1

Taylor Goerlach
Professor R. Jagielo-Manion
EDR 317 - 04
21 November 2016
Case Study
I.

Background Information
Colin is a male, first grade student at Media Elementary School. I am only able to
meet with Colin for about a half hour on Monday and Wednesday mornings before class
begins. I then push into Colins first grade core extension language arts class with my
mentor teacher and two fellow West Chester University reading practicum students.
Here, I am able to observe Colin for about a half hour as he completes independent
language arts activities and is given different phonics assessments. My mentor teacher
said she did not feel comfortable giving information about Colins home life and
background. However, I did give Colin a questionnaire to discover how he truly feels
about reading. This questionnaire is open ended yet still very telling. It helps to gather
information about the readers attitude, interests, and values involving reading. From the
questionnaire, it is hard for me to conclude whether or not Colin likes or dislikes reading,
because his answers vary from question to question. In one answer, Colin said that he
feels reading is fun, and when he gets older he will read large chapter books, while other
answers Colin gave said he only likes books for the pictures.
When asked about his favorite thing to do on the weekends, Colin said that he
likes to play with his cousins. Colin could not tell me specific things that he likes to do
with his cousins, just that they play together. Colin often mentions his cousins and his
parents when I ask questions before we read to activate background knowledge. He
usually then goes off on small tangents about his family and I have to get him to refocus
on our tasks at hand.
Colin has shown that he is very easily distractible and has a very hard time
concentrating on the task at hand. Both of these traits were things that I noticed on my
own, and was reassured were visible by my mentor teacher and Colins homeroom
teacher. I have tried using incentives such as time on the iPad to get Colin to stay on
track, which has recently been working very well for me. Colins homeroom teacher uses

a morning checklist to help Colin stay on track as he gets ready for the school day. Even
with the checklist, Mrs. D has to stay by Colins side to keep him on track, and
completing his steps in the right order. Mrs. D also has to consistently, verbally prompt
Colin, reminding him to be quick, or be efficient.
II.

Assessment and/or Literacy Strategies/Activities

I used several different assessments in order to better understand Colin as a
learner. The first form of assessment I used with Colin was the Qualitative Reading
Inventory Five. I used this to assess Colins ability to read a story aloud and retell what
he read. I evaluated Colin on his fluency, his accuracy of his oral reading, and his
accuracy in answering the comprehension questions which were both implicit and
explicit questions. With this assessment, I timed Colin for one minute, and marked where
he read to when the minute was up. I then proceeded to ask Colin the questions provided.

I started with pre-primer level, then the primer, then level one, and lastly level two. On
our pre-primer leveled passage titled Just Like Mom, Colin was able to read through the
entire passage within the allotted minute. While reading, Colin had one self correction,
and four miscues. On
the primer leveled passage, The Pig Who Learned to Read, Colin
read 46 words out of the 176. Colin had two self corrections and six miscues. On the
level one passage, Mouse in a House, Colin read 30 words in the allotted one minute.
Colin had one self correction and five miscues. When answering the comprehension
questions, Colin could only answer two of the six comprehension questions due to where
he read to in the story. On the first question, Colin did not give the correct answer
according to the assessment packet, but he stated that the mouse lived in the old house
where the man lived, which to me, was stated explicitly in the text. The level two passage
I read to Colin, to assess his ability to listen to a story and answer comprehension
questions. During this listening passage, Colin did not seem like he was paying attention
to me as I read him the passage, however, he answered all eight comprehension questions
correctly.
A second form of assessment that I used with Colin was Frys 100 Word List. The
Fry word list contains the 1,000 most used words in writing and reading. As students

build on to their sight word knowledge (red words as Media Elementary calls them) the
help students becomes a more fluent reader. I followed along as Colin read through two
of the word lists. As he read the words aloud, I did my own running record on my own
copy of the word list. As Colin self corrected, or had an error, I marked my copy of the
word list. On the first hundred words, Colin missed twenty words and self corrected on
two words. On the second page, it took Colin five minutes to read though the first two
lists, so we stopped after the last word from the second column. On the second hundred
words, Colin missed eighteen words and self corrected on two words out of the fifty
words he read. The results from this assessment show that Colin could benefit from
extensive work on his red words. Media does this by having the students arm chop,
sweep, and say the word. I used arm chop, sweep, and say the word as a before reading
activity with Colin several times throughout our time at Media. We focused on the words
said, have, to, was, you, as, is, what, saw, of, come. When asked to spell his sight
words, Colin miscued on three words. For what Colin spelled wat, for saw Colin
first spelled sol and then sold, and lastly Colin spelled cam for the red word come.
In terms of letter recognition, Colin could identify all of his upper and lowercase
letters. When it came to sounds, Colin struggles. When shown the uppercase letters,
Colin miscued on sixteen out of the twenty-six letters. When shown the lowercase letters,
Colin miscued on eleven of the twenty six letters. Colin showed a tendency to add an
-uh sound after saying the sound of each letter. For example, instead of /b/, Colin would
say buh. This means that Colin needs to work on clipping his sounds. I also tested Colin
on being able to read his double stuff letter words. Out of the twenty words provided,
Colin only miscued on one word. Colin consistently said fazz for the word fizz.
The rest of the assessments were given to Colin by the reading specialist, my
mentor teacher. Ms. M tested Colin using the DIBELS Phoneme Segmentation Fluency
as part of Colins weekly progress monitoring. On this particular assessment, Colin
scored a twenty-eight out of thirty-nine. When tested on his phonics mastery of unites
four through seven, Colin scored an overall eighty-five percent. He wrote cick when
asked to write quit. Colin also wrote j instead of J. Ms. M noted that Colin was not

starting his sentences with capital letters or ending his sentences with marks of
punctuation. When assessed on his nonsense word fluency as part of his weekly progress
monitoring, Colin scored a twenty-six for total correct letter sounds, and only a two for
total whole words read. On his unit eight master test, Colin scored a total of twenty-one
out of twenty-eight points, earning a seventy-five percent mastery on this test. Colin
scored all three points when asked to circle the sound that the teacher said, four out of
five points when asked to circle the word the teacher said, seven out of ten points when
asked the spell the words, two out of two points when asked to fill in the blank, and five
out of eight points for his writing of the sentence.
When it comes to approaching the language arts assessments and activities, Colin
does not give it his undivided attention. During assessments, despite the fact that the
desks are separated, Colin can not fully concentrate on the task at hand. Colin also likes
to rush through his assessments. He will move on to writing the word while the rest of the
class is finger blending and saything the word with Mrs. D. Both of these variables hinder
Colin from performing his best during assessments and activities.
III.

Evaluation
One suggestion that my mentor teacher, Ms. M gave me as a way to work on

helping Colin learn to keep his focus was to purposefully try to distract him while reading. Ms.
M told me to jingle change behind Colins ear and challenge to try to keep reading despite my
distraction. I have not yet tried this challenge, but I have a good feeling it will work, because if I
turn it into a game, I am sure Colin will give it his best. Just like when I tell Colin he can have
iPad time if we get our work done, Colin seems to have an easier time paying attention.
Changing activities up to include games or add a challenge aspect to language arts activities
would increase Colins motivation to get activites done and his concentration on said activities. I
would continue doing physical activities with Colin including jump the sentence, syllable step
up, and chopping red words. I would also suggest skywriting or using shaving cream to write out
red words in hopes that the work with his senses or the physicality of writing the word will help
Colin remember his red words.

When we work on the iPad, Colin enjoys playing on the ABITALK Phonics Vowels app.
This app gives parts of a word, and leaves blanks. Colin has to drag and drop the corresponding
letter into the correct blank in the word, to complete the word. The app allows you to focus on a,
e, i, o, u as well as short vowels, long vowels, two vowels, combinations, and a mixture of all.
Despite having trouble identifying letter sounds on paper, Colin has no trouble identifying letter
sounds on the iPad. This strengthens my idea that Colin needs game based activities to help keep
his concentration and increase his motivation. I will continue to work with Colin for the next few
weeks to come with the iPad app, and hopefully find some new, challenging yet educational apps
that grab and keep Colins attention.

Objectives:
1. Colin will be able to recognize the distinguishing features of a sentence (e.g., first

word, capitalization, ending punctuation) in three out of five observed

occurrences.
2. Colin will be able to recognize and read grade-appropriate irregularly spelled words

(nonsense words).
3. Colin will be able to segment spoken single-syllable words into their complete

sequence of individual sounds (phonemes).

Book Recommendations:
https://www.readinga-z.com
1. Litter Monsters (Series)
a. These books are comic books, like the Spiderman and Ninja Turtle books
that Colin loves.
i.

Ding! Ding!

ii.

Playful Kitty

iii.

Something Fishy

iv.

Wheres Hort?

2. Who Stole the North Pole

a. Level C
b. Fiction
c. Colin said he likes Christmas books
3. We Make a Snowman
a. Level C
b. Fiction
c. Colin said he likes Christmas books
4. All About Earthworms
a. Level C
b. Nonfiction
c. This might be something that interests Colin since he is interested in spiders
5. What is at the Zoo?
a. Level C
b. Nonfiction
c. This book might mention tigers, which Colin said he was interested in
reading about