Prior to tutoring and the case study, it was evident that my fifth grade student was showing concerns in the area of reading. My fifth grade student is an English Language Learner who has been testing very low on the STAR Reading Assessment along with testing several grade levels below benchmark on the Fountas and Pinnell Running Record Assessments. The English Language Learner teacher is only able to spend thirty minutes one day a week with him, so there is a need for extra instruction. His family has been very concerned about his performance and how his performance can improve; however, the family only has a real opportunity to ask questions or learn about their child's academics during parent-teacher conferences since an interpreter is needed for communication. My fifth grade student's family was very receptive and excited for their child to get this opportunity to have extra one-on-one instruction time with myself to work on his literacy development and skills. He is a very hard worker and is very polite, but his low reading ability has made classwork very difficult for him which makes it difficult for him to complete work on time.
His pre-tutoring formal assessments showed that he was significantly below grade-level in the area of ELA. Fountas and Pinnell testing showed that he was at an Instructional Guided Reading Level of O. Benchmark for mid-year 5th grade is a Guided Reading Level of U. On the STAR Reading test, he tested in the 4th percentile in the red area meaning he was in need of urgent intervention. On the Words Their Way Spelling Inventory, he tested at the Early Syllables and Affixes stage where it became apparent that he needs further instruction starting with inflected endings. On the San Diego Quick Assessment, he tested at an independent level of third grade and a frustration level of fourth grade. This closely coincided with the QRI-6 assessment where he was at a frustration level of fourth grade. This put my case study student at two grade levels behind fifth grade expectations.
After conducting and analyzing the pre-assessments, the areas my student needed further instruction guided the development of the session lesson plans. Our main focus areas were accuracy, vocabulary, and comprehension. All of these focus areas were very closely connected to each other and played factors in the other areas success. The main driving force behind success in accuracy and comprehension was vocabulary knowledge. Unknown vocabulary was what was holding my student back the most. The unknown vocabulary was the driving force behind the low accuracy rates and low comprehension scores. Vocabulary instruction became interwoven throughout all parts of our lessons for each session. Each session, we read a different picture book at the student's instructional level. At the beginning of each session, my student would do a picture walk to develop a prediction of what the story was about. Then my student would be introduced to pre-selected vocabulary words that could be found throughout our story for the day. Many of these words contained inflected endings since the student typically left the endings off of words while reading. We reviewed the pronunciation of each word and checked to see how many words he knew definitions for. After going over vocabulary, the student would read aloud the story while I completed a running record of his reading. Any miscued words were recorded to review at the end of the story. After reading the story, he would give me a retell with as many details as he remembered from the story. He was also additionally asked comprehension questions once his retells were continuously filled with details from every page of the story. The last part of our lesson for each session was reviewing the words that were miscued while reading and the previously unknown vocabulary words. We continued this routine every session with some adjustments made based on the information I gathered and reflections made after each session.
After all of our sessions, post-testing assessments were conducted to check for progress and development as a reader. On the San Diego Quick Assessment, he improved by one level and was at an instructional level of fourth grade and frustration level at fifth grade. The QRI-6 Word Lists showed an instructional level of fifth grade and frustration level of sixth grade, while the QRI-6 Passages showed an independent level of fourth grade and frustration level of fifth grade. On the Words Their Way Spelling Inventory, he improved in every spelling pattern area, especially with the inflected endings spelling pattern. Therefore he tested at the Late Syllables and Affixes level in Words Their Way. Where he showed the most growth was on his STAR Reading and Fountas and Pinnell testing. On the STAR Reading test, he went up to the 11th percentile in the yellow area meaning he still needs intervention time. Even though it shows he still needs intervention, he made significant gains to get to the yellow area. Lastly on his Fountas and Pinnell testing, he is now at an Instructional Guided Reading Level of S. This is a significant jump from where he started at the pre-assessment testing where he was at an Instructional Guided Reading Level of O. That is a four level jump! He is still below grade level but only by one grade level rather than two.
We were able to come a long way in a short amount of time. If he would be able to continue these services throughout the summer and next year, it would be very possible to get him to close the gap even more. My recommendations to continue growing as a reader is for him to continue reading and be encouraged to read and find books that interest him. He would also benefit from reading to an adult who can ask him questions about what he read to check for his understanding. He has greatly improved with his comprehension and remembers a lot more about what he has read than he did previously. To insure that these comprehension skills do not subside, he needs to continually practice. He needs continued support and instruction with vocabulary. Unknown vocabulary is the cause for the majority of his accuracy errors which leads to him having a hard time comprehending what he has read. Teaching him more vocabulary will allow him to become more successful not only in reading but in life. He will be able to have a greater understanding in all subject areas as he acquires more vocabulary.