Running Head: AYDEN: A CASE STUDY NARRATIVE

Ayden: A Case Study Narrative

Daniel Coffin
Concordia University, Nebraska

Submitted in partial fulfillment of

the requirements for EDUC 631
October 24th, 2016

Abstract

AYDEN: A CASE STUDY NARRATIVE

This is a narrative of a case study involving a first-grade boy who struggles with sight word
identification, oral reading fluency, reading comprehension, and fine motor skills. The Dolch
sight words and DIBELS battery of assessments were used to ascertain Aydens present levels of
phonemic awareness, proficiency with text decoding, phrasing and prosody in oral reading, and
use of reading comprehension skills and strategies. Formative assessment continued throughout
the case study. Interventions used included drill with sight word lists, practice with rime and
onset using sound boxes, paired and audio-assisted rereading, think-alouds to model predicting
and making connecting while reading, retelling rubrics and semantic mapping. The use of these
interventions has helped Ayden to improve his decoding, oral reading fluency, reading
comprehension, and enjoyment of reading.

Ayden: A Case Study Narrative

AYDEN: A CASE STUDY NARRATIVE

Ayden is a first-grade student. Ayden has two siblings, a twin brother named Vincent and
a three-year-old sister named Gabriella. He is an excitable, affable, socially well-adjusted sixyear-old boy. His mother reports that he is well-liked by his teachers and peers and enjoys going
to school to be around his friends (Ruple, 2016). He has lots of energy and enjoys taking breaks
every few moments to drum with his fingers, tap his toes, or run around. He punctuates his
speech with explosion noises and demonstrations of wrestling moves he has seen on TV,
complete with each wrestlers catchphrase. Sports and athletics are an important part of Aydens
life. His mother enrolled him in wrestling and football originally as a means to teach discipline
and burn off energy, but he has come to thrive, winning several awards for being a star player
(Ruple, 2016).
While Ayden does okay at school by his mothers accounting, he does not muster much
enthusiasm for academics. When asked if he reads very much, he responded, Not really. Not
now. Its not time for reading (2016). When pressed to add to his answer, he eventually
mumbled that reading was hard and also boring. Boring was a word that Ayden used frequently
to describe literacy experiences. There is no lack of reading material for Ayden to read if he so
chose, but by his accounting, he did not read any of the books purchased as gifts for him and his
brother by family members.
When asked if he had ever read a book that he liked, he thought and said that he had a
Star Wars book that he had liked. When prompted, he showed the book, which was entitled
Escape from Darth Vader. He opened the book and flipped through the pages, narrating the
action based on what the pictures suggested. In some instances, these inferences were accurate,
in most, however, they were not. On one of the pages where Ayden had successfully described
the action illustrated on the page, I asked him to read from the book aloud. Almost immediately,

AYDEN: A CASE STUDY NARRATIVE

Aydens demeanor changed. He had been happy to look at and talk about the book with me, but
as soon as he was asked to start reading aloud from it he became sullen and irritable. With
additional prompting, he attempted to read a few sentences before getting frustrated and
changing the subject. He did not seem to make consistent connections between letters and sounds
and was confused by some simple sight words. He did recognize character names (Darth Vader,
for instance), but was unable to explain, aside from the initial consonants, which letters made
which sounds.
When asked if he enjoyed writing, Ayden answered in the negative very emphatically.
Writing as a subject in school is again stupid (Ruple, 2016). When asked to explain why this is,
he added that he did not like the stories he wrote in school. When asked what stories he would
write if he could, he indicated that he liked Star Wars, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and
professional wrestling, and he would write about any of these. At one point, he walked to his
room to fetch an assignment from school to show me, which was a story he had written about a
wrestling match, completed with illustrations and cover. It was apparent that he was very proud
of this work.
Ayden did not indicate that he had any reading goals of his own during the interview.
When asked directly what, if anything, he would like to develop or chance with some additional
instruction, he first indicated nothing and then, finally, with a little urging, to make it easier
(Ruple, 2016). It is apparent from speaking with Ayden and viewing his work that his feeling of
self-efficacy and intrinsic motivation have a great effect on his literacy achievement. (Kennedy,
2011). He evinces an external locus of control when speaking of literacy tasks; they are either
easy when he is successful, or they are hard when he is not, and no amount of effort (he seems to
think) is sufficient to achieve success (Marzano, 2003; Ruple, 2016).

