Literacy Case Study

Holly McDonnell
Towson University
Reading Interest Inventory

The student I am administering the tests included in the literacy case study is with my

friends niece, student K. K is seven years old in the second grade, and she goes to the Baltimore

County School, Arbutus Elementary. There are 440 students currently enrolled in the school and

it is not one of Baltimore Countys Title One schools, although, 53% of the students participate

in the free or reduced lunch program. The schools demographics regarding diversity are as

follows: 67% Caucasian, 12% African American, 11% Asian/Pacific Islander, 4% Hispanic, and

6% of the students are a combination of two or more ethnicities. K lives in Arbutus, Maryland

which is a small town south of Baltimore. The community of Arbutus is a working class

community, and a part of it is low income. Ks mother explained to me that she does not come

from a low income family, but surrounding neighbors and some of her classmates are. The town

of Arbutus is very friendly and most people know everybody in the town. I, Holly McDonnell

will be conducting the literacy case study with K. I will be going to her home for a few visits to

conduct my case study in September, October, and November. I will be working with K to

administer the writing samples, Reading Interest Inventories, Phonological Awareness Profile

(PAP), Informational Reading Inventory (IRI), developing recommendations, and developing

family literacy activities. The reading interest inventories and first writing sample were

administered on September 18th, 2016. The second writing sample and the PAP were

administered on October 17th, 2016. The IRI was administered on November 13th, 2016. The last

portion of the literacy case study that I administered was the third writing sample on November

20th, 2016.

I have already collected the first writing sample and Reading Interest Inventories with K on

September 18th, 2016. I observed Ks behaviors during the reading interest inventories. I did not
tell her I was marking down her answers in a questionnaire format, instead I told her I wanted to

just have a talk with her about reading and how she feels about reading. I found approaching the

inventories in a conversational way, made the conversation comfortable for her, and she was

more motivated to open up about her feelings about reading. On the side of me, I kept a

notebook to jot down a few notes about her opinions about reading that went with the three

questionnaires I picked to use. From the inventories, I found out that K likes to read for fun, but

can find it boring if it is not a topic she is interested in. She explained to me that she enjoys

stories about adventure, especially Mo Willems books. She also expressed interest in stories

about animals and people, and funny stories. K was very excited to show me that she likes to

play pretend school and write her own books. During my visit, she read all four books to me and

was very excited about writing. Her two favorite books are Wacky Wednesday by Theo Lesieg

and Lets Go for a Drive! by Mo Willems. K expressed to me that it depends on her feelings

about the book in order for her to enjoy it, but she believes herself to be a good reader. She also

expressed interest in when someone reads to her, the stories they read in her school, and reading

with a partner. In my opinion, I observed K to like reading and writing in school and outside of

school, especially since she incorporates so much of it into her free time.

All portions of the literacy case study were administered in the students home at their kitchen

table. The environment for administering the writing samples was conductive, because we were

close by to some of Ks games, books, pictures, her computer, and her dog. Having these items

and her dog nearby helped her develop ideas to write about for the writing samples. Although the

environment was beneficial for developing ideas for writing, it was not always the best for all

other portions of the case study administered, particularly the PAP and IRI. This is because, her

dog and the television are nearby and within sight of the kitchen table we sat at, making it
distracting at times during the testing. Although she was at times distracted by her dog or the

television, it was not hard to redirect her attention. K loves to take tests and play school, so I

could easily engage her in the tests by getting her excited about the next question or testing

portion. Other than Ks dog and television being minor distractions from the tasks, I believe that

all assessments administered are accurate representations of Ks literacy abilities currently. All

assessments show accurate data about Ks literacy strengths and needs.

Writing Samples

1st Writing Sample Analysis

On September 18th 2016 I administered the first writing sample with K. Student Ks writing

sample represents one MCCRS (Maryland College and Career Readiness Standard) Cluster

Skills for writing. The writing cluster for second grade that is represented in her writing sample

is: W3 CCR Anchor Standard- Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or

events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences. K

uses this cluster is her writing, because she wrote about a sequence of events that happened over

the summer involving her three vacations she took. She identifies each event or vacation, and has

written them in a logical sequence.

