Running Head: CASE STUDY

Williams Case Study

Danielle Murphy, Heather Cegelski, Jenna Treglia

Molloy College
Case Study 2

Abstract

William is an extraordinary student that is gifted way beyond his grade level. William is a

seven-year-old boy and is about to finish his first-grade year. He attends St. Agnus Catholic

School in Rockville Centre, New York. William is very intelligent and is gifted in different

subjects like Math and History. In these one hour sessions, we have tutored William in both

Math and ELA. This case study explains Williams background, his strengths and weaknesses,

the learning needs and goals, and the intervention strategies that were used throughout the entire

month of interacting with William.

Keywords: intelligent, gifted, ELA, Math

Case Study 3

Williams Case Study

Background-
William, also referred to as Will, is an adorable seven-year-old about to finish his first-

grade year at St. Agnes School in Rockville Centre, New York. William is the oldest of four

younger siblings. William loves to read historical books about different famous people that have

influenced our history like Muhammad Ali. William loves to be active and play outside with his

neighbors. He is involved in extracurricular activities like football and soccer. Football is his

favorite sport out of the two. He loves to participate in it and watch games with his dad,

especially if it involves the Giants. William has a strong passion for his video games like

Minecraft and enjoys watching Star Wars. But, out of everything William showed interest to,

Pokmon was Williamss number one interest we incorporate with in all the activities.

William is a very intelligent and a well-advanced student for a first grader. His Math

scores for the fall of 2016 was 215, and for the spring of 2017 is 213. For ELA, William scored

214 in the fall of 2016, and 205 in the spring of 2017.William was also scored with a Multiple

intelligence and Learning Style quiz during the first session of meeting him. William is shown to

be an Auditory Learner with high strengths in linguistic, naturalistic, and visual. These results

are not completely truthful, but it gives us a starting point and a feel for how William can

succeed in the sessions. Throughout the sessions, William loved when the Smartboard or the

iPad was implemented in each of the subjects. Unfortunately, the use of the technology may be

risky with William because he gets distracted very easily and wants to continue playing games,

or adventure off and find other ones. Distraction is a major concern when working with William.

It was important that the group kept him on task and kept him motivated throughout the entire

session.
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William came to every session motivated and excited. With every subject, William was

determined to excel at everything he participated. His favorite subject in school and in the tutor

sessions is Math. William has an extraordinary intelligence in Math. With all of the activities and

test we gave him, we tested him on an expert level or a few grade levels higher than his

own. ELA, we kept William on the same grade level because William does struggle with this

subject. In school, William also has an interest towards History and Art. He loves to learn about

famous events and people, as well as showing off artistic skill that we soon found out throughout

the sessions.

Education is an important part of William's life. His family is very involved and support

his success in education. With all the take home activities that was sent home, William came in

the next session with it complete and correct because of the support of his father. Any worksheet

or game that was sent home with William, William would come in explaining that his dad was a

big help for him. Williamss father explained that he loves enroll Williams in this program

because it allows the education process to be personal and challenging for him.

Learning Needs and Goals-

William is a bright student whose intelligence is beyond the grade level. To figure out

Williamss needs and struggles, it took a few sessions to that figure out, especially during math.

During the first session, we found out that Williams favorite subject is Math. It was clear that

during all of math lessons we had with him, Math was a breeze to him. His math intelligence is

beyond his grade level. All the materials that was used for William was a few grades above his

own. William biggest strength is working with numbers. Adding with one-digit, two-digit, and

three-digits numbers was something William could do off the top if his head. The step by step
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process that a typically first grader would do to solve an addition problem, William would not

follow that. William could write the correct number down with no scrap paper. Unfortunately,

we noticed during the last few sessions, Williams struggle is subtracting big numbers and

money values. Because William does math in his head, the concept of the step by step process

of subtracting was hard for him to grasp. The decimal point through him off and he didn't get the

concept to start subtracting from the right to the left and regrouping. Once that struggle arose, we

quickly rearranged our lesson to allow William to properly learn how to subtract those kinds of

values. Once William understood and practiced a few times, he grasps it immediately and was

able to figure out the correct answer to any addition problem we had.

