ESOL Case Study

Name: Kailey Garcia Mendoza Date of Birth: March 17, 2013

Grade: 3 Age: 9

School: George Marks Elem. Examiner: Kelly Chapman

Section 1: Background Information

Kailey, a 3rd grade student at George Marks Elementary in DeLand Florida, was born

March 17, 2013, in Oaxaca, Mexico. Kailey lives at home in DeLand with her mom, stepdad,

who she considers her father, her brother Andy, and four birds. Kailey is a new entrant into

Volusia County Schools this year. Kailey has attended school in both Mexico and Alabama prior

to her schooling in Florida. It is unknown if Kailey attended school during 2nd grade. The

Huntsville City School District in Alabama states that Kailey did not attend school in Alabama

last school year, and that she attended school in Mexico. However, Kailey’s mom states Kailey

did school online in Alabama.

Kailey is a bilingual student who speaks Spanish at home, and she does her best to speak

English at school for both academics and socialization. Kailey has quite a few friends in the

class who she likes to collaborate with. Kailey’s two favorite books are Babysitter and Dogman.

Kailey said she enjoys reading, however, her favorite subject at school is science and during her

free time she enjoys reading, playing outside, and watching television.

Kailey is a sweet little girl, who loves to give hugs and always seems happy at school.

Mrs. Susid requested that I work with Kailey because she struggles in reading and is on a

Kindergarten reading level in 3rd grade. Kailey is a bilingual student and struggles to speak

English, fluently. Kailey prefers to work in partners at school and enjoys learning how to read.

She is a very inquisitive individual and wants to learn in school. She strives to do her best and
asks questions when needed. Kailey normally completes work at Mrs. Susid’s kidney table. She

struggles to complete work independently and needs help with what the questions are being

asked of her.

Section 2: Development of Literacy

Through sample work and observations, I have noticed many of Kailey’s strengths and

her areas of need. Kailey is a hard-working student that wants to learn. She knows initial sounds

in words and some medial and ending sounds. Kailey knows her sight words (I, have, a, at, big,

home, him, to, mom, up, shop, get, am, she, on, it, go, and, he). Kailey also knows her digraphs

and she has very nice letter formation. She is very good at spacing her letters, punctuation, and

penmanship. Some areas of need that will need to be focused on and addressed appropriately

with Kailey would be, reversals in reading and writing her b’s and d’s. She also is not consistent

with her vowel sounds in words. She gets g and j confused, which would make sense

considering g and j could have the same sound. She struggles with the final consonants in a

word, blending, and rhyming. I believe Kailey will go very far, if these issues could be

addressed in order to improve her reading and writing skills.

Section 3: Reading and Writing

Kailey has very nice handwriting. She spaces nicely, has good punctuation, and nice

letter formation. Kailey can read proficiently if the book is on her reading level. She is not bad

in comprehension if the story was read to her, however, if she reads it to herself, then that would

be considered an area of need. I have conducted an IRI on Kailey. When she read the text out

loud, she struggled on comprehension, however, when I read her the text, she still struggled, but

did better with comprehension. She was at an instructional level when I read the text, but a

frustration level when she read the text. I also found a text that Kailey could read proficiently. I
feel like it is beneficial to have texts in the classroom that all students can read. Kailey was able

to read the Biscuit books for me. She then completed three reading counts tests. Kailey was able

to comprehend what occurred in the text and received two 10/10 and one 9/10 on the three

Biscuit books she read to me. I was impressed that she was able to read the books proficiently.

By passing the tests, Kailey was proud of herself. She wanted to keep reading and passing tests.

This further showed me that it is not fully comprehension issues that Kailey is facing. She can

complete comprehension problems on texts she can read independently. When it comes to texts

at her frustration level, or 3rd grade level, then it is way too difficult for her to complete and

comprehend.
Section 4: Instructional Recommendations

In order for Kailey to perform at her upmost best, my CT and I suggested the idea of

retention. We believe it would be in Kailey’s benefit if she stayed back again in the 3rd grade.