The writing stage that I believe that K is in is the conventional writing stage. According to the

article Stages of Writing Development by Graves, K is in the last of the stages listed. The

article explains that this stage comes after the transitional stage, and that the writer is replacing

invented spelling of words with the correct spelling of words. K has two spelling errors in her

sentences where she wrote the word were instead of where, and camp-sight for camp

site. Also she spelled this word wrong, I do not believe is invented spelling because she uses the
word were accurately in another part of her sentence. According to the article, K has

transitioned from invented spelling to correct spelling of words. There are a few grammatical

error in her writing sample. One grammatical error is her use of to instead of too in the

sentence, I went to Delaware beach with my mom to! In addition to that, she did not capitalize

the word beach in that sentence. Another portion of her writing that shows she is in the

conventional stage according to the Stages of Writing Development article, is that she uses

punctuation and commas accurately. She uses punctuation such as periods and exclamation

points appropriately in every sentence she wrote. She also used commas accurately in the

sentence, There were water slide, moon-bounces, a pool, mini golf, an arcade, & a shop were

you sign in!

According to the article, Monitoring Progress in Spelling Using Developmental

Information, K is representing stage five in her spelling. Stage five, also known as the correct

spelling stage, is explained in the article to have almost a complete mastery of complex sound-

symbol principles, has a wide range of self-correcting strategies to use, and looking up words

strategies are evident as well. K shows in her writing sample that she is in stage five, because

she has almost no spelling errors and she shows almost a complete mastery of complex sound-

symbol principles. For example, she spells the word Delaware correctly in her last sentence.

The article also states that although most of the spelling is correct, there can also still be a few

unusual spelling errors in their writing. K wrote were instead of where and sight instead of

site, as mentioned previously. These errors are minor just as the article explains, because she

used another real and accurately spelled word in place of the word she wanted to use.

K has a few components of her composition of writing that are identified by the Analyzing

Primary- Leaners Writing packet. One component that is represented in her writing
composition is that she stays on topic in the writing sample. Her writing sample is all about the

vacations she went on this summer, and she includes her camping trip, water park trip, and

Delaware Beach trip. Another component identified by the packet that she includes in her writing

sample is that she is starting to use logical sequenced ideas. When writing about the places she

went on vacation, she has a sequence in her writing that shows where she went to first, and she

will include the words I also went to and too to show that those trips occurred after the first

trip. In addition to logical sequence of ideas, she uses tone and emotions in her writing when she

uses the exclamation point to show her excitement for all the places she went to.

According to the packet page titled Handwriting Formation & Spacing, one sign of a

student who made need additional help in writing, is one who holds the pencil with an awkward

grip. From observing K writing her writing sample, I noticed that she does not have an awkward

pencil grip, and will not need any assistance on improving her grip. She has almost no signs that

are listed in the packet page that would identify her needing assistance with her handwriting.

This is because she uses spacing between letters and words appropriately, she does not avoid

writing tasks, she has correct placement of words on the page, and she has legible handwriting.

The only component listed on the packet page that she may need some assistance with is

difficulty forming letters. For the most part, all her letters were formed accurately, but she could

use some practice forming the uppercase D letter, lower case k, and lower case f.

After analyzing Ks early writing sample, I have three recommendations for her writing

development. One recommendation is for her to practice writing and using descriptive words in

her sentences. One way to do this that my mentor recommended was to provide the student with

a descriptive words chart. On the chart could be different sections such as: hearing words,

seeing words, and etc. Underneath these categories, would be words the student could begin to
use in her writing. For example, underneath feeling words, one word could be slippery.

Another recommendation to improve her forming the letters uppercase D, lower case f, and

lower case k, is to have the student trace the letters with her fingers on top of a zip lock bag that

is filled with paint. This idea came from my mentor teacher, and she recommended it because not

only is it sensory, but the student can see the letter formations clearly, and correct themselves.

My last recommendation that my mentor and I came up with is for her to start proof reading her

writing. One way to do this, is to have her read her writing aloud afterwards, for her to hear her

minor spelling and grammar mistakes. If that doesnt work, then she could be provided with a

few writing samples where she would have to correct and change a few words to the correct

words. For example, she would have to recognize and change the word pear in a sentence that

should have the word pair. This way, the student identifies that she must use the word site

for campsite instead of the word sight.

2nd Writing Sample Analysis

On Monday October 17th, 2016, I administered the second writing sample with K. Based on

what K wrote, I could tell she did not seem as interested in writing that day. With prompting, I

could only motivate her to write three sentences for this writing sample this time. It also took a

while to get her to start writing about a topic because for a while she sat in the chair, and engaged

in off-topic conversation about what she wanted to be for Halloween. I tried to redirect her many

times, and even suggested her writing about what she wanted to be for Halloween, but she told

me she wanted to write about something else. There are a lot of elements are the same as her first

writing sample. According to the Stages of Writing Development article by Graves, K is still in

the correct spelling stage. Ks handwriting is similar to what it looked like in her first writing

sample. In this sample, she did not write the lowercase k or upper case D letters, so
determining whether or not there is improvement in that area is not applicable. Other letters she

used look similar to how she wrote them in the first analysis.

