Keith+Mann

Case Study Roundtable Reading Comprehension Bookmark

Having worked with Nyah for only two sessions, I feel like I will have more questions as I gain more and more assessment information from her. Yet, there are a couple of concerns I have seen and hope to address in our sessions to come. Before I pose these questions, let me first give a brief background of Nyah. Additional information about Nyah can be found in the log posted below. Nyah is an 8 year old third grader with a strong desire to improve as a reader. She loves reading for many purposes but admittedly struggles with understanding the meaning of vocabulary words she comes across in her reading. The most surprising aspect of Nyah’s reading is that she is extremely deliberate and has an extremely slow pace. While this doesn’t seem to affect her comprehension to this point, it takes her twice as long to finish any piece given to her. While elements of prosody still need instructional support, she does carry some expression in her reading. An initial analysis of Nyah’s sight word vocabulary shows that she has an appropriate store of sight-word vocabulary. Here are a couple of questions I hope you consider: - Should I worry about Nyah’s slow reading rate even if she shows adequate prosody and comprehension? Seeing that she has appropriate sight word knowledge, what else can I attribute this slow rate to? - Aside from teaching prefixes/suffixes and words in context, what are some additional vocabulary activities that support reading for meaning?

** Student Information ** Name: Nyah Grade: 3rd Age: 8 ** Session Information ** Date: Thursday, February 3 Time: 4:30pm. – 5:30pm. Location: Student’s home


 * Student Background: **
 * Nyah is an 8 year old girl in the 3rd grade that lives in a wealthy suburban district in New Jersey. She is an active participant in many sports. She currently plays ice hockey for a local club team. She is extremely outgoing and polite. While she notices differences in her reading ability when compared to peers, she loves reading and puts a lot of effort into it. She is currently being pulled out for 30 minutes a day by the reading specialist at the school, who is using the Reading Recovery program. Nyah is encouraged by her progress as a reader and is a joy to teach. As a substitute teacher in the district, I have built a rapport with Nyah and got to know her over the past year and a half. Nyah’s third grade teacher believes that she will not pass NJASK mostly because she takes too long to complete every task given to her. Her teacher believes she is reading at the beginning 3rd grade level, well below that of her peers. **

** Ø **** Establish rapport with Nyah through informal conversation; ** ** Ø **** Administer Reader Self-Perception Scale to determine how Nyah feels about herself as a reader; ** ** Ø **** Administer Index of Reading Awareness to determine how Nyah adopts her reading for different purposes; ** ** Ø **** Administer Fry Sight-Word Inventory to survey Nyah’s ability to recognize 300 frequently occurring words; ** ** Ø **** Administer Elementary Spelling Inventory and Feature Guide to determine Nyah’s developmental spelling level; ** ** Ø **** and obtain a writing sample to analyze Nyah’s uncorrected writing to locate appropriate stage of spelling development. **
 * 1. Goals/Objectives: **** This session’s goals/objectives were to: **

** Nyah’s mother and I decided to have our first session at her house because it is a comfortable setting for her. I was assured there would be no distractions, as we were given a room that could be totally closed off. To begin, I talked about Nyah’s 3rd grade class, of which I have substituted on many occasions. I then outlined the purpose of the tutoring sessions. For this first session, I told Nyah my main purpose was for both of us to get to know each other better, which she seemed to be excited about. I took any opportunity to ask questions outside of the assessments in order for the session to feel more comfortable, as well as provide me with more qualitative information beyond the assessment’s purpose. **
 * 2. Summary/Observations: **
 * I administered all of the assessments rather informally by reading Nyah everything and having her answer questions based on my questions. When appropriate, I gave Nyah a copy of the sheet I was reading from so she would know what I was asking. I wrote down all of her responses. I also wrote additional observations in the margins in order to have a more complete picture of Nyah’s reading profile. The following paragraphs are the results of all assessments administered in this first session. **
 * The Reader Self-Perception Scale indicates that Nyah have a good overall general perception of her reading ability. For the progress sub-category, Nyah had a raw score of 38 of 45, indicating that she is right around an average score. She seemed to be optimistic about her progress as a reader as we talked about her work with a reading specialist. Her raw score of 32 out of 45 in the social feedback category also puts her right around average for her perception of how others treat her as a reader. This is encouraging because it shows that Nyah is in a supportive environment in all of her reading opportunities. Of concern is her raw score for the observational comparison sub-category. She received 13 out of 30, indicating that she is extremely low when she compares her reading to her peers. On the other hand, her high score in the physiological state sub-category (37 out of 40) shows that Nyah is put in healthy reading environments and also is encouraged as a reader who wants to improve. Through informal questioning, I was also able to conclude that Nyah struggles with the meaning of vocabulary words and enjoys reading biorgraphies and fairy tales. **
 * The Index of Reading Awareness assessment identifies possible areas of future instruction pertaining to subset scores in Evaluation, Planning, Regulation, and Conceptual Knowledge when reading. Based on her scores of 8, 10, 6, and 9 for their respective categories, it seems that the only area Nyah needs additional instructional support in the area of regulation of her reading and shows no significant weakness in the other areas. **
 * The Fry Sight-Word Inventory identifies how many sight-words a student can recognize. There are 300 words, each separated among 3 lists, each with increasing relative difficulty. The first list produced 97 out of 100 identified automatically and all 100 correctly identified. The second list produced the same automatically identified as well as correctly identified, 97 and 100 respectively. The third list produced 96 out of the 100 words identified automatically and all 100 correctly identified. These results show that Nyah self-corrects as a tool for regulating her reading. Some words Nyah sounded out, only to change her response because it didn’t “sound right”. These high results show that she has many sight words in her repertoire. **
 * The Elementary Spelling Inventory and Feature Guide was particularly helpful in placing Nyah at the early Syllables and Affixes stage of spelling development. The inflected ending in the word carries was spelled with an –eis. The syllable junctures in carries and cellar were confused with –r and –n respectively. These mistakes place Nyah at the early Syllables and Affixes stage. There were many more mistakes in the later Syllables and Affixes stage as well as Derivational Relations stage for unaccented final syllables, harder suffixes, bases, and roots. She spelled items 18-24 incorrectly, which is when I stopped the assessment, making her totals of 47 out of 60 feature points and 16 out of 24 words spelled correctly, producing a total of 63 out of 85 possible total points. **
 * The Qualitative Spelling Checklist, used in tandem with a writing sample from Nyah, produced the following misspellings: **
 * ** Mispelled Word ** || ** How Nyah Spelled Word ** ||
 * ** Really ** || ** Relly (spelled correctly later in sample) ** ||
 * ** The ** || ** Tha ** ||
 * ** Anthony ** || ** Anthney ** ||
 * ** Too ** || ** To (x2) ** ||
 * ** Remembered ** || ** Rememberd ** ||
 * ** Though ** || ** Thow ** ||
 * ** Have ** || ** Hav (spelled correctly later in sample) ** ||
 * ** Number ** || ** Nunber ** ||
 * ** You’re ** || ** Your ** ||
 * ** Two ** || ** To ** ||
 * The misspellings in Nyah’s sample show that she could use some additional instruction in homophones. It was also interesting to see that she spelled words correctly after having misspelled the words earlier in the passage. This shows that she wasn’t paying close enough attention to the details of her spelling of words. She clearly knows how to spell those words. Overall, her spelling was quite good throughout the passage even if the writing content was quite simplistic. The Qualitative spelling checklist puts Nyah at the early to middle Syllables and Affixes stage of spelling development based on her misspellings, consistent with the Elementary Spelling Inventory and Feature Guide. **

