Running head: CASE STUDY

Educational Psychology Case Study

Rachel Porter
University of South Florida

CASE STUDY

Educational Psychology Case Study

Introduction
Gilbert Blithe (pseudonym) is a kindergarten student, a Dual Language Learner (DLL),
and part of the English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) program. He is considered a
Level-Two student, meaning that he knows some English but is not yet ready to be out of the
program. Both he and his older sister attend Maniscalco Elementary School. The school resides
in a suburban area of Lutz and the surrounding area is very quiet and peaceful. The school is approximately a mile away from the interstate but the surrounding neighborhood buffers the sound
of traffic, and students are able to focus on learning without this added distraction. The class is
above the average level of a beginning kindergarten class both academically and behaviorally.
The students sit together at tables of three to four with higher level students seated next to lower
level students which encourages collaborative work and reinforcing learning. Name labels are on
everything from desks to binders and the alphabet is prominently displayed to aid in students
visual learning as well as other print concepts. The teacher has introduced the Daily 5 to the
classroom, so students are constantly challenged and improving. This is a thriving classroom full
of laughter and hard workers.
Cultural Development
Gilbert is a five year old Hispanic boy. His older sister walks him to class each morning,
and he rides the bus home every afternoon. He qualifies for free lunch and most likely has a low
socio-economic status. Gilbert says that he prefers to speak Spanish because he speaks Spanish
at home. His preference may also be due to the fact that he has a larger Spanish vocabulary and

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fluency than he does with English. Gilberts parents are very involved in his education as they
work with him on English words and ensured his enrollment in the ESOL program for Gilberts
academic benefit. His mainstream teacher stated that his parents do not know English and only
speak Spanish. However, when I spoke to Gilbert he said that his parents both know and speak
English. Further more his father knows a significantly higher amount of English than his mother
does, this may be because of career requirements or other factors. His parents communicate in
Spanish at home with him and his sister. Gilberts mother works with Gilbert on his ESOL
homework and practice. This requires a low understanding of English vocabulary because the
kindergarten class recently began sight words such as: a, an, is, in, and, and the. His parents
might not have a large academic vocabulary in English because the ESOL instructor attends parent conferences not only to contribute information but to also translate for the teacher and parents.
Parental involvement is encouraged at Maniscalco Elementary School. This school has
been a grade-A school for at least four consecutive years, and 56% of the schools student population qualifies for free or reduced lunch. The school also provides free breakfast to every student
daily. Minority students represent 47% of Maniscalcos student population. This school is not
part of Floridas Differentiated Accountability Program because of its grade-A status. The school
actively invites parents to several educational events and sends out massive communications in
several different forms intentionally sending out almost too much to encourage parental involvement. The Parent Teacher Association and the School Advisory Counsel work with local
businesses and volunteers to encourage community involvement as well.

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In Gilberts classroom half the students are caucasian and the other half are either
fully-hispanic or multi-racial, and over half of the students in his classroom qualifies for free
lunch, the others did not apply. The class actively works to build a community through encouraging each other and working towards a common academic goal.
Instructional Plan
Linguistic Development
Gilberts linguistic abilities are those of a near native speaker of English in kindergarten.
Upon initial observation only minor things point to his different first language. His reading and
writing status are at grade level.
Lexical
Gilbert has a very good vocabulary. There are certain words he does not know in English,
but they are not often used. For example, during ESOL instruction because he knew the word for
an object in Spanish but not in English, his teacher taught him the word hose. There are many
words he will be able to learn as he improves his reading skills. Gilbert is a very good reader and
tests very well. When evaluating his academic vocabulary, I noticed that he lacks in descriptive
words. I am unsure as to if the reason for his deficiency in academic vocabulary is due to his
ESOL status if those words are not used often in the home or if he is simply at or below grade
level in that section.
Grammatical
After assessing Gilberts Primary Spelling Inventory (PSI) it seems clear that he is at
grade level as an emergent speller and reader (Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, Johnston, 2012). He

