University of Idaho

AAron DuPuis

[PRACTICUM CASE
STUDY]
This is a case study of a 4th grade student at Prairie View Elementary. Throughout our
sessions we identified areas of need, discusses several strategies that could be used,
and administered assessments and conducted lessons that addressed these needs.
Summaries, recommendation and reflections are all included, along with writing
samples, assessments, evidences and data.

AAron DuPuis
EDCI 466
Spring 2015
Student Interest Inventory
Students Name: Charlotte
Age: 9 years old
Grade: 4th
School: Prairie View Elementary
I. Summary Of Assessment
Charlotte's teacher recommended her for this case study because of her recent improvement in reading
ability. This became very apparent early on in our interview. Charlotte was very honest and
enthusiastic in her responses. She articulated her struggles as well as her successes with reading and
comprehension. She stated that she reads almost daily for school assignments and several times a week
for personal pleasure. Her family checks out books at the local library on a semi-regular basis.
Charlotte was able to list several criteria that she looks for when choosing a book.
II. Interpretation of the Interest Survey
Throughout our interview, Charlotte's awareness of her reading ability influenced her responses. She
had recently been moved from a title class into the grade level reading groups. This had given her a
new found confidence in her ability and desire to read. She was excited to share with me her interest,
including the suspense in novels along with character development. Charlotte listed several of her
favorite books and authors including the Junie B. Jones series and Red Dog by Bill Wallace. She also
enjoys historical fiction and biographies. She self-assessed her weaknesses being in the vocabulary and
decoding areas.
III. The Plan
Because of her new found confidence as a grade level reader, I think the best course of action would be
to encourage and stimulate her self -image. Challenge her to read more often. Using her own
assessment as our guide, we should address her limited vocabulary base, while identifying new
strategies she could use in decoding unknown words.

Beginning Assessments
In order for me to determine Charlotte's reading levels both instructional and independent, I
have conducted a series of assessments with her. We began in mid-February and I administered the last
one in late March. During this time period I choose to administer a suite of simple assessments
including a fluency passage, a high frequency word test, and a running record. In addition to these
three assessments I have gathered 3 examples of her writing. Two of these examples come from her
writing notebook that is used regularly in her classroom. The third sample is a short spelling test of the
high frequency word list. Charlotte was eager to help me with this case study and excited to practice
her reading throughout all sessions.
The fluency passage I received from my instructor. It was from the NCS Parsons literature, and
was rated as a 4th grade leveled text. On this particular reading she read a total of 103 words in a
minute with only 4 mistakes. Her errors were mostly substituting unfamiliar words with familiar ones
that did not affect comprehension. She also was able to self-correct a word when her initial attempt did
not make sense. This ratio of missed words leads me to think that this passage would be at or slightly
above her instructional level.
During my next visit with Charlotte I was able to administer a high frequency word assessment.
Again I was provided this by my instructor who found it in the Qualitative Reading Inventory. This
inventory went very well for us. Charlotte was able to correctly read and pronounce all the 3rd and 4th
grade words with only one error. She even made it a quarter way through the 5th grade list before she
began to make errors, where I ended after 3 consecutive missed words. This would indicate that her
reading level could be aligned to the late 4th grade or early 5th grade reading bands.
Perhaps the best source of good data has been the running record I administered during the
same session. In this instance I used a 4th grade non-fiction reading passage that was available to me
online from Allyn & Bacon. The results from this inventory revealed that Charlotte made 16 errors out

of 120 words read. From the literature on instructional reading levels we see that this is a little higher
then we would like. However, it should be noted that the first half of this assessment went very well
with her only making 4 mistakes. The majority of her errors came towards the end, perhaps she was
distracted by the activity of other children in the halls. The majority of her mistakes were due to her
not paying attention to the syntax of words or not monitoring for meaning. When she did identify a
disconnect in meaning she used visual cues, going back and sounding out the word, to self-correct.
These errors did not affect her overall comprehension of the text as a whole.

What do these results tell us about this student? I think the common element through these
inventories and assessment is that her slight struggle with decoding words, detracts from her ability to
monitor for meaning. Most of her mistakes on the reading assessments were situations where she
substituted similar sounding but incorrect words. Had she been able to focus on the meaning or syntax
of what she just read she might have realized her error and self-corrected the missed word.
The writing samples collected also warrant investigation. I collected two samples from her
'writing journal' that her class uses during the course of the year. I chose one from the second month of
school and one from the fifth month. Both samples exhibited multiple misspellings. Often words were
spelled phonetically and with little regard to syntax. Due to the amount of spelling errors, I would
place Charlotte into the 'transitional phase' of development concerning her writing abilities. Often
students in this phase just need more practice and exposure to rich sources of vocabulary and their
writing will improve.
Looking forward, Charlotte should work on self-monitoring of both her reading and her writing
at the sentence level. In general I would recommend that she slow down just a little. This would allow
time for her to process what she is reading, work through spelling nuances, and identify gaps in her
understanding. Perhaps she could use questioning strategies to help her become aware of words or
phrases that she has read that do not make sense. I would try to give her focused attention to address

