Adrienne Woolbright 10/09/11 CI 475 Individual Child Case Study When I walked into my third grade classroom at Garden

Hills Elementary for the first day and met my students, one student in particular caught my eye. For the sake of this paper I will call him Jerry. On that first day of class my co-op asked me if while the rest of the class was silent reading I could go in the hallway and read with Jerry while she led small group reading. It quickly became apparent to me that this student was severely below grade level when it came to reading. He had to sound out or de-code almost every word he read and often times I had to tell him the word because he did not have strong enough phonemic awareness to successfully decode the words. That same day my co-op told me about Jerrys family background. This was his first year at Garden Hills as a result of his family moving to Champaign from Mexico. His reading level was at a 6, in other words the pre-k level. They moved into the Garden Hills neighborhood which is a very low income area where he lives with his mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, and five brothers and sisters, all of which attend Garden Hills. Garden Hills itself is a very nice school seeing as it was just completely renovated. There are reading specialists that work with students that need intervention and ESL classes for students like Jerry, although for whatever reason he was not placed into an ESL class upon arriving at Garden Hills. The classroom follows the school wide literacy program which is the daily five. This includes read to self, read to someone, word work, writing, and small group reading. While talking with my teacher about potential students to do my case study on she had suggested a few students, one of which was jerry. She said he had great potential of improving over the course of the year which intrigued me. I love to see students succeed and with his ESL background and low reading level I thought he would be the perfect case study.

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Once I decided to do my case study on Jerry, my teacher set up an individual reading session between the three of us, Jerry, my co-op, and myself. Being only the second week of school and no teacher having Jerry prior due to his moving here just this year, my co-op did not know much about his reading strengths or weaknesses so she decided we could learn about him together. She picked out a book for him to read that she thought might be an appropriate level for him. After he read the book my co-op told me his strengths were de-coding, chunking, and comprehension. Although my co-op did have to tell him some words when his sounding out failed due to his lack of phonemic awareness, he was able to answer every question she gave him about the book after he read it. My co-op said this is rare for students at this low of a level. They spend so much time sounding out the words that they dont pay attention to what they are reading but this did not apply to Jerry. He had very high comprehension of the story. Her goals for him included working on vocabulary and fluency. As I observed him I saw him following each word with his finger which helped him sound out each letter, when he knew the sound that letter made, and follow the story without skipping a line. Also, when he came to a word he didnt know he would place two fingers vertically and move across the word to help him sound out each letter in the word. My co-op later told me this was a technique called chunking, a technique I had never heard of but really seemed to help him. When I individually interviewed him I learned that he owns no books at home and had read zero books over the summer but that he did enjoy reading. He also considered himself a good reader because he could read for a long time and rarely struggled reading. I was very

Adrienne Woolbright 10/09/11 CI 475 confused when he told me all of this seeing as I just witnessed him struggle through a fairly simple text but I figured no one likes to admit they are bad at something. When I thought deeper into what I was seeing, I realized that Jerry knew he needed to de-code and chunk the words to de-code but he did not know every letters sound which greatly contributed to his struggle. As said in the article Put Reading First, Children who have phonemic awareness skills are likely to have an easier time learning to read and spell than children who have few or none of these skills (Armbruste, Lehr, & Osbor 2003). In terms of speaking and writing, his English is very good although he does have trouble with some words. His writing on the other hand is almost as bad as his reading. I observed and made copies of three of his spelling tests to see what the most common mistakes were. It seemed since the English language is so complex, he would try to sound out each letter in every word which many times got him the wrong word. For example, oftentimes he would put a c instead of a k. After talking with my teacher and observing Jerry I saw that he had the skills to read, write, and speak he just needed a wider vocabulary and better phonemic awareness of every letter. The book Jerry chose for our reading conferences, both times, was a comic series called Baby Mouse, which is his favorite series he informed me. He said he liked the series because it is easy for him to read and has a lot of pictures. He de-coded many words quite nicely and got very excited when he de-coded a word correctly or knew a word without de-coding. Oftentimes, however, I had to tell him the word because even with his de-coding and chunking he could not figure out the word. When I asked him to tell me everything he just read he could tell me exactly what happened in the story without the pages open to the pictures or words. He could do the same when I asked him what was happening in the second story so far in his reading so I knew his comprehension of what he was reading was high. Overall, my co-ops strengths and

