Case Report
Tutor: Angie Sigmon
Student: B.S.
3-15-10
Introduction
As graduate reading clinicians in Appalachian State University’s Master’s Degree Program in Reading Education, we tutored B.S. for six weeks across the spring, 2010 semester. Angie Sigmon conducted the initial assessment and first six weeks of tutoring, and P.A. tutored for the last six weeks and administer the post-assessment. B.S. is in fifth grade and is ten years old. She struggles with reading comprehension, but has on grade level spelling skills.
Initial Literacy Assessments
A battery of literary assessments were administered to identify B.S.’s independent levels (at which she can work and be successful without help), instructional levels (where she can make the most progress with instructional support), and frustration levels (where the materials are too difficult for her to make progress even with instructional support), as well as her areas of need and readiness in reading, writing, word study, and being read to. I administered the following assessments: the Schlagal spelling assessment, word recognition in isolation, word recognition in context, reading comprehension, listening comprehension, sense of story, and writing. B.S. is very quiet and needs to be praised to do her best work.
Spelling
I administered the Schlagal spelling assessment, which consistsof a list of twelve words at each grade level. Each list contains words that follow appropriate patterns for that level or are high frequency words for that grade level. This test was administered to identify B.S.’s orthographic knowledge at each level. Because spelling skills and reading ability are so highly correlated, this test gives us insight into her ability to read at each level tested.
B.S. is independent in spelling on the fourth grade level where she scored ninety-two percent. I indentified fifth grade as her instructional level where she scored seventy-five percent. She reached a frustration level at the sixth grade level where she scored zero percent. An independent spelling level is identified when the child spells ninety to one-hundred percent of the words correctly on a given level. An instructional spelling level is identified when the child spells fifty to eighty-nine percent of the words correctly on a given level. The child reaches frustration when the child spells below forty percent of the words correctly on a given level.
B.S.knows beginning and ending consonants. She knows short vowels (e.g. trap) and consistently uses vowel markers in long vowel words (e.g. bike). She does well with blends and diagraphs (e.g. thick and wish). She struggles with some r-controlled vowels in lower frequency words (e.g. lunar). She also is not sure when to double the final consonant when adding –ed or –ing. For example, on the second grade level list B.S.spelled “trapped” as “traped). Similarly, she missed the double” r” at the syllable juncture in the word “scurry” on the third grade level. She misspelled scurry, preserve, honorable, and lunar, which have r-controlled vowels and are also low frequency words. These errors are all due to insufficient knowledge of words, prefixes, suffixes, and roots. When a child can identify the root word of words they do not know it helps them to make sense of the word, and therefore have a better understanding of how the letters work in that word. The same is true for prefixes and suffixes. When a child understands the meaning of many prefixes and suffixes he/she will more likely use them correctly when spelling words.
Schlagal Spelling Inventory1st / 92
2nd / 83
3rd / 92
4th / 92
5th / 75
6th / 0
Word Recognition in Isolation
The word recognition test in isolation consists of twenty words at each grade level that follow the patterns relevant to that grade or are high frequency words for that level. I flashed each word for one-third of a second to B.S. and waited for her response. If she gave the correct answer quickly I moved on to the next word. If she gave the wrong word or did not know the word, I gave her more time to look at the word. We continued through each graded list until she scored below fifty percent correct. This assessment is administered to find the highest level at which the child can automatically recognize and/or decode words on an independent and instructional level. The child needs to score between seventy and eighty-nine percent a level to be considered an instructional level on word recognition in isolation and between ninety and one hundred percent to be considered an independent level. The instructional level in word recognition is isolation predicts that the student has an adequate sight vocabulary to read successfully at that same level in context. It is vital to reading for the child to have automatic word recognition so the child is not focusing on decoding words, and is free to focus on the meaning of the story.
