Case Study

Alex S.

Question 4

By Amy Callendar-Taft

Question:

If you were a member of a teacher assistance team that was asked to assist Alex’s teacher in developing appropriate instruction for Alex, what suggestions would you make? Be specific and give examples.

Alex S. Strengths

Alex S. Weakness

• Slow reader and below grade level
• Difficulty combining sounds into words.  
•  Has a hard time being accepted by his peers.
• Speech is very formal and non relaxed
•  Impulsive and does not think things through clearly.

• ​Writing
• Story Recall
• Verbal recall

Action:

 Based on the test scores given, the following suggestion would be given to the teachers of Alex S. in order to help him through out the school day.

 SOCIAL:

It is important the student be added to peer groups. This will help him learn from his peers but, to also relate to them better. It will also allow the other students to start building relationships with the student. In the areas where the student is able to excel such as writing, having him work with a student that is struggling will help him to build confidence as a student and help in other areas of his schooling.                                                                           

Academics:

​Math:

In math Alex S. would benefit from the use of programs such as Khan Academy. This would give him some extra work with guidance and allow the teacher to follow his progress. It is possible that the student will need the use of a calculator in class until skills have improved.  The teacher needs to offer more practice to the student in the area of calculations. In applied problems it would benefit the student to see some real life applications to help better with his understanding.

Word Attack:​

​Word attack helps students with pronouncing and understanding unfamiliar words by attacking them piece by piece. To help the student build his skills in picture attack, there are several things that can be do. Have the student use picture clues.  Work with the student on sounding out the word starting with each letter and sound, then blending the sounds together to make a  words and help them determine if that word makes sense in the sentence.  Have the student find chunks of words they know; prefixes, suffixes and base words and have them blend the chunks together. Have the reread the sentence,  maybe several times. help them to determine the word the makes the most sense in the sentence. Teach the student to use the context of the sentence to determine what word is the right fit.  

​Spelling:

To help the student with spelling he need to be provided with extra practice. There are many website the teacher can utilize to give the student more practice both inside and outside of the classroom. One website is spellingcity.com, with this site the teacher can enter the spelling list and the student can practice the words in a variety of ways. Flash cards are another good form of practice.   

​Reading Fluency:

​To help with reading fluency, spend time practicing the high frequency words. This will help them become more comfortable with what they are reading. Allow the student to spend some time reading shorter passages, possibly poems. Work with the student on phrasing, rate and intonation to better help with the flow of what they are reading. Read a passage and have the student read it back. If the flow is not right, have them read it with the teacher matching the voice.

My Take Away:

​For me, this was a harder assignment. I am still learning how to read the tests and understand them and so knowing exactly where the student was struggling and to what degree, was hard. I also was not sure what kind of recommendations to make to best help the student. I know from this assignment, I need to spend some extra time look at and practicing these tests. It would be beneficial to me to pair myself with a teacher or counselor, who is familiar with the tests, and go over this specific case study to get their advice. 

references:

https://www.readinga-z.com/newfiles/strat/read_strat.html

http://www.readingrockets.org/helping/target/fluency

http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/5-surefire-strategies-developing-reading-fluency