Learner Case Study Application (Artifact 9)

Pre-tests Given and Summary of Test Results

I choose to administer DIBELS 8th edition assessment at the second-grade level. I choose

to administer the nonsense word, word reading fluency, and oral reading fluency to gain

information about what Mia can and cannot do. I also administered the GRADE (Group Reading

and Diagnostic Evaluation) Level 3 form A. This test was administered because it is used as a

baseline to check how Mia performs compared to her peers at the same age nationwide. The

GRADE assessment components are vocabulary, listening comprehension, and sentence

comprehension.

Mia scored well on listening comprehension and had a positive attitude throughout the

assessment. Mia scored less than half of the vocabulary items correctly. Results showed Mia

had trouble with sentence comprehension and scored poorly across all genres for passage

reading. These results inform me that Mia is not able to understand what she reads and may

need help being able to decode words, so she can read fluency and eventually understand what

she reads.

Mia did poorly on the DIBELS assessment. She scored 296 correctly out of 334 letter

sounds. For words read correctly, she scored 66 correct out of 100 words. Test results show Mia

needs practice with some diphthong sounds and silent e words. She scored 54 words correctly

for word reading fluency. This shows Mia's inability to decode multisyllabic words affects her

ability to read words which affects her oral reading fluency. Mia read 225 words and scored 18

wrong for oral reading fluency. The total amount of words read correctly was 207 without any

time restraints.

Part V. Pre-Tests Given and Summary of Test Results

 The tests given were DIBELS (8th edition benchmark), GRADE Assessment, and

i-Ready Assessment. The DIBELS assessment was conducted to check Mia’s current ability to

read aloud fluency. The GRADE assessment and i-Ready assessment are mandated assessments

by the school. I choose to review the results of these assessments to understand Mia’s strengths

and areas of need. The i-Ready assessment is an adaptive assessment designed to match

student’s learning needs. The i-Ready assessment is completed online, and it shares the student’s

strengths and gaps at sub-skill levels. The i-Ready assessment also offers targeted instructional

recommendations and assigns lessons for students to complete.

The i-Ready program shared Mia’s overall performance level is within the 4th percentile,

which indicates Mia is performing at the 1st-grade level. Her Lexile level is 310L. Mia tested

out of phonological awareness and high-frequency words. This indicates Mia can distinguish

sounds in spoken words. Mia did poorly in phonics. This result is evidence Mia needs

instruction with decoding words. Mia also scored low in vocabulary, comprehension in both

literature and informational text. From this information, I determined Mia needs support with

decoding and reading fluently. Her inability to read fluently affects her passage comprehension.

Based on the knowledge of her i-Ready scores I administered the GRADE level 3

assessment for Mia. GRADE level 3 is the lowest level I can administer for Mia and receive a

valid score. The GRADE assessment components are word reading, vocabulary, sentence

comprehension, and passage comprehension components. Malina can read singular words that

are phonetic and are sight words. Vocabulary word meaning subcategory consistent of a given

word in bold and Mia had to choose the correct definition from the given stimuli. She is unable

to choose the vocabulary word meaning from a multiple choice of 4 or five. Sentence

compression items required Mia to choose which word will best fit into a sentence with a
missing word. Mia did poorly on the passage comprehension portion of the test in all categories.

The passage comprehension passage type included long text, short text, poem, fiction, fable,

science, and practical.

The DIBELS assessment was administered in chunks to prevent her from being

overwhelmed. However, Mia scored poorly despite the lower level and additional time. Mia is

in the 5th grade but was given the DIBELS 8th edition benchmark grade 2. Mia scored poorly in

nonsense word fluency and in oral reading fluency. I noticed certain Mia was unable to identify

and pronounce certain phonemes. These phonemes Mia struggled with are /er/, /or/, /ar/, /k/,

/ow/, /ea/, /ee/, /ng/, /kw/, /sh/, and silent e with the vowels u, o, and a. With nonsense fluency

words I had to stop and remind Mia these were not real words because she guessed some words

she could sound out.

Based on the results of these assessments, Grade 5 Common Core State Standards, IEP

goals and weakness, and my understanding I choose to give Mia support with reading fluency.

She can read high-frequency words and identify phonemes in isolation. To encourage Mia to

become a successful reader, Mia will practice reading with fluency by completing multiple

repeated readings. I choose this intervention on reading fluency and comprehension because the

test results show these are her areas of need. Studies show rereading a passage will increase their

fluency. If a student rereads the same passage the student will be more familiar with the words

and be able to recognize them. According to Solis, Scammacca, Barth, and Roberts (2017)

students with learning disabilities or students at risk for academic failure are given multi-

component instruction. They found when they provided students with disabilities text-based

vocabulary instruction engagement and comprehension increased. It is important for Mia’s

reading fluency to increase, however, because she is academically lower than her peers it’s

important to also increase her reading comprehension.

