Final Case Report- Nicholas Cook
Progress Report- second six weeks
Reading tutor: Elizabeth Norwood
I had the pleasure of working with Nicholas Cook from March 15, 2010 to April 26, 2010. Nicholas was outgoing and fun to work with and proved to be a very interesting child. He worked hard at each session to improve his reading, writing, and word attack skills. Below is a summary of our work together and a continuation of the discussion of his progress in reading, writing, word study, and being read to.
Reading
During my work with Nicholas in the second six weeks of tutoring, I continued having him read books on a Fountas and Pinnell level 5 as we engaged in Directed Reading Thinking Activities (DRTA) as his previous tutor had done. DRTAs are used in order to strengthen a child’s reading and critical thinking skills, as well as, to encourage a child to be an active and thoughtful reader. During each DRTA I would have Nicholas read aloud to me and I would ask him to stop at points of anticipation. At each stop I would have him think about what might happen next and then explain to me why he thought that. At times we would have to go back and do some re-reading to help him make logical predictions about what would happen next, while at other times, he was able to tell me exactly what was going to happen and what had already happened in the story to suggest that to him. Nicholas was able to read at a level 5 comfortably, and typically was able to read at 94-96% accuracy. I tried to move Nicholas up to a level 1-2 for two sessions, but his accuracy was well into the frustration level, and we backed up to level 5 once again.
For our work on fluency, I had Nicholas reread level 5 books that he had read at previous tutoring sessions. As his previous tutor had done, I had Nicholas reread 3 familiar stories during each session. In having Nicholas reread familiar material we were able to work on his fluency and accuracy. In the beginning of my six weeks with Nicholas we talked about what fluent reading sounds like. I often recorded him reading so that he could rate his own prosody. He would often say that he thought his reading was very smooth even when it was quite choppy. In order to work on this, I would model fluent reading and ask him to read as I had done. As we worked on this he could begin to tell that he was “robot reading” as he called it. I also used echo reading as a strategy to increase Nicholas’ fluency and I feel that it went well. By the end of our six weeks together, Nicholas was reading much more smoothly and with nice expression.
On Nicholas’ pretest in January he scored instructionally on the pre-primer 2 level with 91% accuracy. He was frustrational at primer level with 79% accuracy on oral reading, 49 words per minute, and 38% comprehension. He did not have an independent reading level. On his posttest he scored instructionally at primer level with 93% accuracy, 63 wpm, and 75% comprehension. Although the 93% accuracy is in the gray area, all of his other scores are in line with primer level being his instructional area. He was independent at pre-primer 1 level with 97% accuracy and frustrational at a 1-2 level with 71% accuracy, 39 wpm, and 50% comprehension.
Writing
In writing during the second six weeks Nicholas and I worked on writing several stories. I let Nicholas’ interests lead my writing prompts as his previous tutor had done. We initially worked on writing about John Cena, one of Nicholas’ favorite wrestlers. I had him dictate to me about John Cena, as he was very hesitant to pick up the pencil and write for himself, and I was amazed by his sense of story. He was able to give lots of information about the wrestler and a particular match that he had watched on television. He did so with great enthusiasm and made the story very interesting. We worked for a few sessions on going through this story, which we actually ended up turning into two stories, adding details and changing aspects of the story so that it would make more sense. We continued through our next few stories doing the same thing. Nicholas dictated a portion of the next story to me, one about NASCAR, but also wrote some of it himself. At first he didn’t seem as if he wanted to do any of the actual writing, but he did well and I tried to boost his confidence by talking with him about how well he did. For our last prompt I asked him to tell me about his Easter break, and he gave me so much detail that we ended up splitting it into four different stories. He did some of the writing on these as well and was actually happy to pick up the pencil and write although he still became frustrated and ready for me to take over after a few sentences.
Word study
In word study during the first six weeks Nicholas was working primarily on short vowels based on his pretest using the Schlagal Spelling Inventory. He had scored less than 50% on level 1 words and his tutor had scored the spelling of each of his words individually and he had scored an average of 3.5. As his tutor worked with him she had tried to introduce long vowel patterns into his sorts, but he was unable to sort them and became frustrated. When I picked up with him during the second six weeks we worked on only short vowels for the first session and I checked his accuracy with a spell check. He was able to correctly spell most of the words I presented him with (bug, clap, stop, bus, and shut) but had difficulty with a few (misspelled chop as “choup” and that as “taut”). Based on his progress I did try to introduce long vowels into our next session. We worked on short a vs. long a sort and I quickly saw that Nicholas was frustrated by this. He wasn’t sure how to sort the words or why we were sorting them into the columns we were using. For the next few sessions I went back to short vowels and did more blind sorts and spell checks. We also used a few making words activities because he seemed quite bored with the word sorts we had been working on. He loved the change of pace and I tried a few long vowels within the making words activities we were doing to see if he could do it. As his accuracy increased I decided to try long vowels again in a word sort, and he was able to successfully sort them. We moved from short vs. long sorts with the letter “a” after he could correctly spell some of them to the letter “i” and he was able to transfer the silent e. He continued to do well with this through the remainder of our time together as we worked on “o” and “u.” He even began using long vowel markers in some of his writing. On Nicholas’ final spelling assessment he scored 50% on level 1. In his spellings he consistently used the correct short vowel, as well as some digraphs, and some long vowels.
Also, within word study Nicholas was tested on his word recognition in isolation. At the beginning of the 12 weeks of tutoring, Nicholas was instructional at pre-primer with 85% accuracy on the flash portion of the test. He was frustrational at primer level at 50% and did not have an independent spelling level. On the post-test Nicholas scored as independent level on pre-primer at 90% accuracy, instructional at primer with 85% accuracy, and frustrational at 1-2 level with 30%.
Being read to
At the beginning of the clinic Nicholas’ listening comprehension level was tested. He scored 80% accurate on 2nd grade level during this assessment. During the second six weeks of tutoring I did not reassess this formally, but did work with Nicholas at each session using Directed Listening Thinking Activities (DRTAs) with books that were at a second grade level. During each DRTA I would read aloud to Nicholas and stop at points of anticipation to see if he could make logical predictions about what might happen next and why he thought what he did. Nicholas was able to follow books at this level throughout our sessions, and I steadily increased the level of difficulty in the books from an early second grade book to a late second grade book. Even as the difficulty increased, Nicholas was able to make logical predictions. The only time I saw this not to be the case was when I had picked out a fairly predictable book and he had trouble following the pattern of the story. I think that with Nicholas’ predisposition for off task behavior, he had little interest in listening to something that he could completely predict.
In the fall I recommend that Nicholas continue using primer level materials for oral reading as this is the level on which he is instructional. His listening level shows that he can comprehend material that will be on his grade level next year and I would recommend that all of his grade level texts be made available to him on tape. In this way he will be able to continue to learn at his grade level despite having an instructional reading level that is slightly below that level. I would also recommend continued rereading of familiar texts so that he can continue to further develop his fluency.