EDU 748
Week 2
Student Profile
Gender: Male
Grade: 4th, 10 years old
School year: 2018-2019 American School in Spain/DLL
Name: Juan
Learning preferences:
Logical-mathematical intelligence: above grade level (iReady). He
enjoys math, he enjoys the success he experiences with math. He
works well with manipulatives and shows ability to "break things
down" to reach solutions; analytical and practical thinker. Juan
finishes math tasks during designated times in class.
Oral expression, auditory preference: verbal-linguistic & musical
intelligences: Juan has an auditory learning preference, enjoying
and following along shared reading and read alouds with
attention. Also, he is a music lover. His oral communication is age
and grade-level appropriate (though all assessed informally and
against his group’s level as the only benchmark), which makes
sense if we think about the interdependence of speaking and
listening.
Social skills & interpersonal intelligence: Juan is integrated in his
class social life and daily interactions, joins his classmates at
lunch to play soccer, and interacts in a safe, healthy, and
appropriate manner with fellow classmates and teachers.
Kinesthetic preference: Juan prefers to stand rather than sit, and
even carry out his tasks standing up, as well as to move rather
than remain static; though he is not especially talented in sports or
any form of corporal expression, Juan is a physically active boy.
Mind Intelligence Challenges: Juan’s teachers suspect of a
possible ADHD/ADD. His struggle to focus on undemanding
periods of time in reading and writing tasks has set off the alarms.
Below grade level in reading and writing (actually 2-3 grades
below, iReady). His written productions across the curriculum are
significantly poor.
Family and social connections:
Family: Traditional. His older brother, now in high school, was
diagnosed of ADHD/ADD (not sure when, I am trying to find out)
and receives accommodations.
Friends at School: Juan is totally integrated within his classmates
and is an active member of the group.
Other Friends: n/a
Interests:
Sports:
Soccer.
Music:
Heavy-metal.
Hobbies:
n/a
Pop-Culture Interests:
n/a
Free-Time Activities:
Soccer, listen to music.
I would definitely recommend carrying
out student affective and interest
surveys in order to learn more
thoroughly about each student’s selfconcepts, attitudes, interests, and
profiles beyond academics, e.g.:
Elementary Reading Attitude Survey,
the Motivation to Read Profile, the 30item version of the Reading SelfConcept Scale, and a reading interest
survey (McKenna & Kear, 1990;
Gambrell, Codling, & Palmer, 1996,
Pitcher et al., 2007; Chapman &
Turnmer, 1995; Hildebrandt, 2001; as
cited by Afflerbach, 2012, pg. 176).
Academic strengths:
Reading Level: 430L. (It is important
to point out that the class’ Lexile mean
is one grade below general Lexile
standards, which is not out of the
ordinary in DLLs elementary classes).
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Week 2
Leader or Follower: Juan does not show predominant leadership
skills, yet he is a follower with enough personality to speak up
and share opinions and disagreements.
Artistic Abilities:
No. Juan does not show talent or ability
in plastic or performing arts.
Social Network: n/a
Technology Savvy: No.
General Health: Juan’s parents have not shared any information
regarding any chronic conditions or anything of medical
relevance. Teachers have not noticed any possible health concerns
beyond a possible ADHD/ADD.
Favorite Subjects:
Math and physical education.
Other relevant information:
Juan receives an American education in Spain; he is a DLL and his parents do not speak English at home.
Mom helps Juan with homework, though without consistency, which is reflected both in quality and
quantity of completed tasks. Getting his parents actively, responsibly, and effectively involved in Juan’s
literacy development is crucial; drafting a plan for this is mandatory.
Behavior is not an issue though Juan needs to be redirected during instruction repeatedly since he gets easily
distracted into side conversations with his friends. When redirected or reprimanded, Juan responds with
responsibility and accountability. He is a well-behaved boy, with no issues towards authority, aware of his
difficulties to concentrate and to process reading and writing (possible indicators of intrapersonal
intelligence).