Adrienne Woolbright 10/09/11 CI 475 weaknesses of Jerry held true in this conference, his de-coding and comprehension were strong he just needed a bigger vocabulary and phonemic awareness. When I told my co-op I had to perform a running record on Jerry, she was hesitant as to which books he should read to me. If he read a level 6 book, pre-k level, there may be no errors but if he read a level 8 book, kindergarten, it may be too hard for him. Since I was performing two running records we decided I would do one of each. Turns out he struggled on the level 6, When Grandma Comes to Visit Me, but did in fact struggle more on the level 8, Its Taco Time. The one thing I did not see Jerry do much of during the running record was self-correct. This only occurred two times while reading When Grandma Comes to Visit Me, where he corrected ghost to goat and on to no, and once while reading Its Taco Time, where he corrected on to in after repeating the phrase. The cue Jerry used the most was de-coding. We would try to sound words out letter by letter but often, after sitting for 30-45 seconds with him sounding the word out incorrectly, I would have to tell him the word so we could move on with the story. Since these two books were lower level, they had big bright pictures of exactly what was going on in each page. Jerry often referenced these to figure out what the word was but at one point during the story he pointed to the picture and said I know what that is in Spanish but I do not know in English, the picture/word was lettuce and after he attempted sounding out the word multiple times I told him what it was. Although I did tell him what words were after many times of him sounding them out, he never looked to me for help. Sometimes, if he did not even know where to begin sounding out a word, he would just sit there looking at the word. Eventually I would tell him the word and every time after that when the same word would come up again he would read it correctly, this was the case for the word shells. Most other words he sounded out incorrectly he used graphophonic or

Adrienne Woolbright 10/09/11 CI 475 visual clues to arrive at the word. For example, hat for the word heat, grant for the word grate, and shouted for the word shred. His mistakes were not grammatically correct nor were they similar in meaning. With this said, it makes sense that he did not self-correct often because it says in the Running Record Packet that all three of these cues are used to self-correct. Even with the many errors he made he was still able to tell me about the characters, setting, and plot of each story. All in all he is at the instructional level with accuracy rate of 91%, Error Rate of 90% and self-correction at 83%. One thing I learned from doing my case study on Jerry was that he has big potential in being a good English reader and writer and also an even better English speaker than he already is. When I first found out Jerry was at a pre-k reading level all I could think was that he was going to be behind for the rest of his schooling. I thought because of this set back he would become frustrated with reading and writing which would eventually led to him giving up all together. I found out the complete opposite. Only being in the US for a few months, Jerry had already learned the skills he needed to become a successful reader and writer and his spoken English was already very understandable. He also told me in the student interview that he wanted to learn more and enjoyed reading which is a sign that his low level of reading and writing are not turning him away but rather intriguing him to learn more. When a new word was told to him during the reading conference or during writing he not only listened and repeated the word but also recognized the word later and could make the visual and oral connection to that same word that was earlier spoken or read to him. With all of the mistakes I heard Jerry make in every reading conference I held with him both informally and formally, I was shocked at how much of every story he understood. Often times I was so busy listening to him struggle to read that I didnt even comprehend the story but

