Group+15-5772

= = 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? KG: Her strenghts are that she is highly motivated and is given the support at home from he parents. **TH: I agree with Kim she is motivated and has support from parents, she also loves to read and has great listening skill.** DK: Yes she is motivated and has awesome support from her parents, and yes she has great listening skills and anxious to learn.

SE: She has a high vocabulary so this will help with her comprehension skills,and I agree she has wonderful parent support, adding to her suceess with reading.

SW: I think the love of reading has ben instilled. Just by talking with parents and others her vocabulary should be well developed. She has listening skills and that is one of the most important things she needs for continued succes in her education. What are the needs? KG: Susie needs to be challenged by her teacher and vocabulary is always a need. It doesn't matter how advanced a student is when it comes to vocabulary. DK: She needs to challenged with activities in her classroom to keep her from being board. She needs higher level of thinking tasks to do when she has completed what the class has done. SE: She needs some higher level activites or even do a buddy system, where she gets to help other students with there reading. She may feel more motivated and excited about school. SW: She needs to be challenged with higher leveled activities. May be more phonics and vocabulary activities, we all could use continued support with vocabulary.
 * TH: Suzie needs to be challenged with activities that can enrich her reading skills when she has completed a task a school. **

What strategies/things could the teacher encourage the parents to do at home? Why? KG: I would encourage comprehension strategies and reflection strategies. This would enhance her reading skills beyond a first grader. An Accelerated Reading program would be a wonderful comprehension activity for a child like Susie. Then have her reflect on what she has read with writing activities such as rewriting the ending or adding more parts to the story. This would keep her skills shape and keep her from being bored, since she loves to read. DK: I would encourage doing a KWL plus with her. This way she could explore things that she was not sure of and build knowledge on the things that she was familiar with. SE: I agree with Tiffany that writing would be a great avevue for her. She could even start writing her own books, since she loves reading so well. Giving her a new focus to connect with reading.
 * TH: I would encourage vocabulary and writing strategies. A writing journal would be an excellent source to let Susie work on creative writing or like Kim said let her write stories or add to stories this would help keep susie from being bored and work on developing and enhancing skills. **

SW: I would have to agree with Shelly and Tiffany everyone can always use continued support with vocabulary and writing skills. Onother thing they could work on is comprehension strategies. Most children can read, but can they comprehend what they have read?

DK: The teacher could encourage her to do think alouds so she has great comprehension of what she is doing. By doing this Susie could be a great model for the other students and encourage the other students to do the same. SE: I really think partner reading would good for her. She is a good reader and could help others in the reading process. Additional thoughts:
 * TH: I agree partner reading would be a good idea too. I have seen alot of my stuggling readers seem to work better with advanced readers in my class. It builds confidence and the struggling reader builds reading skills through the comfort of having a partners help! **

** 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.

What are the strengths?

What are the needs?

What strategies/things could be recommended to parents and what is your rationale?

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

Additional ideas:
|| = = 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? **TH: Mitch can correctly identify upper and lower case letters and sounds. In spelling he spells first and last consonants and nows his short a and i correctly.**

SE: Mitch knows his capital and lowere case letters and sound. He is starting to identigy beginning and ending sounds by the spelling test grades. SW: Well I would have to agree with Shelly and Tiffinie, he know his upper and lower case letters and sounds. He also knows the begining and ending sounds of words. That is a start and gives you a starting point.

What are the needs? **TH: Mitch needs help with instruction on word and letter order, puncuation, diagraphs blends, and short and long vowel patterns. He also needs vocabulary practice.**

SE: He needs short and long vowels and digraphs, and blends. And work on sight words. SW: He needs help with diagraph blands and short and long vowels sounds. What strategies/things could the teacher encourage the parents to do at home? Why? **TH: His parents can work with him on vocabulary and word patterns using books or word games. This will help Mitch to learn new vocabulary or patterns in a fun way to motivate his learning.**

SE: Reading aloud to him will help with motivation and vocabulary words. He could work on some games for sight word recognition. SW: They could help him with sight words and vocabulary words. They could find books of his interest and do read alouds to him.

