Running head: CASE STUDY 1

Case Study

Andrew Parker

University of Redlands
CASE STUDY 2

The child being observed is a twelve-year-old who attends Raymond Cree Middle School

in Palm Springs, California. He is in sixth grade and appears to enjoy school, respect his teachers

and have great relationships with his classmates. His attendance is excellent, and he has not

missed any school in two years. The student is male of Hispanic cultural background, both

parents were born and raised in Mexico. Both parents are fluent in Spanish and Spanish is the

only language spoken at home, due to the Father not being able to communicate in English. The

student’s Mother does speak English, but it can be broken English at times and she chooses

Spanish when asked what language is preferred for communication with the school and the

teacher.

Abilities

The student’s Teacher considers the child to be fluent in English proficiency (FEP).

According to his reading assessments, his AR level is at grade level, content knowledge (eg.

main ideas, inferring) is a 1.2 and skills in relation to language arts (eg. vocab and grammar) is

scoring as a 2. The student has no health considerations relevant to reading/language arts

including not having any IEP/504. His California English Language Development Test (CELDT)

intermediate. Looking closer at the break down of the CELDT, listening is intermediate with a

scale score 60.0%. Speaking is also intermediate with a scale score of 59.2%. His writing is

intermediate with a raw score of 74.3%.

This student is in the expanding level of English Language Development. According to

the State board of Education, “students at this level are challenged to increase their English skills

in more contexts and learn a greater variety of vocabulary and linguistic structures, applying
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their growing language skills in more sophisticated ways that are appropriate to their age and

grade level” (p. 694).

Teacher Input and School Support

All six of the student’s teachers (language arts, math, science, social science, physical

education and leadership) stated that the child is a great student. All teachers noted that the

student is a hard worker and ideal student. It appeared that the student is given additional support

from his English and Science teacher and has a great relationship with the Science teacher. The

English teacher feels the child is benefiting from small group intervention. She also brings the

child up for one on one intervention when she feels the additional support is needed. While

interviewing, this teacher has explained the importance of having her students talk often to not

only her, but there classmates. She expressed the need for guided reading and rotates her students

based on levels so support can be given.

The science teacher has built a relationship with the student that has aided the student

tremendously in not only science, but all academics. The student feels comfortable talking to the

teacher, asking for help and expressing his thoughts on reading and comprehension. It appears

the student also views the teacher as a great male figure, which could also be aiding in the

relationship building. The Science teacher also takes in all students reading abilities and

comprehension abilities within his lessons. The teacher does many differentiated lessons and

scaffolds when needed for all students, especially those with special needs and English language

learners. He sees reading as a necessity that is not left on the shoulders of the English teacher. In

an interview the teacher expressed the importance of “all staff working together to give his

students the best academic chance in life”.

Students Participation and Observations

The student is active in outside of school activities. He plays sports after school (non-

school related) including football and soccer. He is very enthusiastic when talking about his

sports. He also takes part in school clubs, including leadership. He express that he wants to do

better in school to help support his athletic abilities. When interviewed, he was grateful for his

football coach who is always encouraging him to try hard and not just rely on sports to get him

into college in the future. He expressed that making his family and coach proud is very important

to him. At one point, he called his coach his second Dad, who gives him hope and makes him

want to be the best he can be. He also spoke highly about his science teacher. He stated, “he

cares about me, really cares about my future”.

Regardless of the class, the student appeared to always be excited to participate in group

readings and expresses he wants to read better. He offers to read in read out louds and

understands he may need some assistance with words and meanings. He takes help from his

teacher and classmates well and always says thank you after student’s assistant him. In an

interview, the student claims to have set a goal for himself to “become a better reader and to

learn lots of new words and the meanings too”. The student asks many questions in class,

including asking his teacher about the meaning of words as she is instructing. Two teachers

pointed out that the student has made his own personal journal dedicated to new words he learns.