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identifies the beginning consonant very quickly and may only need to review his letter sounds.
His scores from the Letter and Sound test and his instruction time with the ESOL teacher show
improvement (Bear et al., 2012). He recently mastered the difference between the /j/ and /g/ letter sounds. Most of the students in his class test above grade level in literacy, which may help
challenge him and encourage him to continue to improve. I also administered the test of print
concepts, which includes: book concepts (ex. front cover v. back), directionality concepts (ex.
reading left to right), reading concepts, concepts of word (ex. first word on page), concepts of
letters (ex. first letter in word), and punctuation marks. When analyzing his concepts of print, it
is clear that his book concepts and concepts of letters are very well developed. Directionality
concepts are something he still needs to master as well as concepts of words and letters. He does
know the difference between capital and lowercase letters, and I believe that his knowledge or
lack thereof reveals the emphasis that instructors have placed on specific concepts. As for punctuation marks, this concept has not been covered in his mainstream class, but Gilberts ESOL instructor not only asks Gilbert their names but also their functions and asks him to demonstrate
this during his reading. So, Gilbert scored very well during the punctuation mark portion of the
print concept assessment (Bear et al., 2012).
Phonetic
Gilbert comprehends well; he understands nearly everything with limited repetition. His
pronunciation is also very good, however a listener can identify an accent and an occasional mixup of vowel sounds. His social fluency is average as most children do not know or use words that
he does not know either. His academic fluency lags behind. He seems unsure when directions for
a project are given and often asks for repetition and affirmation. I measured these using a Student

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Oral Language Observation Matrix (SOLOM) as provided in my ESOL 1 course. There was not
an article connected to the SOLOM, but the matrix covers comprehension, fluency, vocabulary,
pronunciation, and grammar. The students can be rated from numbers 1-5, one indicating the student has not mastered one portion of that section, and five rating the student as a native-speaker.
I measured Gilbert against native-English speakers in kindergarten. This allows for minor discrepancies such as occasional lapses as students search for the correct word or phrase. This also
accounts for his status in grammar as native speakers do mix up word order without obscuring
meaning. His phonological awareness compares to native English speakers based off of the
Yopp-Singer Test of Phoneme Segmentation (Yopp, 1995). Modifications have been made to all
assessments I have administered to test students at the kindergarten level including repetition of
question or asking Gilbert to only segment the initial phoneme. He again easily recognizes the
beginning letter sounds and self-corrects on initially incorrect letters such as s and the soft c.
Gilbert struggled with a few phonemes that are very close in sound. This shows both his mastery
in the English language and the benefit of learning English and Spanish for many years.
Instructional Plan
Lexical
For Gilberts lexical development I suggest including images of new vocabulary that are
clearly labeled in English. This will improve contextual clues when deciphering a new word in
English and add to his vocabulary. As the class learns more terminology I would have visuals on
the walls with the label beneath. These visuals will rotate based on the material currently being

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reviewed, taught, and introduced. As students master the concept of colors and their spelling, the
instructor may replace those visuals with polygons or science tools.
Grammatical
For this section of instruction emphasis should be placed on directionality concepts. This
skill can be shown while reading aloud to the whole class. The teacher should model how students can point to words as they read from left to right. As the teacher introduces vocabulary
such as the beginning, middle, and end of a story he/she may point out the connection to the first
and last words on a page. Continued instruction on punctuation marks and their names should
also be integrated as students begin to write sentences they should be encouraged to end their
sentences with punctuation. The instructor can use this opportunity to put into practice the visual
examples with labels for all students to reference during writing.
Also I suggest that ESOL instruction would emphasize the difference between Spanish
vowel sounds and English vowel sounds. This does overlap with phonetic and phonemic instruction which serves as reinforcement. However since Gilberts mainstream teacher encourages
phonetic spelling it does affect his grammar. Currently, Gilbert is working on sight words during
ESOL instruction, an important task. However if Gilbert cannot decode words and vowels correctly, he may continue to pronounce and identify sight words incorrectly.
Phonetic
For phonetic development instructors should use word sorts and flashcards. Gilbert could
sort words with the same consonant sound or with the same vowel sound. One sort that would be

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especially beneficial is a long-vowel and short-vowel sort. Gilberts mother and ESOL instructor
are both practicing sight words via flashcards with Gilbert so this activity would be familiar.
Behavioral Development
The class behavior is monitored by a color chart and clothespins. Each clothespin has a
childs name on it, and the pins are always on Ready to Learn (green) at the beginning of the
day. Throughout the day the students either pull up or pull down their clips based on behavior,
the end of the day result is recorded for parents to sign off on in the students take home folder.
The options are: Red: send note home, Orange: making poor decisions, Yellow: slow down,
Green: ready to learn, Blue: making good choices, Purple: role model, off the chart: going above
and beyond in making good choices.
Gilbert is wonderfully behaved and usually goes home on either blue or purple. His
emotional regulation is excellent; when reprimanded, he seems to be quiet and introspective
(Bohlin, Cicero Durwin, Reese-Webber, 2012). His usual personality is not talkative, but he is
social and enjoys opportunities to move. He is not bold when it comes to answering questions in
front of the class. His hesitation may be from nervousness in the event of answering incorrectly,
or he may not understand the question or the answer options. Gilbert does seek to help others
during class and this behavior could be said of approximately 90% of the class, which encourages the community environment. He only seems to become restless after being seated for more
than fifteen minutes. Until that point, he is always on task. Children aged five or six have an attention span that lasts approximately five minutes and that increases with maturity (Bohlin et al.,

