Reader Case Study Joe Klee Professor Eastman Education 301 Fall 2008
Reader Case Study: Phase I My reader case study is of a male second grade student at Manchester Elementary School. He is an only child and lives in a middle class home with both parents. The student enjoys many hobbies including: watching the television show American Outlaws, playing sports (basketball and baseball in particular) with his friends, collecting gun shells, and playing ping-pong. The student s teacher mentioned that he did not particularly enjoy reading. Most of his independent reading time was spent off task. The student s main areas of weakness are his ability to stay on task, his fluency, and his lack of comprehension. The researcher has found that the comprehension factor is directly linked with the student s desire to pick books that are to challenging for him. Once the student had an appropriate leveled book his comprehension drastically improved. During the first meeting with the student the researcher had him pick out a book from the library. The student chose Nate the Great and the Fishy Prize by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat and Marc Simont. The researcher allowed the student to read a couple of pages from the book as a sample reading passage. The researcher noticed the student struggling significantly with some of the book s vocabulary. The book happens to be a level 3.1 which seems to be above his reading level. After the student read part of Nate the Great the researcher conferenced with the student on vocabulary issues. We decided to read the book First Day Jitters by Julie Danneberg. While reading, the researcher conducted a running record and found the student appeared to comprehend the story even though the book posed minor vocabulary
problems. Usually the student was able to overcome them with no detraction from their understanding of the story. The researcher would like to implement the following reading assessments. He would like to use the student s scores from the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) TEST. The MAP scores would allow the researcher to see a much more detailed report of the student s strengths and weaknesses. With this information the researcher feels he can better plan lessons to make sure that the student s areas of weakness are addressed. The MAP scores will allow him to compare the struggling student to their peers. The researcher feels this is important so that he can see the discrepancy between grade level students and his student. The researcher also plan on implementing Informal Reading Inventories (IRIs) in the form of a running record every session. These running records will allow him to document the student s areas of strengths and weaknesses. He will be able to note specific vocabulary and comprehension successes/difficulties. These daily reports will allow the researcher to compile more data with which they can plan more specific lessons aimed at the individual s needs. The last assessment that will be used is the Cloze Vocabulary Test. This test also referred to as the Cloze Deletion Test, requires the student to understand the context and vocabulary in the section. This test is made up of a passage that random words have been removed from. The student then is required to plug in their own vocabulary into those blanks to complete the passage. The researcher feels that by leaving out words in the passage the student will be forced to really concentrate on the passage s meaning and carefully select words that will fit the context of the passage. This test will eliminate the
guessing based upon visual clues received from pictures as was seen in the student s first running record with the researcher. With the results of these assessments the researcher should be better suited to plan instruction based upon the student s strengths and weaknesses.
Assessment Database Name of Assessment Informal Reading Inventory (IRI) Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) Standardized Testing And Reporting (STAR) Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy (DIBELS) Cloze Gr How to Use ad e 1-6 Use the data to make an initial instructional 2-10 plan Computer controlled test All Computer Controlled K- 6 Regularly used to monitor early reading skills All Give the students a word list with certain words erased and they have to fill them in When to Use It Initial screenings Up to 4 times each year Usually at the beginning and the end Screening At least 3-4 times a year To determine the reading level for the student Information Provided Word Recognition, Word Meaning, Reading Strategies, Comprehension Percentile Scores, Achievement scores, Growth Scores Reading Levels, Grade Equivalents, Percentile Ranks, Normal Curve Equivalents Phonological Awareness, Comprehension Grade level appropriate texts Reference Information http://www.edupl ace.com/rdg/res/ begin/usinginfor mal.html http://www.nwea.org/assessments/ map.asp http://www.renle arn.com/sr/overv iew.aspx https://dibels.uor egon.edu/dibelsi nfo.php#which http://members.tr ipod.com/~emu1 967/cloze.htm