What types of activities and extensions could the teacher do in the classroom? SW: I agree with Shelly word families is a good place to start, just think of how many words you could increase his vocabulary by.You could use sound boxes to help with his beginning, middle,and ending sounds.
 * TH: The teacher could use word play activities for spelling, vocabulary and phonemic awareness. Another activity or extension would be file folder games to focus on vowel patterns and blends. **

SE: He would benefit from using sound boxes to help hear the sounds in the words., Word families could help with building vowel recgonition.

** 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? KG: Her strength is she wants to learn and the little about concepts of print. DK: She also participates eagerly in class, she can track print from left to right and does the return sweep and knows the front/back of the book.

What are the needs? KG: Repetition of the Alphabet and the sounds that the letter make. Without the knowledge of the letters and sounds she can not learn to read DK: Yes she needs repetition, repetition, repetition of the alphabet and sounds. She needs alot of one-on-one time with a teacher or reading specialist.

What strategies/things could the teacher encourage the parents to do at home? Why? KG: Encourage letter and sound games, like I spy. If they have Internet access, starfall.com is a wonderful beginning learning site. This way she is doing fun things that incorporate the letters and sounds and building her skills. DK: The could encourage flash cards of the alphabet. They could make a book of environmental things that she assiciates with on a everyday basic. Something to pull into her learning that she has prior knowledge of. She could get shaving cream and write the letters on a table with her finger. What types of activities and extensions could the teacher do in the classroom? KG: At your seat folder games with matching letters, letter to symbol or a language master with the letter and sound. Simple one step letter games, then once she mastered the letter recognition then move to letter to sound DK: The child could build letters with blocks, matching games with the upper and lowercase letters, yes a language master would work well. Magnet letter and a cookie sheet also works well.

Additional thoughts:
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 * =__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? **TH: The students enjoys listening to their teacher read and discussions. They also enjoy reading independently.** SE: They enjoy being read to and have good listening skills. And have a good appreciation for books. DK: They like books when being read to and looking at them. SW: I would say one major strength would be the love of reading and listening to someone reading. KG: Yes, The joy of listening to the teacher read to them and how they are readily responding to discussions about the books is the strenght.

What are the needs? **TH: The students need writing and spelling skills and practice as well as final consonant and medial sound instruction and practice.** SW: I would say they need basic spelling skills and practice with final consonant sounds.

SE; Repeated readings to help build sight words, buddy readings to help develop fluency, sound boxes to help build knowledge of blending and making words. DK: They need to have home support and need practice in writing, spelling. KG: I would say go back to phonics for those students that do not use the final consonants and medial sounds.

What strategies/things could the teacher encourage the parents to do at home? Why? **TH: The teacher could send a variety of activites for parents to do at home such as writing practice sheets or take home journals. This could give the student individual practice at home and encourage their parents to write with them. She could also send home spelling games such as bingo with spelling words and their definitions to increase spelling and vocabulary practice.** SE: Repeative books that the students could check out to use at home. Try to build a family literacy night to help encourage parent to read and be involved. Use sibblings to assist and help. DK: The teacher could send books home that the children could read to them or games to play that the children understand and could built fluency. SW: The teacher could send home books for the children to read to work on fluency and different graphic organizers for comprehension. KG: I would encourage computer learning games, if the parents are working and don't have time to spend time reading with their children, then websites like starfall, spellingcity, and funschool have lots of learning games that can be done independently and the kids will learn without knowing they are learning.

What types of activities and extensions could the teacher do in the classroom? **TH: The teacher could have a class word tree, play sparkle using spelling words, and practice final consonant and medial sounds through repeated readings or syllable games.**

SE: Games to help build stronger phonics skills, repeated readings to build fluency and word recognition, sound boxes and word famiilies with tiles to manipulate. DK: Games with word wall words, puzzles that has pictures for the same middle or ending sounds. SW: You could use sound boxes to work on beginning middle and ending sounds. You could use different spelling games to work with spelling words. KG: I like word building tiles, language master cards, and word sort. I love to my students work in pairs and do at your seat folder games.

