Academic+Child+Case+Study

 You are going to do a semester case study on a student with a disability in an academic area. You will base your case assessment information, the student’s IEP goals and objectives and work samples. You will design an intervention plan based on the assessment and work sample information and then monitor the student’s progress during the semester.
 * Case Study Directions (Due: 12/3/10) **
 * Identification of the Participant and Context: ** You will discuss the context of the school and the classroom as well as the background of the student. Include supportive information such as the student’s IEP goals/objectives, assessment information, and a general discussion of the student’s strengths and weaknesses.

Name: J.K.* Grade: 5th Birth date: May 30th, 2000 Age: 10 years, 6 months Academic subject of focus: Reading

The student I assessed is a little boy who currently attends Hickory Tree Elementary School in Saint Cloud, Florida. This is a predominantly Caucasian, middle class school of approximately 534 students. According to data gathered by the Florida Department of Education in 2007, 35% of the school’s student population was eligible the for free or reduced-price lunch program, 12% were students with disabilities, and 5% were English language learners. I also found it notable that, at this time, 8% of classes at this school are taught by out-of-field teachers.

J.K. spends his school days divided between the two mixed grade-level, self-contained classrooms for students with Intellectual Disabilities. He receives Immediate Intensive Intervention (III) services and reading instruction with classmates who are in a high-ability group.

According to J.K.’s Individualized Education Plan (IEP), he was born with Down Syndrome and was labeled as Developmentally Delayed until being re-evaluated for entrance into school in 2005. At this time, the label was changed to reflect an Intellectual Disability which manifests itself through speech and language impairments, motor delays, and difficulties with daily living skills, socialization, and adaptive behavior. J.K. has also been diagnosed with severe allergies, the effects of which have hindered his ability to regularly attend school.

Based on data taken from both the Florida Alternate Assessment, as well as authentic classroom assessments, it has been determined that at his present levels, J.K. can write his first and last name independently. He can also read ten common sight words from the adopted reading curriculum. His priority educational goal for the area of reading states that, “When given simple text written with sight words presented in the reading curriculum, J.K. will be able to read independently with 100% accuracy.” In order to accomplish this goal, it has been determined that J.K. should practice reading sight words in isolation, practice reading simple text with given sight words, and build up to reading four to five sentence stories.

*The student’s name has been abbreviated to protect his privacy.


 * Assessment and Analysis of Initial Work Samples: ** You will collect two work samples from one student in an academic area. In addition to other assessment information (both formal and informal) and the student’s IEP goals and objectives, you will analyze the samples in terms of the strengths and weaknesses the student. In addition, discuss the circumstances in which the work samples were collected (examples might be the final product of a writing process or this was the student’s first exposure to the skill or material, etc).



In order to gain a better perspective on J.K.’s present levels, I administered several reading assessments. The following is a list of tests administered, a summary of each, and the results obtained.

__** Motivation: **__ 1. **__Personal Interest Survey__** -  The purpose of this survey is to allow a teacher to become better acquainted with students, as well as to gauge their likes and dislikes through a series of questions about their favorite foods, music, hobbies, and other interests. The answers students provide to these questions can then be used by the teacher to inform reading and writing instruction by making it more personalized, motivational, and ultimately effective.

__Source__: DeVries, B.A. (2008). Personal Interest Survey from Literacy Assessment and Intervention for K-6 Classrooms, Scottsdale, AZ: Holcomb Hathaway Publishing.

__Findings__: J.K. was able to carry on a lively conversation, providing witty answers to almost all questions asked during the survey. The only questions he required prompting to answer were numbers seven and eight, which asked him to name a favorite actor and actress.

