Case Study Synopsis Katelyn Dwyer Practicum - Spring 2011 Dr. McLean

Philosophy of Literacy Instruction Every child can learn. Modeling effective reading practices helps learners significantly. A classroom which requires mutual respect allows students to be vested in their education and take risks, thus making these pupils more successful learners. Reading is a required, life-long skill – students need to realize its real-world application and importance.

Role of the Reading Specialist Support struggling readers through small group and one-on-one instruction Assess students’ strengths, weaknesses, and needs, and design a program to improve reading skills Conduct lessons in the classroom and/or team- teach lessons with teachers Provide professional development for teachers with strategies to help struggling readers Support content-area teachers, helping them to assist students to excel in those classes as well

Background Information: Davide 7 th grade student Transferred from Elizabeth this year Limited support at home - Mom speaks broken English - Dad speaks Portuguese Prior teacher was very damaging: reprimanded and criticized Davide frequently Lacks self-confidence as a student and reader

Background Information: Assessments To evaluate Davide and determine where to begin our tutoring sessions, I implemented Ekwall-Shanker tests. Below were Davide’s results: - Oral Reading 4 – Independent 5 – Instructional 6 – Frustration - Silent Reading 3 – Independent 4 and 5 – Frustration While Davide noticed he reads and comprehends much better orally, he said he typically reads silently.

Background Information: Tutoring Sessions Two thirty-minute sessions a week Sessions included the following elements: ◦ Reading and Writing Rhyming Poetry ◦ Word Sorts primarily using root words ◦ Implementing the overt strategy ◦ Repeated, Choral, and Phrase Cued Oral Reading ◦ Creating and Answering Thin and Thick questions ◦ “Say Something” – making thinking visible

Guiding Theories and Research Vygotsky – Through scaffolding, Davide has improved as a reader and also become a more independent learner Rasinski – Using phrase cued texts allow Davide to become more comfortable and accustomed to phrasing and creating natural pauses, thus helping with comprehension Kuhn and Stahl – By having Davide repeat chunks of text, it improved his reading rate, accuracy, prosody, and confidence Archer, Gleason, and Vachon – Introducing and implementing the overt (and covert) strategy helps Davide to decode unfamiliar, multisyllabic words, allowing him to focus more on the meaning of the text than unfamiliar words

Discussion I reassessed Davide using the Ekwall- Shanker assessment. Below are Davide’s results: Oral Reading 4 – Independent 7 – Instructional 8 – Frustration Silent Reading 4 – Independent 6 – Instructional 7 – Frustration

Strengths and Weaknesses Strengths ◦ Great Work Ethic ◦ Excellent Sight Vocabulary ◦ Drive to Learn and Improve ◦ Pronunciation of one to three syllable words ◦ Accuracy Weaknesses ◦ Natural Pauses ◦ Prosody, particularly with non-fiction texts ◦ Still using overt (versus covert) strategy to decode words of four or more syllables

Improvements Reads fiction with much more fluency and inflection Uses root words and known words to decode unknown words Improved fluency overall After phrase cued readings, his natural pauses are improving With better phrasing, his comprehension has also improved

Significance Davide’s progress was severely impeded by the judgmental, critical comments of previous teachers With encouragement and compliments, Davide’s self-confidence has grown and helped him to become a more capable reader Repeated and phrase cued readings have improved Davide’s fluency and comprehension

Recommendations As I am Davide’s reading and writing teacher, I will continue to work with him. We will focus on: - Repeated Readings - Teacher model of fluent reading - Phrase cued Reading to improve natural, unpunctuated phrasing - Using the overt and covert strategy to decode unfamiliar words - Word sorts, particularly with root words