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 * =__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? **TH: The strenghts of this plan is by having a older student work with a younger student is both effective for Amy, and the elementry students she will be working with. The elementary students usually look up to older students so this would be motivating and a fun learning experience. The weaknesses could be Amy might have trouble instructing these students on vocabulary effeciently or might not understand how to help the students with word conscientious.**

SE: Strengths:Motivation is always the key to building a succesful program by insuring that the activities are geared to having fun kids will respond better. Weakness: She may having trouble with teaching effective ways to learn vocabulary words. DK: YES, i agree motivation is the key to building a great program! The child having a buddy is good way of extra practice for the child. The weakness is that Amy needs to know what she is doing and not just doing time. She needs to be engaged with what the child needs to be working on. SW: One of the strengths of this program is that children always needs extra help with vocabulary skills, but the weakness of this program could be that she could not be effective at teaching the proper strategies. KG: Tiffanie is on the same page as me, older students can normally get the younger ones to do more than a teacher, because its cool to have an older kid help you. I see the weakness as, keeping this child engaged and motivated.

What strategies/programs would help with the students? What is your rationale? **TH: Strategies to help these students could be themes with words to focus on where Amy could read books that contain the words and use sensory webs for words they might use in their writing, words they might know from previous readings, and words they would like to understand. Then students can write next to the word how it smells, tastes, feels, looks like or sounds like, and find pictures or draw illustrations of the word. They can also find words that relate to the new words. This activity can help students understand words fully and would be a hands on approach.**

SE: Involving all areas about the vocbulary words helps give a concrete internalization. Drawing, writing it in sentence, giving synonyms, and antonyms. Making connections with the meaning and the word. DK: The teacher needs to give Amy resource books that she can look at and see what kind of vocabulary activities she can find that would be age appropriate for the child. She could also look on the web and see what kind of vocab games she could find that is interactive for the child.

SW: Amy needs some guided instructions on what type of strategies to use and how to effectively use these strategies.

KG: I think DK's idea of the resource book is good, I think I would go through it with her and give suggestions on what to use and how to use the strategies.

What would the program look like? **TH: This program would be a literature rich atmosphere, with word walls, games and different approaches to meet the need of all learners. Writing center would be full of markers, stamps, stickers, and a variety of paper for students to engage in word play and creative writing activites. The program would be a fun and motivating educational atmoshere inviting to children of all needs.**

SE: I agree with Tiffany. I might include some games like word jeopardy to help learn vocabulary meanings. I would do writings and encourage uses of new vocabulary in stories to help build internalization of the words. Reading new material about new subjects also would help build new vocabulary words. DK: Yes I agree with both Tiffany and Shelly. I would also have puzzles for the children to do, a library section. The writing center does work well, I have used it in my classroom. KG: This needs to be interesting and fun for the kids. Make them feel comfortable with each tutor and give motivation like getting to choose a activity on one day.

** 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?

What strategies/ideas can you set up for students?

What can you share with your parents?

Additional thoughts:
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 * =__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? **TH: Anne's strengths are fair word attack skills, and she has good vocabulary knowledge. She also uses picture cues, graphs and charts to use prior knowledge about topics to help her during reading.**

SE: She has good vocabulary usage and inferences skills, she would be good at predictin and using background knowledge to sitiuation. DK: She like to learn about science and history. She uses her picture cues, graphs, and charts to help her with her reading. She loves social studies and science. <span style="color: #ff5100; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">SW: Her main strength is her background knowledge and her use of it. She has came up with her own strategies to help cope with her weaknesses. KG: She does have good prior knowledge and her television watching increases her vocabulary. She also like the content area classes she has.