B.S. is instructional in word recognition in isolation on the fourth grade level where she scored sixty percent. B.S. decodes well which can be seen by looking at the difference in scores on the flash and untimed columns. B.S. scored sixty-five percent on the flash at the fourth grade level, but was able to decode at eighty-five percent at the same level. Throughout the assessment B.S. hesitated many times, which shows that she knows the words, but they are not automatic. These hesitations were counted as flashed errors as successful and fluent contextual reading required instantaneous word recognition. She also scored much higher when given time to read the word, which shows her ability to decode. While B.S.’s spelling demonstrated her instructional level at fifth grade, her word recognition indicates a fourth grade instructional level in that she was able to spell words on the fifth grade level with seventy-five percent accuracy, but was only able to read fifty-five percent of the words on the fifth grade level in the flash column. B.S. could benefit from sorting words for speed to help make words on her instructional spelling level automatic as well as reading copious amounts for accuracy and meaning.
Level / Flash / Untimed3rd / 100 / 100
4th / 60 / 85
5th / 55 / 80
6th / 40 / 60
Contextual Reading:
I asked B.S. to read orally grade-leveled passages in order to find her independent and instructional reading levels, as well as the level at which she became frustrated. B.S. was asked to read a story on the third, fourth, and fifth grade level and answer comprehension questions about each story. I timed each reading and kept record of reading errors as she read. Besides identifying appropriate reading levels, this assessment is also used to assess how quickly and fluently the child reads, to identify if the child is using contextual clues or decoding, and to get insight on the child’s overall confidence in reading. Contextual reading allows an opportunity to determine relative strengths and weaknesses across word recognition in context, fluency, and comprehension.
B.S. needed to read with ninety-eight percent reading accuracy or higher, have a good reading rate for that level, and score ninety percent on the comprehension questions in order to be considered independent on a given level. She needed ninety-five to ninety-seven percent reading accuracy, acceptable reading rate, and seventy percent comprehension for a level to be considered instructional.
I identified B.S. as an independent reader at a third grade level. B.S. was able to identify one hundred percent of the words at this level when flashed. Even though her reading accuracy is slightly low, with ninety-seven percent, she did read with an appropriate rate. Comprehension at all levels was low, but as reported below, she was able to read a third grade passage silently with one-hundred percent comprehension. I identified fourth grade as B.S.’s instructional level. Her word recognition in isolation was within the “grey area” between instructional and frustration on the flash, but she was able to pull it up to eighty-five percent when she was not timed. B.S. became frustrated on the fifth grade level. Her reading accuracy dropped below the instructional criteria as did her rate. B.S. read the passages quickly and made very few self-corrections. Her prosody was very low on all passages. She seems more focused on the words than the overall story, which also affected her rate and most likely influenced her comprehension scores.
I started silent reading assessment at a low fourth hoping to help with the automaticity of words, which would in turn speed up her rate. B.S. struggled with the fourth grade silent reading passage. She read the passage one hundred fifteen words per minute and comprehension was low.
Level / Acc. / Comp. / Rate / Silent / Silent Rate3rd / 97 / 40 / 114 / 100 / 138
4th / 94 / 15 / 104 / 32 / 115
5th / 92 / 66 / 102
Listening Comprehension
B.S. listened to a story and then answered comprehension questions about that story. This test was administered to see at which level B.S. can listen to a story and comprehend the text when the word recognition is done for her. She can listen to and comprehend at one hundred percent on the first grade level. She scored a forty percent on the second grade level and even lower on upper grades. This parallels difficulties comprehending she was reading, and the ease results in listening comprehension suggest that her comprehension problem may lie not only in the automaticity of her word recognition but also, and more likely, in the inadequacy of her meaning vocabulary and her facility with the particular text organizations and grammatical structures used in written language but not in the oral language. While B.S.’s contextual reading scores in word recognition in context show she is instructional on the fourth grade level, her listening comprehension level is first grade. B.S. needs to read stories with simple plots and few characters in order to comprehend the story well. She also needs to have read to her picture books (such as fairy tales) that have rich language and obvious but compelling plots. While she is reading and while she is being read to, we stopped at points of anticipation to have her predict what she thought might occur, based on what she had read or heard in the story thus far, in order to ensure that she is fully engaged in the story and using her prior knowledge to comprehend.