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2012). Gilbert focuses for longer periods of time as long as he is able to move around in-between
cognitively demanding activities.
Instructional Plan
I observed that well-behaved students may not be given attention as often as students who
provide behavioral disruptions. My suggestion is to thank students who are on task or following
directions. This acknowledges the desired behavior without rewarding it and encourages intrinsic
motivation (Bohlin, et al., 2012). Instructors should also point out to the class that those who are
focused and not engaging in social conversations complete their work on time or turn in quality
work. Wording needs to be specific to emphasize that a student should turn in their best work and
that does not necessarily indicate that quickly completed work is quality work or that intelligence
is measured by the swiftness of completed assignments or assessments. As for Gilberts need to
move about, teachers can provide brain breaks. The use of instructional videos or kinesthetic
activities may provide the break students need to sit down and focus on the task at hand (Bohlin
et al., 2012).
The best environment for Gilbert to learn in would not be much different than his current
classroom. The class size would be smaller to increase one-on-one time with the instructor. This
would also help the teacher better teach to every students needs verses a class of twenty or thirty
students. Also instruction in both English and Spanish would be so helpful for Gilbert. This way
the academic vocabulary would be presented in two languages to improve comprehension. If the
student to teacher ratio were less and students were instructed in both their first and second languages, it would foster better understanding and mastery of concepts presented. Then the instruc-

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tor may be able to provide more brain breaks and movement during the school day as each students needs are addressed quickly.
Social Emotional Development
Social Development
According to Erik Eriksons Psychosocial theory, Gilbert would be in the fourth stage:
industry versus inferiority (Bohlin et al., 2012). His teachers support his sense of industry by
challenging him with tasks within his Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) and using scaffolding (Bohlin, et al., 2012). He is challenged to read words in his second language as a Dual Language Learner (DLL). He is praised as he masters skills and identifies sight words, just as his
fellow classmates are. This sense of industry that Gilbert is creating will carry into the future
helping him persevere through difficult tasks.
Though Gilbert is in the fourth stage, it is plain to see that some aspects of the third stage
are still present. Gilbert is encouraged to take initiative and is responsible for age appropriate
tasks such as signing-in when he walks in the classroom by writing his name next to the printed version. The whole class has a set of tasks to do once they enter the classroom in the morning
which reinforces their sense of initiative and industry. These stages are not set in stone and may
blend together as the child develops. As for his identity, Gilbert would be placed in the diffusion/
foreclosure stage because, from observation, he has not examined his ethnicity (Phinney, 1989).
Gilbert does have a sense of belongingness and a positive attitude towards his ethnic group as is
clear from my interview with him. Though surrounded by children of other ethnicities at school,
he greatly values the language and traditions of his home life.

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Based on observations, Gilberts self-esteem is average in his classroom. This may be because he is currently learning concepts that other students have previously mastered however this
does not mean that he has low self-esteem. He is confident enough in his own abilities during
specific subjects so much that he assists others with ease. Gilbert has wonderful emotional regulation and understanding according to Daniel Golemans broader model of emotional intelligence
(Bohlin, 2012, p64). He uses the facial expressions of others to draw conclusions of their emotions. He also expresses negative emotions in a proper manner for the classroom. For example,
when told to pull his clip down in class for interrupting or not following directions Gilbert quietly walks to the chart to pull his clip down and quickly and quietly walks back. He shows his disappointment in his own behavior or the teachers reprimand without causing a distraction to the
rest of the class. Others may complain, grumble, or even cry at the direction to pull their clip
down.
Gilberts sociability is obvious. He seeks to speak with others during activities (when appropriate) and always maintains his voice level, as instructed. He also seeks to share what activity he is doing whether it be the book he is reading or the structure he is building. I would recommend that Gilbert improve on his social problem solving skills. He and a couple of his classmates can become distracted during class and speak to each other instead of listening to the
teachers whole group instruction. This shows a poor decision to listen to friends speak rather
than instruction. In kindergarten this behavior is expected and Gilbert rarely indulges in it, however that is when he is corrected the most.