AYDEN: A CASE STUDY NARRATIVE

His family is loving and supportive, but due to their work schedules, his mother and
father find it difficult to provide Ayden and his brother with the academic supports they feel they
need. His uncle occasionally is able to help with particular projects or assignments, but there
isnt a figure in the household regularly pushing Ayden to read and respond.
As Beers (2003) notes, a failure to successfully read independently can be due to a
number of different factors, ranging from phonology to phonics to fluency to vocabulary to
comprehension, or any combination of the same. In order to determine Aydens strengths and
opportunities for growth, I delivered a test for the Dolch sight words kindergarten list and the
DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) battery of assessments, specifically,
the Nonsense Word Fluency, Oral Reading Fluency, and Retell Fluency tests. On the Nonsense
Word Fluency test, Ayden scored 37 correct letter sounds, putting him just above the cut point for
risk. On the Oral Reading Fluency test, Ayden scored 14 words correct with 64% accuracy,
putting him just above the cut point for risk, and on the Retell Fluency test, Ayden scored 10
words. There is no generally accepted benchmark for DIBELS Retell Fluency, but his score
indicates that he is not remembering much of what he reads, at least to a degree to which he
would be able to share that information with another (Good & Kaminski, 2002). Finally, Ayden
scored 27 out of 41 words correct on the Dolch kindergarten sight words list. There is no
generally accepted benchmark for this informal assessment, but I would consider a student
proficient at 80% correct, which would have been 33.
In addition to his reading issues, Ayden evinced very poor handwriting due to some fine
motor issues while holding a writing instrument. His mother indicated that the problem wasnt
structural but was the result of having learned incorrectly how to hold a pencil in preschool. His
mother reported that she was trying to get Ayden time with an occupational therapist as part of a

AYDEN: A CASE STUDY NARRATIVE

504 plan (Ruple, A.D., 2016). In the interim, she had purchased for his classroom use triangular
pencils and pencil grips, which I agreed I would have him use during his time with me.
These data indicated that my student needed targeted assistance with phonological recoding,
recognizing sight words, reading with appropriate phrasing and intonation, and developing
strategies to aid in reading comprehension, and so these were the categories I organized my
interventions around. As phonics and phonemic awareness comprise the foundation for later
literacy learning, this is where I began preparing my intervention (DeVries, 2015).
At the beginning of this case study, my student would frequently confuse letters and the
sounds they represented, which would cause him to mispronounce words in his reading and
misspell words in his writing. This skill is called phonological recoding and is an important
precursor to successful reading (Rasinski, 2010). As research indicates that concept of word and
onset-rime segmentations are powerful predictors of overall reading ability, I incorporated
rhyming games, practice with word families, and the use of Elkonin boxes to practice
segmenting words into constituent phonemes to develop these competencies (Fountas & Pinnell,
2016; Munro, 1998).
Concurrent with the phonological intervention, I began drilling the kindergarten Dolch sight
words with Ayden. Using the SightWorder website made what would likely otherwise been an
aversive task more interesting as it involved the use of a computer, which is still novel for a child
of his age. While we started on the kindergarten list, within a couple of weeks, Ayden had
improved sufficiently to progress to the first-grade list. In time, Ayden grew to take great
satisfaction in noticing these words in our reading together and pointing them out to me to
indicate that he recognized them. I formalized this procedure by instituting after the first few
weeks DeVries Match the Word game (2015). Whenever we would read a new text, Ayden

AYDEN: A CASE STUDY NARRATIVE

was instructed to be on the lookout for targeted sight words. I offered a bounty on these words
of a small piece of candy for each word so identified. After having identified words, Ayden could
then earn further rewards for using the targeted sight words correctly and meaningfully in a
sentence. While I am generally opposed to the use of prizes and other incentives to extrinsically
motivate student learning, it seemed appropriate given that this sight word intervention would be
of extraordinarily low intrinsic interest, especially to a disengaged reader.
As Ayden and I made progress with phonology and decoding, I gradually began introducing a
fluency development component to our sessions. This was comprised of a series of repeated
readings of a high-interest text (Rasinski, 2010). The repeated readings were structured in the
following way: first, I would model proficient reading with an even pace, appropriate intonation,
and meaningful phrasing. After modeling, Ayden and I would read together two or three times,
with me giving him feedback on his performance and gradually dropping out of the reading as he
demonstrated mastery of that particular text. I would try to target no more than one aspect of
fluency per read-through. We generally first tackled even rate, and with that achieved, proceeded
to phrasing, with intonation last (Rasinski, 2010).
Rate and intonation I taught primarily through modeling Read this like me, for instance,
supplemented with audio-assisted reading for Ayden to practice with at home. These recordings
were prepared by me and shared with Ayden and his family via iTunes so that Ayden could listen
and read along out loud on his iPod at home. As Ayden grew more comfortable with the text, he
was prompted to phase out the audio and read aloud without accompaniment (Rasinski, 2010).
Phrasing was taught and reinforced through marking copies of text to be read. An X was
written wherever he would take a breath while reading. During our first read-through, I would
model appropriate phrasing, and then we would read together, clapping when we came to an X in

