Student: Johnny Smith
Evaluator: Daniel
Kurland
Dates of Evaluation: 2-14-12,
2-1612
Student’s Birthdate: 5-6-2003
School: Dog
Star
Elementary School
123 Any Street,
Columbia Forest, VA
Grade: 3
Parents: James
Smith *(lives with father), Juana Smith
Phone: 757-575-9999
Preface
Johnny Smith, age 8 years 9 months,
a well-liked 3rd grade student with a specific learning disability,
is a typical boy in many ways. He is an engaging conversationalist. He
considers P.E. and recess to be fun activities. He thrives in after school Tae
Kwon Do. He complains with a twinkle, almost giggling, that school work is “boring!” Johnny finds Sponge Bob to be “hysterical” – his
words. He enjoys watching football with his father, who is raising Johnny as a
single parent, possibly through divorce or separation. A typical boy in many
ways, Johnny’s apparent lack of motivation in reading and writing, frankly,
annoys his teachers; more than anything, some have concluded, Johnny simply
needs to put more effort into his work. However, Johnny’s motivational
issues may stem more from an inability to automatically recognize blends,
diphthongs, and digraphs, more from an inability to apply word recognition
strategies to multisyllabic words, more from a lack of strategies and effective
practice, than from a lack of effort.
Interests and
Attitude Inventory
Johnny’s responses to initial
reading attitude surveys cry out for an alternative to a work harder hypothesis:
maybe Johnny does not want to read because of how he has been instructed.
A well-intended data-driven accountability-oriented instructional climate may
have contributed to Johnny’s work avoidance behaviors. When asked
to explain why he circled so many frowning Garfield pictures on his Elementary
Reading Attitude Survey, Johnny
explains, reading is boring because it “takes a long time and you get words you
don’t know.” Despite Johnny’s specific learning disabilities, as documented in
his Individualized Education Plan (IEP), accountability mandates force teachers to
routinely assess developing readers like Johnny above the students’ independent
reading levels.
Generally lacking in Johnny’s
responses were intrinsic reasons for why he should care about
reading; instead, Johnny cited extrinsic factors such as money, social
status, and approval by adult role models:
“If they read a
dictionary they can learn more that exists. If you read a dictionary you can
learn the words so we can know everything. It’s important to learn everything that we
get rich.”
(So, you like to read nonfiction?)
“No, I actually
like fiction better than any book.”
(What fiction books do you like best?”)
Mr. Putter and Tabby, it’s a J book. I’m
supposed to read L books.
(Do you know what I’ve been having you read?
It’s an M Book.)
“M? Is that a lower
one? A, B, C, D, … L, M … Ahhh! I’ve been reading an M book the whole time I
thought it was an L book.”
(Now do you think you are a good reader?)
“I’m going to
tell my dad tonight that I’ve been reading an M book instead of an L book!”
(Interview, 2012)
Performance-based social validation was a powerful
contextual factor shaping Johnny’s negative reading attitudes.
Missing from Johnny’s initial responses
was any sense that the words, which had caused him so much frustration, might
be rich with meaning and worth the effort to be understood.
That misconception may partially explain Johnny’s habit of not stopping at the
moment of miscue, and of filling in the blanks with nonsense words instead,
which led directly to comprehension problems. Words were not seen as keys to
unlocking entire worlds, as touchstones to exciting adventures. At school
reading had been presented to him, not as something fun, but as something dull,
as bitter medicine, as something Johnny had to do:
“You have to
practice the reading if you want to get to the next level.” (Interview, 2012)
Johnny was self-aware enough to understand the relationship
between effort and results. Perhaps, in circling the frowning Garfields, Johnny
had been led to question whether the results were worth the effort. When
asked what made reading boring, Johnny replied:
“The words, a
bunch of words! Sometimes it doesn’t make sense.” (Interview, 2012)
(What a
brilliant statement! Yes, Johnny, reading is boring when you don’t understand
the words. That was such an intelligent observation! Later, I’m going
to show you some ways to help you become a more efficient reader.)
A shift in Johnny’s attitudes began to occur during the
course of the assessment and tutoring window. Given personalized selections tailored
just for Johnny, given direct teaching informed by developmentally
appropriate, evidence-based assessments of Johnny’s strengths and needs, given
heroic characters like the “sneaky guy,” Odysseus of Ithica, Johnny found
reasons to get excited about reading that did not involve just a bunch of empty
words, or the admonition of adults to work harder. In the process, Johnny made
a shocking discovery, reading can actually be fun!