ELA is William's least favorite subject and it was noticeable during the first couple of

sessions. We also noticed that reading aloud and spelling was a struggle for William. For the first

couple of sessions, we started with reviewing pronouns. This lesson took two sessions for

William to grasp the concept for the proper use of pronouns and their correct use in a sentence.

With fun interacting activities and take-home worksheets, William was about to identify the

pronouns and replace the nouns with the proper pronoun by the second session we had with him.

For William, it takes a few sessions or lessons for him to master the content.

Another struggle we realized William had in ELA was the ability to identify the

difference between a metaphor and a simile. This was a struggle for him because William had a

hard time understanding the figurative language the sentences are interpreting, as well as

pointing out the difference between the two. During each lesson, we had to constantly drill the

phrase in his head, whenever you see the words like or as, it is always a simile. William had

trouble remembering this simple phrase. It wasnt until the second session that William was able
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to recite the phrase when he was given a sentence without additional help. This topic then

became easy for him when this phrase was understood and reprimanded.

The last struggle we recognized with William in ELA was0; his struggle to spell. In the

packet we received about William, it indicated that he specifically had some difficulty spelling

the days of the week and the months of the year. As soon as we introduced the words to William,

we saw that he did struggle with some of the words like Saturday, Thursday, February, August,

and September. This lesson took two sessions with William to master all the words plus the

struggling words. As mentioned a few sentences before, it takes a few sessions and practice for

William to master content that is new to him. William has the drive to practice and memorize

any content introduced to him until it is perfected.

For William to be a successful student, we also recognized Williams struggle to be

attentive during the lessons. Williams ability to stay concentrated on one matter was noticeable

the first sessions we had with him. During out first lesson, we found out Williams biggest

interests were Pokmon and football. Obtaining this information, we immediately implemented

as much Pokmon characters and football themed lessons to keep William engaged as he

learned. Once a lesson didnt entirely involve either of these interests, Williamss attention soon

declined and his mind would wonder to something else happening in the room, or something that

was on his mind besides the content.

William is an intelligent student and it took a few sessions of meeting him to figure out

his struggles and needs throughout this process. Once they were identified, we were able to

successfully address these needs and give him the proper lessons to help him succeed with his

deficits. It is important to William that we are able to spot these struggles, even though it is

difficult to determine, and be able to keep him engaged and motivated throughout the entire
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lesson Math or ELA. This will give him the drive that he possesses to perfect all the of the new

or struggling content that he will be exposed to.

Intervention-

As mentioned numerous amount of times, Williams intelligence is beyond his own grade

level. For one of his interventions, we pushed Williamss skills to the second, third, and even the

fourth-grade level for Math. The flexibility we had with him allowed us to structure his lessons

to push his intelligence and skills. This would be a problem in a school setting because they are

only restricted to the required curriculum, but with these tutor sessions, William is getting the

chance to be exposed to ore advanced and challenging questions. This also gave him the ability

to stay motivated to learn because it was something either new or more challenging for him to

perfect. Williams determination to perfect a new concept is motivating within itself. Keeping

William motivated and engaged is important tin these tutor sessions.

To keep William motivated and engaged is one of the most important factors we

implemented during all of the sessions with him.

William loves the ability to work with technology.

Technology allows William to be in control of the

activity we provided for him and kept him in the

zone. With the technology programs we

implemented, it allowed William to get immediate

feedback on his progress, and even sometimes

provided a competition to beat the clock. The

Smartboard was one of the biggest tool we used when

Figure 1. Murphy. William using the Smartboard 2017
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preparing the lessons with William. He enjoyed the ability to physically write, move, or play the

activity that was projected on the smartboard.

Along with the Smartboard, an iPad was also implemented for majority of Williams pre-

and posttests by using different applications like Splash

Math. The applications that was provided allow us to

monitor and push Williamss skills in both Math and ELA.

We were able to increase the level of difficulty, or set a

timer to get William more competitive and motivated in

these activities. Throughout the sessions, we noticed that

William showed more interest to the technology aspects of

the lessons rather than some of the tactile or writing. William Figure 2 Cegelski William using an iPad 2017

loved when he had the ability to use technology in the lessons. Technology was also a good

reward mechanism for him when he exceled or completed the required work in the lessons.

