Jenna Ferrara
RDG 696
Case Study: Kate
Table of Contents
Demographics .
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Reason for Referral .
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Student, Parent and Teacher Interview .
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Interview Triangulation of Data .
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Diagnosis .
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Remedial Plan.
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Data Charts .
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Demographics
Student: Kate
Evaluator: Jenna Ferrara
Date of Evaluation: 9/21/11 Student’s Birthdate: 4/20/05
School: Valley View School in Portland, CT
Grade: 1
Parents: Lara and Doug
Address: 167 Paley Farms Road, Portland, CT 06480
Email: NedobityL@aetna.com, doug_a_nedobity@uhc.com
Reason for Referral
Kate is in first grade at Valley View Elementary School. She was identified by her
special education teacher as a student that struggles in reading.
Interviews
Student Interview
Kate is a very happy and talkative girl. She took her time answering the reading survey
and was honest about how she felt about reading. Kate’s ratings were almost equal towards
recreational reading and academic reading. Kate responded negatively to the questions that
referred to reading for fun at home, learning from a book, reading out loud in class, and getting a
book for a present.
When asked what books she liked, Kate responded Clifford eagerly. She said she loved
that there was a doggy in the story.
When asked about her other interests, Kate expressed interests in playing Candy Land,
gym, music, going to Story Land, and chocolate.
Parent Interview
Kate is the oldest child in her family. She has one younger sister who is 4 years old.
According to her parents, Kate is happy, friendly, a bit stubborn, and likes structure. At home
Kate likes to dance and color. She also likes to play tea party, board games (Candyland is a
favorite), and Leapster. When outdoors Kate likes big wheels and her playscape.
Kate has shown interest in books from the age of six months. When asked what types of
books Kate likes to read at home, Kate’s mother responded, “I just asked her favorite and she
said Brown Bear, Brown Bear, but really that can change weekly. Some other favorites recently
are the Danny and the Dinosaur series, and a variety of Dora reading books, as well as Dr. Seuss,
Curious George and a particular Cowgirl book. She also likes the Sandra Boynton books
(Barnyard dance, Pajama time, etc.).”
In terms of schooling, Kate participated in a birth to 3 program and then started preschool
at Valley View when she turned 3. She also was in Apple Tree Children's center from when she
was 4 months old until she started in Kindergarten, so she had early learning and preschool there
as well. When Kate’s homework attitude was questioned, her mother responded that her attitude
is good, but she needs minimal distractions to focus though. When it comes to reading, Kate’s
mother stated, “[her] attitude is great, [she] reads a book every night before bed.”
Kate’s mother also informed me that when Kate gets excited about something, she tends
to talk very fast and sometimes is hard to understand. Kate just needs a reminder to slow down
and pronunciate and she will.
Teacher Interview
According to Kate’s case manager, Mrs. Kelley, Kate has done well learning individual
skills (letters, sounds, sight words, numbers). Her sentence writing has improved. Her sentences
tend to be very simple, but she is able to generate them and write them fairly independently. Rs.
Kelley stated that Kate’s parents are extremely supportive and work with her regularly at home.
Her skill acquisition has been on grade level.
Some areas of concern for Kate are her listening and reading comprehension, vocabulary,
problem solving, work pace, fine motor skill, and elaboration in writing, When she has to
integrate skills/apply skills she needs more assistance. A big concern is whether Kate can keep
up with the pace of first grade.
Kate is a visual learner. She learns best from drill and practice.
Mrs. Kelley said that, “Kate loves to please her teachers and is generally a very good
worker. Occasionally she can become stubborn and be persistent doing things her way if she
doesn't want to do something. Last year she had a daily behavior plan that focused on having her
complete her work/best quality. Her parents were fully on board and rewarded her weekly if she
earned it with a trip to "the cow store" (Stew Leonard's). She LOVES it there and was highly
motivated to earn it.”
Triangulation of Data
Data Charts
Word lists were used to determine a starting point for assessment. Trey completed five oral
passages, three silent passages, and two listening passages. Below find the results of these
assessments.
Diagnosis
Word List
Kate began her assessment with the pre-primer list. She was able to automatically
identify 80% of the words. Kate skipped the words “who”, “write”, and “place”. Kate paused
when she came to “with” but was able to sound it out and identify it. Altogether, Kate identified
85% of the words placing her at the instructional level.
Qualitative Reading Inventory - Oral Reading
Using the word list as a guide, the administrator started on the pre-primer passage, “Who
Do I See?” While reading, 11 miscues were made. Many of the miscues were from two words –
do and bet. Kate kept stating “did” and “bait” respectively. With miscues, Kate read 24 correct
words per minute. This places her in the ______ percentile. During the retelling, Kate was able
to recall 33% of the text. She remembered all the animals in the text, but they were not in
sequence during the retelling. In terms of comprehension, Kate was able to answer four out of
five questions correctly. This placed her at the instructional level.