The student tends to write in it often and refers to the journal often when writing and talking. The

science teacher states the student’s parents have encouraged the child to learn English and do his

best to read and write fluent in English, since they feel this has held them back in work. His

parents are unable to assist the child in homework due to not understanding the assignment
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themselves. Regardless, they are supportive of all work the child does and makes various

attempts to reach out to the teachers to be sure the child is staying up to date on work and show

that they are a team with the teachers.

While observing the student reading both in a small group setting and a large group

setting, it was observed that the student struggles with reading fluency and comprehension.

Fluency is the ability to read words automatically, accurately and with expression (Levin, 1973,

p.18). This student has such a drive to read, but the fluency is making things difficult.

Comprehension is being able to process and understand what it is one is reading. Both of these

working hand and hand together.

Fluency

Fluency is important for all readers. It can be extremely hard for English Language

Learners because their lack of proficiency in English slows down their ability to decode words

and hinders their ability to understand the meanings of the words and how words combine to

produce meaningful sentences and discourse (Elbro & Bunh-Iversen, 2013, p.440). Fluency

relates to accuracy, pacing and prosody. Accuracy is reading words correctly. Pacing is the

reading rate according to natural speech and prosody is the expression, intonation and phrasing.

Fluency is a bridge from word analysis and reading comprehension. “The automaticity theory is

based on the principal that tasks become easier, requiring less attention, through practice.

Decoding becomes automatic through explicit instruction and practice. The goal of teachers is to

move students beyond accuracy in decoding to automaticity, so attention can be focused more on

comprehension of the text (Duke, 2005, p.54).

Fluency Strategies

Based on observation of the child, interview with the teacher and the student’s assessments the

following strategies could be taking into consideration for further support for the student in the

areas of fluency:

Leveled Reading Fluency Practice

For independent reading, it will be important that the teacher provides the student with

material at his level. Since he is excited to read, providing him with books at his level will allow

him to read and enjoy what he is reading without having to put focus on pronouncing words and

word meaning. This will allow the reader to comprehend the material and stay excited to engage

and continue reading.

Goals with fluency

It is important that feedback and goals are given to the student in the area of reading

fluency. For example if trying to promote reading rate, the teachers will need to give direct

explicit instruction in how to pace reading with natural speech. The teacher can demonstrate by

first reading the passage to the student and giving instruction on what reader’s theater is.

Following the student should be assessed on the fluency of the passage and then feedback can be

given. From there it is important that the student and the teacher make a goal. The student then

can read and reread the passage multiple times throughout the week to gain fluency of the

passage. At the end of the week the student can be reassessed to determine if the fluency rate has

increased. This will give the student a chance to improve and feel accomplished once the goal is

met.
CASE STUDY 7

Reading Comprehension

It is vital that students not only read words, but have the skill of comprehending what it is

they are reading. Reading comprehension is understanding the material being read. It is hard to

teach comprehension and students can differ in ways they learn comprehension. It is imperative

that teachers not only teach comprehension strategies, but model how to use the strategies for

best practice. By using think aloud, choral reads echo reads, group and partner work, along with

individual work, students can become comfortable with reading strategies and become skilled in

the area of comprehension (Duke, 2005, p.87).

Reading Comprehension Strategies

I observed that neither classes had reading strategies on the walls and when I was

bringing strategies to the children, they did not seem to know with confidence what I was talking

about. “Researchers have found that teaching reading strategies is a key element in developing

reading comprehension” (Levin, 1973, p.19). The child could benefit in having a reminder or

being retaught some strategies and how to use them to benefit their reading. Both teachers may

also want to focus on the six basic reading comprehension strategies; predicting, clarifying,

visualizing, connecting, questioning and summarizing.

Predicting is when the reader forms a hypothesis by using evidence from the text, past

experiences and own knowledge. Predicting not only makes the reader use evidence from the

text, but is a fun way to predict and then read to see if the hypothesis is correct. Visualizing let
CASE STUDY 8

the reader connect the material they are reading to a personal picture. Readers can then take their

visualizations and infer meaning along with recalling events along the way.

Another important strategy for student readers is connecting reading to prior knowledge.

