Treatment Utility Grant Report

Student’s Name: 3Gender: Male

School: 3Grade: 2nd

Birth Date: 02/20/95Age: 8 yrs

Consultant: Kristy KohlerTeacher: 3

Introduction

The purpose of this project, entitled “Enhancing Treatment Utility in Instructional Consultation Problem Solving: Comparison of Alternate Assessment Technologies,” is to identify and serve students in grades 1-3 who are referred by teachers for reading problems. Different methods of assessment are used to help teachers develop intervention plans to serve these children with reading difficulties. Children who participate in the project are assigned to one of the following three assessment conditions: (1) Functional Assessment: a consultant collects information from the child’s teacher and identifies environmental circumstances that might contribute to the reading problem; (2) Traditional Condition: the Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-educational Battery-III is used to identify problems with thinking and academic skills; or (3) Empiric Condition: the consultant and teacher identify the reading problem and select an intervention plan based on empirically demonstrated treatment procedures outlined in the Learning Disability Intervention Manual (McCarney & Bauer, 1995). The manual lists different kinds of academic problems and potential solutions to these problems. The difference among the three assessment conditions is the kind of information used to develop a reading intervention program for the child. In all three conditions, a supervised school psychology graduate student meets with the teacher regularly to help design and implement the intervention for the student, and regularly monitor the student’s progress. Student #3 participated in the Traditional Condition.

Background Information & Referral Concern

Student #3 is a second-grade, Caucasian student attending Elementary School #3. He is a native English language speaker. Student #3 is described by his teacher as quiet and polite. He also likes to draw and play with his friends. He has been in the same classroom for two years, and Student #3’s teacher reported that she first noticed his reading difficulties in the first grade.

Reason for Referral: Teacher #3, Student #3’s second-grade teacher, nominated Student #3 to our reading project due to his below grade level reading performance. Specifically, Teacher #3 mentioned that Student #3 has difficulty using word attack skills. He also has a tendency to make letter reversals when writing. His reading performance improved somewhat after receiving individual help in a small reading group during the end of last year. However, his teacher has seen a drop in his performance this year.

Assessment Method & Results

WJ-III Results. The WJ-III provides information of Student #3’s overall intellectual ability, specific cognitive abilities, and academic achievement. Overall, Student #3’s general intelligence is in the Average range (e.g., percentile rank of 59; standard score range of 99-109). Phonemic awareness measures Student #3’s knowledge and skills related to analyzing and synthesizing speech sounds. Student #3’s phonemic awareness standard score falls within the Limited to Average range (i.e., percentile rank range of 19 to 20; standard score range of 77 to 97) for his age level. His performance in basic reading skills and phoneme-grapheme relationships is Average.

Student #3’s overall intellectual ability, as measured by the WJ-III, is in the Average range. When compared to others at his age level, Student #3’s performance is Superior in Short-Term Memory; Average in Comprehension-Knowledge, Long Term Retrieval, Visual-Spatial Thinking, Fluid Reasoning, and Processing Speed; and Low Average in Auditory Processing. The assessment results revealed strong short-term memory abilities, and a weakness in auditory processing. His reading performance may be influenced by his phonemic awareness. Student #3’s low performance on Word Attack suggests that his skills in sound blending are low as well. This is consistent with his low performance on the Incomplete Words and Sound Blending subtests and his low phonemic awareness score.

Analysis of the Reading Problem

Given the assessment results, Student #3 may have difficulty with his word attack skills due to his difficulties in sound blending, auditory processing and general phonemic awareness. Specific strategies to improve Student #3’s word attack skills and reading performance are discussed below.