these issues. I would ask summary and comprehension questions during her guided reading sessions
and would encourage her to apply these lessons in her writing. More specifically I would recommend a
Maze reading program. These types of activities and assessments help identify students who are
struggling with choosing words based on semantic and syntactic accuracy. They offer a reading
passage that has selected words omitted and the reader must choose the correct word from a list. This
could be modified to take her own writing and replace misspellings with alternative choices. She could
also practice diagramming sentences or reading/correcting incorrectly structured sentences. This might
help her to 'hear' how sentence meaning changes when we insert words incorrectly.
Overall, I believe that her confidence throughout this process speaks well for her. She has
shared with me her recent gains in reading and even some of the skills and strategies that she uses to
help herself.
My work with Charlotte over the last few months has allowed me the opportunity to identify a few
areas of reading literacy that she struggles with and to formulate some academic goals to help her. With
these goals in mind I will outline a few suggestions for teaching strategies and activities that could
benefit Charlotte.
Charlotte's first goal is to slow down a bit and fully decode words before moving on. I think
some simple coaching and one-on-one explicit instruction would benefit her most. Encouraging her to
sound out difficult words and modeling think alouds will provide her with immediate feedback. Her
other two goals result from her struggle with decoding, yet monitoring for meaning and syntax requires
more intensive modeling and instruction. Again I would employ coaching and one-on-one instruction,
but I would also need to offer more exposure to these skills through practice exercises and activities. I
recommend asking her questions, regarding meaning or syntax clues, when she makes mistakes.
To help facilitate Charlotte's improvement in decoding, I would present both large group and
small group lessons on phonemic awareness. I would design such activities that would address
syllabication, root words and affixes, and lessons that focused on word chunking and blends would

also benefit her decoding skills thus helping her with her work towards automaticity. Charlotte's other
goals included monitoring for semantic and syntactic unity. For these I would implement a Maze
reading program. These programs replace selected words in a passage with similar words, thus helping
the student become more aware of the meaning and syntax of a word. These curriculums have been
tested and researched, and showed to have positive effects for struggling students.

University of Idaho Lesson Plan

Name
AAron DuPuis

Date
04/27/2015

Subject
Topic
Reading
Fluency/Phonemic awareness
The big idea(s) or essential question(s)
With a better understanding of our language, I will understand more of what I
am reading.
State of Idaho and/or common core standards addressed:
RF.4.3 Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words. A. Use
combined knowledge of all letter-sound correspondences, syllabication patterns, and
morphology (e.g. roots and affixes) to read accurately unfamiliar multisyllabic words in context
and out of context.

Objectives (what the students will be able to do as a result of the lesson)

TSWBAT

TSWBAT

The students will respond to feedback regarding phonemes and

their corresponding written symbols, with above 50% accuracy
on the activity.
Use correct terminology when describing and producing
phonemic spelling.

Materials and/or technology

Word sort list
Elkonin Boxes template and/or white boards
Game Board with game markers.

Activities/procedures (include anticipated time for each)

Introduction/activator
(10 min)
In small group or individually:
Review recently studied phonemes
Word sort:
Hand out laminated words and have student categorize based on phonemes.
Class activities (what you/students will do)
( 10 min)
ELKONIN Boxes Game
Student: rolls dice.
Teacher: Orally provide student with
vocabulary words from unit of study or
know problem areas.
Student: produces phonemic spelling
of words on Elkonin Boxes template or
white board.
Teacher: Assess and provides positive
feedback that is relevant, timely, and
informative.
Student: moves his/her game marker
the number of correct phonemes
produced on Elkonin Boxes up to
number rolled on dice. (i.e. if they roll
a 6 but only correctly identify 3 of the
4 phonemes in a word they would
advance 3 spaces.)
After a score of 20 is reached a small
reward or prize can be given to
student. Then they are to repeat the
game as time allows.

Class activities (why you will do them)

The Activator: Activates student prior
knowledge about phonemes.
Sets the stage for the days activities.
The Elkonin Boxes are researched based
activities that strengthen phonemic
awareness. Thus helping students fluency.

This activity is presented in a competitive

fashion that encourages students to
participate and build speed (automaticity).

