Group+10-5772

= = Choose one case study to evaluate from these two examples: Home/school connections are important at all times but especially critical during the early years of schools. In both of these cases, the parents have already been active in the development of literacy. Now both sets of parents want more. What can you do to help them on the road to literacy.
 * =__ CASE STUDY #1 __=

** CASE STUDY #1: Susie **
Susie is a happy middle-class first grade student. Since birth, her parents talked with her as if she were an adult and spent much time reading with her. Suzie developed a love of reading early and her parents continued supporting her love by purchasing books and giving them as gifts. She loves her personal library of well over 100 books. When Susie entered first grade she had highly developed skills, listened well and understood a great deal. She was confident and secure and anxious to learn. However, after just one week of school Suzie finishes early and does nothing after completion of school tasks. She states that she is bored.

What are the strengths?

What are the needs?

What strategies/things could the teacher encourage the parents to do at home? Why?

What types of activities and extensions could the teacher do in the classroom?

** CASE STUDY #1: Sam **
Sam is a first grader who will turn six this November. He comes from a middle-class English-speaking family, with two parents who read to him on a regular basis. His parents are very interested in the progress and activities he does in class.

He actively participates in class discussions, even though there are times when he will make an error in syntax with word forms, like talk-ed, for talked.

At independent time, he regularly chooses picture books and studies the pictures. He does not spend any time looking at the words. If he chooses a book with more words, the topics will be sharks or dinosaurs. He does know the basic letters but confuses b and d, I and j, x and z, p and ,i and l. He knows basically his concepts about print. He can figure out his initial and ending consonants but is slow and choppy. His writing can only be deciphered if Sam reads the text to the teacher.

BH - Sam has good parental support. LG-Even though he is struggling he still chooses books as an activity. LG-Sam knows most of the alphabet. BH - Sam has interests that the teacher can capitalize on when developing activities for him TV- Sam recognizes concepts of print TV-Sam can read beginning and ending consonants
 * What are the strengths?**

LG-Sam needs to learn to recognize all his letters. BH - Sam needs to learn to discriminate between b and d, etc. BH - Sam needs to build a vocabulary of sight words. TV- Sam needs activities that focus on letter-sound correspondence TV-Sam needs sound stretching activities to help him blend (a phonological awareness informal evaluation) LG: Sam needs to learn vowel sounds. LG: He needs practice with onsets and rimes to help speed up his decoding skills.
 * What are the needs?**

LG-Sam should have his vision and hearing checked. BH - Yes, by 7th grade 85% of students who struggle with reading or who have behavior problems have unresolved vision issues. BH - Help Sam make his own alphabet book with pictures he draws or cuts out. TV-Parent can point to words as they read to him TV-Parents can ask Sam to read to them (even though he can't really read) and have him point to the words as he reads LG: Parents can ask Sam what letters words start with and end with when they are reading to him.
 * What strategies/things could be recommended to parents and what is your rationale?**

LG-to learn to recognize his letters he should work with flashcards, practice writing "air" letters, work with magnetic letters, and write letters in oatmeal and shaving cream. BH - tactile activities, such as tracing on a sand tray to increase awareness of confusing letters. TV-when reading to the class, use highlighting tape on specific word wall words, and point to words as she reads aloud, create mneumonic for letter refersals like bed for b and d, do phonemic awareness activities. LG: As part of a balanced literacy program, the teacher needs to provide highly decodable books so Sam can achieve proficiency in reading words with common onsets and rimes. The teacher could also help Sam write experience stories so he can master letter sound correspondences. This activity will lead to the skills for Sam to be able to practice inventive spelling through story writing. BH - A dinosaur unit would be motivating to Sam and many of his classmates.
 * What types of activities and extensions could the teacher do in the classroom?**

