3rd grade student, Carl



Carl is a 3rd grade student in the low reading group at school. His scores on reading assessments given during the fall indicate he is reading slowly, skipping unknown words and struggling with decoding as well as fluency related to his difficulties decoding.

A Z-test is a decoding assessment in which students read made up words. Carl’s score on this test was 17/36. His score on the Developmental Test of Word Recognition was 8 out of 10 on decoding initial sounds, 3 out of 10 on final sounds and 2 out of 10 on short vowel coding. Although all of these scores are low for Carl’s grade level, his decoding of initial sounds is stronger so the focus of his reading intervention will be explicit decoding instruction focusing on phonemic awareness, vowels and word endings including word families, consonant diagraphs, blends, and rimes.

Comprehension is the ultimate goal of reading instruction (Graves, Juel & Graves, 137). The Qualitative Reading Inventory IV was used to assess Carl’s reading accuracy and comprehension. He had 28 total errors out of 312 words which places him at the low instructional level. He had 10 meaning changing errors which places him at the instructional level. This means that Carl made 18 errors that didn’t affect the meaning of the passage he read and 10 that did. This indicates that Carl was trying to focus on meaning as the majority of his miscues still made sense in the passage (Graves et al., 142). When Carl is interested he appears to understand much of what he has read which means attitude and motivation may also be also be contributing to Carl’s struggles in reading. His comprehension scores of 21/55 idea units recalled during retelling and 5 out of 8 comprehension questions correct indicate he is experiencing difficulty comprehending which can be attributed to his difficulties decoding. Carl isn’t an automatic reader and reads slowly focusing mainly on decoding words thus he is not able to sufficiently attend to meaning and comprehension. With additional decoding instruction and more motivation Carl’s comprehension may increase.

Carl’s reading fluency was assessed using the Reading fluency monitor and his score, 28 words correct per minute places him in the 16th percentile of 3rd grade students. When Carl recognizes words he uses some expression which is an indicator of reading fluency (Caldwell, 170) This means that with additional instruction in decoding to identify words correctly Carl’s expression and fluency will likely benefit. However, Carl will also benefit from explicit fluency instruction and modelling. Graves, Juel and Graves note that when a student’s fluency is below 20% and his accuracy is at the instructional level he can benefit from fluency instruction (189).

Based on Carl’s scores and what they indicate, a majority of the reading intervention plan for Carl will focus on decoding instruction and word study. Carl will learn to identify and decode phonograms through instruction on phonemic awareness of vowels and final consonants, blends and word families. Instruction will also cover short and long vowels in non-rhyming words. Carl’s reading intervention will also include repeated, simultaneous and wide reading at home using leveled books to improve fluency and carefully matching his reading with appropriate, interesting texts to improve his attitude towards reading. Carl’s reading at home will in a text of his choice that is fairly easy for him to read based on the information from the leveled books assessment given in session 2. Initially, I will call Carl’s guardian and discuss with him or her Carl’s strengths including his decoding ability with initial sounds and his efforts at comprehension despite difficulties decoding words. We will discuss what I hope to accomplish in meeting with Carl including an improved ability decoding vowels and ends of words and further improving his reading fluency. I will keep in contact with his guardians via weekly letters home about his progress by having them help Carl record when he reads independently or to someone else from his wide reading selection. During Carl’s sessions I will conduct embedded, formative assessments. At the end of his intervention I will conduct follow up assessments including the QRI IV, miscue analysis and developmental test of word recognition to measure Carl’s growth and where additional instruction is needed.

WEEK 1

Session 1:

Phonemic Awareness: I will model breaking words apart into phonemes (sh-i-p). Carl will then see and hear words, breaking them apart orally into phonemes and writing words such as pat as I say the phonemes. This will help him understand the link between letters and sounds. Once Carl understands component phonemes, vowels and consonants (next activities) he will be more able to work with rimes and blends (Graves et al., 146).

Short vowels: Carl has difficulty with short vowel sounds and needs instruction and practice identifying them in words. Read sentences such as “the man runs” and identify the short vowels and sounds they represent (Graves et al., 149).

Final consonants: Carl has difficulty with final sounds and he needs to be able to determine the final phoneme and matching consonant in words and rimes. Read individual words and have Carl identify the consonant at the end of the word and the phonetic sound it makes for example “trap” the consonant is “p” it makes the sound “puh” (Graves et al., 149).

