Implementation of CBM and CBA: ELLE

Elle is a four-year-old student in Shannon Quinn’s classroom. The class is

composed of students with ECDD, also known as Early Childhood

Developmental Delay. She has speech and language impairments, however is a

highly functioning student. A great thing about Elle is that she is a sweetheart,

whom loves to be around people and laugh. Throughout the time I spent working

with her, she never misbehaved or acted inappropriately. She would work

independently and stayed on task during work time. These behaviors made it fun

and easy to be around Elle.

It was difficult to find a concept that would be appropriate for Elle’s age, as

well as something I could assess Elle on using Curriculum Based Measurement

and Curriculum Based Assessment correctly. Mrs. Quinn informed me that Elle

struggles with recognizing letters in the alphabet. She taught it would be best to

work on Zoo Phonics letters since Elle would soon be attending kindergarten. I

agreed to the challenge and began collecting data.

In collecting my baseline data, I found that Elle could match all the letters

in the alphabet correctly. However, she struggled very much when I would show

her one letter at a time, and ask her to tell me what it was. When she could not

recognize a letter, it was almost as if she would guess, and just randomly say

any letter that popped into her mind. I divided the alphabet up into three groups

that each consisted of eight or nine letters. I used this data to obtain my middle

median and to set my goal. I wanted to use the system of introducing two letters
a week, however because of Elle’s age I adjusted her goal to be able to learn

one letter each session.

After establishing my baseline data and goal, I began collecting data to

find Elle’s acquisition and retention rate. Because of how young she is I found

using incremental rehearsal was ineffective. It was very difficult for me to keep

her attention; therefore, I created a fun game that was used to obtain AR/RR.

Mrs. Quinn had a small black bag that had a tag on it that say “Guess What’s in

my Bag?? No Peeking!!” I would put the letters we were working on inside the

bag. Elle would reach inside the bag and depending on what letter she pulled

out, she would have to tell me what it was before drawing another letter. After

she stated the letter, whether it was correct or incorrect, I allowed Elle to circle it

on the Zoo Phonics list of letters. After a few intervention sessions, I was able to

see that Elle could retain between one to two letters from the previous session.

As intervention sessions continued, I tried to keep Elle interested in work

with me. I decided to use a rewards system. If Elle were able to work through the

session, I would reward her with a sticker and one jellybean. She would take the

sticker and place it on her folder. I told her that when she had enough stickers,

she would be rewarded a prize. I felt this was an excellent way of motivating her

to work because it seemed to catch her attention.

I also had Elle write out the letters on paper, that were introduced during

each session. I found that she enjoyed writing them out, so I brought markers for

her to draw the letters with. Another strategy that worked wonderful for me was

reversing the roles. She enjoyed pretending to be the teacher. It made it fun and
interesting for her to test me. There were a few times that I would stall and

pretend I was unaware of the letter in order to get a reaction from her. She would

then tell me the correct name of the letter most of the time, however there were

times she would just ignore the fact I didn’t know the answer and move on.

Through the games and activities I used when working with Elle, I was

able to teach her seventeen letters. This is more letters that what I had expected

her to learn. She learned quickly once I told her what the purpose for the

intervention sessions were for. She was motivated to learn more letters at each

session. Using Curriculum Based Assessment, I was able to find that for Elle to

identify letters correctly during a session, her instruction level was one letter a

day, sometimes two new letters. Due to her age, I think this is an appropriate

level for a four year old.

Elle was very successful in obtaining her goal She worked very hard

during each session. Elle began the intervention sessions with being able to

identify about five letters. In about five weeks, Elle progressed to identify

seventeen letters correctly. I feel completely lucky to have had the opportunity to

work with Elle. She is a hard worker and I believe she will be successful in her

future education!