I did not see any improvement in the areas addressed in the recommendations section of the

first analysis. Although, I did observe new concerns in her second writing sample. Ive observed

that she also needs improvement on forming other letters when writing. For example, she seems

to struggle with writing the lower case n and lower case r. Now that I have observed this, I

can see some similar marks in her handwriting for the lower case letter m, n, and r in her

first writing sample. I also noticed that similar to her first writing sample, she could use extra

practice with developing the use of descriptive words in sentences. One thing that Ive noticed

about her writing after observing this sample, is that she could use extra practice with organizing

her thoughts for what she wants to write about. In this sample, she writes short sentences about

her dog, but because they are not organized thoughts, they do not flow very well.

I have a new recommendation to add as an intervention for her writing. This idea is one that I

discussed with my mentor is to help K with organizing her thoughts to help her develop a flow in

her writing. One of the ideas is to use a graphic organizer for writing, that will help her develop

her topic and supporting details in an organized way. Another idea that I found to use is from my

ECSE 413 class which is to use a foldable to organize her writing by topic and details. I believe

both ideas would be beneficial for K to help her to get into the habit of organizing her writing

and developing a flow in her writing. To help her handwriting, especially for the letters r,

m, and n, the previous recommendation of having a sensory bag full of paint to trace letters

into is still a great way to help her improve her handwriting. Another beneficial idea that my

mentor shared with me for handwriting improvement, is to do rainbow tracing. The student

would have words or letters to trace over, and they would trace over the same dotted words or
letters with multiple different colors. This activity makes tracing more engaging for the student,

and will give her extra practice to improve handwriting. Lastly, I would keep using the

descriptive words chart, and emphasizing proof reading her work as stated after the first writing

sample, because her writing would really benefit from those interventions.

3rd Writing Sample Analysis

On Sunday November 20th, 2016 I administered the third assessment for writing with K. It was

easier this time to have her think of a topic and write it on paper. The last two times that I had her

write a writing sample, she had no problem thinking of topics, but instead of writing, she just

wanted to talk about the topics. So, some improvement was made in motivating her to write her

ideas on paper and sticking to one topic. For this writing sample, K decided she wanted to write

about her Girl Fantage website users. I had no prior knowledge of what this website was, so she

explained to me the games you can play on the webpage. She seemed to be very excited to talk

about the webpage, so Im assuming that is why she was motivated to write about the topic so

quickly this time. For this writing sample, it is evident that she started with an opening sentence

about her topic, and then ended the short writing sample with a concluding sentence as well. She

opened with I have a girl Fantage user and she ended with the sentence I have two users

total. K did not write any words that contained a lowercase k or uppercase D in this sample,

so there is no evidence on improvement or not. From observing this writing sample, it is evident

that she still is writing short non descriptive sentences. She has not used any descriptive words in

any of her sentences in this writing sample. In addition to her past two writing samples, in this

third writing sample she has started each sentence with a capital letter, and ended each sentence

with correct punctuation.

 From analyzing her writing again, I do believe that her handwriting seems to have improved

some. Her handwriting was legible in the past writing samples, but this writing sample she

seemed to have focused on her handwriting more. I also believe this because she wrote slower

than Ive noticed from the past two writing samples, so she may have been trying to focus on her

handwriting more this time. One more area of her writing that I noticed to be of concern, is that

this time she did not vary her word choices, such as in the beginning of a sentence. She started

very sentence she wrote with, I have, instead of using other words to vary her sentences and

make them flow better.

I would keep the recommendations from the past two writing samples. Even though it was not

applicable to analyze how she writes lowercase k or uppercase D in this sample, using the

zip lock bag full of paint to form letters using her fingers is a great hands on way to keep

improving her handwriting. I also still think providing a graphic organizer to help her flow her

ideas while writing would be helpful and beneficial for her. This way, she can organize her

thoughts while she is thinking of them, and then simply write the short paragraph about her

thoughts using the organizer as an aid. One new recommendation I would make to her writing

would be to provide a writing help guide for her. This help guide could be a small sheet of paper

that helps her create new ways to start sentences, or even have a list of descriptive words she

could implement into her writing. Using the help guide is an idea that my mentors Para Educator

and I discussed to use as a writing tool.

