Brittany Maze

EDUC-5902 Case Study 1

Student background:
**To protect student privacy, a pseudonym is being used in this case study.
My case study was completed on a 7-year-old boy named Sam. He is in the 2nd
grade in the Pittsford School District. He doesnt have any notable medical history. Sam
lives at home with his parents, both of whom are doctors, and his 3-year-old sister. I met
Sam when he was 5 years old and I remember being intrigued by his love for music. He
used to stand in front of the TV dancing and singing to the beat, which sounds typical of
most children, however, I knew Sam was different because of the way he would keep
time to the music. He uses a Ch, Ch sound that he creates with his mouth as his
metronome. He began taking piano lessons from my husband, who continues to be blown
away by his natural music ability. He is able to play Michael Bubles, Just havent met
you yet, and Owl Citys Fireflies flawlessly. My husband has recently begun teaching
him guitar as well. Sam loves sports like swimming and running, but doesnt particularly
like organized sports such as soccer. He loves everything Spiderman and has basically
memorized The Amazing Spiderman 2 movie.
Sams mom has made comments that socialization doesnt come easy to him. At a
young age, he knew his likes/dislikes and didnt care to do anything else. He would
prefer to stay inside, reading books or playing Spiderman as opposed to going outside
and playing soccer. While observing him interacting with other children his age, he
would want to do his own thing and also seemed to get annoyed at them because they
didnt follow the rules or behave like they were suppose to. However, it seems like this

aspect is improving. He does have one particular friend that shares his same type of
humor and comes over quite often for play dates.
In regards to literacy, Sam loves to read. He was an early speaker, wowing his
teachers because of his clear articulation at 2 years old. His little sister followed in his
footsteps as well. He loves being read to, he loves to read to others and he loves to read
silently. Both of his parents have invested a lot of time into their children by reading to
them, talking to them, turning the TV off and encouraging pretend play. When the TV is
on they watch educational shows with the captions on. They take full advantage of the
National Museum of Play, encouraging their childrens natural curiosity of the world.
Over the summer, Sam began reading The Diary of a Wimpy Kid series and still hasnt
put them down. His 2nd grade teacher placed him in a guided reading level M at the
beginning of the school year, where he continues to be instructed, which is generally an
end of 2nd grade goal.

Assessments:
-Fountas & Pinnell Benchmark Assessment
-Basic Reading Inventory (BRI)
-Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA)

Fountas & Pinnell

I gave Sam his first literacy assessment on September 28th. I assessed him at a
level M because that was his current instructional level determined by his teacher. Sam
had to read a book about guide dogs that help blind people. Because this was to be a dry
read, I could not assist Sam in any background information. I did make an error during
this first test: I forgot to inform Sam that there would be comprehension questions at the
end. This fact may have contributed to a difficulty answering questions later.
F&P includes a running record to assess the students accuracy and fluency. Sam
did not make any errors during the oral reading of this story. He had a 100% accuracy
rate with two self corrections. Both of his self-corrections used the syntactical cuing
system. He read the following, It requires a dog, dogs full attention. It didnt change
the meaning of the sentence and the two words: dog and dogs are obviously very close
visually. However, Sam noticed that it just didnt sound right and therefore selfcorrected. I gave Sam a score of 3/3 on the fluency portion. He reads smoothly, with
expression and only pausing at the appropriate punctuations. His reading rate was off the
charts at 107.5 words per minute.
His comprehension is where he didnt give me a clear picture of his academic
abilities. His mother and little sister were present, I omitted explaining there would be
questions at the end, it was a Sunday where hes used to being able to play and also, Im
usually more of a friend to Sam than a teacher. However, despite these variables, he still
humored me and answered the questions. I would not feel comfortable determining any
sort of instructional methods based off of this assessment alone. His responses to the
questions were quite vague. He did provide some examples from the text without

looking, but I would have liked to hear a more verbose answer that I know he is capable
of producing. Sam received a score of 2/3 in both the Within the Text and Beyond the
Text comprehension sections. In the About the Text section, which are the higher-level
thinking questions, Sam chose to not respond regarding headings. It may have been
because the concept of headings are outside of his current schema. However, I was still
forced to give him a score of 1/3. According to F&P, his comprehension on this
assessment fell under the Limited Comprehension category.
Sam drew an appropriate picture along with a summary sentence stating, I learnd
that guide dogs can be your friend. His handwriting was neat and showed that he has an
appropriate grasp of phonemic awareness.

