Case Studies
Individual Student Progress:
Bill
Bill is a six-year-old student in my first-grade class. At the beginning of the year, he was in the early stages of phonological awareness, recognizing only a few rhyming words and inconsistently producing them. He struggles with letter-sound relationships and has difficulty decoding even simple words. Additionally, his vocabulary shows some gaps in grade-level word knowledge.
This year, our primary focus has been phonics instruction. To support his growth, we have incorporated rich, engaging oral-language activities within small group instruction. These sessions emphasize extensive phonics practice, providing Bill with targeted support. Through this approach, he has made progress in encoding one-syllable words with short vowel sounds.
At the beginning of the year, Bill’s writing was difficult to decipher. He had wonderful ideas, and we wanted to ensure he could express them on paper. However, he struggled with distinguishing between the “b” and “d” sounds, spacing his words properly, and understanding how sounds come together to form words.
Bill struggled to write down dictated words and sentences, as he had difficulty connecting sounds to letters. He also faced challenges in spelling high-frequency words, which most children his age can recall from memory without needing to sound them out.
Here is an example of Bill’s creative writing. He successfully used proper sentence structure, including capitalization and punctuation. However, he substituted the letter “y” for the “v” sound. Despite this, his writing was understandable, allowing us to provide targeted instruction to help him improve.
Bill’s recent classwork has shown significant improvement. On his latest test, he successfully identified and correctly spelled trick words. He also demonstrated accuracy in writing “glued” sounds like “ink” from dictation and correctly identified all letter sounds. Additionally, he is beginning to write complete sentences with greater accuracy.
His writing has also made great strides—he completed his “How-To” writing with minimal errors. With continued phonics support, we are confident that Bill will be on grade level in both reading and writing by the end of the year.
Individual Student Progress:
Justin
Justin is a first-grade student in an ICT class who displays several behaviors indicative of challenges with attention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. Justin exhibits inattention, finding it hard to focus during lessons and complete tasks. He often appears distracted, gazing off into space or getting lost in his thoughts, which causes him to miss important instructions, such as when to take out his notebook. His tendency to rush through assignments leads to random letters appearing on the page, suggesting he is more focused on finishing than understanding the task at hand. Environmental stimuli, like the sounds of other children and visual distractions, further divert his attention. He also struggles with following directions, often forgetting or misunderstanding multi-step tasks. In addition to inattention, Justin experiences bouts of hyperactivity. Impulsivity is another challenge for Justin.
Academically, Justin faces challenges with incomplete work and often struggles to complete assignments without one-on-one support. He tends to rush through tasks, resulting in random letters or numbers, and his drawings often consist of scribbles. He frequently misplaces books and materials and has trouble organizing his belongings, requiring reminders and assistance to stay on track. Justin benefits from a structured environment with clear expectations, engaging short tasks, and regular breaks to help him manage his challenges effectively.
Justin faces challenges in using visual aids and strategies to clarify his work and grasp mathematical concepts. He specifically needs to focus on improving his understanding of subtraction operations. While his addition skills are adequate, he tends to resort to addition when he encounters a problem he doesn't fully understand, rather than selecting the appropriate operation.
Justin encounters difficulties with phonetic spelling and struggles to apply conventional spelling rules. He needs to focus on reading and spelling CVC, CCVC, CCVCC, and CVCe words. We have been working on having him be able to print all uppercase and lowercase letters and can identify and write the corresponding letters when given consonant sounds.
To support Justin’s progress in reading and phonics, I have designed a variety of hands-on activities that he can complete independently. These activities provide him with targeted practice on essential skills, allowing him to work toward grade-level proficiency while I assist other students in the classroom.
Justin made significant progress, improving by 13 points on the i-Ready reading diagnostic. He advanced an entire grade level in phonics and high-frequency words, thanks to targeted phonics intervention strategies that have strengthened his reading skills.
At the beginning of the school year, Justin struggled with both addition and subtraction. He was unable to perform either skill and had difficulty distinguishing between the two, often solving subtraction problems as if they were addition.
With teacher support, such as reading the problem aloud and guiding him to draw a visual representation, Justin was able to solve the problem. The ultimate goal is for him to complete these tasks with minimal prompting.
At this midpoint in the school year, Justin can now solve problems independently with minimal teacher assistance. Our next goal is to integrate both addition and subtraction problems, helping him distinguish between the two and apply the correct operation accurately.
This will be achieved through targeted interventions tailored to Justin’s needs. He benefits greatly from one-on-one teacher support and a structured learning environment. To minimize distractions, he sits at the front of the classroom, and we provide breaks as needed to help him stay focused. A designated calm-down area is available for him if necessary. Additionally, we incorporate various manipulatives, such as number charts, number lines, ten frames, and cubes, to support his learning and reinforce mathematical concepts.