At the end of Johnny’s final
tutoring session, after five days of hurried assessment and 1:1 instruction in
a noisy hallway, Johnny was offered a selection of books on The Trojan War, Midas, and Johnny Appleseed.
Not surprisingly, when presented an alternative view of reading, Johnny, the
boy who loved to share with anyone who would listen that reading is boring,
decided that the next book that he wanted to read was the one about the Trojan
War (a level L book) because it had “the sneaky guy,” Odysseus of Ithica.
Johnny began to see the possibility that reading can actually be fun!
Informal Reading Inventory
(Report Limitations)
Errors in protocol occurred when testing was
discontinued before Johnny completed sections. Johnny displayed a pattern of
shutting down at the point of frustration throughout the testing window. Due to
severe limitations on time and access to Johnny by the testing administrator,
Johnny was never given an opportunity to continue sections on another day.
Thus, key opportunities were lost to obtain a more complete picture of Johnny’s
strengths and weaknesses from the IRI. A pattern did, however, emerge.
On one end of the spectrum for
Johnny were Pre-Primer, Primer, and Grade 1 sight words, which were on his
Independent Level. Johnny confidently identified all 20 words on the pre-primer
sight word on sight, an indication of automaticity with high frequency words
sight words. At the Primer Word Level (sight words), miscues, though limited in
number, began to provide a window into Johnny’s thinking. Johnny miscued
“wagon” as “wrong.” Initial consonants were strengths, whereas he substituted
visually similar words, occasionally reversed letters, and struggled with
syllabication. On the Grade 1 Word List, strengths included initial and ending
consonant sounds. Johnny continued the pattern of substituting visually similar
words. Difficulties with within word vowel patterns surfaced: the long /ā/
vowel sound was overlooked in –ay chunk, and he did not recognize the digraph /oa/
makes the long /ō/ sound.
On the Grade 2 List, Johnny’s
Instructional Level, Johnny identified all two-syllable words and the one
three-syllable word on this list. He identified “thought,” a Dolch sight word
containing the digraph /th/. He appropriately identified the
beginning sound of the /qu/ diphthong in “quiet.” He
identified the /ch/ digraph in the word ending for “such.” On the other hand,
Johnny substituted the visually similar “switch” for “such,” overlooking the
vowel. Oddly, Johnny substituted “quiz” for “chase,” which looks like an
outlier. His error was probably more a reflection of end of testing fatigue
than anything else.
A rich source of information came
on the other end of the spectrum from Johnny’s Grade 3 Word List, where he “hit
a wall.” Johnny’s score was 7 of 20 at this level. Unlike the other sections,
Johnny reached frustration quickly and made no attempt to self-correct when
given the opportunity during the untimed analysis section. He made it
abundantly clear that he did not want to go on, so we discontinued testing on
the Graded Word Lists Section. Despite the premature shut-down, Johnny’s
performance revealed a pattern of syllabication difficulties, beginning and
ending consonant sounds, plus initial and final consonant blends.
Johnny identified the rime –ail,
but he missed the onset /tr/, in “trail,” perhaps because he lacked recallable syllabication
strategies. He identified most beginning and ending consonant sounds in the
word list. He also identified some initial and final consonant blends, albeit
inconsistently, including initial /st/, /bl/, /gl/, /sh/ sounds. Johnny
identified familiar words that contain long vowel patterns with digraphs
including “beach,” “snake,” and “rooster;” through analogy, these could form a
basis for constructing word families.
Johnny was able to identify some impressive
multisyllabic words including “hero” and “impossible,” but also displayed a
pattern of misconception. Johnny was unable to identify the /tr/ pattern in
“trail” and “stream.” Although Johnny knew “beach” and “teacher,” he did not recognize
the /ea/ digraph in “stream,” substituting instead the visually similar
“storm.” He substituted the incorrect short /ĕ/ vowel sound for the short /ĭ/
vowel sound in “lift.” He substituted the incorrect short /ĭ/ vowel sound for
the short vowel /ĕ/ sound in “bless.” He substituted the visually similar
“mortgage” for “manage.”