Reader Case Study: Phase II After administering the Informal Reading Inventories during each session, the researcher is able to determine how to best help the reader improve his areas of weakness in the next session. The researcher administered a running record at each session and received the reader s test scores as a result of talking with the reader s teacher. After working with the reader and seeing his test scores the researcher has decided the student has significant weaknesses in the areas of reading comprehension and vocabulary, especially decoding unfamiliar words. The researcher has only carried out the running record IRI to date. Each session the researcher selects a passage of about fifty words or five pages. He keeps a running tally of words the student correctly identifies, misses, and self-corrects. He also keeps track of the words the student misses in order to add important words to the vocabulary cards. The student seems to respond very well to this assessment. He seems to read better knowing that the researcher is paying extremely close attention to him. The researcher has noticed that the reader typically has fewer errors and more self-corrections during this part of the lesson. The student has expressed that he likes running records. He said that they were fun for him. Since his performance seems to be increased I make sure I do one of these in every book that we read. Using the results from the reader s assessments the researcher was able to tell that the student had problems with decoding vocabulary words which led to several problems in reader comprehension. He will need to develop some more efficient vocabulary and
word recognition skills in order for the reader to develop into a more proficient reader. After the researcher has developed this plan of action he will start tutoring the student in hopes of giving the reader the tolls he needs to succeed. The researcher would first like the student to always take a picture walk through the book in order to gain some background knowledge to what the book might be about. He would go through and state anything that he could infer about the story through the pictures. With this model the reader would hopefully be able to mimic my thought process and this strategy would also be able to show how detailed these picture walks must be in order for them to be truly effective. This strategy will allow the student to hopefully start to generate some topic related vocabulary, instead of solely relying on his ability to decode words. While he is looking at the pictures the researcher will also tell him any tricky words such as names and places that he might struggle with, names that the reader might have problems sounding out. The researcher will also look for words that have familiar base words that the reader may never have seen before. The reader will then begin reading the book. Whenever he gets to a word that he does not know, the student will get two chances to sound it out. If they can not then he will need to make a vocabulary card with the word on it. After the card is created the reader will be asked what the word means. If the student knows the word already then the card is placed as is into the rubber band. If the student does not know the word then he will need to write a sentence on the back of the card to help him remember it. At the end of each week we will keep track of how many new cards we added. The reader will also be able to mark cards that he has learned so we
don t spend our time working on words he has already learned. These words will be the words used in our Cloze lesson at the conclusion of the reader case study. In addition to the vocabulary cards the researcher would also like to try to teach word recognition tricks using nonsense words. Nonsense words follow spelling patterns but do not offer the student the luxury or guessing since these words are not intended to make sense. Since these words are unfamiliar this strategy will hopefully help the student break the tendency to read the first syllable of a word and take a guess at what the rest of the word might be. The researcher plans that this will help the reader with his word decoding skills.
October 31, 2008 Dear Parent/Guardian, My name is Joe Klee and I am a senior education major at Manchester College. For one of my course projects, I am to design and conduct a Reader Case Study on a student. It has been a privilege of mine to get to know and spend time with your son each week. He is a very hard worker and I can see he is willing to put in the extra effort to really help himself. I have been pleasantly surprised at how willing he has been to work hard for each of our sessions. During the case study I have found Kyle willing to try any and everything. I have found that Kyle to have a strength in being able to pick new words up quickly once we have learned them. I have also found a weakness of Kyle s in decoding words. As a reaction to my finding I have designed a plan to help Kyle gain more confidence in this area. Each week when I meet with him we will explore new strategies that deal with decoding new vocabulary words. I would like to ask for your help in encouraging Kyle to show you these new methods at home as well as when I meet with him at school, as I am only able to meet with him twice a week. Each week I will try a new strategy to see what works best for your child. Thank you for allowing me to work with Kyle. In the short time I have know him I have learned that he is a very special young man. I really appreciate his willingness to work hard and not be afraid to try new things and make mistakes. I look forward to continuing to work with Kyle throughout the semester. Sincerely, Joe Klee
Kidspiration Rationale Title: My Teacher for President Written by: Kay Winters Illustrated by: Denise Brunkus Copyright: 2004 Summary: Oliver s class has been learning about elections and the President s responsibilities. In this book, a boy named Oliver writes to a TV station to tell them why his teacher Ms. Robbins would make a great President. On each page Oliver states a reason why Ms. Robbins would be a great President based upon how she handles challenges in her classroom on a daily basis. Philosophy: I feel that the organizer I have created will help his comprehension. It will serve as a way for the student to organize visually the main facts of the story. The student must decide who the main character is and why Oliver thinks she would make a great President. I will allow the student to take a picture walk through the book and then read it. After finishing the story the reader will complete the graphic organizer illustrating the main ideas of the story.