Predicted literary challenges:
Context: The school is undergoing an important administrative, organizational, and—in theory, academic
transformation. They began using iReady last May. Built on the Common Core State Standards and its
recommendation that readability should be evaluated both quantitatively and qualitatively, iReady is a
comprehensive computer-based literacy (and math) assessment that uses both adaptive testing and item
response theory to determine the ability level of the student regarding literacy foundational skills (except
fluency) and higher order thinking. iReady enables better and more effective diagnosis and design of
authentic and challenging reading and writing tasks. This universal screening tool, benchmarks reading
levels using Lexile system and provides periodic diagnostic assessments that reliably support and complete
teachers’ informal observations. iReady is a reliable source from which to build a culture of data-driven
collective decision-making and instructional practice reflection. It promotes and fosters informed
professional conversations (Johnston et al., 1998, as cited by Allington, 2012, pg. 165) based on cohesive,
rigorous, and meaningful student learning data. The research, reputation, and credibility of iReady’s
developers and advisors support its reliability and validity: e.g. Dr. Chang, University of UrbanaChampaign; Dr. Cunningham, University of North Carolina; Dr. Ho, Harvard University, among others.
Using a tool like iReady as the springboard to design and implement a data-driven, balanced literacy
program at Juan’s school will be maximized since it will should also become the foundation for the
professional development plan and professional conversations program.
Unfortunately, the information and recommendations derived from this research-based software are being
misused. Students are asked to complete iReady’s student-focused online tasks at home, but none of the
data is used to analyze students’ learning, reflect upon teaching practices, inform instruction, or decisionmaking. Whole group instruction predominates the dynamics of learning experiences. Readiness, interests,
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Week 2
and profiles do not inform or guide instruction, much less differentiate content, processes, or products. They
have an extraordinary tool but do not have the conceptual understanding or the competence to use it
effectively. The school does not use a balanced literacy model cohesively, not even systematic guided
reading sessions, and many texts available are not leveled. There is no multi-tiered system of interventions
or anything like it. There are no teacher assistants or support staff systematically working with students in
the classroom. A school counselor/advisor with training in learning disabilities and accommodations, an
educational psychologist, is available on site and works alongside with children diagnosed with learning
disabilities.
Juan’s teachers have not been able to provide me with specific information about Juan’s level or capacity
regarding each of the foundational literacy skills for reading or writing. I infer that they simply are not
aware of this information themselves (as I said, iReady is being misused due to lack of training). Juan is
probably not provided with complex and rich texts at his zone of proximal development often, simply
because his teachers do not teach to this concept. The misuse or underuse of rigorous, timely, consistent,
and formal student data relevant for the identification of specific areas to focus on and to guide instruction
is a major area of concern. I want to think that the investment in iReady will force professional development
towards maximizing this tool and as a consequence, student data and effective learning will, sooner or later,
become a priority as teachers develop collective teacher efficacy (effect size:1.57. Fisher, Frey, Hattie,
2016, pg. 135).
“Current research and theory suggest the need for a balanced or comprehensive approach to literacy
instruction in order to achieve successful literacy programming for young children” (Fitzgerald, 1999;
McCardle, Scarborough & Catts, 2001; Rasinski & Padak, 2004, as cited by Bingham, G.E., & HallKenyon, K.M., 2013, pg. 23). Based on research from literacy experts such as Alexander Russo (2004),
Barbara Neufeld & Dana Roper (2003) or Michael Fullan (2011), I strongly believe on the need of literacy
coaches to support the organizational change at Juan’s school and the urgent need of implementing a
consistent, research-based balanced literacy model of instruction (including RtI) and assessment plan, under
the utter premise of building individual and collective capacity.
Reading and writing: Juan struggles to concentrate at close, silent reading as well as in all the stages of the
process of writing. His reading and writing are significantly below grade-level and logically impact his
achievement across all subject areas. His written expression is noticeably poor, resulting in poor production.
As an analytical and practical student, I infer that Juan struggles with bottom up processes in reading,
writing, and possibly listening as well. His attention to detail is fragile and possibly tends to rely too heavily
in top down strategies, trying to make meaning from main ideas and prior knowledge connections,
disregarding or failing to pick up significant details necessary to, first of all, decode appropriately and
second, apply higher order thinking skills to make meaning such as comparing and contrasting, drawing
conclusions, making inferences, cause and effect relationships, etc.
Since data driven small group instruction is not the predominant learning dynamic at school, addressing
Juan’s challenges timely and effectively is my biggest area of concern.