To see if Kate performed the same on another text of the same level, the pre-primer
passage “Just Like Mom” was administered. In this passage, Kate had three miscues (wear for
write, lost for lots, and omitting “to” from a sentence). Kate read 26 correct words per minute in
this passage. This places her in the ______ percentile. During the retelling, Kate was able to
recall 33% of the text. Most of her recall came from the beginning of the text.
Digit Memory Span Lists
Kate was presented with the directions for the digit memory span assessment. This
assessment tests working memory. Numbers are read to the student and she is to respond
repeating the numbers in sequence. The assessment is then done in reverse. Numbers are read
and the student must reverse the numbers and repeat them.
Kate was successful in repeating the two, three, and four digit numbers, 8-5, 3-7-4, and 72-9-5 respectively. When presented with the numbers 5-8-2-7-4, Kate stated 5-6-7-4. She was
then read the numbers 3-9-4-8-1 and she responded 3-8-1. One more chance was given with the
numbers 7-2-5-8-3, but Kate replied 8-3-6. In all but the last instance, Kate's responses included
correct numbers but she left out some digits.
At this point, the administrator said the directions for the reverse digits task. If 3-4 was
stated, the student should reply 4-3. The numbers 1-6 were stated and Kate responded 1-6.
Another attempt was done with the numbers 3-8 and she stated 3-8. The administrator stopped
the assessment at this point since Kate was not responding by reversing the digits.
The
assessment was the last one done after a few that day, so Kate might have been tired. The
assessment will be given on another day to see if Kate is able to reverse the digits.
Phonics Inventory
The Phonics Inventory consists of 50 words, 10 in each item. The words start with short
vowel words, then progress to words with short vowels with clusters (blends), long vowels, r
vowels, and other vowels. Students have 5 seconds to read each word. The assessment is
stopped when the student misses five words in a row. A student's instructional level is found
when he/she has more than 2 words wrong in any of the items.
Kate correctly identified all ten out of ten short vowel words.
At first, she had
pronounced "sip" for "top" but she self-corrected herself. Initially Kate read "not" for "hot", but
she self-corrected that as well. On the short vowel items with clusters, Kate reached her
instructional level. Kate stopped to sound out each word, but was able to figure out seven out of
ten words in the list. Her miscues were "sap" for "clap", "black" for "block" and "trick" for
"trunk." In all cases the ending of the word matched the list word. In two cases, the vowel was
incorrect and in the first case the beginning sound was incorrect.
Kate continued down the list since she had not missed five words in a row and she was
still motivated to continue. In the long vowels section, Kate correctly read 6 words. She missed
the words place (pence), hope (hop), sheep (shep), and coat (caught). These miscues show that
Kate needs some work on how to read words with long vowel patterns. Kate matched the
beginning and ending patterns in the words, but was unsure what vowel sounds to make in the
middle.
The r-controlled vowel items were next.
Kate missed the first five words - nurse
(skipped), steer (seer), share (fair), smart (most), and fair (free). Kate had stopped sounding out
the words and was simply guessing. Her frustrational level had been reached.
Rapid Automatized Naming
In the Rapid Automatized Naming task, Kate was presented with a series of numbers,
letters, and pictures separately. When given a section of the assessment, Kate had to name the
items as quickly as possible. This assessment measures a student's lexical processing, or how
long it takes students to retrieve and "name" the items presented.
Kate began with the picture task. The pictures included on the page are of a cup, key,
shoe, hat, and clothes pin. 55 pictures of these assorted items and mixed up and presented on the
page. Kate kept interchanging the word "clip" and "pin" for the clothing pin. While working,
Kate developed the hiccups. This may have slowed down her time, but she finished in 116
seconds. This placed her in the second percentile.
Kate then moved to the numbers task (with hiccups). Instead of pictures, the numbers
zero through nine are presented mixed up 55 times. Kate named the numbers in 96 seconds.
Kate had lost her place one time. This put her below the first percentile.
Lastly, Kate moved to the letters task (with hiccups). Kate named the letters in 74
seconds. This placed her in the 10th percentile.
Administrator will reassess Kate again to see if Kate's speed is faster without hiccups.
Orthographic Knowledge
In this assessment, Kate needed to look at a given word and then underline which of the
four choice words was the same. Out of the fifteen words, Kate selected ten words correctly.