Phonological Awareness Profile (PAP)

Results of PAP

On Monday October 17th, 2016 I administered the Phonological Awareness Profile with K.

This paper reflects the summary of results from the Phonological Awareness Profile. In the
Rhyming section, K showed full mastery of rhyming skills assessed in the profile. She

consistently discriminated whether or not two words rhymed or did not rhyme. She also showed

mastery of coming up with a word that rhymed with the words provided to her. K also

demonstrated mastery in the section of Segmentation, she was able to clap for each individual

word in sentences that I read aloud from the profile assessment workbook. For example, she

clapped for each word in the sentence My cat is black. Regarding compound words, K clapped

once for each little word in the compound words I read to her aloud. This shows that K has a

complete mastery of compound word segmentation. In addition to mastery in compound words

and sentence segmentation, K also showed mastery in syllable segmentation according to her

results from the profile. She was able to segment every syllable by clapping for each syllable in

the words read to her aloud. The last section that K showed mastery in for segmentation is for

phoneme segmentation. She was able to say each sound in a word 9 out of 10 times, or 90%. The

only words she did not answer correctly was for number 8 eyebrow. She showed to have

struggled with segmenting the sounds in eyebrow. Instead of saying eye/b/r/ow, she said

eye/brrroww, and she looked at me to give for the correct answer. Although, I did not correct

her, instead I said, You are doing a great job, lets keep going.

As for the Isolation section of the profile, K showed complete mastery during the

administration of the profile. She showed that she has mastered isolating the initial, final, and

medial sounds in words that I provided to her orally. She did not seem to hesitate in answering,

and was ready for the next section within minutes. She also demonstrated a mastery of skills in

deletion of compounds/ syllables and in phonemes. She was able to say each word again without

saying the word I told her to leave out. For example, I told her mailbox. Now say it again but

dont say box, and she was able to respond correctly with mail. For the phoneme deletion
section, she mastered all answers as well. K showed consistency in answering all substitution

items correctly as well. With manipulatives, she was able to choose the correct blocks and use

them correctly to change the old word to the new word I had given her. Her mastery in this

section shows that she has consistency in accurately changing initial, final, and medial sounds in

words. For the section without manipulatives, she showed consistency in changing one word into

another word by changing one sound. For example, I said the word mouse and asked her to

change /s/ to /th/, and she answered mouth.

K showed mastery in the section blending for the profile. She was able to consistently answer

correctly what words I was saying. She was able to blend the individual sounds I was saying

aloud and form the word. She was also able to form a compound word or words by putting

together the word part or syllables I stated aloud. As far as the Grapheme section, my student

showed a mastery in this section. She had a 100% accuracy in consonants, short vowels, long

vowels, vowel diagraphs, diphthongs, r-controlled vowels, and consonant diagraphs. The only

section that she answered one item wrong in for graphemes was the subsection of consonant

blends. For item 32 (chr), the student said /chur/. Although, she was able to have a consistency

of answering the consonant blends section correctly with a 96% accuracy, she still needs to work

on identifying the consonant blend chr. The student demonstrated complete master of skills in

decoding made-up words. She scored a 5/5 (100%) on all individual subsections of decoding.

She had no struggles or hesitation in saying the nonsense words aloud during this portion of the

profile assessment.

The last section, invented spelling, was the only section of the profile that was somewhat

challenging for K. According to the profile workbooks definition of the stages of invented

spelling and the students data collected from this section, she is in the representational stage of
invented spelling. This means that she had most sounds logically represented in her spelling of

the fourteen words given to her. She showed complete mastery in spelling the initial sounds of all

words given. She showed 92% accuracy in writing the final sounds of words that were given.