Intervention Plan & Goals

Intervention Plan. Based on the assessment results and analysis of the reading problem, the consultant recommended the following three intervention strategies to the teacher to increase Student #3’s word attack skills and reading performance:

  1. Linguistic Approach (see Appendix A)
  2. Glass-Analysis for Decoding (see Appendix B)
  3. Orton-Gillingham Approach (see Appendix C)

Teacher #3 chose to use the Glass-Analysis and Orton-Gillingham Methods and implemented the interventions daily. Both methods consist of primary components that provide specific recommendations to increase phonemic awareness.

Intervention Goal. An intervention goal for Student #3 was developed during the consultation interview. Teacher #3 and the consultant developed and agreed on the following goal using the Goal Attainment Scale worksheet.

Goal Attainment Scale (see Figure 1). Using the Goal Attainment Scale (GAS) worksheet, Teacher #3 and I established intervention goals for Student #3’s reading fluency difficulties. The goals ranged from “best possible” (6) to “worst possible” (0). For instance, a “best possible” rating (6) was recorded when Student #3 read a 10-word sentence orally without making any mistakes and used no self-corrections. A middle rating of (3) was recorded when Student #3 read a 10-word sentence orally and made two mistakes. A “worst possible” rating (0) was recorded when Student #3 a 10- word sentence orally and made 5 or more mistakes. Teacher #3 rated these goals weekly.

Intervention Outcomes

The intervention plan focused on increasing Student #3’s phonemic awareness, and thereby his reading accuracy. The progress of the intervention goal was evaluated through weekly conversations with Teacher #3, weekly reviews of the goal-attainment scale, CBM probes, and the Social Skills Rating System (SSRS).

Goal Attainment Scale. The overall ratings of Student #3’s reading sight word performance increased from an average of 3.7 before intervention to an average of 4.8 during the implementation of the intervention plan (see Figure 1). In short, Student #3 reads a 10-word sentence orally without making any mistakes.

CBM Probes. I administered 1 minute reading and 2 minute math probes weekly to monitor Student #3’s progress. Student #3’s reading fluency increased from an average of 26 words per minute before intervention to an average of 39 words per minute during intervention implementation. Student #3’s math stayed relatively stable across baseline and intervention phases (see Figure 2), suggesting the intervention did not affect his math skills.

Social Skills Rating System – Teacher Form (SSRS: Gresham & Elliott, 1990). Student #3’s teacher completed the SSRS-Teacher Form before and after the reading intervention to evaluate whether improvements in academic skills produce collateral gains in social or behavior skills. Results indicate that Student #3’s social skills and academic competence improved while his problem behaviors decreased over the course of the project. See Appendix E for a detailed summary of the SSRS.

Figure 1.

Goal Attainment ratings of reading fluency performance before and during the intervention plan.

Figure 2. CBM math and reading probes before and during the intervention plan.

In summary, Student #3 was referred to our reading project due to his difficulties with second-grade reading material. Specifically, he had difficulty with word attack strategies. Based on teacher interviews and an assessment using the WJ-III, an intervention plan was developed to help Student #3 increased his sight word vocabulary at the second grade level. Throughout the intervention phase, Student #3 progressed from reading a 10-word sentence orally, making two mistakes, to reading a 10-word sentence orally without making any mistakes.

The project is directed and supervised by Dr. Thomas R. Kratochwill and Dr. Jeffery P. Braden, who are professors in the Department of Educational Psychology. If you have questions about the project, you may contact Dr. Thomas Kratochwill ad Dr. Jeffery Braden at the numbers below.

______

Kristy M. KohlerElisa Shernoff

ConsultantProject Assistant

(608) 265-9365(608) 263-2863

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Thomas R. Kratochwill, PhDJeffery P. Braden, PhD

Principal InvestigatorPrincipal Investigator

(608) 262-5912(608) 262-4586 (v/TDD)

Appendix A, B, & C

“Description of the Three Intervention Plans”

Appendix D

“WJ-III Compuscore Printout/Results”

Appendix E

“SSRS Results”

Appendix A

Linguistic Approach to Reading

Linguistic Approach

In a linguistic approach, the student learns various word families, such as cat, fat, rat, and mat or ran, fan, and man. Word families are word elements that contain both vowels and consonants to which an initial consonant may be synthetically blended (Ackerman, 1984). Sight words are introduced gradually.

