Literacy Education (Birth – Grade 6) Literacy Practicum Diagnostic Evaluation Name: John Doe Grade: 1 Age: 7 BACKGROUND INFORMATION John Doe was brought to the NYU Literacy Clinic by his parents after having completed the first half of 1st grade. His parents expressed their desire for J. D. to be able to read an entire book on his own. They reported that although J. D. has an excellent memory and enjoys reading, he has significant trouble with vowel combinations and he often substitutes an incorrect word that is similar in meaning to the correct word. J. D.’s parents reported that he loves reading about animals and the planet Earth. J. D. uses a computer at home, and receives extra support from his school’s reading teacher. J. D.’s reading teacher referred him to the clinic. She teaches him reading every day for 50 minutes, and reported that he needs additional one on one support that will allow his reading to become more reflective of his excellent intellect. She reported that although J. D. is very bright, has a great vocabulary, and maintains a wealth of background knowledge, he is still taking a significantly longer time to read than the other children. Although J. D. is able to detect patterns in stories and recognize many sight words, the reading teacher reports that J. D. experiences trouble listening carefully, is often lost in his own thoughts, and requires frequent redirecting. She also reports that he experiences trouble with letter-sound correspondences, handwriting, and letter and number reversals. Overall, J. D.’s reading teacher suggests that additional work in phonemic awareness, phonics, spatial orientation, and listening skills would be especially helpful. She also stresses that J. D. responds most positively to structure, clear expectations, one on one settings, and a variety of activities that are active, fun, and stimulating. During the testing, J. D. was initially quiet, but he responded appropriately to the questions I posed. He was eager to read and he expressed that he enjoyed both academic and recreational reading. He also expressed that he does not enjoy reading aloud in class, and he dislikes it when the teacher asks him questions about his reading. However, J. D. was very excited about coming to the clinic, and appeared very happy to be there. TESTS ADMINISTERED Qualitative Reading Inventory N/A (too difficult, see below) Word Recognition preprimer, low instructional (70%) Oral Reading preprimer, frustration (17 miscues), 0 WCPM Comprehension preprimer, frustration (3/5 correct) Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA) Level 2, 97% - Independent Level 3, 98% - Independent Level 4, 89% - Instructional Level 6, <88% - Frustration DRA WCPM Level 4: 47 WCPM DRA Hasbrouck and Tindal Fluency, Winter Level 4: 75th percentile Words Their Way ESI Power Score 13/33 Words Their Way ESI Feature Score 13/24 Words Their Way Stage Middle Letter Name – Alphabetic TOWRE Sight Word Percentile 17th percentile TOWRE Phonemic Decoding Percentile 35th percentile Garfield Elementary Reading Attitude Survey Recreational Academic Full scale 58th percentile 34th percentile 43rd percentile Observation Survey Letter Identification Dictation (Hearing Sounds in Words) Writing Vocabulary 53/54; Stanine 4-5 30/37, Stanine: 3 27, Stanine: 3 Concepts of Print 13/16 Fry Sight Word List Sight Words Decoded Total 35/100 21/100 56/100 Informal Phonics Inventory Consonant Sounds Consonant Digraphs Beginning Consonant Blends Final Consonant Blends and ng Short Vowels in CVC words The Rule of Silent e Long Vowel Digraphs Diphthongs r-controlled vowels and –al TOTAL 19/20 3/5 18/20 7/12 8/10 0/4 2/10 1/6 2/6 60/93 OBSERVATIONS DURING TESTING Word Recognition Qualitative Reading Inventory (QRI) The Qualitative Reading Inventory (QRI) is an informal assessment that helps teachers determine a child’s independent reading level, instructional reading level, and frustration level. The teacher can also assess the child’s background knowledge in an area, keep track of reading miscues, learn about the child’s fluency, and evaluate the child. In order to determine the appropriate QRI level with which to start, the child first reads a graded word list. I wanted to know whether or not this assessment would be appropriate for J. D.’s developmental level, so I started with the “preprimer” word list, which is the easiest list for this particular assessment. J. D. read this list with 70% accuracy, which is at the frustration level. Please see the Oral Reading section for information about how J. D. performed on the text portion of the QRI. Fry Sight-Word Inventory The Fry Sight-Word Inventory assesses a child’s ability to recognize up to 300 words that occur most often in text. J. D. correctly read 56/100 words, and he automatically decoded 35 of them. By looking at J. D.’s incorrect responses, it can be seen that he often reads only the first letter or two and guesses the rest of the word. He also confuses long and short vowels within words, and switches the letters b, d, p, and q. Consider the following: Actual Word Or By Word What How Many Water Come Write Do Then But J. D.’s Oral Response Off Bee Water Which Who My Worst Came Where Boo Theen Bot TOWRE The TOWRE assessment also assesses word recognition by testing sight word efficiency and phonemic decoding efficiency. For the first part of the assessment, the child has 45 seconds to correctly read as many high frequency words as possible. The words increase in difficulty as the list continues. For the second part of the assessment, the child has 45 seconds to read nonsense words. The child must decode them, as he or she would any other unfamiliar word. These words increase in difficulty. In 45 seconds, J. D. was able to correctly read 15 sight words on the first part of the test. While this only puts him at the 17th percentile among other 1st graders, J. D. correctly identified 15/17 sight words correctly. In 45 seconds, J. D. was able to correctly decode 9 “made up” words, or phonemes, correctly. Although this only puts him at the 35th percentile among other 1st graders, J. D. correctly decoded 9 “made up” words correctly. Among his mistakes, some were because he read a short vowel as a long vowel, or visa versa, and some were because he added an extra letter or sound at the end of a word. Consider the following: “Made Up” Word Ip Ga Ko Ta Om Ig Pim Wum J. D.’s Oral Pronunciation Ip Gap Cop Ta Um Ig Pim Wum Oral Reading Qualitative Reading Inventory (QRI) The oral reading portion of the QRI is designed so that teachers can assess many different aspects of reading. The teacher ascertains the student’s prior knowledge by asking a few questions and rating the given answers. The child then reads a passage aloud while the teacher listens and records the child’s miscues. After the passage is read, the child provides a retelling of the passage and answers comprehension questions. I gave J. D. the easiest passage to read. J. D. scored at a frustration level, with 17 miscues while reading the text. Continuing with the QRI would be too difficult for J. D., and inappropriate for further assessment. In order to find an instructional level text, I gave J. D. the Developmental Reading Assessment. Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA) Similar to the QRI, the Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA) enables a teacher to determine an instructional reading level. The child reads each passage aloud, and then retells what he or she remembers from the story. Comprehension questions are then asked by the examiner. It also informs the teacher about a child’s reading behaviors in decoding, fluency and comprehension. I administered levels 2, 3, 4, and 6 to J. D. (level 5 does not exist). J. D. scored at an independent level for levels 2 and 3; that is, he would be able to read these texts by himself. J. D. scored at an instructional level for level 4; that is, J. D. would benefit best from reading these texts with a teacher. J. D. scored at a frustration level for level 6; that is, J. D. would benefit from extra instruction before he attempts this level. For levels 2, 3, and 4, J. D. comprehended adequately, while with level 6, J. D. only had some comprehension of the text. At this point, I decided that level 4 of the DRA leveled texts would be most appropriate to start using for instruction. Reading Rate and Fluency While the ultimate goal of reading is to comprehend, it is important that a child be able to read at a rate that is appropriate for their particular grade level. That being said, an emphasis on just trying to read quickly is never advocated. It is important to try to read as quickly and fluently as possible, but never to the point where it sacrifices one’s comprehension. On level 4 of the DRA, which is his instructional level, J. D. was reading 47 words correct per minute. According to the Hasbruck and Tindell norms chart, his fluency level is at the 75th percentile when compared to other 1st graders reading at this particular text level. However, it is important to note that this text level is below grade level for a midyear first grader. Informal Phonics Inventory At this point, I wanted to determine what J. D. knows about the alphabetic system. I gave him the Informal Phonics Inventory, which is a criterion-referenced measure intended to assess the child’s knowledge of letter sounds in isolation and in words. J. D. scored very well on consonant sounds, beginning consonant blends, and short vowels in consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words. He will need a review of consonant digraphs, such as “th,” “sh,” “ch,” “wh,” and “ph.” J. D. will need systematic instruction of final consonant blends and ng, the rule of silent e, long vowel digraphs, diphthongs, and r-controlled vowels and –al. For the exact scores in each of these subtests, please see the above section, Tests Administered. Please note the following examples where J. D. experienced difficulty: The Rule of Silent E Actual Word: J. D.’s Response: Cape Tote Cube Kite Keep Teet Cubby Keet Final Consonant Blends Lilt Lisp Bask Lint List Light Lips Bast Lift Lips Long Vowel Digraphs Loaf Aim Weed Ray Gain Laughed Am Weed Rary Ga-een Coal Heat Cow He – at Pre-reading Knowledge and Abilities (Concepts of Print) In order to be true readers, children need to have a secure knowledge of some basic concepts. They need to have a secure concept about print, understanding that words carry meaning, knowing what print is used for, and possessing directionality. They also need to have a comfortable knowledge of letters. Finally, they need to have an awareness of phonemes or sounds in spoken words. This awareness is needed so that a child can match written letters to individual sounds. J. D. was tested in each of these areas and he showed that he is very knowledgeable in these areas. J. D. understands the orientation of a book, print carries meaning, directional understanding, speech-to-print matching, recognition of periods, lowercase and uppercase letters, the concept of a letter, the concept of a word, and the concept of the first and last letter in a word. J. D. did not know the name for a question mark, the function or name for a comma, and the name for quotation marks. However, he did know the function of a question mark and quotation marks. Spelling Words Their Way Elementary Spelling Inventory The spelling inventory is an assessment that helps the teacher determine the child’s stage of spelling development. Each word on the test is more difficult than the previous word and contains features that the teacher can analyze to determine what the child understands about spelling and what is difficult for the child. J. D. had no trouble spelling initial and final consonants of words. He had difficulty spelling the correct short vowels, as he only spelled 25% of the short vowel words correctly. He spelled 1/2 words containing digraphs (sh/ch) correctly, and 2/6 words containing blends correctly. J. D. did not spell any words containing long vowels correctly. An analysis of his spelling mistakes puts him at the “Middle Letter NameAlphabetic” spelling stage. This means that instruction will start with short vowels, and move on to digraphs, blends, and eventually long vowels. Reading Attitude Garfield Elementary Reading Attitude Survey The Garfield Elementary Reading Attitude Survey is a quick survey that indicates the student’s attitudes toward reading. I read each statement aloud and had J. D. choose a Garfield picture that displays the emotion he feels about the statement. Overall, J. D. has a positive attitude about both academic and recreational reading. He fell in the 43rd percentile when compared with other 1st graders, which indicates that about half of all first graders feel the same way that he does about reading. In general, J. D. enjoys recreational reading more than academic reading. He does not like taking reading tests or reading aloud in class. J. D. enjoys reading during free time and going to reading class. SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS J. D. is a mid-year first grade student having difficulty with reading. He was given the Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA) and found to be reading at an instructional level for level 4. This level is equivalent to a pre-primer text, which is appropriate for the beginning of first grade. There is a clear text structure with many repeated phrases and words. The pictures always correlate to the text. After reading this level, I realized that many of J. D.’s miscues were guesses based on the first one or two letters of the target word. Information gathered from the Informal Phonics Inventory tells me that although J. D. is confident reading words that contain consonants, short vowels, and beginning consonant blends, he has trouble reading words that contain long vowel digraphs, final consonant blends, and silent e. J. D. was also given the Words Their Way Elementary Spelling Inventory Feature Guide, for which he was determined to be at the Middle Letter Name – Alphabetic spelling stage. Interestingly, J. D.’s invented spelling shows that he hasn’t yet mastered distinguishing short vowel sounds from each other when spelling words. Yet, while reading, he is able to pronounce short vowel words correctly. This is