In order to influence students’ attitudes toward reading, we must first know something about our children (McKenna & Stahl, 2009). This was my main purpose for this session, as I know that the information I learn will better equip and guide me for future selection of materials and activities. Knowing that reading attitudes tend to worsen over time and that they worsen more rapidly for poor readers, I was excited to hear that Nyah enjoys reading and has a strong perspective about her reading opportunities. It seems as though the people that influence her are doing a good job motivating her to read and are working to improve aspects of her reading. The fact that she enjoys reading may be a result that girls do tend to possess more positive reading attitudes than boys (McKenna & Stahl, 2009, p. 204). Just knowing our students isn’t enough. We must take it one step further. Thomas and Wexler (2007) acknowledge the importance of selecting appropriate materials for reading. Homework and reading assignments should use materials at the students’ independent reading level, while teachers’ instruction and scaffolded practice should use materials at the students’ instructional level. Also, teachers can also select materials that are highly motivational in order to increase the amount of time and effort students are willing to spend engaged with text. When reading isn’t perceived as fun, or it is too difficult, students read less, further widening the gap in learning (Stanovich, 1986). It is clear that given the amount of activities that Nyah does outside of school and her current hobbies, I am confident that I will be able to select materials and activities that are not only fun for her, but provide me with useful information concerning her reading strengths and weaknesses. On a completely different note, I question the validity of certain questions in the Index of Reading Awareness because they don’t necessarily impart logical conclusions. For example, question 15 asks what part of the story one could skip as they read. Nyah stated that she doesn’t skip anything, which produced the lowest score of the three possible responses. I don’t believe this is an “incorrect” response, but the score meant the difference between having no significant weakness in the category to requiring some instructional support in the area of Regulation. I certainly wouldn’t consider not reading material as an important reading strategy. It seems contrary to what a good reader does, read all of the words to gain comprehension. This question is evidence that the teacher should not take these assessments as gospel. Instead, we need to think reflectively about what the assessment is really asking in order to make logical instructional decisions. In this case, I don’t think there needs to be any additional instruction needed in any areas that the Index of Reading Awareness assessed. I decided to include two assessments of Nyah’s spelling. I believe this was crucial in determining where to focus many of my future word study portion of the intervention. Bear et al. (2008) recognize that a close relationship exists between reading and spelling. But, they also warn educators about relying entirely on writing samples because some students are “anxious about the accuracy of their spelling and will only use words they know how to spell (p. 27).” It is for this reason that I decided to use two assessments for determining spelling development. Cunningham (2009) writes of the difficulties some students have in spelling words that have two common spelling patterns with the same pronunciation. It is not a problem that arises with reading because we recognize a common pattern with other words, but the decision that needs to be made for spelling can often be difficult. In a way, we get into the minds of our students in order to determine their orthographic development. Overall, the assessments administered in this session produced hopeful results. Nyah has a strong self-perception, has a strong repertoire of sight-words, knows how to adopt her reading for different purposes, and possesses strong spelling skills. It may actually be harder than I thought to find areas in which Nyah struggles as a reader and writer. I plan on taking the information I learned about Nyah’s interests into consideration when selecting materials and activities to use during our sessions, understanding that they can be highly motivating. I plan on starting the QRI assessment process by administering word lists and start her on oral reading levels. I also plan on using a predictable format in my sessions which address word study, fluency development, and comprehension in some way. While the format will be somewhat predictable, I want to leave room for flexibility in my sessions. As Leslie & Caldwell (2009) point out, “in a balanced structure, you address all three components but one or more receive greater focus depending on the needs of your students (p. 26).” In this way, I need to determine Nyah’s needs as a literacy learner in order to modify my session structure.
 * Critical Reflection: **
 * 4. Next Steps **