Listening Comprehension1st / 100
2nd / 40
3rd / 31
4th / 23
5th / 32
Sense of Story
I read B.S. a story, Poor Old Dog, and she retold the story. This assessment was given to see how well B.S. understands book language and the flow of a story. She was able to put the story in chronological sequence, but used an, “and then, and then” pattern throughout her story. B.S. included the setting, introduced the characters, listed the events in order, and ended her story in an appropriate manner. Even though she included these parts in her story, she left out big chunks of the plot. B.S. did not use complete sentences as she told the story. It is not shocking that B.S. struggles with sense of story when you look at her comprehension skills, or vice versa. She is struggles with making sense of stories as she reads or listens to a story being read to her.
Writing
I told B.S. a story about a time I was happy. She then told me a story orally about a time she was happy. I then invited B.S. to write her story. As she told her story she used the words, “and then. . ., and then . . .” throughout the whole story. She only wrote five sentences when she rewrote her story. B.S. did include a short beginning, middle, and end.
Instructional Plans and Progress
Plans were made across the instructional areas of reading, writing, word study (spelling and phonics), and being read to as a result of the conclusions drawn from the initial assessment. Tutoring lessons included activities in these four areas and were adjusted according to B.S.’s progress and needs.
Reading
I selected text on B.S.’s instructional level of fourth grade. Before reading I identified stopping points where she can anticipate what is going to happen next. I had questions to ask as we read and after we read. This is a Direct Reading/Thinking Activity (DRTA). We then spent a couple minutes re-reading the text for fluency.
Across the first six weeks B.S. read seven books. B.S. was able to use the pictures to retell the story to remind us what the story was about if we did not finish the story the week before. Throughout her readings B.S. struggled with making accurate predictions. She would choose a certain word or phrase and try to make a prediction based on only that information. For example, while reading the story, April’s Kittens, B.S. predicted that on the following page they would see ghosts. I asked her to prove it in the text and she pointed to the word “disappeared”. She was not taking in the relevant information from the story to make accurate predictions. Throughout each story she would also substitute words that would change the meaning, but she did not stop and reread. For example, while reading, The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush, she substituted the word “black” for back. It completely changed the meaning of the sentence, but she continued reading. B.S. also struggled with prosody. She would start every story reading word for word, but by the end of most stories she began reading with more intonation. B.S. read most stories fluently. She started off reading one hundred forty-nine words on a reread, but she made many errors as she read. As the plot and vocabulary of the stories became more difficult, B.S.’s fluency rate decreased. At the end of the six weeks she was reading about one hundred thirty words per minute on average.
Writing:
My general recommendation was to use B.S.’s interest in spending time with her friends to write a personal narrative. We used graphic organizers to plan her stories and revised drafts as we wrote.
I told B.S. a story about the topic and then had her tell me a story on the same topic. After telling the story, she wrote down the same story. I typed up the story and we would go back together and add in details. This last story we have been creating together. Across the first six weeks B.S. wrote a story about a time she was happy (trip to Carowinds), a special time with a friend (Hickory Dickory Dock), and a time she was excited (going to Old Navy). She started off with only five sentences. The second story she wrote a page and a half. The last story we wrote we used a web to brainstorm her ideas. She is still working on converting the web to a story.
Word Study:
B.S. sorted words on a fifth grade level with contrasting patterns. As she mastered sorts, she took spelling assessments to check for mastery. She read and sorted mastered lists for speed and accuracy.
Across the first six weeks B.S. has sorted words with the (er) patterns. She picked this up quickly, so we moved on to doubling. We spent several tutoring sessions working on when to double and when to just add –ing. She has now mastered this sort. She is now working on sorting –ough vs. the –au pattern.
Being Read To
I read to B.S. on a fifth grade level that contained rich language and compelling content.
I followed a DLTA plan as I read aloud. Across the first six weeks I read aloud three books to B.S.. B.S. began making more accurate predictions throughout our tutoring sessions. For example, while reading her the story, Bloomers, she was extremely involved in the story and was able to predict how the ladies were going to get out that women should wear bloomers. She continues to struggle with supporting her answers with the text. For example, in the last story I read aloud, Encore for Eleanor, she relied on the pictures more than the text. When I asked her to support her answer with the text she continued to point to pictures for support.