Case Report

IntroductionTutor: Katy DellingerStudent: Brandon CuellarAge: 8 years oldGrade: Rising 2nd grader

As a graduate reading clinician in Appalachian State University’s Master’s Degree Program in Reading Education, I tutored Brandon Cuellar for 13 one-hour sessions across the summer, 2010 semester. I conducted an initial assessment during the first few days of tutoring, and I tutored Brandon during the following weeks. Brandon is 8 years old and will be a rising second grader at Icard Elementary School in Icard, North Carolina. Based on my assessment of Brandon, he struggles with word recognition in isolation, reading rate, reading comprehension, and oral reading accuracy.

Initial Literacy AssessmentsA battery of informal, diagnostic literacy assessments were administered to Brandon,

including a Reading Attitude Survey, an Interest Inventory, the Schlagal Spelling Inventory, an Early Reading Assessment, a Word Recognition in Isolation (WRI) test, a contextual reading test, a listening comprehension test, a sense of story assessment, and oral and written composition samples were analyzed.

A student’s independent level in a particular area is the highest at which he or she can successfully work without instructional support. The instructional level is the optimal level for working with instructional support. One’s frustration level is that at which he or she can not readily benefit even with instructional support.

Brandon arrived the first day with much enthusiasm. He was very energetic and it was a bit of a challenge to keep him focused on one piece of information at a time. It seems as though Brandon struggles severely with his reading skills, but he still seems to have a good attitude. He enjoys being praised for doing something well, and he likes to be rewarded.

Interest and Reading Attitude SurveyDuring the first tutoring session, the tutors spend about 15 minutes or so getting to

know a little bit about their student that they will be working on. The interest inventory is a list of 18 statements that the tutor reads to the student and has the student fill in the blank. This is a way to find out what the student likes to do such as hobbies. The most important information that the interest inventory can tell us, as tutors, are possible topics for the students to write or read about. The reading attitude survey is completed after the interest inventory. The reading attitude survey is important because it tells us how the child feels about reading. In this survey there are 20 questions with four choices the student can choose from. The answer choices are expressions by the Garfield character. They show an excited Garfield, a mediocre Garfield, a

bored Garfield, and a mad Garfield. The tutor will read each statement and the child will circle the expression of Garfield that best represents their feelings about that particular statement. This reading survey compares how the child feels reading for pleasure (recreational) versus reading at school as a requirement (academic). The information provided by this survey will tell us if the child has a negative attitude towards reading in general or if they enjoy it, but only when they can read what they want to read. If the scores from the survey indicates that the student has a negative attitude towards reading then it lets teachers or tutors know that the child will not read enough within a year to make enough progress. Researchers say that a child reading on grade level will read 90 minutes a day, and this is what allows them to make the progress they need in order to make a year’s progress in reading. If a child is reading below grade level and has a negative attitude towards reading, then the child will not make the progress they need in reading. The discrepancy between their grade level and reading level will only increase at this rate.

Based on the results of Brandon’s interest inventory and attitude survey, it seems as though Brandon enjoys playing video games and playing outside with his friends. Reading is not something Brandon likes to do very much. He definitely does not like reading in school, but based on his results if he reads it is during recreational time when it is something he can choose. He scored in the 15th percentile on the reading attitude survey. This means that he enjoys reading more than 15% of the children in his same age group. This is not very high, so this indicates to me that Brandon does not enjoy reading. This could possibly be because he is a struggling reader and it is frustrating to him. It is important for Brandon to be taught reading on his instructional level in order for Brandon to make any progress and become successful in his reading ability.

SpellingThe assessment that was given to Brandon for spelling was the Schlagal Spelling

Inventory, a series of grade-leveled lists of words that a student is asked to spell as best as he/she can. There are eight levels of words, each level consisting of 12 words. First of all it tells us at what level to begin word study instruction in spelling and phonics. When studying a child’s errors in spelling, we can also determine what the particular child knows and does not know. A child’s spelling and word recognition are highly correlated with one another. A spelling assessment, like a test of word recognition, presents to us the child’s working knowledge of how letters work in words is a good indicator of how the child uses them in words.

