Dwayne Is a 9 Year Old Boy in the 3Rd Grade. He Was Recommended for Receiving Additional

Leggins 1

Dwayne

Introduction

Dwayne is a 9 year old boy in the 3rd grade. He was recommended for receiving additional reading instruction beyond the school day. Asgraduate reading clinicians in Appalachian State University's Master's Degree Program in Reading I, Nikki Leggins, conducted the initial assessment and first 6 weeks of tutoring, and Katie Thompson tutored for the next 6 weeks and administered the post-assessment.

Initial literacy assessments

A battery of informal, diagnostic literacy assessments were administered, including an Interest Inventory, a Spelling Inventory, a Word Recognition in Isolation (WRI) test, a contextual reading test,a listening comprehension test, a test of his Sense of Story, and oral written composition samples were analyzed. Thesewere given to determine instructional levels and areas of needs and readiness in reading, writing, word study(spelling and phonics), and being read to.

Dwayne's affect was favorable during testing. He responded agreeably to each test that was conducted and worked willingly. He was energetic and very fidgety, rocking and wiggling in his seat. He seemed easily distracted, but could be redirected back to the task at hand. He would comment and ask about what level of words and assessment he was working on. He was excited when he was working on the lower levels; but as we progressed to things that were on his 3rd grade level, he would get frustrated but continued to participate in the assessments.

Spelling

This assessment consists of eightgrade-leveled lists of words that the student is asked to spell as best he can. The highest level at which the student can correctly spell 90% of the words is considered to be his independent level in spelling and phonics in that most of the words and spelling-to-sound correspondences at this level have been automatized, freeing the student to focus on the message he is attempting to convey in his writing and on the meaning of what he is trying to read at the same level. The highest level at which he can spell at least 50% of the words correctly is considered to be his instructional level in spelling and phonics; that is, the level at which he can gain new insights, with teacher help, about how letters work in words. Patterns of errors made at instructional level are noted as areas of readiness and need. One’s frustration level in spelling and phonics is the level at which he spells fewer that 40% of the words correctly.

The results are charted below:

Level / 1st / 2nd / 3rd
Score / 83% / 67% / 17%

Dwayne was Independent on level 1 with a score of 83% with 2 errors. He is Instructional on Level 2 with a score of 67% with 4 errors. His Frustrational level is 3 as he correctly spelled 17% with 10 errors at his grade level. Dwayne is a strong phonetic speller writing the sounds that he hears in the different words. He is able to use correct consonant blends and digraphs (TRAP, PLANE). He also has mastery of short vowels (BUMP, BED). He also understands how to use “silent e” when spelling with long vowels. He is in need of instruction involving vowel teams such as “ea, ee, ou.” (this is seen in his spellings of “queen” as QUEAN and “cloud” as CLOWD). Word endings would also be something that he needs more practice with (he spelled “trapped” as TRAPET). Doubling is also an area that can be begun to be addressed (as seen in his spelling “shopping” as SHOPING).

Word recognition in isolation

This assessment consists of 10 levels of words ranging from a Pre-Primer level to 8th grade. Words are covered using stiff cards and are flashed in isolation to the student for ¼ of a second. The assessment continues if the child correctly reads the word. If not the cards are opened to reveal the word for another answer. The purpose for this assessment is to note a child's word recognition ability for both the words they have automatic recognition of and those they are able to decode given time. The highest level at which a student can correctly recognize 90% of the words on the flashed presentation is considered to be his independent word recognition level in that this level of and automatized sight vocabulary should be adequate to support successful and fluent reading in context without teacher aid. The highest level at which a student can recognize 60% to 70% of the words correctly on a flashed presentation denotes his instructional level in word recognition. The level at which his word recognition on the flashed presentation falls below 50% accuracy is considered to be one’s frustration level in word recognition.

The results are charted below:

WORD RECOGNITION
Flash / Untimed
PP / 95 / 100
P / 95 / 100
1st / 90 / 100
2nd / 100 / 100
3rd / 60 / 90
4th / 40 / 70

Dwayne was Independent on level 2 with 100% on both the flashed and untimed portion. He is Instructional on Level 3 with 60% on the flashed and 90% on the untimed. His Frustrational level is 4 where he was 40% on the flashed and 70% on the untimed. Dwayne successfully read the words from Level PP-Level 2, either being able to recognize the word immediately or identify and decode the few he did not. Once he reached Level 3 he seemed to try to change the order of the letters in words to try to identify them on the untimed portion (“accept” was “ACPENT, and “receives” was “REVENTS.”) Once he reached Level 4, this strategy began to appear in his responsesto flashed presentations of the words (“average” was “EVERY” and “solemn” was “SOULMEN.”)This coupled with his lower level of spelling demonstrates a need to automatize the spelling and phonics patterns at the 2nd and 3rd grade levels. One’s levels in spelling, word recognition in isolation, and word recognition in context are usually the same. However Dwayne’s independent, instructional, and frustration levels of word recognition in isolation are higher than his spelling levels; and, as I discuss below, his word recognition in context is lower than his word recognition in isolation—the opposite of what is expected.