For the word "cat", Kate selected "cap". When presented with the word "walk", Kate kept saying
that the word was not in the four choices. Other miscues were choosing "then" for "than",
"were" for "where", and "here" for "hear". In most instance when Kate selected the incorrect
word, she selected one at the beginning of the four choices. It seemed as if she chose words
quickly if they looked the same at a glance. She did not read through all the words and then
select the incorrect response.
Slosson Oral Reading Test (SORT)
For the SORT, Kate was presented with a list of twenty words. The entire SORT
includes ten word lists ranging from primer (pre-first grade) to high school (grades nine-twelve).
In order to successfully complete the list, Kate needed to get all twenty words correct.
Automaticity is important in this assessment. The ceiling is reached when all twenty words in a
list are missed.
Kate started her assessment at the primer list. Kate automatically read sixteen words
correctly. The words "help" and "baby" tricked Kate at first, but she sounded them out and read
them correctly. Kate missed the words want (w-ant), three (there), and run (ran). All of her
attempts were close to the target words. The only non-word she stated was w-ant.
Overall, orally I found Trey’s print skills to be a strength for him. He was able to read
with fluency and expression. He paused for punctuation and was able to self-correct 63%, or
seventeen out of twenty-seven, of his errors. An additional 22%, or five out of twenty-seven,
errors retained meaning.
Trey’s rate of reading ranged from 98 to 133 words per minute. In the interview, Trey
had stated his dislike of science, yet his rate was the fastest for this passage. Out of all passages,
besides the think aloud, Trey was most familiar with this passage with 75% prior knowledge.
Trey’s least familiar passage was about Patricia McKissack with 42% prior knowledge. In this
passage, he had the lowest rate of reading with 98 words per minute. This shows me that as
Trey’s familiarity decreases, his rate of reading also decreases.
Oral Reading Comprehension
Trey’s retelling scores range from 23% to 34%. This information suggests that Trey has
a difficult time remembering the main idea and details from the text he just read. Most of the
information he remembered after reading the story took place in the beginning or middle of the
passage. Most of the events from the ending of the passages were left out in the retell.
In all passages, Trey read at an independent level. His comprehension in all but one
passage, Amelia Earhart, came up instructional. The pattern that emerged was that Trey had
trouble with implicit questions. Every time Trey missed an implicit question and was allowed to
look back, he would read the paragraph where the answer was implicitly, but he could not figure
out the answer because it was not directly stated in the text. I would tell him to read between the
lines, but he still stated, “The answer is not here.” In 60% of the passages, Trey was unable to
look back and find implicit answers to questions.
Silent Reading Strategies and Comprehension
Using the oral reading passages as a guide, I decided to start Trey with a fifth grade
narrative passage. Trey was 83% familiar with the Martin Luther King, Jr. passage. In this
passage, Trey was able to answer all four implicit and explicit questions correctly without look
backs. In terms of retelling, Trey listed some events from the middle of the passage. He was
able to retell 21% of the text.
I then gave Trey a fifth grade expository passage, “How Does Your Body Take in
Oxygen?” He was 67% familiar with this topic. Trey’s rate of reading was 126 words per
minute. In retelling, Trey was able to recall 16% of the information. In terms of comprehension,
Trey was able to answer all explicit questions without look-backs. Implicitly he was able to
answer three questions without looking back and four questions after looking back. While the
passage was instructional without look backs, it was independent with look backs.
After administering these two passages, I spoke with Trey about his reading. I asked him
which passages he prefers, oral or silent, and he stated without hesitation, “Silent, definitely.”
Trey was aware that his comprehension was stronger when he was able to read it to himself
instead of out loud to me.
I decided to administer a sixth grade narrative passage to Trey, “Lois Lowry.” While he
was unfamiliar, 50%, with Lois Lowry, he seemed more excited to read because he knew he did
not have to read it out loud to me.
Trey’s rate of reading was a bit slower, due to the
unfamiliarity of the text, at 117 words per minute. In terms of retelling, Trey was able to recall
21% of the text. All explicit questions were answered correctly without looking back. Two
implicit questions were correct without looking back, but another was correct after looking back.
This put him at the instructional level.
While Trey still responded, “The answer is not here.” at times when looking back to find
implicit answers, he seemed to struggle less than when he read orally. On average, his rate of
reading was higher in silent reading than oral reading. In terms of retelling, Trey’s percentages
ranged from 16-21%. While his comprehension was stronger when silently reading, his retelling
scores lessoned.
Unfortunately, Trey’s lacrosse season has begun and due to practices and games I was
unable to test him again silently. I would have loved to have given him a sixth grade expository
passage to see if this was also his instructional level. It also would have been interesting to find
what his silent frustration level.
