ETE 443

Case Study: Grainne

Gabby Visconti
 General Information
Childs Name: Grainne

Birthdate: October 28, 2009

Chronological Age (on date tested): 6 years, 0 months, 26 days

Gender: Female

Educational Placement: Kindergartener at St. Marks Catholic School; General Education

classroom

Language Spoken at Home/School: English

Ethnicity/Race: Caucasian
 Background Information
Throughout pregnancy with Grainne, there was nothing out of the ordinary with the
pregnancy. The mother went to regularly scheduled doctors appointments and proceeded to see a
specialist since she was 39 years old to ensure that her pregnancy was going well. Her due date
was November 9th and her mother went into labor around 11:00 p.m. on October 27th. Grainne
was born at 10:28 a.m. on October 28th. She was considered a full term baby.

Grainnes mother could not recall much about her milestones since she is one of five
children but she knows that Grainne reached her milestones when they needed to be reached and
they had no major concerns about her development. She has three older siblings and always
wanted to follow what they did so she could have begun crawling, babbling, and walking earlier
than expected.

Grainne has been a generally healthy little girl. She had non-RSV type of pneumonia
when she was about 4-6 months old. She spent about 5 nights in the hospital on oxygen and
breathing treatments. Her eyesight is great. Her growth is right on target, although she will
probably be on the shorter side. She has never had any speech issues or other developmental
concerns. There is no agency involvement.

Grainnes family includes her two parents and four siblings. She is the second youngest
in the family with her older siblings in 7th, 5th, and 3rd grade and her youngest sibling is three
years old. They are a strong Irish Catholic family. They are very family oriented and spend time
together whether it is at the table doing homework or Irish dancing at the school the mother
owns.

Grainne is a Kindergartener at St. Marks Catholic School. She attends full day
Kindergarten. She does very well in school and likes to be challenged. Since she had older
siblings, she would always get paper or a coloring book out and do homework with her older
siblings before she was in school. She excelled in Pre-K and was one of the brightest children in
her class as she completed tasks quickly and efficiently. She is driven and determined in the
classroom even at such a young age.
 Observations
Date Time Location
Grainne showed me work from school
3:45-4:30 Grainnes that her mother has saved in a folder.
October 25, 2015
p.m. Home Took pictures to use as work samples.
Grainne read a book to me.
November 1, 1:30-2:15 Grainnes Grainne read to me. She showed me all
2015 p.m. Home of her presents from her birthday.
Observed family activitiesEducational
November 13, 4:00-5:05 Grainnes iPad games and family reading time
2015 p.m. Home where Grainne read to her mother and
siblings.
November 23, 3:35-4:10 Grainnes
Assessment was given.
2015 p.m. Home
 Informal Assessments
Science
12.C.K Identify, describe, and compare properties of objects (e.g., size, shape, and color).
Language Arts
1.A.Kc Demonstrate understanding of concepts about print (i.e., words, letters, spacing
between words, and left to right).
1.A.Kf Demonstrate alphabet knowledge (i.e., recognizes letters and their most common
sounds).
3.A.Ka Write upper and lowercase letters
Math
6.D.K Make comparisons of
quantities
8.A.Ka Sort objects into groups
and tell the rule or rationale for
the groups.
Fine Arts
25.A.Kd Visual Arts: Investigate and explore the elements of visual arts.
This is a developmental checklist used by Grainnes Kindergarten teacher to communicate to the
parents the skills she has accomplished and what skills she needs more practice on.
 Formal Assessment
The portion of the test used to assess Grainne with is the Cognitive/Language Profile and
Articulation Survey.

Results of Assessment
Informal
Assessments
The informal
assessments
collected were
all pieces of
work that
Grainne created
in school. The
science, math,
and language
arts samples
were all given in
the classroom by
the teacher and
each child
completed it.
The Fine Arts
samples
consisted of
work that
Grainne did
during her free
time in the
classroom. She
was fascinated
with the stars so
she chose to
draw what she
thought they
looked like. She
also chose a
picture and colored it in a way that she thought best fit. The checklist that is included is from the
first week of school. Grainnes teacher assessed her individually using the checklist and then was
going to continue to assess throughout the year. This is helpful for the parents to see how their
child is progressing throughout the year but also gives teachers an idea of what the students
know and what skills they need extra time and nurturing in order to develop properly.

Formal Assessments
The formal assessment that was used was the AGS Early Screening Profiles. Since the
test consists of 3 tests and 4 surveys, I chose to use the Cognitive and Language Profile as well
as the Articulation Survey because I felt as though it would give data that would be most
beneficial for my purposes. When administering the test, Grainne enjoyed it and thought it was
fun which made it easy to get through each portion without any problems. Her intelligence was
shown throughout the test and overall she only made a few mistakes. I believe this was due to the
fact that the assessment kit is slightly outdated so the pictures were difficult to decipher. She
excelled in the Verbal Concepts subtest and the Visual Discrimination in which she was given a
verbal cue and had to respond accordingly. She completed the Logical Relations portion above
average and struggled slightly more with the Basic School Skills subtest. I found that the final
test was more difficult because as it went on, it got a little more challenging. Grainne was up for
the challenge but when she began getting questions wrong she became frustrated. She was just
above the average for the Cognitive/Language Profile based off the tables in the scoring guide.
The Articulation Survey showed that Grainnes speech is very intelligent and that she knows
basic objects and can say them clearly. Her intelligibility during continuous speech was ranked
Good. She was above the average for the Articulation Survey in the charts in the scoring guide.
Overall, she completed the assessments with ease and her scores reflect her intelligence in
comparison with the developmental checklist and authentic assessments collected.
 Instructional Recommendations and Educational Goals
Instructional recommendations that I would suggest for Grainne would be to keep her in
the general education classroom but continue to challenge her. She knows how to spell
phonetically but when it comes to diagraphs and diphthongs, she struggles so focusing more on
the different ways to spell would benefit her. Even though I only assessed her on language and
articulation, I suggest that she is challenged in other domains such as math and science because
she excels in those domains as well.
Educational goals that I would like to see accomplished by the end of Grainnes
Kindergarten year are based off both the assessment I conducted as well as the developmental
checklist given by her teacher at the beginning of the year. It is unclear if she has been retested
but I would set goals of:

Being able to spell words phonetically as well as properly blending sounds in order to
spell and sound out words.
Being able to count rote 1-100.
Identify lowercase letters (especially b and d).
Identify letter sounds of all 26 letters.
 Communication Plan for Sharing Results
I plan to meet with Grainnes parents and allow them to view my case study. I will
discuss each of the components with them especially my educational goals for Grainne. I will be
open to answering any questions they may have. I also would like to send my case study to
Grainnes teacher and discuss ways in which Grainne can be challenged in the classroom.