Case Report Simon

Case Report –Simon

Introduction

Simon is a fourth grader. He is Hmong and has recently been released from the English Language Learners program at the school. He is one of nine children in his family. His younger brother Andy is also attending the clinic. Simon was referred because he is reading below grade level. My name is Bonnie Johns. I have been working with Simon for the past six weeks of the Appalachian State University Reading Clinic during the Spring of 2010. I completed the initial assessment and the first six weeks of tutoring. He will move to Shannon Mullins for the remaining six weeks of tutoring.

Initial Literacy Assessments

The assessments Simon was administered include spelling, word recognition,oral reading, silent reading, listening comprehension, sense of story, and oral and written composition.These assessments were administered to determine Simon’s independent levels (the highest level that he can work independently with success), instructional levels (the optimal level at which he can benefit with instructional support), and frustration levels (the levels which are too difficult even with instructional support), and to determine specific areas of readiness and needs in literacy.

Simon was nervously quiet during the assessments, almost unsure of himself. We jumped into the assessments on the first day of clinic, so I can understand his hesitation. Once we were started, he seemed to loosen up a bit and answer questions with a little more detail and excitement. It is apparent that he has a fear of being wrong or giving the wrong answer to a question. Even during the assessments, he gave the “safe answer” to questions and stuck to it without much detail if any.

Spelling

The assessment given was the Schlagal Spelling Inventory, a series of grade leveled lists of twelve words each that Simon was asked to spell as best he could.This assessment tells us at what level to begin word study instruction as well as what the student understandsabout how letters work in words. One’s independent level in spelling/phonics is considered to be the highest at which he spells at least 90% of the words correctly. One’s instructional level is considered to be the highest at which he spells at least 50% of the words correctly. The frustration level is that at which one spells fewer the 50%of the words correctly. He began with the first grade list and continued to the fifth grade list where his score dropped below forty percent into the frustration level.

Level 1- 100%

Level 2- 84%

Level 3- 84%

Level 4- 50%

Level 5- 32%

Simon’s independent level in spelling isfirst grade. His instructional rangeis from the secondto thefourth grade level.We chose to continue to work with him at late second and early third grade level to build his word knowledge base before moving to higher levels. His frustration level is the fifth grade level.His spelling on the fourth grade list displays some characteristics of frustration, (ex: “synnle” for sudden) but his score did not drop to the frustration level.

He understands most of the vowel patterns through the 3rd grade.He is also excellent with sight words that he sees more often such as “send, stuff, cool”.He pronounces each word very carefully.

From this assessment, we know to work on the doubling concept both by adding-ing and –ed to base words. He is using but confusing this concept in his spelling. For example he spelled “traped” for trapped and “slamed” for slammed. Lower frequency vowel patterns also need to be worked on as evidenced by his spelling of “clowd” for cloud and “coght” for caught.

Word Recognition in Isolation

The word recognition in isolation test will give you insight into whether or not automatic sight word recognitionis an issue in this student’s contextual reading performance.Fluent contextual reading requires one to be able to recognize most words automatically. The word recognition in isolation assessment consists of grade leveled lists of words from the pre-primer level through the seventh grade level. One’s instructional level in word recognition in isolation is considered to be the highest at which he can recognize at least 70% of the words correctly on the flashed presentation. This degree of sight word recognition should be adequate for 95% word recognition in contextin passages at this same level. In the Word recognition in isolationthe student is shown a flashed word for a fourth (1/4) of a second and asked to read what that word. If he can, he is shown the next word. If the student can not accurately recognize the word, he is shown it again in an untimed presentation. I began this assessment with the second grade list. Simon reached frustration at the fifth grade level on this assessment.

Level 2- Flashed 95% Untimed 100%

Level 3- Flashed 90% Untimed 100%

Level 4- Flashed 75%Untimed 90%

Level 5- Flashed 45%Untimed 95%

The independent level is considered to be a score between ninety and one hundred percent. Simon scored ninety-five percent on the second grade level and ninety percent at the third grade level putting his independent level at third, where he scored a ninety percent on the flash and one hundred percent onthe untimed.

His instructional level would be at the fourth grade level with a score of seventy five percent on flash and ninety percent on untimed. This level is generally considered to be between seventy percent and eighty-nine percent. Simon fits precisely in this range. His frustration level in word recognition in isolation isfifth grade where he scored forty-five percent on the flash and eighty-five percent on the untimed.

Both the spelling assessment and the word recognition in isolation assessment agree in establishing adequate knowledge of how letters work in words and as adequate sight vocabulary to support successful fourth grade level reading.