Closure/reminders
(10 min)
Specific mini-lesson on 1 concept of phonemic awareness.
Using information from todays lesson guide student in 1 area of improvement.
Teacher: Through assessment of students answered in game provide a few words for
the student to decode.
Student: again provide phonemic spelling of words on template or white board.

Assessment (how you will know students met the objectives - include rubrics)
Formative assessment throughout game and review.

Accommodations/differentiation
Accommodations: Allow part or whole word to be seen visually written out.
Then have student just decode the word on the Eelkonin boxes.
Reverse game- Teacher provides phoneme, student produce spelling
Provide phoneme on index cards for student to manipulate.

Differentiation: Increase/decrease target goal before reward.

Use lower/higher leveled words.

Reflection/evaluation (after lesson is taught)

Due to time restraints the full effectiveness of this lesson was dampened. We only had
15 min to practice this lesson during our session for that day. This made it difficult to
review skills, teach game rules, and practice new strategies. However, I still think that
for Charlotte this experience was beneficial. The hidden instruction and informal
teaching that took place was still beneficial.
I think the lesson that I learned most from this was the importance of selecting an
appropriate task/activity for the skill needing to be practiced. I struggled with
identifying the specific skill she needed to work on and matching that with an activity
that would specifically address that need. I think that with more exposure and practice
I will acquire more lessons that focus on individual needs.

Post-Instruction Assessments: Comparison and Growth

After several weeks of working with Charlotte, I administered another round
of assessments. During this session I choose to focus on the high frequency sight
words and the running record assessment. For each of these test Charlotte scored
very well. Lets look at each assessment individually.
The running record shows that she is almost in the automaticity range of
reading. She reads with enthusiasm and fluidity, with only small phrasing errors
that detracted from the reading. Her results included four errors and three selfcorrections out of 107 total words read. She read with a 96% accuracy and had a
1:1 ratio of errors to self-corrections. The results show that almost all of her
mistakes came from visual mis-cues. In some instances she would substitute a
missed word for one that was spelled similar; in others she would insert words
that would grammatically make sense but that where not on the page. I also
noticed that when she did self-correct; she was focused on the meaning of the
sentence or phrase and that helped her to trigger the response to find the correct
word.

During this session I used the same sample of words for the high frequency
word list as I had used earlier. This list included third, fourth, and fifth grade
words. Again for this assessment many of her errors came from struggling with a
word and then guessing. Sometimes she would rely on her knowledge of
vocabulary to fill in a word she was familiar with, yet other times she would insert
a word that was similar in spelling. Two of her errors on this test came from her
not articulating the ending of words. She would provide the base word without
recognizing the affixes. For this assessment she was able to successfully read all
of the third grade words, most of the fourth, and a few from the fifth grade list.
By comparing both assessments we can see a mild improvement over her
general reading abilities. For example if we first look at her high frequency word
list, we see that she correctly identified three words the second time around that
she had missed earlier. We can also see an improvement in her attempts at
challenging words and those with irregular spelling patterns. During this session
she attempted to read further down the fifth grade list resulting in an increase in
total words. This simply means that she is processing what we have talked about
and committed to memory these few words that we focused on. This is promising
for her, since the more she is exposed to high quality text and language the more
she will be able to retain. She was observed using sounding out strategies to
figure out at least two of the longer words. This test did show that she made 2
errors associated with affixes, by not reading the complete word on the page. For
instance she would read a base word without the ed or s on the end. Both
sessions bore evidence of her inattention to spelling patterns and rules. This
resulted in her producing close approximations of words.

Looking at the two running records side by side will also shed some light as
to Charlottes language skills. And it is here we see the most improvement. Her
accuracy increased from 86% to 96% and her self-correction ratio came from 1:6
to 1:1. Perhaps the greatest gain was that her total errors decreased four fold; to
only 4. Both assessments show a pattern of great reading early in the passage,
with proper voice and emotion, and then the majority of errors coming towards
the end. In both cases there is evidence that she seems to be relying heavily on
visual clues when she reads, making errors when she loses focus and attention to
detail. Her inattention to punctuation sometimes causes her phrasing to become
choppy.
These assessments hold valuable data that shed light on Charlottes growth
over the last few months. It is evidence that she has been improving in three key
areas: her ability to self-monitor, accuracy and fluency. These three areas are
linked together and build upon one another. Her skills with checking for meaning
and attention to visual cues will increase her accuracy of difficult words thus
allowing her to continue reading uninterrupted by errors and mis-cues, leading to
a more fluent reader.
Charlotte has been able to implement various self-monitoring strategies
that she has learned both in her classroom and during our brief sessions. In
dealing with the high frequency word assessments she showed improvement in
attention to spelling detail and nuances. Throughout our conversations she
articulated some of the techniques and strategies she used to sound out unknown
words. The running record also demonstrated her awareness of her own reading,
and the usage of these same strategies when dealing with unfamiliar words. Her