AYDEN: A CASE STUDY NARRATIVE

our text. Gradually we would phase out the clapping as the pausing became consistent on its own
(Rasinski, 2010). Ayden enjoyed the physical aspect of clapping to signal when he needed to
pause.
As research indicates that fluency development is most effective when incorporated into a
comprehensive literacy learning program; I paired our fluency lessons with interventions
designed to support Ayden in making meaning of what he has read. According the constructivist
model of epistemology, learners learn not by acquiring information from another, more
knowledgeable source, but by actively constructing it in order to make sense of their
surroundings (Gash, 2015). Any sort of learning which does not involve the active participation
of the learner in creating meaning is likely to be ephemeral and not last. It stands to reason, then,
that the most durable form of understanding in the realm of literacy learning would be a
technique which calls upon readers and writers to create an artifact of their understanding of a
text.
Gambrell, Koskinen, and Kapinus research reviews the efficacy of retelling practice as
measured by the scores of students on cued-recall questions related to a selection four sessions
following reading the text.; their findings indicated that practice in retelling correlated with
significant improvements in both the quality (accuracy and detail) and quantity (length) of
retellings not just in proficient readers, but in non-proficient readers as well (1991). They suggest
that this effect is due to the fact that the process of retelling requires a reader to deconstruct a text
and then reconstruct it in their own words, reflecting upon the text and making distinctions
between the text itself, the meaning conveyed by the text, and the authors purpose for writing
(Gambrell, Koskinen, & Kapinus, 1991).

AYDEN: A CASE STUDY NARRATIVE

Retelling was modeled and then supported by the use of a retelling organizer and rubric (see
Appendix E). With the use of graphic organization techniques like K-W-L (Know-Want to
Know-Learned) charts, first-then-last organizers to structure retelling, and semantic mapping,
Ayden has strengthened his ability to figure out what matters most in a text and be able to share
that information with another (Beers, 2003). Through the practice of comprehension strategies
like making connections between his reading and his life and the people and things around him
and retelling stories and information text, as well as practice in when to employ these strategies,
Ayden has grown as a reader who makes meaning of the things he reads. His retelling of stories
has also fueled his enthusiasm for his own storytelling (Beers, 2003; DeVries, 2015).
Research indicates that a balanced approach to literacy learning incorporates instruction and
practice not only in reading but in writing as well, as gains in proficiency in either receptive and
expressive written communication will inform and support the other (Kennedy, 2011). As Ayden
came to better understand the underlying structure of narrative, it could be seen emerging in his
freewriting of stories; conversely, a conversation about conflict stemming from him sharing a
story about a wrestling match prompted him to be on the lookout for a conflict in our reading
together. His handwriting continues to be an issue for him, but as his occupational therapy
progresses, this should diminish, allowing his enthusiasm for storytelling to show through (See
Appendix C).
Ayden made significant gains over the course of our time together. He has gone from 27
correct letter sounds in our initial assessment to 39 in our final assessment on the DIBELS
Nonsense Word Fluency assessment, from 19 words correct and 84% accuracy to 24 words
correct and 92% accuracy on the DIBELS Oral Reading Fluency assessment, from a 9 to a 10 on
the DIBELS Retell Fluency assessment, and from 27 of 41 correct on the kindergarten Dolch