Contextual reading

There were two reading assessments given. The first was the oral reading portion. This assessment serves to show how Simon works through words and how he goes about reading a text. The assessment is administered by the student reading grade leveled passages aloud while the examiner indicates what that mistake was on an examiner’s copy. The oral reading is also timed so that there is an indication of rate for oral reading. The last step of this assessment is to ask comprehension questions to determine if he understood what he read.

The second portion of the reading assessment serves to measure silent reading by both rate and comprehension. During this assessment, the student reads a passage silently while being timed and is then asked comprehension questions. This tells us how fast he is able to read a certain level of passage silently as well as how much he understands of what he is reading to himself. One’s independent reading level is considered to be the highest at which he can read with at least 98% word recognition in context, good fluency (prosody and rate), and 90% comprehension. One’s instructional reading level is considered to be the highest at which he can read with at least 95% word recognition in context, adequate fluency, and 70% comprehension. One’s frustration reading level is reached when the student correctly recognizes fewer than 95% of the words or reads that level of text disfluently.

• Oral Reading

Level / WRC Accuracy / Prosody / Rate in WPM / Comprehension
Level 1-2 / 97 / 3 / 59 / 75%
Level 2 / 96.6 / 2 / 73 / 70%
Level 3 / 96.5 / 2 / 57 / 50%

• Silent Reading

Level / Rate in WPM / Comprehension
Level 2 / 84.6 / 80%
Level 3 / 119.2 / 50%

Simon’s independent level was judged to be late first grade.We determined Simon’s instructional level to be at a late second grade level. His rate is a little slow but acceptable (80 to 120 wpm is the adequate range).

Simon’sfrustration level is the third grade level as evidenced by his slow oral reading rate (the minimal acceptable rate is 95 words per minute) and by his inadequate comprehension of both oral and silent reading passages at the third grade level. It is apparent that Simon needs instructional help and practice in both reading rate and reading comprehension. Problems in reading comprehension and reading fluency can be caused either by inadequate automatized knowledge of how letters work in words to support immediate word recognition or by an inadequate meaning vocabulary and working knowledge of the particular forms of language used in books as opposed to oral language. Simon’s spelling and word recognition in isolation appeared adequate to support successful reading at the fourth grade level. The following assessment of listening comprehension was administered to see if Simon could comprehend third and fourth grade level material when the word recognition load was assumed by the examiner.

Simon’s scores are very hard to read. It looks like he is steady in his accuracy scores even up to the third grade, yet when looking in both oral and silent reading; his rate is well below the expected rate with the exception of the late first grade level. (Notice silent rate on level three is 119.2. He was beginning to see other children leave at this point and was ready to join them. He began reading noticeably quicker.)

Listening comprehension

This assessment consisted of reading passages to Simon at different grade levels and then asking him comprehension questions about the passage. In Simon’s case, we read levels two, three and four. This assessment tells at what level the student is able to understand what he is being read to him. One’s instructional level in listening comprehension is considered to be the highest that he can understand with 70% comprehension accuracy.

Level 2 100% Comprehension

Level 349% Comprehension

Level 447% Comprehension

Simon scored one hundred percent on the second grade listening passage. This qualifies second grade as his independent level because it is between ninety and one hundred percent. At level three, Simon’s scored dropped down to forty-nine percent, and then forty seven percent at the fourth grade level. These are both in the frustration area of scores below fifty percent.

This assessment like the others suggests that Simon’s reading problemsare language based rather than rooted in phonics or spelling.Even though Simon has graduated from the English Language Learners program in his school due to his fluency in oral English, his reading comprehension and fluency difficulties seem to reflect a lack of enough exposure to the particular linguistic forms and vocabulary used in English language written texts. While we will continue to work to improve his already considerable knowledge of how letters work in words, our emphasis will be on placing him on reading contexts that he can readily understand so that his sight vocabulary can be combined with a meaning vocabulary. We will also emphasize the development of a broader listening vocabulary and sense of book language by reading to him. During both activities, reading and listening to books being read, we will stop at points of anticipation to have him predict what he thinks might happen next based on what has been read or listened to thus far. After reading or listening, we will go back to the text to examine new vocabulary, idioms, and grammatical constructions in light of their understood contexts.

Sense of Story

For this assessment,Simon was told the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. He was then asked to retell the story as best he could while I recorded his retelling. This assessment gives a sense of how much the child has internalized story language. Story elements, story organization, and story sentence syntax are all considered in the results of this assessment.