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"><span style="color: #ff5100; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">What are the needs? **TH: Anne's area of needs incluede: motivation, fluency skill development and comprehension skills.** SE: She needs to build expression, fluency, and become a more active reader to build comprehesion skills. She is not getting involved with the story and reading for meaning. DK: She needs to find a book that she is interested in and likes to become an active reader, this would help her develop comprehension and fluency. <span style="color: #008000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">SW: Her needs would be fluency skills and comprehension skills. She needs to be motivated to read other materials. KG: Anne's needs to work on her fluency and expression while reading.

What strategies/things could the teacher encourage the parents to do at home? Why? **TH: The teacher could encourage Anne's parents to work with her on fluency skills with repeated reading or read alouds using books that she is familiar with. They could also work with her on word attach skills using file folder games.**

DK: The teacher could send various games home for Anne to play with her parents/sibilings. She could get read alongs on tape or cd. Parent's could read with her and to her and show expression as they read. <span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">SW: The teacher could send books home that Anne likes to read and on her reading level, and suggest that her parents do read alouds to model good reading skills, such as how to pause at punctuation marks. KG: I would have her parents read more to her, maybe take her to the public library. Both will show her how to read with expression and fluency.

What types of activities and extensions could the teacher do in the classroom? **TH: Anne's teacher could use shared readings to help her with fluency. While using the shared reading activity her teacher can model through reading, and use a text that is mined for teaching possibilities and incorporating word study. Shared readings can benefit students to think critically about what they are reading in the content texts and connect more with what they are learning using this approach**.**Her teacher could also use graphic organizers as a strategy to help guide Anne through text book reading. Graphic organizers would benefit Anne because she is a visual learner and to help map out key terms, ideas; they are a signifigant outline tool for content texts too. Using graphic organizers would benefit Anne with summarizing/comprehending what she has read.** <span style="color: #00ffff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"><span style="color: #00ffff; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif;">SW: One thing I like to use in my classroom are graphic organizers, such as K-W-L charts and story maps, since she is a visual learner.Story maps will help with comprehension She needs to know how to use her prior knowledge to make connections to the story. SE: To build fluency and expression she could read from readers theatre or even poems to have her aware expressions and punctuation marks. She could also do buddy reading to help improve the fluency. Think-alouds and shared readings would help her start thinking about what she is reading. SHe needs to have lots of modeling of how to actively become involved in the story, to teach her how to stop and reflect about what she is reading. Also paragraph shrinking with a partner could also start helping her stop and build comprehension skills. DK: A KWL would be a great activity to do in class to get Anne thinking of a topic that she would be interested in. Since she is interested in science and social studies the teacher could find informational books for her to engage in. After motivation and fluency is built some the teacher could then include some comprehension questions to go with what she is reading. KG: I like to do Guided reading and reading workshops with readers which need fluency and expression.

** 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:
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 * =__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? What are the needs? What strategies/things could the student do when they read? Why?

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

** 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?
 * TH: The strengths of this sixth grade class are good word attack skills and students are engaged in class disscussions. **

SE: They have good word attack skills and motivated to share outloud in disscussions. DK: As a whole they do not have alot of difficulty with word attack skills, and they like group discussions. <span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif;">SW: The students have good word attack skills and like to have in class discussions. KG: They have good discussion skills and their reading skills seem to be in a good range. What are the needs? SE: The needs of this class is to build comprehension strategey skills to help childre learn to read for meaning. They are not actively reading for meaning. <span style="color: #008080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">SW: The students need to work on their comprehension skills KG: The entire class needs to work on comprehension and supporting their discussion answers when they are going over text that has been read. What types of activities and extensions could the teacher do in the classroom?
 * TH: The needs of this class are strategies to help with comprehension skills. **


 * TH: Activities that the teacher could do in the classroom to build comprehension skills would be using K-W-L charts to build reading skills using knowledge, questioning and reflection. The K-W-L charts would benefit a variety of reading skills as well as comprehension and retelling skills. The teacher could have the students make a comic strip about the reading using illustration to provide comprehension. Another fun and motivating activity would be, the teacher can make a jeopardy game using main ideas and concepts to develop questions from the text. **