Session 2:

Blending: Working with blending will increase Carl’s phonemic awareness of consonants and vowels at the end of a word. The first activity is making new words with letter cards. I will model segmenting words into phonemes and then give him a word such as “cat” which he will spell with letter cards and sound out the phonemes. I will ask him to change a letter to make the word cap, etc and we will blend the sounds to make the word (Graves et al., 150). This will help Carl focus on identifying ending consonant and vowel phonemes, linking these to letters and blending the sounds to make words.

Perform leveled reading assessment: Carl will read a leveled book (Fountas & Pinnell method) around the level I believe he is at, if it is too difficult or easy he will read a book from the level below or above eventually determining his “level”. By determining the appropriate leveled reading books for Carl different levels of challenge can be used at different times to improve his attitude and success in reading. During repeated reading activities to improve his fluency we will use books that are slightly more challenging because he reading in a supported environment (Graves et al., 199) For his independent reading at home, he will read books that are less challenging and are enjoyable so that he will have success during his independent reading and feel good about his ability.

Session 3:

Short vowels- picture and word sorting: Carl will identify and classify by both spelling and sound different short vowel sounds to understand which features make which differences (Graves et al., 136). He will sort pictures based on the vowel in them. For example, there will be a picture of a pig, sock, cup and net and he will sort a series of pictures such as bus, pop, six, cut, top, ship and peg according to the similar vowel sound in the previous pictures. He will then flip the pictures over and do the same activity with the written words instead of pictures, gaining experience with the vowel sounds and corresponding letters.

Fluency-Repeated Reading

I will select a reading based on Carl’s reading level and he will read out loud for one minute. Together we will chart his accuracy and speed and set an attainable goal for next time we read the story, such as 5 more words read and 2 less mistakes. We will do this activity whenever we have extra time even if it is not listed on the reading plan. When Carl has no errors, we will pick a new story at a slightly higher level and continue the activity, charting his rate and accuracy and setting goals. These charts and goals provide a record of Carl’s fluency progress and help maintain his motivation (Hudson, Lane & Pullen, 2005). I will also Informally record Carl’s attitude towards this reading task to note if his attitude towards reading is improving.

Session 4:

Word family sorting:

I will introduce word families and rhyming words. Carl will identify and sort words with similar phonograms. Today we will sort words with the ending –at, -an/–in, -ip, -ir/ -et, -eg to become familiar with the spelling and sound of different consonant rime endings with similar short vowels (a, i, then e). Once he has sorted these words into their corresponding categories, he will paste them onto construction paper to keep for a reference.

Simultaneous Reading: We will read a book from the leveled reader Carl is at with word family repetition, or from the Collin Hawkins series of “Jen the Hen” and “Mig the Pig”. I will Informally record Carl’s attitude towards the reading task and his level of engagement to note if his attitude is improving.

Fluency-Repeated Reading

WEEK 2:

Session 1:

Short vowel- Word Hunt with Simultaneous Reading:

Carl and I will simultaneously read “Pup in Cup” by Dr. Seuss. I will read and then get quieter while Carl takes over the reading. I will ask him to be a word detective and find as many short vowel words as he can. He will write them on note cards and then sort them based on the short vowel sound (u or o). I will do an informal assessment of Carl’s fluency during his reading counting errors made and circling which words were misread to determine if he is beginning to grasp the different vowel sounds. I will also assess his ability to locate and categorize the short vowel sounds within the text.

Word family Rhyming:

Review common word families –ug, -up, -or, -op, -at, -an, -in, -ip, -ir,

-et by brainstorming and writing as many rhyming words as Carl can think of for each rime. We will post his lists on the wall for reading reference.

Session 2:

Consonant diagraphs-word family sorting. Introduce new sounds: sh (ash, ish, esh), ght (ight), ng (ing), ck (ack, ick, ock). These consonant diagraphs behave like one sound and so are best learned with word families instead of in isolation (Graves et al., 152). They are common word endings and Carl needs instruction and practice to automatically recognize them and the sound they make. I will model reading words with all of the endings and then Carl will read and sort the words with the different phonograms.

Simultaneous Reading: The Clock Who Could Not Tock. We will read this story from Scholastic together to gain experience with word families that involve consonant diagraphs. I will Informally record Carl’s attitude towards the reading task and his level of engagement.