most likely because when reading, there are context clues, other letters in the word, and structural elements of text that J. D. is drawing from to decode the words. This indicates that J. D. needs systematic, explicit instruction of short vowels, digraphs, and blends. J. D. was also given the Fry Sight Word Inventory, for which he recognized 35/100 words as sight words. His lack of automatic sight word recognition significantly hinders his fluency and comprehension during reading. Throughout all of the assessments, J. D.’s comprehension has been excellent. His prediction skills are always thoughtful and logical, and his final comprehension is often on target, given he was able to decode the words in the passage. At this stage, his comprehension is adequate. I recommend the following goals and activities for J. D. to be implemented over the next several months: 1) Develop decoding ability: Look from the beginning through the end of a word. J. D. understands most aspects of the basic concepts about print, yet he is reading below grade level with many miscues. Therefore, it appears that he needs systematic, explicit instruction in decoding unknown words through the direct teaching of vowel sounds, digraphs, and blends. J. D. is already monitoring text for meaning, syntax, and visual cues, which is an excellent start. By teaching him more strategies, he will soon develop better decoding skills. Learning about short vowels will particularly enable him to figure out how to read and spell unknown words. By engaging J. D. in matching games and picture sorts, he can start gaining more knowledge of vowels, digraphs, and blends within words. J. D. should be able to match a picture with its respectful text feature. For example, if one is teaching short vowels, J. D. should match the picture of a cat with the symbol for “short a.” Likewise, if one is teaching digraphs, J. D. should match the picture of a whale with the symbol for the digraph “wh.” Another strategy is to read a list of words to J. D., show him the words, and then ask him to sort the words according to text feature. For example, if one is teaching blends, J. D. should put the word “brick” in the “br” column. Likewise, if one is teaching long vowel digraphs, J. D. should put the word “leaf” in the “ea” column. However, before teaching such long vowel digraphs, it is important to first teach all of the preceding features. J. D. can also benefit from building words with alphabetic letters or index cards with individual letters. He can also write high frequency words that frequently appear in texts at his level. This will allow him to make the connection between reading and writing, and more importantly, will help to engrain the spelling and patterns of certain words. Another method to help J. D. develop word decoding strategies is to allow him to dictate sentences in his own words to the teacher. The sentences should always be tied to the texts he is reading. The teacher will write down the sentence, for accuracy’s sake, and then encourage J. D. to try to write it himself. When J. D. gets to a difficult word or misspells something, the teacher should help him figure out the spelling. Elkonin boxes are perfect to use here. At J. D.’s stage, the boxes should consist mostly of individual letters, but where there are difficult digraphs, blends, or long vowel digraphs, one box should be designated for these. In some cases, it is most useful to tell and explain the spelling to J. D., instead of allowing him to guess aimlessly. His developmental level should constantly be kept in mind. Once J. D. writes his sentence correctly, the teacher should write it on a sentence strip, cut it up word by word, and in some cases, segmenting words, and have J. D. put the sentence back together. This activity can help develop J. D.’s fluency, confidence, sight-word recognition, decoding and encoding skills. Essentially, we want J. D. to be actively looking from the beginning of a word through the end of a word. When assessed, he frequently based his guesses on the first letter or two of a word. We want him to make a conscious effort of looking at every letter or combination of letters in words. Once he has a better grasp on vowels, digraphs, and blends, this will become an easier task. For every task that J. D. performs in the clinic, looking from the beginning through the end of a word will be stressed. 2) Develop a sight vocabulary. J. D.’s beginning base of sight words is relatively small, as evidenced by his knowledge of 35/100 words on the Fry list. We recommend playing the game, “Three Strikes and You’re Out,” which requires J. D. to correctly identify sight words within 1 second, 3 times in a row, to retire them from the pile. Children are often excited by this game, and motivated to learn the words so they can remove them from the working pile. Writing high frequency words, most of which should be embedded words in the text, can also help develop a sight vocabulary. 3) Develop oral reading. J. D.’s fluency is currently hindered by the difficulties he experiences automatically recognizing the most frequently occurring words in English print and decoding words. J. D. is unfamiliar with many words. At this point, his reading sounds slow and laborious. He is still decoding words, and needs to go slowly in order to do so. By reading stories repeatedly, J. D. will become familiar with the text, and will be able to apply some oral reading skills. We will continue to assess J. D.’s oral reading by tracking his Words Correct Per Minute (WCPM). SUMMARY OF THE TUTORING J. D. and I worked together approximately twice a week from February 2nd to April 29th for a total of 19 one-hour tutoring sessions. The baseline assessments were administered during the first two sessions (February 2nd and February 4th). Progress monitoring assessments were conducted every other session, and the summative assessments were administered during the last three sessions (April 20th, April 22nd, and April 27th) along with other learning activities. The final session, April 29th, was a celebration for all of the students who had participated in the clinic, and included an opportunity for all students to read a text of their choice in front of parents, family, and friends. By the end of the tutoring, J. D. had moved from an instructional level D on the Fountas & Pinnell book leveling system to nearly a level G. Likewise, on the Developmental Reading Inventory, J. D. moved from a level 4 to a level 16. In other words, J. D. progressed from being one half year below level to reading on grade level. In regards to spelling, J. D. moved from the Middle Letter-Name Alphabetic stage to the Early Within Word Pattern stage. This is also where children are expected to be performing when they enter second grade. Although J. D. would sometimes start the tutoring sessions by stating he was too tired to read, he would always get excited by the subject matter or the reading games I had planned. As soon as J. D. would get out of the tired mode, he would always be vibrant and willing to work hard. He is a very bright child, and he loved to talk about the books we were reading. In order to read books and complete activities in a timely manner, I would often need to remind him to save his thoughts and comments until the end. J. D. responds well to structure, and he was typically more motivated when I made a checklist of items that we needed to complete each session. His motivation, and consequently his reading and writing performance, was dependent upon his mood, but he nonetheless followed directions, maintained a positive attitude about reading and writing, and successfully completed the tutoring. From the baseline assessment results, my primary goals for J. D. were to improve his decoding skills, sight word vocabulary, and oral reading fluency. By improving these fundamental abilities, I knew that J. D.’s comprehension and his attitude toward reading and writing would subsequently improve. The following activities were completed during each session (dependent on time): 1) High frequency writing At the beginning of each session, I gave J. D. 3-4 words with which he had recently come into contact, and asked him to spell the words. The difficulty of the words were appropriate for an intensive, one-on-one tutoring session, so there were times when J. D. did not correctly spell the words. In this case, I would first point out the letters he had correctly identified, and positively reinforced his efforts in spelling the word. If appropriate, I would use Elkonin boxes, which help to fix phoneme-grapheme correspondences in a child’s mind. When a child hears a particular sound in a word, he or she chooses the corresponding letter, and marks it in the correct box. At J. D.’s developmental level, each letter gets its own box, except for digraphs, blends, and certain endings. Once we have determined a correct spelling, I ask J. D. to write the word again. I then cover the correct spelling, and ask him to write it as fast as he can and as big as he can. This ensures he writes the word repeatedly, thus eventually internalizing it. I would always recycle some of the words he spelled incorrectly into future tutoring sessions, to ensure repeated exposure to these difficult words. High frequency writing helps a student’s spelling, reading, and of course, writing. 2) Guided Reading During each session, we followed a very structured approach called Guided Reading. In preparation for Guided Reading, I would choose a book that was at an instructional level for J. D. I would first read the title of the text while pointing to each word and I would then have J. D. do the same. He would often eagerly read the title before I could even tell him. I would then summarize the story in about four sentences, and I would be sure to review the overall text structures and some of the difficult vocabulary. I would also use the same verb tense in my summary as the tense in the text to avoid any confusions. We would then engage in a picture walk, during which J. D. would tell me what he thought was happening on each page, based on the pictures alone. J. D. would then read the story from start to finish while I took informal notes of difficulties to inform any post-reading teaching points. If J. D. had difficulty while reading, I would prompt him to use various reading strategies to help him figure out the trouble word. If J. D. read a word incorrectly, but couldn’t figure out whether or not it was the correct word, some of the prompts included: “Does it make sense?” (with respect to context and picture clues); “Does it sound right?” (do you know that word you’re saying?); and “Does it look right?” (do the letters match the sounds you’re making?). Following the reading, I would give J. D. specific praise, depending on what he did well. This could range from using his reading strategies well to reading with expression and great fluency. I would then pick one or two teaching points that corresponded with J. D.’s difficulties as well as my objectives for the lesson, and we would look back in the text together to review and reread. Although comprehension is not necessarily part of the Guided Reading procedure, I would also ask one or two comprehension questions, just to be sure J. D. grasped the material. Eventually, J. D. became very comfortable with this structure, and he anticipated my prompts and questions. This helped his motivation and his focus. He also developed a strong sense of what he needed to do to improve, and he would eagerly tell me the things he did well in a particular reading, as well as the areas in which he needed to improve. 3) Structured Repeated Reading We engaged in a Structured Repeated Reading of a text the session following the initial read-through of a text. I would usually take a few high frequency words from the text with which J. D. had difficulty, and have him spell them at the beginning of each session (as described in point (1)). Depending on his previous success with the book, we would review difficult vocabulary, and any orthographic teaching points that we had previously explored. While J. D. read the text for a second time, I took a running record to monitor his miscues and reading patterns, which would later be used to determine his instructional text level. I also timed him in order to measure his fluency with respect to words per minute and words correct per minute. These were key in J. D.’s progress monitoring. Following the reading, I reviewed the miscues that corresponded to my objectives and teaching points. I would frequently ask J. D. which strategy he could have used to figure out a particular word or phrase. I posted some strategies on the wall above our desk, so he could easily refer to them while reading His favorite strategies included, “sound out the word,” “power punch (chunking the smaller components of a word),” “looking at the picture,” “finding a word we already know within the hard word,” and “re-reading or finishing the sentence.” Finally, during the following session, we would read the text a third time. This was mainly for building J. D.’s fluency and confidence, and was called a “Familiar Re-Read.” For the majority of the time, J. D. enjoyed the repeated readings. Each session brought him more and more success, and he found himself reading longer and more difficult words. Each re-read also allowed him to read with more expression and improve his fluency. At one point when he was frustrated with the difficulty of a text he had just completed, I shared with him a little “secret.” I told him that since he was working so hard and reading so well, I decided to challenge him with the most difficult book yet! Since he had just successfully completed this book, although a little tired from working so hard to decode it, he was thrilled and inspired to read more on this particular difficulty level. 