Case Study Report:

Charlie
University of Kentucky
Stephanie E. Hilton

Student Name: Charlie

Gender: Male
Grade Level: 3 (2013-2014)
School: Dixie Elementary
Date of Report: December 11, 13
Tutor: Stephanie E. Hilton
Background Information
Charlie is a third grader at Dixie Elementary School in Lexington, Kentucky. He is an only child
and is attending the Carnegie Center reading clinic. His mother is from Russia and his father is
from the United States. His mother was mainly concerned with his comprehension. Charlie reads
beautifully and clearly. We have been focusing on comprehension and confidence in his reading.
Charlie is outgoing and very funny. He loves Legos, sports, and anything funny. In the
beginning, Charlie expressed a strong distaste for reading. This seems to have gotten better
throughout our time working together. He has enjoyed our activities and is engaged and eager to
learn. Charlie is fun to work with and is always willing to try.
Assessments Administered
Assessment
QRI Comprehension Questions (Oral Read)
~Narrative text
Elementary Reading Attitude Survey

Interest Inventory

Questions (informal comprehension questions)

Retelling
Running Record (modified)
Anecdotal Notes

Results
Grade 1-2: Instructional
Recreational raw score= 30
Academic raw score= 20
(More of a negative attitude towards academic
reading)
Interested in: sports, animals, jokes, camping,
drawing/painting, friendship, fishing, ghosts,
other countries, the ocean, cats, families,
computers, games, and Legos
Varied- Explanation in Discussion Section
Varied- Explanation in Discussion Section
No miscues
Varied- Explanation in Discussion Section

Session Summary
Session 1: During this session, Charlie and I did a think aloud activity. When we do a think
aloud, I want to hear what Charlie is thinking. This was an activity to get him verbalizing his
thoughts. I gave him some Legos and asked him to build a ship for me since I do not know how
to build a ship. I asked him to tell me everything he thinks while he puts it together. Afterwards,
we read a book together. During the reading, I did a think aloud of what a reader thinks while

they read. I found that this really helped him throughout the sessions. He was thinking aloud
during most of our readings afterwards. He did a great job in this lesson.
Session 2: During session 1, Charlie told me he hated to read, but when we read the book he
seemed really excited and loved the story. Because of this, I decided to do an attitude survey.
This survey would let me know what he thinks about reading. We also did a QRI comprehension
assessment. Charlie seemed to get a little frustrated during this assessment.
Session 3: For this session, I decided to do an Interest Inventory. Charlie had been asking for
cooler books to read. I thought that an Interest Inventory would give me some great ideas for
books to bring. He had a lot of fun filling it out and grading the subjects. I found that Charlie had
a lot more interests other than Legos. We also worked on finding important details in a story to
help us make meaning of the story. I wanted Charlie to be able to think about and remember
details from the story after he was done reading it. He answered, I dont know to
comprehension questions at the end of the story.
Session 4: Because Charlie answered a lot of my questions last session with I dont know, I
wanted to do a memory game with him. First, he would read a book. Afterwards, I would pull out
picture cards from the story. Charlie would take those cards, place them in order, and use them to
retell the story. He did amazing! He was quick, correct, and had a lot of fun doing it. Triggering
those memories from the story with the game helped him remember the story a lot better. We also
began reading a chapter or two of Sideways Stories from Wayside School. I chose this book
because its a chapter book, but it is a new story every chapter. This makes the book less
overwhelming for Charlie. This part of our sessions was just for fun and to help instill a love of
reading in Charlie.
Session 5: This week, Charlie learned some strategies to use when choosing a book. We talked
about looking at the SPINE first. (Is it a cool title? Do I like this author?) Second, we looked at
the FRONT COVER. (Is the picture interesting? Does the book look cool?) Third, we looked at
the BACK COVER. (Usually there is a blurb about the book. Is that interesting?) These are not
the only strategies to use when looking at a book and deciding if its a good book to read. Charlie
usually does picture walks where he looks at the pictures throughout the story to decide it he
wants to read the book. He should absolutely keep doing that. I just wanted to give him other
ideas, especially as he moves to reading books that may not always have pictures. After this we
read a few stories and did some comprehension questions. Charlie did very well with answering
them.
Session 6: During this session, Charlie identified goals in a story and attempted to reach those
goals. We read a few stories in order to do this. Identifying what the character wants and what
they do to reach that goal helped Charlie organize his understanding of retelling a story. Charlie
did get tired of reading this day. He was hoping I would read to him more as opposed to him
reading for himself.
Session 7: Because Charlie had a lot of reading on his own last week, I pulled video clips in to
the session this week. Charlie talked specifically about attempts to reach a goal. Charlie was
given two cards. Once said FAIL and the other said SUCCESS. We read a story and watched a