Sense of Story
Story Elements / Story Organization / Story Language
Retellings / 8 of 8 / E / D
Oral Composition / 0 / A / B
Written Composition / 4 / C / C

Simon has an excellent ear for stories. He could retell Goldilocks and the Three Bears almost exactly as it was read to him. He used expressions, beginning and endings, and told every part of the story almost exactly. He has obviously had exposure to hearing stories and story language. This is a very positive finding in that it demonstrates a good ability to pick up written language. We can build on this disposition by ensuring that he be given to read and listen to texts that he can understand, that we use questioning that will call on him to engage his prior knowledge and self-monitor his comprehension, and that we follow up this reading and listening with a supported examination of the meaning of the text’s vocabulary, idioms, and language structures as revealed by the context.

The sense of story demonstrated in his retelling of Goldilocks and the Three Bears is not translated in his oral and written compositions.This follows the pattern that has been displayed in the earlier assessments of having a second language barrier. He seems to be spending so much energy trying to translate whatever he is thinking that when it comes out, it is short and choppy, not fluent and not detailed.

Writing

The writing assessment consisted of having Simon tell a personal narrative of his own orally after being told one of my own as an example. I asked Simon to tell it into a tape recorder and then write the story he just told. The written version of the story was compared to the oral version to see if the act of spelling interfered with his composition.

Both Simon’s oral story and written story were extremely short. His written story consisted of:

“I went to the zoo with my mom and dad. We was watching monkeys and they left wild I was watching then I turn and didn’t see my mom and dad. I got lost and it took me a wild to find them.”

It was three sentences and matched for the most part the story he told orally. Simon can match what he says to what he writes. Again, it seems that English Language automaticity and richness is wanting.

Simon’s spelling of “wild” for while illustrates that the particular spellings of the words that he knows have not become fully matched with their meanings. It is easy to imagine the disadvantage he has when trying to go from sight to meaning when reading. His writing reveals grammatical misunderstandings and his tendency to say things in a very short and to-the-point manner.

Instructional Plans and Progress Report

From the results of the assessments listed above, plans were made for the first six weeks of instruction in the area of reading, writing, word study, and being read to. These plans were adjusted according to Simon’s progress in each area.

Reading

We began working on reading in upper level second grade texts. His accuracy was on target here, but his rate was slow. We built his reading from this level andhoped to move up to a third grade text quickly. During this time we did a DRTA or “Directed Reading Thinking Activity” in which we stopped at points of anticipation in the story and asked “What do you think is going to happen next?” and “Why do you think that?” These questions make the student think about what has just been read to create a predication. In asking “Why do you think that” we are asking the student to look back to the text for evidence to support his claim, once again checking for comprehension in the passage.

We began reading a late second grade text and have since moved on to third grade level. Simon’s DRTA’s are going well. It takes a minute for him to think through and answer the two questions each time they are asked and his answers are generally very safe answers. Once he comes up with a prediction for what will happen, he will stick to that through each set of questions until something very clear leads him to make a different prediction for the book. So far we have read:

• Arthur’s Campout 2-2
• Young Wolf 2-3
• Pompeii: Buried Alive 3

Writing

Based on his limited oral and written compositionswe worked on Simon’s ability to dictate and write personal narratives and compositions about his interests. We also worked on planning and revising drafts of his writing.

Thus far, we have worked on two stories. The first began with the writing assessment. Its first draft consisted of three sentences. We worked with it for approximately fifteen minutes during each of our first four tutoring sessions, making it into an eleven sentence typed draft. Each session, I would bring a typed copy of the story with blank lines where it was obvious that we could add more detail to the sentence or make the story more clear in meaning. He felt very proud of having written such a story in the end. The second story began as a four sentence story:

“I went sledding with my brothers. At first we made the snow slippery so we can slide on it. We use cardboard to slide. We slide all day sledding.”

After reading the story, and going over the writing in seminar, I decided that a map to organize his thoughts may serve him well. We spent the next class creating the map and the following sessions creating the draft of the story. With something to work from, Simon created a one page story that is attached in the materials included with this report.

Word Study

For word study, our focus was on doubling and vowel patterns that are second and third grade lower frequency vowel patterns. During word study, we implemented the word sort technique. Using this method, students are given headers for each column. They must then place the words in to the column to which they belong. This tests the student’s knowledge of patterns as well as giving the instructor insight to their reasoning even when a word is placed incorrectly. We worked with a long vowel word sort and worked steadily on more challenging sorts.