Marla Leland / EDUC 5165

Literacy Case Study: Interactions with Student

Interaction 10/29/14: I was unable to work with Jayleen individually,
due to a tight classroom schedule. However during the literacy time, the
class split into pairs to read, I sat with Jayleen and her partner. From my
experience with the class, the pairs were broken into heterogeneous
groupings. The stronger reader could help the weaker reader. The whole
class was reading the same stories out of a Reading Street textbook. In their
pair groups they switched off reading one student would read one page, the
other the next and so on.
They started were they had left off the day before, so they were just
finishing up the story. As they started to read, I asked them what the story
was about so I could follow along. Jayleen said it was about a girl that was
really messy and her parents could not stand it. As they continued reading, I
would stop and ask about the story or more difficult vocabulary words. For
instance, the girls walls in her room were straining because of the amount of
stuff she had collected. I asked if either of the students knew what this
meant. They both said no so I explained that the room was so full that the
stuff was putting weigh on the walls and the walls were weakening. I
compared it to blowing air into a balloon. If you put too much air into a
balloon, the balloon will be straining and it might explode. I then asked them
what they thought might happen in the story. Jayleen said she did not know
but Cate knew the room was going to explode. Unfortunately even after I

Marla Leland / EDUC 5165

explained the vocabulary word to Jayleen she was not able to predict an
event in the story. I think she was not actually following the details of the
story closely because she concentrating on reading the words and harder
vocabulary.
We went through a similar interaction with the word scrutinizing. The
girl in the book was scrutinizing museum collections. We discussed how
sometimes after you clean your room your parent might come in and inspect
it to see if maybe you just threw everything in the closet or under the bed.
The parent would be scrutinizing the room, examining it closely. I then asked
why do you think the girl is looking at the museum collections so closely.
Jayleen said she did not know, while again Cate knew that the girl was
thinking about putting her stuff on display. Again Jayleen could not predict or
infer information from the story.
In addition, on this story Jayleen got stuck on some of the harder
vocabulary words. She would replace other words instead of using the word
in the story; such as, replacing unusual for unnatural, or hardly for barely.
Her partner caught her and corrected her on these. I believe this helped
Jayleen with sounding out the words. She would repeat them after Cate said
the correct word.
The next story they read was called I want an Iguana. The story was
basically notes going back and forth between a little boy and his mother. The
boy was trying to persuade the mother to let him have an iguana. Since we
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were starting this story together, I decided to stop the reading more
frequently to check for understanding. So after they read the first couple of
pages I stopped and ask what was going on in the story. Cate said that the
boy wanted an iguana and was asking his mother for them. I asked how?
Jayleen answered and said that there were friendly notes going between
them. I then asked what happened to his pet fish. Jaylen said she did not
know. Cate said he jumped out of his fish tank, which was partially correct.
On this reading there were again some difficult vocabulary that I
stopped the girls to discuss, one word being trial basis. I had to explain that
it meant that the mother was considering letting the boy borrow the pet for a
period of time to see how well he could take care of it. Cate understood this
and associated it with her brother wanting a pet (I cant remember what
kind) but her mom said that they would try it temporary to see if it would
work. Jayleen had no comments but said she understood when I asked her.
Another difficult word was financial and we discussed how it was related to
money. The word compassionate came up and by this time the girls were
getting a little silly. Jayleen said oh yes I know what it means and said
compassionate in a silly voice with the hands on her hips. She really did not
know what it meant but she wanted to contribute. I thought that this was a
good sign because at least she was participating. I have seen her disengaged
in class a lot. I told her that she had good expression in her effort and
continued to explain the meaning of the word, trying to associate it with their
background knowledge.
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The pictures in the story were actually very cute. The girls were
interested in looking at them. One section of the story referenced Godzilla
with a picture resembling the monster. I asked the students if they knew
who Godzilla was. Cate said yes he is a big lizard monster; but Jayleen had
no idea. I explained it was a monster from a Japanese movie. This is another
example of Jayleen not being able to access the text because she does not
have any background knowledge of certain information. In order to help
Jayleen to progress with her reading comprehension she will have to learn to
note when she does not understand the words and either try and understand
them through context in the story or by outside sources. Jayleen was
however able to tell us the ending before they finished reading because she
was looking at the pictures. She is very good as I noted in the assessments
at understanding the pictures as they relate to the story. She knew the boy
got to keep the iguana. She continues to use visual clues in the pictures to
help her with her reading comprehension. It is a very good tool for her and
combined with other comprehension strategies she should be able to
progress with her reading skills.
The girls finished the story and had enough time to re-read the
beginning of the story. After rereading Jayleen was able to tell me what
happened to the fish. The fish jumped into a bowl of spaghetti. She thought
the fish ate too much. The story never really said exactly what happened but
he either ate too much, couldnt survive out of water or the dad ate the fish
because it landed in his spaghetti. Jayleen assumed it ate too much because
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the picture showed the fish eating one side of the spaghetti and the dad
eating the other. We did not have time to talk much about the fishs demise.
I do think it was wonderful that Jayleen was able to comprehend more of the
story with the second reading. I am thinking that teaching Jayleen the
questioning reading comprehension strategy would help her think through
more ideas when she reads. It would also help her with predicting within the
story. In addition, if she could learn to stop after a short period of reading
and reflect and retell, it would help her understand where she stopped
comprehending the text.
After the reading time was finished, the teacher talked about the story
as being a persuasive story, meaning that the point was to convince
someone of something. She asked the students to start to brainstorming on
writing a persuasive letter to their parents which would try to convince them
to buy something you really want. She had the students record some ideas
of outlandish things the students might ask for. The teacher mentioned she
had wanted a monkey as a child. The students listed some ideas in their
journals. Jayleen wrote down a pig, being famous and going to Hawaii. I
asked her about the pig. She said it was because a lot of people in Peru have
them. Peru is where her mother is from and next year they are planning to
go and visit. The pig was based upon her background knowledge of Peru. I
thought this was a really good start to her writing. I hoped she would choose
the pig to write about since it was a subject that was personal to her. I am

Marla Leland / EDUC 5165

going to ask the teacher to get her writing sample from this exercise and see
what she comes up with.

Interaction 10/31/14: This is not as much an interaction as an

observation of the class and Jayleens participation. During the past month,
the teacher introduced the students to the poem The Jabberwocky by Lewis
Carroll. The teacher started introducing this poem line by line as the class
stopped for brain breaks and stretched. She would say the line, explain the
meaning and have the student repeat it. They have slowly learned the entire
poem and have been rehearsing it a couple of weeks. They have even put in

Marla Leland / EDUC 5165

hand gestures to emphasize the most impactful parts. I have witnessed this
poem come to life for the students. The teacher after they had learned the
entire poem introduced The Jabbercandy parody to the class. They only were
able to recite this parody a couple of times. At the Halloween party, the
students recited the Jabberwocky poem. I was very impressed that Jayleen
was reciting every word with emotion and feeling. She really knew the
poem. After the poem was finished, a few of the students wanted to try and
recite The Jabbercandy parody. Most of the other students sat down. Jayleen
however was up there reciting it. It appeared she could recite about half this
poem. I thought this was really something to note because when interested
Jayleen can understand and be engaged. She really seems to like to act out
stories. I think this will be another source of how to better promote
comprehension with Jayleen by getting her physically, emotionally and
cognitively involved with her reading. It might benefit her to act out some of
the readings and as I mentioned previously get creatively involved through
art or body movement.