Final Case Study Report

Heather Shelton
School of Education, University of Alaska Southeast
ED 615: Literacy in the Intermediate and Middle School Grades
Dr. Kevin Spink
April 27, 2022
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Background and Dispositions

“Tim” is a 9 year old boy who attends Lake Hood Elementary. He is on the quiet, shy
side but can become animated and excited about things as well. He has a few select friends and
struggles with some other students in the class who are loud and boisterous. It is clear that Tim
likes coming to school to learn but that he lacks confidence at times. His lack of confidence
shows when he does not understand something, especially in reading and writing.
Tim really enjoys drawing and making different things with paper. He is always asking
for scratch paper to draw on or manipulate. He will tell me what he wants to make when I ask
and he has even started to ask to have extra paper to bring home. It is my assumption that Tim
comes from a low-income family based on things he has told me, however it is clear that his
family values education as evidenced by the school supplies that Tim has. Several of his supplies
are personal ones that he has used in previous grades and plans on using in the future. He is also
very neat and does his best to turn in completed work.

Reading Characteristics
Tim can be somewhat reluctant when it comes to reading. During independent reading,
Tim will usually read a graphic novel or a picture book. Recently Tim has started reading simple
chapter books and I believe this relates to our weekly activity work along with the previous
reading curriculum unit focusing on being able to identify and tell the purpose of a text through
using key points. Based on these things, Tim has improved his ability to identify why something
is a key point. At first, Tim would list out or tell me things he finds interesting that do not always
relate to the key points or main ideas of the text, and after a few weeks of work, there is now
evidence of his improvement. Tim read a book about Philippe Petit and his tightrope walk across
the Twin Towers in New York city and was able to identify that the purpose of the text was “To
tell how Philippe was able to walk on a tightrope between two towers in New York”. In his key
points, he listed out that Philippe practiced often, starting low and gradually got higher on his
right rope, practiced walking in different kinds of weather, and had special shoes to help him grip
the rope better. Tim did include some facts that he found interesting and even had them listed in a
separate spot with the title “Interesting Facts”. As the semester has progressed, I have seen Tim
become more confident in his reading ability. He is now volunteering to read shorter paragraphs
out loud in class when we are doing a group reading of a story.
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As for vocabulary, Tim is still working on being able to decode unfamiliar words and
figure out what they mean. At the beginning of the semester, Tim would often ask about words
that he did not know the meaning of when reading or doing our class word slides. With practice,
teaching, and time Tim has shown improvement in being able to decode unfamiliar words when
reading. He will still sometimes come and ask to make sure that he figured out the word
correctly. Tim also learned how to utilize a dictionary and I have seen him several times pull out
the dictionary after looking at a page for a minute to check a word before he goes back to
reading.

Writing Characteristics
Overall, Tim is able to write what he is thinking. He often will take time to think about
what his answer is and will sometimes verbalize it to me before writing it. It is almost as if he is
checking for assurance that his thoughts are correct and valid. I believe that part of him doing
this is that he is an ELL student and can often be unsure of himself and lacks confidence in his
abilities. I have seen an improvement in his confidence relating to writing when he knows what
to do but he still is unsure at times if he doesn’t have a connection to something. For example, on
4/4/2022 the morning writing prompt was about pizza and Tim didn’t know what to do because
he has an allergy that prevents him from eating pizza. Due to this lack of experience, Tim
struggled to write something in his journal even after I told him to tell me about his favorite
food.
In general, Tim spells words correctly and his sentence structure and use of punctuation
are typical for his age. He does well at using periods, keeping his sentences short, and he doesn’t
have long, drawn out sentences. Sometimes Tim will write a medium length sentence and he
always wants to show it to me and will then ask if it can count as two sentences. When doing
spelling pre-tests or activities that do not include a visual of the word, any misspelled words are
due to Tim spelling it phonetically. He will often ask how to spell a word if he is unsure and I
have started helping him to break the word down into the syllables and focus on the phonemic
sound blends that he hears. This has helped him figure out how to sound out words himself
although he will often come and ask me “did I do this right? I tried to sound it out but I’m not
sure I got it”. The majority of the time, he is correct and his misspellings are simple enough to
fix because he used the phonemic sound.
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Weekly Activities
I have been meeting with Tim once a week for about 20 minutes. The day varies
depending upon how things are going and when we can meet. Originally I was planning on
trying to work with Tim once a week during my WIN group time because I have a smaller group
in my classroom but because Tim goes to a small group during this time, I found that it was
actually easiest to keep or pull him from gym once a week. My class goes to gym twice a week
and Tim doesn’t always like going to gym, especially because he is active at home. I did confer
with the gym teacher before doing this to make sure Tim’s grade wouldn’t be affected in any
way. Our weekly activities have mainly been consisting of reading one of the four books that
goes along with the small group portion of the Reach for Reading unit we are working on. Tim
had asked one day what the books were for when returning from his WIN group and when I
explained that it was what my WIN group did, he looked a bit crestfallen so I asked if he would
like to pick one each week to read and discuss. He really liked this idea and happily agreed. Tim
will choose his book in the morning and he is responsible for keeping track of it until we have
our meeting. Lately most of the books have been nonfiction or general fiction and Tim fills out a
paper that has the book title, author, purpose, and interesting facts or key points while he reads.
Once he is done, we then discuss the purpose and the facts/key points. As the weeks have gone
on, Tim has become more confident and is able to pause in his reading to make notes and return
to reading quicker. Some days Tim and I will take turns reading a page and we will have a verbal
discussion about the book instead of writing the information down.