Running Records
Assessment
Johnny was administered a running
record to help guide his literacy instruction. Hercules and other Greek Legends became Johnny’s reading selection
for three reasons. First, Hercules was
level M, the instructional reading level listed for him on school records; second,
it was matched to Johnny’s preference for action; and third, the Standard of
Learning for the coming unit involved Traditional Literature. On a “blind
read,” Johnny successfully recognized words 91% of the time, which falls in the
Instructional Range, so it remained the anchor text for the study.
Johnny’s overreliance on visual
cues when he came to words that he did not know, and habit of choosing
graphically similar words that did not fit the context over half of the time
led to breakdowns in meaning, e.g., “blest” was substituted inappropriately for
“belt.” His comprehension of grade level materials was adversely affected by
this habit. His rate of self-correction, about 1:10, indicates that Johnny
needs help in developing self-monitoring strategies.
Johnny’s individualized word study
practice might focus on blends and long vowel patterns to help him develop
greater automaticity of word recognition. His word-by-word 44 WPM (40 WCPM)
rate makes it difficult for him to maintain a train of thought, despite the
sophisticated choice of words he uses in normal conversation
Spelling Inventory
(Report Limitations)
Errors in protocol occurred when
testing was discontinued before Johnny completed this section. Although only
two of the first nine words were spelled correctly, Johnny got beginning and
ending consonants, as well as short vowels. He consistently missed long vowel
patterns and consonant blends features.
While Johnny added an “e”
inappropriately to fan, he had the initial consonant, the short vowel, and the
correct ending consonant. For
“sled,”Johnny missed the initial consonant blend, got the initial and final
consonants, as well as the short vowel in “seid,” which was visually similar,
with a reversal. For “rob,” Johnny changed the b to a d.
Despite prematurely aborting protocol over concern that the student was getting
frustrated, the sample provided further confirmation of Johnny’s continued
struggle with blends, digraphs, and diphthongs.
Writing Sample
In his
assessed writing sample, Johnny benefited from the scaffolding of a poetry
frame and his teacher’s direct teaching of how to write an ode, or an
expression of love. The use of poetry frames and sentence starters, and
invented spelling on early drafts enabled Johnny to focus on key descriptions
and demonstrate emerging voice, fluency, word choice, conventions, handwriting,
and other writing behaviors. Johnny had special motivation for that his writing
and drawing be meaningful: he wanted to give his Poetry Portfolio to his father
as a Valentine’s Day present. Properly motivated and properly scaffolded,
Johnny was able to produce a socially valid product, according to the rubric
including important writing traits from Gunning. (Gunning, p. 145, 2010)
Ideas and Organization – 3: Johnny was able to share his
ideas
in a unified way on three of five stronger stanzas, with two stanzas that
needed further elaboration.
Voice – 4: Johnny constructed his own rhythm,
maintaining a three beat meter throughout the first two stanzas, a four beat
meter in the third, a three beat meter in the fourth, and a four beat meter in
the fifth. He described things his own way, comparing a milkshake
to “mountens of pillows.” A point was deducted because, in the third stanza, he
was unable to describe how cookies felt in his mouth.
Word Choice – 4: a third grader, Johnny described milkshakes
are “tasty and scrumptious;” demonstrating an effective use of imagery in the
second stanza, he described the smell of a milkshake as like “cookies and
cream.”
Conventions – 3: Johnny’s understanding of capitalization,
spelling, punctuation, and grammar rules is developing. Although the
“mountains” was partially spelled phonetically, Johnny paid attention to
letter-sound relationships.
Handwriting – 4: most letters were formed appropriately,
although Johnny had difficulty keeping a five-line poem to an 8-1/2 x 11 sheet
of paper.
Writing Behavior – 3: While Johnny became excited as his
finished poem took form, he had difficulty getting started and needed to be
reminded to use invented spelling during the drafting stage.
Developmental Stage – Stage 3 (Focusing): Although the topic is
clear, overall development is incomplete in two of five stanzas, which were not
nearly as unique or varied as the other three stanzas. Johnny continues to
require more scaffolding and prompting throughout the process than typical
students.
