Abstract
My case study involves seven and a half year-old David who attends a Charter school in Brooklyn. I was originally contacted by David's second grade English teacher, who had concerns about his recent reading performance. Prior to my intervention, I did my due diligence in obtaining David's background information. This I did by consulting with his teacher, his principal and In this case study I have done few assessments: Elementary Reading Attitude Survey (Garfield),
Slosson Oral Reading Test, Yopp-Singer Test of Phonemic Segmentation,
Reading Inventory (IRI), Fountas & Pinnell Benchmark, Roswell-Chall Auditory Blending Test, Rosner Test of Auditory Analysis Skills (TAAS) and ECLASS-2 Assessment Test.
There are several intervention strategies I have chosen to help David. Some of the strategies I chose are storytelling, rhyme and riddle word games, index cards and magnetic letters, visual and tactile aid, word bingo, activities with silly words. David attends a charter school and is in second grade, but has learning problems. According to his teacher, David exhibited some very discernable deficiencies in his decoding, and has lack of self-confidence in reading. His teacher felt David needed help to feel more comfortable with reading and sounding out words. It's not a surprise since he did very poorly in first grade and showed signs of reading difficulties. School teacher recommended for his retention in first grade but he progressed.
David hardly misses school and is being pulled out of class 4 times a week (20 minutes per session); to attend Academic Intervention Services. He also works one on one with an English teacher. He also receives tutoring services twice a week at home. During the first grade, his father was asked severally to send David for further evaluation, but he refused because of stigma. Now, three months into the school year, his parents finally agreed to send him for evaluation.
David was born by normal delivery without complications and is healthy; seen by a pediatrician yearly. He usually gets sick once or twice a year with normal illnesses. He is the youngest child in a family of two brothers and two sisters aged 9, 14, 18 and 22 years old. His parents emigrated from Spanish speaking Colombia in 1995 and lives in a three bedroom, first floor apartment. The father works as super in the building the family stays in. The mother stays at home. The parents were very close and caring. David likes playing guitar, football and now he plays soccer every Saturday in the park, with his 9 years old brother. He was proud to announce that he learned how to play just from watching players on the park. He has few friends at school because they call him mean but has more friends in his neighborhood.
According to his teacher, his relationships with peers are satisfactory, but are making progress. David is a very polite and well behaved child, and is relatively quiet and shy. He did not divulge much personal information and made it seem like he was doing just fine and had no major worries. He seemed motivated and excited to do the testing and said he enjoys reading. He was patient while waiting for instructions and seemed to be enjoying the evaluation, even after it was finished. No speech problems were evident.
David was one of the tallest kids in his class and was healthy shaped, fell into the range of normal to heavy side. He was conscious of his appearance; well presented and neat, dressed well, wore a nice sweaters and a 'fashionable' hat. He was well organized and wore glasses that were not very strong. He was very polite, well behaved and enthusiastic. It was a pleasure working with him. He was so patient and just smiled with embarrassment when he reached his frustration level. I had to ask him if he wanted to end our testing session, to which he quietly almost whispering said "yes". It is like he felt more confident working one on one with me than with the class. Two weeks later when I went to his class, for the last assessment, he didn't want to come out of the class and had to be bribed with a candy.
Talking to the teacher later on, she told me David had a hard day, couldn't complete 2 sentences and that she was upset at him. In addition, she said that he became the "case" of the school, and whoever wanted to do any assessment on a struggling child, was doing it on him. David's teachers concerns about his reading ability were the main reason for the referral for reading assessment. His reading level is considerably below his grade.
Elementary Reading Attitude Survey (Garfield)/ 72/80 points, Grade 2
This survey provides quantities estimates of two important aspects of children's attitudes toward reading. The survey possesses a meaningful attention getting student friendly response format. Comic strip character Garfield, ranging from very happy to very upset, is recognized by young children and appeals for children and comprehensible by the young children.
In the Attitude Survey 20 questions; 10 checks Recreational reading and 10 Academic reading.
David received 72 which placed him into the 86% percentile.