Assessments Used, Results Table, and Growth

Silveroli Informal Reading Inventory

Time to Read Mis-cues Words per Accuracy

Minute

First Reading 120 seconds 5 mis-cues 90 WPM 97%

(2/23/22)
180 words

Second Reading 90 seconds 3 mis-cues 96 WPM 98%

(4/19/22)
145 words
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As he read, Tim went slowly at first and then gained some speed as he became more
comfortable and confident in his reading. He was able to self correct one error and as he became
more comfortable, Tim added in two words and left out 4 words but did not catch these mis-cues
to self correct however the sentence still made sense for both syntactic and semantics.
The second Silveroli reading took place 7 weeks after the first. Before he started reading
Tim paused, took a few deep breaths, and then began to read. He started out at his normal pace
and still took his time. He did make 3 mis-cues, which were to replace two words and leave out
one. His mis-cues still made sense and were towards the end of the reading when he was
comfortable and getting close to being done. I was slightly concerned with this reading because it
happened two days before the students had their fluence testing. When he came back in from
doing the fluency reading test, Tim told me that “What I read with you was easier and I liked it
better”.
Overall I am impressed with the growth that Tim has made. He still struggles a little bit
with reading aloud with the whole class however he has become very comfortable in reading
with just me. I was also informed by one of the ELL teachers that they have noticed he is getting
better at reading aloud when they do their small group readings and he seems to be becoming
more confident.

Recommendations
For Tim, I definitely would recommend that he keep reading nonfiction text. As the
school year has started coming closer to an end, Tim and I have not had as many sessions
together and he is okay with that. I have noticed that his confidence is getting better and that he
is enjoying being with his peers. He has started to read short chapter books that are close to his
level and when working with nonfiction text, I have seen an increase in his ability to read,
decode, and comprehend different parts of the text. Tim has also greatly improved his ability to
look at and identify the different parts of a nonfiction text. He is still a bit unsure what some of
the terms mean, such as caption, and still will get flustered and a bit overwhelmed in the large
group setting. With my unique situation of being in the classroom with Tim, I am able to provide
him support during these times and have noticed other classmates who are starting to offer their
help as well. Oftentimes, the classmate offering help will bolster Tim more than me, which is
amazing to see.
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As for his writing, I would definitely recommend that Tim work on expanding his writing
by being challenged to think outside of the box. He still struggles with being able to think of
something to write when he is unsure or cannot relate to the question. I have noticed that Tim is
getting better at writing when the question relates directly to something he has learned or he is
giving his opinion about what he has learned, especially when relating to the Reach for Reading
lesson. Tim has improved in his writing for creative prompts, such as “The day I turned into a
rabbit I…”. He will still ask questions for prompts that he struggles to relate to however he is
now trying to write at least one or two sentences instead of sitting and being a bit frustrated and
feeling like he doesn’t understand.

Reflection
As my time of being in the classroom comes to an end and my individual work with Tim
has somewhat stopped, I have realized the importance of taking the time to work with students
one on one, even if it’s only once a week. This individual time can help them to feel important,
valued, and like they have a say in their learning. One big thing I learned is that student choice
when it comes to reading is important, however I as the teacher may need to provide books for
the student to choose from, especially when trying to work on a specific skill.
I kind of knew that reading and writing were connected already and this experience really
showed just how connected they are. By working with Tim, I was able to see his writing improve
as his reading improved as well and vice versa. With having my own classroom already, I have
also noticed that daily vocabulary and word review does amazing things over time. Having
conversations about the words, what is being read, making writing prompts fun and challenging,
and guiding reading choices are all things that I as a teacher need to do to help all students
become better readers and writers. The challenge is how to do this on an individual level with
each student, while others are working in the classroom.
In conclusion, this case study helped me to build and strengthen a relationship with one
of my students and learn how to help him become confident. The things that I did and learned
with Tim are skills that can be transferred over to working with a small group of students and
even a whole class. I know that this will take a lot of practice and time but as long as I keep
trying, that is what matters. As I work on these skills and become better, the students that I help
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will be able to become better and more confident in their own abilities and ultimately, that is
what matters.