Chana
Feldman
EDLI 635
Dr. Hsu
April
15
ELL
Case Study
Shani
Gray was born in Israel and lived there until age 6. Her parents were
Americans, so they spoke English at home. Shani attended an
English-speaking playgroup, but she learned the Hebrew alphabet. She
attended a Hebrew-speaking kindergarten where she continued learning
to read and write in Hebrew. She spoke to her friends in Israel
mostly in Hebrew. When she came to America for first grade, she
could not read or write in English. She had never learned the
alphabet. She didn't know what each letter was called and what sounds
they made. It was a challenge for her to learn a new alphabet. The
idea of speaking English in school was new to her too.
She
started the year with no knowledge of how to read or write in
English. She loved listening to the teacher read aloud, but reading
alone or even shared reading and choral reading was not possible for
her. The teacher told me that at this point in the year, in March,
she is much better off than she was in the beginning. I can hardly
imagine trying to teach a student the alphabet, while the rest of the
class was already reading words and simple books. The teacher told me
that Shani has come a long way and she is proud of her
accomplishments.
Shani
would leave the classroom, during class instruction time, and go to
the resource room three times a week. In the beginning of the year,
she was so behind that leaving for that part of the class did not
make a difference to her; she would not have even understood the
lesson. The resource teacher started off with the basics: she taught
her the letters, the sounds that they make, and how to write her
name. As Shani started to catch on, the resource teacher taught her
CVC words, and then moved on to kindergarten sight words. Shani
practiced with flashcards and reading simple sentences with the words
that she learned. The resource teacher had a list of goals for Shani.
When Shani acquired the knowledge of a particular goal, she would
fill in a chart that led to a prize.
The
resource teacher uses the reading a-z program with her. Shani's
parents are very influential in helping with Shani's progress. They
implement the review at home. The resource teacher said that Shani
would not be where she is without the help of the parents. Shani
would take home the flashcards and practice sentences and her parents
would review them with her until she knew them.
I
observed Shani in her classroom setting. Shani's first grade teacher,
Ms. Griff, starts the day with oral reading. She chooses books that
she thinks her students will enjoy and be able to connect to in some
way. Shani enjoys this part of the day a lot, I can tell by the way
she cooperates so enthusiastically. Before Ms. Griff reads the
story, she reads the title, author and illustrator. Ms. Griff points
to the words as she read them to remind Shani that the words are read
from left to right. Shani sometimes forgets which way English is
read. She is used to Hebrew which is read from right to left. Ms.
Griff reminds her students that they were scheduled to meet the
author the next week. I could tell that Shani was very excited about
that. Even though she is a new reader, she enjoys reading to the
extent of her ability.
Shani
was able to answer the comprehension questions that the teacher
asked after she read the passage aloud. She was not able to answer
similar questions when she read a similar passage by herself. Her
reading is too slow to grasp what is going on in the story while she
stumbles over the words that she finds difficult. When someone reads
to her, though, she understands much better. The teacher asked
questions about how the story can apply to the students personal
lives. Shani can benefit from this technique because she needs to
feel connection in order to be interested in the reading that she
struggles with.
The
teacher emphasizes on what makes a good reader. She tells them
explicitly what they should look out for and what to pay attention
to. She told Shani, “good readers pay attention to the setting.”
This way, Shani knows what to look out for as she reads. It is an
important tool for all readers. Ms. Griff also told her students,
“good readers ask questions” The teacher wants the students to
feel comfortable to ask about anything that is unclear in their
reading. The teacher also wants to promote further thinking by
questioning why the author wrote something or why a character acted
in a specific way.
Every
day after oral reading the students have silent reading time. They
know that after the read aloud, they need to go to the class library
– which contains a few hundred books - and choose a book to read
silently. They can continue to read a book that they previously
began. Shani chose a book that had only about three words on a page.
A different time, she chose a book that was above her level. Instead
of reading the words, she took a “picture walk” through the book.
The teacher encouraged students to take “picture walks” on days
that they didn't feel like reading. During this silent reading time,
the teacher would walk around and see how her students were
progressing. This is when she gave Shani one-on-one attention to help
her with her reading. She would do a lot of sight word activities
with her, like flashcards or write and draw worksheets. These
worksheets were good also to help her remember what the word was
because there was a picture of it. She would complete a sentence by
filling the word in the blank. Then she would read the sentence and
practice writing the word a few times. Other activities that the
class did for sight words were bingo, songs and circling the sight
words that they found in their reading.
When
the teacher gave a lesson to the class she specifically made sure
that Shani was paying attention because she needs it the most. On the
days that Shani does not get pulled out she does work that is more
simple than her peers because she is not on their level yet. One day
the class was learning the long e vowel sound during whole class
instruction. First, Ms. Griff read a story to the students that had
many long e vowel sound words in addition to the new sight words of
the week. Then the students practiced reading the long e words from
the words box that was written on the board. Next, they filled in a
list of sentences with the appropriate long e word. I observed Shani
having trouble reading the sentence, but after a peer read the
sentence, she was able to fit the correct word in the blank. When the
students do a word sort, they are supposed to use the words from the
word box provided and put in under the correct long e spelling
pattern. For example: e words are “me” and “be”; ee words are
“meet” and “keep”; ea words are “meat” and “tea.”