video. Every time a character made an attempt to reach their goal, Charlie would hold up the
card that showed the result whether it was a fail or a success. Charlie really liked the cards and
did extremely well with the cards. Afterwards, I introduced the SOMEBODY, WANTED, BUT,
SO cards to Charlie. Since he did well with cards to organize his thoughts, I though that they
would work to help with his retellings. On the card labeled SOMEBODY, Charlie would write
the main character in the story. On the card labeled WANTED, he would write down the goal or
goals the main character has. On the card labeled BUT, he would write down the problem in the
story. On the card labeled SO, he would write down the solution in the story. Charlie did great
with these as well!
Session 8: Because we had been working so hard on comprehension skill, I wanted to check on
Charlies decoding. I did a quick modified running record on him. He had no mistakes. He is a
fantastic reader! We also talked about our speed when we read. Charlie had been rushing thought
a few readings, so during this session we practiced appropriate speeds to read at.
Session 9: Charlie seemed to be a little nervous when reading. I decided we would have a fun
day for this session. Instead of reading books and answering comprehension questions, we read
funny poems. I read some, we read a few together, and at the end, Charlie had read the entire
book of poems. He seemed a lot less stressed when reading the poems by the end of the session.
Session 10: For this session, Charlie practiced more with writing down his retellings. We used
the SOMEBODY, WANTED, BUT, SO cards again because he works so well when he has the
cards there to organize his thoughts. I got a little resistance from him with writing them down.
He said that his retellings for school were supposed to be just one sentence describing the main
idea. Because he was confused about this, we really just got to oral retellings.
Session 11: We worked on written retellings again during this session. Charlie got clarification
about what was expected at school with his retellings and did an amazing job on them during this
session. Without me prompting him, Charlie wrote a perfect retelling down!
Discussion of Assessment Results and Impact on Instruction
Assessment: Elementary Reading Attitude Survey
Date Administered: September 25, 2013
Session: 2
I administered this assessment to Charlie on our second meeting. After hearing on our first
meeting that he really didnt like reading, I wanted to see for myself. The survey consists of 20
questions about how you feel about reading. The first ten questions are about reading for fun.
The last ten questions are about reading for school. After a question, there are four pictures of
Garfield the cat. The first looks very happy, the second looks happy, the third looks indifferent,
and the last looks mad. Charlie circled the picture that best answers the question for him. He had
a raw score of 30 for reading for fun and a raw score of 20 for reading for academics. Both of
these scores were on the lower side showing that Charlie felt less than thrilled to read. I did
notice that Charlie felt more positive about reading for fun.

Resulting Instruction
Because of these results, I focused on reading for fun throughout our sessions. I wanted Charlie
to begin viewing reading as something done for pleasure. That is why we began reading
Sideways Stories from Wayside School. I wanted him to look forward to reading. I used these
scores to give me a better idea of Charlie as a reader. Charlie had negative feelings towards
reading for school, which caused me to stay away from talking too much about school reading. I
wanted to focus on reading that would make him enjoy reading more in general.
Assessment: QRI Comprehension Questions (Oral reading)
Date Administered: September 25, 2013
Session: 2
For the QRI Comprehension Questions, Charlie started by reading a passage set at a first grade
level so it wouldnt start off being too stressful for him. He read the passage and would answer
questions based on the passage. Charlie was better able to answer questions that could be
answered with background knowledge rather than ones that relied solely on the story. For
example, Charlie would see a question say Did the boy have fun playing with the toy truck?
Charlie would say something like, Yes, because I love to play with toy trucks so he probably
does too. While the answer may be yes, he answered it using background knowledge of how he
feels about toys rather than information about the story. When he saw questions like, What color
was the toy truck? He would usually answer, I dont know since that question required you to
look back at the story and find the answer. Charlie had a little trouble at the first grade level and
became somewhat frustrated at the second grade level.
Resulting Instruction
These results simply showed that Charlie did struggle a little bit with comprehension. This led to
the rest of our sessions focusing on ways that Charlie can comprehend and remember stories
after he reads them whether is be strategies like slowing down our reading or ways to stay
engaged in the reading like think-alouds. We also began doing more practice with questions after
readings.
Assessment: Interest Inventory
Date Administered: October 2, 2013
Session: 3
I designed my own Interest Inventory for this assessment. I listed multiple subjects such as: bugs,
friends, cooking, ghosts, animals, sports, etc. Charlie would give a grade to each subject. If
Charlie loved the subject he would give it an A, if he liked it a B, if he was indifferent a C, if he
didnt like it a D, and if he hated it an F. I brought two so that I could fill one out while he filled
his out. When we finished we compared answers and talked about why we liked what we did,
and why we didnt like the others. I found that Charlie is interested in: sports, animals, jokes,
camping, drawing/painting, friendship, fishing, ghosts, other countries, the ocean, cats, families,
computers, games, and Legos.
Resulting Instruction