Additional ideas:
LG:Sam should continue to participate in a variety of literacy experiences. Sam should have opportunities to hear fluent readers. He should participate in shared reading experiences where an adult reader scaffolds Sam's word reading by providing clues and strategies about decoding. The adult reader should provide the words in the text that are beyond Sam's decoding ability so that he can enjoy authentic literature. This will help keep Sam motivated as his decoding skills improve. BH - Sam is very young to be in first grade. Does his school have a Developmental 1 class? I suspect Sam would do much better next year. || = = Choose from one of these case studies to elaborate on the topic of phonemic awareness. Phonemic awareness is the foundation for phonics and must be acquired and used with ease before you start the reading and phonics processes.
 * =__Case Study #2 Phonemic Awareness__=

**__ CASE STUDY #2: __**
Mitch, a first grade student, was retained in kindergarten is now eight years old. After assessing him on concepts about print, word tests, phonemic awareness and phonics tests, and spelling inventories, he showed lack of process in most areas. In concepts about print, he stumbled on specific instructions on word and letter order and the name and use of punctuation He had difficulty in hearing words in speech, hearing syllables, beginning and final sounds and sound matching for phonemic awareness. He could correctly identify upper and lower case letters and sounds but could not note the digraphs, blends, short and long vowel patters and "vce" and vowel teams. In spelling he usually spelled the first and last consonant correctly and the short a and I but the other short vowels or other vowel patterns were guesses. His sight word vocabulary was low.

What are the strengths?

What are the needs?

What strategies/things could the teacher encourage the parents to do at home? Why?

What types of activities and extensions could the teacher do in the classroom?

** CASE STUDY #2 **
Angel, a kindergartner, is behind most of her classmates in reading readiness. When she came to the school, she had no awareness of letters, letter sounds and names. She has learned to sing the ABC song but cannot place the letters in order without the song. She knows some concepts about print: the left-right order and the return sweep and the front/back/author of book. She can show the first part of the story, the first part of a word but cannot show the beginning of a sentence. She does not know her punctuation marks. She does not know the 1 to 1 correspondence of words and cannot follow along with the teacher reading the story. All in all she tries to learn and participates eagerly in class. She like the rote method and loves to do things kinesthetically.

What are the strengths? LG: Angel understands a few concepts of print. TV: Angel participates and is eager to learn. TV: She likes hands on activities. LG:She likes the rote method so she probably she a high degree of task commitment. BH: Angel can track print since she knows let-right order and understand the return sweep. BH: Since she knows the ABC song, she knows the names of the letters.

What are the needs? LG: She needs more experience watching an adult reader read with a pointer, observing the stop signs (punctuation) as the reader reads. TV: Angel needs alphabet recognition and phonics to connect sounds to letters. She needs sequencing activities and to learn concept of words make up sentences. LG: She is weak in phonemic awareness. BH: She needs to associate letter shapes with the letter names she has learned in the ABC song.

What strategies/things could the teacher encourage the parents to do at home? Why? LG: The parents need to read aloud to Angel. The teacher could send home a book buddy backpack with a response journal for the child and parent. The parents can write something and Angel can draw her response. If this had to come back for show and tell the next day, the parents may be more likely to read to Angel. TV: Parents could help Angel recognize the letters in her name and in family members names and have her point our letters she sees in signs, cereal boxes and in books they read together. They need to talk about the letters in the words and the words in sentences. BH: The parents could use magnetic or foam letters. They could help Angel move the correct letter when the name, then later the sound, of the letter was pronounced. They could put shaving cream on the tiles of the bathtub wall and let her trace letters in the foam. They could trace a letter shape on her hand and have her name the letter. BH: Watch PBS Between the Lions. Find specific games for alphabet and phonics on Starfall.com or gamequarium.com.