One’s independent level in spelling/phonics is considered to be the highest at which the child spells at least 90% of the words in a given list correctly. One’s instructional level is considered to be the highest at which the child spells at least 50% of the words in a given list correctly. The frustration level is that at which one spells fewer than 50% of the words in a given list correctly. The test administrator should stop the test when the child misspells 8 or more of the 12 words in a list incorrectly.

As with any child who would be given the spelling assessment, I started Brandon with the first grade list and stopped the administration there because he only spelled one word correctly.

Level 1 – 8%

Based on Brandon’s spelling score, an instructional and independent level was unable to be determined. It is very clear that the first grade level for spelling is his frustration level.

An analysis of Brandon’s spelling, shows that he represents every phoneme with a letter. He has an initial consonant for every word, a final consonant, and a vowel is represented in every word. Some examples include: BAD for “bed”, SISTR for “sister”, BIC for “bike”. Another thing that I noticed in his spelling is his use of letter-name associations, which is to be expected at his level of spelling. An example includes: JRIF for “drive”. F and V are minimal pairs with each other so this was a logical substitution for Brandon. Also we see that he is spelling the word “drive” the way it sounds in the beginning with the /j/ sound of the letter name. Another example of this includes: JROP for “drop”. This is also a logical substitution because the sound of the letter name for /j/ is actually what you hear instead of the /d/ sound. He also spelled CHAP for “trap”. This is a logical substitution as well because you actually hear the /ch/ sound. Therefore, Brandon has difficulties with differentiating consonant blends and digraphs. However, he did spell “ship” correctly. Based on Brandon’s spelling, he is right at the end of the letter-name stage and beginning the within word stage of spelling. Therefore, we will be working on short vowel families and then move on to short vowel sorts and digraphs and blends.

Early Reading Screening InventoryThe Early Reading Screening Inventory is administered to beginning readers. After

giving the spelling assessment, any child who misses 8 or more words on the first grade spelling list is given this assessment.

There are four components of the early Reading Screening Inventory. The first one is the alphabet task. The child names the upper-case letters and then the lower-case letters as the teacher points to them in random order. The child then writes the lower-case letters as the teacher dictates them in random order. The purpose of this part of the test is to determine if the student knows the letters of the alphabet by their name first of all and to determine if the child can recognize them written different ways, upper and lower-case. The next step in the ERSI (Early Reading Screening Inventory) is the concept of word in text. In this part of the assessment the child finger-point reads four sentences after the teacher models reading while finger-pointing to each sentence (4 points) and attempts to identify two target words within each sentence when the examiner points to the words (8 points). A child with a firm grasp of the spoken word-written word match in reading should score 10 or higher on this twelve-point task. The child will read out of a book called the “Katie Book”, which the examiner has already prepared. This part of the test indicates whether or not the child has a concept of word. The spelling task is the next part of this assessment. On the spelling task, the child attempts a sound-it-out spelling of six words dictated by the teacher. The six words (back, feet, step, jump,

road, dig) include twenty possible sounds or phonemes. The sound-it-out spellings indicates the child’s phonemic awareness and determines whether or not the child can attend the sequence of sounds within spoken words. For every phoneme represented in a word, a child receives a point. This helps us to determine if a child understands phonemes in words and that every sound must have a letter/letters to represent that sound. The last task is the word-recognition task. The child attempts to read five frequently occurring sight words (is, me, cat, and, the) and five decodable words (pin, lap, met, job, nut). A score of five or higher on this ten-word test indicates that the child can probably read simple stories.