This especially helps students who are English Language Learners. “The preexisting knowledge,

acts as a foundation on which they can build new knowledge and helps connect what they

already know. These kinds of connections are what makes new learning make sense” (Elbro &

Bunh-Iversen, 2013, p.440). Along with connecting to prior knowledge, students cannot be

afraid to question as they are reading and connecting the material. With practice students can

pick up and feel comfortable asking and answering these questions as they read.

The goal will be for students to learn these strategies, feel comfortable with using them

while reading and turn their new strategies into skills. Once these are turned into skills, the

student will apply them automatically while reading, which will aid in stronger comprehension

skills.

Teacher Instruction

Instruction strategies will be key for this student since he is reading below level and is at

an intermediate level. The student can benefit if the teacher uses many gestures and pictures to

make the language she is teaching comprehendible for the student. The student will also do well

with small group instruction to work on language development and grammar in all subject areas.

This will also allow for the teacher to pick groups wisely, being sure the group members can

benefit from each other. This student loves to interact with classmates and likes to be chosen to

read and answer so providing positive activities for the student to engage and participate is
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critical for the student to not only build language skills, but to keep a positive outlook on his

learning experience.

The child loves to make charts and use journals for learning material. Having he child try

a graphic organizer to help break down the text could help not only with understanding words

and meaning, but being able to comprehend the text he is reading. Having the student write out

subject, action, who’s getting the action, and the conclusion, could aid the child to understand the

material and allow him to write in the journal and keep track, something he has made clear he

enjoys doing. The ongoing note keeping and evidence research that will be taking place during

reading, will allow the student to make connections and distinguish between important and

unimportant details. The teacher may want to continue with oral responses and higher order

thinking to give the student more confident about his skills and language. It is important that the

teacher uses all Depth Knowledge question levels. This could also help with writing since he will

become familiar with identifying and breaking down his findings

My intervention

After speaking with teachers and student in interviews and observations, I was given the

opportunity to work with the student and give suggestions. I gifted the child with a set of reading

flip cards. Reading flip cards are a customizable, interactive tool for the student to learn reading

strategies. The first cards list the reading strategies and what it means. For example, one card

states that visualizing is when one creates a mental image in their mind using details in the story

to help understand. These cards serve as reminders to use strategies and encourages the student

to go through each card while reading to aid in comprehension.

The next part of the flip cards is where the teacher can change cards out and customize

based on the child needs. The student is starting with comprehension helpers such as text

connections, predictions, ask questions, visualize and sequence retell. The flip cards can be

laminated so the student can fill in the blanks directly as he is reading. The next pages in the flip

card is a word bank, where the student can write words and definitions. The last part of the flip

cards is the story elements. After the student has completed the book and reading strategies

cards, he can use the information gained to write up the story elements. These sheets can be

stapled into a folder and customized as the student grows and develops in the area of reading

comprehension. This is also a great way to assess the child on comprehension and allow him to

see the progress he has made and what books he has read.

Since this child is particularly interested in science, the flip cards can be introduced

within science reading first to gain the interest of the child, along with making the finial pages

more like a portfolio to meet his love for journaling and showing off his work.

Conclusion

With the help of his teachers and mentors, this student has a love for school and reading.

He strives to have a bright future and attend college. At such a young age, he displayed an

attitude of success. He desires to read better, to comprehend the material he is reading and wants

to be able to continue to learn and grow. This is a quality not every student has in them. With

continued push form his parents, teachers and coaches, he will continue to grow and strengthen

his literacy skills.

References

Dymock, S. & Nickolson, T. (2010). High Five! Strategies to enhance comprehension of

expository text. The Reading Teacher. 64(3), 166-178. doi:10.1598/rt.64.3.2

Elbro, C & Buch-Ilbersen, I. (2013). Actavation of background knowledge for inference making.

Scientific Study of Reading, 17(6), 435-452. doi:10.1080/1088438.2013.774005

Levin, J.R. (1973) Introducing reading comprehension in poor readers: A test of a recent model.

Journal of Educational Psychology, 65, 19-24.

State Board of Education (2016). Framework.