BRI
The second assessment I gave to Sam was a Basic Reading Inventory. I assessed
him on Wednesday, October 22nd around 5:30pm. He had been in school all day,
followed by a roller skating party. I also challenged him by assessing at a grade level 3.
The first thing he did was read the BRI grade 3 sight word list. My emphasis on this part
of the assessment was to ensure that the words I marked correct were in fact sight words
for Sam, meaning they were automatic. If there were any pauses, I marked them wrong.
Sam received 20/20 on the grade 3 word list and a 17/20 on the grade 4 word list. He did
self-correct 2/3 sight words that he missed on the grade 4 list, which is a good thing to
note, however they were not in fact automatic for him. The grade 3 list was scored at his
independent level and the grade 4 list was considered his instructional level.
The next section of the BRI included an oral reading. The provided passage was
way too easy for Sam. Similar to the F&P assessment, he didnt have any errors. Sam had
one self-correction that he fixed using the syntactic cuing system. The passage was
considered to be at his Independent level. His oral reading rate was again, off the charts.
The highest score to mark on the recording sheet was a 90. Sam read 153.8 WPM.
The comprehension section of this BRI was also at Sams Independent level. He
answered all 10 of the questions correctly. He not only responded with detail, but orally
expressed exactly what the test wanted him to. According to this BRI, he is at an
Independent reading level when being instructed at a 3rd grade reading level.

DRA
The final assessment I gave to Sam was the DRA. He took the test immediately
following the BRI and fatigue had definitely settled in. The DRA is an intense test to
begin with, not to mention following a long day of school and socialization. Sam read the
book called Busy Helpers at a Level 30, which is considered a guided reading level N.
This is typically where students are reading at the beginning of 3rd grade. Sam had 3
miscues that were not self-corrected as well as one self-correct. His first error was highly
visual. He stumbled over the word approval, but used his phonemic awareness to sound
it out as uh-pro-vul. His second and third errors go hand in hand and could be
considered one error: Reversal. He omitted the word left and inserted it later in the
sentence. The sentence reads, Her left leg was in a cast, and Sam read it as, Her leg
was left in a cast. Although it changes the meaning of the sentence, it still makes sense
semantically and syntactically, but not visually.
Sams 2-3 miscues gave him a 99% accuracy score. He read the 216 word passage
in 1 minute 40 seconds. The highest score noted on this 3rd grade DRA is 111 WPM and
Sam read 129.6 WPM. I felt as though the reading portion of this DRA was overly
lengthy. Sam had to continue finishing the rest of the book silently. After I had begun
Sams comprehension section, his mom came home from work. Right in the middle of
the test, he assumed he was completed after finishing the first page of the written portion.
To avoid tears, I didnt force him to complete the assessment. However, I was not able to
get a complete comprehension score on Sam. He did respond to the Text Features and
Prediction sections of the assessment. Both of his responses were accurate, but I
wouldve liked to have heard more details. Sam completed the After Reading Summary

portion of the assessment brilliantly. He clearly and accurately expressed what happened
at the beginning, middle and end of the story. He received a score of 4/4 for his summary
and vocabulary. Because he only provided 2 predictions as opposed to 3, Sam received a
score of 3/4 for the prediction section. For the use of text features, I gave Sam a 2/4 due
to the vagueness of his response. However, his vagueness could be directly related to the
fact that he is only 7-years-old and simply hasnt been exposed to the concept of text
features yet. The remaining comprehension sections were N/A due to Sams assumption
that he had completed the assessment.

Visual results of assessments

Suggestions
Sam is an extremely smart 7-year-old student. His love for reading and curiosity
is going to enable him to excel throughout his academic career. He reads fluently, with
expression and appropriate pausing. His reading rate was off the charts in all three of his
assessments. Unfortunately, its difficult to find challenging books for gifted students
because the students havent been introduced to the concepts in advanced books yet
which can negatively affect their comprehension abilities.
The first assessment I gave to Sam was Fountas and Pinnell. Through this
assessment I determined that Sam is clearly a fluent reader. However, I wasnt as
impressed with his comprehension skills for the same reasons I noted in the previous
paragraph. My suggestion would be to continue to challenge Sam in the advanced texts.
However, proper reading strategies are going to be imperative to ensure comprehension.
Prior to reading the higher-level text, begin with some pre-reading strategies. Start with a
simple book walk. Read the title of the book together, go through the pages and
hypothesize what the book is going to be about based on the pictures. Pick out any
difficult vocabulary words and discuss them prior to reading. If there are any difficult
concepts or ideas that Sam hasnt been introduced to before, then expand his knowledge
on the topic through visuals, bodily-kinesthetic activities and supplemental readings at his
independent level. Next, we will discuss during reading strategies. I think this is where
Sams comprehension broke down. I recommend providing Sam with graphic organizers
to complete while he is reading. Another approach would be to simply ask him guided
comprehension questions while hes reading. If he doesnt understand what hes reading,
stop and discuss the topic at hand. Finally, engage in post-reading strategies. After the