Brandon correctly identified all of the upper-case letters in the alphabet task. He named the lower-case “l” an “i”, which is a reasonable mistake. When asked to write the letters, he wrote “z” for the letter “v”. For the concept of word task, he correctly followed the directions by finger-pointing while reading and then identifying the specific words. He missed one on the last page: “You are a very bad dog.” When I pointed at the word “bad” and asked him to tell me what it was he said he did not know. On the spelling test, Brandon received a score of 20. For every word he represented an initial consonant sound, a medial vowel, and a final consonant sound. These were his spellings:

BAC for “back”FIT for “feet”STAP for “step”JOMP for “jump”ROBE for “road”BIG for “dig”

Based on his spellings he has correctly identified pre-consonant nasals. He also correctly identified the consonant blend in the word “step”. However, he seems to struggle with correctly producing b’s and d’s in the words ROBE for “road” and BIG for “dig”. On the word recognition test, Brandon correctly identified 9 out of 10 of the words, which indicates to us that he should be able to read simple stories.

Word Recognition in IsolationThe assessment of word recognition in isolation gives us an interpretation as to whether

or not automatic sight word recognition is an issue in a child’s contextual reading performance. It is also a good indication as to whether or not has good decoding skills based on the discrepancy of flashed vs. untimed scores. Fluent contextual reading requires one to be able to recognize most words automatically. The assessment of word recognition in isolation consists of grade-leveled words from the pre-primer level through the eighth grade level. For each level there is a list of 20 words. For each level there are two scores: flashed and untimed. The test administrator will first flash the words to the child for one-fourth of a second and asked the child to read that word. If the child can, then the administrator will quickly proceed to the next word in the list. If the child can not identify the word after being flashed the word for one-fourth of a second, the child is shown the word again, but this time it is presented to the child

without being timed. The test administrator should stop the test when the child’s flashed score drops below 50%.

A child’s independent level in word recognition in isolation is considered to be the highest level at which the child can recognize at least 90% of the words correctly on the flashed presentation. The instructional level for a child in word recognition in isolation is considered to be the highest level at which he/she can recognize at least 60% of the words correctly on the flashed presentation. A child’s frustration level is the highest level at which the child’s score for the flashed presentation drops below 50%. For establishing these levels, the untimed scores can be used at the pre-primer and primer levels. I began this assessment with the pre-primer level list and stopped the administration at the primer grade level since Brandon’s score dropped below 50% in the flashed presentation.

Level PP – Flash 50% Untimed 80%Level P – Flash 30% Untimed 60%

After administering the word recognition in isolation to Brandon it seems as though he struggles with identifying words correctly. He does not have a very big sight vocabulary because he easily confuses the words such as “where” for “here” and “why” for “who”. It also seems that he was confusing short-vowels and long-vowels by saying “pet” instead of “pat” and “run” instead of “rain”, which is what his letter-name spelling predicts.

Because Brandon did not score any higher than 50% on any of the timed presentations, I would say that there is no indication of an independent level. The instructional range for Brandon is pre-primer to primer because at these levels you can go by the untimed scores, and Brandon scored 80% on the untimed at PP2 and a 60% at P. It is safe to say that Brandon’s frustration level is the primer level and anything higher because his flash score was a 30% and he could not decode eight of the words in the untimed presentation.

Both the spelling assessment and the word-recognition in isolation assessment agree in establishing adequate knowledge of how letters work in words and as adequate sight vocabulary to support successful reading between pre-primer and primer levels.

Contextual ReadingThis test tells us if a child reads the words in the text with adequate accuracy. It also

tells whether or not the child reads with rhythm or cadence. The oral reading assessment indicates to us if the child depends on words in context to determine how to pronounce unknown words or if the child relies on letter-sound cues. This assessment gives us information as to whether or not the child self-corrects their errors that disrupt the meaning of the text. The assessment is administered by the student reading grade-leveled passages aloud while the examiner indicates the mistakes on an examiner’s copy. The oral reading is also timed so that there is an indication of rate for oral reading. The last step is to ask comprehension questions to determine if the child understands what he/she just read.

