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Kelsey Olson

Adv. Curriculum & Instruction Diverse Learner


Case Study Section 1
October 26, 2014

I.

Student Background and Classroom Observation Data


Sara is a very friendly and sweet third grader. According to her teacher she has
made a lot of progress in the last year and has become much more confident in her
abilities. She did not attend pre-school, but has been at her current school since
Kindergarten. Sara speaks Spanish at home and self-reports that she knows how to
read a little in Spanish as well. Her family is originally from Mexico and she really
enjoys talking about her trips there. She is considered to be limited English proficient.
This school provides English language learner support in the general education
classroom. Sara was assessed towards the end of first grade due to academic concerns
as well as social and behavior concerns that started in kindergarten. On the Kaufman
Test of Educational Achievement, Second Edition (K-TEA-II) Sara scored in the
average range for all sections. She did score the highest in the reading sections as
compared to the math and written language sections. Sara scored a 101 Standard
Score (SS) for Basic Reading, 104 SS for Letter & Word Recognition, and 100 SS for
Reading Comprehension. The IEP team determined that Sara qualified for special
education services under the specific learning disability category for math and
writing. Her non-verbal intellectual ability, as determined by the Wechsler
Intelligence Scale For Children-Fourth Edition (WISC-IV), is much higher than the
skill level that she demonstrated on the other assessments so she was considered to
have a weakness in math and written expression. Saras eligibility for academic
services though was mostly due to her academic performance in the classroom being
significantly below that of her peers. In addition to academic concerns, there were
also social-emotional concerns at the time of Saras first assessment, including
anxiety, withdrawal, adaptability, and depression that impacted her learning. Sara has
received counseling intervention as a result of this and is doing much better currently.
She appears much happier and is more willing to participate during class activities,
however, she still will sometimes become silent and refuse to work when a task
frustrates her.
Sara currently goes to the RSP room with a small group of other third graders four
times a week for forty-five minutes a day. This time coincides with a grade-wide
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intervention block so none of the students are missing lessons on new material while
they are in the RSP room. Sara has three annual goals: one concerning reading
comprehension, one for writing, and one for math.
During classroom observations, Sara has always been focused and on task. She
listens to her teacher and follows instructions with minimal prompting. The literacy
activities I have observed are spelling lessons using the Signs for Sounds program,
small group read alouds with her teacher, and working on Lexia, a research-proven,
technology-based iPad program that accelerates reading skills development through
personalized learning with a focus on developing foundational reading skills. During
spelling lessons, Sara does struggle to remember words or sentences that are being
read for her to spell herself as well as overarching spelling rules during lessons. She
tries very hard and shows great concentration while working during spelling lessons.
This can cause her to work slower than the others in her group because she thinks
before writing most letters, but she also usually does very well and catches her own
mistakes. Her teacher has made a point to compliment Sara on her diligence in front
of the whole group during the lessons. The one big exception to Sara catching her
own mistakes that I have noticed was a lesson on suffixes (-est and er). She really
struggled with not only spelling the suffixes correctly and remembering to add them
when needed, but also the spelling of the base words. I think there might have been
too many things for her to remember when spelling these words, which made it
particularly challenging when compared to other spelling lessons. Relatedly, I have
also noticed that Sara often cuts off the suffix when reading aloud. For example,
instead of reading worker, Sara will just say work. In addition, she also generally
will only read the first part of a contraction so the word theyre becomes they
when she is reading aloud. Unlike her spelling activities, Sara seems to try to read
aloud quickly and does not often stop to sound out words or ponder what she is
reading. She does not read so fast that end punctuation is ignored, but she does often
make simple mistakes that I think she would not do if her rate were slightly slower.
More importantly, I think that helping her slow her reading process down slightly will
help her to comprehend the material more fully. Sara struggles with reading
comprehension particularly in the area of retelling what she has just read. I think it

will be important to provide explicit instruction on reading comprehension strategies,


particularly ways for her to check her understanding as she reads.

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