Case Study about Brian’s Reading Difficulties
In the case study entitled, How Far Should We Go, a fifth grader named Brian currently attends Willow Brook Elementary and transferred from a different district two years ago. In the previous school district, Brian received his instructional needs with special education services in a self-contained classroom after his diagnosis of language learning delays. Yet, when enrolled at Willow Brook, the decision for Brian’s placement resolved a continuous progress classroom as the appropriate educational environment. However, the author recommends further testing to determine the applicable instructional setting to support Brian’s progress with his reading difficulties.
Brian’s Reading Difficulties
Although in fifth grade, Brian currently reads at a first grade level, with slow progress in his reading advancement. While Brian had read 22 books
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since the beginning of his fifth grade year, those books were at beginning first grade level. Over the course of two years in the continuing progress classroom at Willow Brook, little to no progress is evident in Brian’s reading. Even with his enrollment in resource speech and language therapy, which he attended twice a week in an effort to improve his language skills, Brian’s progress demonstrated inadequate amelioration. In addition, although Brian comprehends stories orally read to him, when reading silently or aloud to himself, reading comprehension is extremely limited. Furthermore, with Brian’s lack of strategies in word attack, he often stumbles over words he knew the day before. As LuAnn Murphy, a special educator stated in the case study stated, “Something gets lost in the translation." Given the severity of Brian's learning disability, it is not realistic to expect his current teachers to bring his reading skills up to grade level especially with a five year grade level difference. According to Fairchild (2015), “Research shows that proficiency in reading by the end of third grade enables students to shift from learning to read to reading to learn, and to master the more complex subject matter they encounter in the fourth grade curriculum.” However, many students are not proficient readers and those who do not meet this critical milestone falter in later grades and often drop out before earning a high school diploma (Fairchild, 2015). With the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading, Fairchild (2015) advocates schools work with their communities and assist families in assuring student success. Instructional Modifications Thus far, Brian’s instructional modifications due to his language processing difficulties include Reading Recovery, which is a school-based, provisional intervention specifically constructed for children typically in first grade, who are the lowest achieving in literacy after their first year of school.
According to research, over the period of the 1984-2012, the Reading Recovery program resulted in over 77% of participants who completed the intervention met the grade-level expectations in reading and writing. In addition to Reading Recovery, Brian received adjusted spelling tests where the number of correct letters were credited rather than correct words. Although, the continuous progress classroom consists of third, fourth, and fifth graders, the Reading Recovery program is specifically for younger children; therefore, appears inappropriate given Brian’s grade. Since Brian demonstrates no conspicuous progress in his reading difficulties based on the instructional modifications administered, the author concludes the modifications as ineffective; therefore suggests further
testing. Test Recommendation After review of the case study, the author surmises the appropriate test to determine Brian’s ability is the DIBELS Next, which measures the following: phonemic awareness, alphabetic principle, advanced phonics, fluent reading, reading comprehension, and vocabulary. Research evidence suggests that systematic phonics instruction leads to better reading outcomes, especially for students with low reading skills or from disadvantaged backgrounds. Therefore, DIBELS Next offers the needed testing to ascertain Brian’s strengths and weaknesses in order to determine the type of instructional environmental appropriate for him; however, DIBELS Next needs multiple administrations in order to assist in the educational decisions. Additional Information and Testing Since one of the essential pieces of information missing from the case study, obtaining Brian’s age is essential in determining educational decisions. With additional testing and Brian’s age, educational decisions present themselves so that Brian is placed in the appropriate instructional environment. Due to the length of time in the continuous progress classroom and the use of the Reading Recovery program, additional testing such as an intelligence assessment is imperative to understand why Brian is not retaining information. Conclusion As a result of minimal progression in Brian’s over the course of two years, the current placement in the continuous progress classroom demonstrates the teachers’ inability to meet his needs with the present instruction. For this reason, the author considers a special education class focused on high frequency, intensive reading instruction as a more appropriate educational environment to meet Brian’s needs.
This is a reading intervention classroom of six 3rd grade students ages 9-10. This intervention group focuses on phonics, fluency, and comprehension. The students were placed in this group based on the results of the DIBELS Oral Reading Fluency assessment. Students in this class lack basic decoding skills.
Wedl, R. J. (2005). An alternative to traditional eligibility criteria for students with disabilities. In Response to Intervention (pp. 1-19). Education Evolving.
I started with the “Elementary Reading Attitude Survey,” in which Jax scored a full scale raw score of 62, showing that he is indifferent to reading. In the recreational reading section, it was found that Jax finds it tolerable reading on rainy days, during school, free time, at home, receiving a book for a present, starting a new book, reading during summer vacation, reading instead of playing, going to the book store, and reading different types of book. In addition, Jax’s attitude toward academic reading was similar to his recreational reading. He is indifferent about teachers asking him about what he reads, reading worksheets, reading during school,
The reading plan includes at least two interventions with a proven intervention program like Star Reading, Success Maker, Words Their Way, or other
Slavin, R. E., Lake, C., Davis, S., & Maden, N. A. (2012). Effective Programs for Struggling Readers: A Best-Evidence Synthesis. Best Evidence Encyclopedia.
