Case Study Presentation:

Reading Ability
By: Rachel Solomon

http://moodle.galenaparkisd.com/course/
view.php?id=2192%3E1&username=guest

Background Knowledge
According to our lecture, reading is a complex cognitive
process of decoding symbols in order to construct or
derive meaning (reading comprehension).
It is a means of language acquisition, of communication,
and of sharing information and ideas.
Learning to read and speak is a very important part of
child development.

Background Knowledge
Also according to our lecture, language and reading
include a wide range of purposes for the developing
child. These purposes include:
Helping children interact with others
Express their wishes
Control others behavior
To explore and understand their environment

Research Question
Does the topic of the word or sentence being relevant
to the child, make it easier for them to read?

http://www.escambiareads.org/

Facts about Kayla

I used to babysit her when she was very young (around 1
year old)
She doesnt remember me
Six years old
Female
Caucasian
Jewish
Attends kindergarten at McDonogh School in Maryland

She was very excited!

Her mom told me that she couldnt wait for me to get
there and read with her. She even made me bracelets
and drew me a picture!

Experiment
I only visited with Kayla one time, and I did a selfdesigned experiment.
First, I showed her a bunch of different words on flash
cards to see her reading level.
Next, I showed her different simple sentences on flash
cards. Some of these sentences were relevant to her
personally, and others werent.
Finally, I had her read two simple books. One that was
about something she was very interested in, and the
other was about something she had no interest in.

Results for Part 1

For the first part of the experiment, I held up flash
cards that had words printed on them. I wanted to test
her reading ability and see what level she was on.
She seemed to be pretty on track for her age, and
maybe even advanced.
She could read or sound out almost every word, except
for some that were more difficult, which was expected.
She easily read words such as cat and doll, but
couldnt read more difficult words such as elephant
and pencil.

Results for Part 2

For the next part of the experiment, I showed her flash
cards that had simple sentences printed on them.
I found that she easily and quickly read sentences that
were relevant to her, or had names of her family
members in them, but she had much more difficulty
reading sentences that werent as relevant to her.
For the purposes of these results, you need to know that
she has a mom, dad, 3 brothers named Jake, Evan, and
Tyler, and a dog.

Examples of Results
Sentence

Level of difficulty for her

I love my mom and dad.

Easy

I like cars.

Hard

I have 3 brothers.

Easy

I play with Evan.

Easy

Jordan goes to school.

Hard

Barbie is pretty.

Easy

My name is Kayla.

Easy

The grass is green.

Hard

I love pink.

Easy

Results for Part 2 continued

I showed her more sentences than those in the chart on
the previous page, but those were just some examples.
It is clear that she can much more easily read sentences
that are relevant or important to her than those that
she has no interest in.

Further Explanation
She had difficulty reading the sentence I like cars,
but had no problem reading the sentence Barbie is
pretty. She is much more interested in Barbie than in
cars.
She had difficulty reading the sentence Jordan goes to
school, but had no problem reading the sentence I
play with Evan. Her brothers name is Evan, whereas
she doesnt know anyone close to her named Jordan.

Results for Part 3

For the last part of the experiment, I had her read me two
simple books that she had never read before.
The first book was about Barbie, and the second book was
about cars.
These books were both on the same reading level, and as I
stated earlier, she is much more interested in Barbie than in
cars.
She read the book about Barbie pretty easily with little help
needed.
She had much more difficulty reading the book about cars and
needed me to help her sound out most of the book.

Discussion of Part 1
From the results of part 1, I can tell that Kaylas reading
ability and vocabulary level are on track, and even a
little advanced for her age.
She is probably a little advanced because she attends
kindergarten at a top private school.
Also, she can more easily read the word cat than
pencil because cat can be easily sounded out,
whereas the letter c in pencil makes the s sound,
so it is much more difficult.

Discussion of Part 2
From the results of part 2, I can tell that Kayla had a
much easier time reading sentences that were relevant
to her than sentences that werent relevant to her.
There are a couple of reasons this could happen:
1) She recognizes the names of her family members, and things
she likes (i.e. Barbie).
2) She was paying attention and focusing more on things she
was interested in. She might not have even been trying to read
the sentences about things like cars.

Discussion of Part 3
From the results of part 3, I can again tell that Kayla
had a much easier time reading the book that she was
interested in than the book that she had little to no
interest in.
Again, there a couple of reasons this could happen:
1) She recognizes the names of things she is interested in, for
example, Barbie and dancing. The book was about Barbie
taking a dance class so she might read other things that have
these words in them.
2) She was much more interested in the book about Barbie, so
again, she could have been paying attention more and trying
harder to sound out words.

Conclusion
Children can much more easily read things that are
relevant to them and that they are interested in, rather
than things that have nothing to do with them or that
they dont care about.