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Alexandria Mott
EDUC 555
Pre-Case Study
February 18, 2014

Background
Student F is a 6th grade student at Pittsburg Community Middle School. She is 11 years
old, although none of her family is sure of her actual birthday. Her mother has been medically
diagnosed with mental retardation and her father died three years ago. She spent the first part of
her life in Mexico and arrived in Pittsburg in August of 2013. She lives both with her mother and
uncle in one house and with another uncle and two cousins in another house. Only Spanish is
spoken in the household, although the latter uncle is able to speak English.
She arrived at the middle school with no papers documenting previous years of school in
Mexico. Her uncle informed the school that she had not attended school in Mexico. According to
state law, any student who has been educationally neglected cannot be recommended for special
education because they must be given the benefit of the doubt that the student simply has not had
the opportunity to learn and progress to their grade level rather than the students inability to
intellectually reach their grade level. Unfortunately for Student F, it is very obvious that she has
a learning disability. At the beginning of the school year, Student F would come to school not
having bathed or changed clothes from the previous day. The school counselor had to make her a
check list of things to do to get ready in the morning. She has been tested at a pre-K level in her
numerical and linguistic skills. She spends the majority of her days at school working
individually with a para on basic letter and number skills, since she is intellectually unable to
work on the content in her core classes.

The school has recently discovered Student F did attend school in Mexico, and that her
family felt like the more impressive educational system of the United States should help her
catch up with what she was unable to learn in Mexico, according to her family, because of the
poor state of the countrys educational system. Student F only missed one year of school during
the transitional period after her fathers death and moving to Pittsburg. She was also diagnosed
with mental retardation at an early age.
State of Language Acquisition
Student F is currently at Level One, or pre-production, of language acquisition. She has minimal
comprehension of English and responds in Spanish. She tries to make sense out of messages, but
can really only identify common vocabulary words. She has gained familiarity with the sounds
of English. For example, if I tell her that a c makes the kah sound, she can tell me that the
words comb and cat make that sound while brush and dog do not. However, her ability
to identify tendencies of the English language ends with sounds. She cannot identify rhythm or
patterns of English. She cannot read, so she does not attend shared readings. If something is read
to her, it has to be repeated in Spanish to ensure understanding.
Stage of Acculturation

Identifying Student Fs stage of acculturation is extremely difficult. She does not really know
much about her surroundings, where she is, or why she is there. For that reason, I cannot place
her in stage one, where should would have some sort of pre-conceived notion about where she
was going and some degree of excitement or dread to be there. Because of her lack of
understanding of where she is, Student F adapts rather well to new situations. I can use that

evidence to assume that she adjusts to new cultures easily as well, despite the fact I was not with
her when she first arrived in America. Although she is unaware of social norms and tendencies,
Student F is good at following directions and does not question what she is told to do. Student F
does not see the whole picture when comparing her home (Mexican) culture to American culture.
She could not verbalize the differences or similarities between living in Mexico and living in
Pittsburg. Keeping those things in mind, Stage 2 Shallow comprehension and culture shock,
seems to be the best fit for Student F. Although she is not outwardly showing any signs of
culture shock, she seems to be adapting well to her new environment and culture, which leads me
to believe she must have some understanding of how things work. Even if she does not, she is
content with her new surroundings and will learn to comprehend them with more time.
Goals
The goals that I have for Student F are very low-level goals. Based off of the information that I
have been provided, the few opportunities that I have had to meet with her, meeting with my
cooperating teacher, and reviewing her language plan. Goal number one is that Student F will be
able to recognize all letters of the alphabet, both upper and lower cases. Student F has been
receiving individual attention since her arrival in August, which should allow her enough time
with the material to master that concept. To accomplish this goal, we will work with flash cards
to help Student F identify her letters. Goal number two is that she be able to count to 20. As
aforementioned, Student F can currently count to 10. Again, she has been working individually
with para professionals on her counting skills since her arrival and should be able master this
skill be the end of the semester. To help Student F accomplish this goal we will work on
counting orally, use manipulatives to count, and work with number lines and magnets. The third
and final goal for Student F is that she be able to write numbers one through twenty. She is

currently unable to identify numbers, but can write some numbers when specifically asked to do
so. This will be the most difficult goal to accomplish, since she has not been able to consistently
master this skill as of yet. To help Student F accomplish this goal, we will work with flash cards
and use tracing papers and white boards to write numbers.
Because her family has not yet brought in her education or medical records, Student F is
unable to get the type of help that she needs, which are more of life skills classes versus core
classes. She is socially unaware and does not interact with other students at all. She does not
know basic information such as her last name, her birthday, her address, her phone number, or
what day of the week it is. She is unable to recognize letters or numbers, cannot count past 10
(consistently) and the only site word that she can recognize is horse. The district is currently
working on developing a special curriculum for Student F that aligns with the legal stipulations
and her needs.