Action Plan Lesson #1 Think Alouds: Monitoring Comprehension 10/16 *Read Nate the Great and the Fishy Prize Part: *I used Nate the Great as a model for my think aloud. *The book was most likely above the reader s instructional level so I took over reading. I modeled comprehension strategies for the student as I read. I asked myself questions aloud so he could hear what a fluent reader sounds like when they were reading something for the first time. *We selected a book that was at his independent reading level. I helped him model the strategy so that he could have some guided practice since he was learning this strategy for the first time. *IRI Lesson #2 Think Alouds Revisited: Comprehension 10/21 *We selected another book on his independent level at random and had the student practice this strategy for me. *Also an IRI Part: *I noticed the student was still having some comprehension problems. The reader seemed to be reading pretty fluently however the reader had little comprehension. I modeled my strategy one more time changing how I did it. Instead of gearing my think aloud towards the idea of vocabulary I really emphasized the questions I was forming over what was happening on each page and what that might lead me to predict about the next few pages. Read: Kick the Football, Charlie Brown! *We read this book alternating between pages and sharing a conversation about our predictions for the others next page. This was a fun strategy. I think this helped the reader really come to grips with his questions, because by the end he was making spot on predictions about what was happening on my pages. Lesson #3 Picture Walk 10/23 Reread: Kick the Football, Charlie Brown! *The student retained a lot of our strategies this week! *IRI
Part: *We did a picture walk through the book together. *The reader has done picture walks previously but I modeled a much more detailed picture walk. I showed the reader that a picture walk can be a great way to get the gist of the story but you can gain much, much more if you want to. I really dug into some of the pictures and modeled a way for the reader to almost make a movie in their minds before they even read the first page. Read: Kenny and the Little Kickers *I had the student do a picture walk through the book. At first the reader didn t really dig into each page but with some prodding he really was able to tell me a lot of information from each page and some inferences he was able to make as well. Lesson #4 11/6 Reread: Kenny and the Little Kickers Part: *Today was a review day for the student. *The student led the think aloud before the book and also did an outstanding picture walk. The reader also was able to make some accurate predictions. Some of these were fairly easy but some would have been very hard to guess accurately. So his accuracy was not necessarily a result of him not using his tools efficiently. Read: The Wrong-Way Rabbit *IRI Lesson #5 Kidspiration Activity 11/18 Reread: The Wrong-Way Rabbit Part: *Student-led picture walk with My-Teacher for President *I introduced my graphic organizer (kidspiration activity). I explained that sometimes in hard books readers might get lost and a graphic organizer can be a great way for the student to organize the information in a text. I told him that he would be filling out a simple organizer at the end but sometimes readers might do this while they are reading as well Read: My Teacher for President *The reader filled out the kidspiration activity with no problems.
Lesson #6 Cloze Deletion Test 11/25 *We will read a book on his instructional level. Part: *We will have some discussion regarding to words that make sense. I will have several examples, maybe even some multiple meaning words. *I will then give the student the deletion test to see if his vocabulary has improved any through our sessions. The student will have to use his comprehension questioning strategy in order to be successful on this activity. He will have to refer back in the paragraph as well has use him understanding of vocabulary words in order to help him find the correct word to complete each sentence. *We will read the paragraphs and hopefully they will make sense and fit into a story
Reader Case Study: Phase III Over the course of the tutoring sessions the reader has grown in his ability to decode unfamiliar vocabulary and as a result has improved his reading comprehension. The reader s Map scores showed the researcher that the reader had weaknesses in word recognition and comprehension of texts. The researcher used these scores to develop an action plan to help remediate the reader. The researcher also used running records throughout the case study. Every running record was an improvement upon the previous one. This showed that the reader was showing some growth as he learned and became comfortable using some of the tools that help more proficient readers to read. The running records showed evidence that the strategies that the researcher was showing the reader were helping the reader to become more successful. The last assessment that the reader completed was the Cloze Deletion Test. The reader was supplied a familiar story and a word bank. The researcher then explained what the story was about and who the main characters were. Next, the reader was allowed to ask any questions of the researcher that he wanted. Afterwards the reader was to read the passage aloud as he tried to figure out words to complete the story. The reader got all of the blanks correct. This showed the researcher that the student understood what words did and did not make sense in the story. The action plan seems to have really helped the reader to develop the necessary skills to improve his reading. The researcher likes the fact that the interventions that were chosen were all proven to be effective with the reader. The reader has learned not only several different ways to decode the unknown word but through these assessments he is