The one she missed was number two (pecked), because she wrote peck only and did not add

the -ed ending. This shows that for the most part that the student shows a mastery of

representing the final sounds in her spelling of the words, but she struggled with representing the

-ed ending sound in the word pecked given verbally. The profile does show that she has a

mastery of using the -ed ending in other words although, because she spelled called

correctly. The student showed a mastery in representing the short vowel sounds her spelling

during the profile. Although, she showed a 2 out of 3 accuracy in the long vowel sounds in

spelling, because she struggled with the word unicycle. K showed that she struggles with the

cy sound in unicycle when spelling. Instead of unicycle, she wrote the long vowel sound

as unisycle. Although the word is spelled incorrectly, she uses her prior knowledge of what the

sound sy makes, and used it to represent the cy in unicycle. This shows that the student is

in the representational stage of invented spelling because she is using sounds logically. The

student demonstrated a mastery in consonant diagraphs for the invented spelling section. She

spelled the ch, sh, and th in words correctly out of the words given to her. For the section

of invented spelling that was consonant blends, the student showed 4 out of 5 accuracy. The only

word that she did not write the consonant blend correctly in was in squish, because she wrote

the q backwards. This shows that she still struggles with correctly writing the letter q, and

distinguishing which way to write q and p. The student showed a consistency of spelling in

the subsections: vowel diagraphs, diphthongs, r-controlled vowels, and plurals. In the ending

subsection of invented spelling, the student demonstrated 4 out of 5 correct in her writing of the
endings. She correctly spelled the ending ng and ed (d), but she missed the ending ed (t) in

the word pecked. As mention previously, the student shows hesitation and struggle with

representing the ending sound of ed (t) in her invented spelling according to this profile

assessment.

Recommendations

One recommendation I found online that the family or teacher could use is to implement clip

cards for long vowel sounds. Since the student struggled to use the long vowel of cy in

unicycle, using clip cards will be beneficial. The cards will have to be more complex long

vowel sounds such as the cy sound, because she should mastery in long vowel sounds that

were provided in the profile assessment. The clip cards could have a picture and under the

picture have the word that goes with the picture, but the long vowel will be missing from the

written word. On the side of the card there will be three options for choosing the missing part of

the word. For example, for unicycle, you would have a picture of a unicycle and the word

underneath as uni__le, and then the three options to clip a clip onto would be cy sci, and

s. The student would then learn to identify that cy is sued to represent the long vowel sound

in unicycle. Another idea that my mentor told me about is to have flash cards of long vowel

sounds for the student. For example, the student could have one flash card say long I and have

a picture of a bike since that word has a long I vowel in it. The bottom of the card would have

written the various ways to write the long I vowel sound such as y, I, and ie. This way, the

student gets a visual of their own that reinforces the various ways long vowel I can be

represented. Another idea that was discussed in our ECED 429 class previously, is to use elkonin

boxes. The elkonin boxes would be used to help the student segment words that have the sound

br in them, since the student struggled to segment the word eyebrow from the profile
assessment. The last recommendation that my mentor gave me is to use word slide cards to help

her practice saying and identifying the consonant blend sound of chr in words. You could have

a rectangular paper strip that has ending to words that begin with chr listed on it. Then, there

would be a smaller square paper that has chr on it and is able to slide up and down the

rectangular paper on the left side. This way, the student can practice saying all words and slide

the square piece down the line.

Informational Reading Inventory 6 (IRI-6)

Word Lists

The first portion of the IRI-6 that I administered were the grade level word lists. I

administered these first to identify Ks independent and instructional reading levels for the next

portion that involves K to read passages. I started with the word lists for grade level 1, which K

automatically recognized and said correctly, all twenty words from that word list. The results

show that she obtained 20/20, 100%, correct automatic and total number correct, which

according to the IRI-6, shows that she can read those words independently. Taking this data into

mind, I moved on to the grade level 2 word list. For the grade level 2 list, K recognized 18/20

words automatically, making it a 90% total automatically. K identified 2/20, or 10%, words from

the list. This means that K knew all 20/20 words from the list, but hesitated to identify two of the

words. The two words were though and noticed from the grade level 2 list, and she did

correctly identify them after a pause. These results represent that K is on an independent reading

level for grade level 2. When I moved onto the grade level 3 word list, this showed K starting to

struggle with a few words from the list. She scored 14/20 words automatically identified, a 3/20

correct identified, a 17/20 total correct from the list. This means that K was only able to identify
automatically 70% of the words on the list, and only scored 85% of the words correct total from

the list. The three words that K misread were motion, engines, and wool For the word

motion, she actually said the word notion; for the word engines, she pronounced it as en-

gines (long I vowel sound); and for the word curious, she pronounced it as c-er-ious. For

the word motion, she seems to have switched the m sound for the n sound, which could

have been accidentally substituted for another word she already knew, and she could have just

read it too fast without checking herself. For the word engines, she hesitated and slowly

dragged out sounding out the word, so it probably wasnt a word she has seen written very often,

and she used her knowledge of the silent e at the of a word making the vowel and long vowel

sound rule. For the word curious, she seemed to not have recognized it written, because she

hesitated to say this word and she did not decode the cure sound in the beginning of the word.