Results
David circled a happiest Garfield for 17 out of 20 questions; to the question how he feels about using dictionary, David gave a mildly upset Garfield. He also wasn't so happy, according to his slightly smiling Garfield, about taking a reading test and doing reading. David seemed eager to impress gave answers he thought I wanted to hear. From his answers, he loves reading so much that he would give up playing with friends for reading, or spending a vacation time reading books. Only when I asked he if he likes doing worksheets and using a dictionary, he hesitated, looked at me, and I had to tell him it is okay to circle the upset Garfield for undesired activity, then he finally looked relaxed.
Yopp-Singer Test of Phonemic Segmentation.
Yopp-Singer Test contains 22 words to be segmented into all constituent phonemes. This test keeps the assessment playful and game-like. The student needs to break words into component sounds, for example I said the word /cat/ and David was to say the word slowly and tell me On the Yopp Test, David obtained high score of 20 out of 22 words, except the words by which he segmented b/i/ and the word lay, which was segmented l/a . This means he segmented nearly all of the items correctly and he may be considered phonemically aware.
Rosner Test of Auditory Analysis Skills (TAAS)
I asked David to say words and then to say the same word with a missing sound. For example; the student to say cowboy without /cow/, picnic without /pic/, and coat without /k/.
Out of 13 words on the test, David could say 10 words correctly. He enjoyed and seemed excited to do this assessment. He had some difficulties finding the missing sounds of the following words: meat without the sound /m/, which he couldn't figure out the answer; stale without /t/ which he read as /eal/, and the word smack without /m/, which he read as smack.
Roswell-Chall Auditory Blending Test
Roswell-Chall Auditory Blending Test evaluates a student's ability to blend sounds to form words. The test asks for blending sequences of sounds spoken by the examiner, I would pronounce each sound as it is pronounce in each word, for example n-o, and David had to say the word /no. Out of 30 words, David could blend 29 words except of the word t-oa-st. He was quick with saying the words and had a positive attitude toward the assessment.
2.2 Grade 2
It is a "quick screening test to determine the test comprised of 10 List starting from List P (preprimary, which is kindergarten), List 1 until List 9-12. Each list comprised of 20 words. David completed List P fluently, except the word here, which he misread and read as her. In List 1 he could correctly read 12 words, List 2 he read 8 words correctly, and List 3 he could read only 2 words correctly and that was his frustration level - that is, the level at which he would become frustrated if reading independently.
David's total score was 41, therefore 41:2= 20.5 would place him into the second grade level. He seemed to enjoy this assessment the most. List P he read within 3 seconds and seems happy and proud he read those words fast. Even though he wasn't so fluent and had some difficulties when reading the next Lists of words, he still had a great attitude towards this test. In every other assessment I gave him, he would tell me he wanted to read words list.
The Informal Reading Inventory (IRI)
The reason of an Informal Reading Inventory (IRI) is to give superior impending into a
Student's instructional, reading level. It does not provide specific diagnoses; rather,
helps to determine the quantity and type of hold up the student is possible to need in Invitations to Literacy. The word lists begin with a primer readability level and end with a junior high readability level. The word recognition Inventory (WRI) of the Informal Reading Inventory (IRI) contains eight word lists containing of 20 words each. David completed the Pre-primer 4/20, independent level except of four miscues: sam instead of and, deer instead of bear, said instead of side and sunder instead of surprise. 9/20 on the Primer Level that placed him in instructional -frustration level. He misread the following words: blow, bright, things, family, thank, cows, please, draw and work. We proceed to the next level, First Grade Level. David scored 11/20 which means he frustrated out, I have to note that David loves reading words lists, and always asks for more reading. Oral reading - Grade One. The oral reading section of the IRI consists of 8 passages ranging in readability levels from Preprimary, and first grade passages through junior high level. The grade scores are resulting from number of errors (miscues) and answering comprehension questions. Some answers the student can find directly in the text and some answers the student needs to infer information from the passage. On the Preprimary passage David made 3 miscues and answered all comprehension questions correctly. This story was at his independent level. David completed the Primer level on independent level. He made 2 miscues and answered all comprehension questions.