AYDEN: A CASE STUDY NARRATIVE

10

sight words list to 35 of 40 correct on the first-grade list. As I suspected at the beginning of the
case study, Aydens dislike for reading was maintained, at least in his part, by his struggles with
reading independently. These interventions which have shown him how to be successful, along
with providing high-interest reading material of his choosing, have helped Ayden to develop into
a more enthusiastic and effective reader.
Such was his hunger for stories about the Star Wars characters and wrestling heroes he
enjoyed that we quickly exhausted the titles available to us in our brief time together. On one
occasion, after being told that there werent any new wrestling or Star Wars books to read for that
day, he remarked that it was okay because he would write some of his own (Ruple, 2016). This,
for me, was quite a remarkable indicator that Ayden had grown to become not just a more active
consumer of text but had been inspired to create it as well. Neither am I and his family the only
ones who have noticed a change in Ayden. Several weeks into the case study, Ayden brought
home an award for his mastery of sight words, one of the areas of particular focus for our case
study (see Appendix D). While our time together has come to an end with the end of the case
study, I have gathered together my notes and data and shared these with Aydens regular
classroom teacher at the request of his mother so that he can continue to grow and improve over
the course of this year.
This case study has been an incredible learning experience for me as well. When I was a
young man, I didnt know anything about how cars worked. When a check engine light came on,
I had no answer but to go to the mechanic. Over time, I learned how to take care of myself and
the interrelation of parts lost its mystery and became something I could do something about.
Similarly, as a novice practitioner of literacy education, I was often mystified when a student
evinced a total lack of understanding of reading. I quite literally didnt know what to do or how

AYDEN: A CASE STUDY NARRATIVE

11

to help that student and I was left with no recourse but to throw my hands in the air and declare,
as Beers did, that the student in question just couldnt read (2003). This case study has given me
valuable hands-on experience in breaking the reading event into its constituent competencies and
exploring through assessment and intervention how each may be targeted and how changes in
one affect the others.
This case study has also given me a whole new appreciation for organization and planning. I
am chagrined to admit that I have frequently been a seat of my pants kind of teacher, selecting
and implementing instructional techniques based on instinct and without recourse to data to
justify my decisions. In planning and delivering assessments and using the information to choose
and enact interventions, I have learned how being organized has made my instruction much more
effective because I am better able then to make instructional decisions in an informed matter
(DeVries, 2015). Being more methodical in my planning also helps me to be more reflective on
what I have done, thinking more deeply about what worked, what didnt, and why.
Lastly, I have learned a great deal about the effect of motivation on learning achievement, not
only by observing this effect on Ayden, but on myself as well. Ayden was possessed of great
potential which was untapped because there hadnt been anyone who would meet him on his
terms. When presented with texts and literacy experiences which drew on his interests, he was
motivated to do so much more than he otherwise would. I hope that with time, Ayden will fall in
love with reading and writing themselves and broaden his horizons with regard to his choice of
reading material, but for now, it is enough that he is reading. For my part, finishing this case
study has required a massive commitment of time and effort, both physical and mental. There
were several times when I doubted I had the energy to keep working. Still, every time I saw

AYDEN: A CASE STUDY NARRATIVE

12

Aydens growing enthusiasm and mastery, I was empowered to muster my own inner reserves
and carry on. Truly, he was an inspiration, and a pleasure to work with.
Through the EDUC 630 and 631 courses I have gained a greater knowledge of the many
moving parts which together comprise the experience of reading. I began working at my
current school in 2013, with only two years of middle school Language Arts teaching experience
and a Bachelors degree under my belt. What I didnt know about literacy education could have
filled several books. It was likely because of this relative inexperience and ignorance that, when I
accepted the position of 6th grade reading teacher, it didnt necessarily strike me as odd that our
school didnt seem to have a coherent protocol in place for helping students who couldnt read
well on their own. More often than not, if the serious objections about a students ability to
perform well in my class that I raised were heard by administration, the student was removed
from my class and moved into either the basic skills class or the self-contained classroom for
students who received an IEP over the course of the schoolyear. What interventions students
received in these other classrooms, I couldnt say, as the students were removed from my charge,
and I was subtly encouraged to essentially mind my own business.
Interventions for struggling students were informal, improvised, and generally shared
from peer-to-peer during lunch or after-hours text messages. We did not have the wherewithal to
categorize and analyze the potential import of the types of reading errors we were seeing from
our students, and so our options for targeted intervention were limited (Caldwell & Leslie, 2013).
Our problems were compounded by the fact that we had all been trained as secondary-level
content-matter specialists and not one of us had any real training as a teacher of literacy. All our
teacher preparation training had led us to assume that students would be able to read by the time

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13

they got to our classrooms; we were not prepared to deal with students who could not decode
text or who had a crippling paucity of vocabulary.
I now feel so much better prepared and equipped to help the students who need it the
most. I neednt throw my hands in the air in despair and hopelessness. I know that, so long as a
student is willing to work with me, I can find a way to help that student be successful. Ive
learned a lot, and I know that there is much still to learn, but at least I know what I dont know,
and I no longer assume that what is outside my immediate experience isnt impossible. It is with
this informed, inquisitive, and empowered mindset that I embark on the next phase of my career
as a literacy teacher.