book has been read, discuss what new information was learned, what new characters
were introduced, likes/dislikes, etc. This will help to solidify the new information into
Sams brain and give him the opportunity to analyze the book.
All instructional decisions that teachers make should be assessment based.
Teachers should strive to triangulate their assessments to ensure the best possible
placement for their students to be challenged while being fully aware of where their
frustrational level is. Ideally, students should be taught at their instructional level. Prior to
starting this journey, I felt that Sam was being inadequately challenged at his current
instructional level in school. Along with the other assessments, the BRI most strongly
confirmed my hunch. The BRI was assessed at a 3rd grade level N and Sam is currently
receiving instruction at the level M. The BRI assessment results showed that Sam
receiving instruction at a level N is still his independent level. My suggestion is that Sam
should be instructed at a higher reading level then where he is presently to ensure that he
is advancing his reading skills. Its important to implement the K + 1 (Knowledge + 1)
idea even with our gifted students. Unfortunately, this would require extra time for Sams
teacher because the concepts in higher level thinking books might be new to his current
schema at just 7 years old. His needs would require extra time spent on pre-reading
activities and introducing new concepts prior to reading. This would help support his
comprehension of texts that might contain concepts that are new to him.
The last assessment I gave to Sam was the DRA. I noticed a common theme
throughout Sams tests, but specifically on his DRA, is his inability to expound on his
thoughts. He is naturally a direct person that doesnt put in nonsense answers and seems
to dislike adding unnecessary details. This makes it difficult when the assessment

specifically wants 3 examples. Questions like, Anything else? proved beneficial some
of the time, but still left inadequate responses on some of the assessments. To help Sam
elaborate on his answers, I recommend incorporating as many opportunities for oral
language as possible. In school, encourage Sam to talk to a friend about his thoughts
regarding the topic at hand. After reading books, support him during a retelling by asking
questions about the text. My favorite strategy is utilizing wordless books and encouraging
Sam to narrate a story based on the pictures alone using as many details he can think of.
Simple relaxation techniques can be taught as well as some of his hesitations may have
been due to mild anxiety from being assessed.
Regardless of the suggestion that is implemented, the most important factor is to
ensure that reading and learning is fun for Sam. If he shows signs of frustration, I
recommend dropping the activity and revisiting it another day. He will not retain any of
the information if he is forced. Some ways to make it fun are to keep it play based,
include proper intonation, pitch and expression in your voice and always have a smile on
your face.

Brittany Maze
Roberts Wesleyan College
2301 Westside Dr. Rochester, NY 14624
Maze_Brittany@roberts.edu
(814) ***-****
Dear -----------------------:
Thank you for allowing me to assess Sam as part of my Assessing Literacy class
at Roberts Wesleyan College. The following letter contains a summary of my findings. I
administered the following three assessments: Fountas & Pinnell Benchmark Assessment,
BRI (Basic Reading Inventory) and the DRA2 (Developmental Reading Assessment).
The assessments are considered end of second grade/beginning of third grade in regards
to their level of difficulty. The following chart shows Sams results:

Fountas & Pinnell

BRI

DRA2

Level M

Grade 3

Level N

Accuracy

100%

100%

99%

Fluency

100%

100%

94%

Rate

Off the charts

Off the charts

Off the charts

(Words Per Min)

107.5 WPM

153.8 WPM

129.6 WPM

Comprehension

78%

100%

78% (Incomplete)

Sight word list

N/A

Grade 3: 20/20

N/A

Grade 4: 17/20

It should be noted that Sams comprehension score is not an accurate depiction of

his abilities, as I was unable to complete one of his assessments. However, we can still
learn from his data. There are many things we can do to help support his learning. Sam is
reading far above his grade level and may encounter difficulties comprehending texts that
contain concepts he hasnt been introduced to yet. Its important to continue to advance
his reading skills by encouraging him to read more difficult texts. To support him in that
endeavor I recommend incorporating three pre-reading strategies. The first is to
encourage Sam to predict what the text is going to be about based only on the title and
pictures. This will assist in exciting him to read the text as well as reveal any confusion
about topics contained in the story. Next, scan the book for any exceptionally difficult
vocabulary. Show the new words to Sam and figure out the definition together prior to
reading the text. Finally, spend time teaching Sam about any new concepts contained in
the book that might not be apart of Sams current schema. This will allow Sam to
continue to read at an advanced level without also sacrificing comprehension.
Thank you for your continued support! Sam is an exceptional reader.

Sincerely,
Brittany Maze