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Emotional Development
The milestones that Gilbert has met show that he understands that people can experience
several emotions at one time, and he exhibits emphatic responses (Bohlin et al., 2012). His understanding of emotion causes and behavioral signs is generally accurate as this is something he
is still developing. His progress would place him as transitioning from the 3-6 year old section to
the 7-11 year old section (Bohlin et al., 2012). As each separate section is not concrete, he often
transitions between two.
As I spoke about in the previous section, his emotional regulation is very good for his
age and grade, examples were previously provided as well. Gilberts self-motivation is still developing; he does not yet exhibit behaviors that point to setting goals for himself to motivate
himself for success. He greets others that he knows well and trusts with excitement such as his
mainstream teacher. Others that he has not known for as long such as myself and his ESOL
teacher he greets shyly and then slowly warms up to during the day or period of instruction. This
difference shows his understanding that he should be wary of strangers and not all adults are
trustworthy (Bohlin et al., 2012).
Instructional Plan
Social
For Gilberts continued progress in Erik Eriksons Psychosocial theoretical stages, Gilbert
should be entrusted with more responsibilities (Bohlin et al., 2012). Every responsibility should
be age appropriate, and he should understand the purpose behind it. This can develop his sense of
self and independence. As for Gilberts ethnic identity, teachers and mentors need to display the

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value of other cultures and ethnicities in the classroom. Students are currently studying American
traditions and symbols in Social Studies. An assignment could be to go home and interview family members on the traditions from their childhood, or symbols from their culture. This will bring
a variety of responses and show how the symbols and traditions of the United States of America
differ from region to region, as well as how they contrast to those of other countries. Especially
during the holiday season instructors can show the beauty of diversity by researching and sharing
the holiday traditions of different culutres.
Gilberts emotional regulation is excellent. His mainstream instructor thanks students
who help others and show kindness. This encourages such behavior and actions without putting
the specific student on display in front of the class. This practice should continue. During whole
group instruction Gilberts mainstream teacher quickly tells disruptive students to pull their clips
down without making an ordeal. She quickly is back to the lesson as if nothing happened to limit
the distraction. She does not let inappropriate behavior take time away from instructional time.
She does give out rewards to the whole class randomly if students behave especially well. This
allows students to remain intrinsically motivated as rewards are not guaranteed for proper behavior (Bohlin et al., 2012). This practice should continue to encourage intrinsic motivation and the
desire to make good choices. To assist in student focus during whole group instruction, I would
allow for students to engage in more social conversations during Respond To Intervention time.
Students are actively improving small motor skills and connecting a concept such as polygons to
the manipulative they are using. This may give them a mental brain break while still actively
completing a academic related task. This may give students like Gilbert the opportunity to talk
with peers before transitioning back to receiving instruction and lessons.

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Emotional
I will provide opportunities for all my students to set some academic goals for themselves. Rather than creating all goals for them I would allow for collaboration so that students
have an active role in this process. Then with scaffolding and proper encouragement the students
will achieve their goals and feel confident in their abilities as learners. This can improve their
perseverance, which is a math standard for student in kindergarten. Also at the beginning of each
semester I will have a discussion with my class about appropriate reactions in the classroom.
Students should have a clear understanding of how to act when angry, sad, restless, or excited
during school. As the teacher I will model this and have the students role play. Then throughout
the semester I can remind students of the discussion by complementing the whole class on their
emotional regulation (Bohlin et al., 2012).
Cognitive Development
Gilbert functions in-between Piagets pre-operational and concrete operational stage of
constructivist theories of cognitive development (Bohlin et al., 2012). He displays his ability to
focus onto dimensions simultaneously by being able to sort objects by shape and color, or size
and material. This skill is mastered in the concrete-operational stage, but Gilbert does not show
identity constancy, which is another skill in the concrete-operational stage. Gilbert is also beginning to acquire conservation, a task in the concrete-operational stage. However his progress in
both stages shows his transition between the two stages as he still requires concrete representation to solve a problem. Lingering in the pre-operational stage may be because of his DLL status
and the fact that he uses contextual support as a strategy in the English-only classroom. The need

