Case Study Written Report: George Assessed and Observed by: Julianna Faber

Julianna Faber Case Study: George December 6, 2012 Professor Stockinger Case Study Written Report: George

Name: George Smith Grade: 6 (2012-2013) School: Black River Charter School Age at testing: 12

Date of Report: December 5, 2012 Date of Testing: October 29, 2012 Date of Interview: September 24, 2012 Examiner: Julianna Faber

Background Information

George enjoys many things, and happens to be a very energetic boy. His favorite parts of school include gym and cardio. He says, I have a lot of energy and these are some good times to get all my energy out. My dad tells me that I could run forever, so I try to pace myself. George also enjoys playing basketball and soccer. His favorite books to read are sports books and although he cant think of any titles of his favorite books, he really enjoys reading books about soccer. Although he cannot think of any authors names, he says he really likes the book called Timothy Green. He says that he really enjoys this book because he is able to relate to the fact that Tim plays sports. Timothy is a football player. He grows up playing football; he played since he was 3. Timothy grows up playing football until he plays wide receiver when he gets older, say George.

George comes from an average size family; he has three brothers. Two of his brothers are younger than him and one is older. Since he comes from a very active family, he enjoys reading in his bed. He usually reads before bed for an hour or so and then will read in the morning as well. He enjoys reading here for many reasons. The first reason is that his brothers arent allowed in his room. Here George has privacy to be alone and also finds some peace and quiet. He also says that this is probably the comfiest place to read his books. Although his family does not read to him often, he does enjoy when his parents read to him. This allows him to grasp a better understanding of the book. Since no one is really around when he is reading his books, I asked him what he did when he came to a challenging word or a word he didnt know the meaning to. He told me that he usually tries to sound it out. As he is sounding it out, he begins with the first three letters and tries to guess the word after that. Also when there is a word that he doesnt know the meaning of, he will either try to find someone who may know the meaning or he gets out the dictionary to find the meaning of the word. When George is in the library trying to figure out what book he wants, he often skips through the pages to see if there are too many words that he doesnt know or will read a section to see if it grabs his attention. George will also talk about a book with his friends to see if they have read it before. If his friends have read it before he enjoys talking about the books with his friends to see if it is a good read.

As I observe George in class, I notice that he does not keep focused very well during independent reading time and also when he has time to do his homework in class. This was one of his goals as a reader: to stay more focused. George told me that he has a hard time keeping focused during independent reading time. As I observe him, he doesnt appear to read much more than a page or two during independent reading. George is a student who needs more of a silent environment to do work in so that he can keep focused.

Spelling and Writing George has really progressed in his writing throughout the semester. When I got my first writing samples from him, there were many errors. George doesnt struggle so much with the spelling aspect of his writing as he does with his grammar. His biggest struggle is his use of punctuation. He really lacks in his use of commas and in his arrangement of sentences, or the syntactic structure. George will often reverse the order in which a sentence is usually structured. In his writing piece Why do Villains Steal Stuff? He wrote one sentence with the interjection after the subject, when it would have sounded more grammatically correct to go in front of the subject. When observing his lack of comma usage, I noticed that he would use run-on sentences. George was good at making up an answer; perhaps that he thought I wanted to hear, however, when he truly knew an answer, he would use run-on sentences. He could have done one of two things with these sentences; he could

have split them up to be two different sentences or he could have used a comma to separate them. There were also a few lists, or series, where George forgot to put in his commas, and instead separated the items in the series with the word and. The last big grammatical error that I observed it Georges writing was his use of tense. When words were put together in conjunctions, he tended to misuse the past, present, and future tenses. For example, there were a few spots where the rest of his piece would be in past tense and then he would use a conjunction, like wont instead of wouldnt. He often mixed the tenses within one writing piece. This is something that can be worked on through practice and going over the errors with him. For the most part, George is very on target for his age and grade level, especially in spelling. Although there are the spelling errors here and there, who doesnt have spelling errors, right? There are a few things that I feel George does need to work. Those include him working on is his comma usage and his tense usage in his writing. He needs to practice using the same tense throughout his whole work. Although he began this semester will some struggles grammatically writing, I feel that he has really improved since the beginning of the year and I hope that he continues to grow in his writing. ARI: Analytical Reading Inventory Overall Narrative Independent Level Instructional Level Frustration Level 6th grade 7th grade 8th grade