The 15% of the words that K scored as 3 correct identified were the words wool, introduced,

and interested. Although it took her an extra few seconds, K was able to decode the sounds in

wool, I am assuming because the oo sound she is familiar with in other words such as pool

or school. She was also able to decode the sounds in introduced by first saying intro and

sounding out the rest of the word to form introduced. In addition, K accidentally read

interested as interesting but then after a few seconds she corrected herself. The results from

this word list shows that this is Ks instructional level because she scored a 17/20 and the

instructional level is within the range of 14-17/20 words. From this data of all three word lists, I

made the decision to choose the story Whales and Fish grade level 2 passage for K to read as

her independent level, and the grade level 3 passage Cats: Lions and Tigers in Your House as

Ks instructional level reading.

Record of Miscues
 The first passage that was read was the grade level 2 passage Whales and Fish. K only had

only recorded miscue in the oral reading of this passage. K omitted the word the in the

sentence Fish take in air from the water. K omitting this word could mean that she was reading

too fast, and was ahead of herself in decoding the word water and skipped the article. This

miscue did not change the meaning of the sentence, therefore it was not a sematic error.

Although, it was a syntactic error since it made the sentence grammatically incorrect. K was able

to read this passage at a good rate, and fluently. One of the words from the grade level 2 word list

that she had not automatically identified, but only identified after a hesitation was though. The

word though was in the passage, and she read it fluently and did not hesitate. This shows that

K read the word faster in context than in isolation. Overall, at the independent level, K was able

to read 125 words per minute (WPM),showing that she can read at a fast rate, which can

conclude that most of the words in this independent reading level passage were sight words that

are processed as whole units instead of being decoded. On the Oral Reading Prosody Scale, I

gave K the score of 4, meaning, she reads in larger, meaningful phrase groups and most of the

story is read with expression.

For the second passage titled, Cats: Lions and Tigers in Your House, K took slightly a longer

time reading. Out of the 261 words in the passage, K, had 8 oral reading miscues within the oral

reading of this passage. None of the words that K could not identify correctly from the grade

level 3 word list were in this passage, so analyzing the comparison of her identifying those three

words in isolation and in context is not applicable. One miscue K made while reading was in the

sentence House cats, lions, and tigers are part of the same family, she said are apart. K

substituted apart for part in the sentence and both words sound similar which could mean

she is paying attention to sounds. This miscue does change the meaning of the sentence, so it is
sematic miscue. Another miscue is that she reversed the order of two words and inserted another

word within the same word phrase. The sentence in the text was When kittens, are first born,

they drink milk from their mothers. K said, When kittens are first born, they drink from milk

from their mothers. Ks miscue did not change the meaning of the sentence, and it did not make

the sentence grammatically incorrect. Another miscue K had was that she inserted the word

from after the word away in the sentence, Claws are used by lions, tigers, and kittens to

help them keep away enemies. This insertion changes the meaning of the sentence by making

the sentence mean that the claws help lions, tigers, and cats keep away from enemies, instead of

the sentence meaning that the claws keep the enemies away from them. Another miscue K made

while reading was replacing the word their with the in the sentence Those are their ways of

saying Im afraid, dont come closer. This miscue does not change the meaning of the

sentence, because the words are similar in meaning when referring to this sentence. K read 99

WPM which shows she is reading on instructional level when reading this grade level 3 passage.

I rated her oral reading prosody a level 3, meaning that K reads in three-four word phrase groups

and has little expressive interpretation during this reading.

Comprehension

K scored a total of 3 out of 9 (33%) on the concept questions for the grade level 2 passage.

This score of 33%, shows that K is not familiar with the topic and ideas of the passage.

Although, for the retelling of the passage, K has shown a good understanding of the text because

she mentioned 14 out of the 18 of the storys elements. K represents a good understanding of

retelling information from the passage in sequence of beginning, middle, and end and with

accuracy. She expressed her retelling of the story by stating the main idea of how whales and fish

are similar, followed by details to support the main idea, and then she stated the main idea of that
whales and fish are different and followed with details about that in order. K answered all 8

comprehension questions correct when I asked her them, which represents the independent

comprehension level of grade level 2. This means that K answered all implicit and explicit

questions correctly, and she shows a good understanding of what the text was about and key

details from the text.

K scored a 10/11 (90%) for the concept questions before reading the grade level 3 passage.

This means that because K scored 90%, she is familiar with the concepts of the reading. After

reading the passage, K was able to retell 9 out of the 19 elements from the story. This shows that

K has somewhat of a good understanding of what the text was about and some key details. She

was able to state one out of the two main idea elements. K was also able to state 8 key detail

elements from the passage. Within the key detail elements that K said in her retelling, all were

details from the middle and end of the passage. This shows that K has a good understanding of

the middle and end details of the passage she read, but did not have a good understanding of

details from the beginning of the passage. In addition, she scored 6 out of 8 of the

comprehension questions correct. K answered 3 implicit questions correctly and 3 explicit

questions correctly. This score of 6 out of 8 questions correct, represents Ks instructional

comprehension level being grade level 3. This means that K is one grade level above her grade

(second grade) in comprehension level. This could mean that K is above grade level in her

reading level, and that she may need more challenging instruction in the classroom regarding

literacy.

Recommendations

Portrait of the Reader

 According to all the assessments administered and all data collect from them, K is in the early

stages of the Expanding Stage of the Portraits of Readers. From what I observed from the oral

reading, K reads fluently aloud and is beginning to self-correct as she reads. From what I

observed when she was reading words from the word list and from the passage, K is starting to

figure out difficult words, but she did have a few miscues and she did hesitate to read some of

the isolated words from the word lists from grade level 3, so she is still building her reading

vocabulary. K is able to comprehend what she is reading, now that she doesnt need to focus

most of her reading on decoding, except for unfamiliar more complex words. K is also is starting

to read short series books including the Elephant Piggie Series as K stated during the reading

interest inventories.

Educational Activities

There are five educational activities that I would recommend that would address Ks strengths

and needs in literacy. One strategy to use in the classroom for comprehension improvement is

using graphic organizers after reading to organize the main idea and key details from the story,

which could also be used to organize them in order. This would help K to separate all details she

remembers and to put them in groups or in order. In addition to graphic organizers, another

strategy to build Ks vocabulary while reading is to use the Vocabulary Strategy which I found in

my ECED 361 course book. This consists of 5 steps that take students through a process of

identifying new vocabulary. The steps are: look for context clues, look for word part clues, guess

the words meaning, try out your meaning in the original sentence, and use the dictionary. In

addition to this, it is very important to teach students how to use a dictionary, which could be

another reading strategy K uses for developing her vocabulary while reading that I also found in

my ECED 361 course book. It is a beneficial strategy for her because dictionaries are powerful
aids to word understanding. Then, she can better translate the cryptic and conventionalized

content in definitions into word knowledge she can use. Another strategy to use for word

identification skills from my ECED 361 course book is the PAVE Procedure. The PAVE

Procedure is: Predict a words meaning using sentence context, verify its meaning by consulting

the dictionary, evaluate the words predicted meaning, and associate the words meaning to an

image. A fifth strategy from our ECED 429 Course Book to benefit Ks comprehension while

reading is to have K stop and summarize or paraphrase information by paragraph while reading,

to help her understand and recall information from the text.

Five Books that Connect to Students Reading Interests

There are five books I have found that would interest K and address her literacy strengths and

needs. The first book is Mapping Pennys World by Loreen Leedy, and this book is 32 pages in

length. This book would interest K because according to her response during the reading interest

inventory, she likes books about adventures and animals. This book is about a girls dog named

Penny, and the girl mapping out all the places the dog goes, hides toys, and plays which would

engage K in reading it to practice instructional level reading. A second book is In the Ice Age:

Andrew Lost #12 by J.C. Greenburg. This book is a little longer in length, 85 pages, and it is

also an exciting book about adventure during the Ice Age. This book would be good for K

because adventures engage her in reading and this book will introduce new vocabulary for her.

Another book is Dog Diaries: Secret Writings of the WOOF Society by: Betsy Byars, Betsy

Duffey and Laurie Myers. This book would interest K because she enjoys books where animals

are characters, as she stated in her inventory, and even though the book is 64 pages long, it is

easily understood by young readers. This book also offers some historical settings, which would

allow learning growth in Ks vocabulary for social studies. A fourth book I would recommend is
The Case of The Sneaky Snowman by Carolyn Keene, which is a book that is featured in the

Nancy Drew Series. This book is 96 pages along, but offers adventure and humor that would

engage K. This book would be a great book for K to read with a friend to talk about with a

friend, since K stated that she likes to read with friends. This book would offer expansion of

reading practice, especially with a book longer in length. The last book I am going to recommend

is called The Dog that Stole Home by Matt Christopher. This book is 42 pages in length, and is

an easy read for young readers. This book would offer a shorter story for K to read, and practice

to develop stronger reading fluency. All books I have recommended will give K a challenge in

order to address her needs in reading, but they are all still instructional level so that she can use

her strengths as an aid to improving her reading.