2. **__Reading Interest Inventory__** -  While I developed an adapted version for my student, The Reading Attitude Survey for Primary Students upon which this assessment was based is another simple questionnaire teachers may use to get to know their students and discover how they feel about the reading event. With basically the same premise as the original, the inventory I created presented J.K.  with a series of statements concerning his feelings about various reading activities and experiences. He then had to rate his emotional response toward the given statement by pointing to a face that fit best - happy, indifferent, or unhappy. After reviewing his responses, I could then proceed as with the Personal Interest Survey, using those results to help plan instruction and understand his unique area(s) of need**.**

__Source__: Intern adapted based on DeVries, B.A. (2008). Reading Attitude Survey for Primary Students from Literacy Assessment and Intervention for K-6 Classrooms, Scottsdale, AZ: Holcomb Hathaway Publishing.

__Findings__: After giving this assessment, I discovered that J.K.  is excited by the reading process. He was eager to share that he likes trying to read stories for his friends and family, but he does not like listening to the teacher read or hearing stories on the computer - mostly because he cannot see the pictures as well as when he is allowed to hold the books himself.

__ **San Diego Quick Assessment**: __ This is an informal assessment composed of leveled sight word lists which determine a child’s independent, instructional, and frustration levels in reading.

__Source__: Lapidary, M. and Ross, R. (1969) San Diego Quick Assessment.

__Findings__: Although J.K.  is considered to be a 5th grade student, I was careful to take into account the affects of his disabilities when administering this assessment. In hopes of allowing him the greatest possible chance to experience success, I began the test at the pre-primer level. According to the scoring guide, however, J.K.  was unable to demonstrate even this basic level of reading proficiency. On the first index card I presented to him, he asked to skip a total of four words, correctly read “me” and “go”, but mistakenly read “is” for “at” and then told me that the word “run” was another way to spell “me”. He also mistakenly read “come” for “look” and “and” for “can”.

J.K.'s score on the San Diego Quick Assessment led me to the determination that it would be unproductive to conduct an evaluation of his fluency at this time as he is not yet a practiced reader.

__ **Letter Identification**: __ This informal reading assessment I created consists of two grids – one uppercase and one lowercase – featuring unordered letters of the alphabet. The idea is that, when presented with each grid, a student will touch one letter at a time and tell its name, thereby demonstrating alphabetic understanding.

__Source__: Intern created

__Findings__: J.K. performed very well on this assessment, naming each letter with virtually no hesitation. In fact, the only one that gave him pause was lowercase q, which he at first told me was named, “’p’ the other way.” When I asked if he was sure that it didn’t have another name, he smiled playfully and whispered that, “Some people can call it ‘baby q.’”

__ **Pre-assessment of Phonemic Awareness**: __ The purpose of this assessment is to allow teachers to evaluate a student's competence in nine different areas of phonemic awareness: syllabicating words, distinguishing initial sounds, distinguishing rime and rhyme, distinguishing oddity, blending onset with rime, blending letter sounds, segmenting sounds in words, manipulating initial sounds in words, and deleting initial sounds of words.

__Source__: DeVries, B.A. (2008). Pre-assessment for Phonemic Awareness from Literacy Assessment and Intervention for K-6 Classrooms, Scottsdale, AZ: Holcomb Hathaway Publishing.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%; line-height: normal;">__Findings__: This assessment proved to be most helpful in establishing <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">J.K. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%; line-height: normal;">’s areas of need. Because of its length, I decided to break it into sections and deliver it over the course of five school days. The results are as charted below: ** Number Correct/Number Possible; Percentage ** || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal;">What I learned from my student’s responses was that he is in the early to middle stages of phonemic awareness development. Something I found incredibly interesting, however, was that there were instances when <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">J.K. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal;"> appeared unable to demonstrate a concept such as distinguishing initial sounds, even with additional examples and prompting. During a later subtest when he was to segment sounds, although he could not tell me the all the individual sounds of the words given, he was nevertheless successful at distinguishing the initial sound of every word! I am unsure if this is somehow related to his speech and language impairments, but am very curious about these results.
 * = ** Subtest: ** ||= ** Score: **
 * Syllabicating Words ||= 1/5; 20% ||
 * Distinguishing Initial Sounds ||= 0/5; 0% ||
 * Distinguishing Rime and Rhyme ||= 4/5; 80% ||
 * Distinguishing Oddity ||= 2/5; 40% ||
 * Blending Onset with Rime ||= 3/5; 60% ||
 * Blending Letter Sounds ||= 2/5; 40% ||
 * Segmenting Sounds in Words ||= 0/5; 0% ||
 * Manipulating Initial Sounds in Words ||= 0/5; 0% ||
 * Deleting Initial Sounds in Words || 0/5; 0% ||