also starting to gain confidence in his reading. As the reader builds his confidence level in reading he will hopefully start to change his attitude toward reading in general. The researcher has noticed that over the course of the tutoring sessions the reader has improved his skills in decoding unfamiliar vocabulary. The student would formerly stop at the unknown word until someone would tell him the word. He would then continue on without repeating the beginning of the sentence to help learn the new word. The reader now pauses at the word and attempts to make guess. The reader will then continue to the end of the sentence. If that word makes sense to him then he will continue however, if the sentence does not make sense the reader has started to go back and reread the unknown word breaking up the word into different sets of chunks to make another attempt at the word. This was a strategy that the researcher showed the reader during a session but it was not one of the planned interventions. While the reader has started to gain confidence in his reading again he is also starting to become easily discouraged. If the reader can not get the word in a few attempts the reader will flip to the back of the book or chapter and count the pages left for the day s lesson. After the pages are tallied the reader is usually much harder to work with. The reader is only concerned with the time remaining in that session. This is a phenomenon that the researcher had attempted to change but has had no luck. When the reader hits is wall after the frustrations have mounted there is really nothing that can be done for that session. The researcher kept the case study s overall goals to himself, but told the reader each morning what the he expected to be able to get done during the session. The researcher told the reader the strategies and modeled explicitly how to use them. The
reader seems to get stressed out relatively easy so the researcher felt that without expressing the expectations verbally he would have more of a chance at reaching them. The reader s attitude toward reading doesn t appear to have changed much during the course of the case study. The reader still shows little interest in reading outside of the sessions. He appeared to be very excited in the first sessions to work with the researcher and read but as the case study dragged on the novelty of working with a college student wore off for him. The reader would still put forth effort each week but the researcher noticed that during the last third of the sessions that the reader would start to become more easily distracted by classes walking by or books falling on the floor around him. The reader has become fairly proficient with the reading strategies that the researcher has taught him. He is able to apply them in applicable situations to have a better shot at figuring out unknown words in the text. At the conclusion of the case study the researcher is starting to realize some of the overlooked aspects of instruction. The reader must be involved in book selection. The reader s attitude and excitement changed drastically between the sessions in which the reader brought in a book as opposed to when the researcher brought in a book even though areas of personal interest were accommodated. The reader was willing to work longer and would generally stay more focused if they were the ones to select the material. When the researcher would select the material the reader would usually appear interested in it at first but by half way through the book they were counting the number of pages remaining. This case study has also really shown the importance of using assessment to drive instruction. Without using the assessments the researcher would have a difficult time
determining whether the reader actually gasped the concepts or not. The assessments are also a great way to document the reader s progress throughout the sessions. The assessments would not always have to be formal written assessments, they could be oral discussions or even simple observations the researcher makes. However, for each lesson there needs to be some way for the instructor to gauge how well their students grasped the concepts being taught. Through the case study the researcher has also improved his ability to work with data collection and assessment. The researcher has grown in his ability to both collect data in various forms but also to use that data to drive future instruction. He had to take the student work samples and assess them in a way that he could verify that the student was learning the concepts and also to find out if there were concepts that he needed to reteach to reinforce student learning. The researcher feels that he was able to pull information from various sources and manipulate that information to present to the student in effective ways. He feels that the reader was successful in this way and that overall he enjoyed and benefited from the case study. The researcher has developed two goals to continue developing his reading instruction. The researcher wishes to always stay up to date on the best practices of reading. This is especially important because reading strategies change so frequently that it is really important that we learn about and experiment with new strategies as they are being promoted. The other goal is to always change assignments. It is really easy to pass out a generic assignment or teach one to a reader, but lessons become so much more
effective when you are able to adapt them to each reader. The researcher believes that the extra time spent changing an assignment will tremendously benefit a struggling reader.