Case Study

Teaching Reading
EDUC 4166

Kristen Ozorio
Fall 2014

Background Information
Student: Jenya
This student has emigrated from Russia, which makes Russian her first language. She
was six years old when she arrived in the United States. She is currently a 2nd grader. Her mother
has limited English.
After taking a Fountas and Pinell assessment, it showed that her reading rate is slow. She
can retell a story after reading it, but she still needs help with interpreting what she is reading.
Her reading level is E, which means she reads at a first trimester 1st grade reading level. Also
through observations, I can tell that she lacks phonemic awareness. I also reviewed her test from
a spelling inventory, and it seems that she spells words the way she says and hears them, such as
there becomes der.
To get the information on this student, I spoke to the teacher to get a better idea of her
reading level. I have an idea of what her level is through observations. I also made her read to me
and retell me the story. When she read to me, I noticed that she read very slowly and found it
difficult. The word chimp was difficult for her to read, and even though she recognizes the
word she would say chimpanzee instead. I studied her assessments and spelling inventory to
get a better idea of where she is academically. I think she needs to work on her phonemic
awareness because she does not know what sounds each letter makes.

Instructional Plan
What I think needs to be addressed to help this student is working on phonemic awareness,
phonics and comprehension. These go hand-in-hand. If she improves in phonics, reading will be
easier for her. If she does not have to try as hard to read a word, then she will be able to focus
more on understanding the story and information that she is reading.
First, I will start with phonemic awareness. For the most part, she knows the different
sounds of words, but is still struggling with linking the some of the sounds to their letter or blend
representatives. I would like to bring in different items or visuals to work on certain sounds that
she struggles with. Th- is something I noticed is difficult for her to pronounce. I know part of it
is due to being from Russia and having a slight Russian accent. She uses a d instead of th-
when she writes words with this blend when it is in the beginning of the word; this happens
because that is how she pronounces it. I want to practice saying this sound with her and that can
help let her know that d is not the write letter representative for the sound. I think if she knows
the sound better, than a lot of her spelling mistakes will go away.
After working on phonemic awareness, we will start linking it to phonics. After learning a
specific sound, I will bring in the letter representative for that sound. For example the th-, I
will start introducing more words that have this blend when it is in the beginning of the word. I
will bring back the items or visuals, but I will also have the word that means each thing. I will
work with her to match the word with the visual or item. I have noticed that visuals are beneficial
for her. When she struggles with reading and/or understanding something, then she will try to
use visual cues to help her understand or figure out what she is reading.
Working on comprehension will take more time to develop. I need to make sure she is able
to read the words of the book before she can understand the story. I will continue to read books

to her and have her retell me what happened in the book. I will start asking more questions that
will make her infer why and how things happened that were not explicitly stated in the story. I
will come up with questions ahead of time and place them in certain sections of the book. It will
be easier for her to answer inference questions while reading instead of after reading the book. I
will also have her reading books that are at her level, but start including these types of questions
as well. I would not have as many and they will probably not be as difficult, but I want her to get
used to answering questions where she has to think why and how.
From what I have observed, I think working on the same things we have been working on
will be beneficial for this student. She is the type of person who does well in a very structured
day. She needs explicit instructions to understand what she has to do. She also does well when
she does the same thing on a regular basis.

Interactions with Student

I started my work by observing my case study student. I have the opportunity to observe
her all day when I am at the school. She tends to keep to herself most of the time, but she will
talk to a few of her friends, in Russian though. During whole class instruction, she does not
volunteer to answer questions. When the class does a Think-Pair-Share, I hear her talking to her
partner, but she will not talk in front of the entire class. When she does individual work, she will
work diligently and quietly. Occasionally she will raise her hand to ask a question, which is
usually to clarify instructions she does not fully understand. Last month, she was moved to a new
seat and her new elbow partner helps her a lot with the things she struggles with. The area I see
her struggling the most with is comprehension. She will read a book, but she does not necessarily
understand her book. We do something in this class called Buzzing. This is when students talk
to a particular buddy about the book they are reading and their favorite part. She would
constantly share the same Christmas book that was just pictures.
The first thing I did when I started working with my case study students was read her a
book. The book I chose was I Hate English! by Ellen Levine. We first did a picture walk of the
book and I had her tell me what she thought the book might be about and what the characters are
doing. After hearing a story read to her, she was able to retell the story, which is something she
struggles with when she read on her own. At this time she was only able to tell me what
happened in chronological order; she could not recall what happened on a specific page though.
The next day, I had her read me a book that was at her level. She struggled to read a few of the
words. To figure out how to say the word, she would sound out the parts of the words. She works
hard to read each word that she does not take in what the book is about. She had difficulty
retelling the story because she did not focus on the story, but on the words.

I have continued doing the same thing for the next few weeks. I noticed an improvement in
being able to retell the story after she reads a book. We would read a small section at a time, and
then I would ask her to summarize what happened. When the story was broken up until parts, it
was easier for her to remember what she just read. Also as her reading is improving as the time
goes on, I noticed she is able to focus more on the story because she is not struggling as much
with figuring out how to read a word.
Due to scheduling and time constraints, I did not get may opportunities to read from the
different textbooks. I was able to work with her during math. When we worked on math, I was
able to hear her read the questions from the workbook. This gave me a chance to see if she
understands what the questions are asking and if she knows what to do after reading the question.
I noticed that when she did not fully understand the questions, she would use the visuals
provided to help figure out what to do. Math problems that are just equations were easy of her,
but word problems were difficult. This is something I worked on with her. During math
instruction, I would help her find ways to understand what the questions are asking her to do.
First we would go over the words she knew and recognized, such as add and subtract. Knowing
these words were helpful in letting her know what type of math she needs to be doing. After we
reviewed the words she knows, we would go over the words and phrases she did not understand.
I would explain what they would mean and what they are asking for. She continued using this
strategy to figure out how word problems work. At the end of October, I did a practice lesson on
creating addition word problems; as I was circulating the room, I went to check on her and her
partner and heard her coming up with the word problem herself. Not only that, she was the one
who wrote the word problem on the paper too. This moment showed improvement in her
understanding of word problems.

What I have noticed is that consistent practice in what she is struggling with has resulted in
a lot of improvements. She still struggles with spelling and fulling understanding what she reads,
but she is spelling better and understanding more. I am still reading to her books that are are rich
with content, but are at a level she is unable to read. I also have her reading to me and retelling
what she just read. She is also able to explain what happened on any given page when I flip to a
random page and ask her what happened here.

Self-Assessment
Throughout the case study process, I tried to work with my chosen student any chance I
could. Most of the time we would work on reading, either her reading to me or the other way
around. Sometimes I felt that I should have focused more on her phonemic awareness, which
would have helped improve her reading.
The work I provided conveyed my thoughts on the students progress and what I thought
of her skill level. There were some things I did not fully understand, which made it difficult to
clearly explain what I was thinking. I tried to report all experiences I had with my case study
student and what I took away from it.