__ **Phonics Mastery Survey**: __ <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Adapted from the Phonics Mastery Survey, the purpose of section one of this test was to help me determine J.K.’s awareness of the relationships between individual letters and their sounds. In section two, J.K. was given a small card with a word written on it which was then read aloud for him. He was then asked to provide two more words that rhymed with the one written on his card. This was to check for his ability to rhyme words.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">__Source__: Intern adapted based on DeVries, B.A. (2008). Phonics Mastery Survey from Literacy Assessment and Intervention for K-6 Classrooms, Scottsdale, AZ: Holcomb Hathaway Publishing.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">__Findings__: J.K. was successful with section one of this assessment. In fact, without prompting, he even offered words that began with each consonant sound, as well. Furthermore, he experienced no difficulty in demonstrating awareness of the long and short sounds that vowels can make. He struggled more during the second segment of the assessment, leading me to conclude that he can’t reliably provide words that rhyme with a target word yet.

__ **Concepts of Print Checklist**: __ <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">This checklist consists of eight prompts which a teacher delivers while referencing a suitably-leveled text from the adopted reading curriculum with a student. Each prompt, with a value of one total point, corresponds to a specific skill area: book orientation, front and back cover, title, print tells the story, beginning of text, left to right, and return sweep. Based on observations made during the delivery of the assessment, as well as evaluation of the student’s overall performance, teachers may be able to identify areas of strength and weakness in the skills tested and then use that data to guide their instruction and create the most developmentally appropriate reading experiences for each student examined.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">__Source__: Haugen-McLane, Janie, Janie Hohlt, and Jill L. Haney. (2010). Concepts of Print Assessment Checklist from PCI Reading Program Comprehension Activities: Level One, San Antonio, TX: PCI Education, Inc.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">__Findings__: J.K. had no trouble demonstrating each of the eight concepts of print tested. I also took note of the fact that he has a well developed text-to-self and text-to-real world connection with the book we used, as he pointed out how the characters pictured resembled himself and his school friends.

__ **Listening Comprehension**: __ <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Meant to be given as a unit assessment, administering this test also allowed me to determine J.K.’s listening comprehension skills as I first read the story to which it corresponded aloud. Next, I read each test question and answer choice aloud. J.K. then had to use what he had learned from listening to the story to select the best response for each question.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">__Source__: Haugen-McLane, Janie, Janie Hohlt, and Jill L. Haney. (2010). Unit Assessment: Book 1 from PCI Reading Program Comprehension Activities: Level One, San Antonio, TX: PCI Education, Inc.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">__Findings__: According to this assessment, J.K. possesses excellent listening comprehension skills and follows oral directions well. He scored 100%.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Each of these assessments was delivered during time set aside for special one-to-one reading intervention lessons.

__ **Motivation**: __ <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">From the very beginning, it was easy to see that J.K. is an incredibly social child who enjoys the attention of others. While administering each of the two tests of motivation, I was impressed with his eagerness to give detailed answers. I also liked that J.K. was excited to get to know me better, as well. For example, as I questioned him for the Personal Interest Survey, he happily provided his replies, and would then say, “Now you, Miss Crystal. You should tell me your favorite [food, movie, etc].” Besides this, I was pleased to hear that J.K. does indeed have a public library card, and he visits often with his mother and grandmother to check out books and movies.
 * Strengths, Needs, & Observations While Testing: **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;"> One of J.K.’s biggest needs highlighted by these early assessments was that he does not appear to have an awareness of different genres in literature. When I asked him what kinds of books he preferred to read (or have read to him) best, at first, he could only tell me, “The kinds with good pictures.” Although I shared several examples with him, it was only through physically bringing in copies of books from different genres and taking him to the school library to see other books he might enjoy that I was actually able to determine his likes and dislikes.