One’s independent level of reading is considered to be the highest level at which he/she can read with at least 98% accuracy, at least a score of 90% on comprehension, and good fluency (rate and prosody) that falls within the range of that grade-level. An instructional level

of reading is considered to be the highest level at which he/she can read with at least 95% accuracy, adequate fluency (again based on the grade level ranges), and at least a score of 70% on comprehension. A child’s frustration level of reading is reached when the student correctly recognizes fewer than 90% of the words or reads that level of text disfluently.

To administer the oral reading assessment the administrator will have the child begin the reading passages based on the highest level at which the student scored at least an 80% flash score on the word recognition test. Because Brandon did not score an 80% on the flash presentation on any of the word lists, I started his reading passages at the pre-primer 2 level. He read this passage in 162 seconds and this gave us a rate of 30 words per minute. He had 11 errors which gave us an oral reading accuracy score of 87%. This is very close to the 90% minimum criteria, which is the gray area for word recognition in context. He had five meaning change errors and 3 self-corrections. I continued to the next level, but I stopped at this level because it was clear frustration for Brandon. He read the primer passage with 72% oral reading accuracy, scored a 75% on comprehension, but it took him 4 minutes and 18 seconds to read this passage which is 23 words per minute.

Because I did not have a clear representation of an independent level or more importantly an instructional level, I decided to move down to the emergent reading passage and followed the protocol. We first went through a picture walk and then I read the first page to him and then he echo read it. He read the following pages from the emergent passage. He had five mistakes because on all of the pages where it said “I am” he said “I’m”. These were not meaning change errors, but it did change his oral reading accuracy to an 88%. I calculated the rate to be 68 words per minute. However for a repeated reading, rate is not taken into consideration.

After analyzing this information I determined the PP1 reading level to be his instructional level and this is because all of his mistakes are the same and they are not meaning change errors. His rate was okay even though rate is not that important at this level. I determined Brandon’s frustration level to be the PP2 level because his rate was so low and his oral reading accuracy was below 90%, but not by much, with 5 many change errors.

I did not proceed to the silent reading passages because Brandon’s instructional level was not at least the 2nd grade level.

Based on the instructional level for the oral reading assessment (PP1), spelling inventory (below 1st grade level), and the word-recognition in context test (below pre-primer), Brandon seems to be reading on a pre-primer 1 level.

Oral ReadingLevel WRC Accuracy Prosody Rate in WPM ComprehensionPP1 88 2 68 NAPP2 87 1 30 NAP 72 1 23 75

Listening ComprehensionThe listening comprehension component of the assessments are administered to all

students regardless of their reading level. The information gathered from this assessment tells us how well a child can comprehend when being read to from grade-level material or above. When administering the test you should begin at the child’s grade level or the highest level the child failed comprehension. Since Brandon is a rising second grader, I started with the second grade reading passage. An instructional level for listening comprehension is considered to be the highest level that he/she can understand with at least a 70% as a comprehension score.

At the second grade level Brandon missed all of the comprehension questions except for one which gave him a comprehension score of 20%. This information tells me that Brandon probably does not have a good sense of book language and he cannot comprehend being read to at his grade level. During the tutoring sessions, we will practice his sense of story by having him write stories and also by reading to him books that have rich language while following the Directed Listening Thinking Activity.

Based on Brandon’s comprehension score for the listening comprehension component there is no indication of an instructional level. Second grade seems to be too difficult for him.

Sense of StoryFor this assessment, Brandon was told two different stories. He was first asked to retell

the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears after I read the story to him without him seeing the text. As he told me the story I recorded it and then transcribed it. The next story he was asked to retell after hearing it was the Poor Old Dog. This story is not as familiar as Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The purpose of this assessment gives a sense of how much the child has internalized story language. Story elements, story organization, and story sentence syntax are all considered in the results of this assessment.