I found these results the most helpful to me when preparing my materials for sessions. I saved a
copy of his interests onto my phone so that whenever I was getting new books or looking
through ones on my shelves, I could pull out his Interest Inventory and grab books he found
interesting. Picking books that were engaging to him and letting him choose from a selection of
books to read really motivated him to participate and have fun during the session time.
Assessment: Anecdotal Notes
Date Administered: October 9, 2013
Session: 4
During this session, I took a few notes on Charlie during the lesson. This lesson involved Charlie
putting pictures from a story in order. I noted that this game helped Charlie remember the story
after it was read and it made it easier for him to answer questions about the story as well. I also
noted that Charlie was becoming more engaged in reading together and seemed to be enjoying
reading more and more.
Resulting Instruction
Because Charlie was enjoying reading more, I wanted to continue his excitement about reading.
Because of these notes, I began bringing in Sideways Stories from Wayside School to read at the
end of each session. I loved the book when I was his age, which made me think he might enjoy it
too. He did enjoy the stories; therefore we began reading them at every session to encourage
reading for fun.
Assessment: Questions
Date Administered: October 16, 2013
Session: 5
We did more practice with answering comprehension questions during this session. I mostly
wanted to see what type of progress he had been making. We read a picture book and afterwards,
Charlie answered questions about the story. Charlie did so much better with these questions. I
could tell a difference from the beginning of the year to this session. He didnt answer, I dont
know to any of the questions. He talked through his answers, and pulled knowledge from both
the text and his own prior knowledge.
Resulting Instruction
These results showed me that we were making progress and our sessions were working for him. I
needed to make sure that our sessions were helping his comprehension. If I had noticed not as
much progress or none at all, I would have changed some of the things I was doing with Charlie.
Because he had made such great progress, I continued conducting the sessions they way I had
been.
Assessment: Retelling
Date Administered: October 23, 2013
Session: 6

For this assessment, I had broken down elements of a retelling. Instead of asking Charlie to put
together an entire retelling, I asked him to focus on goals. Later on, this would help him with
identifying problems and solutions in stories. We discussed goals in stories and attempts
characters make at reaching those goals. Some of the attempts can be failures and some can be
successes. We read a few stories together. During those stories, Charlie would identify goals and
attempts. At the end, Charlie would retell me the story. He would focus on the goals the character
had and attempts made to reach the goal. He was able to quickly pick up on this. He did
extremely well.
Resulting Instruction
Because Charlie did so well with this aspect of a retelling, I knew I could move on to another
part of a retelling in later sessions. We moved on to Characters, problems, and solutions because
he grasped the concept of goals so well. Once Charlie understood how to identify goals, the rest
seemed to come easier to him.
Assessment: Retelling
Date Administered: October 30, 2013
Session: 7
During this session, I used the SOMEBODY, WANTED, BUT, SO cards to help organize
Charlies thoughts. We read a few stories together. After each story, Charlie would fill out the
card. For SOMEBODY he would write down the main character(s), for WANTED he would
write down the main characters goal, for BUT he would write down the problem, and for SO he
would write down the solution. Afterwards, he would arrange the cards and use them as a tool to
create an oral retelling of the story. He was very successful in his oral retellings.
Resulting Instruction
Because he was able to create an oral retelling, I knew the next step for him was creating written
retellings. Moving forward, I began using this vocabulary when talking about text and getting
him to write more in preparation of written retellings for a more academic context. Since these
cards helped him organize his thoughts, I used cards in later sessions to help him. He works well
with graphic organizers that he can hold and manipulate.
Assessment: Running Record (modified)
Date Administered: November 6, 2013
Session: 8
I modified this running records a bit. I used the book Zacks Alligator by Shirley Mozelle. I had a
copy of 6 or 7 pages from the middle of the book. Charlie began reading the story. I followed
along with my copy when he got to the middle of the book. I was looking for any mistakes he
made in his reading. If I saw mistakes, I would have conducted another running record to
determine whether or not there was a pattern or if the mistake was a one-time issue. Charlie
ended up reading the book flawlessly with no mistakes. I was so excited to not find any errors in
the running record.
Resulting Instruction