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for concrete examples to solve problems is an action used by those still in the pre-operational
stage (Bohlin et al., 2012). Gilberts mainstream teacher does a good job of using positive strategies from both Piaget and Vygotskys theories on cognitive development. She allows for the
children to master techniques in their pre-operational stage while also using working within their
ZPD to reach up to the concrete-operational stage. Gilberts response time is usually longer than
that of his classmates. This may be because he is attempting to translate or process certain academic language in order to comprehend the question and formulate an answer in his second language (Bohlin et al., 2012).
Instructional Plan
For Gilberts cognitive development I will increase my wait time when asking questions.
Since an ESOL strategy is using contextual information I suggest that his instructors continue to
do so. Even though part of the concrete-operational stage includes the ability to complete a problem without concrete representation, it is helpful for his language development (Bohlin et al.
2012). Students actively acquire language skills and learn new concepts. This is best done simultaneously so I will continue to provide contextual support as they go hand-in-hand.
Metacognitive Development
Gilberts person or declarative knowledge is not accurate (Bohlin et al., 2012). He may
say that he does not know his alphabet when in fact he does. Also Gilbert will give up quicker on
answering a question if he knows that an adult will provide him with an answer. He is confident
with mathematical concepts but less confident about his personal knowledge when it comes to
literacy concepts. His task knowledge is accurate in the way that he understands that more tasks

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equate to being more difficult. Not that the number of tasks affects the challenging nature of each
individual task but the number affects his overall effort. As for strategy knowledge, Gilbert does
well with the few strategies that he knows. He does have trouble remembering a strategy to use if
he has been introduced to several, however once he has been reminded of the strategy, he uses it
well. Gilberts prior success in using phonetic spelling helps to encourage his use of metacognitive skills in the future. As for the characteristics of the theory of mind he has an understanding
of false-beliefs. When it comes to visual perspective-taking, Gilbert seeks to answer questions
correctly based off of the teachers facial expressions and body language so I feel as though any
conclusions I could draw from his answers would be clouded by this fact. As referenced in the
Linguistic section under the Phonemic heading, Mr. Blithe identifies the beginning phoneme of a
word with over 80% accuracy. He also self-corrects and only answers with similar phoneme
sounds and blends. He correctly identifies initial consonant in words which places him in the late
emergent spelling stage (Bear et al., 2012; Yopp, 1995). Gilbert has mastered the concepts of
book and reading but struggles with the concept of directionality. This was assessed using a print
concepts assessment adapted from Marie Clays book, An Observation Survey of Early Literacy
Achievement. He does understand the function of punctuation marks, which places him above
many of his peers (Clay, 2005). His metacognitive development is right on grade level or slightly
above from his assessment data and the text cited (Bohlin et al., 2012).
Instructional Plan
To free up working memory space I will support automaticity by having students practice
math and literacy concepts in difference forms. This could be by simply asking students to identify the letter or letters making the initial sound in a word or by having them write down answers

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to a pop quiz. This can assess their knowledge of letter recognition and how to write down numbers as well as counting order. Students can practice these tasks by searching for sight words and
counting how many times they find the word, and. Or, students could work together using flashcards of the previous months sight words. For mathematical concepts they could sort cards that
have the same number of objects or sets, and then could use the same cards with a greater than,
less than, or equal to sign in between to practice number order. These activities could be shown
as games and help students develop the automaticity they will require to move on to higher level
tasks (Bohlin et all. 2012)
Moral Development Instructional Plan
Gilberts current classroom has an atmosphere of trust and respect for others. Several
time throughout the day, his teacher points out empathetic responses. How would you feel if
someone did _______ to you? is asked often prompting students to empathize with others. Students learned about Veterans Day and made cards for those who serve in the military. This could
be considered service learning (Bohlin et al., 2012). I will encourage students to repay each other
with kindness and share academic goals with a partner and check-in with that partner throughout
the semester. Students will learn about collaborative learning and hot to empathize with others
and rejoice with others as well.
Critical Thinking Strategies
During class discussion and questioning, wait time will be doubled. The average weight
time is three seconds so this can be extended to at least six, if not more. Some DLLs take in the
information, translate it into their home language, process the information, come up with an an-

