Purpose

My name is Ashley Cupp and I am an Elementary Education major at Grand View University- www.grandview.edu. I am currently in a Special Education practicum at a large public school district. I am working in a self-contained classroom with two fourth grade boys and one third grade boy. This semester I am taking a class called teaching literacy to 3rd through 8th grade. For this class, I am expected to work with a struggling reader five times. Over the course of my time with the student I will be getting to know him and teaching him lessons that will help him to improve in his reading. The student I will be working with is the third, grade nine year old boy from my practicum placement.  The reason I chose to work with this particular student is because he seems to be able to comprehend what he reads very well even though his fluency suffers. My hope is that after working with him I will be able to understand why this is the case.

Mini Case Report

Instructional Needs       

The student I worked with this semester is a 3^rd grade boy reading at a 2^nd grade level.  I truly believe that the root of this student’s reading struggles is his behavior problems.  He is a very bright student, but his unwillingness to do what is asked of him in the classroom really interferes with his learning.  I was very impressed with his overall ability to comprehend what he was reading each time I worked with him.  However, his fluency suffers which makes reading difficult for him.  One specific area in which the student seemed to struggle was reading words that contained vowel digraphs.  After conducting multiple running records, I noticed that he was consistently misreading these words. 

Future Needs

After spending time with working with this student, I think there are steps that can be taken to help him improve his reading skills.  I realize that time is always an issue when trying to work with students one on one, but I think one on one instruction would be very beneficial to this particular student.  If I were to have this student in my own classroom, I would be sure to continue to practice words with vowel digraphs.  One way I might do this is to have the student do word sorts of multiple words with different vowel digraphs.  I would ask the student to read each of the words aloud as he sorts them.  This would even be something the student could do on his own during a free moment.  Another thing I would do as this student’s teacher would be to have him practice reading high frequency words.  This would really help improve his fluency.

The student and his parents could also take steps at home to improve his reading.  One thing I would recommend is for the student to read aloud to his parents.  Even if it’s only three nights each week, the extra practice would definitely benefit him.  I would also recommend that the parents read aloud to the student on a regular basis.  Hearing fluent reading will help the student to become more fluent as well.

What I learned

Overall, I have learned a lot through this experience.  One very important lesson that I have learned is that not all students are motivated to learn on their own.  Some students need a lot of praise and rewards in order to complete a task.  Knowing that doing the task will help them learn isn't enough motivation for some students.  In these cases it's extremely important not to give up on the student.  It is so rewarding to see students grow and progress in their learning!

I am very thankful for having had the opportunity to work with this student over the course of the semester.  I have learned multiple different strategies that I can apply when I become a teacher and have a struggling reader in my class.  Not only that, but I have also learned the importance of building a relationship with each and every one of the students that we work with.

Lesson #5

The final lesson with this student went really well.  He was doing a great job of following directions and completing everything I asked him to do.  The goal of today's lesson was to see how the student had progressed and practice some of the phonics skills that he was still struggling with.

Running Record
The student was reading a level K book.  He read with a 96% accuracy rate.  However, I noticed that he wasn't self correcting at all.  This led me to believe that although he was reading with good accuracy that maybe he isn't ready to move up to the next level.  I talked to the student's teacher and she said she wasn't going to move him up quite yet.

One thing I noticed about the student's running record is that he very rarely uses the structure cue system.  However, he is now using meaning much more often than he used to which is wonderful to see!  One thing that I feel the student did really well during the running record was his use of expression.  A specific example was that when he came to an exclamation point, his voice went up to show excitement.  One thing we talked about that he needs to improve on is looking through the entire word when he comes to a word he doesn't know.  We then talked about how he can "chunk up" the word to help him.

Phonics Practice
To work on the student's phonics skills, we clapped multisyllabic words together.  He did a wonderful job with this and I could tell this came very easily to him, so I explained to him that he can use this method of chunking up the words to help him with his reading.  Instead of clapping the words aloud, he could separate the syllables by pointing to each syllable in the word.

We also did a Systematic Sequential Phonics lesson.  The lesson focused on words that included vowel teams, which is something the student is still struggling with.  He is able to pick out the vowel that makes the sound, but he has a very difficult time knowing when to add a second vowel.  I think this is something that will come with more practice.

What I learned
Overall, I have learned a lot through this experience.  One very important lesson that I have learned is that not all students are motivated to learn on their own.  Some students need a lot of praise and rewards in order to complete a task.  Knowing that doing the task will help them learn isn't enough motivation for some students.  In these cases it's extremely important not to give up on the student.  It is so rewarding to see students grow and progress in their learning!

I am very thankful for having had the opportunity to work with this student over the course of the semester.  I have learned multiple different strategies that I can apply when I become a teacher and have a struggling reader in my class.  Not only that, but I have also learned the importance of building a relationship with each and every one of the students that we work with.