Another intervention we used with William was to reach his strength to learn

kinesthetically. Although William is seen to be a visual learner, his kinetic learning style was

something that we also wanted to reach to keep Will motivated.

In a lesson involving fractions, William participated in a bowling

game. This bowling game was to test his knowledge on fractions.

William was told to roll the ball and explain the fraction for the

number of bowling pins that fell on the ground. He then would

record his answer on a worksheet by coloring the pins that fell,

then writing the correct fraction next to the picture. We soon

found out, fractions came easy to William. We then changed the

Figure 3Murphy Will playing bowling 2017
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lesson during the session by testing his knowledge on adding fractions instead of indicating

them. This was more of a challenge for him. After showing him how to add fraction and a few

practice questions, William mastered the content and can now add fractions with the same

denominator.

Another way we reached William kinesthetic learning style is having him participate in a

life-sized board game. The life-sized board game was a part of a money lesson we had William

participate in. In this game William and another

representative from the group played head-to head to

retrieve the highest amount of money. To be able to

move throughout the board, we incorporated the big

dice. Whichever number the dice landed on, the player

would advance the number of spaces and collect the

value of money they landed on. The value would then

be put in their bank account to later be counted to

find the winner. William really enjoyed this game the

Figure 4Cegelski William playing a life-sized board game

most because it involved real money, it involved the

entire body, and it was a competition. This activity was able to reach all of the learning styles

that William possess.

William was also challenged with take home activities that were sent home every session.

William is the type of student who really benefits from homework assignments and take-home

activities. Each session, William came back with that specific assignment complete as well as

correct. Will has the luxury of having his father being a big influence in his education. His father

pushes him and works with him one-on-one to help him complete all assignments that are sent
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home with him. Each time William came into the next session, he would explain how him and

his father worked together to complete the activities we sent him home with. In some sessions,

the take home activities had to be modified because William needs more of a challenge. Will

loves to be pushed and challenged because he feels a sense of accomplishment when he masters

a harder topic.

Strengths & Weaknesses:

While learning about William on the first day of class, it occurred to us that before even

meeting William we knew he had an extraordinary amount of strengths. During our first tutoring

session we learned a lot about Williamss likes and dislikes and many characteristics about

himself and his family. During the second tutoring session, we noticed that what we thought

would be a challenge for William wasnt. Throughout the semester it became clear how

Williamss academic strengths helped him go above what is expected of a first-grade student.

During the first session, we had William tell us about himself and his family and create a

world cloud of characteristics of himself. We had William write down the characteristics to help

us gauge his spelling. At that time, we realized Williamss first strength was in spelling. William

had the ability to write down words that he was thinking with little to no help at all. It was clear

to us that William had the ability to recognize character traits about himself at such a young

age. William was open to sharing his likes and dislikes, which helped us to alter activities to suit

Williams interests. William shared with us his love for football and Pokmon, so that is

something we incorporated weekly. For our second session, we created a football yard-line to

represent a number line to help William add and subtract numbers on a number line. We used

multiples of ten to help William practice this skill. From the second we started the session, we

noticed that William loved the activity but he did not struggle in adding and subtracting numbers
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on a number line. While incorporating his love for football to the activity, it also helped us reveal

one of Williamss strengths: adding and subtracting numbers on a number line. This game helped

us have a better understanding of Williamss strengths in his mathematical abilities.

During the second session, we took his Learning Styles and Multiple Intelligence quizzes.

The learning style quiz determined that William was an auditory learner. William remembers

what he hears and says. Williams multiple intelligence results tied between naturalistic and

linguistic. Naturalistic is similar to bodily kinesthetic which means they learn best when they are

moving and hand on in learning. Knowing this we made our activities very engaging, where

William had to use his body to complete the activity. We always created our activities around

William's love for Pokmon or football. We also created activities that allowed William to move

around during the session, which unleashed another one of Williamss strengths.

William expressed on day one of our sessions that he has a love for math and does not

enjoy ELA. Knowing this we worked extra hard to make our ELA activities more engaging and

motivating for William. During our second session William struggled with our pronoun activity.

