CASE STUDY

Name: Brandon Brzeczkowski School: Pulaski Middle School

Birthdate: 7-2-2004 Grade: 7th
Age: 12 Date of report: 9-23-16

REASON FOR REFERRAL

Reading Difficulties
Below Grade Level Reading Ability - Consistently Low Reading Test Scores
Comprehension Concerns
Writing Concerns
Difficulty in Communicating through Writing
Inappropriate Grammatical Knowledge
Inappropriate Spelling Knowledge
Listening Comprehension Concerns
Comments: Brandon doesn't spend much time leisure reading because it takes an extraordinary
amount of time to do so. He is an active student so he would rather spend his time playing
music and sports.

CASE HISTORY
Birth Data
Typical
Developmental History:
Brandon did receive speech services for a few years when he was in 3rd and 4th
grade. He had and still has some difficulty with pronouncing particular letters
such as his r's and s's
Medical History
Typical
Medications - Brandon has anxiety issues so takes medication for this

EDUCATIONAL HISTORY
Above, On, or Below Grade Level Achievements / Grades: According to Brandon's
parents, Brandon has consistently has had low reading scores on various assessments.
He never has had the opportunity to choose one of his electives in middle school, they
are always chosen for him and focused on reading. They have inquired about more help
for him but have not been able to get it and do not know how to help him themselves.
Attitude Toward School
Good
 Comments: Brandon has a great attitude towards school and even as himself as
a reader. He knows he struggles in the area of reading but has told me he want
to get better. When we've initially read together he was enthusiastic that
someone was going to read with him and he was "going to get help". Mom and
dad are very supportive of his efforts and play an active role in helping Brandon
see himself successful in a number of different areas. Reading is a struggle but
Brandon knows what it feels like to be successful in other areas of his life. I feel
this has helped him cope with not being successful at reading. He views it as
something he can get better at. So working at it is not an issue. He has fun
reading with his mom and we have fun reading together as well. Although he
suffers from some anxiety issues, he enjoys school work, enjoy school and
enjoys his family. He has a good foundation to take on some serious work.
Self-perception as a Learner
Brandon knows he has work to do as a reader and wants to do just that. He
knows he is "not good" and "wants to improve".
Subjects/Classes Likes:
Gym, Communication Arts, Reading
Subjects/Classes Dislikes:
Math and Science

FAMILY HISTORY
Lives With: Mom, Dad, Two Brothers Zak and Josh
Relationship to Caregivers: Respectful, fun-loving, open communication
Number of Siblings: 2 brothers, Zak and Josh
Relationship to Siblings: Typical sibling relationship, when asked about how his life was
10 being best, 1 being worse he said it was a 7
Friendships / Personal Relationships: lots of friends, some anxiety problems

ASSESSMENT HISTORY (Parent or School)

General Achievements / Grades: Finishing 6th grade, reading a couple of books a year
Formal / Standardized Tests

Comments:
Brandon is working in a program called Alex for reading and math support

BEHAVIOR DURING TESTING AND LIMITATIONS OF RESULTS

Typical
ASSESSMENT RESULTS
Student Interest Inventory
I asked Brandon each of these questions, responses are in quotes:
Attitude toward self as a reader "Good, not bad"
Interests (likes / dislikes): "Survival, mysteries, adventures"
Learning style / preferences: "I want to learn, do stuff and get better at it"

QRI-6
Word List Pre-test Scores:
Independent - 2nd
Instructional - 3rd
Frustrational - 4th
Narrative Pre-test Scores:
Independent - 4th grade
Instructional - 5th grade
Frustrational -6th grade
Expository Pre-test Scores:
Independent -4th grade
Instructional -5th grade
Frustrational -6th grade

Other Formal / Informal Reading Tests

San Diego Quick Assessment
Independent - 3rd
Instructional - 4th (almost 5th)
Frustrational - 5th-6th

Words Their Way Spelling Inventory

Version Administered: Primary
Words Spelled Correctly: 13
Feature Points: 43/56
Total Score: 56/82
Spelling Stage: Within Word Pattern, long vowel patterns and other vowels
SYNTHESIS AND INTERPRETATION OF INFORMATION COLLECTED

Reading Achievement
Instructional Reading Level
3rd grade word lists, 5th grade reading instructional level

Word Analysis Skills

Ending Consonants - frequently misses or skips these, self corrects a lot when reading
passages
Long Vowel and other vowels - on the Words Their Way Primary assessment missed a
lot of these two areas but when reading books I notice him self correcting a lot. Context
clues help guide him in correcting himself, he does a lot of thinking when reading and
this makes his fluency a little choppy

Comprehension
( + strength, - weakness)
Retelling: Brandon recalled a couple of important details when asked a retelling of the
passage.
Explicit & Implicit Questions: Brandon was very apt at discussing explicit and implicit
questions. In general he was even better at implicit questions that explicit questions.
Expository & NarrativeText: He was strong in both expository and narrative text for his
word level lists

