Case Study Project

Written By Lauren Fee

EDUC 5165
Teaching Reading in Elementary School
Spring 2014


Background
Olivia is currently in 1
st
grade and attends Rancho Elementary School in Novato, California. She
is the youngest of three children. Her older sister, Laura, is in 5
th
grade and in the Lottery program (GATE
type) within the school. Ethan, her brother, is the middle child and is in 3
rd
grade. Loma Verde is much
closer to their home in Novato but because Laura was selected for the accelerated program at Rancho
Elementary, the school allowed Ethan and Olivia to attend as well.
Olivias parents are both in the medical field. Her mother, Kim, works at UCSF as a surgical nurse
and her father, Chris, rotates between Marin General Hospital and UCSF as an Anesthesiologist. Kim and
Chris, as well as their family, are extremely successful financially. Her mother is Japanese and her father is
German. The language spoken at home is English. This wonderful family of five is a very active bunch and
their activities revolve around year-round soccer, swimming, outdoor recreation, photography, travel and
arts & crafts.
I met Olivia when she was very young but didnt get a chance to get to know her until recently
when I got back in touch with their family. Olivia is very quiet at first but once you get to know her she is
an open book. Olivia and her brother Ethan are very outgoing and extremely sweet. They play together
often and they feed off each others personalities and energy. They are both very silly and love to laugh and
enjoy life. Laura, the oldest of the three, is much more introverted and serious. She doesnt make small talk
and she doesnt joke or goof-around like the other two. What I know from speaking with her parents is that
Olivia can in fact read at grade level and yet she wont read.
Laura and Ethan love to read. They are both in the top percent of their class for reading and they
choose good fit books that are drastically higher than their grade level. Laura is reading at a high school
reading level and Ethan is reading at a middle school reading level. Im not sure what the circumstances are
in school, for Olivia, but I know at home, her parents cant get her to read out loud and they question if she
is actually silently reading when asked to do so. They did mention that she still sound spells. Olivia speaks
clearly and uses age-appropriate vocabulary, some slang, and I have witnessed a decent amount of baby
talk.

Description of Interactions
For my interactions and time spent with Olivia, I worked with her in the classroom as well as evening time
at her house. I spent time observing the classroom where Olivia studies. I spoke with her teacher
periodically before and after I came in to observe the classroom. Her school schedule worked for the
occasional specific interactions to take place but I did the majority of my interactions with Olivia in the
office within her home. I also chose to work with her at her house because I quickly realized she felt more
comfortable working free of any distractions.
Agenda of interactions
This is my rough agenda as far as I can remember of what we worked on during our meetings. I know some
material I havent included because I dont have a copy anymore. Some days that I spent with Olivia were
much more productive then other days. Some days she was exhausted prior to visiting with her and other
days she wanted to work on more and more activities. Some days she wasnt in the mood to work together
and because my goal was to learn about Olivia and help her to enjoy reading, I didnt push when she wasnt
open to working together. I dont know if I conducted nearly enough exercises with Olivia but I do know
that I was extremely confused as to which step was next in terms of moving forward in the right direction.
Below is a rough description of my day-to-day visits with Olivia.
February 24
th
:
Elementary Reading Attitude Survey (Garfield); Recreation reading survey
It was apparent that she preferred recreational reading versus academic reading by a long shot. That being
said, neither reading climate truly interested her. The only Happiest Garfield that she circles across a total
of twenty questions, was asking, How do you feel about getting a book for a present? I was pretty
astonished to recount that 1/5 of the questions asked, Olivia marked with a Very Upset Garfield. She rated
more Very Upset Garfields than any other Garfields. I also noticed that half of the questions that focused
on academic reading were marked with a Very Upset Garfield. She was very outspoken when asked, How
do you feel when a teacher asks you questions about what you read. She not only circled Very Upset
Garfield but also elaborated by explaining that, I get very nervous. I read the words and then forget a few
minutes later. When asked, How do you feel when its time for reading in class, she answered, with
Mildly Upset Garfield, but told me that she thinks the stories are all very boring. It was apparent by her
survey as well as her spoken words while she was elaborating on the survey that she preferred many
activities to reading.
When conducting the Interest Inventory Interview, I noticed that she loved sports. She loves
climbing all over the house and truly being a kid. She also loves arts and crafts and she was insistent on
showcasing her art to me. When asked, Do you consider yourself a writer, she said, Yes, I think Im
pretty good but I stink at spelling. Im a good writer because I have awesome handwriting. When asked,
Why do people read and write, she answered with, Its fun to write stories, I like to write. Reading is
good for brains to help make them smarter. When I asked her, How do you know if someones a good
reader, she said, Laura is a good reader! She can read so much harder books than I can and she is the best
in her class. She loves to read everything and focuses so hard on attention and she always gets better and
better. Lastly, when asked, What do you like to do in school when you can do anything that you want to
do, Olivia mentioned, Drawing! I want to be an artist with animals. I want to take pictures of animals and
then draw them. If you take pictures of animals then you wont forget what they look like. Thats what I
want to do. Do you like art?


March 2
rd
:
Form A (introductory questions & Comprehension Questions)(Beatrice)
This was the first experience noting Olivias reading and reading comprehension skills. I could tell she was
a bit nervous to read to me but I told her that I wouldnt look at her if she wanted. She asked if she could
face the other direction while she read and after I said, That is completely fine, she proceeded.
Olivia encountered words that she had trouble with for example, she said stared instead of started, a
instead of the, horse instead of house, lagged instead of laughed, want instead of wanted,
read (reed) instead of read (red) and Henny instead of Henry.
We went through this story twice. The first time Olivia read the story and then I asked her the
comprehension questions. I quickly noticed that Olivia was guessing or was unaware of the answers when
asked the questions. I thought it might be worth a shot to read the story to her and have her answer the
questions again. As I thought, the second time around, she knew almost all of the answers. It was
unbelievable to witness such a transformation while reading the same story. This is where I really started to
gain confidence in what I was doing and it really opened my eyes and made me really embrace this
experience.


March 10
th
: My Dominican Spring break Oregon Family Trip
March 17
th
:
This time I read many texts from her at home collection and we spent time sharing stories that related to the
texts. We read and looked at the pictures in a number of books and shared stories about personal
experiences that related to some aspect of each of the books. We laughed, danced, and told stories to one
another. We talked about the morale of each story and I asked her critical thinking questions when we
flipped through the pages after we read each story once. Some of the books we read were The Paperbag
Princess, The Circus Ship, The Giving Tree, Rapunzel, Where the Wild Things Are, and The Hundred
Dresses. Her favorite book we read was Harold and the Purple Crayon.
This was a nice time together after a week off of meeting. At this point I realized that I would be reading
with her the remainder of my experience while working on this case study. It was at this point that I began
to reflect on this experience and realize that I wasnt going to take on the task of directly improving her
reading skills but more importantly showing her that reading can be fun. Furthermore, I wanted Olivia to
become comfortable and I wanted to explain to her that being anxious and nervous about reading is
common and I shared those same feelings when I was younger as well.


March 24
th
:
Fairytale princess (summary of book); Where is my broom (picture book with images and text)
This beautifully illustrated book focuses on seven fairy tales Sleeping Beauty, The Frog Prince,
Rapunzel, Cinderella, Snow White, The Princess and the Pea, and The Twelve Dancing Princesses
organized around the theme of the fairytale princess and retold in a fresh and lyrical voice by Wendy Jones.
As we read each of the stories we spoke about the images we saw as we turned each page. I read Cinderella
for the first story and asked Olivia to tell me a little about what the story entails. I knew that she had heard
of Cinderella before so I didnt show her the title to the story and I changed her name to Clare. Olivia
didnt know this book was focused around fairytales so she really had to think about what I was reading.
She mentioned, Her mother dies, her father marries again, Clara gets two step-sisters, her godmother
appears and helps her go to a dance and she gets to go in a pumpkin carriage. The end. At this point she
started to recall her background knowledge of Cinderella and asked me if this story was another version of
Cinderella and we spoke about how different authors portray the same story differently.
I wanted to see if Olivia would read a short story with me and once she saw the images in the Where is my
Broom? story, she agreed. She laughed as she kept telling me this story was easy to read and I was happy
that she was enjoying the reading process. Although Olivia was more than comfortable reading this book,
she did have a number of hiccups along the way in terms of word recognition.


March 31
st
:
This was when I spoke with the teacher and observed the classroom without working with Olivia.
When I spoke with Olivias teacher, Shawna, she mentioned that Olivia took a long time warming up to
her. She mentioned that right around the beginning of December Shawna noticed Olivia was coming
around and beginning to showing that she was comfortable around Shawna. Shawna told me that usually
the girls warm up faster but with Olivia, she was that last student to open up to her teacher. What I
observed as well as what paired with Shawnas thoughts too is that Olivia reads out loud during class,
however, she reads with a group the majority of the time. Shawna spoke about how as a first grade teacher;
she has learned that first grade is about building confidence in reading. Many first graders have anxiety
about reading in general while reading out loud adds even more stress. Because of that, Shawna believes
its important to read as a class, small table groups, or even with a partner. I asked Shawna While in class,
does Olivia imply certain feelings towards reading, and she said, Olivia doesnt seem to express an
opinion about reading, at least its never apparent to her. I found that interesting because it was more than
apparent to me that Olivia had emotions and negative feelings towards reading (that I witnessed firsthand
during the reading surveys).
I noticed that the majority of their reading and phonics occurs in the morning. They have a daily reading
and comprehension activity to start the day and then they jump into phonics. Eventually, they begin to read
the story of the week with their reading program. The Basal reading program they use in Olivias class is
the Pearsons Reading Street and it is their first year with the program.
Recently they started independent reading and completing book reports. Shawna mentioned that
Olivia does read in class. On the book reports, Olivia does very well. However, she is not interested in
taking the AR quizzes, which is weird because Shawna mentioned, I can see through her report than she
understood the books. Soon Olivia will be taking them even if she doesnt enjoy it. Shawna thought that
Olivia would most likely warm up to it just like she does with people and other things. What I found
impressive was that Olivia is very honest with Shawna and if a book is too hard she will let Shawna know
that and they will find another book. I didnt see anywhere in the classroom a selection of good fit books
and I thought that would be an immediate positive change to Olivias reading process and self-confidence
in general. I can only imagine how much the whole class would benefit from this as well!
I quickly noticed that Olivia was very social while in a quiet way. She looks at everyone in class
and she quietly speaks to her classmate next to her. She is always moving some part of her body and she is
always very alert. Shawna informed me that Olivia is usually the last person to complete her assignments.
She apparently likes to take her time on everything and gets easily distracted. She stays in at recess to finish
assignments and she never rushes to get it done quickly, which we both thought was surprising. Shawna
mentioned that, I told Olivia's mom that Olivia marches to the beat of her own drum. Subject wise she
loves art, cutting, gluing, drawing, coloring and puts in lots of effort and detail. As for her weaknesses
Shawna said that math doesn't come easy, but that Olivia is still at grade level. She went on to say that
Spelling is a weakness too. And fluency she needs to work on, she knows the words, she just takes her
time. I agree especially during working on this case study and the stories and short paragraphs that we
read. I am not a huge believer of hurrying anyone to read faster. I think that rushing a student leads to lack
of comprehension, which was and still is a huge problem for me today.
While in class, I havent seen Olivia shut down only because class time is such an active
environment. I did observe Olivia not participating in reading, but only from time to time over the course of
the whole day, which happened with other students that sort of zoned out too. Shawna mentioned that
Olivia has definitely shown progress throughout the school year. She was extremely timid with reading
and now she has much better word attack skills. I wouldn't say Olivia has any major struggles. Again her
fluency needs to pick up. Fluency is the only area on her last report card in March that I put "needs
improvement." It was wonderful experiences to not only observe for much of the day but I got to sit and
watch Olivia through class. I didnt work with her but it was a good time to see how the class worked as a
whole. I hadnt even observed her class before because usually when I was in the class, I was focused on
working with Olivia or briefly speaking with her teacher.
April 17th: Olivia went to Hawaii this week


April 21
st
:
This is when I gave Jaci my rough draft of Case Study; Olivia went to Hawaii for 10 days.


April 24
th
: The little big pig drawing: I asked her to draw a picture and write the description this was it. She
was tired and didnt want to do anymore that day. I asked her to write a story and she didnt want to. I
wasnt sure where to go from here as I was at a bit of a standstill. That being said, I turned to Jaci and asked
for a response to my rough draft of my case study. From there, I moved forward and refocused the
remaining week that I had with Olivia.


April 28
th
:
Ask prompts to further Jacis questions about draft; story about animals (I read to her); sea turtle drawing;
Dolch reading words (sight words); As homework I had her work on a story for the following day
When receiving feedback from Jaci regarding the rough draft of the case study, I took the comments she
gave me and I spoke to Olivia about the certain topics, which needed more explaining.
Jaci: Does she read with/for her parents? Why doesnt she like it? Is it hard, boring, etc?
Olivia: I read with them, never to them, well sometimes and they help. I dont like reading to them
because its boring. I like when they read and I listen to the story. Its super boring at school and kids listen
at you so, you know (long pause), stage fright.

Olivia: I get very nervous. I read the words and then forget a few minutes later.
Jaci: Does she forget because shes stressed and nervous? Is it a memory issue?
Olivia: When teachers ask you are asked questions about what you just read. Yeah, stressed out and
nervous-that everyone is going to look at me.

Jaci: Our challenge is to find topics of interest to her, and really cool, fun, exciting books around those
topics.
Lauren: Do you have any favorite animals or topics at the moment?
Olivia: Sea Turtles, Elephants, and Tigers. I love science and I want to be a vet but not to house pets, like
a vet to big wild animals, or in a zoo.
Lauren: A zoologist or a zoo veterinarian
Olivia: Yes, zoo veterinarian!

I spoke with Olivias mother earlier in the day and she told me that Sea Turtles were Olivias favorite
animals at the moment. Prior to my April 28
th
visit, I stopped at the local Larkspur library and grabbed
everything Sea Turtle related and brought the stack of books over to Olivias house that evening. During
our visit, I explained to her that the more knows about animals, the more shell be able to draw the animal
in its habitat and surroundings. As I read the books to her, I asked her to draw. I told her the drawings
should just be focused on whatever she is listening to.
Although she really liked this activity, she asked me to read slower and stop until she was done drawing
each image. When I told her that I was going to keep reading, she took a breath and began drawing once
again. She completed many drawings provided. She also wanted the images to be perfect, so she wanted
more time for each image. After I read several books on Sea Turtles, I asked to write about the animal in an
informational way, which she didnt want to do. I also asked her to write a narrative story about the Sea
Turtles, she said no.
Dolch Word Recognition:
I showed Olivia three different sets of Dolch Words Pre Primer, Primer, and First grade. I asked her to
look at each word and read it out loud. I told her that we could go as slow as she wanted because this
wasnt timed. I mentioned that she could read the word to herself if she wanted to before reading them
aloud and I told her if she was tired of this activity that we could stop whenever. She really enjoyed this
activity and told me that these three sets of words were easy.
Pre-Primer:
She said Three instead of There
Primer:
She said
Ate instead of Eat
Didnt instead of Did
Now instead of New
No instead of On
Printy instead of Pretty
Wheel instead of Well
She couldnt sound out Ride, Under, Want, Went, White. She tried sounding them out but couldnt figure
them out.
First Grade:
Ever instead of Every
Who instead of How
For instead of Of
Ocean instead of Once
Rude instead of Round
Wake instead of Walk
Where instead of Were
It was clear after going through all three lists that Olivia still needed help learning a number of sight words.
Looking back on this activity, I regret not administering these sight words at the beginning of the semester
and continuously working with her to gain knowledge of the entire word list. That being said, I think by
having Olivia read this words to me, I gained an understanding of where Olivia has knowledge and needs
practice to complete the word list and successfully approach each word with confidence.
Before I left, I asked Olivia if she wouldnt mind writing me a story about anything she wanted. I asked if
she would illustrate her story when she was finished and I privately asked her family to refrain from
helping her with spelling or sentence structure (i.e. all aspects of this project).


April 29
th
:
I listened to her read her story to me and explain her drawing that went with the story.
As the final day with Olivia appeared, I listened as she read the story that she worked on from the day
before. She was eager to read it to me and she was excited to share the drawings that she worked on.
LooLoo the ferea was a gem stone olectr annu lovte to steel looloo gems for neclesses. Looloo cached
annu. Looloo gets a cats from the pet store to ceep the gems safe.


Assessments (Analyzing Information):
Over the course of the first month spending time with Olivia, I administered a few of the reading
surveys to get to know a bit about what Olivias views on reading. I first sat with Olivia and worked with
her to fill out the Garfield Elementary Reading Attitude Survey. I read each question to her because she
was not interested in reading the questions either in her head or out loud. When I read the questions to her,
she put a smile on her face and discussed the different Garfield images. At first she seemed to feel
obligated to choose the extremely happy Garfield but when I told her to be honest, she quickly changed to
her mind and pointed to different answers.
It seems apparent that when she reads text that she doesnt comprehend what she is reading.
Furthermore, when she reads text she isnt happy or very willing to do it, either. On the contrary, when I
read, she is more than willing to pull up a chair and listen. More often than not, she asks me to keep reading
more and more books. When she reads a passage and I ask her some comprehensive questions, she usually
seems to guess on the answers or she tries hard but rarely gets the answers correct. Yet when I read her the
same passage, she rarely makes a mistake in answering the questions.
When reading to me, she reads a bit and after we sound out about ten words, she shuts down, this
only occurs while working with Olivia at home. She just closes the book and asks me to read. I ask her to
read a little bit more and she tries but its obvious that she isnt interested and she gets frustrated but
doesnt act out with her emotions. I think some of the problem with her reading might come from her
pressure she puts on herself to be like Laura, her older sister. I can only imagine how hard it must be to
have two older siblings who are advanced readers while she is the youngest and seems to have a much
harder time finding pleasure and strength in reading and reading comprehension.
My final thoughts on this case study work with Olivia have really come down to bringing
creativity and fun to reading. My goal in the beginning on this semester was to imagine this drastic change
I thought might occur if I created a plan in which weekly small changes led to one large change over the
course of the semester. I quickly realized that was not a realistic goal but through this process I learned how
to take little samples of work, conversations, and stories, to create something that often doesnt get taught
in the classroom bringing a positive, non-stressful environment to a child who hates and fears reading. I
saw a growth in Olivia during this short amount of time and I learned from this experience as well. If
during my time working with Olivia has taught me anything, it would be a gained confidence moving
forward towards becoming a teacher. This assignment not only gave Olivia a small confidence boost but it
did the same for me as well.