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!”