl refers to it (he did not know if his parents' families spoke Cantonese or Mandarin). His father understands "Chinese", but can not speak it. The only language he hears spoken at home is English. He does have a grandmother who lives in Chinatown in Oakland, so he occasionally hears people speaking "Chinese" when he visits her. This was all the information Carl could give me on the language background of his family. Carl's academic English seems to be average, but not proficient when compared to the rest of the students in his class and the standards of the school and district. As mentioned earlier, he has been seeing a Speech and Language specialist for two years at Beach, as well as a reading resource specialist. According to his third grade report card, he entered the third grade approaching the standards for language arts, and left third grade meeting the standards, with the exception of reading comprehension.

CARL'S PROFICIENCY IN ORAL (LISTENING AND SPEAKING) ACADEMIC ENGLISH I assessed Carl's oral proficiency by reviewing a conversation we had about his family and schooling background, a book he is currently reading, and something he learned from a science experiment done in class. My results are: ~ speaks with what sounds like an accent; r's and l's sound like w's; does not articulate his words very clearly, and has slightly poor enunciation; does pay attention to word endings. ~ vocabulary seems average, but not that varied; uses a fair amount of filler words; uses words appropriate to what he is talking about. ~ uses a fair amount of non-word utterances; has good sentence structure and uses complete sentences, although some are clauses; responds with a lot of one word answers, if possible. ~ fairly monotone in speech, with some rising at end of sentences and clauses; volume is average; moderate speed; pauses in between sentences and clauses. ~ good eye contact; sat fairly still and faced me when talking with me. ~ demonstrated some knowledge of book and science concepts, but fairly minimal and brief; stays on task and answered questions appropriately. ~ takes turns speaking and listens to speaker. ~ supports claims with evidence, although brief; speaks in a logical order; descriptive language fairly brief. Overall, the weakest areas in Carl's oral academic English are in his speech, vocabulary, and his descriptive language. His strengths are in his ability to stay on task, listen carefully, answer questions appropriately, and use complete sentences when he needs to. That is, when he can, he often answers questions with one-word responses, but if he is prompted to give a description or explanation, he is able to use complete sentences. However, he does not say much, and his contributions to conversations are minimal. In class, Carl does not participate much at all in the whole group.

CARLS' PROFICIENCY IN WRITTEN (READING AND WRITING) ACADEMIC ENGLISH Writing: ~ can write an organized and coherent paragraph with a clear focus, including a topic sentence, details, and a closing sentence; needs work on expanding details and adding adverbs and adjectives to sentences (sentences are very brief); writes chronological lists well, using appropriate, but sometimes repetitive linking words ~ demonstrates an understanding of literature through response journals; makes predictions, compares and contrasts characters, writes about likes and dislikes; needs to work on expanding his writing here, with more details with more in-depth analysis; needs work on including the main ideas and significant details in a summary of a reading selection ~ can write an information report (social studies and science) and respond to questions from a textbook using complete sentences; again, needs to work on expanding his facts and details ~ knows the format of writing an informal letter ~ can do basic editing and revising, but needs improvement ~ writes in cursive with large letters; occasionally illegible ~ uses short, simple sentences; needs work on using compound sentences and combining sentences with appositives, prepositions, etc.; uses correct grammar most of the time, but could use more adverbs, adjectives, etc; needs to pay attention to plurals and singulars, and tenses; uses correct punctuation, mostly using periods, question marks, and apostrophes; does not use parentheses, quotation marks, or exclamation marks, uses some commas appropriately (but could use more for combining sentences); needs to work on capitalization; often forgets to capitalize beginning letter of first word of a sentence ~ needs to work on spelling, specifically vowel combinations Reading: ~ reads at grade level (fourth); demonstrates basic comprehension through written summaries and responses; can identify characters and plot, but needs to work on expanding and including main ideas and significant details; can make predictions, compare and contrast, but needs to work on more in depth analysis (causes for character's actions, influences of events, identifying themes, etc.) ~ reads grade-level non-fiction textbooks for science and social studies, and demonstrates basic comprehension of material through written answers to questions; needs to work on supporting claims with evidence (facts and opinions, observations and inferences)

CARL'S CURRENT CLASSROOM (1) School Experience and Academic Ability ~ Students took the STAR test at the end of last year (3rd grade). For the English/Language Arts component, 3 scored at the basic level, 15 were proficient, and 10 were advanced. For the Math component, 1 scored at the basic level, 8 were proficient, and 19 were advanced. Overall, the class scored average to above average on this test. ~ All of the children are reading either at grade level, or above. ~ Just over half of the class has been at Beach School since kindergarten. One has attended an Oakland public school, two have attended parochial schools, two have attended private schools in the area, and three have attended public schools out of the district or state. (2) Cultural and Linguistic Background ~ There are 28 students in the class, 21 of whom are Caucasian, 5 are Asian, and 4 are mixed race (Chinese, Caucasian, Polish, and Cuban). There are 15 boys and 13 girls. ~ About a third of the students are taking a foreign language class (Mandarin, Cantonese, Spanish, and others) offered through the Piedmont Recreation Department and Schoolmates, the aftercare program. ~ One student was in the ELD program, and this year placed out; his native language is Vietnamese. Only ---- students total speak another language at home. (3) Linguistic Proficiency ~ Overall, the linguistic proficiency of the class is high; there is a lot of conversation and dialogue in the class, including requiring the children to use academic English when explaining their reasoning, giving oral presentations, etc.

CARL'S CURRENT SCHOOL (1) Academic Ability ~ Beach School's Academic Performance Index for 2004 is 931 (the goal for all schools is 800). The school's API rank compared to all schools is 10 out of 10. Looking more closely at the score breakdown by "subgroups", the API for the Asian population is 929, and the White population is 934. (API numbers and ranks are based on test scores). ~ In 2004, 87% of the students scored at proficient level or above in English/language arts on the California Standards Test; 86% scored at proficient level or above in math. The state averages were 35% and 41%, respectively. (2) Cultural and Linguistic Background ~ There are 268 students currently enrolled at Beach School. The demographics of the student population are: 66% Caucasian, 22% Asian, 3% Hispanic, 2% Filipino, 1% African-American, and 6% multi-racial or other. ~ No students participate in free or reduced-price lunch programs (the state average is 56%). ~ Parent education level: One percent of the parent population completed high school, 5% attended but did not complete college, 33% finished college, and 61% completed graduate school. ~ Six percent of the students are English Language Learners (compare to a state average of 25% for schools K-5). The home language for half of these students is Cantonese, followed by Korean, Mandarin, Vietnamese, Thai, Rumanian, and other. Link to additional information on Beach Elementary School