When Brandon retold his story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears he first said he did not remember. I probed a lot by asking him questions to get him to talk. He definitely struggles with being able to freely express himself. He definitely tensed up when I asked him to retell it. He did not give character names and he always does not speak in complete sentences. For example: “sat in the little chair and her broke one of them”. He told the story in sequential order, but he was very sparse in telling details. He was hesitant about telling a story which indicates to me that he struggles with a sense of book language and a sense of story.

Brandon struggled even more when he had to retell the story of the Poor Old Dog. He responded first by saying: “I forgot it”. He did not understand the plot line because he did not mention anything about the gold ring that the dog found. The only thing he remembered was that the dog wished for a new coat and a new house and he did not get his wishes. It is even more difficult for Brandon to retell a story that he has never heard before.

It does not surprise me that Brandon did not do well in his retellings of these two stories. Brandon struggles significantly with a sense of book language, which is found evident in his listening comprehension skills assessment as well as this.

WritingFor the writing component of all of the assessments, I had Brandon tell me a personal

narrative story of an exciting day that has happened in his life after I told him one of my own as an example. As Brandon was telling me the story of an exciting day in his life I recorded it in the tape recorded. After he told me his story I told him that since our stories were so great we should write them down on a piece of paper.

As I analyzed Brandon’s writing it is clearly evident to me that not only does Brandon struggle with being able to freely express himself, but because his phonics and spelling skills are limited, he gets stuck on writing and spelling the words. In fact when I asked him to read back what he wrote he could not do it because he could not read the words that he invented the spelling for based on the sounds. He constantly asked me how to spell certain words and because of this he lost track of what he was trying to say in his writing. One thing Brandon did well on is remembering to put punctuation marks at the end of his sentences. When he would forget to do this he would actually correct himself and go back and correct himself. The first part of his writing can be legible enough to interpret his spelling, but it is almost like he got tired and frustrated because you notice as you read down even farther that his letters in words do not even make sense, to me or to him.

Instructional Plans, Progress, and RecommendationsInstructional plans were made across the instructional area of reading, writing, word

study (spelling and phonics), and being read to in accord with the conclusions drawn from the initial assessment. Tutoring lessons included activities in these four areas and were adjusted according to Brandon’s progress and needs.

ReadingBased on the initial assessment during the first week of tutoring, Brandon’s instructional

level for reading is pre-primer 1. During each tutoring session we spent twenty minutes on reading. This was called our guided reading time and during this time Brandon would read to me to improve his oral reading accuracy.

Because Brandon is a beginning reader, he would read pattern books with words and phrases that were repeated throughout the book. It is very important that beginning readers get the support they need, and by doing this I would first go through a picture walk to help him anticipate what he was going to read, then modeling the reading for him by finger-pointing, and by quickly telling him what words are that may be too difficult for him. The beginning reader books were short little books, which had pictures to go along with the text to help the reader understand the words in context. We followed the three-day cycle which basically meant that each day a new book was introduced as Brandon continued reading the other two books. The purpose of this is that with beginning readers the emphasis is for them to learn words in the books so they can become sight words. Every day I would introduce a new book to Brandon on his instructional level, which was a PP1. I would introduce the book by going through a picture walk. I would show him the pictures and he would tell me what was going on in the pictures and this would help with word identification of unknown words. We would then echo read the

book by first me reading a page while finger-pointing and then he would follow. At the PP1 level, rate is not taken into account because we want the child to focus on reading the words accurately. I would then allow him to read the book independently and count his errors in the story. I would calculate his accuracy and we would chart this information on a chart called “Expert Reader”. Each time Brandon read a book independently, we would calculate his accuracy and if he scored a 97% or above then he would color in a star on his Expert Reader chart. If he received 3 stars in a row then he would receive a treat from me. If he did receive a 97% or above on accuracy for a book then this book would no longer be used and another book would be introduced. The purpose is to make sure that there were always three books for Brandon to read from. We also kept a word bank for Brandon. I would take the words from the books that he was reading and write them on index cards. Each day I would show Brandon these words and if he knew them automatically then they would go in his “word bank”, and if he didn’t then I would let him try the word again the next day. These would become sight words for Brandon because he could recognize them in isolation.