During this activity William had to replace the noun with the proper pronoun. We explained to

William the difference between a pronoun and a noun. At the beginning of the session we

noticed that this is one of Williams weaknesses, but by the end of the session it was becoming

one of Williamss strengths. We continued this topic during our third session where we played

pronoun twister. During this game William had to create his own sentences using pronouns, and

had to replace nouns with pronouns while simultaneously using his body to play the game of

twister. At the completion of the game we realized that pronouns are no longer Williams

weaknesses but instead now one of his many strengths. William amazed us at how quickly he

was able to pick up on a new topic- another one of Williams many strengths.
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During our fourth session, we taught William a topic, simile and metaphors, that he has

not learned in school yet, and at first was a bit challenging for William. During this session, we

discussed with William the differences between similes and metaphors and what you can look at,

in the sentence to determine if its a simile or metaphor. We continued practice this skill in the

following session and again Williams weaknesses turned into one of his many strengths.

During the last two sessions, we practiced our money skills. We were told that William

struggled to identify the value of coins, but again he didnt struggle with this topic. After

noticing his abilities during our sixth session, we decided to increase the difficulty for the last

session but in a fun and engaging way. William and teacher 1 played a life size money board

game. During this game the player would roll the dice, they would move the number of spaces

provided on the dice. Whatever form of money they landed on, they add to add to their bank.

When the game ended, we added up the money in our bank and we had to see what Pokmon

we could buy. Since William won a lot of money, he was able to buy three Pokmon. In

between buying each Pokmon we had William subtract the price of each Pokmon from the

total he earned. It was at this point that we realized William was never taught how to subtract

using decimals. Since this was our last session, we helped walk William through subtracting

decimals but he still struggled with it at the end of the session. Since we were unaware of this

weakness we were not able to further work on it because it was the last session. It is hard to say

if William had any true weaknesses, or instead they were new topics that were above the first-

grade level that challenged him.

Assessment of Progress:

Attempt #: Freddiesville Days of the Week

 Case Study 13

For the sixth session, we decided to work with William on spelling the days of the week

and the months of the year. During our first session with William it was brought to our attention

that William struggled to spell the word Wednesday. When we looked on his chart we noticed it

said he needed help with spelling the days of the week and months of the year. We started the

session with playing Freddiesville cross word game on the smartboard. William spelt Thursday

and Saturday wrong.

Since William originally

spelt Thursday wrong, it

in turn made him spell

Saturday wrong because

one of the letter

overlapped. When we hit

Figure 5 Treglia Williams Spelling Results

the check answer button, it told William to check two words. As soon as William was aware of

this he could self-correct his mistake by himself. William got the hang of spelling the days of

the week throughout the rest of the activities. During the same session, we also worked on

spelling the months of the year.

Attempt #2 Worksheetfun.com Months of the Year:

For the post-test, we had William unscramble the months of the year on the smartboard. William

did a great job with this. He tried spelling the words all by himself without using the letters as a

reference. William spelt August wrong, but after realizing he was able to self-correct his work.
Case Study 14

Counting Money

Attempt #1:

For the sixth

session, we decided to

work on counting

money with William.

William was able to

recognize the value of

Figure 6 Treglia Williams Money Results

each coin right away. To start off the session William took a Quizizz to see what level he was at

with adding money. William got 93% accuracy. He got one question wrong but his mistake was

due to his speed but since it was a multiple choice he was able to result in a correct answer if he

added to fast prior to viewing the choices.

William did not struggle with

adding the values of a coin together

in his head fast.

Attempt #2:

At the end of the session we

decided to have William play a

game on abcya.com. William

played at level 3- expert level,

where the questions were more

Figure 7 Cegelski William playing abcya.com
 Case Study 15

advanced for his age level. William completed the game with 100% accuracy. William answered

the questions very quickly, which can sometimes cause him to make errors. During the posttest,

we had William slow down and take his time, which we believe helped in receiving 100%

accuracy.

Pronouns

Attempt #1: Kahoot

During our third session, for our ELA section we started with a pre-test. We had William

complete a Kahoot quiz. William struggled with the pronoun topic. William completed the

activity with receiving a 2 out of 6 correct. We spoke with William after his took the quiz and

asked him to give us examples of pronouns. William struggled to know what a pronoun was,

which explained why it was so difficult for him to complete the quiz. William told us that he has

not learned this at school yet but his dad did review it with him last summer.