Internet Resources

There are two internet resources that I have found that would be beneficial to promoting

family literacy based on Ks strengths and weaknesses. One internet source Ks parent could use

is readingrockets.org. This webpage can be beneficial because you can have K use her grade

level 3 instructional reading level, and there are different topics to choose from including STEM

reading. The webpage also includes a parent involvement page which is a perfect way for

parents to get involved in their childs reading. This website will help K practice reading stories

on her instructional level, which is a level above her grade level. Another webpage that would be

beneficial for K and her parent is starfall.com. This webpage would be an engaging way for K to

practice reading and enhancing her comprehension skills. K could use the Im Reading tab,

which included multiple different types of text for students to read and also listen to audio to

check their reading.

Recommendations for Parents

 There are a few recommendations for Ks parent to use at home to promote her strengths in

reading and address her needs in reading. One recommendation that my mentor came up with is

for her parent is to have K draw a comic strip or event sequence of what happened in the story

she read. This way, it will help her to organize her thoughts in retelling what happened in the

story, and to promote her comprehension of the story. This strategy will also help her to visualize

what happened in the story which will aid in her comprehension. My mentor also said to

encourage Ks parent to either read with her online using E-books, or to take trips to the library

to read books, to offer a mode of engagement to reading outside of school, which will give her

more practice in reading. A third recommendation that my mentor shared with me is for the

parent to encourage K to learn how to use a dictionary at home or an online dictionary to give

her extra practice in learning how to use it as an aid in identifying unknown words.

Concluding Statements

After administering all components of the literacy case study with K, I have learned a lot

about literacy and young learners. One thing I learned is that all children have different reading

interests, and those interests can make a big difference in the childs engagement in reading,

which can make a difference in the childs comprehension. With K, I realized that she could

comprehend more information from both passages because they were about animals, which she

had told me interests her. She was also able to know background information about the concepts

in the story she was about to read, which made a difference in her comprehension for the level 3

passage. I also learned that children may be able to think of many various topics to write about,

but they may have a hard time choosing one and organizing their thoughts about it. So, as a

future educator I need to make sure I make writing organization resources available to all

students to help them achieve successful writing. Another takeaway from this case study is that it
is very important to understand each individual childs literacy levels. This is because if a child is

behind, it is important the get the interventions they need to be successful. If a student doesnt

get these interventions, they could fall even more behind their grade level, or develop a

disinterest and negative outlook towards literacy through their frustrations with it. Children could

also be fluent with their grade level and are ready for the next step in progressing towards higher

literacy levels. I used sources such as Montessori Beginnings textbook, Steele textbook,

Monitoring Progress in Spelling Using Developmental Information article, Stages of Writing

Development article, Analyzing Primary- Leaners Writing article, and Handwriting Formation &

Spacing article. In conclusion, I have found that educators need to observe, collect data, and

implement strategies or ideas to support the students needs and strengths in literacy, and help

them progress to their best abilities.

 Sources

Beginnings, M. (1970). Montessori Beginnings. Retrieved October 17, 2016, from

http://montessoribeginnings.blogspot.com/2010/10/l-has-been-able-to-sound-out-cvc-

words.html

Steele, B. (n.d.). ECED 429: Assessment, Observation, and Evaluation in Early Childhood
Education.

@. (n.d.). Favorite books for 3rd graders | GreatSchools. Retrieved November 29, 2016, from
http://www.greatschools.org/gk/book-lists/favorite-books-for-third-graders/

Honig, B., Diamond, L., & Gutlohn, L. (2000). Teaching reading sourcebook: For kindergarten
through eighth grade. Novato, CA: Arena Press.

Leslie, L. (2017). Qualitative reading inventory-6. Upper Saddle River: Pearson.

H. (n.d.). Teaching Reading Comprehension to Students with Learning Difficulties by Karen

R. Harris and Steve Graham. Retrieved November 29, 2016, from
https://www.academia.edu/5395148/Teaching_Reading_Comprehension_to_Students_with
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