4) Word Work In order to provide explicit, systematic phonics instruction, many tools were used. I would often use word sorts with J. D. to teach short vowels, digraphs, blends, and eventually, silent e and long vowels. The Words Their Way scope and sequence section suggests a particular order for various picture sorts. Adopting this suggestion, over the course of our sessions, we worked on the following sorts: /short a/, /short i/, /short o/, /short u/, /short e/; /th/, /sh/, /ch/, /wh/; /c/, /h/, /ch/; /br/, /bl/; /st/, /sp/; /long a/, /long i/, /long u/, /long e/. By completing these sorts, J. D. was able to practice hearing and speaking the different sounds of the vowels, digraphs, and blends. These sorts were done in conjunction with explicit, systematic phonics instruction. For example, before attempting the picture sort with long vowels, I explicitly taught J. D. that sometimes, when a word ends with an e, the vowel says its name. I also taught him that when the vowel says its name, it is called a long vowel. We did a quick activity using words such as “cap/cape,” “mat, mate,” “them/theme,” etc., and I explicitly taught J. D. the difference in these words both orthographically and aurally. I often turned these word sorts into a game where J. D. would either race against the clock or against me, which helped tremendously to keep him on task and focused. 5) Sight Word Flashcards (Three Strikes You’re Out game) At the end of each session, J. D. loved to play the game “Three Strikes You’re Out,” which allows the child to practice his or her automatic recognition of sight words. Based on J. D.’s results from the Fry Sight Word Inventory (first 100 words), I created flash cards of words that J. D. either needed to review or that he needed to learn. At first, I made about 20 flash cards consisting of these types of words. If J. D. automatically identified a word (within 2 seconds), I would place it in one pile. If he did not automatically identify a word, I would place it in a different pile. I would keep track of which words he correctly identified. At the end of the game, I would go through the words J. D. missed, and if he couldn’t get them a second time, I would tell him the word. We would also discuss ways to remember what the word was (without necessarily decoding it). We would go through this process at the end of each session, and after J. D. identified a word three times, I would replace it with a brand new word. I made sure to rotate the words such that there were always some familiar words to J. D.. Otherwise, the game could become very discouraging. Since I moved this activity to the very end of each session, J. D. has been motivated to work hard throughout each session in order to complete this activity before our time runs out. He enjoys seeing the progress he makes, as it is almost immediate. J. D. also thrives off of my positive feedback when he gets a new word for the first time. We always exchange high-fives after a job well done. In addition to the five previous activities, I would also engage J. D. in a sentence writing activity, which was always tied in with the readings. This activity can be seen most readily in Marie Clay’s Reading Recovery program. I sometimes start by asking J. D. a specific question, such as, “What do you like to do on a rainy day?” Other times I would leave it more open-ended, and ask J. D. to tell me, in one sentence, how he felt about something he just read. This, as expected, requires slightly higher-level thinking, and was often more difficult for J. D.. Once J. D. generated a sentence, I would write it down for my own records, and then I would ask J. D. to write his sentence word by word. If he spelled a word incorrectly, I would help him correct it using Elkonin boxes, or, if the letter pattern was irregular, I would sometimes simply tell him the correct spelling. J. D. would correct his mistake, and continue writing the sentence. When he finished writing it, I would have him run his finger under each word as he read it back to himself. I encouraged him to fix his own mistakes if he noticed something. I would then write the sentence on a long strip of paper, and I would cut apart the paper either word by word or within words to test J. D.’s knowledge of orthography. J. D. would read each word or part of a word as I cut them, and then he would rearrange the pieces to make his sentence. Finally, he would read the entire sentence while running his finger under the cut up pieces. J. D. enjoyed this activity, and liked when I would glue his sentence pieces into his writing book. He thoroughly enjoyed appreciating his own hard work! This kind of motivation is what I strived for in every aspect of the tutoring. If I could find a way for J. D. to appreciate the hard work he was doing, I knew he would be motivated to do that activity in the future. Other activities like this included flip-books (featuring various patters we had studied) and timed games (featuring similar patterns). PRINCIPAL RESULTS Data: Baseline – February Intermittent Summative – April Marie Clay’s Observation Survey Letter Identification Letter Identification Test Score Stanine Group Writing Vocabulary (10 mins) 53/54 4-5 Writing Vocabulary (3 mins) Test Dates: 3/4, 3/11, 3/25, 4/6, 4/8 Test Scores: 17, 12, 17, 17, 17 Test Score Stanine Group Writing Vocabulary (10 mins) 53/54 4-5 Test Score (# of words correct) 27 Test Score (# of words correct) 37 Stanine Group 3 Stanine Group 4 Hearing and Recording Sounds in Words Hearing and Recording Sounds in Words Test Score 30/37 Test Score 35/37 Stanine Group 3 Stanine Group 4 __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Fry Sight-Word Inventory – First 100 Words Dolch Test (1 minute) Test Dates: 3/4, 3/11, 3/25, 4/6, 4/8 Recognized immediately 35 Test Scores: 11, 11, 15, 12, 13 Recognized immediately 72 Decoded (hesitation) 21 Decoded (hesitation) 10 Total known 56 Total known 82 ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Test of Word Reading Efficiency (TOWRE) Sight Word Efficiency (SWE) Sight Word Efficiency (SWE) Raw Score 15 Raw Score 21 Standard Score 86 Standard Score 84 Percentile 17th Percentile 14th Phonemic Decoding Eff. (PDE) Phonemic Decoding Eff. (PDE) Raw Score 9 Raw Score 12 Standard Score 94 Standard Score 92 Percentile 35th Percentile 29th _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Informal Phonics Inventory Consonant Sounds 19/20 Consonant Sounds 20/20 Consonant Digraphs 3/5 Consonant Digraphs 4/5 Beginning Consonant Blends 18/20 Beginning Consonant Blends 20/20 Final Consonant Blends and ng 7/12 Final Consonant Blends and ng 12/12 Short Vowels in CVC Words 8/10 Short Vowels in CVC Words 9/10 The Rule of Silent e 0/4 The Rule of Silent e 4/4 Long Vowel Digraphs 2/10 Long Vowel Digraphs 2/10 Diphthongs 1/6 Diphthongs 1/6 r-Controlled Vowels and –al 2/6 r-Controlled Vowels and –al 1/6 TOTAL 60/93 TOTAL 73/93 _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Words Their Way Elementary Spelling Inventory Words Spelled Correctly 0/9 Words Spelled Correctly 4/16 Feature Points 13/24 Feature Points 24/43 Total 13/33 Total 28/59 Spelling Stage Middle Letter Name – Alphabetic Spelling Stage Early Within Word Pattern ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Developmental Reading Inventory (DRA) Level 2 – 97% accuracy – Independent Level 10 – 96% accuracy – Independent Level 3 – 98% accuracy – Independent Level 12 – 93% accuracy – Instructional Level 4 – 89% accuracy – Instructional Level 16 – 92% accuracy – Instructional Level 6 - <88% accuracy – Frustrational Level 4 WCPM: 47 WCPM Level 16 WCPM: 0 WCPM (16 mins to complete 270 words) Level 4 Hasbruck & Tindell: 75th percentile Level 16 Hasbruck & Tindell: <10th percentile _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Qualitative Reading Inventory -4 (QRI) Pre-Primer (N/A) Pre-Primer Word Recognition 70% - Low Instructional Word Recognition 80% - Instructional Oral Reading 17 miscues, 0 WCPM – Frustration Oral Reading 4 miscues, 28 WCPM – Instructional Comprehension 3/5 – Frustration Comprehension Hasbruck & Tindell 4/5 – Instructional 25th Percentile Primer Word Recognition 80% - Instructional Oral Reading 26 miscues, 0 WCPM – Frustration Comprehension 5/6 – Instructional Hasbruck & Tindell <10th Percentile *For the intermittent running record assessments of oral reading accuracy, please see the Record of Book Level sheet, attached. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Summary of Results: Over the course of the tutoring sessions, J. D. moved from a level D to nearly a level G in the Fountas & Pinnell leveling system. These levels are specific to J. D.’s “instructional” reading level, or the level which is most appropriate to use for instructional purposes. By the end of the tutoring, J. D. was reading at an “independent” level F, and was ready to move to a level G text. For a detailed graph of J. D.’s reading progress throughout the semester, please refer to the Record of Book Level sheet. At the start of the tutoring, I administered the Qualitative Reading Inventory-4 (QRI) in order to assess word recognition, oral reading, and comprehension. The QRI is slightly more difficult than what J. D. was ready for, as he did not score high enough for the test to be applicable. At the lowest level, “Pre-Primer,” J. D. scored at a frustration level for both oral reading and comprehension. His fluency was also 0 WCPM, which meant that he was reading at a very slow and laborious pace. At the close of the tutoring, J. D.’s performance on the QRI improved significantly. At the “Pre-Primer” level, J.D. read the text with only 4 miscues, which also set him at the “instructional” level. J. D. read the text at a rate of 28 WCPM. J. D. also responded correctly to 4/5 comprehension questions after reading the text. When asked to retell what happened in the story, he recalled all of the important details and characters. With respect to oral reading, he is at the 25th percentile among other first graders at the end of the year, according to Hasbruck & Tindell. Since J. D. read the text at an instructional level, I wanted to see if he was able to read a more difficult text at an instructional level. I then gave him the “Primer” level, where he demonstrated frustration accuracy levels. Interestingly, J. D. still responded correctly to 5/6 comprehension questions, and correctly retold most of the important details and characters from the story. However, since his fluency and oral reading accuracy was at the frustration level, I did not continue to give J. D. more difficult texts. However, the progress that J. D. made in fluency as well as oral reading accuracy has been profound. This can be attributed to his mastery of short vowels, blends, digraphs, and some long vowels, all of which were practiced throughout the tutoring. This can also be attributed to J. D.’s new metacognitive knowledge, and his ability to implement specific reading strategies in different situations. He also appealed for help far fewer times than he did at the start of tutoring. J. D. is more confident and capable in this respect. J. D.’s performance on the Developmental Reading Inventory (DRA) also improved significantly since the start of tutoring. A similar assessment that tests oral reading accuracy, fluency, and some comprehension, the DRA allows for another perspective on a child’s overall reading ability. At the start of the tutoring, J. D. read a level 4 text at an instructional level with 89% accuracy. His oral reading fluency at this level was measured at 47 WCPM, which put him at the 75th percentile according to Hasbruck & Tindell. At the close of tutoring, J. D. read a level 16 text at an instructional level with 92% accuracy. However, his oral reading fluency at this level was measured at <10th percentile according to Hasbruck and Tindell. These assessment results point to a few things. First of all, J. D. made excellent progress in jumping from an instructional level 4 to an instructional level 16. His decoding abilities and his strategy-use have improved significantly. Most times, when J. D. comes to a difficult word, he may stumble, but he eventually gets it. This, of course, takes up time. J. D. is reading these more difficult texts at a slower pace than most other 1st graders this time of year, but he is still reading at an appropriate accuracy level. I did not give J. D. a level higher than 16 because his fluency would start to hinder comprehension and possibly even his positive attitude toward reading. J. D. also improved significantly on Marie Clay’s Observation Survey, which assesses letter identification, writing vocabulary, and hearing and recording sounds in words. On the letter identification assessment, J. D. showed he is still experiencing trouble distinguishing between b’s and d’s. J. D. does not experience trouble when the b or d is in context and if it is a word he has seen before. However, when decoding a new word, J. D. will often make the “b” sound when he sees a “d,” and visa versa. This is developmentally normal for first graders, and J. D. is able to identify all other capital and lowercase letters quickly and easily. On the writing vocabulary section of the assessment, J. D. was asked to write as many words as he knew. This assesses one’s vocabulary and one’s ability to spell the words correctly. J. D.’s score increased from 27 words, at the beginning of the tutoring, to 37 words, at the end. He also moved up in the Stanine group from 3 to 4. This means that J. D.’s writing vocabulary is slightly below average for a child his age, but it should also be noted that he has made extreme progress with this. During the first assessment of writing vocabulary, J. D. took about 15 seconds between each word to think of a new word to write. He also spent more time figuring out the spellings of the words, and spent a lot of time erasing and re-writing. He also required several prompts the first time through. At the culmination of tutoring, J. D. eagerly went directly from one word to the next without hesitation, and confidently spelled each word to the best of his ability. He took up the entire 10 minutes to write and required little prompting. Research has shown that some children cannot read words that they can write, and visa versa. I know that J. D. is able to read all of the words he can write. He cannot, however, write all of the words he can read. It is also interesting to note J. D.’s progress on the intermittent assessments. Once a week, J. D. was given 3 minutes to write as many words as he could. His scores, in chronological order, were 17, 12, 17, 17, 17. It does not appear as though J. D. made much progress. However, in looking at his responses, he always wrote varying