__ **San Diego Quick Assessment**: __ Taking the time to administer this assessment proved to be very useful when it came to placing J.K.’s reading-related needs in perspective. Despite his poor performance, it allowed me to see that, together, we have a unique chance to make some great gains with his reading abilities this semester because the curriculum used to teach him to read is actually sight word based. With this in mind, he has a lot of practice ahead, but his eagerness will guide him to success!

__ **Letter Identification**: __ <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Following J.K.’s struggles with the San Diego Quick Assessment, I decided to develop this simple test as a means to be sure he had acquired some of the more fundamental skills that are necessary for reading success. What I discovered was that he is proficient in the task of letter identification, naming both upper- and lowercase letters with ease. Given the font style used, however, it should be noted that J.K. may need prompting with irregularly-shaped letters such as lowercase a, q, and g.

__ **Preassessment of Phonemic Awareness**: __ <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">The results of this assessment were quite interesting to me. Although J.K. demonstrated the most strength during the subtest of distinguishing rime and rhyme, in later class work as well as when being assessed for Phonics abilities, he struggled with this same concept. Because of these inconsistencies and his poor performance on the remaining subtests, I believe still he needs explicit instruction related each skill area before he can successfully develop phonemic awareness.

__ **Phonics Mastery Survey**: __ <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">With such a funny, social personality, J.K. made easy work of showing how well he knew each of his letter sounds. He even went beyond my requirements and began pointing out objects in our classroom or sharing words he knew that began with each sound, too. Moreover, I was pleasantly surprised to find that J.K. could tell the difference between the long and short sounds of vowels – something I had not expected he’d be able to do yet.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">In accordance with the findings of the Phonemic Awareness assessment, however, he was unable to consistently demonstrate an awareness and understanding of rhyming words. This is a definite area of need for him.

__ **Concepts of Print Checklist**: __ <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">An interesting note about this assessment is that, even though J.K. performed satisfactorily, these results were obtained using a beginning reader borrowed from his classroom reading curriculum. When given a traditional (school library) book and presented with similar prompts as those used in the Concepts of Print Checklist, his results were slightly less positive. For example, he experienced difficulty distinguishing the front from the back cover, locating the title of the book, and deciding the page on which to begin reading. With minimal prompting, he was able to correct each error. Yet, this leads me to believe that J.K. is still in need of reinforcement of these concepts of print skills.

__ **Listening Comprehension**: __ <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Perhaps as a result of his speech and language impairments or maybe to compensate for his visual disabilities, J.K. has an incredibly well-developed sense of listening. He scored well on the listening comprehension assessment, and was able to share lots of details from __My Home__, the story we read together. This skill will surely be an asset to him as a future reader, and is one that we will continue to nourish and develop in class.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">The preceding PDF file contains work samples which demonstrate J.K.'s strengths and weaknesses at his present level according to the district adopted reading curriculum - PCI Reading. For more information on this curriculum, or to download a sample chapter, visit the PCI website at [].

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">These work samples were completed as part of a packet on which J.K. works during his daily reading lessons in Mrs. McCard's K-5 mixed grade-level, self-contained classroom. He is a member of a homogeneous high ability group for the 90 minute reading block which is taught from 9:00am - 10:30am each school day.