Fluency-Repeated Reading

Session 3:

Additional work with short vowels and consonant diagraphs: Carl will use a pocket chart to spell words that I dictate using individual letter cards and consonant diagraphs. For example, I will ask Carl to spell mesh and he will use the cards M, E, SH and will sound out the phonemes in the word.

Discuss and do at home reading out loud with simultaneous reading:

Ask questions about how Carl likes his book choice for his at home reading, ask comprehension questions specific to text and have Carl retell what has happened so far to assess his comprehension and motivation (Graves et al., 193). Note completeness, details and organization of his answers and retelling to informally assess if his comprehension is improving. Have Carl predict what will happen next in the story and write it down. Begin with simultaneous reading and then let Carl take over, listen to Carl read and record expression, problem words, and phrasing, note his attitude toward the reading task. His at home reading should be easy enough to do on his own and his success will help improve his attitude towards reading.

WEEK 3

Session 1:

Fluency-Repeated Reading

Simultaneous Reading: We will read the story, “Caps for Sale” with lots of short and long vowel sounds in it.

Long vowels: We will contrast long vowels with short vowels to understand the difference and some patterns that create long vowels. This will give Carl more experience with short vowels, which he struggled with, and identifying what long vowels sound like and how words they are in are spelled differently than short vowel words. Carl will examine the difference between mad and made and then sort words and pictures with the short a and long a sound (CVC, CVCV) such as game, map, lake, sad.

Session 2:

Long vowels- Word Hunt: I will read “Joey Goat” and “Zeely Zebra” from Let’s Read Together Series. After, Carl will be a word detective, finding as many long vowel sounds as he can and writing them on notecards. He will then sort them based on their structure (ee, oe, oa, ea, etc.). This will highlight additional vowel rules and spelling structures that make long vowel sounds.

Fluency-Repeated Reading

Session 3:

Follow up assessment on Accuracy, Fluency and Comprehension: I will administer the Qualitative Reading Inventory IV (a published IRI) using a different 3rd grade passage with Carl to determine if the decoding work and fluency instruction through repeated readings have improved Carl’s accuracy, rate and comprehension. I will code Carl’s miscues by circling omissions, writing mispronunciations above the word, marking self-corrections with a C and inserting additional words he says (Caldwell, 63). Carl will retell the passage to me and answer the comprehension questions to assess his comprehension level.

Miscue Analysis: I will use the information and coding system from Carl’s QRI to perform a miscue analysis to inform what specific decoding and comprehension instruction should be followed up with. If Carl’s miscues have similar beginnings or endings he is paying attention to letter-sound matching. If miscues retain the meaning of the word Carl was paying attention to meaning and comprehension. This will let me know where Carl’s strengths and weaknesses are. This will not be done during the session, but at a different time.

Assess prosody using NAEP Oral Reading Fluency Scale:

Carl will read from his wide reading selection book that he has been reading at home. I will listen to Carl read and record length of phrasing and expression he uses. I will note Carl’s attitude towards the reading tasks along with the informal notes I have taken while working with him to see if there has been any improvement regarding his attitude towards reading. Combining Carl’s accuracy with his rate and prosody level will give me a good picture of his fluency level as well (Caldwell, 166).

Session 4:

Fluency Repeated Reading: Record and note with Carl how much he has improved on his reading rate. Discuss if reading the same text again was helpful and that it’s okay to read things more than once.

Developmental Test of Word Recognition: I will administer the sections on partial alphabetic coding-final sounds, fully alphabetic coding-consonant blends, short vowel coding and long vowel coding to Carl. I will see if the decoding work lead to an improvement in his scores on short vowels and final sounds. Similarly, by analyzing his responses I can note which specific short vowels, rimes, long vowel patterns and consonant blends Carl needs additional instruction on.

REFERENCES

Hudson, R., Lane, H., Pullen, P. (2005). Reading fluency instruction and assessment: What, why, and how? Reading Teacher, 58 (8), 702-714.

Caldwell, J. A. (2008). Reading assessment: A primer for teachers and coaches (2nd Ed.). New York, NY: The Guildford Press.

Graves, M. F., Juel, C., Graves, B. B. (2007). Teaching reading in the 21st century (4th Ed.). Boston, MA: Perason Education Inc.

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