Contextual reading

To assess contextual reading, passages at increasing grade levels of difficulty are read by the student either orally and silently. One’s independent reading level is considered to be the highest level that he can read with 98% word recognition in context accuracy (WRC), good fluency (reading rate and prosody), and 90% comprehension; and his instructional level the highest he can read with 95% WRC, acceptable fluency, and 70% comprehension. The student’s frustration level is the level at which he recognizes less than 90% of the words correctly, reads disfluently, and/or fails to comprehend what he reads.This assessment also allows an opportunity to determine relative strengths and weaknesses across word recognition accuracy in context, fluency, and comprehension.

The results are charted below:

Oral Reading in Context / Silent Reading in Context
Accuracy / Prosody / Rate in WPM / Comprehension / Rate in WPM / Comprehension
Primer / 98 / 2 / 84 / 75
Mid-First Grade / 91 / 2 / 82 / 100 / 55 / 100
2nd Grade / 84 / 1 / 76 / 40

Because Dwayne had correctly recognized 100% of the words flashed at second grade level, I began testing Dwayne on the Level 2 passage Form A with him reading orally. He had 84% accuracy in reading the words in context, 40% on his comprehension of the passage, and an acceptable speed but read disfluently. His word recognition accuracy and comprehension indicated this to be on his frustrational level. On Level 1-2, he had 91% word recognition accuracy,100% on comprehension, and acceptable fluency. These scores indicated Level1 to be his instructional level in that word recognition is accurate enough to allow him to focus on the story and comprehend the material with a fair reading rate despite his choppiness in fluency. Later, I assessed him on the Primer level where he had 98% accuracy, 75% comprehension, and a reading rate of 84 words per minute which indicated this to be his Independent level. Dwayne is very apprehensive and self-conscious when reading. This was apparent by his fidgety behavior when reading.Both his spelling and word recognition in isolation results predicted second to third grade instructional level performance in contextual reading. While he seems to have an adequate sight word vocabulary and knowledge of how letters work and words to support higher level contextual reading, using the meaning of what he is reading seems to add an additional challenge rather than a support to the smooth, accurate, and immediate word recognition that contextual reading requires. His difficulty, then, seems to be in orchestrating word recognition, fluency, and comprehension during contextual reading.

Listening comprehension

For this assessment the student listens to a story read orally to him on his grade level to assess his understanding and comprehension when he is relieved of the word recognition requirements. After working with Dwayne during the read aloud portions of the sessions it was apparent how he could comprehend material at the 3rd and 4th grade level. Because Dwayne was able to readily comprehend material that was read to him at his grade level and above, his difficulty in comprehending material that he tried to read at the second grade level can be seen to be due to his problems with the instant retrieving and orchestration of his orthographic knowledge rather than any difficulty with the concepts and language that the print represents.

Sense of story

This can be assessed by analyzing a student's retelling of a story that has been read to the child. The child’s inclusion of story elements, his sense of story organization, and his sense of story sentence syntax can all be noted.
To assess Dwayne I read him the story “Goldilocks and the Three Bears.” Afterwards I asked him to retell it. He was very strong in recalling details and information. His retelling demonstrated a mastery of all story elements with a score of 8/8. He included the setting, characters and their feelings, descriptions, and sequencing the events from the story. Using a scale of A to E with E as the most organized response, he was also able to show his sense of story organization with a D response that included an appropriate use of introductory, connecting, and closing words. When orally telling his writing piece that we recorded as an assessment, he was not as strong scoring a C which had some chronological sequence, and when writing this story he scored a B where he was jumping around in his retelling.On a scale of A (one or two word statements) to E (using all aspects of book language) with E as the highest rating, his sense of story sentence syntax was a D where he demonstrated his ability to retell using complete sentences and thoughts and included phrasing he heard used in the piece. It seems that Dwayne can recall and describe until he has to create the story himself either orally or written. The challenge will be to make this task not as daunting as he perceives it to be and how successful he can be.