 * Intervention Plan/Design for Instruction: ** Design learning goals and objectives in the academic area for the student based on the information you collected and his/her strengths and needs. Based on the learning goals, design an intervention plan for your student.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Taking into account J.K.’s combined performance on the above-listed assessments, I have developed **four specific goals for his reading intervention**. Firstly, I would like to continue working with him to **expand his sight word vocabulary**. Aside from the classroom reading curriculum, using flash card matching games, locating these words “hidden” in favorite stories, or even stamping each new word we learn into play dough are some of the fun and creative ways that I hope to use to help J.K. increase his confidence and abilities in reading these common words.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;"> Next, in order to help him start forming more definitive opinions about what sorts of books he is interested in reading, I’d like to **help J.K. learn to identify each of the eight genres of literature**. This could be accomplished through a variety of methods such as read-alouds, book clubs, author studies, and more. During this time, he could also be exposed to some of the other classifications of literature like comedy (funny stories), horror (scary stories), romance (love stories), or the sports stories that I discovered he already enjoys from the Reading Interest Inventory. At the same time, I would make it a point to help J.K. locate stories to increase his motivation and encourage him to continue learning to read. These would be books like biographies about his favorite sports star Tony Hawk, nonfiction books like children's cookbooks featuring yummy hot dog recipes or perhaps one showing how gummy worms are made, or maybe even a book of kid's poetry related to swimming and skateboarding.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;"> Another objective I have for J.K. is to **become more phonemically aware**. We will practice distinguishing initial sounds; learn about blending, segmenting, manipulating, and deleting sounds; find out more about syllabicating words; and hopefully even master the skill of rhyming words. Accomplishing all these tasks will be a lot of fun as we play games of initial sound bingo, use letter magnets to play with our words, and go on rhyming scavenger hunts in our class, just to name a few ideas!

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;"> One last goal that I’d like to see J.K. accomplish this semester is to **demonstrate mastery of the concepts of print**. I’m endlessly proud of the day just a few weeks ago when he brought his first leveled reader to me and insisted I listen to him read it the whole way through so that he could proclaim, “I’m a reader, Miss Crystal! I’m a reader!” Now, I want to see those skills through. Before my time with J.K. as my student comes to a close, I want to make sure he has all the most basic tools he needs for reading success!


 * Instructional Decision Making: ** Systematically collect work samples and assessment information for the remainder of the semester and analyze the progress your student is making based on your intervention plan. Discuss your instructional decision making in relation to the activities and intervention design. You should collect at least 6 more sets of work samples/and or assessment information and discuss your instructional decision making. Include all collected work samples/assessment information with dates in your project.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Conducting this case study as a part of my Senior Internship requirements has allowed me the unique opportunity to work with J.K., as well as his classmates, on a broad range of reading activities and lessons. As a result, I have included just a small sample of the interventions used to meet J.K.’s specifically targeted needs.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;"> When planning my instruction, I was careful to ensure that each reading lesson I designed was both relevant and meaningful to all my students in several ways. First, all lessons were taught as part of a weekly interdisciplinary thematic unit tied to and supported with quality children’s literature. Next, great care was taken to include opportunities for my students to practice key social and functional skills. With J.K.’s needs in mind, I also made sure to provide multiple authentic opportunities for him to improve his communication skills. In addition, each activity I utilized for intervention helped to address specific Individualized Education Plan (IEP) goals for both J.K. and his classmates, too.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">__Vocabulary Scavenger Hunt__ – When exploring our new reading group story each week, this fun little activity had him and his classmates searching through the pages to find sight words that they already knew. The students enjoyed it as a new twist on the familiar picture-walk activity, plus I loved the confidence-boosting element it added to our lessons because everyone realized how many words they were learning as we progressed through each of our stories together!
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Goal #1: Expand J.K.’s sight word vocabulary. **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">__Tactile Words__ – Instead of simply asking J.K. to rote memorize his new sight words from old fashioned flash cards, we added some texture to our learning by tracing the words into shaving cream squirted on a table top, writing them with chalk onto sandpaper, and even stamping them into a mound of delicious homemade peanut butter play dough. These variations do double duty: allowing me to improve my students’ fine motor coordination and helping them remember the “feeling” of each new vocabulary word to make them that much easier to recall.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">__Genre Study__ – In collaboration with the school Media Specialist, I arranged “Discover and Explore” activities which presented one genre per week to J.K. and his classmates during their weekly special area visit to the library. At this time, the students learned about the defining features of the genre of the week, found books that belonged to that category, participated in an interactive read-aloud, and had the opportunity to check out books from that genre, as well.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Goal #2: Learn to identify the eight genres of literature. **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">__Storybook Character Parade__ – As part of our school’s Fall celebration, students were allowed to dress up one Friday as their favorite storybook character and participate in a parade through every classroom on campus. In order to make the event even more educational, I asked my students to bring in the book from which their costume was taken. On the day of the parade, the students and I created a chart of all the different genres represented by our class. (We had six out of the eight genres!) Integrating math concepts, we took note of what genres had the most and least costumes representing them. Then we discussed our favorite characters noticed during the parade and the genres to which they each belonged. What a lot of fun!