Attempt 2: Pronoun Sort

Chart

During attempt 2

William had to sort the

pronouns in the chart.

William got one question

wrong, and then completed

the sentences replacing the

underlined words with

Figure 8 Treglia Williams Pronoun Results
Case Study 16

pronouns on the smartboard and got all the questions correct. Williamss strength is that he

grasps topics in a fast manner. He does not have a hard time learning a new topic and completing

with mastery. Since this was the first day teaching William pronouns we were shocked with his

growth between the pre-and the post test. We also decided to continue this topic the following

session where he received mastery on both the pre-and the post test.

Summary:

It was a pleasure working with William. William is a sweet and intelligent boy who excels in

almost everything he does. Due to William being so advanced compared to his grade level it took

one of two sessions to really know what William was fully capable of. After learning his likes

and dislikes, we were able to alter activities to make them more engaging and fun for William. It

was so rewarding when William would tell us which activity was his favorite and why. It was

definitely beneficial that William was able to tell us what he liked and didnt like. This tutoring

program is a great program that allowed us to alter and mold activities right down to Williams

needs. When speaking with Williamss father he told us his love of the program because we can

challenge William in the ways he should be challenge. The father said that because of the

curriculum at school, it is challenging for the teacher to alter and mold activities to each student.

After completing the semester with William, we would like to make a few suggestions

for Williamss future tutors. William is not your typical 1st grade student, he is capable of more

than you could imagine. For our group incorporating Pokmon to the lesson helped us keep

William engaged. William loves Pokmon, he would bring in his cards every session to show us

the new ones he received from trading them with friends. Sometimes Pokmon could be

distracting for William but it is important to make sure William stays on task. William often gets

distracted with technology. William loves technology and is very good navigating any device.
Case Study 17

For William, it is important to have a quick transition between technology to the new activity so

he does not get easily distracted. Our last suggestion is to make everything a competition.

William enjoys competition and loves to beat his opponent in any activity. Knowing this we

made every activity a competition either to beat his time, or to beat is opponent. William and I

played a board game that involved money. During this game William strived to beat me the

whole game and in result beat me. The combination of competition and movement throughout

and activity worked best for William and our group. This combination kept him motivated and

engaged the whole session. This made the session go by fast and fun for everyone involved.

We all agreed that any tutor would be lucky to have Will. William has a wonderful

personality and is interested in knowing about your life as well. He is hardworking and his

parents are involved in his academics. William will always come back to tutoring with take home

activity completed and he will always be eager and willing to take home and activity to practice.

We are all so grateful to have met well and to have the opportunities to create activities that will

challenge him. William is determined and will go far in life because of his many wonderful

characteristics. William brightened our day every time we worked with him, we learned so much

from him and enjoyed our time with him.

Case Study 18

References
Cegelski, H. (photographer) (2017, June). William using the IPad [photograph]. Rockville

Center, NY: Cegelski

Kahoot!. (2017). Kahoot! | Learning Games | Make Learning Awesome!. [online] Available at:

https://kahoot.com [Accessed 22 Jun. 2017].

Murphy. D. (photographer) (2017, June). William using the smartboard [photograph]. Rockville

Center, NY: Murphy

Murphy. D. (photographer) (2017, June). William playing bowling [photograph]. Rockville

Center, NY: Murphy

Cegelski, H. (photographer) (2017, June). William playing a life-size board game [photograph].

Rockville Center, NY: Cegelski

Cegelski, H. (photographer) (2017, June). William playing abcya.com [photograph]. Rockville

Center, NY: Cegelski

(n.d.). Retrieved June 22, 2017, from http://webcdn.abcya.com/games/counting_money.htm

Splash Math - Fun Math Practice for Grades K-5. (n.d.). Retrieved June 21, 2017, from

https://www.splashmath.com/?adCampaign=761082674&adGroup=45721261852&adTa

g=splash math&gclid=CO-dy47h29QCFUZMDQodTWAHWw

Sosa, Indrid. Step into 2nd Grade with Mrs. Lemons. Pinterest. N.p. 15 July 2013. Web. 21

June 2017.

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