Description of Sessions with Xach

Case Study

Introduction:

Throughout my January through April 2013 spring semester at Roanoke College I have been working closely with a student a South Salem Elementary School. I have been working with him on his reading, sight words, and some writing.

My student’s name is Xach and he is a seven year old, first grade student in Ms. King’s class. Xach was struggling as a reader early this semester and I would say he was reading at about a level nine or ten and not at all willing or wanting to read. He does not read much at home because he says it is too noisy there a lot of the time, however, in the afternoons when everyone is in the kitchen he said will occasionally read then—he mostly likes to read Dr. Suess books. He has always told me that he likes to read but the way his mood would change almost instantly when or if I asked him to read said otherwise. He was always more willing to let me read to him or for us to take turns reading pages in a book, but he always turned grumpy when asked to read. However, getting him to talk about a story we read or relate to it was great. He loved to make predictions while reading the different stories and to talk about the pictures and make up other things that characters would say to each other—it was here that I could see that he had a real passion for reading and the things contained within the pages of a book but he just was not confident enough to read and experience the book himself. I knew I had to find books and stories that he could relate to, connect with in some way in order to get him wanting him to read. At this point in the semester Xach’s definition of reading was having someone else read to him while he took in the pictures. Description of Sessions with Xach:

Activity 1:

One of the activities we did this semester was write a story. Xach had recently lost a tooth and I thought it would be a great thing for him to be able to write about. I started by just having a conversation with him about how he lost it and how the tooth fairy gave him a dollar for the tooth. Then I had him write down on a piece of paper what he had told me in sentence form. This served a little bit as his rough draft. I then cut out pages that looked like a tooth and had Xach transfer his sentences over, one per page. He was then allowed to draw pictures if he wanted. We then created a back and front cover and put it all together.

This activity was done later on in the semester and it was the first time he ever asked if he could take something home to show his parents and his grandmother. He was proud of his little book and he enjoyed the process of writing and creating the book for himself. Activity 2:

Xach when I first started with him, needed some work on his sight words. He needed an activity that would allow him to slow down and read the words, write it, draw a picture so that he could spend a couple minutes with each word so that he would be better able to grasp what they were. So for this activity in the beginning of the semester I had Xach got through Booklet #3 a little bit each day for about two weeks. In the booklet he had each word written for him, space where he could copy the word several times, space to draw a picture of what the word was or meant to him, and a sentence with the word in it so that he could see how the word is used and continue practice with it.

This was not Xach’s favorite activity; however, it was something he was willing to do most of the time I did not have to fight him to do it. He really enjoyed drawing the pictures for the words and then trying to guess what the sentences said. Activity 3:

For Easter I tried to do an activity that was related to it. I had not done a lot with him with writing so I went ahead and planned a short writing activity for him to do. I wrote down five Easter related writing prompts and put them in eggs so that Xach could pick one. He picked the one that said “The Easter bunny came to my house and…” Xach easily started saying all kinds of things that the Easter bunny had brought him in the past. He talked and talked about it, and I asked him to write down what he was saying—I got a mere two sentences written down from him.

Xach did not seem to enjoy or want to do this activity. He wanted to just tell me everything. He even went on to answer the other prompts for me orally, but he did not want to be creative and write out any Easter story. Activity 4:

This is an activity I did twice because I always got a good response from Xach when we did it. I wrote out the words SPRING BUNNY around Easter time and EARTH DAY on Earth day. His job was to find as many words as he could within the different sets of words. This was just a fun way for him to see that there are words within words, and to help him see where some of those words were so that in the future he could try to break up bigger words in order to help him pronounce them. For this activity I would write the words down for him because the first time we tried having him write them as he found them but he said he was finding them too quick and he would forget his next word as he was writing the first.

Xach enjoyed this activity, he liked trying to figure out what the biggest word he could find within the words. He liked to go through all the words he knew had most of the letters in the words and then through process of elimination have it added to the list or not. After the first time of doing this activity I saw Xach starting to break apart his words so he could figure out how to pronounce them Activity 5:

Another activity that we did was that after we went through his sight word flash cards Xach had to use just the sight words to create some sentences. He went through picking some of the words and creating sentences and moving the words along and such in order to create longer, better sentences. After he created sentences with only sight words he had to pick a word and think up at least three sentences he could create that had that word in it. Xach chose the word “go” for his sentences.

Xach enjoyed looking through all the words and trying to figure out what he could put together in order to make longer sentences. He complained that it was harder to figure out other words to put with his one word “go” but after a little thought he got the hang of it and enjoyed thinking of the sentences and putting pictures to go with them. CRI Summary:

Over the course of the semester I administered several assessments in order to track and measure Xach’s progress. These assessments included: Interest Inventory January 30, 2013, Reading Attitude Survey January 30, 2013, Phonemic Awareness Test(PAT) February 27, 2013, Phonemic Segmentation Test February 20, 2013, Blending Sounds Test (BST) Part A February 4, 2013, Blending Sounds Test (BST) Part B February 4, 2013, Letter Naming Test (LNT) March 11, 2013, Vocabulary: High Frequency Word Knowledge Survey January 30, 2013, Reading Comprehension, Fluency, and Oral Reading Assessments April 8 2013.

I gained a lot of insight into Xach’s level of understanding and where and with what we need to continue to work on. For the PAT assessment it was Xach’s job identify which word did not belong within a group of words. There were three words in a group, two beginning with the same onset and one with a different one, he had to identify the one that was different. Xach is at the developing level for phonemic awareness meaning he could use some more instruction on this topic. On the phonemic segmentation test, Xach again scored at the developing level. This test identifies a student’s ability to identify the phoneme that they hear in the beginning, middle, and or at the end. Xach needs a little more instruction and help with being able to identify the different sounds that are within a word. The BST Part A assessment included Xach slowly saying the words, stretching out their sounds and then saying them as a whole. And the second part of the BST test, Part B, was the blending of individual sounds, rather than just the onset and rimes. For both parts of the BST test Xach scored at the emergent level. He had difficulty with the rimes and difficulty identifying words with double letters like “beet” in segmentation because the double “e” represents only one sound. For the letter naming test Xach had to identify what the different upper case and lower case letters were—he scored proficiently for all of these being able to identify every single letter. Xach did well on his vocabulary assessment, he was correctly able to identify 87 out of 100 words—words like “write,” “find,” and “oil,” gave him the most difficulty. The final assessment, the Reading Comprehension, Fluency, and Oral Reading Assessment provided me with a lot of good information. We went through several stories where Xach had to read silently, and aloud, he also had to answer questions when he was done reading, as well as when I read stories aloud to him. His silent reading instructional level came out to be at level 2, as well as his oral reading instructional level. He scored higher for his listening comprehension coming out at level 5. He was not fluent yet, but it was obvious that he was getting close to be a fluent reader. He was also becoming a more confident reader and more willing to read. Classroom Observation Summary:

I observed Xach in Ms. King’s first grade class on January 30, 2013 from 8:30 until 9:30 in the morning. When I came in there were about 14 students in the class, 5 girls and 9 boys. As the semester has gone on, it is obvious that there are more than 14 students in her class.

At the time Xach’s desk was located next to the teacher’s desk within his group of four or five students. Again, as the semester has gone on, Xach’s seat has moved around as Ms. Kings changes the groups periodically throughout the year as I have noticed.

While I was there observing Xach the students were having free time and Xach was on the carpet with a couple friends—it was difficult for me to tell what he was doing exactly at this time besides enjoying himself with his friends—he was definitely not reading at this time however. Once free time was over Ms. King went over what day it was and how many days that had been in school and they did the pledge of allegiance—similar to what they call a “morning meeting” these days. After the meeting the student’s went over their word study words with Ms. King. They were drawing pictures for each of their words, they would talk about the word and then make suggestions about what to draw and then each person (including Ms. King) would draw a picture for the word until each word had a picture. After word study all the students went to sit on the carpet and Ms. King read the students a book. It was here that I noticed that Xach was a really good listener and was willing to and did a good job of following directions. This was also the first time that I saw that Xach loved books that had good pictures in them because as Ms. King was reading he liked to point and describe what was going on in them. It was obvious to me that Xach wanted to learn and if it was something he enjoyed doing or if he was allowed to draw he was going to enjoy it. SOLs Covered:

1.2 The student will expand understanding and use of word meanings.

a) Increase listening and speaking vocabularies.

1.3 The student will adapt or change oral language to fit the situation.

c) Ask and respond to questions.

d) Follow simple two-step oral directions

1.4 The student will orally identify, produce, and manipulate various units of speech sounds within words.

c) Blend sounds to make one-syllable words.

d) Segment one-syllable words into individual speech sounds (phonemes).

1.5 The student will apply knowledge of how print is organized and read.

a) Read from left to right and from top to bottom.

b) Match spoken words with print.

1.6 The student will apply phonetic principles to read and spell.

b) Use two-letter consonant blends to decode and spell single-syllable words.

e) Blend beginning, middle, and ending sounds to recognize and read words.

f) Use word patterns to decode unfamiliar words.

h) Read and spell commonly used sight words.

1.7 The student will use semantic clues and syntax to expand vocabulary when reading.

a) Use words, phrases, and sentences.

b) Use titles and pictures.

c) Use information in the story to read words.

d) Use knowledge of sentence structure.

e) Use knowledge of story structure.

f) Reread and self-correct.

1.8 The student will expand vocabulary. a) Discuss meanings of words in context.

b) Develop vocabulary by listening to and reading a variety of texts.

c) Ask for the meaning of unknown words and make connections to familiar words.

e) Use vocabulary from other content areas.

1.9 The student will read and demonstrate comprehension of a variety of fictional texts.

a) Preview the selection.

c) Relate previous experiences to what is read.

d) Make and confirm predictions.

e) Ask and answer who, what, when, where, why, and how questions about what is read.

f) Identify characters, setting, and important events.

g) Retell stories and events, using beginning, middle, and end.

h) Identify the main idea or theme.

i) Read and reread familiar stories, poems, and passages with fluency, accuracy, and meaningful expression.

1.10 The student will read and demonstrate comprehension of a variety of nonfiction texts.

d) Identify text features such as pictures, headings, charts, and captions.

f) Ask and answer who, what, where, when, why, and how questions about what is read.

g) Identify the main idea.

h) Read and reread familiar passages with fluency, accuracy, and meaningful expression.

1.12 The student will print legibly.

a) Form letters accurately.

b) Space words within sentences.

c) Use the alphabetic code to write unknown words phonetically

1.13 The student will write to communicate ideas for a variety of purposes.

a) Generate ideas.

b) Focus on one topic. d) Use complete sentences in final copies. e) Begin each sentence with a capital letter and use ending punctuation in final copies. Books Read:

January 30, 2013

A House for Hickory By Kelly Mazzone

Mr. Wolf Leaves Town By Sarah Prince

February 4, 2013

Fox in Socks By Dr. Suess

Green Eggs and Ham By Dr. Suess

February 6, 2013

A Sick Day for Amos McGee By Phillip C. Stead

February 13, 2013

Clifford’s First Valentine’s Day By Norman Bridwell

Clifford We Love You By Norman Bridwell

February 20, 2013

Punctuation takes a Vacation By Robin Pulver

Froggy Goes to School By Jonathan London

March 4, 2013

And to Think that I Saw it on Mulberry Street By Dr. Suess

March 11, 2013

A Birthday Present for Mama By Nicole Lorian

The Foot Book By Dr. Suess

March 13, 2013

Courdory By Don Freeman

Henry and Mudge and Annie’s Big Move By Cynthia Rylant

March 18, 2013

Max’s Dragon Shirt Froggy Gets Dressed By Jonathan London

March 27, 2013

The Hungary Giant By Joy Cowley

Messy Mark By Sharon Peters

It Started as an Egg By Kimberlee Graves

April 11, 2013

When I Get Bigger By Merger Mayer

Cookies Week By Cindy Ward

The Letters are Lost By Lisa Campbell Ernst

April 15, 2013

The Popcorn Dragon By Jane Thayer

Popcorn By Frank Asch

April 17, 2013

Shy Charles By Rosemary Wells

The Picnic By Jean Claverie

Little Bear’s Visit By Else Holmelund Minarik

April 22, 2013

I Can Read with my Eyes Shut By Dr. Suess Conclusion:

Now, at the end of the semester, I can say that Xach has made a lot of progress. He has become a more confident, and willing reader. If he picks a book and he says he wants to read it, he will read it. Or, if I bring a bunch of books he will pick out a book and read it. That never happened at the beginning of the semester. After doing a running record, it seems as though Xach is reading on a level 13. Keeping easy books available for him to read however is important in order to keep his confidence from dropping. Xach’s new definition of reading is reading the words, any words himself. Sometimes though, he still really likes to be read too.

Like I said before Xach’s confidence level when he reads has gone way up, he is willing to attempt to say a word he does not know, whereas before he would just say I do not know that word and wait for help. Xach will also now self-correct which I felt like was a huge victory because I was not sure how to teach it or try to get him to do it so that came all on his own. Xach can also tell you all of his sight words, as long as he is not rushing to read them because if he does not pay attention “on” becomes “no,” “from” becomes “form,” and “for” becomes “from.” No, not all of them he can say or name correctly within 3o seconds or so of seeing them, however, if you give him about a minute per word give or take a little bit, he is going to be able to name each one.

Xach has gained fluency over the semester; however, he does need continued work with it. He has not quite gotten to the part where he can add all the expression into his reading because he is still so focused on the words, but he is making good progress towards being an expression-filled, fluent reader. He is really good at putting words in the sentences in books in place of words that are too difficult for him to read, and his new words do not change the meaning of the sentences many times. This is great that he can do this because it continues to allow him to build his confidence and it is therefore obvious that he is completely aware and understands exactly what is going on in the story. I never questioned his ability to understand and identify the events within a story—throughout the semester he has learned to add more details to the facts that he remembers and recounts when retelling or summarizing the story.

Phonemically, Xach needs some continued and further instruction. The segmenting of words has been a difficult thing for him to really grasp ahold of. Some days it would seem like he got it, and then when we discussed it again it would be like he had no idea what I was talking about. Words with double letters in them have been especially difficult for him to segment out since the double letter represents one sound. As I said before, his sight word recognition has gone up drastically since he is now able to identify all of them instead of the just the original 87. Continuing to practice and go through the words is still something I would say he needs so that he does not lose what he has gained, and also so that he can begin to recognize the words faster.

If I were to do this again I would do some of the same things, however, I would probably be several things differently. I would have tried to find many more phonemic activities in order to better teach things like segmentation. It was also obvious to me this semester that it is ever so important to have many hands-on activities as well, they are a great way for a child to learn, as well as keeps them being too bored and fidgety. Some good activities that I had good luck with were sight word bowling— this is where the child had to bowl and then correctly name a sight word for each pin that they knocked down, also I had Xach write his sight words in shaving cream which he thought was a really good activity. He not only had to know his sight words for this, but he also had to be able to spell them, all while playing in foam. Definitely the most important thing that I would still do and make sure I incorporated is making sure that many of the books, activities, or anything was on or presented in a way that the student could identify with or was based on something that they were interested in, in order to cut out some of the child’s struggle and unwillingness to participate. Overall, I have to say that this semester with Xach went pretty well after I figured out what worked for us and I am so proud of the progress that he has made.