SE: I agree with Tiffany K-W-L charts are a good start. I also think teaching QAR strategies would benefit them. They need a strategy to apply and think about the text. I feel they would benefit from partner reading and disscussion, paragraph skrinking where they stop and reflect about the paragraph. Shared readings and think alouds would also benefit them to help develop connections with the text. DK: The needs is to find a good comprehension strategies that work for the class. <span style="color: #008080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">SW: The students need to find strategies that help build comprehension skill. such as K-W-L charts and story maps to build comprehension. KG: I would use a strategy called "finish the story". The students read a story and make their own endings. It must go with the story and this way they must reread the story over until they match an ending. The other group members ideas are excellent and I would use any of them and have in my classroom on a regular basis.

What strategies/things could the teacher encourage the students to do? ​** TH: The teacher could incorperate many types of comprehension strategies into lessons. One strategy she could use would be graphic organizers which would be a visual outline of the content they are reading. The graphic organizer would guide the students in finding the main ideas of the text and would help them in comprehending. Another strategy would be the think aloud strategy where students would use prior knowledge, questioning, reviewing the text, ect. There are a variety of strategies to improve comprehension skills, the teacher would have to find one that meets the needs of all learners in her class. **

SE: The teacher could have the students do story retelling with a partner to develop key points of the story. This would help them to start developing connections with the key points of the story. Story mapping would also help to build connections. DK: I agree with Tiffanie and Shelly, the teacher could do retelling so the students could talk among themselves and get the main points of the story and the favoriate parts they liked. The teacher could also do visual representation of the text to help with comprehension. SW: I agree with Shelly the teacher could use story retelling with another student. They could also use story mapping to help with important details about the story. KG: I think I might use the the think clouds. I like to use storymapping also and these kids would benefit from it. <span style="color: #008080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">.

<span style="color: #008080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> Additional thoughts:
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 * =__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? SE; Has a good attitude that he can read, and has pretty good fluency and word recognition. DK: His self esteem with reading is good, he has a good fluency rate, and he can call words well. <span style="color: #008000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">SW: One strength is his parental support at home. Another would be that he sees himself as a good reader. KG: I have to agree wit SW, that his number one strenght is his mother. He also reads with rhythm and his accurate. What are the needs? **TH: Brandon needs help with retelling and comprehension skills.** SE; Brandon needs some comprehesion skills to help with his connection with the text. He like a lot of children is a word caller and feels that makes him a good reader, he needs to understand he needs to read for meaning not speed and accuracy. DK: He needs help in comprehension and retelling. <span style="color: #808000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">SW: Brandon needs comprehension skills and help with story retelling. KG: His comprehension is low and he is several grades under his level in reading. What strategies/things could the student do when they read? Why?
 * TH: Brandon strengths are he is confident with his reading, motivated, and has a good accuracy rate. **
 * TH: Strategies that the tutor could use would be Webbing organizers to help Brandon organize important information while reading. Another activity would be having him use quickwrites before, during and after reading this would help him understand what he is reading. The think aloud strategy would also be a wonderful way for Brandon to use thinking, predicting, and questioning skills to activate his understanding and comprehension knowledge. **

SE: Before he reads he needs to activate prior knowledge and survey the text for clues and predictions about the text. He needs to stop and find main idea of what he is reading, maybe like paragraph skrinking or Main Idea T where student identifies main idea and supporting details. Learn QAR strategies help him to apply and seek knowledge about the text. DK: Before he begins reading he could do a prediction of the text so it would help him with activating prior knowledge, previewing and overviewing. This will also help him to engage in their knowledge and experience prior to reading. <span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">SW: one thing he could do is try to connect with something in the story, using background knowledge and making the story personal for him. KG: The ask the author questions is a good strategy could work for Brandon to increase his comprehension and SQ3R also. What types of activities and extensions could the teacher do in the classroom? <span style="color: #008080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">SW: I agree with Shelly story retelling would be benificial to Brandon, you could use story mapping to help with retelling important details that happen at the beginning, middle, and end of the story SE: I agree with Tiffany, and also Brainstorming to set purpose for reading would help make connections and build prior knowledge. Anticipation Guides would also help get him into the text help him stop and reflect and make connections. DK: The teacher could do a summary frame to help with comprehension of the story and writing it done with a retelling. KG: I would do previewing and rereadng strategies with Brandon. I would find his interests and get books which he would like to learn about those interests.
 * TH: The teacher could use journal writing for Brandon to respond, question and conduct illustrations over readings. Brandon would also benefit in prediction strategies such as the K-W-L chart to think before, during and after reading. **