Affective domain: the fact that Juan is aware of his struggle in reading and writing, and that this ability
issue is impacting negatively his academic achievement and growth, sooner or later, could result in
frustration, self-esteem, self-efficacy, agency, and motivation problems.
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Week 2
Evaluation of current interventions and accommodations in place:
Following the school’s educational psychologist advice, Juan receives the following accommodations
though, since Juan does not have a diagnosis, these are implemented by his teachers ad hoc and without a
systematic or consistent assessment of impact or follow up:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Sits close to the teacher / teacher stands close to student during teaching
Provided with a schedule for daily routines & behavior plan with reward system
Uses an assignment notebook that teachers, parents, and student must sign daily
Shorter texts & assignments
Extra time to finish assignments
Quiet place to work on tasks when needed
Talk through problems on-on-one
Based on the scarce but preoccupying data, I can only conclude that Juan needs intensive literacy
interventions as well as a diagnosis confirmation; specifically an RtI program with SPEED intervention
criteria (DuFour, DuFour, Eaker & Many, 2006, pg. 84, as cited by DuFour, DuFour & Eaker, 2008, pg.
248): systematic, practical, effective, essential, and directive. Taking into consideration that the school does
not have an RtI system in place, I will also try to plan for an alternative response. “[…], there is now
considerable evidence, from recent intervention studies, that reading difficulties in most beginning readers
may not be directly caused by biological based cognitive deficits intrinsic to the child, but may in fact be
related to the opportunities provided for children to read” (Vellutino & Fletcher, 2005, pg. 378, as cited by
Allington, 2012, pg. 30). In other words, having into consideration that Juan has never received tutorial
interventions as an early and emerging reader, as well as the fact that he has never been serviced by expert
reading specialists, he could be simply suffering and manifesting the struggles of lack of knowledgeable and
responsive literacy teaching.
A brief summary of the reasons student was selected for this project:
I chose to work with this student for several reasons. First of all, when I spoke with the Elementary
Principal at Juan’s school she shared his case with me in hoping to find professional advice to support Juan
more effectively. Also, I have never worked with ADHD/ADD students myself; this is an excellent
opportunity to dig deeper into this disorder and prepare myself to better and more effectively coach teachers
with students that share this problem.
Adapted from ‘student profile placemat’ (Gregory et al. (2016). p.65 elementary, p, 67 secondary).
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Week 2
References:
Afflerbach, P. (2011). Understanding and using reading assessment, K-12 (2nd ed.). Newark, DE:
International Reading Association
Allington, R. L. (2012). What really matters for struggling readers: Designing research-based
programs (3rd ed.). International Reading Association: Newark, DE.
Bingham, G.E., & Hall-Kenyon, K.M. (2013). Examining teachers’ beliefs about and implementation of a
balanced literacy framework. Journal of Research in Reading, 36(1), 14-28.
DuFour, R., DuFour, R. B., & Eaker, R. E. (2008). Revisiting Professional Learning Communities at work:
New insights for improving schools. Bloomington: Solution Tree.
Fisher, D., Frey, N., & Hattie, J. (2016). Visible learning for literacy: Implementing the practices tha
work best to accelerate student learning. Thousand Oaks: Corwin.
Fullan, Michael (April, 2011). Choosing the wrong drivers for whole system reform. Center for Strategic
Education-CSE,
Seminar
Series
204.
East
Melbourne,
Victoria,
Australia.
Retrieved
from: http://michaelfullan.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/13396088160.pdf
iReady Developers and Advisors. Retrieved from:
http://www.casamples.com/downloads/AuthorsPDF_final.pdf
Neufeld, Barbara & Roper, Dana (June 2003). Coaching: A strategy for developing instructional capacity,
promises and practicalities [Preface]. Washington, DC: Aspen Institute Program on Education and
Annenberg Institute for School Reform. Retrieved from:
http://www.annenberginstitute.org/sites/default/files/product/268/files/Coaching.pdf
Russo, Alexander (July/August 2004). School-based coaching. A revolution in professional development
or just the latest fad? Harvard Education Letter, Volume 20, Number 4. Harvard Education Publishing
Group. Harvard Graduate School of Education. Massachusetts.
Retrieved from: http://hepg.org/hel-home/issues/20_4/helarticle/school-based coaching_269