words. Except for writing “J. D.,” “mom,” “dad,” and their variations, J. D.’s vocabulary usually reflected whatever we were learning about. For example, I gave J. D. the high frequency word “the” to write during one particular lesson. On the next writing vocabulary assessment, he wrote “the.” This shows that although J. D.’s scores stayed the same, he was continuously updating his vocabulary based on what we were learning about. This is evident in the final assessment, where J. D. increased his score significantly. In the Hearing and Recording Sounds in Words section, J. D. increased his score from a 30/37 to a 35/37. For the summative assessment, I read the sentence, “The bus is coming. It will stop here to let me get on.” J. D.’s sentence looked as follows: “The bus is cumeing it will stop he too let me get on.” Only 2 aspects of J. D.’s sentence are marked incorrect, even though there are more than 2 errors. In this assessment, punctuation and capitalization is not an issue; we are simply looking for the student to hear the specific sounds and to correctly identify and write their respective letters. For instance, J. D. lost a point for writing the letter “u” instead of “o” in the word coming. He also lost a point for neglecting to add the letter “r” to the word “here.” “Here” is an example of a word I know J. D. can read, but unable to correctly write. J. D. moved from the Stanine group 3 to 4, which puts him in the average category for his age. Perhaps the assessment on which J. D. made the most progress was the Fry Sight Word Inventory. The inventory consists of several hundred words, but I only assessed J. D. on the first 100 words, since 1st graders are expected to be familiar with at least the first 100. During the initial assessment, J. D. correctly and automatically identified 35 words, while he decoded 21 words with hesitation. During the final assessment, J. D. correctly and automatically identified 72 words, while he decoded 10 words with hesitation. J. D. made excellent progress in this respect. This aspect of his reading has helped him become a much more fluent reader, thus allowing him to read more difficult texts. More work with sight words will allow J. D. to develop better fluency. J. D. also improved on the Test of Word Reading Efficiency (TOWRE). In the Sight Word Efficiency section, his raw score improved from a 15 to a 21. This means that given 45 seconds, J. D. was able to read 21 words on the TOWRE list. It is important to note that his Standard Score went from 86 to 84 and his percentile went from 17th to 14th. Even though J. D.’s raw score improved from February to April, he fell into a different age bracket in April, which caused his Standard Score (compared with other children his age) and his percentile to drop. According to this one assessment, J. D. needs more work in decoding and recognizing such words in order to be on par with other children his age. Nonetheless, he did make progress in this area. In the Phonemic Decoding Efficiency section of the TOWRE assessment, J. D.’s raw score improved from a 9 to a 12. This means that given 45 seconds, he was able to read 12 non-words or nonsense words. This purely tested his decoding ability. However, despite his increase, the same above situation applies. Since J. D.’s April scores put him in a different age bracket than his February scores, his Standard Score dropped from 94 to 92 and his percentile dropped from 34th to 29th. In order for these scores to have increased, J. D. would have needed to make more progress. According to this assessment, in order to be on par with other children his age, J. D. needs to decode these words at a slightly faster pace. Nonetheless, he made progress in this area. On the Informal Phonics Inventory, J. D.’s scores increased significantly in the areas I explicitly taught. In the final assessment, J. D. received perfect scores in consonant sounds, beginning consonant blends, final consonant blends and ng, and the rule of silent e. He got only one point off in consonant digraphs and short vowels in CVC words. This was great progress, seeing as J. D. received no perfect scores in these areas in the initial assessment, and completed 0/4 correct answers for the rule of silent e. Overall, J. D.’s total initial score was 60/93, and J. D.’s total final score was 73/93. The areas which I did not explicitly teach to J. D. were reflected in the assessments, as J. D. maintained approximately the J. D.e scores from beginning to end in those areas. Finally, J. D. performed significantly better on the Words Their Way Elementary Spelling Inventory on the final assessment than he did on the initial assessment. On the initial, J. D. did not spell any words correctly, and I only gave him 9 words to attempt. On the final, I gave J. D. the J. D.e first 9 words, in addition to 7 more new words. This time, he spelled 3 of the initial 9 words correctly, and 1 of the new 7 words correctly. According to the Elementary Spelling Inventory, there are various spelling features of each word that a student should be able to replicate in his or her spelling, and this determines a particular spelling stage. On this initial assessment, J. D. received 13/24 feature points, and on the final, J. D. received 24/43 feature points. Overall, J. D.’s total scores on this assessment were 13/33 on the initial and 28/59 on the final. J. D. also moved up two spelling stages, according to the Words Their Way Elementary Spelling Inventory. He had started at the Middle Letter Name Alphabetic stage and has progressed to the Early Within Word Pattern stage. This is based on the way J. D. spelled the words I gave him. He appears to have gained control over initial and final consonants, short vowels, and digraphs. When it comes to spelling words that include blends and long vowels, J. D. has difficulty. Consider the following examples: Correct Spelling J. D.’s Spelling lump train shopping chewed lup cheran shapping chooed Although these words are spelled incorrectly, it appears as though J. D. knows some other rules that might inform us of the reasons he spelled these in a particular manner. For example, J. D. must know that “oo” makes the sound in “chewed.” It is also interesting to note that although J. D. tried to represent the “tr” in the word “train” with a “ch,” I know that he knows the difference in the sounds when reading words that contain such digraphs and blends. J. D.’s invented spelling of “shopping” shows that he knows the “a” can make the “short o” sound, as well. FURTHER RECOMMENDATIONS Based on my observations and the previous data, teachers and tutors might want to consider the information below when working with J. D.. My recommendations include focus areas that need explicit instruction, teaching strategies, and other information I learned by working closely with J. D. over the past several months. 