Several of the books that Brandon read he could read with 97% accuracy on the first day it was introduced, and then there were others that were in the three-day cycle for more than three days. It seemed that Brandon had trouble with distinguishing between “didn’t” and “did not”. However, this made sense because Brandon had not yet been taught about contractions. There were also a lot of sight words that he struggled with over the four weeks of tutoring. One in particular was the word “they”. However, the spelling pattern for this word is very difficult to grasp a hold of and it is not easily decodable. During the tutoring sessions, Brandon was very anxious and he did not particularly like finger-pointing the words as he was reading. I would have to prompt him every day to remember to finger-point. Often because he was finger-pointing he was able to determine the unknown words after I had modeled it for him.

The books that Brandon read over the four weeks of tutoring included: “Two Little Dogs”, “What A Mess!”, “On the Beach”, “The Fishing Trip”, “Copycat”, “The Best Place”, “Lucy’s Loose Tooth”, “Penny’s Plane”, “Family Pets”, “When It Rains”, “Meg’s Warm Clothes”, and “Where Is My Pet?”.

The time spent on reading for Brandon should be 40% of the total reading block time allotted. I recommend that Brandon continues reading pattern books with much support. He needs to participate in the three-day cycle because he needs to see those high frequency words over and over. Brandon needs as much repetition as possible. It is also important that Brandon keeps a word bank for the words that he knows and he should review these words frequently because learning sight words is based purely on memorization. It seems difficult for Brandon to grasp a hold of things and remember words from day to day.

WritingAfter assessing Brandon’s writing, it became very evident that Brandon struggles with

not only being able to express himself freely, but also becomes easily frustrated because of his limited spelling and phonics. Each tutoring session, we would spend about 15 minutes working on Brandon’s writing skills.

During our writing time, Brandon would tell me a type of personal narrative as I audio taped it. I would then talk to him a little bit about what he was telling me. I would then tell

Brandon that this was such a great story that he told that we should write it down. A strategy that we used here that was very helpful for Brandon was “sharing the pen” or partner writing. This meant that he would write a few words, and then I would take the pen from him and as he dictated to me I would write a few words. This was a way to free him up from the pressure of trying to spell correctly because then he could just talk and tell me his story.

The linguist Carol Chomsky once said that it was very important to write first before reading. The reason for this is because when young children write they focus on the sequential sounds of the letter names of the alphabet. She said that writing plays an important role in the development of reading because it provides children with purposeful experience in analyzing the sequence of sounds in spoken words and in matching the appropriate letters to sounds. Writing is an essential part in the tutoring process not only for this reason, but also because children have a voice and they need to be able to express themselves.

During our tutoring sessions, it was very evident that Brandon struggled with expressing himself. When he was finally able to and then write down his thoughts on paper, he would have trouble recalling what he was writing about. As I noticed this I made sure to encourage Brandon to keep repeating the sentence he was writing, and also to just work on one sentence at a time. I also noticed that Brandon had trouble coming up with sentences to write. He had difficulty in trying to put a complete sentence together. Instead he would say random words which would be a fragment. I had to help him in the beginning by asking him what he meant when he would say fragments, and once he realized that what he was saying did not make sense to him then he would rephrase it. Eventually he got to the point where he would say simple sentences. He also got to the point where he would start off his stories with “one day..” which was very impressive, considering he had no knowledge of how to start off a story at the beginning of the four weeks of tutoring.

During the four weeks of tutoring we worked on six writing drafts. We completed four of those by typing them up for Brandon to illustrate. The six drafts that we worked on were: “An Exciting Day”, “Pokemon Game”, “The Retelling of The Mitten Tree”, “The Retelling of Rocky and the Lamb”, “My Pet Goldfish”, and “Dragon Ball-Z”. The drafts that we completed were: “An Exciting Day”, “Pokemon Game”, “My Pet Goldfish”, and “Dragon Ball-Z”.