In a public junior high school he began to read feverishly. In English classes he
Retrieval, Automaticity, Vocabulary Elaboration, Orthography, otherwise known as RAVE-O, is an experimental and fluency-based approach to reading intervention. This program was designed to accompany a phonological analysis program. It was created to address the rising emphasis and the need of fluency and automaticity in intervention. RAVE-O addresses multiple sources of disfluency such as fluency, word attack, comprehension, word identification, and automaticity (like phonology, orthography, semantics, and lexicon skills) (Wolf, Miller, & Donnelly, 2000). The goal of RAVE-O is to facilitate the development of rapid orthographic pattern recognition and to change the attitude of children towards language and/or reading.
Instruction. These two strategies are approaches that address classroom diversity in general education settings, and inclusion classroom settings. The idea of UDL is that instructional lessons, strategies, and assessments are planned with supports, which are more likely to be well-suited for students with special needs. The supports minimize the need for adaptations at a later time. Properly designed classrooms require fewer adaptations for students with special needs, is an ass...
With such high numbers of adolescents falling below basic in reading, illiteracy is a battle that must be fought head on. The largest dilemma with the struggle is the number of variations that cause adolescents to become reluctant, unmotivated or struggling readers. Fortunately, a large number of strategies exist to encourage and strengthen readers of all ages, proving that adolescence is not a time to give up on faltering students. Rather, it is a time to evaluate and intervene in an effort to turn a reluctant reader into an avid one (or near enough). Ultimately, educators must learn to properly assess a student’s strengths and weaknesses (Curtis, 2009) and pair them with the proper intervention techniques. If one method does not work, countless others exist to take its place.
The causes of reading difficulties often arise because of learning disabilities such as dyslexia, poor preparation before entering school, no value for literacy, low school attendance, insufficient reading instruction, and/or even the way students were taught to read in the early grades. The struggles that students “encounter in school can be seen as socially constructed-by the ways in which schools are organized and scheduled, by assumptions that are made about home life and school abilities, by a curriculum that is often devoid of connections to students’ lives, and by text that may be too difficult for students to read” (Hinchman, and Sheridan-Thomas166). Whatever the reason for the existence of the reading problem initially, by “the time a [student] is in the intermediate grades, there is good evidence that he will show continued reading g...
...h retaining the low literacy achieving students because the majority of the students do achieve grade-level standard in 12-20 weeks. The cost of the placement in special education classes is significantly higher than the cost of the 20-week class. Even though not all 100% of the students achieve the desired results, early intervention helps schools find future support services and lower the cost of the individual tutoring. Finally, the Federal IDEA funding requires the children to receive an early intervening service in order to reduce unnecessary testing cost.
Cody has demonstrated that he is able to learn. He has picked up many science concepts from listening to stories. According to the psychologist his IQ has been identified in the low average range. Books appear to be natural reinforces for Cody. He would enjoy being able to read to himself. It is f...
Many of these students require intensive instruction to maintain the academic skills they have been taught and to improve their academic deficits. For many students with E/BD, achievement problems are particularly troublesome in the area of reading (Maughan, Pickles, Hagell, Rutter, & Yule, 1996). Unfortunately, there has been very little published research in the area of reading instruction with this population of students. In their review of reading interventions in the area of E/BD, Coleman and Vaughn (2000) identified only eight published studies that reported the results of reading interventions for students with E/BD. The majority of these studies were conducted with students younger than 12 years of age.
In today’s educational environment, all students expect to receive the same level of instruction from schools and all students must meet the same set of standards. Expectations for students with learning disabilities are the same as students without any learning difficulties. It is now unacceptable for schools or teachers to expect less from one segment of students because they have physical disabilities, learning disabilities, discipline problems, or come from poor backgrounds. Standardize testing has resulted in making every student count as much as their peers and the most positive impact has been seen with the lowest ability students. Schools have developed new approaches to reach these previously underserved students while maintaining passing scores for the whole student body. To ensure academic success, teachers employ a multi-strategy approach to develop students of differing abilities and backgrounds. Every student is different in what skills and experiences they bring to the classroom; their personality, background, and interests are as varied as the ways in which teachers can choose to instruct them. Differentiated instruction has been an effective method in which teachers can engage students of various backgrounds and achieve whole-class success. When using differentiated instruction, teachers develop lesson strategies for each student or groups of students that provide different avenues of learning but all avenues arrive at the same learning goal.
Students who are not making adequate progress with good classroom instruction should have an opportunity for intensive small-group or individual intervention instruction prior to a referral to special education services, but that instruction must be responsive to each student’s current knowledge