1) Continued Development of Decoding Strategies Throughout the tutoring, my overarching objective was to get J. D. looking from the beginning through the end of every word. He has progressed in this respect very well, but as he continues to read more difficult texts, he will need continued reinforcement of this strategy. During initial testing, J. D. would guess based on the initial letter or the first few letters of a word, but he has refrained from doing that over the past month of tutoring. J. D. has become very proficient at decoding words, based on the focus areas I have addressed and explicitly taught to him. The Informal Phonics Inventory postassessment suggests that future instruction should focus on explicitly teaching long vowel digraphs (oa, ea, ai, ue, ee, ay), r-controlled vowels, and eventually, diphthongs. Although I worked a few times with J. D. on long vowels and silent e, he still has trouble decoding these words in the context of a story. It is important to explicitly review these areas, as well as short vowels, digraphs, and blends, which we worked on numerous times. Improving J. D.’s decoding skills and strategies will improve J. D.’s accuracy while reading significantly. Systematic, explicit instruction that is appropriate for his developmental level is imperative, and should encompass the above focus areas. 2) Continued Development of a Sight-Word Vocabulary Throughout the tutoring, I worked with J. D. on developing his sight-word vocabulary. There are about 300 words in the English language that make up 65% of all written material. It is important for a child to automatically recognize and read these words. J. D. can automatically read 72 of the first 100 words on the Fry Sight Word Inventory, so to better prepare him for 2nd grade, I would recommend using flash cards with these words on it. Please note that J. D. does not need to know all 300 words until about 3rd grade, but exposure to and practice with the first 200 words in the near future would be extremely beneficial. Improving J. D.’s sight-word vocabulary will help improve his fluency. He has made significant progress, as he increased his knowledge from 35% to 72% on the Fry Sight Word Inventory (first 100 words) from the beginning to the end of tutoring. I attribute this success to playing the game “Three Strikes You’re Out” with J. D.. This game always engaged him, and he always looked forward to playing it. He loved seeing the progress that he was making, and consistently inquired how many times he had recognized a certain word. 3) Continued Development of Oral Reading Fluency Perhaps the most important area of future improvement is J. D.’s oral reading fluency. J. D. has made significant progress in decoding difficult text, but he is still reading word-by-word, and his WCPM (words correct per minute) is significantly below grade level when he reads “instructional” level texts. On the QRI instructional level text, J. D.’s WCPM was 28, which puts him in the 25th percentile according to Hasbruck & Tindell. This means that, when compared to 100 other students at the end of first grade, J. D.’s fluency is better than only 24 of them and less well than 75 of them. Repeated, structured readings of books will help develop J. D.’s fluency. I noticed that when I explicitly modeled reading fluently with expression and at an appropriate pace, J. D. wholeheartedly embraced my advice and applied it to his reading of a specific book. He increased his reading rate significantly on that book. Explicit, direct modeling of texts with which J. D. is familiar is imperative. Once J. D.’s fluency improves, he will be able to devote more of his cognitive attention to comprehension, which is the ultimate goal of reading. Developing the above points (decoding and sight-word recognition abilities) will also help improve J. D.’s fluency. 4) Importance of Situational Factors Although I have never observed J. D. in a classroom environment, based on my individual work with him as well as his school reading teacher’s report, I would assume that he is not as motivated as he is in one-on-one situations. Motivation is key in reaching J. D., especially if one-on-one, targeted instruction is not feasible. If J. D. does not see a purpose in an activity, he will find ways to not partake in it. In my experience with J. D., these task-avoidance behaviors usually included complaints of fatigue, random dialogue or stories to prolong completion of an activity (even if they were related), and questions about the content to which J. D. already knew the answers. J. D. is very bright, and he often engaged in these task-avoidance behaviors if he did not feel a true connection to what we were doing. J. D. thrives on choice and being able to track his own progress. I did not use any behavioral rewards with J. D. I gave him one or two stickers at the end of each session, but he never expected them or asked for them (in fact, he sometimes forgot about them!). The motivation I used was embedded in the activities themselves. I knew the activities he enjoyed and those activities that he did not care for. Interspersing these activities is necessary whether in a whole-class setting or a one-on-one setting. J. D. also enjoyed checking off activities when he completed them. Having that structure, where J. D. can monitor his own progress, is essential to keep him focused and motivated. He also loved participating in the Fry Sight Word Inventory game, called Three Strikes You’re Out, as previously described. By placing this activity last, I ensured that J. D. would work diligently to complete all prior activities in a timely manner so he could play the game before we ran out of time. It only took one instance when we ran out of time to make him focus more during the next session. It is not too often that you see a student so intrinsically motivated in 1st grade, and I suggest that all teachers and tutors of J. D. do their best to harness this type of motivation. J. D. does not need candy bars or stickers to be motivated. He loves reading about his interests, which include anything to do with animals, and he enjoys nonfiction books from which he can learn something new. Overall, I would stress getting to know J. D. as an individual, and catering to his interests and activities. He has a lot to say about many things, and he absolutely loves learning. Honing in to this will ensure success for both J. D. and his teacher or tutor. J. D.’s keen and scintillating personality, in addition to his insatiable desire to learn, will surely serve him well throughout his experiences in school and beyond. References Bear, D.D., Invernizzi, M., Templeton, S., & Johnston, F. (2008). Words Their Way: Word study for phonics, vocabulary, and spelling instruction, fourth edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson. Clay, M.M. (2005). An observation survey of early literacy achievement, second edition. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Fountas, I.C., & Pinnell, G.G. (1996). Guided Reading: Good first teaching for all children. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Leslie, L., & Caldwell, J. (2006). Qualitative reading inventory-4. Boston: Pearson. McKenna, M.C., & Stahl, K.A.D. (2009) Assessment for reading instruction, second edition. New York: The Guilford Press. Pearson Assessments. (2006). Test of word reading efficiency (TOWRE). Boston. Pearson.
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