April 20, 2014

Dear Teacher,
My name is Logan Wartman. I am currently a student at the University of Mount
Union in Alliance, Ohio. I have been conducting a case study on a student in your
class. I met with Mitch after school several times in the past few weeks. I
administered several assessments so I could form my own diagnosis about Mitchs
reading and comprehension skills. One of the assessment I gave to Mitch was the
Informal Reading Inventory (IRI). The IRI allowed me to assess Mitchs vocabulary,
oral reading, oral comprehension, and silent reading comprehension. After reviewing
his work, I formed my own diagnosis about Mitchs areas of strength and areas for
improvement. I then taught five remediation lessons based upon my diagnosis.
Mitch has had a great attitude from start to finish, and has been a pleasure to work
with these past few months.
During my time with Mitch, we went through multiple assessments and lessons. By
administering these assessments, I have learned some valuable information about
this students learning style. Although Mitch has made it clear that he does not enjoy
reading, he is strong in the area of word recognition. Even when he doesnt know a
word in the sentence, he can usually substitute a different word and still
comprehend the material. He does a good job of remembering details and
sequences as well as identifying cause and effect relationships when reading. After
some remediation, Mitch has shown to that he can use context clues in a sentence
to identify the meaning of an unknown word. He has also is a very creative thinker.
He is more than capable of organizing his thoughts and sequencing them. We
worked on brainstorming techniques to help with that. When he takes his time, he is
a great writer. He does a fine job using punctuation and grammar properly. His
writing has a good flow and organization that expresses his voice. In my opinion, I
believe Mitch has a good understanding of the writing process.
The same assessments and lessons that showed Mitchs strengths, also pointed out
some areas that can be improved. Based upon the results I received with the IRI,
Mitch is below grade level in vocabulary, oral, and silent comprehension. For the
overall comprehension I have Mitch having an independent reading level of 4-5, an
instructional level of 5-6, and a frustration level of 6-7. Vocabulary is an area where
Mitch has room to grow. Mitch could benefit from broadening his vocabulary. Based
upon the IRI and the vocabulary lists, I started Mitch reading passages at the fourth
grade level. One tendency Mitch has is to read over the material too quickly.
Because he moves through the material at a rapid pace, he tends to miss out on the
minor and specific details of the reading. When reading orally, he often doesnt
adhere to punctuation which increase the tempo at which he reads. Due to his
reading pace, he doesnt give his brain enough time to comprehend the material.
This limits his metacognition as he doesnt give himself a chance to self-correct.
This can be discouraging to Mitch when he answers the questions incorrectly. He is
quick to give up and doesnt have confidence in his own abilities.
To facilitate Mitch, based upon these areas for improvement, these activities can be
done in the classroom to improve his reading and comprehension. In my opinion,
the best way to broaden his vocabulary is just by reading. I am aware of Mitchs
dislike towards reading, but it could be beneficial for him. One activity he can do is
read as many forms as possible (magazines, articles, newspapers, books, etc.).

April 20, 2014

Reading more often will naturally broaden his vocabulary. Vocabulary and spelling
have a strong correlation. Another activity that can be done is a game called
vocabulary bingo. The objective is to play bingo will using a game board that has
vocabulary words instead of numbers. The teacher then reads out the definition and
the kids must match it up. It is a fun activity that all kids can play and will allow for
Mitch get engaged due to his competitive nature. It is also important to frequently
remind him to slow down when reading orally. An activity that can be done to
improve metacognition is to have him read sentences that have mistakes in them.
This will get him thinking about the material as he reads and thinking about a way
to correct it. I believe that by doing these activities, Mitch will become more
comfortable reading and more confident in himself as a reader.
I would like to thank you again for this opportunity. I hope I was of some service to
Mitch. I have really enjoyed working with him. I wish him the best of luck in his
future studies. If you have any questions or comments, please do not hesitate to
contact me. You can contact me by phone at 330-754-8389 or by email at
wartmalk@mountunion.edu.
Thank you,
Logan Wartman