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">__Phonemic Awareness Fun Deck__ – Using this nifty little card game I borrowed from the Curriculum Materials Center, J.K. and I were able to play all sorts of fun games to increase his phonemic awareness - finding rhymes, distinguishing initial sounds, understanding the concept of oddity, and more. All these skill-building games helped to make him a better reader.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Goal #3: Build J.K.’s phonemic awareness skills. **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">__Phonemic Awareness Smart Board Games__ – As part of our daily reading lessons, I made several theme-based games for the students to play using the Smart Board. For example, one week our group focused on the story Alligator Arrived with Apples by Crescent Dragonwagon. The coordinating game I created featured pictures of all my students. Referencing these photos, students had to select the labeled food item that began with the same letter as the friend’s name who was pictured when given two choices.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">__Practice, Practice, Practice!__ In order to help J.K. show mastery of the concepts of print, I used the simplest, yet most effective strategies that came to mind – modeling for him, and allowing him extensive opportunities to practice reading and being exposed to quality children’s literature. Often during our regular lessons, I made it a point to ask the students to do things like showing me the correct way to hold a book, where I could find the title of a story, or how I can tell where to go when I finish reading a particular line of text. By observing the reactions and responses of J.K. and his classmates, I was able to verify who had grasped this skill set.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Goal #4: Help J.K. to demonstrate mastery of the concepts of print. **



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 * Analysis of Student Learning: ** Use your on-going analysis of the student's work to profile the progress he/she is making.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">In order to catalog J.K.'s progress and determine his overall level of success following my intervention program, I conducted, then analyzed a series of post-assessments.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">__Sight word vocabulary worksheets__ – Embedded within the PCI Reading Program were progress monitoring and skill check sheets. In example, one sheet presented students with a matrix of known vocabulary sight words. The directions said “look for the word “my” in each row and circle it. Then, say the word. By taking note of the level of guidance that J.K. required to complete these sheets, as well as the responses he provided, I was able to determine that he had mastered ten new sight words.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Source: Haugen-McLane, Janie, Janie Hohlt, and Jill L. Haney. (2010). Circle the Word from PCI Reading Program Comprehension Activities: Level One, San Antonio, TX: PCI Education, Inc.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">__Phonemic Awareness Assessment__ – Utilizing the same assessment I delivered earlier in my study, I post-tested J.K. to determine if he had indeed made gains in the areas upon which I have placed instructional focus. As before, because of its length, I broke the assessment into sections and deliver it over the course of five school days. The results are as charted below:


 * **<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">Subtest: ** ||= **<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">Pretest Score: ** ||= **<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">Post test Score: ** ||
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Syllabicating Words ||= <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">1/5; 20% ||= <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">0/5; 0% ||
 * Distinguishing Initial Sounds ||= 0/5; 0% ||= 4/5; 80% ||
 * Distinguishing Rime and Rhyme ||= 4/5; 80% || 5/5; 100%  ||
 * Distinguishing Oddity ||= 2/5; 40% ||= 4/5; 80% ||
 * Blending Onset with Rime ||= 3/5; 60% ||= 4/5; 80% ||
 * Blending Letter Sounds ||= 2/5; 40% ||= 4/5; 80% ||
 * Segmenting Sounds in Words ||= <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">0/5; 0% ||= <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">0/5; 0% ||
 * Manipulating Initial Sounds in Words ||= <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">0/5; 0% ||= <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">0/5; 0% ||
 * Deleting Initial Sounds in Words ||= <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">0/5; 0% ||= <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">0/5; 0% ||

