Alverno College

Student Intervention Plan

SPE 620
Tiffany Poritz
14 July 2015

Student Overiew and View of Literacy

For the student intervention plan I selected a 7th grade student at
Phoenix Middle School. For the purposes of confidentiality, we shall refer to
this child by the name of Kevin. Kevin is a 12 year old student that I
taught in a small self contained Special Education Language Arts class.
Kevin is a student with a disability in the area of other health impairment
and Speech and Language.
Kevin spends about 70% of his classtime with peers in science, social
studies, and allied arts. Kevin receives special education support in the self
contained Language Arts, Math, and minutes for speech. Kevin is a hard
working young man but has difficulty retaining information because of a
health impairment that affects his retention of information and appropriate
development.
Kevin will try hard on most of his assessments. However, Kevin has
difficulty maintaining focus and this affects his scores on assessments such
as MAPS. Kevins Fall 2014 MAP score was a 173 equivlent to a 2nd grade
level. In the Spring of 2015, Kevins MAP score was a 177 equivalent to a
mid 2nd grade level. At the beginning of the 7th grade school year, Kevin
could read 98 words per minute with 3 errors on the AIMSweb 7th grade
probe. At the end of the AIMSweb progress monitoring for the 2014-15 school
year, Kevin could read 126 wors per minute with 1 or 2 errors.

When I interviewed Kevin about his view of reading and writing, he

was very opinionated. Kevin enjoys reading when it is something he finds
interesting. Kevin enjoys reading books about soccerr he loves playing
soccer with his friends and brothers! Kevin also likes to read the 3-D books
I have on display in my classroom. Kevin also told me he likes to read some
books in Spanish but that can be a bit on the difficult side.
When I asked Kevin if he liked to write, he was equally as opinionated
about writing. Kevin loves to take his time when he writes his letters he is
a bit of a perfectionist. Kevin will write down journal writing promps and
erase them to rewrite them perfectly. Kevin enjoys writing about his
weekends and about topics that are interesting to him. Kevin also told me
that he hates to have to follow the examples on the board to write. For
example, Kevin said he gets annoyed when we go through the writing
process brainstorming, outlining, writing a rough draft, and creating a final
draft (where we either use speech to text or type). Kevin said he rather just
write it down once and be done.
When I spoke with Kevins parents (who are both working parents)
I asked them a series of questions surrounding their beliefs on literacy and
how they help Kevin at home. Kevins parents were adament in Kevin
sitting down and reading at least sometime during the week. They admitted
that it is difficult to get Kevin to sit down and read every night because he
is so active. They did reveal that they want Kevin to have as much
normalcy in his education as other students. They attend every parent

teacher conference and inquire about his behavior and grades on a very
frequent basis. They are happy with the progress that Kevin is making with
his reading. Kevin will read aloud to his parents on certain articles he reads
at home and will ask them questions about what he is reading to check for
understanding. Kevin has beautiful fluency and they love hearing him read
with such expression. Kevins parents check with him every night to see if
he has reading and other homework to complete. It can be difficult to model
reading at home for Kevin and his brothers. Both parents work alternating
schedules and so when one parent is working, one parent is at home cooking
dinner, helping with homework, and getting kids ready for bed.
Assessments and Analysis
In the area of assessments, Kevin was assessed using the QRI in the
area of narrative and expository narratives. Kevin was also assessed with
word lists, miscue analysis, and comprehension with the QRI. In addition to
the QRI, Kevin was assessed on spelling and a writing sample.
Kevin was given the QRI at a Level Six, based on the results from QRI
Word Lists. Kevin was able to identify 85% of the words correctly on the
Upper-Middle School Word List. Kevin did have a bit of difficulty with
motivation during the assessments and wanted to take breaks and leave the
room. Appropriate breaks were given and focus was regained. Kevin did
fairly well with his fluency while reading the narrative story. Kevin was
given the Pele article to read. Pele is a famous soccer player that Kevin