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14

References
Beers, G. K. (2003). When kids cant read: What teachers can do (3rd ed.). Portsmouth, NH:
Heinemann.
Braver, J. (2009). SightWorder: Dolch sight words online flash cards. [Website]. Retrieved from:
http://sightworder.com/old/
Caldwell, J.S., & Leslie, L. (2013). Intervention strategies to follow informal reading inventory
assessment: So what do I do now? (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.
DeVries, B.A. (2015). Literacy assessment & intervention for classroom teachers (4th ed.).
Scottsdale, AZ.
Fountas, I., & Pinnell, G.S. (2016). The Fountas & Pinnell comprehensive phonics, spelling, and
word guide. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Gambrell, L.B., Koskinen, P.S., & Kapinus, B.A. (1991). Retelling and the reading
comprehension of proficient and less-proficient readers. Journal of Educational Research,
84(6), 356-362.
Gash, H. (2015). Knowledge construction: A paradigm shift. New Directions for Teaching &
Learning, 2015(143), p. 5-23.
Good, R.H., & Kaminski, R.A. (Eds.) (2002). Dynamic indicators of basic early literacy skills
(6th ed.). Eugene, OR: Institute for the Development of Educational Achievement. Retrieved
from http://dibels.uoregon.edu
Kennedy, E. (2011). Narrowing the achievement gap: Motivation, engagement, and self-efficacy
matter. Journal of Education, 190(3), 1-11.
Marzano, R.J. (2003). What works in schools: Translating research into action. Alexandria, VA:
ASCD.

AYDEN: A CASE STUDY NARRATIVE

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Munro, J. (1998). Assessing & teaching phonological knowledge. Perth, WA: Australian Council
for Educational Research.
Rasinski, T.V. (2010). The fluent reader: Oral & silent reading strategies for building fluency,
word recognition & comprehension (2nd ed.). New York: Scholastic Teaching Resources.
Ruple, A. (2016, July 19). Personal interview with D. Coffin.
Ruple, A.D. (2016, August 4). Personal interview with D. Coffin.

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Appendix A
Aydens Individual Intervention Plan
Student
Difficulty
Recognize the
connections
between sounds
and letters in
single-syllable
words.

Recognize gradeappropriate sight

words.

Assessment
Data
DIBELS
Nonsense
Word Fluency
37 Correct
Letter Sounds;
DIBELS
Nonsense
Word Fluency
38 Correct
Letter Sounds;
DIBELS
Nonsense
Word Fluency
39 Correct
Letter Sounds
Dolch Sight
Word
Assessment
27/41 correct
missed ate,
what, there,
white, please,
saw, say, under,
came, into,
black, brown,
want; Dolch
Sight Word
Assessment
29/40 correct,
missed giving,
every, some,
fly, over, walk,
round, thank,
think, round;
Dolch Sight
Word
Assessment

Reflections During Intervention

Reviewed onset-rime patterns with flash cards activity
(DeVries, 2015); Reviewed with flash cards and sound
boxes; Reviewed word analogy families; Reviewed word
analogy families; Reviewed with flash cards and sound
boxes; Reviewed word analogy families

Drilled kindergarten Dolch sight words, student achieved

35/40 correct (DeVries, 2015); drilled 1st grade Dolch
sight words, student achieved 17/43 correct missed after,
ask, may, of, once, open, over, some, stop, take, them,
then, walk, just, know, let, live, old, put, round, thank,
think, were, when, five; drilled 1st grade Dolch sight
words, student achieved 31/40 correct, missed giving,
every, some, fly, over, walk, round, thank, think; drilled 1st
grade Dolch sight words, student achieved 32/40 correct,
missed giving, every, fly, over, walk, round, thank, think;
drilled 1st grade Dolch sight words, student achieved
33/40 correct, missed giving, every, over, walk, round,
thank, think;

AYDEN: A CASE STUDY NARRATIVE

Read with
appropriate
phrasing and
intonation.

Make connections
between a text and
his life.

Retell a text after

reading.