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 * =__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? <span style="color: #ffff00; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">SW: I agree with Tiffinie that Robert has good word attack skills. SE: Robert has seems to have good word attack skils and can read easily.
 * TH: Roberts strengths are he can read and has word attack skills. **

DK: Robert has good a good word caller. KG: Yes I agree with Dustyn that he is a word caller, and his parents are asking for ways to get him help with his comprehension problems.

What are the needs? SE; Robert is repeating the sentences to gain meaning from what he is reading, he needs vocabulary building to help with comprehension problems and some help with chapter overviews of finding the main ideas and information from the chapters. He needs help with stopping and reflecting over what he is reading to get more involved with the text. DK: He needs help with comprehensio and retelling over facts/information because he has the most trouble in science. <span style="color: #800080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">SW: Robert could use help with vocabulary skills. He needs help with story retelling. KG: Seems to me he might need to have his vocabulary skills evaluated and strategies done to increase them. What strategies/things could the student do when they read? Why? SE: To help with science reading I recommend the THEIVES strategey of helping him learn to effectively scan the chapter before, during, and after he reads. He teaches him how to look for important information. He would also benefit from from the insert strategy to help with stopping him and clarifying meaning and attaching symbols to parts that need more attention after he finishes reading this will help him be more involved and actively thinking .To help with vocabulary building he could use the Wordsalive Map, this would help with the understanding of the word's meaning and also help build antonyms and synonyms for the word as well. DK: He could do the Read the Text Backwards stratgey. He could start at the back of the chapter and look at the questions first that need to be focused on. Look over the headings and subheading and find out where the important information is that he needs to remember. As he was doing this he could also do the t-chart where he is jotting the information down so he can have notes to go back and look at to refresh his memory. <span style="color: #008000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> SW: He needs to make the text meaningful for him. He also needs to stop quite often to make sure he is understanding what he is reading.
 * TH: Robert needs help with vocabulary knowledge to understand the meaning of the words and comprehension skills. **
 * TH: Robert could use strategies such as the visual boxing strategy to help him with vocabulary. Since he is having the most trouble in science class he could use concept mapping, think aloud strategy, or even a K-W-L chart to guide him through his reading because these strategies will help him use prior knowledge, prediction, questioning, and summarizing. All of these different strategies can help Robert with vocabulary and comprehension skills. **

KG: I like SE's Theives strategy because its content area, I have used the different perpective strategy with older kids and the bold print read works good also.

What types of activities and extensions could the teacher do in the classroom? **TH: The teacher could incorporate the Verbatim Split strategy to guide students through the text and discussions. Also, the teacher could have students use the PMI (Plussess, Minuses, and Interesting/Implications) Chart to help students find important parts and interesting points during reading.** SE: The teacher could introduce the strategy of questioning the author, model and show the strategies of how to stop and reflect about the message of the author and the text. She could also teach him the ORQ stategy of observation, ruminate, and question. This would help him actively beccome engaed with the text and help start comprehension of what he is reading. DK: The teacher could do Annotating Notes. This would help him to r ead the strategy and then record his notes in a notebook. This is a strategy that takes the words of the author and makes the reader think about the words, the intent, and the meaning in real life. <span style="color: #008000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">SW: I agree with Shelly I like the strategy of questioning the author. I makes them stop and think about what they are reading and try to make sense of it.

KG: Increasing comprehension with books of interest, author studies and one on one strategy building.

Additional thoughts:

** 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:
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