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swer, then translate it into the second language, and finally speak the answer. This process takes
longer than the three seconds that students are usually given to spit out an answer. Also, as students increase their skills in writing, the process of planning and reviewing work should be introduced. This helps students think critically about their work and self-assess.
Assessment Strategies
I will assess Gilbert by his knowledge in both languages. His ability to fully communicate his comprehension of a concept may be limited in English, and he may not know the academic vocabulary in Spanish. The assessment in both languages ensures that he is able to communicate as much as is known. I will provide visual aids and concrete examples for Gilbert to use as
contextual support. Gilbert should be allowed to give explanations in whichever language he can,
but when it comes to more concrete answers, they should be given in English. For example,
when he is asked what letter makes the /e/ sound? He should answer in English. This is something that must be communicated thoroughly with Gilbert before assessment takes place.
ESOL Strategies
I have mentioned many strategies throughout the different instructional plans. I will provide an intentional set of visual support for lessons. Often too many visuals can be distracting,
but when learning a second language contextual support is essential. Also as Gilbert learns to
read and recognize more words the labels on many objects will become more useful as it will
increase his vocabulary. Collaboration among peers in the classroom may help Gilbert recognize
his own mistakes in English as well as the milestones he has passed. This also fosters a community environment in the classroom. Self-assessment such as a portfolio is a formative assessment

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I will also use. This will provide a checkpoint for students to reflect on the quality of work they
are creating as well as the amount of effort being displayed. These strategies carefully balanced
with the whole group instruction and summative assessments will aid Gilbert in his journey to
mastering the English language.
Instructional Comments
Gilberts mainstream teacher does an excellent job circulating and preparing students for
the task at hand, as well as future lessons. I admire the ways she strives to meet her students
needs as learners and people, as well as their needs as young children. She artfully bridges the
gap between strictly meeting academic standards and playing. She ensures that students master a
concept as is required by current standards and does challenge students to turn in their best work.
She also allows students to engage in activities they enjoy while mastering these concepts, such
as coloring and singing. My only suggestion is to spend more time in small group settings. While
I am in the classroom, this teacher may be stepping back to allow me to work with students, but
even so students would benefit from more individualized instruction.
Family Engagement Plan
Mr. Blithes parents only meet with his teachers during parent conference nights twice a
year. My plan is to have the parents and teachers meet once a month to monitor his progress and
go over strategies to aid in his second language acquisition. The mainstream and ESOL teacher
will come prepared with suggested activities to do at home to foster this learning. Gilberts parents can come prepared with any questions, concerns, or improvements they have observed.

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While the school actively encourages parental involvement this monthly conference will open up
more communication between Gilberts family and instructors.
Action Research Plan
I believe this plan will help not only Gilbert, but also his classmates. Creating automaticity and the use of a more individualized instruction will no doubt increase the quality of education
being given. Since the students are in kindergarten, the tasks they are completing are essential to
their development as learners. First, students must learn to read before analyzing a piece of literature on the SAT. I plan to analyze summative assessments every two weeks for the first two
months; then, if there is improvement I will continue the plan and analyze summative assessments every three weeks. Formative assessments will be used by class engagement and discussion. Many of the strategies that I plan to implement also may aid other students in Gilberts
classroom, so I will be checking their improvement as well as his.
Conclusion
Gilbert Blithe is an intelligent, well-behaved student. He works well with other students
and seeks to help them often. When analyzing his development in several different areas I felt as
though it was unnecessary. Though as learners and teachers we can all improve, this student excels in many areas. I am encouraged by all his mainstream teacher does to supplement his ESOL
instruction and learning of a second language. This case study has given me an in-depth perspective in the academic portion of this student. I see now that with all the knowledge and experience
of being a teacher, it may be simpler to conduct such research and create plans by teaching these
children every day rather than only seeing them once a week. In closing, I have an instructor who

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weekly asks students, What will it take for you, as a classroom teacher, to help each of your
students meet his or her literacy goals? I interpret the question to, How can I help each student
meet all their academic goals? Everything. In response, it will take all the time, strategies, theories, and heart that I possess. Once my students meet one goal there will be the development of
of a new challenge to help them overcome.

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References
Bear, R., Invernizzi, M., Templeton, S., & Johnston, F. (2012). Words Their Way: Word Study for
Phonics, Vocabulary, and Spelling Instruction (5th Ed.). Pearson Education Inc.
Bohlin, L., Cicero Durwin, C., & Reese-Weber, M. (2012). EdPsych Modules (2nd Ed.). New
York: Mc Graw Hill Higher Education.
Clay, M. M. (2005). An Observation Survey of Early Literacy Achievement (3rd Ed). Portsmouth,
NH: Heinemann.
Phinney, J. S. (1989). Stages of Ethnic Identity in Minority Group Adolescents. Journal of Early
Adolescence, 9, 163-173.
Yopp, H. (1995). The Yopp-Singer Test of Phoneme Segmentation. The Reading Teacher, 49, 2029.