I recommend that Brandon continues to work on his writing skills. Brandon enjoys writing about video games and things that he is interested in. He has much more to talk about when it is something he is very familiar with. I had him attempt to retell stories that I had read aloud to him and he struggled significantly with this. While Brandon is writing, he should focus on writing simple sentences, so therefore he should say the sentence several times while he is writing before moving on to the next one so he will not confuse himself. A technology device that would be beneficial for Brandon would be the Franklin spellers. This is a handheld computer, which can come in a variety of levels, which will automatically spell a word correctly based on the child’s invented spelling. I also think that Brandon should still have support as he is writing because he is not able to write independently yet. He should write a few sentences and then the teacher or whoever is working with Brandon should take over and write a few sentences. The time spent on writing in the reading/writing block should be 30% of the total time.

Word-StudyEach tutoring session I worked with Brandon on spelling and sound patterns that

seemed to be confusing for him. These were indicated in the results of the Schlagal Spelling Inventory and the ASU word recognition test. Based on the results of the spelling assessment, Brandon’s instructional level for spelling and phonics would be below the first grade level.

Word study activities are used to help children internalize basic spelling patterns. Each day during our tutoring session, Brandon and I spent 10 minutes on word study. I would start out with a sort on the first day by showing the words to him and having him tell me what the words are. The words he did not know I would set aside and he would not sort those. I would then place a word for as a column header for each set of words in the word study. For example, if the student is working on a-family words then I would place “hat”, “map”, “van”, and “?” as the headers. I would then model the first few words for him by placing the next word below the appropriate column header and reading the words back by starting at the top with the column header. I would then gradually allow the student to take over as I feel that he no longer needs to support. The purpose for word study is for the student to see the sound patterns and the spelling patterns in words. In order for a word to go in a specific column the student must understand that the word must sound the same and must be spelled the same. For example, the word “can”, the child would place the word under “van” because it sounds the same and it follows the same spelling pattern. The question mark column header is for words that are “rule breakers”. These are the words that do not sound like any of the others but may be spelled the same or they may be words that sound like the others but may not be spelled the same. For example, “what” would go in this column because it follows the spelling pattern of the column with the “hat” words but it makes a short o-vowel sound. Another word that would go under the question mark column would be “have”. The reason for this is because it makes a short a-vowel sound like the other words, but it is spelled with a silent e, which would technically make the word with a long a-vowel sound. I will then allow the student to sort the word on their own and if they make any errors, I will not correct them. Instead I will just ask the student “does it look the same and does it sound the same?”. I will then allow the student to sort independently the next day and time them to get a baseline time. I could also do a spell check with the student by having the student spell the words orally or write them down on a sheet of paper. A blind sort is an activity that could be done during this time. A blind sort is when the column headers are laid out and the tutor calls the words out to the student. The student will then point to the correct column the word goes in and then spell the word. For the next couple of days after this I will have the child do a speed sort. With the column headers placed on the desk I would place the card one at a time down for the child to say the word and then place the word in the appropriate column. As the child is doing this then I will time them. The goal is for the child to sort one word every 2 seconds. I will have the child do a speed sort with these words until he has met his goal.

Based on Brandon’s spelling errors, it was important to have him focus on consonant blends and digraphs with short vowels. For example, in the first grade spelling list, Brandon spelled “trap” as CHAP and “bed” as BAD.

Here are the word sorts that Brandon worked on during the tutoring sessions: (The P means that this is a picture instead of a word.)

Consonant Digraphs:truck (P) chick (P) droptrap chop drinktrack chip driptrick chin

*After introducing Brandon to this sort on the first day, I realized it was too hard for him. The reason for this is because he had to sound out every word. In fact none of the words he could read automatically. Therefore, I only did one day with this word sort and then I stepped back to word families with short vowel words.