Shani worked slowly and with only a little bit of help from a peer,
she was able to complete the entire worksheet. When the students
complete their work, they read their work to a peer. Shani read her
work to a peer that Ms. Griff specifically assigned to her because
she was more focused on Shani's needs and could help her when
necessary.
The students read a story together with the teacher– choral
reading. Then they talked about the pictures and compared how the
people were dressed in the book to today's mode of dress. Then Ms.
Griff demonstrated how to summarize. Summarizing the text is a good
tool for students to enhance their comprehension. After they
summarized the story, they read it together with a peer. All of this
work with the same text helps students better understand their
reading. Shani had a smoother time reading the story with a peer
because they had read it as a class, discussed it, reviewed it before
she read it.
The
students had a writing activity that was part of their reading theme.
They were reading about scientists, and their assignment was to think
of an invention that they would like to create and write about it.
Writing is even harder than reading for Shani. The topic was so
interesting and she came up with an idea right away. But she had
such a difficult time putting her thoughts on paper. Her handwriting
is very poor. She is so busy learning the letters and how to read
that she hardly practices writing the letters. Ms. Griff helped Shani
writing her idea down. When Shani is stuck on the spelling of a word,
Ms. Griff said, “sound it out, if you get it wrong – you're
supposed to in first grade.” Ms. Griff prepares her students to
make mistakes. She says that they are supposed to and they shouldn't
be ashamed. When the students know that making mistakes is okay, they
are more open to try new words and think of new ideas.
Sometimes,
Shani wanted to substituted a Hebrew word instead of writing the
English one. Ms. Griff encouraged that because any language that
would help Shani express herself was good. The resource teacher said
that she doesn't work with Shani on writing. She is far below the
level of her peers on writing and there is no emphasis on helping
advance at the present time.
While
observing Shani in the classroom, I scored her on the Student Oral
Language Observation Matrix (SOLOM). Shani scored a 23 on the SOLOM
that I administered for her. English is the spoken language in her
house, so she can speak it and understand it very well. I believe
that she scored in phase 3 instead of phase 4 because of the type of
activities that she was involved in and the context in which the
conversations took place. Shani is not as comfortable in an English
speaking school environment. Although she speaks English fluently,
her understanding in the context of school is not as good. She
received a 5 on comprehension, fluency and pronunciation. Her
vocabulary is not as good and her grammar has infrequent mistakes.
Vocabulary for young children is picked up by reading books and
because her reading is still slow and she reads less, she has a
smaller vocabulary. Her grammar isn't as proficient as her peers.
This may be attributed to learning in a Hebrew-speaking environment
when she was in kindergarten, an important age for picking up correct
grammar usage.
Shani
has many friends. Although she hasn't been with the class since
preschool, she has a charming personality and she tries hard to do
well. Her peers don't make fun of her for being slower than they are.
There are other special needs children in the classroom and it seems
that the students understand the importance of treating one another
with respect. Shani has an easier time communicating with her
friends during recess than during learning time, because she is more
familiar talking about everyday things than performing academic tasks
in English.
It
was interesting to observe Shani as she interacted with her peers and
while she silently did her work. It looked like Shani wasn't always
comfortable performing some tasks and she would look questioningly at
the teacher until further instructions were given. For example, while
everyone got to work right away on the worksheet for their particular
reading group, Shani looked at the paper questioningly until the
teacher came over to explain where she should start. When Shani used
improper grammar, I observed a peer correcting her language usage in
a sensitive way. I was impressed at how well Shani took it. She
thanked her friend, corrected her mistake, and then moved on. Often
when Shani read aloud, she was corrected. She took it in stride and
tried to remember for the next time. For example, when Shani read the
word knife and started to pronounce the k. She repeated knife after
her friend corrected her.
I
would recommend for Shani to receive future instruction in the area
of writing. Shani should practice writing her sight words. This will
encourage her to practice her handwriting while reviewing words that
are important for her to remember. There are many writing activities
that are fun for students. Shani showed interest in writing about fun
topics. If she is given more opportunities to write while getting
help in spelling and sounding out the words, she will greatly improve
her writing skills. Students usually enjoy writing about themselves.
I would recommend that Shani write one or two sentences about her day
for homework and get credit for it. Alternatively, she could keep a
journal in which she could write sentences and practice her spelling
words. Spelling can be tedious for any student and especially for a
struggling one. Teaching Shani how to spell should be done in a fun
way. Giving her spelling quizzes while playing catch, or through an
internet game, can prove to be beneficial.
To
conclude, it was very interesting and a wonderful learning experience
to observe Shani in the classroom setting. Shani has a lot of
potential and once she puts her mind to it, she can do very well. The
last day that I was observing in Shani's classroom, Shani ran over to
the teacher with a beginning first grade reader and proudly told her
that she had read that book at home the night before. Ms. Griff was
very excited for her and told her that she was very impressed. “Keep
up the good work Shani!”
USA- Common Core State Standards (June 2010) 