recognized and was able to recall some background knowledge on. Kevins
score on the concept questions was 8 out of 12 or 66%. Kevin read the
passage with with a total of 11 miscues in 3 minutes. Kevin was also able
to recall 40 of the 66 ideas from the narrative and answer 6 of the 8
comprehensions questions correct.
Kevin struggled with the expository article more than the narrative.
The article scored a frustrational level for Kevin. Kevin had difficulty
answering the concept questions and score 1 point out of 12. At this point in
the assessments, it was noted that Kevin was very antsy and did not want
to complete the assessment for me. He was distracted with classmates
transitioning to their next class. Kevin had strong fluency while reading the
passage and was able to complete the Clouds and Precipitation passage in
a little less than 5 minutes. Kevin did have difficulty with comprehending
what he was reading and stopping to discuss the key points. Kevin had 6
miscues within the 528 words. When it came to retelling, Kevin was only
able to recall 3 items from the passage and refused to go back and look for
the answers. Kevin was only able to answer 2 of the questions for Clouds
and Precipitation correctly, scoring a frustrational level with the passage.
Overall, Kevins strengths in reading as identified in the QRI inlude
word identification, fluency, and spelling. When conducting the Words Their
Way Qualitative Spelling Inventory, Kevin had a very strong start with his
spelling but started to have difficulty with spelling the last 6 words on the
Elementary Spelling Inventory. The areas in spelling that Kevin had difficult

with included unaccented final symbols, bases or roots, and blends. The
following areas of reading are outlined in Kevins Reading Intervention Plan
word analysis, fluency, comprehension, spelling, and composition. In each of
the previous areas; Kevin shows both strengths and weakenesses. A
strength in the area of word analysis for Kevin is that he can identify words
outside of text but a weakness he has is the difficulty of using context clues
to help him understand the meaning on the word. This is also true with
Kevins fluency. In the area of fluency Kevin can read words per minute at
or above grade level. However, a strength that Kevin has with the fluency
is that he cannot identify or comprehend the meaing of the words. In the
area of comprehension Kevin is able to answer questions that he has a bit
of background knowledge to. Kevin also benefits with having guidance from
the teacher and to answer his several questions (as to whether or not he is
answering the questions correctly). When Kevin is reading a passage on his
own and asked to answer questions independently, he struggles with the
ability and needs guidance from peers or teachers. In the area of writing and
spelling Kevin does not take the time to check his spelling or compositions
for the correct conventions of spelling. On the otherhand, Kevin takes great
care in forming his letters neatly and writing very clearly.
Planning
In the area of planning, I created eight lessons that were targeted
towards strengthening the area of weakness for Kevin. The major area that
Kevin struggled in was comprehension and writing. In the area of fluency,

word analysis, and and spelling the target of growth still included
comprehension and working towards understanding the words out of context,
the meaning of words as were reading for fluency, and spelling words that
are not familiar to us but by also applying a spelling pattern to the words.
For example, in the area of comprehension Kevin is working on prereading skills and previewing the text features, developing predictions, and
using a KWL chart to activate prior knowledge. These are appropriate lessons
to help Kevin become familiar with the text and gain a purpose for reading.
In the area of word analysis, Kevin needs to work on increasing his
vocabulary comprehension. Kevin will be using vocabulary from the
Collections curriculum and use the identified words in the text to place into
word maps and work on comprehension. For vocabulary, Kevin will be
working on repeated timed readings to work on increasing his
comprehension of words he does not know. Kevin will also work on using
variations of spelling and using technology to help aide in correct spelling of
words. Again, the remaining lessons that were designed for Kevins needs
in mind surround around the use of strategies to help aide in comprehension
and working towards connectiong fluency with understanding what is being
read.
Reflection and Future Goals
The goals and recommendations that I have for educators that will
work in intervention settings include knowing your students needs and

adapting instruction to meet the needs of all learners in the classroom.

Educators should also make sure that they have a solid understanding of the
developmental needs of growing readers and what appropriate reading and
writing strategies will align with the deficits of the learner. Not only do
educators need to be familiar with the developmental stages of reading and
writing and understanding their learners needs educators also need to
know how to differentiate instruction . All students learn differently.
Therefore, it is also important for educators to be able to assess students
accordingly, collect the data, analyze it and assign the student to the
appropriate interventions. Along with having students in appropritate
interventions it is important to make sure that data continues to be collected
and students are progress monitored.
Recommnedations that are appropriate for the parents include reading
at home. There should always be time to read. When reading at home,
Kevin should be reading aloud, stopping to