Considerations for Student Learning

Strengths: has a great attitude, views himself as a reader, he want to get better
Needs: Fluency, word work, comprehension, "other vowel" patterns, suffixes and affixes
Ideal Learning modes / style: Likes to read, visual and kinesthetic learner
Physical / Medical Considerations: Anxiety medication

RECOMMENDATIONS
Word Study
-"Other Vowel Patterns" word work: aw, or ou, oi, ir
-"Inflected Endings" es, ed, ies, pping, ding
 Comprehension Strategies, Narrative & Expository
Brandon and I will focus on a number of different modeling strategies to help him
comprehend more in retelling information from reading. Some things that might help him
are think alouds, talking frequently about what we've read, stopping at sentences to talk
about what we've read, stopping at paragraphs to discuss what we've read gradually
building stamina to talk about what we've read at whole pages and chapters.

Fluency
Brandon and I will work on oral reading and independent reading to strengthen fluency.

Writing Plan
Brandon and I have exchanged emails and phone numbers to correspond between
sessions. He is welcome to text me when he reads and questions he has. We set up
pre-determined chapters we will read to, I text him questions to think about in his reading
or connections that I have made. We are "writing" online in a digital environment

Text Suggestions
We will continue to make trips to Barnes and Noble so Brandon and choice and voice and
is motivated to read. We are reading an adventure/survival book right now (Bear Creek)
and I anticipate more books like this as well as mysteries and action books as Brandon
has suggested he's interested in his interest surveys. The most recent book both of us
enjoyed was Took. Given this information, other books Brandon may enjoy include
books by Peg Kehrat, Mary Downing Hawn, Ben Michaelson and Cynthia DeFelice. I'd
like to introduce some realistic sports fiction to Brandon as I think he'd enjoy this as
well...authors such as Tim Green, Mike Lupica and John Feinstein.
OVERALL SUMMARY STATEMENT

The first assessment administered was oral reading to observe Brandon's reading
tendencies, choices and habits. We did this for 2 meetings. After getting comfortable with each
other Brandon was assessed using the San Diego Quick in which he scored independent at grade
3, instructional at grade 4 and frustrational at grade 5. In using the results of this assessment,
Brandon was tested using Words Their Way starting at a number of levels below his grade level.
Even though he is in 7th grade, because he scored instructional at grade 4, he would start reading
words at a level one on the Words Their Way assessment. This proved to be a good choice. On
the Words Their Way Assessment I chose the Primary test. He scored 13 words correct, 43/56
feature points and total score of 56 out of 82. Results of this test allowed me to see specific word
work skills to work with him on. Brandon is at the within word spelling pattern and we are
working on "long vowel patterns" and "other vowels".
On Sept. 28th Brandon was assessed with the QRI 6 in trying to find out what his
comprehension and fluency data was. Based on the QRI 6, Brandon was at a 3rd grade word list
level but did exceptionally well when reading the passages in regards to comprehension. He had
a lot of miscues but a lot of self corrections. His comprehension of these passages was really
good leading me to believe that he overly relies on context clues to figure out words as his word
lists put him at a 3rd grade level. After conducting several tests, Brandon lies at a 5th-6th grade
comprehension level in reading.
Strengths of Brandon include attitude/engagement toward reading/writing and
attitude/engagement toward school. We will take several trips to Barnes and Noble and the
Public Library to make a habit out of getting material to read and reading. Brandon has
committed to working on "reading" 1 hour a night for our purposes. The breakdown being 30
minutes of extra reading, 10 minutes of performance work and 20 minutes of word work. I am
not able to be with him every night so his mom is aware of the plan and lesson plans we are
working on to achieve this.
Brandon is a quick witted, outgoing, and funny student. Elements in our tutoring
sessions will include ways that he is able to express his true self. Our tutoring sessions include
some oral reading time, reader's theater and performance work, and word work. Our oral reading
time will be spent reading material he is assigned for class. This is reading grade level text that
he is using for school with me for support for vocabulary. Based on his QRI-6 scores in
comprehension he is capable of reading higher level text than his word list scores indicate.
Because he often misses key details when reading, it is suggested that Brandon continue to work
on understanding pieces of reading using think alouds and me modeling reading strategies that he
can use on his own. Since his fluency is often impacted because he is trying to figure out
individual words and pick up on context clues to understand the overall passages he reads,
reader's theater and performance work will help him with inflected endings and expression in
reading, and reading for meaning. Because of lower than grade level data on word work based on
the San Deigo Quick Assessment, continued word work will be based on the Words Their Way
Continuum (specifically working on "Other Vowel Patterns" word work: aw, or ou, oi, ir and
"Inflected Endings" es, ed, ies, ping, ding).