A four-step exercise to promote independence in the use of word families.

  1. Five cards are created for the student using words known to the student.

Example: Word cards may include tell, hop, ran, car, and cow. The teacher writes a word such as star on the board, and the student is asked to locate the card that most closely resembles the word. The teacher then demonstrates the similarities and differences between the words. Word cards are added until the student has mastered 15 cards and their matches.

  1. Students are asked to provide matches with words written on the board without looking at their word cards.
  1. Words from the word cards are written on the board and the students are asked to produce new words.
  1. The student is asked to apply word families when reading. If the student encounters an unknown word, he or she is asked to think of a similar word family.

* This procedure may also be used with prefixes, root words, and suffixes.

Appendix B

Glass-Analysis for Decoding

Glass-Analysis for Decoding

This is a supplemental reading approach developed out of a stimulus-response reinforcement model (Glass, 1973). The method is based on a perceptual conditioning process. This process requires the reader to examine words and identify the visual and auditory clusters or the word parts and their associated sounds. The goal of this approach is to help the student develop the habits of successful readers at all developmental levels. The approach helps students develop the ability to identify, generalize, and produce an automatic response to common letters that frequently occur in the English spelling system.

Steps. To begin, a word is written on an index card and shown to the student. Five general steps are followed:

  1. Identify the whole word and ask the student to repeat the word. For example, while showing the word, say: “This is the word ‘carpenter.’ What is the word?”
  2. Give the sound(s) and ask for the letter or letters. For example, say: “What letters make the ‘car’ sound?” “What letters make the ‘pen’ sound?” etc.
  3. Give the letter or letter names and ask for the sound(s). For example, say: “What sound does ‘ar’ make?” “What sound does ‘ter’ make?”
  4. Take away the letters auditorially, not visually, and ask for the remaining sound For example, say: “If I took off the ‘ter’ sound, what would be left?” etc.
  5. Finish by asking: “What is the whole word?”

Ideally, two fifteen-minute sessions daily are recommended for initial decoding practice. In practicing word analysis, parts of the word are never covered up, nor are the structural units displayed separately. The correct letter clusters are always presented in the context of a whole word.

Selecting words: The teacher may carefully select words containing common visual and auditory letter clusters and print them on flash cards. The teacher may also want to select words and letter clusters from a linguistic basal reading series. Transfer is accomplished by providing practice within his method during oral reading. When a student has difficulty with a word, he or she is encouraged to look for the common clusters and then attempt to pronounce the word.

Appendix C

Orton-Gillingham Approach

Orton-Gillingham Approach

The Orton-Gillingham approach uses a multisensory teaching approach that emphasizes tactile and kinesthetic input coupled with the visual and auditory modalities. The approach teaches the 48 English phonemes and presents rules governing their use in a systematic, structured way. Initial instruction begins with single letters of the alphabet and progresses to one syllable, short vowel sounds.

The Orton-Gillingham is designed to:

  • Reduce the tendency to reverse and transpose letters within syllables and words
  • Strengthen visual and auditory associations through a kinesthetic linkage
  • Establish the left-right sequential process for reading, spelling, and writing
  • Strengthen mnemonic processes
  • Provide a phonetic and syllabic basis for building an extensive reading vocabulary

Instructional Procedure:

  1. Mark and pronounce the vowel or vowel combinations.
  2. Underline and pronounce the phonemes from left to right.
  3. Look at and pronounce the phonemes.
  4. Underline and say the word fast.
  5. Trace the word on the desk five times using the index finger and saying the letter sounds simultaneously.
  6. Underline and say the word fast.

Appendix D

WJ-III Compuscore Printout/Results

Appendix E

SSRS Teacher Report