improvements in these areas are due to her confidence and awareness of her
strengths and weaknesses.
Since self-monitoring, leads to a better attention to detail, her overall
accuracy has been improving. Both scores record fewer total errors and greater
success with higher vocabulary. These results are encouraging. They show that
her reading level has now risen to the 4th grade range. The dramatic improvement
of the running record results is evidence of overall skill improvement. They
demonstrate her gains in spelling patters and phonemic awareness, along with a
greater attention to details and nuances.
Both of these areas are foundations to fluency. The results of these
assessments show how far Charlotte has come as regards to fluency. The high
success on the word list and low error rate on the running record are proof of her
comfortability with known words and demonstrate her perseverance and
determination to improve her own reading abilities. While we cant say she reads
with automaticity yet, we can say she is on her way and very close. She reads
with voice and emotion. She reads accurately and comprehends what was read.
These small gains in these few months demonstrate her potential growth.

Summary, Recommendations and Reflection

Over the last few months, through interaction and assessments, much data
has been gathered concerned with Charlottes reading abilities. During this time
we looked for new ways to help improve her fluency. We have practiced reading

and comprehension strategies using various leveled text. Thus she has been able
to demonstrate many talents and skills during our shared reading times.
Overall we could confidently place her independent reading level in the 4th
grade band. Her vocabulary knowledge and usage was consistent with fourth
grade expectations and scores. The accuracy and total words read on all
assessments showed consistent proficiency.
Throughout the semester I was able to observe many higher level cognitive
skills and self-awareness strategies being used to support her reading and
comprehension. When questioned she would be able to articulate the exact
mental process she was using when decoding words. Her maturity and
perseverance should also be noted. These traits are very promising for her future
educational goals.
The one area of potential growth that could be identified would be her
general attention to detail and spelling nuances. The majority of her struggle
came after prolonged reading (2-3 min) when she became distracted and lost
focus on her reading. It is recommended that she challenge herself to continue
her, initially near perfect, reading for longer duration. This would benefit her
enjoyment of reading substantially which in turn would reading skills even further.
This entire process of a Case Study with Charlotte has been conducted with
the goal of identifying her reading abilities and levels, provide her with instruction
or strategies to improve, and then to inform future instruction. To that end this
case study proposes three recommendations concerning Charlotte's continued
instruction.

First; continued instruction and practice with skill development would

encourage automaticity of strategies and skills used by fluent readers. Some
topics of instruction that Charlotte might benefit from are; explicit instruction
concerning spelling nuances, decoding skills, affixes/root words, word families.
Also in general she should be offered many opportunities to practice these skills
both authentically and in an assessment setting.
Second; Offer rich authentic text that challenge her current abilities. She
should be given choices to select books that interest her, are at or only slightly
above her independent reading level, and come from a variety of genre and
topics. She be encouraged to make reading for pleasure a priority in her life, and
then given the resources and opportunity to borrow our purchase these specific
titles. Incentives or rewards should be given for reading goals that are met and
attained.
Lastly; In order to facilitate her continued improvement, monitoring of her
reading abilities should continue in a limited fashion. Assessment data could be
used for various purposes including; future reading goals could be derived from
test scores; to identify any back-sliding or regression, to inform future instruction.
At this point no remediation is recommended. The simple efforts of a reflective
and aware teacher should be all that is necessary.
Reflection
This entire process of conducting a Case Study has been informative and
valuable to my educational goals. I have learned about the elements of a case

study in general, the organizational skills necessary to conduct a study, and the
pedagogy and teaching strategies one might use in the field.
The nuts and bolts of the case study itself I found interesting. From the
progression of the interviews, assessments, and instruction, to the learning about
the different assessments and how or why you would choose one over another
will help me in my future classroom. I enjoyed the relationship that Charlotte and
I developed over the course of the semester. Also I now fully appreciate all the
data that goes into an special education recommendation or some other
educational goal document.
In general I am also thankful for the organizational skills and techniques
that I developed during this process. I was able to chunk this assignment into
portions due to the staggered requirements of a case study. This helped me to be
more purposeful and articulate with the task at hand. I was able to maintain
schedules and deadlines effectively. I also practiced data collection, analysis and
using data appropriately.
More specific to my career goals, I appreciate the pedagogy and teacher
strategies that I learned during this course and assignment. I have been shown
specific traits to look for in student reading patterns; even pitfalls, patterns and
special cases. Then we learned about specific skills and strategies to teach. But
the best part is the hands on live practice I was able to do. Being able to
actually do this assignment was the best way to learn the skills necessary to
perform a case study.