Adrienne Woolbright 10/09/11 CI 475 somehow he always did. With little support as a reader, speaker, writer, and listener at home, I was sure he was just reading the words to read them not to comprehend but it was the complete opposite. I feel that although he does have little English support at home, his parents are pushing him to succeed here in the US because his drive to learn is amazing to watch. When he received his first spelling test with almost every answer wrong he was very disappointed in himself but, the way he handled the situation proved he has drive. Unlike the other students who groaned and moaned or said they didnt care about their bad grades, Jerry said he was going to get an A+ on his next test. When I asked him how he was going to do that he said he was going to study very hard every night. When the next test came, Jerry did not get 100% of the answers correct but he did do much better than the previous test which showed me he went home and studied. As an eight year old with Spanish speaking parents and five brothers and sisters running around, I cant imagine how hard it would be to go home and study spelling words but Jerry did it. One major goal my co-op, myself, and even Jerry have for Jerry is building a better vocabulary and an understanding of each letter sound. His major strengths are de-coding and chunking but without the knowledge of every letter sound his de-coding oftentimes failed. He also needs a better vocabulary so his reading becomes more fluent. Although his lack of fluency isnt hurting his comprehension level, it is hurting his reading speed which doesnt allow him to get through many books and would greatly hurt him on any standardized test that is timed. Even with his great comprehension, he lacks the vocabulary to explain in depth about an event that occurs in a story. He knows what happened but he may not have the English words to explain it to my co-op or I. During his reading conference he even admitted to me that he knew the word in Spanish but did not know it in English. I then proceeded to ask him what the word was in Spanish. Being a non Spanish speaker, asking this did me little good to know if he actually knew

Adrienne Woolbright 10/09/11 CI 475 or not. I also could not make the connection for him between the Spanish word and the English word for lettuce. With all of this in mind, my one suggestion for Jerry would be to go to an ESL classroom which he is actually doing starting next week. It was proven that students who reached performance levels similar to native English-speaking children received instruction (i.e., input) that was rated higher quality than that in classrooms with poorer student outcomes (Beckman Anthony, 2008). The ESL program at Garden Hill is an additive program rather than a subtractive program and I think it will greatly help him expand on his English vocabulary by providing this enriched input which will in turn improve his fluency. This way instead of the instructor just telling him the English word, like I was doing, they can link the English and Spanish word helping him learn the new word while also improving his comprehension for the English word. What I learned from this experience is to never doubt a students reading ability just on the number a school provides you with. When Jerry walked into the classroom to my co-op and I he was a 6. What we didnt know was that he had an amazing drive as a learner and could comprehend even without fluency. Without multiple measures of assessment we would have never learned that. If we administered the tests the school had previously given to Jerry he would come out with a 6 every time and our ideas of him as a learner would have never developed into what they are now. Also, with these assessments we were able to see that Jerry really was in need of an ESL classroom and was placed into a non ESL classroom prematurely. One thing I would do differently is I would have listened to Jerry speak more in a non formal setting. I listened to him when he spoke to my co-op, other teachers, and me but never when he was with his friends.

Adrienne Woolbright 10/09/11 CI 475 It would have been interesting to see if he used English with his Spanish speaking friends or if he used English.

Adrienne Woolbright 10/09/11 CI 475 References Armbruster, B., Lehr, F., & Osbor, J. (2003) Put reading first. The research building blocks of reading instruction, 2. Retrieved from: http://learn.education.illinois.edu/file.php/1713/Put_Reading_First_Booklet.pdf Beckman Anthony, A. (2008). Output strategies for english-language learners: Theory to practice. International reading association,47248. doi:10.1598/RT.61.6. Running record. (n.d.) Retrieved from: http://learn.education.illinois.edu/file.php/1713/Running_Record_packet.pdf

Adrienne Woolbright 10/09/11 CI 475 Apprendix 1. Initial information on student given before the students arrived 2. Initial (8/30) and final (9/27) observation 3. Student interview 4. Primary spelling inventory 5. Spelling test 1 6. Spelling test 2 7. Spelling test 3 8. Reading Conferences 9. Running Record When Grandma Comes to Visit Me-Level 6 10. Running Record Its Taco Time- Level 8 11. Running Record given by my co-op