Listening Reading Strategies
I was able to administer two listening passages to Trey. The first passage I decided to
give was an Upper Middle School passage. Trey decided he wanted to listen to “Life Cycle of
Stars - Part 1.” While he was unfamiliar with the topic, 33%, I figured that since he did not have
to read the passage, it would be easier for him to understand. As I began to read, I wish I had
previewed the passage more prior to starting. The level of vocabulary included in the passage
was incredibly high.
I would have suggested another passage if I realized the amount of
vocabulary included, but since he chose the passage I continued. Trey recalled was only 10% of
the text. In terms of comprehension questions, Trey answered one explicit and one implicit
question correctly. Looking back, he was able to answer one other explicit question. Even with
look backs, this passage was frustrating to Trey. The large amount of vocabulary hindered his
ability to comprehend the passage.
For the second listening passage, I decided to try a sixth grade narrative passage. Trey
chose to listen to “Abraham Lincoln.” He was very familiar, 92%, with this topic. His recall
was the highest it has ever been at 45%. Trey was also able to answer three explicit and two
implicit questions without looking back. After looking back, Trey was able to answer one
additional explicit question, but the implicit answers “weren’t there.” While this was at the
frustrational level at first, with look backs it is at the instructional level.
Trey’s ability to recall almost half of the information shows me that he is able to
remember information presented to him orally. While he was still struggling with implicit
questioning, his retelling shows me his preferred method of absorbing new information. Given
more time, I would have loved to give him more listening passages to find his independent level.
I also would have loved to see if he retellings continued to improve on listening passages, as long
as the vocabulary was not overwhelming!
Recommendations
Trey demonstrated strength in his print skills. His reading instruction should concentrate
on developing strategies to improve his retention and comprehension of text. Comprehension
instruction that focuses on prior knowledge, making connections, drawing conclusions,
visualizing, and processing text will help to improve Trey’s ability to understand what he reads.
Before reading, Trey needs to have a purpose for reading. If he is given a goal for
reading, comprehension will improve. Activities that focus on identifying the different purposes
for reading will enhance Trey’s understanding of text. Setting his own goals for reading will
also increase his ability to recall text.
Remedial Plan
The following remedial plan provides objectives, critical focus areas and suggested areas
that will address Trey’s areas of concern in reading.
Evidence
Critical Focus Area
QRI Listening
Vocabulary
Objective
Activities
Student will
preview content
area vocabulary to
aid
comprehension.
Home: Since Trey likes reading
science fiction books, preview the
text prior to him reading and look
for vocabulary or terms that he
may be unfamiliar with that would
effect his making meaning of the
text. Review those terms so he
may comprehend as he reads.
School: Provide opportunities for
students to preview vocabulary
prior to learning a new content
area, so the vocabulary does not
reflect negatively on
comprehension.
QRI - All
Comprehension Visualizing/Retelling
Student will form
visual images of
text while reading
to aid
comprehension
and ability to
retell.
Home: To help with retelling at
home, Trey can watch television
shows and retell what he watches.
He can also visualize and apply
retelling strategies to speak about
his lacrosse practices and games.
School: Read a paragraph and
draw a picture representing a
summary. Continue with each
paragraph and then utilize
drawings to do a retelling of the
text.
QRI - All
Comprehension Making Connections
Student will
understand and
comprehend text
more effectively
through the use of
text-to-self, textto-text, and text-toworld
connections.
Home/School: While Trey reads, his
teacher(s) and parents can ask him the
following questions.
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Text-to-self:
What does this remind me of in my
life?
What is this similar to in my life?
How is this different from my life?
Has something like this ever
happened to me?
How does this relate to my life?
What were my feelings when I read
this?
Text-to-text:
What does this remind me of in
another book I’ve read?
How is this text similar to other
things I’ve read?
How is this different from other
books I’ve read?
Have I read about something like this
before?
Text-to-world:
What does this remind me of in the
real world?
How is this text similar to things that
happen in the real world?
How is this different from things that
happen in the real world?
How did that part relate to the world
around me?
QRI - All
Comprehension Making
Inferences/Drawing
Conclusions and
Implicit Questioning
Student will read
between the lines,
or infer, what the
author is implying
in text.
Student will use
knowledge of
inferencing to
answer implicit
questions.
QRI
Further assessment
of silent and listening
comprehension.
Students will find
his silent and
listening
independent,
instructional, and
frustration levels.
Home:
 Use comic books or strips at
home. Have Trey explain why
certain cartoons are funny or
what you have to think in your
mind that the author does not
tell you.
School:
 Show pictures and have
students imply how characters
are thinking or feeling.
 Quia: Inference Battleship
 Inferencing graphic organizer what the text says and what it
means
 More comic strip activities have him write his own
 Ask a lot of implicit questions
during class time
School: