Marie+Murray

CASE STUDY OVERVIEW FOR ROUND TABLE DISCUSSION

Tutoring Log Post for April 6 Class:

**Tutoring Week #4: February 14 - February 18 **

· Move Lucas up the next text reading level and monitor his progress. Will acceleration continue as the difficulty of the text increases? · Incorporate more word study to make sure Lucas sees that there are a variety of ways to ‘split’ words. Monitor whether he can apply this learning in his reading and writing.  · Firm up his knowledge about letters that he is reversing in writing.
 * 1) **Session Goals/Objectives **


 * 1) **Summary Observations **

**MONDAY, FEBRUARY 14 ** **Title: ** Jumbo **Level**: 8 **Accuracy: ** 95% **Self-Correction Rate:** 1:2 Integrated meaning, structure and visual information at error substitutions. Re-read and self-corrected when his attempts did not look right or make sense.
 * **Familiar ** **Reading** - Did a nice job of cross-checking but needed to be prompted to take some action when there was a mismatch of cues. Read with generally good phrasing and intonation.
 * **Running Record **
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Letter/Word Study **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;"> – Worked on analogies for 'ot' words - Lucas self-corrected 'not/hot' in the running record, and was able to articulate how the two words were similar and how they are different.
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Writing **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;"> – Lost his focus and had a harder time than usual composing a sentence. One he got going he was able to write many of the words independently, and used sound analysis and analogy to try new words.
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Cut-Up Sentence **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;"> – Completed accurately without using the written model. Looked carefully when finding 'pick' and 'Peak'.
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">New Text **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;"> - This was the first book we used from the Oxford series, which uses much different language structure and a much different text layout than other books we have read. Lucas did well with the vocabulary, but did read rather slowly. He paid attention to looking for text on both sides of the book, top of the page and bottom of the page. Only decoding issue was "Flappy" for "Floppy" which was easily addressed by reviewing the short vowel sounds.

**<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 15 ** **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Title **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">: Floppy the Hero **Level**: 9 **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Accuracy: **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">98% **Self-Correction Rate**: 1:2 <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">Phrasing and expression were good. Hesitated at a few words, but took action to either reread or check the first letter and/or the picture to help himself.
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Familiar **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;"> **Reading** – Self-monitoring and self-correcting were strong. Fluency was good as well.
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Running Record **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;"> -
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Letter/Word Study **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;"> – We compared his attempt 'medium' with the word 'middle' from the new book, and reviewed short o as in "Floppy" from the running record book.
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Writing **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;"> – Simple sentence with simple vocabulary, but worked on it mostly independently. Needed a visual model for 'd' and reversed 's'.
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Cut-Up Sentence **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;"> – Completed without a visual model.
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">New Text **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;"> - Confused on/no. Substituted 'medium' for 'middle'. Worked with teacher scaffolding on the contractions 'who's' and 'he's'. Good fluency, especially phrasing and intonation on the repetitive phrases.


 * 1) **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Critical Reflection **

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">Unfortunately, I didn’t have as much information to work with this week. School was closed on Friday for Presidents’ Weekend, and Lucas’s parents pulled him out of school for two additional days to go on a family ski trip, so we only had two lessons this week. However, I was able to touch on a few of the points I had listed under Goals and Objectives for the week.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">First of all, Lucas was able to move from Level 8 to Level 9. In terms of the Guided Reading levels used in our classrooms, that means moving from Level E to Level F, bringing Lucas closer to the grade level expectation of reading at Level G (11-12) by the end of February. He also navigated the new text format of the Oxford Series book __Floppy the Hero__ without difficulty. All these signs lead me to believe the Lucas probably will continue making accelerated progress over the next few weeks. He’s closing the gap between his reading level and that of his peers. (Clay, 2005)

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">Second, we did have several opportunities for focused word study, using words from the texts he was reading to look at ‘how words work’. He was able to use analogy to solve words, such as ‘not’ and ‘hot’. Bear and Invernizzi (2008) include the investigation of ‘word families’ (such as ‘-ot’) as an important step in helping students in the Letter Name-Alphabetic stage of spelling development learn about patterns within words that can help them with their reading and writing. Caldwell and Leslie (2009) also make the case for using spelling patterns to help students ‘read by analogy.’ (p. 72-73)

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">Finally, Lucas showed that he was monitoring his formation of confusable letters in writing when he asked for a model before writing the letter ‘d’. He is aware that he confuses ‘d’ and ‘b’ and took action to try to avoid making an error when writing one of those letters. On the other hand, he wrote the letter ‘s’ both correctly and in reverse in the same word (sister) and when asked to check and see which one didn’t look right, he chose the correct letter form as being wrong. This is an area we can attend to more closely next week.

· <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Continue at Level 9 and introduce a wider variety of text formats (books from different publishers). · <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Monitor Lucas’s progress on these new texts. · <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Monitor for oral reading fluency as the new text formats are introduced. · <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Continue to explore word study throughout the lesson. · <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Work on correct formation for confusable letters. **__<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">References: __** <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Bear, D.R., Invernizzi, M., Templeton, S. & Johnston, F. (2008). //Words Their Way – Word// //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Study for Phonics, Vocabulary and Spelling Instruction, 4th Edition. //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;"> Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Education, Inc.
 * 1) **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Next Steps **

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Caldwell, J.S. & Leslie, L. (2009). //Intervention Strategies to Follow Informal Reading Inventory// //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Assessment: So what do I do now? 2nd Edition. //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Boston: Pearson. <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Clay, M.M., (2005). //Literacy Lessons Designed for Individuals//. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

**Teaching Scenario and Questions:** When I first started working with Lucas in December, his reading was extremely choppy, word by word, and lacked any expression. His solution when he came to a difficult word was to take a guess and keep reading. He did not always maintain 1-1 correspondence (matching the number of spoken words with the number of words on the page. He also did no self-correcting at all, and he was reading well below grade level. Even more telling, he had progressed minimally, from Level C to Level D, between September and December.

In just 8 weeks, Lucas had made remarkable progress. He is now able to read much more fluently, reading in meaningful phrases and using expression. He also is monitoring his own reading and going back to reread when something doesn’t sound right or make sense. He is not always able to work out the tricky parts by himself, but he is taking some action to try to problem-solve, which is definitely a step in the right direction. He is reading at a Level F now, closer to the grade level expectation of reading at Level G by the end of February, and he is learning new things every week.

One concern that I have for Lucas is that he tends to lose his focus when we transition from the reading and word study part of the lesson to the writing portion. We usually have a good conversation to generate ideas for what he will write about. He is a talkative, verbal child and loves to share information about things he has done with his family and friends. However, honing in on exactly what to put down on paper is challenging for him. Lucas tends to lose track of what he’s saying in his sentence as he is writing it, and sometimes neglects to leave spaces between words unless I prompt him. His progress in writing definitely is not keeping pace with his progress in reading.

My questions are:
 * Why might his progress in writing be lagging behind his progress in reading?
 * How can I keep him more engaged during this part of the lesson to promote more accelerated progress?

** BACKGROUND INFORMATION AND TUTORING LOG #1 ** ** Marie Murray ** ** 15:299:565 – Clinical Practicum in Reading ** ** February 2011 **

** Background Information ** Lucas is a seven-year-old first-grader in a class of 22 students at a public school in a middle- to upper-middle class suburban school district in central New Jersey. Last year Lucas attended the half-day kindergarten program at his present school. He does not receive special education or English Language Learner services.

The district provides supplemental instruction to struggling learners according to a Response To Intervention (RTI) model. There are three tiers of instruction. Tier 1 involves regular classroom instruction. Tier 2 involves modified classroom instruction, such as small group work, re-teaching or pre-teaching concepts, or other modifications, provided by the regular classroom teacher in consultation with an Intervention Specialist Teacher. Tier 3 involves additional supplemental instruction, usually in a pull-out setting, with an Intervention Specialist Teacher. I am one of three Intervention Specialist Teachers at the school Lucas attends. My work focuses on children in kindergarten through third grade who are having difficulties with reading and/or writing.

According to Lucas’s kindergarten teacher, he was an average student academically, but had difficulty with remaining focused and on-task throughout the school day. Because he had not been referred to the RTI program by his kindergarten teacher, Lucas was initially not on the RTI case load for first grade. However, within a few weeks of the beginning of the school year his first grade teacher came to me with concerns about Lucas’s literacy development. She was concerned about his slow progress in areas such as word recognition, reading fluency and writing conventions. She also noted his difficulty remaining focused and reported that he was unable to complete any school work independently.

Based on the classroom’s teacher’s observations and some additional assessments that I conducted, we determined that Lucas required Tier 2 intervention. His classroom teacher began meeting with him in a small group setting that allowed her to deliver focused explicit instruction in decoding and encoding skills. She also made sure Lucas was seated near her during whole-class instruction, and provided one-on-one conferencing with him as needed during writing workshop and during math lessons.

In December, Lucas’s parents contacted his classroom teacher because they were concerned about his academic growth. They noticed that he was having difficulty completing homework assignments, and did not seem to be making progress with his reading skills. I attended a conference with Lucas’s parents, his classroom teacher and the school principal, where we discussed Lucas’s learning needs at length. We determined at that time that Lucas should begin receiving Tier 3 pull-out instruction for language arts literacy.

Since mid-December I have worked one-on-one with Lucas for 30-35 minutes a day, five days a week, on his emergent reading and writing skills. Prior to working as an Intervention Specialist, I was a Reading Recovery teacher for 9 years. Although my district eliminated its affiliation with the Reading Recovery program this year, I found that it was an effective program for many first graders struggling with their literacy learning. Therefore, I am following the basic format of a Reading Recovery lesson in my sessions with Lucas. Each day we begin with familiar readings, move on to letter identification and word study, then complete a brief piece of writing, cut-up and reassemble a sentence from the writing, and finally introduce and read a new text at the end of the lesson.

Below is a listing of the results of assessments I used to determine Lucas’s strengths and weaknesses as a reader and writer.

** Slosson Oral Reading Test ** 8 words; grade equivalent of .2 (kindergarten, 2nd month)

** Observation Survey of Early Literacy Achievment ** Concepts About Printed Language – 12/24 points, Stanine 2 Ohio Word Test - 8 words, Stanine 2 Writing Vocabulary - 30 words, Stanine 4 Hearing and Recording Sounds in Words – 28/37, Stanine 5 Text Reading: Level 6 – Instructional Level (90%, no self-correcting)

** Developmental Reading Assessment-2 ** Text Level – Level 6, Instructional Word Analysis Tasks (Phonemic Awareness) Task 12, Blending Phonemes Into Words – 8/8, Secure Task 13, Providing Words that Rhyme – 8/8, Secure Task 14, Segmenting Words into Onsets and Rimes – 7/8, Gaining Control Task 15, Deleting Onset – 8/8, Secure Task 16, Spelling Check – 29/32, Gaining Control Task 17, Recognizing High Frequency Words – 25/30, Gaining Control

**Words Their Way Primary Spelling Inventory** – 23/82 Total Points Developmental Spelling Stage – Middle Letter-Name Alphabetic

** Organization of Tutoring Logs: ** This log covers a week’s worth of tutoring sessions. Since my goals and objectives typically do not change too drastically over the course of one week, the **Session Goals/Objectives** section covers all lessons for the week. The **Summary Observation** section is broken down by day, and for each day there are subheadings for each component of the lesson. The **Critical Reflection** section is a reflection on the week’s lessons as a whole. The **Next Steps** section provides a glance at what I expect to work on during the following week.

** Overview of Tutoring Sessions ** I work with Lucas for 30-35 minutes daily on his emergent reading and writing skills. I follow the basic format of a Reading Recovery lesson in my sessions with Lucas. The components of the lesson are: 1. **Familiar Reading**: Re-reading of familiar texts for fluency practice. 2. **Running Record**: A running record assessment on the second reading of a text that was introduced at the end of the previous lesson. 3. **Letter/Word Study**: Practice with letter identification, letter formation and focused word study. 4. **Writing:** Guided conversation and interactive writing of one or more sentences. Includes the use of Elkonin sound boxes. 5. **Cut-Up Sentence**: Teacher writes the student’s sentence on a sentence strip, cuts the words apart, and the student reassembles the cut-up sentence. 6. **New Text**: Book orientation and first reading of a new text.

** Tutoring Week #1: January 24-28 ** · Develop Secure 1-1 correspondence in all reading activities. · Work on developing oral reading fluency, including appropriate pace, phrasing and expression. · Encourage automaticity with letters identification, letter formation, and recognition of high frequency words, in both reading and writing.
 * 1) ** Session Goals/Objectives **


 * 2. Summary Observations **

** MONDAY, JANUARY 24 ** **Title:** Where are the Sunhats? **Level:** 6 **Accuracy:** 99% **Self-Correction Rate:** 1:1 Did some nice self-correcting using known words to self-monitor. Also had a few stretches of better phrasing and intonation. Teaching Points: Worked on fluency. Reinforced rereading/searching after noticing an attempt did not match a known word..
 * **Familiar** **Reading** - needed prompting for fluency and to not point to each word. Mostly read in 3-word phrases unless I prompted for fluency or modeled fluency for him.
 * ** Running Record **
 * **Letter/Word Study** – Sorted the letters b, p, m, and r accurately and quickly.
 * **Writing** – Participated actively in the conversation and composed a good sentence about snowboarding: “I went off the jump and onto the rail.” Worked on learning the word 'went” because he had written it as 'want'. Lost focus during the writing and needed to be redirected. Worked in Elkonin sound boxes to solve 'jump' with some support articulating the sounds slowly. Spacing between words was good, but writing was very large.
 * **Cut-Up Sentence** – Reassembled accurately using his written model for support.
 * **New Text** - Needed multiple prompts for fluency. Did some good work noticing known words and using them to self-correct.

** TUESDAY, JANUARY 25 ** **Title**: Blackberries **Level**: 6 **Accuracy:** 100% **Self-Correction Rate**: 1:1 Beautiful job on the running record. Strong monitoring led to self-correcting at all error substitutions. Fluency was nice as well, especially phrasing and intonation at dialogue. Reading was well-paced.
 * **Familiar** **Reading** - Remembered to read without pointing on familiar books, maintaining 1-1 matching, and fluency was good, with nice phrasing and expression.
 * **Running Record** -
 * **Letter/Word Study** – Able to make analogies, beginning with known words 'my' and 'by' and using beginning blends to get to 'cry' and 'fly'. Also read two lines of letters quickly and accurately.
 * **Writing** –- fantastic use of sounds boxes; very independent with all parts of the task. Composed a nice sentence. Reversed 's' in writing. Took 'with' to fluency.
 * **Cut-Up Sentence** – Referred to the written model to reassemble cut up sentence.
 * **New Text** – some good phrasing and expression; with teacher support using magnetic letters was able to decode some words: hello, take, stay. (Tapped into learning from classroom guided reading group regarding long vowels.)

** WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 26 ** **Title**: The Hungry Kitten **Level**: 6 **Accuracy**: 94% **Self-Correction Rate:** 1:5 Neglected visual information, including 1-1 matching, which had seemed secure in the previous few lessons. Also made a few errors with high frequency words, such as the/a. Self-correction rate could have been better; was not consistently self-monitoring.
 * **Familiar** **Reading** - Nice fluency on familiar books, phrasing, pace, expression.
 * **Running Record** –
 * **Letter/Word Study** – Demonstrated an understanding of how to change the onset of a word to make a new word (play-stay-gray). However, did not apply this concept in reading.
 * **Writing** – Remembered correct formation for letters we had worked on in previous lessons, without reminders. Composing was good. Spacing between words was good, spacing of letters within words was inconsistent.
 * **Cut-Up Sentence** – Referred to the written model to reassemble cut up sentence.
 * **New Text** - Slow, choppy reading, but with teacher modeling was able to read with improved fluency.

** THURSDAY, JANUARY 27 – SNOW DAY **

** FRIDAY, JANUARY 28 ** **Title**: Brave Father Mouse **Level**: 6 **Accuracy**: 89% **Self-Correction Rate:** 1:6 Good phrasing and self- monitoring for known words. Error substitutions were visually similar. However, in part of the book he neglected 1-1 matching. Cross-checking was evident, but inconsistent. He re-read to search for additional cues only twice.
 * **Familiar** **Reading** - Good fluency. Re-read, checked words to confirm attempts, without being prompted. Stopped pointing after one reminder.
 * **Running Record** –
 * **Letter/Word Study** – Able to use analogy to read new words.
 * **Writing** – Had quite a few letter reversals, including L, h, d, b. Lost focus half-way through writing his sentence. Misspelled 'et' for 'it' - had him practice this word for fluency/automaticity. Able to solve CVC words in sound boxes, needed support for longer words.
 * **Cut-Up Sentence** – Used written model as a reference. Did not hold on to his message when he was rereading it.
 * **New Text** - Read in mostly 3-word phrases, with good expression. Maintained 1-1 matching without pointing. Seemed to be reading for meaning, but also attended to visual information and had some quick self-corrections. Minimal teacher support.

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tabstops: list .5in; text-indent: -0.25in;">**3.** **Critical Reflection** Caldwell and Leslie (2009) suggest that a consistent lesson format enhances student learning by providing predictability for the student, and enabling to teacher to spend less time worrying about following a lesson plan and more time observing and reacting to students’ responses. They believe that individualization of instruction can take place within the predictable format of the lesson.

I agree completely with Caldwell and Leslie’s assessment that using the same basic lesson structure from day to day can enhance student learning. I have structured my sessions with Lucas according to the format of a Reading Recovery lesson. He knows what to expect each day, and I am able to easily measure his progress in each part of the lesson from day to day by spending minimal time checking my plans and more time observing him and his reactions. Also, using a structured format, I am able to consistently incorporate fluency, phonics, writing and comprehension instruction into each and every lesson. I am able to individualize instruction within that format. McKenna and Stahl (2009), Cunningham (2009), and the Report of the National Reading Panel (2000), among other experts in the field of reading instruction, all highlight the crucial role that fluency plays in reading achievement. McKenna and Stahl break fluency down into three components: accuracy, automaticity and prosody (p. 148). All three, they point out, ultimately impact a student’s comprehension. When accuracy is poor, a student generally will not understand the passage. When automaticity with word recognition is not in place, the reader has to give more mental attention to decoding, leaving less mental attention available for comprehending. Finally, if a reader does not use his voice to convey the author’s message, the message may be lost. (McKenna and Stahl, p. 148, Cunningham, p. 76). My personal experiences as a reading instructor have led me to agree that oral reading fluency is an essential component of reading, and that fluency impacts comprehension. I believe that as soon as a student is able to control directionality and one-to-one matching, a teacher should encourage fluent reading. Although he was still experiencing occasional lapses with 1-1 matching, I began to focus on fluency early in Lucas’s lessons. I felt that he was ready to parse together 3 word phrases like “said Father Bear” or reading expressive phrases like “Look at me!” with intonation. I used quite a bit of modeling to allow him to hear how fluent reading should sound, and the modeling seemed to help him begin to read more fluently.

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tabstops: list .5in; text-indent: -0.25in;">**4.** **Next Steps** · Continue to reinforce cross-checking and self-monitoring skills. · Work toward developing searching behaviors. · Revisit 1-1 correspondence, pointing out lapses as they occur. · Continue to work on oral reading fluency. · Consider moving to Level 7 if accuracy, self-monitoring and self-correction rates remain improved over the next <span style="font-family: Times New Roman; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1.25in; tabstops: list 1.25in; text-indent: -0.5in;">few lessons.

**__ References __** Caldwell, J.S. & Leslie, L. (2009). //Intervention Strategies to Follow Informal Reading// // Inventory Assessment: So what do I do now? // 2nd Edition, Boston: Pearson

Cunningham, P. (2009). //Phonics They Use: Words for Reading and Writing, 5th Edition//, Boston: Pearson.

McKenna, M.C., and Stahl, K. (2009). //Assessment for Reading Instruction, 2nd Edition,// New York: Guilford Publishers.