On grade 1 level, David reached his frustration level. He made 11 Miscues, meaning that the material was too difficult for him. David could answer 6.5 /10 correctly of the comprehension questions. On the Silent Reading passage he reached the frustration level as well, answering only. Levels two and three I read to him and he scored the independent level for comprehension.
Fountas & Pinnell Benchmark assessment evaluate
David was introduced to non-fiction book "The Zoo". I read the title and introduction and David read page 2 through 16 (skipping reading every other page contains pictures). He had 8 errors in total, his accuracy Rate was 94%, and his Fluency Score was 1 (score range from 0 to 3).David's oral reading places him in Grade 1 reading level.
Comprehension Conversation Grade 2
David's score total of 6 out of 6. He answered all questions correctly, and this surprised me in all his comprehension tests, since he had difficulties reading but his answers showed full comprehension. When I read him passages in higher levels (up to 4 grade level), he was able to comprehend the stories and answered correctly to all (or most - as was in the 4 grade level) questions. David was reading very slowly, in chunks, sometimes guessing the words, and sometimes just nodded with his head as saying "I just can't read it". He tried long time to figure out words that were difficult for him. However, he wanted to proceed with reading since he was enjoying the actual story. David could answer the comprehension questions quickly and correctly listing the vocabulary, reading, sight words, decoding: Level 4, Grade 1.
Comprehension
This Literacy Development Check List (LDC) is a personalized history of the child's literacy development from kindergarten through third grade. ECLASS-2 assesses the child in four literacy strands: Phonemic awareness; Phonics; Reading and oral Expression; Listening and
David's vocabulary was 20 words out of 48. On phonics, Reading and Oral Expression David reached level 4 Benchmark which places him in the respective grade. On Listening David reached level 5, which placed him in Grade 2.
Reading and Oral Expression
David read the story Get the Booall' Slim by Marcia Leonard and omitted the letters in the words gets and hits 3 times. He also read toast instead of toss, well instead of well, and substituted the words out for are, and for the letter I. He was able to answer all questions correctly, and could convey main idea with few details. When he took the test he was relaxed, and didn't seem in a rush to leave. He read the passage quite slowly, pausing, trying to figure out the correct word. He self corrected himself few times sometimes corrected a word after he went on with his reading, implying he was trying to make sense of his reading as he went on with the passage.
Diagnosis/Analysis of Formal and Informal Assessments
David's problem in reading is rooted in decoding words. Even though the word finding assessment on him principally focused on convergent naming, it was equally imperative to evaluate his word finding skills in communication context. The results of all word recognition tests consistently proved that David performed poorly on all sections of the test, including grade level reading, vocabulary, fluency and oral reading. David could not read words fluently, showed poor decoding skills and reaches frustration level on word recognition at level1on all tests. This is a clear indication of wanting phonological awareness. From the SORT test, he could read 12 out of 20 words correctly in list one, eight words in list one and only two words in list three. His score was 20.5, a clear manifestation that he is way behind the basal level. The SORT result proved that David needs auxiliary diagnostic assessment.
The SORT results however cannot show David's comprehension and word knowledge capabilities. Hi comprehension scores are consistently much higher than his word recognition scores. In the Informal Reading Inventory test David had difficulty in the level 1 word list. He scored 11/20, which indicates he was frustrated. In the oral passage section, he did not know some of the words and was able to self correct several. He reached the frustration level based on the number of word errors. He made 11 miscues; an indication that the material was too difficult for him. However, he wanted to proceed with reading since he was enjoying the actual stories.
David is lacking in decoding skills; his word skills are first grade and he was able to succeed in phonemic segmentation. On the phonics test, he knew his letter sounds but could not understand the sounds associated with letters when they lost their individual sounds in digraphs. For instance, he flopped when it came to the words toast and smack. He could not decode the word toast when the sounds were pronounced to him and he could not pick out the word sack when required to avoid pronouncing letter /m/.
David's performance on the word analysis test reflects his limited ability to decode real words. Therefore, it seems that David needs more opportunities to practice high frequency words. He also seemed to have problems with vowels: "will" for "well", "let" for "last" and "par" for "poor". It seems that direct instruction in structural analysis as a word recognition strategy would be useful to David.