Instructional
Recommendations Based on Overall Analysis
What is
being called for here is a paradigm shift in education. Under the
accountability framework, third graders like Johnny typically receive
state-mandated assessments that employ reading passages that may or may not be
developmentally appropriate. Held accountable to performance standards on
summative assessments under penalty of lost educational funding and a failed
school label, every day, schools across America funnel pressure downhill to the
most vulnerable, to students like Johnny. Pressured to work students harder and
stick to curriculum pacing guides, teachers can be frequently heard haranguing
students like Johnny to do their job. 8 and 9 year old boys, whose
minds are wired for play and silliness, cannot fail to notice that their recess
time is replaced by remediation time. Bright boys like Johnny are telling teachers,
“Reading is boring,” but their voices are hushed, because such attitudes do not
mesh well with the “work harder paradigm.” The findings here are presented as a minority
report, against an educational establishment that claims to value
reflection, yet provides neither time, nor space for reflection, that claims to
value development, but routinely assesses people with developmentally
inappropriate materials, that claims to value evidence based methods, but is
too busy testing people to actually teach them. Johnny’s responses will,
hopefully, provoke deep level questioning.
The
following are personalized recommendations just for Johnny, based on his
assessed needs, with assessments done imperfectly, but with clinical
supervision and review.
Balanced Literacy Framework
Oral Reading (fluency
& rate, prosody)
Assessed need:
Johnny’s winter reading rate, based on a passage written at an
instructional reading level M, was 44 WPM. According to Gunning, the Median
Oral Reading Rage during the winter for a typical 3rd grade student
is 100 WPM.
Activity
OBJECTIVE(s): Johnny will
- read 100 word
instructional level passages from “Hercules” at a rate of 85 WPM with two
errors or fewer;
- develop automaticity
through practice;
- measure his progress!
Activity: Timed
Repeated Reading (Gunning, pp. 288-290, 2010)
Using leveled 100 word passages at their instructional
reading level, students will work with partners to reread, time, and chart
progress in their reading rate (WCPM).
·
First, a baseline reading rate must be
determined for the passage. (Procedure done once per passage selection.)
o
Before proceeding in pairs or working
independently, students must digitally record their initial reading, so that
the teacher or assistant can evaluate the baseline rate and identify miscues
immediately after the initial reading.
o
If it takes more than 120 seconds to read the
passage and/or the students make more than 5 errors per 100 words, an easier passage
should be selected.
o
If the student reads at a rate of 85 WPM with
two errors or fewer, a more difficult passage should be selected.
·
Next, students should work with partners to
monitor and record progress and errors. (Daily routines).
Strategy: Charted
progress of WPM (Gunning, p. 290, 2010)
Materials:
- Student folder (charts,
current 100 word passage)
- Leveled 100 word passages
from “Hercules”
- Charts
- Time in 10 second blocks
(range)
- Number of times I read
the story (domain)
- Number of miscues
- Pencils
- Stopwatches
- Audacity or other
recording device
Word Study
Assessed need: Johnny, who often substitutes visually
similar words, might benefit from high-motivation activities involving
syllabication.
Activity
OBJECTIVE(s): Johnny will syllabicate, identify word chunks, and connect
auditory to visual aspects of words.
Activity:
Reintroduce concept of syllables (Gunning, p. 300, 2010)
·
Auditory: Students will identify the number of
parts in the following animal names (students clap the number of syllables as they
say cat, monkey, yak, lizard, ostrich, elephant, hippopotamus
·
Visual:
(progress from two syllable names)
o
Write the names
o
Point to each syllable (use spot and dot,
scooping)
o
students say syllables with teacher
·
Practice using animal word generalizations, with
“approximate division,” by reading, as opposed to counting syllables
o
Students identify animal word patterns in songs
o
Students sort words according to patterns
o
Students match up syllable pairs
Strategy: Animal
words care used as memory pegs
Materials:
·
pictures of animals, lists of “catbird,”
“anteater,” “rabbit,” “tiger,” and “turtle” words.
·
song lyrics
·
word sorts
Writing
Assessed need: Johnny is able to achieve success in
getting started, remaining on topic, and developing ideas in writing when provided scaffolding.
Activity OBJECTIVE(s): Johnny will write a framed paragraph
Activity: Johnny
will write a framed Paragraph (Gunning, p. 474, 2010). The structure of the
topic sentence is provided:
If you want to ____________________, follow these steps.
First,_____
Then, ____
Next, ____
Finally, ___
Once you have __________, _______________________.
