Margaret Brownell ED 320-Page October 25, 2012 Child Study Report Preliminary Information: This particular child study

was done on a fifth grade female student who attends Cherry Creek Elementary in Lowell, Michigan. Cherry Creek can only be described as a rural school district located in a town that focuses on farming, trade jobs, and manufacturing. The ethnic diversity within the school is almost non-existent, as there is a 95 % Caucasian population, and the remaining five percent is spread among Native American, Asian, and African American students. The economic diversity is similar, with less than forty percent being eligible for free or reduced lunch. Together, these statistics reflect the surrounding schools in the area, as the cultural, ethnic, and socioeconomic populations are relatively homogenous within the schools, not only among students, but will teachers as well. The three assessments that I used with this child were: the initial observation, the interest/attitude survey, the analysis of the writing sample, as well as the final running record and conference. Strengths of the Child: Throughout these various assessments I was able to get to know my student and come to understand where her strengths lie. Despite her difficulty in reading she remains positive and upbeat about her literacy and refuses to let her inabilities take the pleasure out of reading. She never shows her frustration or gets upset. It is evident that she thoroughly enjoys the act of taking trips to the library to pick out books, as well as grabbing a book off the shelf to read in her down time. She is able to pick out books that fit her reading ability now and are of interest to her. She also has no difficulty in admitting that she needs help; I truly believe this will benefit her throughout her schooling. She is not ashamed to admit she does not understand something or that she needs clarification with words or meaning. She remains positive and enthusiastic throughout her reading and despite stumbling over quite a few words she continues to display an optimistic demeanor and remains unfazed. I believe these traits will enable her to continually receive the extra help she needs, as well as to grow as a reader. Areas of Need: From this observation and throughout the process of completing a running record I was able to gather quite a few details about my child. One of the main concerns I observed while listening to her read aloud is her pace and phrasing. The child continues reading despite her stumbling and trouble and she moves at a pace that can only be described as speed reading. The pace is very quick which causes her to skip over short words, such as a, and, an, but etc. She also

tends to misread words quite a bit. These to me appear to be both structure and visual miscues as she reads the beginning of the word correct and the end wrong. For example, if she had read the name Mia she would continually mispronounced it as Mail. It is my belief that she reads the beginning of the word and based on that she assumes the end and picks a familiar word rather than reading the rest of it aloud. This behavior prevents her from gaining and understanding the word as it is used in the sentence. It also affects her comprehension and ability to retell the story after completely reading a passage. This child would benefit from slowing her pace and taking the time to follow each word along as she reads. As I said above she is very enthusiastic about reading and is very persistent. Despite encountering words she does not know she continues along rather than allowing herself to get caught up in what she does not know. While this is commendable it also causes problems. Her pace is an area of need as she reads and it affects her phrasing. Rather than slowing down to pay attention to punctuation she reads each line of text as a sentence and is often times oblivious to sentence structure. Both of these areas of weakness could benefit from strategies that ask her to slow down, but that will be discussed below. The other weakness I observed lies within her writing. She takes quite a while to focus her thoughts and organize them, which results in shorter pieces of writing. The amount she does get down in focused and clear, but lacks descriptive language and creates short sentences. This is evident in the short writing sample used for this project as well as others Ive obtained. Both her reading and writing abilities could use improvement, however from these observations we have a good understanding of where to begin and what needs work. Instructional Suggestions: The two areas that I would focus on are pace, as it relates to sentence structure, comprehension and fluency, as well as strategies that help her organize her thoughts before writing. The first strategy I want to discuss is for her pace as she reads. This Directed-ReadingThinking-Activity asks the student to carefully observe headlines, titles, and captions to make a prediction before reading. She then reads up to a designated point to assess the information given and is then able to evaluate her prediction and make a new one. This continues multiple times until the selection is completed. I feel this method with encourage her to slow down her reading and process the information given. She will also be given the opportunity to re-read text if necessary. While this does not address her phrasing struggles it will in the end aid in her comprehension and her ability to retell or summarize. Above all it will allow her to slow down when reading and focus specifically on small areas of text. The second instructional strategy is focused on writing. Her problems in organizing and focusing her thoughts would be addressed with the use of two mini-lessons that ask students to think about where writers get ideas and how they chose a topic to begin writing about, as well as the big idea in writing. The second half of the mini lesson teaches the importance of a big idea and how to focus on one topic when writing. As a class create a poster that highlights the importance of a big idea, the fact that every page should be about that idea and that the title

should match. I chose this as it will help my student organize her thoughts once she has chosen a topic. She struggles with choosing a topic and committing to it and I think these two minilessons together or taught separately would aid her in understanding of where to find inspiration and what to do with it once it is found. They would help her see that she must focus on one area and organize her thoughts and the rest of her writing on that one topic. In the end I think this would give her more time to write and take away the long periods of time where she is left wondering, where do I go from here? Reflection: This entire process has taught me so much about the importance of getting to know my students as readers and writers. At the beginning of this process I assumed my student has issues with comprehension, and while yes she does, she has even bigger concerns that once addressed will clear up her small issues with comprehension. From this entire process I was able to learn about my students habits when reading, how and when she reads, and where her strengths and weaknesses lie. This has provided me with areas of need and prompted me to begin thinking of ways to address and solve her problems. While I think it would be time consuming to do this for all my students I think it would be beneficial and make my instruction more relevant and helpful. Ive learned so much about the process of getting to know my students and the importance of taking the time to evaluate what I observe within my classroom. From this I have learned how to take my new information and use it to better help each of my students individual needs. This all posses many questions however. How do I begin to do this for each of my students in a timely manner so as to get what I need done to help them? How can I possibly take all of this information and make sense of it in a way that my entire class will benefit from? This information is useful but the process is lengthy, while I do think it is worth it, Im left wondering how to manage all of this and incorporate it into my daily work and the rest of the curriculum.