Part VI.

Lesson Objectives Instructio On-going

Foci/Date nal Materials Assessment

Read with Students will · Story: Taking DIBELS ORF

accuracy and fluency reread the story first by the next step – (Oral Reading
to support echo reading then partner A fable by Fluency) Progress
comprehension. reading. Students will Aesop (The Monitoring Grade 2
stop and ask each other Crow and the
questions and review Pitcher) DIBELS WRF
keywords before · Pencil (Word Reading
rereading. · Folder paper Fluency) Progress
· Rubric Monitoring Grade 2
Fluency: 5.RF.4 · Eraser
Read with sufficient
accuracy and fluency to
support comprehension.
a. Read grade-level
text with purpose and
understanding.
b. Read grade-
level prose and poetry
orally with accuracy,
appropriate rate. and
expression.
c. Use context to
confirm or self-correct
word recognition and
understanding. rereading
as necessary.
 Assessment
Short term – Oral comprehension questions
Be able to identify key vocabulary words
reviewed by the teacher
Academic, Social and Linguistic Support
during the assessment
Prompting and modeling will be utilized.
The teacher can model decoding strategies
during echo reading. The teacher can also
model how to refer to the text to answer
comprehension questions.

Long term – Students will read a section of After rereading the text, students' WPM
the text and be timed. Students will record would increase.
WPM of the given section of the text.

Part VII Post-tests Given and Summary of Test Results

DIBELS 8th edition grade 2 was administered to determine Mia’s progress in nonsense

word fluency, word fluency, and oral reading fluency. Mia improved on nonsense word fluency

and word reading fluency. Mia scored 54 words correct the first time she completed the word

reading fluency. She scored 93 words correct on the post word reading fluency assessment. Her

nonsense word fluency score for correct letter sound increased by one from 296 to 297. The

word reads correctly decreased from 66 words to 58 words. Her Oral Reading fluency wpm was

lower; however, her number of errors was not as high. Mia made 18 errors on the initial oral

reading fluency test and 12 errors on the post oral reading fluency test. The second passage for

oral reading fluency only had 203 words while the first oral reading fluency passage contained

225 words. This is the reason why her words read correctly for oral reading fluency appear to be

lower.

Reading A-Z fluency practice passages was used for progress monitoring. Mia improved

after her first initial readings. Her final score was always better than her cold reading. She
started reading on level J and is currently on level L. She also enjoys graphing her progress with

a teacher because she could visually monitor her own progress. A differentiation I provide for

Mia is setting up the graph and asking her to set a goal. She looks at the amount of words there

are and tells me how many errors she can make. We both would agree if she doesn’t get this

score on the first attempt, we will keep trying until she does. I had to remind Mia we learn from

our mistakes. This gave Mia the confidence to read. After the repeated reading trials Mia will

graph her scores and she can monitor her growth.

Part VIII Reflections on Differentiated Literary Lesson Plans

Based on Mia’s poor scores with word reading fluency an oral reading fluency I would

continue to support her in these areas. Mia’s reading fluency improved but it is nowhere near

grade level. Echo reading was effective for Mia because Mia became less hesitant to read. For

cold reads she would stutter and read softly in front of her peers. After hearing the text, she can

echo read and this helps her recognize words. Modeling was an effective teaching method

because after I modeled how to break the word apart into syllables when reading she would

attempt to do it herself.

I had to use direct instruction and modeling to show students how echo reading worked.

After a few practices Mia participated and did it successfully. With each paragraph she echo-

read she grew more confident. She made less errors and before reading would ask her partner

what certain words was. This helped her reread it the section of the text back to her partner with

less than two errors per paragraph. Mia could hear her peer read it and herself read it and this

gave her an opportunity to understand the text better.

One critical moment during instruction that impacted the direction of the lesson was her

partner. Mia’s partner became unmotivated and wanted Mia to read first. I paired Mia with
another student who could model how to read. This was more effective because Mia became

motivated to read and answer questions with her new partner. The student achieved the

instructional goal of reading fluency because she read the story with fewer errors from the echo

reading then the initial cold reading on her own. Another tactic I had to use to promote active

participation and interest was building a personal connection to the text. I asked students what

birds they saw. Mia told me about the goose in Canada and I asked her what are some smart

things a goose does? Mia was unsure; however, I redirected it back to the story and mentioned

we can take note of what a crow does.

Reading instruction could be more developmentally appropriate and responsive by

focusing on decoding and sight words before reading a text. Mia does need to improve her

reading fluency but her ability to read second and third sight words hold her back.