35/40 correct,
missed giving,
every, round,
thank, think
DIBELS Oral
Reading
Fluency 19
words correct/
84% accuracy;
DIBELS Oral
Reading
Fluency 22
words correct/
89% accuracy;
DIBELS Oral
Reading
Fluency 24
words
correct/92%
accuracy
DIBELS Retell
Fluency 9;
DIBELS Retell
Fluency 10;
DIBELS Retell
Fluency 10

17

Modeled pausing with punctuation break oral reading into

meaningful phrases. Started paired reading (Caldwell &
Leslie, 2013), reinforced with recorded reading for student
to listen along with at home; Modeled marking text with
notations as reminders to pause while reading, recorded;
Practiced paired and choral reading of new text; Practiced
alternating reading of text, modeling appropriate phrasing
and intonation

Modeled use of K-W-L chart to activate background

knowledge before reading (Beers, 2004); modeled
semantic mapping to illustrate conceptual connections
between text and life/world; practiced previewing text and
using preview to generate text connections; Practiced
making text-to-self and text-to-world connections while
reading new text.
DIBELS Retell
Modeled use of graphic organizer (first/then/last) to
Fluency 9;
structure retelling (Beers, 2003); modeled use of retelling
DIBELS Retell rubric to assess student-generated retellings; used retelling
Fluency 10;
rubric to score student retelling
DIBELS Retell
Fluency 10

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18

Appendix B
Reflections During Intervention
Week 1 (7/25-7/29): Ayden is a little behind on reading; this might be due to not only his
competencies themselves, but also his attitudes about reading, which he describes as stupid. He
just shut down about halfway through Dolch sight words assessment, replying only I dont
know, or making nonsense sounds. His retelling was meandering and he kept making jokes and
goofing off. I started modeling phrasing and retelling with read alouds and introduced a graphic
organizer to structure retelling; we used this in our reading of Petes Big Lunch. Ayden seems
to enjoy this story; I will use this series in the remainder of our readings.
Week 2 (8/1-8/5): Aydens attitude has shown improvement. He was excited to move from
Kindergarten to First Grade Dolch words. He is more engaged and less distracted during reading;
he doesnt like our sound and word work, however. He enjoys reading aloud but gets frustrated
when I ask him to use our retelling organizers or retelling rubric to talk about the reading.
Week 3 (8/8-8/12): Ayden continues to improve with decoding and retelling. Prior to reading
Pete at the Beach, Ayden made connections between the text and a recent trip he took to the
shore and we discussed using this information to make predictions about what Pete would do and
what might happen to him. Ayden remarked after retelling that it was easier because he could
remember more; we discussed using previewing to help retelling.
Week 4 (8/21-8/26): Re-ran assessments with Ayden and discussed with him how he has become
a stronger reader; he seemed to express that he is a better reader because I am helping him rather
than because he is working hard and getting more practice. Ayden seemed anxious about the
upcoming school year and that we wouldnt be meeting together as frequently. I tried to reassure
him by agreeing to meet him on the weekends.
Week 5 (8/29-9/2): Ayden starts school next week; I presented him with a copy of Pete the Cat:
Rocking in My School Shoes. We discussed what Ayden knew about school already and what he
could expect from his new school now that he was going to 1st grade in a regular school (he
attended a church kindergarten last year). Using his retelling of the book, Ayden composed a
brief story about what his first day of school would go.
Week 6 (9/5-9/9): Spoke with Ms. Caraballo, Aydens occupational therapist, at his mothers
recommendation. Ayden is to be receiving services at his school due to his difficulties with
handwriting. The OT informed me of Aydens handwriting exercises and the Handwriting
Without Tears program he is taking at school. Ill start including these procedures in our practice
when Ayden is writing. Ayden brought a copy of The Giving Tree to our meetings this week,
which he wanted to reread (his mother informed me he enjoyed this as a bedtime story). This was
an exciting development as this was the first time Ayden seemed really excited about reading and
picked a book of his own.

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19

Week 7 (9/12-9/16): Ayden talked a lot about his return to school and how he has been talking to
his teacher about his other teacher and what he is learning about reading. He seemed more
excited and confident about reading. His mother reports he has been doing his reading for class
at home without having to be prompted and he has been talking to his parents about his reading
over dinner. Mom is happy with his progress. I reran his assessments to measure progress.