Strategy: teach
Johnny how to use the frame; slowly remove the frame as Johnny masters the
frame – just like training wheels!
Comprehension &/or
Vocabulary:
Assessed need: Imaging, as described in Gunning,
might help Johnny to build vocabulary as he builds his self-collected “tricky
word” list. (Gunning, p. 370, 2010)
Activity:
Introduce imaging to reinforce self-collected “tricky word list”– see syllabication. (Gunning, p. 370, 2010)
·
Introduce imaging as a comprehension strategy
·
Model the process of visualizing (start with
sentences or short paragraphs from Johnny’s book box)
·
Focusing: students visualize as they listen to a
concrete passage.
·
Students draw images to associate with the
passage
·
Note that people see things different ways /
probe for detail
·
Review steps: Use mnemonic RUG (read, use mind,
get details)
·
Johnny will use the imaging strategy to build a
context for “tricky words.”
Strategy: Imaging
Materials:
drawing paper, crayons, colored pencils, markers, 100 word passages
Spelling: Johnny
will sort words according to animal categories (analogy)
Assessed need:
Johnny will syllabicate, identify word chunks, and connect auditory to
visual aspects of words.
Lesson OBJECTIVE(s): Johnny will practice within word
patterns
Activity: Word
Sorts (Gunning, p. 343, 2010)
Strategy: Word Sorts
Materials:
Pictures of animals from syllabication lesson, tricky words, word lists from
Gunning
Case Study Connections
Morris found that Brett, a rising 7th
grader with a grade level reading equivalent of 2.8 had lost the support of his
6th grade Special Education teacher, who had stopped providing
direct reading instruction. The teacher had begun limiting support to providing
support to “helping him understand and complete assignments in his academic
subjects.” (Morris, D., Ervin, C., & Conrad, p. 369, 1996). In 3rd
grade, a shift from learning to read to reading to learn is said to occur. Even
for 3rd grade students like Johnny who have decoding goals on their
IEPs, particularly those mainstreamed in a general education setting,
accountability and data-driven priorities force teachers to focus on the
mastery of content level standards, i.e., a single performance measurement.
Thus, an entire generation of students has been herded through the
slaughterhouse of accountability. Untold students who have been processed
through high school literature classes lacking basic reading skills are getting
ready to hit our streets lacking a full high school diploma. Lacking basic
reading skills, the prospects of nonreaders are frightening.
McCormick used an interactive model
of reading to understand Peter, and examined the internal and external factors
that interacted to affect his reading ability. (McCormick, S., p. 15, 2001).
McCormick found that a lack of automaticity was a significant factor in Peter’s
development as a reader. Like Peter, when reading, Johnny had difficulty tapping
into the vast store of words in his head because of decoding problems. The gap
between listening capacity, (which unfortunately was not assessed here), and
automatic word recognition ability was possibly a significant source of frustration
for Johnny, who had a bad habit of miscuing words without stopping, because he lacked
the expectation that reading is supposed to be a meaningful activity.
Klenk learned the importance of
valuing and validating the words and sentences that students construct on their
own, i.e., inviting invented spelling. In order to help students like Katrice,
for whom reading and writing had become aversive tasks, Klenk found that she
needed to make the student an equal partner in the process and that she had “unlearn”
the traditional teacher’s role. (Klenk, L., 1994) For Johnny, who told anyone who would listen, “reading is boring,” where was the partnership? There seemed little prospect that the personalized instruction that Johnny needed to get over the hump would be forthcoming. Given the inordinate amount of time invested in ranking Johnny according to some arbitrary standard, using materials that were above his independent reading level, where was the investment in tailoring instruction to address his personal literacy strengths and needs?
Resources
Gunning, T. (2010). Assessing and
correcting reading and writing difficulties, 4th ed. Boston: Allyn &
Bacon.
Hookings, E. (1999). Hercules and other greek legends: Wildcats
tiger set. New York: Wright Group
Klenk, L. (1994). Case study in
reading disability: An emergent literacy perspective. Learning Disability Quarterly, 17, 33-56
McCormick, S. (1994). A nonreader
becomes a reader: A case study of literacy acquisition by a severely disabled
reader. Reading Research Quarterly,
29/2
Morris, D., Ervin, C., Conrad, K.
(1996). A case study of a middle school reading disability. The Reading Teacher, 49:5, 369-377.