What types of activities and extensions could the teacher do in the classroom? LG: The teacher needs to read to Angel with a pointer, demonstrating the stop signs (punctuation) as the reader reads. TV: In the classroom the teacher could make puzzles of each child's name and have them sequence and identify the letters. Play games like "If your name begins with N..." Use alphabet letters to cut out playdough, put letters in sequence from a model (use wooden letters or sandpaper letters). Sing songs that spells (BINGO,etc) and sequence (Old MacDonald).. Read alphabet books. Talk about sentences are made of words and point out punctuation signs while reading. LG: Angel and her classmates could make people letters in the classroom. This would appeal to Angel's kinesthetic learning style. LG: A hopscotch game where you throw a cube with letters on it and hop to the matching letter would also appeal to a kinesthetic learner. LG: Sound box activities where Angel could see and manipulate the position of letter sounds in words would help with phonemic awareness and letter recognition. BH: Angel could make her own alphabet book with pictures she draws and cuts from magazines. BH: Find a cross-age tutor to read to Angel.

Additional thoughts:
TV: Angel likes kinesthetic activities which means she may not like sitting to listen to a story and do classroom work. She may be immature for her age which is hindering her progress. LG:Because Angel is behind her peers she needs to spend more time in phonemic awareness activities and alphabetic activities. Teachers should not delay extra instruction in the hope that this is a developmental issue. Placing her in a multilevel ability groups where she can hear and see high achieving students working with letters and sounds might help. The teacher also needs to find time to work with Angel one-on-one so her literacy deficits don't continue into first grade. BH: Angel's lack of knowledge about the alphabet indicates her parents are not aware of how to help her prepare for school. Angel's parents should be encourged to attend literacy events at the school. ||
 * =__Case Study #3 Phonics__=

** CASE STUDY #3 **
The third grade class has a high percentage of Title I students with the vast majority as English speakers. Most of their parents work very hard at their jobs and do not have the time to read to their children or focus on skills which will improve literacy in the classroom. When the teacher reads to them, they enjoy their story time and respond readily within the discussions. They seem to enjoy independent reading of looking at books or reading to themselves. Four students in this class are especially in need; they are in the emergent level and they know some sight words. They read word by word and consider reading a laborious chore. From testing, the children shows that they know most initial consonant sounds and use them randomly to guess at word but they ignore the final consonants and medial sounds. The writing and spelling are on a lower developmental level of about beginning first grade.

What are the strengths? LG: The class enjoys reading independent reading and looking at books. LG: ONLY four members of the class are in need of special instruction. TV: The majority are English speaking. TV: The class likes to be read to and is eager to engage in classroom discussions about the story. BH: The four lowest students know most initial consonant sounds and know to apply that knowledge to word attack. They are willing to have a go at unfamiliar words. They are able to write and spell some words. They have not yet become too discouraged to try.

What are the needs? LG: The teacher needs to form a flexible small group for the four struggling students where they can work on their specific needs. TV:The entire class needs extra time for literacy activities. TV: The 4 struggling kids need word work activities, phonics and sight word instruction. LG: In addition to a group formed specifically for these four students, they also need to be placed in ad hoc groups which are flexible and change often. If they are exposed to the metacognition processes of higher achieving students they will pick up some knowledge and strategies from the other members of the class. BH: The students' interests should be identified and reading materials collected that appeal to their interests. The students should learn to use context clues to make more reasonable estimations of words and they should be taught to use ending sounds as well as beginning sounds in their word attack process.

What strategies/things could the teacher encourage the parents to do at home? Why? LG: All the students in the class still need to hearing books read aloud by fluent readers. If parents don't have time to read to their children the teacher should send home books and CD audio for the children to listen to at home. This would help all readers in the classroom. TV: If the family has a computer with internet connections, the teacher could send home a list of literacy web sites they could do. TV: Sight word cards could be done in the car on the way to wherever. Parents could point out words on cereal boxes, etc. and kids could read to parents as they prepare dinner. BH: Older siblings, grandpaents or other extended family could read to the students.

What types of activities and extensions could the teacher do in the classroom? LG: The struggling students would benefit from word study activities. TV: Word sorts, word wall activities, books on tape in a center, strategies for decoding. LG: The students need practice with onsets and rimes and prefixes and suffixes. Learning how prefixes would dramatically increase the number of words they would be able to read. BH: Easy books of rhyme, books with predictable repeated text.