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Appendix C
Aydens Writing Samples

20

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21

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Appendix D
Aydens Sight Word Award

23

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Appendix E
Retell Rubric

24

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Appendix F
Retell Organizer

25

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26

Appendix G
Letter to Parents
Amanda and Eric Ruple
620 College Drive
Wenonah, NJ 08090

Daniel Coffin
3 Concord Court
Turnersville, NJ 08012
October 12th, 2016

Dear parents,
Over the course of this case study, Ayden has made significant strides in the areas of
concern we identified at the beginning of our time together; namely, recognizing the connections
between letters and the sounds they represent, recognizing sight words, reading aloud with
appropriate phrasing and intonation, and using strategies like making connections and retelling to
improve his understanding of his reading.
At the beginning of this case study, Ayden would frequently confuse letters and the
sounds they represented. This would cause him to mispronounce words in his reading and
misspell words in his writing. This skill is called phonological recoding and is an important
precursor to successful reading.
Through letter drills, practice with word families, and hands-on activities with flash cards
and sound boxes, Ayden has made important progress in this skill, going from 27 correct letter
sounds in our initial assessment to 39 in our final assessment.
In our diagnostic assessment, Ayden scored 27 of 41 correct in a kindergarten sight word
assessment. This finding indicated that Ayden was having a hard time recognizing and decoding
common words quickly and easily, which would make reading a grueling chore even if Ayden
did not also have problems decoding text using his phonics skills.
With practice with flash cards, meaningful use of sight words in original writing, and calling
attention to the presence of sight words in our reading together, Ayden has not only achieved
mastery of kindergarten sight words, Ayden was able, by the end of our time together, to achieve
a score of 35 out of 40 words correct on the 1st grade sight words list, and this only a few months
into the school year. This is a very important achievement for Ayden.
At the beginning of this case study, Ayden read aloud only reluctantly, and when he did, with
several breaks and pauses which did not correspond to punctuation in the text. This caused him
to struggle to follow along and understand his reading, and made it difficult for a listener to
understand what he was saying. Not only did his disfluency negatively affect his reading
comprehension, it also seriously affected the way Ayden perceived the act of reading itself.
Ayden frequently described reading as stupid or boring. By his own admission, he would not
read of his own volition, and you recounted how he would fight against being made to read in a
school setting. As Ayden continued to develop his reading skills, he expressed a greater
appreciation for reading, and started to enjoy showing off his reading skills. I was gratified to
hear of how he enjoyed reading Bible passages aloud for his friends at Sunday School. By our
final assessment, Ayden was able to score 24 words correct with 92% accuracy on his Oral
Reading Fluency assessment.

AYDEN: A CASE STUDY NARRATIVE

27

Finally, Aydens ability at the beginning of this case study to remember and understand his
reading was hampered not only by his difficulties in processing text fluently, but also by his lack
of strategies which would aid comprehension. Even in those instances when Ayden would read a
piece of text fluently, he often struggled to recall was what read or be able to explain what it
meant.
With lots of modeling and practice and the use of graphic organization techniques like KW-L (Know-Want to Know-Learned) charts, first-then-last organizers to structure retelling, and
semantic mapping, Ayden has strengthened his ability to figure out what matters most in a text
and be able to share that information with another.
Through practice of comprehension strategies like making connections between his reading
and his life and the people and things around him and retelling stories and information text, as
well as practice in when to employ these strategies, Ayden has grown as a reader who makes
meaning of the things he reads. His retelling of stories has also fueled his enthusiasm for his own
storytelling.
Aydens handwriting is compromised by some fine motor difficulties for which he is
currently receiving occupational therapy from his school. I was pleased to see that this did not
dampen his delight in creating stories about those things he enjoys most wrestling,
Transformers, and Star Wars. Reading and writing are two sides of the same coin and
improvements in one domain often reflect in improvements in the other. I could tell that Aydens
work on retelling helped lead to developments in Aydens writing as his stories became more
ordered and detailed.
While my case study has come to a close, I have shared, at your request, my findings with
Aydens teacher, who has agreed to continue some of these interventions as part of her language
arts instruction. Ayden has come a long way in a very short time and I feel very confident that he
will continue to make great progress as the year carries on. His enthusiasm and good humor were
very much appreciated in what was a challenging process for both Ayden and I. I feel very
fortunate that I was able to get to know him better. Thank you for agreeing to allow me to work
with him as part of this case study.
Very sincerely yours,

Daniel Coffin

AYDEN: A CASE STUDY NARRATIVE

28

Appendix H
Letter to Administrators
Christa Hahn, Principal
Camdens Pride Charter School
879 Beideman Avenue
Camden, NJ 08105

