Case Study: Danielle

Danielle is a first grade student who is struggling in her reading and written language classes. She is currently receiving special services for speech/language and has received these services since early Kindergarten. She attended Head Start prior to entering Kindergarten.

Danielle lives with her father, mother, older brother Brian, and younger sister, Ellen. Danielle likes school and thinks her teacher is a “great teacher.” Her favorite subject is math and her least favorite subject is reading.

According to her teacher, Danielle “uses her time wisely, works very hard in class, listens to instruction, and gets along well with her peers and adults.” Her teacher also notes that “weaknesses include understanding the content of what is being taught, remembering sight words, recalling and blending sounds to form words, reading fluency, and low test/quiz performance in her reading class.” Danielle has a 73% average in her reading.

Danielle has always struggled in reading. Her mother reported that she had difficulty learning the alphabet and rhyming words in preschool. At the first Kindergarten benchmark, she scored in the high risk category on Letter Naming Fluency (LNF) but did manage to achieve the end-of-the year goal by the May benchmark. She also was high risk on Initial Sound Fluency (ISF) at the fall benchmark but demonstrated mastery by the end of the year. Furthermore, at the middle benchmark, Danielle scored within the high risk range in Phonemic Segmentation Fluency (PSF). However, at the final assessment, she benchmarked with a score of 43. She struggled with reading nonsense words throughout the entire second half of Kindergarten. She met her final benchmark with a score of 27 and with 83% accuracy on Nonsense Word Fluency (NWF). Progress was due to the provision of tiered reading support (two rounds of Tier II).

DIBELS Kindergarten Assessments

BOY /accuracy MOY /accuracy EOY /accuracy LNF 0 23 /83% 50 /97% ISF 4 /12% 22 /85% 45 /95% PSF 8 /46% 43 /96% NWF 4 /7% 27 /83% WUF 0 12 16

Danielle Page 1 At the beginning of first grade, Danielle benchmarked in the areas of LNF and PSF, but exhibited some risk in the area of nonsense words with a score of 19. Based on her academic history and BOY benchmark, Danielle is provided Tier II reading support. Progress monitoring data shows modest gains by the second benchmark. Danielle continues to exhibit some risk with nonsense words and is considered high risk for oral reading fluency, despite efforts to provide her with research-based reading instruction and interventions.

After two rounds of Tier II, the IIT referred Danielle to the SAT. It was decided that she needed Tier III intervention and was provided one round (i.e., 60 minutes/day beyond core reading for 12 weeks).

The SAT convened at the end of the Tier III intervention period and reviewed all relevant educational data, including results from the Phonological Awareness Screener for Intervention (PASI), the Phonics Screener for Intervention (PSI) and program-specific progress monitoring data. She has mastered 130 of the 250 Dolch Sight Words. Danielle progressed through each skill of the PASI, but failed to master skills on the PSI for blending words with consonant blends, long vowel spellings with silent e, and digraphs. Based on its review of Danielle’s reading performance, a multidisciplinary evaluation is requested.

DIBELS First Grade Oral Reading Fluency

ORF 6 21 12 5 17 9 11 8 9 Accuracy 31% 78% 71% 36% 64% 73% 71% 53% 62% RTF 0 9 11 8 23 7 5 0 4

DIBELS First Grade Nonsense Word Fluency

Fluency 19 15 26 22 34 41 33 42 45 Accuracy 73% 60% 89% 75% 82% 89% 75% 91% 87%

DIBELS First Grade Phonemic Segmentation Fluency

Fluency 48 58 50 70 58 67 74 54 68 Accuracy 94% 93% 95% 96% 97% 95% 97% 93% 96%

Danielle Page 2