These results tell me that focusing on comprehension is still working for Charlie. He still needs
work and practice with comprehension strategies, but I wanted to make sure I wasnt noticing
issues with his decoding because I was so focused on comprehension. He is fantastic at decoding
text and only has issues with reading quickly. Other than that, Charlie did extremely well with
the running records.
Assessment: Anecdotal Notes
Date Administered: November 13, 2013
Session: 9
During this session, Charlie and I read funny poetry. The point was for him to not feel as stressed
when reading. I was specifically looking to note his behavior before and after the poetry. Before
the poetry, Charlie was nervous about having to read. He was making odd excuses to avoid
having to read, like claiming that he had not had a drink of water in days. He seemed nervous
when he did read. He would focus on mistakes he made during reading. After we did the funny
poetry, Charlie seemed used to messing up and didnt focus on it too much. When he got tonguetied, he would laugh and move on instead of getting frustrated. This lesson was successful in
making him feel better about his oral reading.
Resulting Instruction
Because Charlie did so incredibly well and actually read the entire book of poems, I felt like this
idea is something I could possibly bring back if I ever notice him feeling self-conscious or
nervous about his oral reading. I also thought it could be a great strategy to take into the home as
well.
Assessment: Written and Oral Retelling
Date Administered: November 20, 2013
Session: 10
During this session, we worked on retellings more. Charlie did great using the cards again for
organization, and did awesomely when making an oral retelling, but when I asked him to write it
down we had some trouble. When I asked Charlie to write down the great oral retelling he had
just done, he wrote down, The main idea on this book was ______. I asked him to write it the
way we talked about where we include all the information. He said that his teacher wanted him
to write it down in once sentence like he did. Because of the confusion, we were only able to do
oral retellings, which he did great at.
Resulting Instruction
Because of the confusion with the teachers expectations of a retelling, I knew that we would
have to clear that up and try again to work on writing the retellings down. Because he did so well
with the oral retellings again, I knew that we didnt need to focus on that as much as we had
been. I felt confident that if we could get though writing down retellings than he would be great
at retellings as a whole.
Assessment: Written Retelling
Date Administered: December 4, 2013

Session: 11
Charlie had come to the conclusion that it was okay to learn my way of writing down retellings
by the time we began this session. We read a story together and Charlie created a great oral
retelling. I asked him to write it down and before I could remind him about how I wanted him to
write it, he had written a perfect retelling down. I was incredibly proud. He did it a second time
just as wonderfully as the first. I could tell he felt so much more confident with them.
Resulting Instruction
Because he did so well with the oral and written retellings, I feel like we can move away from
retellings a little bit. We focused on them for a while and I feel confident that he knows exactly
how to create them, whether is verbally or on paper.
Summary
Looking back at all our sessions, Im just completely blown away at how far Charlie has come.
He is so smart and so incredibly bright! When I first met him, he was shy and a little quiet. He
said he hated reading and disliked reading books out loud. After eleven sessions, his demeanor
towards reading has completely changed for the better. He seems to enjoy reading so much more.
He seems so much more confident in his reading. He can talk to me about the stories we read and
answer questions about them. Every challenge I threw at him, he was able to overcome. Charlie
is a tough guy who is so smart and so much fun to work with. Im so impressed with the amount
of progress he was able to achieve in such a short amount of time.
Charlie has shown the most progress in his comprehension, use of reading strategies, and most
importantly enjoyment in reading. Going forward, he should still work on slowing his reading
down and answering questions about the text he reads.
Recommendations for Future Instruction and Home Involvement
Future Instruction
o Practice reading. It doesnt matter what Charlie is reading, just as long as he is reading.
o Slowing down his reading is still something that can be worked on. He should remember
to slow down, ask himself questions about what hes reading, make predictions, look at
the pictures, etc. These things will help him slow down while reading.
o Talk about books after they are read. Keep them fresh in his mind so he remembers more
about them. Ask questions like: Who was the books about? What was the characters
goal? What was the problem in the story? How was it solved?
o Read poetry out loud. Especially silly poetry. This will help with Charlies confidence as
a reader.

Home Involvement
o Remember, reading is reading! It doesnt matter if its a book, magazine, graphic novel,
comic book, Lego instructions, recipe, cereal box, etc. All that matters is youre reading.
o Have Charlie read to mom, dad, cousins, friends, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc.
o Read together as much as possible. Perhaps you could start a chapter book that you read
together every night before bed.
o It doesnt matter if its a novel or a recipe, talk about what you are reading with Charlie.

References
Leslie, L. & Caldwell, J. S. (2006). Qualitative Reading Inventory-4. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
McKenna, M. & Stahl, K. A. D. (2009). Assessment for Reading Instruction. New York:
Guilford Press.
Richards, M. (2000). Be a Good Detective: Solve the Case of Oral Reading Fluency. Reading
Teacher, 53(7), 534-39.

Dont forget to read this winter break!

Curl up with a good book when:
Youre bored
Youve built all your Lego sets
You cant go outside because its too cold

When youre reading:

Ask yourself questions about the story
Slow down your reading
Talk to your family and friends about they story

Read lots of stuff:

Lego instructions, Books, Comic books, Cereal
boxes, Magazines, etc
It doesnt matter what you read, as long as you are
reading and having fun!