The difference between David's word recognition and comprehension performance is significant Even where he could not read out the words in the comprehension, he was still willing to proceed with the comprehension because he enjoys the stories. Dr. Rebecca Felton in the Journal of Learning Disabilities argues that this is an indication he can easily recover from the remedy from constant attention and encouragement to read comprehensions. He corrected himself several times, and sometimes repeated a line he was stuck in, and corrected himself. It can therefore be assumed that his comprehension performance was strong because of his efforts to construct meaning from the text. Another difficulty that was obvious in David's reading performance was his lack of fluency. He read the passages slowly, in chunks, word after word.
Recommendation for remediation
Prescription plan to address literacy issues
When children with wanting reading abilities rely on remediation, they embrace it but with anxiety and secret dream. David will have desired to conquer his learning disabilities and dismiss apprehensions that he is impaired. Months of futile efforts to master spelling and reading have nearly persuaded him that he cannot learn, and also that his teachers are incapable of teaching. By bringing his specific disabilities open with pronouncing sounds and educating him on smallest bits decoding, in the initial first meeting, his teachers can assist him gain confidence in himself. David can as well gain an approval of his teachers and for the approach of multisensory learning. As long as his basic problem is incessantly handled and all the language decoding areas, spelling, comprehension and writing incorporated in each lesson, he will resist the desire to withdraw when their advancement inexorably stalls. The longer David stays in remediation process, the stronger his skills will ultimately grow. In the long run, he will get closer to overcoming his monster problem; pitiable phonological skills.
The express consequence of reduced phonological knowledge is not merely pitiable spelling, but pitiable decoding ability as well. Tests which require David to read single syllable words and parts of words will reveal vividly that restricted ability to distinguish sounds obviously hampers with decoding. After administering the test, the instructor should point to David single error, possibly a word that he read as par instead of poor. The instructor says par, pair and poor with the printed text hidden and invites David to say again the three words. It is in such exercise where a lack of responsiveness of sounds and phonemes connections is mainly perceptible. Visual cues such as the use of tokens or counters to assist in segmenting the word enables him a visual and tactile aid. As he moves the counter for each sound, he builds a relationship between letters and sounds. Phoneme manipulation can help him with letters and their corresponding sounds as we manipulate them for example: are add f- now we have farm. Word bingo can be used to increase his word exposure, when the teacher calls out the word he will use his sense of hearing, and sight to search for the word on his card (Vasday, Sanders and Tudor 509 ). This is an appealing game that can point out his strengths and weaknesses. The teacher can give him independent level books that include the words he is weak in. Through repeated exposure to the same book he can become confident in his reading ability and be evaluated on
David should be given books that are matched to his reading level, as he masters that reading level he can graduate to higher level books. The books should focus on comprehension, word acquisition and blending and digraphs. David can have someone read to him books that may help with his difficulty with digraphs ch- sh- th- ck- qu . The words that he has difficulty with can be introduced before the reading. Words that have these sounds in the beginning or end are taught as sight words. Individual lessons that introduce one digraph at a time will help him absorb this information since "Raising awareness of sounds is the first step in teaching students decoding skill" (National Adult Literacy and Learning Disabilities Center). For example, the letters "ch" does not keep their individual sounds of "c" and "h" but have a new sound when put together. The teacher can refer to prior knowledge and tell him a train makes a "ch" sound. By experimenting with oral language we can focus his attention on sound structure. He can sort pictures and objects by the sound he is working on and repeat several times the letter -sound combination. He should use worksheets reinforcing the digraphs using cut and paste pictures, tracing and writing, search and underline words with the sound of sh, ch, the, etc. We need to emphasize the spelling pattern because there is no one to one communication among phoneme and grapheme. David had difficulty with vowel + e words (cvcv long vowel pattern). His teacher can explain the pattern of having a vowel-consonant -e relationship also known as magic-e. He needs to be taught the rule, when the first vowel in the word becomes long and the e becomes silent. Using words sorts and spelling games can help him with this spelling pattern. He can read a short paragraph and underline the magic-e words referencing the side bar with the list of words. "Lack of practice could delay the development of vocabulary, syntactic knowledge, and general knowledge that are fostered by good reading" (Sorbi pp3, 2010)