This is not something I formally agree with, however, the further and further behind Kailey gets

in school the more frustrated it will make her. If she does not stay back, it could be detrimental

to her future schooling. Kailey is in need of a teacher that is willing to work with her on

phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Kailey loves to read;

however, she would need books on her grade level in the classroom. All the books in Kailey’s

classroom this year are for 3rd graders. They were way too difficult for Kailey and were very

frustrating for her to read. For remediation purposes, the points that were discussed above are

recommendations to improve Kailey’s educational practices. The first step I would suggest is

explicit teachings of phonics and phonological awareness. By working one on one with Kailey

in these reading components could be beneficial to her future in reading practices. Once she has

reached proficiency amongst those standards, I would start working further on vocabulary

recognition, fluency, and comprehension. These are all recommendations to move forward with

remediation with this case study student.

Overall Reflection:

Through observation, I have noticed Kailey is a happy, kind, and polite student that is

eager to learn. Through the findings of recent data, I have learned that Kailey tested into the

ESOL program by checking that she speaks another language at home on the Home Language

Survey. This is Kailey’s first year living in Florida and attending Volusia County Schools.

Therefore, she does not have any WIDA testing scores from previous school years. In order to

assess Kailey and see how much of the English language she knows; she was assessed by
completing an IPT screening to see where she stands academically. Through the IPT screening,

Kailey was labeled NES and her Oral Score Level was a Level A and her proficiency level is

beginning. Kailey’s primary language is Spanish. She was born in Mexico and attended school

in Mexico during her Kindergarten year. She then moved to Huntsville, Alabama. She attended

1st grade there and paperwork said that she asked to attend school online in 2nd grade, due to the

Coronavirus. However, there are no reports of schooling from her Elementary school for the 2nd

grade. Her previous school claimed she went back to Mexico to complete the 2nd grade.

Therefore, it seems as if Kailey has not completed the 2nd grade and her many struggles in

school are due to a lack of education.

 Appendix
EL Profile
ESOL Observation
EDUC 313

Field Experience Observation Notes Template

Instructions: Use the template to take notes as you observe. Review the Note-taking Guide for
Observations below.
Options for Notetaking include: 1) hand written notes only, 2) pictures with smart phone, 3) short videos
or audio recordings that can be embedded in the document, 4) Illustrations / Drawings of what you’ve
observed. Short comments/blurbs should accompany visuals.
Date:___3/22/22______ Length of Observation__30 mins______Present: ___________________
Activity Observed: ESOL Benchmark Lesson__________________________________________
Narrative (Complete during observation):
Write a detailed narrative of what you have observed. These should be descriptive observations.
I observed the ESOL teacher teaching the students about theme. The students read and talked about the
story Sarah and the Chickens. The ESOL teacher asked the students what a theme was. JJ explained
that theme is a lesson in the story and that you can learn from the lessons to improve your future. The
ESOL teacher explained the story about the boy who cried wolf. She told the students that you should
not lie because then you can never tell when the truth is being told. She explained that it is always best
to tell the truth. Ms. Beard asked how students can determine the theme? What does the theme mean?
They explained that the theme is what happens in the story, what the character says and does, and the
actions that are thought about during the story.

Summary (Complete during or after the observation):

Write at least a one paragraph summary of the observation. This section focuses on your analytic and
interpretative details from the observation. In this section, you strive to connect class concepts to the
classroom. Example: Today was a good example of visual scaffolding.
Today was a good example of learning how to explain and expand on your answer. Students would
just give a general answer and the ESOL teacher wanted them to explain themselves and back up their
answer. The ESOL teacher explained that theme is a message or lesson in the story and how it is
developed throughout the story. She also explained that events are things that happen in the story.
Some messages or lessons that come across in a story could be honesty, friendship, working hard,
learning, etc. If students learn how to tell the theme in a story, then they are showing that they are
comprehending the text.
ELA Observation
Writing Observation