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">J.K’s post-test results show that he has made fantastic accomplishments in building phonemic awareness skills. Although he still has difficulties with syllabicating and is confused by segmenting, manipulating, and deleting sounds, he raised his scores in all the other subtests which made me very proud! With continued support and interventions, he will soon be completely phonemically aware.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Source: DeVries, B.A. (2008). Pre-assessment for Phonemic Awareness from Literacy Assessment and Intervention for K-6 Classrooms, Scottsdale, AZ: Holcomb Hathaway Publishing.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">__Observation__ – As any practicing classroom teacher knows, the most frequently used method of evaluation is simple observation. Therefore, a large portion of J.K.’s progress was determined via this pragmatic form of assessment. Throughout these twelve weeks that I have spent working with J.K. and his class, I have witnessed him grow tremendously as a reader. He has always maintained a high level of enthusiasm that makes teaching him a treat. Both Mrs. DeRight and I have been thrilled to see that during the time in which I’ve been conducting this case study, J.K. has not only accomplished, but exceeded his IEP goal for the area of reading (When given simple text written with sight words presented in the reading curriculum, J.K. will be able to read independently with 100% accuracy.) – an objective that he was not expected to fully master before the winter holiday break! In addition, he can now confidently and fluently read twenty common sight words, double the number he knew at the start of our case study. Besides all of this, J.K. has continued to be a positive role model, encouraging each of his classmates as they all work to improve their reading skills and abilities.


 * Reflection and Evaluation: ** Reflect on your instruction and intervention in relation to the student learning that has occurred. Discuss what you would change, what you would continue to do, what your are plans for this student in the future. Reflect on what you have learned from this project.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Conducting this case study helped me to not only blend, but to actually practice skills I've learned about throughout my studies as an Exceptional Student Education Major here at the University of Central Florida. From taking courses like EDF 4467, EEX 3221, and EEX 4763, I have learned all about how students - especially those with disabilities - acquire knowledge. These same courses taught me some of the current best practices for assessment.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Courses such as RED 3012, RED 4519, and RED 4942 also showed me that reading is a key skill for all academic, social, and functional learning. Beyond this, taking these courses reinforced my knowledge of the fact that assessment and instruction - whether in reading, or any other subject - are critically intertwined elements of education. In fact, I have discovered that it is impossible that one can be truly effective without the other.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%; line-height: 150%;">Performing this case study also increased my awareness of how important it is as a teacher to possess a working knowledge of the key components of reading – Phonics, Phonemic Awareness, Fluency, Vocabulary, and Comprehension. Understanding these components, along with strategies to help students acquire them has made me a stronger, more confident reading teacher ready to lead my students to academic and literary success!

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%; line-height: 150%;">If I could change anything about this case study, I would love to have had an endless amount of time and resources so that I could conduct similar case studies on all the student in J.K.’s class. Then, I’d also want to see my interventions through until the end. I wish I could stay on in the classroom to help Mrs. DeRight follow through with the recommendations I have for J.K.’s future reading instruction (noted below). I also think it would be amazing if I could take some of the ideas I presented to J.K.’s mother (also noted below) and share them during a short seminar for other parents to learn from, too, because really, the ideas I shared would be beneficial for any student learning to read! One last thing I wish I could have added to this case study experience was to arrange a field trip to the community library or even a book store like Barnes & Noble. Bringing reading outside of the classroom makes it a more authentic and purposeful activity, something that many of my students with disabilities have to experience first-hand to understand. Plus, going on such a field trip would open their eyes to the breadth of reading materials available to them both now and as they work to become life-long readers as adults.