Writing

This assessment offers insight into the child's spelling, comprehension, and sense of story by having the child compose a piece independently both orally and then in writing. I began the assessment by telling Dwayne an oral story of a time I was mad. I then had Dwayne share a story of an occasion when he was angry which I recorded so we could reference later. His oral comprehension included 6 of the 8 story elements. This also showed to what degree the physical act of writing and how the cognitive challenge of spelling would keep him from writing down what was in his head. Again I was able to assess his sense of story, story elements, and story organization, but now of his oral composition. When orally telling his writing piece that we recorded as an assessment, he was not as strong scoring a C, and when writing this story he scored a B. It seems that Dwayne can recall and describe until he has to create the story himself either orally or written. I had him writethis oral story word for word as he told it where he immediately tackled the assignment. He has a lot of experiences to share and is not afraid to write for fear of being incorrect in a spelling or phrasing. The challenge will be to make this task not as daunting as he perceives it to be and how successful he can be.His writing had misspellings, no punctuation, and lacked details. It lacked story elements only using 3of the 8, its organization was a B, and the language was only a B. It was basically just a bare bones outline. His needs are going to be adding details, working on grammatical and punctuation errors, and phonetic elements while not making this a boring or tedious task for him.

Instructional Plans and Progress Report

Plans were made across the instructional areas of reading, writing, word study (spelling and phonics), and being read to in accord with the conclusions drawn from the initial assessment. Tutoring lessons included activities in these four areas and were adjusted according to Dwayne’s progress and needs.

Reading

I conducted Directed Reading Thinking Activities with materials on his instructional level. Throughout the reading I stopped at points of anticipation to have him predict and recall information from the text with questioning such as “What do you think will happen next?” and “What did you read that makes you think that?”

Dwayne has read three level 1-2 books and two level 2-1 books. After he had read a few of the level 1-2 books, I realized the material was fairly immature and uninteresting to such a bright 3rd grade student. Because of this, I moved him to materials on level 2-2 for his DRTAs. While this material was more challenging for his oral reading, we would partner read the text so this task would seem less daunting to him. Fluency is a concern so repeated readings were conducted with these texts. Often I recorded these rereadings so he could hear his fluency and note the changes with the repeated readings. I charted this so he could note his progress, and he and I both rated his prosody on a range of 1- choppy, 2- somewhat fluent, 3- very fluid and smooth.
The books Dwayne read included Dinosaur Time, Aircraft Carriers, Henry & Mudge Book 1, Big Cats, and Hill of Fire.

Writing

I asked Dwayne towrite and dictate personal narratives and compositions in areas of interest with an emphasis on pre-writing planning and revising successive drafts.
We worked on two major pieces with successive drafts. As we continued working on these pieces, he became extremely motivated. Writing became his favorite portion of the session. He orally told the story while being recorded, and then we transcribed this.We then discuss details that he could add to the piece to revise it. He included more details on his own in these oral stories as we progressed, including adding dialogue to his narratives. Last, he edited them for punctuation and grammatical errors.

Word study

Each tutoring session, I had Dwayne sort words by the spelling and sound patterns that his word recognition and spelling assessments had shown him to be confusing.
Dwayne has been working on three sorts during our sessions: short e, ea, ee, and a ? column (as in bet, meat, feet, and bread); short i, i_e, igh, and a ? column (as in quit, think, give, and live); and ou, ow, ow, and a ? column(as in should, wound, young, and touch). He was very thoughtful when working on these sorts, reading the words several times if he was uncertain of the vowel sound. He has been prone to placing words in the wrong column but would go back and check his placement by rereading down the column to hear the pattern. I timed him on several occasions to check his speed as he progressed through not only learning a sort but also automatizing the pattern. I also conducted oral spell checks to make sure was retaining and applying the patterns studied.

Being read to

I read to Dwayne from texts above his reading level that contained rich language and compelling content. Similar to the guided reading, I stopped at points of anticipation to have him predict and recall information from the text.
I read to Dwayne 3rd and 4th grade level books such asPesky Rat, The Babe and I, The Fortune Teller, The Armadillo from Amarillo, and Jack the Giant Chaser. When I’ve stopped at points of anticipation, he has been able to make fairly accurate or rational predictions about what might happen next and was able to go back into the text to support his responses. I also asked him to retell these stories in his own words while looking at the pictures to exercise his sense of book language.