A-family sort:can (P) nap (P) bat (P)van (P) map (P) cat (P)pan lap mattan tap hatman sap

*I started this sort within the third day of tutoring. This seemed to be the right level for Brandon because he could read most of the words automatically. The words he did not know he would tap out on his arm. He quickly learned the spelling patterns in the words and towards the end of the tutoring sessions he could read all of the words and sort the words accurately.

I-family sort:kit (P) sick (P) pig (P) fin (P)spit brick (P) dig (P) pin (P)sit thick fig chinhit trick wig spinpit stick twig

*After working many sessions on this sort, Brandon was able to sort the words accurately and correctly say them. The words which had initial consonant blends were difficult for Brandon, but he finally learned them.

It is important that Brandon continues to receive instruction for word study with the word family sorts. He should review with the a and i-family word sorts and then move on to the other vowel families. As Brandon starts a new sort, it is important that he knows the words that he is sorting. It is also important that the first few words sorted should be modeled for him so he understands the spelling patterns and sounds in each of the words. The time spent on word study for Brandon should be 20% of the reading block.

Being Read ToWhen I first assessed Brandon on his listening comprehension skills, he scored a 20% on

comprehension at the second grade level, which is what grade he will be entering in the fall. Based on these results, it is very important that Brandon be read to in books that are rich in book language, but that are also on a lower level, because he will not be able to comprehend at anything higher than the second grade level. I spend five minutes every tutoring session reading to Brandon.

I chose books for Brandon that I thought would be of interest to him, but at the same time something with a simple plot line, but with rich language. While reading to Brandon, I followed the Directed Listening-Thinking Activity (DLTA). The DLTA is a comprehension strategy which helps students to connect prior experiences and background knowledge to the text that is being read to them. Students are asked to make predictions throughout the story at points of high anticipation that have already been determined by the teacher. The questions that the teacher will ask are: “What do you think will happen next? Why do you think this? What did you hear that makes you think this?” These questions are a way to get the students to make guesses without the fear of being wrong. Students will be more likely to focus on what is being read to them because they are trying to figure out if their predictions are accurate or not.

During this part of the tutoring sessions, Brandon struggled with trying to make predictions. I was not sure if it was because he was not listening or if it was because he did not have enough confidence to say his prediction. There were several books that when I asked him “what do you think will happen next?” he could not give me an answer and anything that he did say was based only on the pictures that he would see on the page. I would read the page over and over again for support and eventually he would get it, but it would take a while for him to connect what I was reading to him to the pictures on the pages. On the last day I read The True Story of the Three Little Pigs: Told by the Wolf. In his predictions for this he was very accurate and seemed to be paying attention more. This may have been because he seemed to already the story of the Three Little Pigs and he had something to compare it to.

The stories that were read to Brandon included: “Three Wishes”, “Tacky in Trouble”, “Can’t You Sleep Little Bear?”, “The Mitten Tree”, “The Teeny-Tiny Woman”, “Rocky and the Lamb”, and “The True Story of the Three Little Pigs”.

It is important that Brandon continues having someone read to him from books with rich language. More importantly, these books should be something that Brandon already shows and interest in and knows a little bit about so he is able to make a connection to. While Brandon is being read to, he should continue to be asked to make predictions because this will keep him focused. Brandon also needs to stick to making predictions and trying to justify his hypothesis with text and picture cues. He uses the pictures to help him, but sometimes he relies only on the picture cues and not enough on the text and what has been read to him.

It is recommended that Brandon Cuellar continue to receive extra help in reading. He worked very hard this summer. I enjoyed working with him. If you have any questions, feel free to contact Dr. Tom Gill, the ASU summer reading clinic director, at gilljt@appstate.edu or 828-406-7794.

Katy DellingerASU Graduate Reading Clinician

Tom Gill, EdDASU Associate Professor