 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Some recommendations I have for Mrs. DeRight concerning J.K.’s future reading instruction are as follows: **
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: -0.25in;">Continue using the PCI Reading Program to expand J.K.’s sight word vocabulary, as well as encouraging him to try finding these words in his everyday environment such as on signs, labels, or posters.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Consider allowing <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: -0.25in;">J.K. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;"> and his classmates to increase their awareness and understanding of literary genres by conducting classroom genre and/or author studies. Students can be encouraged to bring in books from home or check them out at the public or school library. Using the stories, students may then discover more about each genre or particular author’s works. The books can be the subject of literature circles, reader’s theatres, or even just given a place of honor in the classroom reading center for everyone to enjoy at leisure.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Help <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: -0.25in;">J.K. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;"> to increase his phonemic awareness by directly teaching important concepts like syllabicating words, blending letter sounds, segmenting, deleting, and manipulating sounds. Follow these lessons with games to solidify each concept and make learning fun!
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Consider “rotating the stock” in the classroom library. Providing an ever-changing array of quality children’s literature will help keep students interested in reading and excited about what great books they might find on their next trip to the reading center!


 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">At the close of my case study, I held a brief parent conference with J.K.’s mother to share my findings, along with providing her a short list of activities she could use at home to help support her son’s reading abilities. A few suggestions I made included: **
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Read together every day! – Whether you sit down to read a favorite story book aloud, listen to J.K. tell his own story from a wordless picture book, or just recite the directions off a box of macaroni and cheese you make for dinner together, take time to show J.K. that reading is a daily part of our lives.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Be a reader yourself. – Set a good example by taking a moment each day to let J.K. see that you enjoy reading, too. He will appreciate knowing that even Mommy reads to learn (pick up a newspaper to find out what’s happening in the world!) and that she also reads for pleasure (surfing the internet or picking up a celebrity gossip magazine count as reading!).
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Encourage “Playing to Learn.” – Give J.K. time on the computer at home to check out great reading sites like [|www.starfall.com], [|www.mightybook.com], or [|www.pbskids.org]. Spend time watching him play, or ask him questions about the fun new things he learned after each game.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Make frequent visits to the library. – Help J.K. explore and expand his reading abilities by finding books related to his interests, the things he’s learning about in school, or just pay a visit for a special story-telling event.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Case Study Rubric
 * **Accomplished Practice** || **Unacceptable** || **Acceptable** || **Target** || **Comments** ||
 * Assessment - #1 – Selects, administers, and interprets various informal and standardized instruments for assessing students academic performance and social behavior. || No evidence provided of interpreting and incorporating student’s IEP objectives and other assessment data in designing instruction || Uses more than one form for evidence provided for interpreting and incorporating student’s IEP objectives and other assessment data in designing instruction || Uses multiple forms of evidence **(3 or more)** for interpreting and incorporating student’s IEP objectives and other assessment data in designing instruction ||  ||
 * Assessment/Learning Environments #1 and #9 – Modifies instruction and align students needs, instructional settings and arranges learning; Uses techniques to align student needs, instructional settings, and activities || Does not collect assessment information to modify instruction || Collects assessment information on student performance/environment and provides a modification || Collects assessment information on student performance/environment on an ongoing basis and provides numerous modification as needed ||  ||
 * Instruction - #10 Identify student performance outcomes for planned lessons and plans and conducts lessons with identified students performance and learning outcomes || No planning occurs || A plan is developed that identifies performance and learning outcomes || A **long term plan** is developed that identifies performance and learning outcomes and is continuously monitored and modified ||  ||
 * Reflection # 10 - Uses data from his/her own learning environments as a basis for reflecting upon and experimenting with personal teaching practices || Does not identify areas of change – data not present || Experiments with changing planning practices with limited data on student learning outcomes – data organized but not aligned with instruction || Meaningful changes in instructional planning based upon student performance data. – Data organized and aligned with instruction ||