Overall, George is at is grade level for reading and writing. Although there are certain areas that he could work on as a student to continue to achieve, he is continually working to achieve the goals that are set for him. On the day that I administered my ARI to George I told him that I was going to have him read a couple passages from these pages and then ask him some questions about it. I reinstated what the independent reading level was because he already has been introduced to the terminology. I also reassured him that this was for my studies and this was not something that he would be graded on, which allowed me to watch his body relax. On the same day that I interviewed him, I gave him the word lists so that way I would be able to print off the correct passages for him to read. Since I knew that he was already a pretty fluent reader, I decided to start with level four on the word list. After I figured out about where his instructional level would be for reading, I decided to print off two passages above and two below so that way I would be able to figure out his frustration and independent levels as well. After I had the chance to assess the results I found that his independent reading is a sixth grade level. His Instructional level was at seventh grade and his frustration level at seventh grade. When George was reading the word lists, he was able to accurately read most of the words and was able to read up to the sixth grade level, which is where he met the maximum of three errors. George was able to decode these words at an instructional level and needed minimal help. After I had administered the word lists, I brought back the passages for him to read a few weeks later. When I had him read at the seventh grade level, he was at the instructional level, which is where I predicted him to be. Once we got to the eighth grade level George made many

errors and was very quick to give up pronouncing the words. Although his reading was still at an instructional level here, he was focusing so much on pronouncing the words that he did not grasp any of the meaning in the text. As I was analyzing the ARI I noticed that many of his miscues happened at the middle or the end of his reading; this was also the case for the self-corrected words. For the self-corrected words he would also read a couple words and notice that what he read didnt make sense and would go back and reread a passage or sentence to make sure he was grasping the meaning. This was not true for the frustration level, once he didnt understand a word or couldnt pronounce it he would either look up at me for help or he would pass over the word, where I would aid him anyway. The comprehension levels of the reading matched the levels almost identically. For the independent level he was able to answer almost all the questions, for the instructional, most of the questions, and for frustration level he grasped almost no story concept at all. One type of question that I did notice him miss quite often was the RIF, or retelling in facts. He missed these questions for almost all of the levels that he read at. This is one of the many things that I observed he could work on when reading. Reading for facts is just as important as reading for comprehension.

Recommendations

In writing, George needs to work on his grammar; especially his punctuation usage. In order to work on his comma usage he could do a fun hands-on activity that

uses macaroni. On a strip of paper he could write a sentence where he forgot to place commas and then he would glue on the commas where they are supposed to go. This is a fun technique that I found online when I was researching ways to help George implement his comma usage. While George is writing and learning how to use commas, perhaps he could have a creative cheat sheet where he can check if has used them in the necessary spots. He could use this as he writes, or he could use this when he is editing his paper. As George works on reading, I think that reading aloud and fluently will come in time. The most important thing is that he sticks with the reading. As students get older, I think that it is important for students to continually read both independently and aloud. Research shows that bot reading aloud and reading silently are important for students. George also needs to work on reading for facts. He could improve this by reading a specific passage and then playing a game, either made up or based off of a real game, where questions are asked about facts from the reading. You could make fun online quizzes where he is able to compete either with himself or other students who struggle with RIF also. I think that as he is learning, the important thing to remind him is that he is not being graded. This may be a type of informal formative assessment so that the teacher and the students will be able to find ways to help the student improve their reading. Lastly, it is important to have the help and support of the parents. So often parents think that they send their kids to school to learn, but the truth is that even at home the learning continues and it is important that the parents are helping to encourage what is being taught in school. His parents can encourage him to read

frequently and can perhaps ask him questions that pertain to RIF. His parents could also read aloud to him so that he can hear the use of punctuation and how it affects the way a passage is read. This may show George how fun reading can be and how important it is and how it impacts everyday life. Lastly, it is important to remember that practice makes perfect. George has done a really great job in pushing himself to reaching his goals.