Daniel Coffin
3 Concord Court
Turnersville, NJ 08012
October 12th, 2016

Dear Ms. Hahn,

Over the course of this case study, I have been very happy to see my student make significant
strides in the area of concern I identified at the beginning of our time together, namely,
recognizing the connections between letters and the sounds they represent, recognizing sight
words, reading aloud with appropriate phrasing and intonation, and using strategies like making
connections and retelling to improve his understanding of his reading. My close work with this
student has been an excellent opportunity for me to learn to diagnose, administer intervention,
and assess both formatively and summatively the efficacy of that intervention.
As Beers (2003) notes, a failure to successfully read independently can be due to a number of
different factors, ranging from phonology to phonics to fluency to vocabulary to comprehension,
or any combination of the same. To determine my students needs, I administered the DIBELS
(Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) and Dolch Sight Word assessments. The
results were as follows: 27 correct letter sounds on Nonsense Word Fluency, 27 of 41 correctly
identified sight words on the Dolch kindergarten list, 19 words correct and 84% accuracy on
DIBELS Oral Reading Fluency, and 9 on DIBELS Retell Fluency.
These data indicated that my student needed targeted assistance with phonological recoding,
recognizing sight words, reading with appropriate phrasing and intonation, and developing
strategies to aid in reading comprehension.
As phonics and phonemic awareness comprise the foundation for later literacy learning, this
is where I began preparing my intervention (DeVries, 2015). At the beginning of this case study,
my student would frequently confuse letters and the sounds they represented, which would cause
him to mispronounce words in his reading and misspell words in his writing. This skill is called
phonological recoding and is an important precursor to successful reading.
Through letter drills, practice with word families, and hands-on activities with flash cards
and sound boxes, my student has made important progress in this skill, going from 27 correct
letter sounds in our initial assessment to 39 in our final assessment (Caldwell & Leslie, 2013).
In our diagnostic assessment, my student scored 27 of 41 correct in a kindergarten sight word
assessment. This finding indicated that my student was having a hard time recognizing and
decoding common words quickly and easily, which would make reading a grueling chore even if
my student did not also have problems decoding text using his phonics skills.
With practice with flash cards, meaningful use of sight words in original writing, and calling
attention to the presence of sight words in our reading together, my student has not only achieved
mastery of kindergarten sight words, he was able to achieve a score of 35 out of 40 words correct
on the 1st grade sight words list (Caldwell & Leslie, 2013).

AYDEN: A CASE STUDY NARRATIVE

29

At the beginning of this case study, my student read aloud hesitantly and haltingly, with
several breaks and pauses which did not correspond to punctuation in the text. This caused him
to struggle to follow along and understand his reading, and made it difficult for a listener to
understand what he was saying. Not only did his disfluency negatively affect his reading
comprehension, it also seriously affected the way he perceived the act of reading itself (Caldwell
& Leslie, 2013).
Our fluency development routine incorporated paired reading, repeated rereadings, and a
variety of different texts, including short stories, expository text, and poetry. Before paired
reading, I would read aloud to model an even pace and meaningful phrasing and intonation
(Rasinski, 2010). By our final assessment, Ayden was able to score 24 words correct with 92%
accuracy on his Oral Reading Fluency assessment.
Finally, my students ability at the beginning of this case study to remember and understand
his reading was hampered not only by his difficulties in processing text fluently, but also by his
lack of strategies which would aid comprehension (Beers, 2003). Even in those instances when
he would read a piece of text fluently, he often struggled to recall was what read or be able to
explain what it meant.
With lots of modeling and practice and the use of graphic organization techniques like KW-L (Know-Want to Know-Learned) charts, first-then-last organizers to structure retelling, and
semantic mapping, Ayden has strengthened his ability to figure out what matters most in a text
and be able to share that information with another. Through practice of comprehension strategies
like making connections between his reading and his life and the people and things around him
and retelling stories and information text, as well as practice in when to employ these strategies,
Ayden has grown as a reader who makes meaning of the things he reads. His retelling of stories
has also fueled his enthusiasm for his own storytelling (Beers, 2003; DeVries, 2015).
This experience has taught me the value of frequent assessment in order to inform
instruction. Without knowing precisely in what areas my student needed additional assistance, I
am fairly certain he would not have shown the improvement he did. I also have seen first-hand
the value of modeling the application of reading skills and strategies through read-alouds.
Showing my student how to be a better reader and writer was infinitely more effective than
telling him. Furthermore, I have learned the value of thorough documentation. With extensive
notes and reflections, I was able to hand these off to my students regular teacher to better ensure
continuity of instruction between the students time with me and in the classroom.
Through this experience, I feel as if I have learned as much, if not more, than I have taught.
This case study has helped me to become a better teacher of reading and writing and I am very
grateful for your assistance in making this case study a success.

Very sincerely yours,

Daniel Coffin