Additional thoughts:
TV: Have the 4 students been referred for RTI or testing? It wasn't listed if their native language was English. If not, they need additional activities for ELL. LG:If the class could have buddy readers at least two grades ahead of them come and do think-pair-shares, this would be another way to make up for the lack of reading at home. BH: Although the parents work hard and may have little time, it is more likely that they do not know how to participate in their children's school work. Low SES parents often feel alienated from school. Extra care should be taken to find ways to support these parents and give them tools for working with their children. This will benefit the children and their parents for years to come.

||
 * =__Case Study #4: Vocabulary__=

My Two Favorite Books on Vocabulary state the following: The authors of Beck, McKeown, and Kucan’s Bringing Words to Life suggest that ?a robust approach to vocabulary involves directly explaining the meanings of words along with thought-provoking, playful, and interactive follow-up? (2). They add that ?vocabulary work in middle school and high school should allow deeper explorations of language?how language gives meaning and how words mean what they mean? (85). In their vision of best practices, vocabulary is ?more rooted to a text and dealt with in a way that both teaches the words and brings enriched understanding to the text? (85).

Marzano agrees”direct instruction in vocabulary works”(68), and even mentions the work of Beck and McKeown in explaining that “effective vocabulary instruction does not rely on definitions” (70). Marzano’s approach for effectively teaching vocabulary consists of six steps that are very similar to the approach described in Bringing Words to Life. He encourages nonlinguistic representations to build vocabulary, and clarifies that he means ?not just mental pictures,? but also "associated sounds, smells, and sensations of touch or movement? (21). Marzano encourages the shaping of word meaning through multiple exposures including the process of creating metaphors. He states that, ?Research indicates that metaphor activities can help students better understand the abstract features of information. . . . In terms of vocabulary instruction, a teacher might present students with metaphors or ask them to create their own metaphors? (73).

However, Marzano writes that “Beck, McKeown, and Kucan’s focus on tier-two words as the appropriate target of vocabulary instruction” is a mistake (88). He stresses that “subject-specific terms are the best target for direct vocabulary instruction” and provides a list of 7,923 subject-specific terms in the appendix of his book.

The Opening Articles and the podcasts can help with the development of the vocabulary plan.

** CASE STUDY #4 **
Amy is a 11th grade student from a upper-middle class area in an affluent high school. She has twenty hours of community service hours that she has to complete and has decided to help tutor students at a near-by after school elementary program. She wants to come one hour every day for a month. The teacher in the program wants her to work on vocabulary development and make it fun. She has come to you for advice about how to help students with word conscientious. What are you going to tell her? (Oh, by the way, Jenks Middle School has set up a program like this on Saturday mornings to help with vocabulary development).

What can be the strengths and weaknesses of this plan? __**LG:**__ One weakness may be that the vocabulary instruction may not be connected to a text. This will make it difficult to extend the number of words studied since the instruction might be **disconnected** from: What strategies/programs would help with the students? What is your rationale?
 * a purpose for reading,
 * a conceptual framework, and
 * the lack of extending the learning to other words that might be morphologically or semantically related.
 * LG:** Since Amy only has an hour a week, she could could base her instruction on clever short poems that use metaphor, puns, and colorful words. This would give a context for the words they will learn.
 * LG**: The CD "Rock the SAT" by Micheal Moshen has terrific rock songs which use a robust vocabulary. SLS4Reading, a method of creating karaoke with subtitles sequenced to the lyrics of songs, would be also be a fun way to teach vocabulary to middle schoolers/high schoolers. (See an example of "Rock the SAT" song incorporated into a same language subtitled video at SLS4reading.com)
 * LG:** The students need experience with the morphology of words. The cover and guess the word strategy would help students learn to decode using root words, prefixes, and suffixes.
 * LG**: Students should also be taught to determine word meanings through Beck's method of hypothesizing meaning through a guided discussion process. If the students guesses wrong the teacher asks them to think of more possible meanings and then confirms a correct hypothesis.

What would the program look like? LG: The program would start with a brainstorming activities where students make semantic webs, concept webs, and root word webs.

** CASE STUDY #4 **
Your Title I school has low vocabulary scores on both Oklahoma assessments and national assessments. Your principal has challenged you and your colleagues to help students have more word conscientious and be able to use vocabulary more effectively. The population of your students is basically ½ Caucasian, ¼ Native American and ¼ ELL students.

What strategies/ideas can be given specifically for teachers? TV:Read Alouds with TextTalk; Use a Vocabulary Knowledge Rating Guide each week; Use Vocab 4 Square with picture dictionary, actual definition, synonym, antonym listed. BH: Have students preview science and history chapters and create a list of words they do not know. Have them do a Frayer model for each of the 10 words they think will be most important. Have each student keep a personal dictionary of Frayer model words. Create word family trees. LG: Teach ELL students to use the Spanish cognates to disambiguate English words. What strategies/ideas can you set up for students? TV: Word sorting activities and games such as Root Word Jeopardy BH: Have students in groups act out the meanings of a few of the difficult words for the class and see if classmates can guess the words. Make concept maps- use Inspiration program if available -- and words alive maps for a few key vocabulary terms. LG:There is research supporting allowing students to read text in Spanish first, if they are able to read in Spanish. Bookflix.com has 46 books in Spanish and English. Spanish speaking ELL students could watch and read along with both versions. Non L1 readers would also benefit from listening to the Spanish version first so they will know what the English words mean and be able to access their translation skills.

What can you share with your parents? TV: Read aloud to your kids and discuss the big words BH: Search for new, interesting words in environmental print. Talk about them, look them up, write them down, collect them. BH: Encourage ELL parents to teach their children to read simple books in their first languages. Have the students show their parents cognates as they discover them. LG: Explain to parents that conversation is not enough for children to learn Tier II words. To learn the words they will need for school they must hear books read aloud. Find story hours at libraries for parents, or offer story hours for the community at the school. LG: Offer classes to the mothers to teach them how to do dialogic reading and invite them to read to their child's class.

Additional thoughts:
TV: ELL kids need pictures to relate to words to make a connection between the languages BH: Have ELL students collect cognates and share with the class. Look for a Native American storyteller to visit your class. Use the interest generated by this visit to start exploration of Native American stories and biographies. Collect and talk about interesting new words in the stories and use visual representations in defining them. LG: Have the parents write their own biographies for their children to read. This will help children and families connect literacy to their own lives and culture. ||
 * =__Case Study #5: Fluency__=

CASE STUDY #5
Anne is a sixth grader who has fair word attack skills but lacks fluency because she reads without expression and ignores punctuation. This issue interferes with her comprehension; she does not monitor what she reads. She is unable to retell a passage or answer questions on the various levels of understanding. Anne?s word attack skills are around the fourth grade and her comprehension level to be near third grade level. On the other hand, her recognition and use of good vocabulary words is apparent in her speech.

Anne has stated that her love is to watch educational television and learn as much science and history that she can. In her textbook she says that she uses her picture cues, graphs, and charts as well as her knowledge about the topic to get her through the reading. She adds to the class discussion but her topics are not necessarily found in the textbooks. She loves her social studies and science classes and usually gets good grades in them.

Anne looks at the pictures and other visuals during her reading time and states that reading is not enjoyable.

What are the strengths? TV: Anne uses context clues. TV: She has a good working vocabulary LG: She loves to watch science and history shows. LG: She is probably a visual learner. BH: Anne has excellent background knowledge. She can enrich the class discussion by bringing in ideas that go beyond the text. She listens in class and contibutes to discussions. She understands the importance of visual aides in textbooks. She is motivated to learn "as much as she can" about science and history!

What are the needs? TV: Anne needs fluency instruction and word attack strategies LG: Automaticity on tier 2 words. BH: Glasses? Can she see the punctuation? BH: She needs to learn to skim for the main idea of a paragraph. Observe text features beyond pictures and graphs--she needs to look at titles and subtitles and make predictions before she reads a paragraph. BH: Anne's vocabulary weaknesses are likely to be with fairly high frequency words rather than with scientific or longer words. Her interest in subject matter and "recognition and use of good vocabulary" make it likely that she can read the bigger words more readily than the smaller words.

What strategies/things could the teacher encourage the parents to do at home? Why? TV: Parents can take her to the library to check out science and history related books to read to help increase her word recognition skills. LG: She needs to immediately start working with sight words on flashcards. 300 common words make up 85% of all text. If she could master the tier two words she will encounter, this will free her up to focus on comprehension. LG: The parents still need to read aloud so Anne can hear fluent reading. BH: Have Anne follow along with books on tape--any book at all that she enjoys. Just monitor from time to time to be sure she is keeping up with the reader.

What types of activities and extensions could the teacher do in the classroom? TV: Model fluent reading in the classroom with read alouds and books on tape. Teach prosody. LG: Anne should read about the history and science topics from books on a second and third grade reading level before she reads her sixth grade textbooks. She should also watch videos and take virtual field trips before reading the textbook. She needs help with front loading the vocabulary she will encounter in the textbook. LG: The teacher needs to teach morphology since the problem is in the content area. Knowledge of Greek and Latin root words and affixes will help Anne build upon her "fair" word attack skills as she becomes increasingly proficient at generalizing root word definitions to unknown words. BH: Choral reading. Repeated reading of short passages. Reader's Theater.

Additional thoughts:
TV: I would suggest the parents read aloud to her to model fluency- but some parents are not fluent readers. LG: If the parents are unable to model fluent reading, the teacher should read and make an audio recording of the content area texts so Anne can hear them before she has to grapple with the text in class. BH: Have Anne's vision checked. Vision problems affect word recognition and fluency. BH: What is her hearing capacity? Can she answer questions or retell information from passages read aloud? (Bet she can.)

** CASE STUDY #5 **
Charlie, a kind, helpful and positive young man, is not reading with fluency. His comprehension retelling was concise and included all the pertinent information. His writing and spelling are poor; some of his spelling are trane (train), closit (closet), case (chase) and beches (beaches) which Words Their Way says is Using but Abusing. He scored perfectly on alphabet names, consonant sounds, consonant digraphs, and consonant blends. He missed several short vowel words. In long vowel sections, vowel pairs, and silent e, he read all words correctly.

His performance in the classroom is inconsistent. When reading text, he appears to use context and other strategies to back up his phonics decoding skills. Sometimes he seems to be guessing vowel sounds almost randomly as he tries each one out. He ends up with the right word, but the process is laborious. He self corrects about 1 out of every 3 miscues. His pace is slow and choppy.

What are the strengths?

What are the needs?

What strategies/things could the teacher encourage the parents to do at home? Why?

What types of activities and extensions could the teacher do in the classroom?

Additional thoughts:
||
 * =__Case Study #6 Comprehension__=

CASE STUDY #6
Sydney, a 7th grade student at Lance Middle High School, is not at all confident about her reading. Daily, she seems to be on the verge of tears, when discussions and extensions take place. She confesses to you that she has faked her way through elementary school and now she knows she won?t be able to do the same thing at the middle school level. She asks you for help.

What are the strengths? TV: She is ready for help. LG: Her honesty. BH: Self-knowledge. Desire to do better. Sounds like she might not be a behavior problem.

What are the needs? TV: She needs to be assessed using the BEAR spelling to see where the breakdown is occuring. LG:She needs to be assessed suing the John's IRI and word lists. BH: Yes, it is hard to know how to proceed without further assessment.

What strategies/things could the student do when they read? Why? TV: If it is word attack: break down the words, look for chunks; look at context clues-pictures, graphs, etc to help with unknown words. If it is fluency: slow down at punctuation. If it is comprehension: highlight unknown vocabulary words to look up meanings. LG: Start training for automaticity on Tier Two words. BH: Preview the chapter before reading. Observe illustrations and features of text, such as boldface words and titles and subtitles. Study boldface words before reading. Look at the title of a section and turn it into a question. After reading, decide whether she knows the answer to that question. Many textbooks have an audio CD or online audio component. Find out if the text has one and use it. Be sure she is listening in class. In middle school, that makes up for a lot of reading.

What types of activities and extensions could the teacher do in the classroom? TV: Do read alouds of subject material so she can hear it. Place it on tape. If calling for questions, give her a signal ahead of time to let her know you will call on her. TV: Set up tutoring after school for her-one-to-one so as not to embarass her in class LG:Sydney may not be a verbal-linguistic learner. Find out what her learning style is and let her response through drama, art, or a kinestheic activity. BH: KWL, Sq3rs, front loading vocabulary, read the text backwards, think alouds, teach comprehension strategies, use graphic organizers, antcipation guides, chunk and chew, T charts...

Additional thoughts:
TV: This is difficult without assessment information. LG: The teacher needs to do preliminary assessments to rule out the possibility of low IQ. If Sydney has low IQ it is going to require a school wide team approach to turn this around. BH: Here I come, beating this horse again: Have her eyes been checked? 85% of middle school students who have reading problems have unresolved vision issues (American Optometric Association)

** CASE STUDY #6 **
In a sixth grade class of twenty-eight students, composed mostly of English speakers at various levels of ability and skills, the teacher needs to devise strategies which deal with comprehension. Most students do not have a lot of difficulty with word attack, but their reading comprehension scores on a standardize test range from the 22nd percentile to the 65th percentage. In the Oklahoma PASS objective tests, you note that they read the passages but they seemed to miss key points in comprehension. You also know that the students like to discuss the topic but don?t always understand the text and have a hard time supporting their answers from the text.

What are the strengths?

What are the needs?

What types of activities and extensions could the teacher do in the classroom?

What strategies/things could the teacher encourage the students to do?

Additional thoughts:
||
 * =__Case Study #7 Comprehension__=

** CASE STUDY # 7 **
Brandon, a soon to be eighth grader, was a student in the summer reading program for struggling readers. He was assigned to this program because of his test scores and the Reading Sufficiency Plan. Also his mother wanted to have help for him before he went to high school. The teacher gave an informal reading inventory and the reading level was several levels lower than his grade placement. During the conference with Brandon, he shared that he felt that he was a good reader and was often called upon to read orally in class. His reading was rhythmic and generally true to text and his accuracy rate was about 89%. He had trouble retelling and his comprehension was minimal. Brandon was also very talkative and excited and saw no need for strategy instruction to help with his comprehension.

What are the strengths? TV: Good fluency and attitude toward reading. LG: Lots of self-confidence. BH: Parent involvement.

What are the needs? TV: He is below level. TV: He has no comprehension. LG: Brandon is going to have to be convinced that strategy instruction will pay off in better grades next year. LG: His accuracy rate for decoding needs to improve to well over 90% since most of his reading in high school will not be scaffolded. BH: Brandon needs to be made aware of his weakness in comprehension. He needs internal motivation for becoming a better reader.

What strategies/things could the student do when they read? Why? TV: Brandon needs to stop and retell after each paragraph to show comprehension. He could write this down using a notetaking strategy. LG: Brandon needs to question the author and write summary frames. LG: Brandon needs to take notes on graphic organizers such as T-Charts, Venn Diagrams, and Timelines. LG: He needs to learn the Cornell note taking system. BH: Brandon needs to start with a purpose for reading. He needs to preview before he reads. He needs comprehension strategies and an understanding of when to apply them. He needs to make connections between prior knowledge and what he is about to read.

What types of activities and extensions could the teacher do in the classroom? TV: Focus on vocabulary words and instruction; teach roots and affixes and chunking; Do comprehension strategies with each reading or assignment. LG:Setting a purpose for reading will help comprehension. BH: Help Brandon find reading materials on subjects that interest him at an easy reading level. BH: Teach Brandon to read a paragraph then stop and ask himself what the main idea of the paragraph was before reading further. Reread if he can't give a main idea.

Additional thoughts:
BH: Does he have personal goals beyond high school? Does he understand the necessity of continuing education for success in life? Does he understand the importance of reading in this picture. He is a little young, but looking at some goals beyond high school might be the beginning of stronger internal motivation. ||
 * =__Case Study #8: Metacognition__=

Metacognition is having the students think while they read. They are to think about if the text is making sense and what they can do to help the text make sense. They are to think about how their minds are processing the information into long term memory. They are to think about the television reading that should be taking place. Thus, these two case studies are typical about the lack of metacognition. Select one and make a plan.

Robert is an eighth grade student at Jenks Middle School and has been referred to you, the resource teacher, for evaluation because of his poor comprehension in content subjects. Both his teachers and parents are concerned and stated that although Robert doesn’t seem to have difficulty reading the words, he does not have the ability to understand and repeat what he has read. He seems to have the most trouble in science class.

What are the strengths? TV: He has good word attack skills LG: He apparently is a little better in subjects other than science. BH: His parents are concerned! They know him well enough to realize that he lacks comprehension even though he sounds fluent. He is attending an excellent school in a high achieving school district. He has many resources available to him at school and probably at home as well.

What are the needs? TV: He needs comprehension strategies LG:He needs someone to explain comprehension self-monitoring to him. He also needs to understand how information is held in temporary memory and how it is transferred to long term memory. LG: He must be convinced that learning metacognitive strategies will pay off in better grades. LG: Because the challenging subject is science, he needs to learn the Greek and Latin root word meanings that he will encounter in all science textbooks. BH: He needs background knowledge in science. BH: Parents should be encouraged to have Robert listen to books on tape and follow along with them to build general reading comprehension. They could listen together and disuss the books.

What strategies/things could the student do when they read? Why? TV: expository text is generally harder to comprehend- use notetaking and highlight unknown vocabulary words LG: Use the Insert method on sticky notes to help him remember new information and to mark confusing passages that he needs help on. LG: Fifteen words or less summaries would help Robert remember what he reads. BH: He needs to stop often while reading and check to see if he understood what he just read. He needs fix up strategies to use when he realizes he didn't understand--read slower, reread... He needs to ask questions about what he is about to read. He needs to study unfamiliar boldface vocabulary before he reads a chapter. He needs to look for the topic sentence in each paragraph.

What types of activities and extensions could the teacher do in the classroom? TV: teach concept mapping and extensive vocabulary instruction with word consciousness activities.; Use retells and summarizing with each paragraph/concept. LG: The teacher could teach "Chunk and Chew" lessons where Robert would have time to reflect on new material. Think-pair-share activities would also help Robert with comprehension. LG: The teacher needs to assess Robert's knowledge of Tier Two words. She also needs to teach Robert text structure and signal words used in science books. BH: Use video clips and have students do Google searches as prereading activities. Extensive use of graphic organizers. Anticipation guides. KWL.

Additional thoughts:
LG:The teacher needs to find out what Robert's learning style is. He may understand the science text better if he has some hands-on lab experiences first. BH: The family could watch science channel together to build background and interest.

** CASE STUDY #8 **
At Open House, a group of parents voiced their concerns that their children could read the words in their textbooks, yet they didn’t understand what they were reading. The parents said they can figure out the words (word attack skills) and can read fluently, but they don’t know the main ideas, analyzing text, or taking notes. They said that the kids had a hard time with homework that involved answering questions from their textbooks or looking up information from other sources. Further, they said that their kids don’t do their homework without lots of prodding; the parents say it’s a battle every night. The kids say that homework is boring.

What are the strengths?

What are the needs?

What types of activities and extensions could the teacher do in the classroom?

What strategies/things could the teacher encourage the students to do?

Additional thoughts:
||