Running Header: STUDENT CASE STUDY

English Learner Case Study: Andres C.

Michelle Lyn Kluskiewicz

UCSD Extension: Foundations and Methods of English Language/Literacy Development and

Content Instruction

May 4, 2016
STUDENT CASE STUDY

English Learner Case Study: Andres C.

Background

Andres is a first grader at Brookside Elementary School in Willits, California. He was

enrolled in kindergarten and transitional kindergarten the two years prior to first grade. The

primary language spoken at home is Spanish, but both parents speak conversational English.

Andres typically has great social skills. He has a best friend in the classroom, he is polite, well

mannered, and often compliments his peers. Sometimes he will not want to participate with a

partner or a group activity and is shy to speak up during circle time. Anxiety and self-confidence

is a major concern in Andres academic achievement. He gets extremely shy and nervous during

whole group, small group, and individual instruction. Academically, Andres need practice with

writing and reading. He is typically a strong math student, but often second guesses his work,

leading to confusion and incomplete tasks.

Andres CELDT scores place him at an overall intermediate English proficiency level.

His domain scores are as follows:

Advanced Early Intermediate Early Beginning

Advanced Intermediate

Overall 441

Scale Score

Listening 454

Scale Score

Speaking 449

Scale Score
STUDENT CASE STUDY

Reading 344

Scale Score

Writing 353

Scale Score

Based on second trimester report card scores, Andres is currently meeting or nearly

meeting the standards in math according to the Engage NY program being used at Brookside

Elementary School. He meets the standard for addition and subtraction understanding and

fluency. For ELA, Andres is not yet meeting the standard for ELA in first grade. He needs to

work on his fluency in reading, his vowel sounds, dictation/writing, and initial and ending

blends.

Action Plan

The following strategies will be implemented into the classroom lesson plans in order to

meet the identified learning needs of Andres:

1. Daily vocabulary instruction will be implemented by posting important terms and

vocabulary from the math book in the classroom for students to see. Also, these terms

will be reviewed verbally on a daily basis.

2. Weekly communication will occur between Andres ELD teacher to coordinate

consistency between instruction in his regular classroom and his ELD classroom.
3. Andres will be provided with daily phonemic awareness activities to strengthen his

reading and writing strategies in order to increase his skills and confidence.
4. Sentence frames and visuals will be accessible when presenting new information to allow

Andres to practice with complex spoken and written English forms.

5. As a whole class, students will be more engaged in speaking and listening activities with

partners, such as think-pair-share to boost Andres speaking and listening confidence.

STUDENT CASE STUDY

Reflection

Since integrating more guided writing into the classroom, considerable improvement in

Andres writing skills as well as his handwriting has been seen. His hesitations with writing have

decreased and with his increased confidence, he requires fewer reminders to complete his class

work. Vocabulary words for ELA as well as for math have been posted on a math wall as a

student resource.

Frequent checks for comprehension throughout lessons, read alouds, guided reading, and

other instruction have been incorporated into Andres classroom. Students are encouraged to ask

questions when they do not know what a word means and newly learned terms in all subject

areas are often discussed and revisited. Much more participation has been observed when

discussing terms as a whole group, rather than writing them down and expecting students to use

them as a visual resource.

The ELD teacher meets with all of the first grade teachers on a weekly basis. The

discussions include what is being taught in class and what would benefit the ELs to be focusing

on during their ELD time. These weekly meetings promote consistency in Andres learning and

give him a double dose of the vocabulary and instruction for the subject matter.

Andres receives 40 minutes of targeted reading instruction 4 days a week. This program,

created by Brookside classroom and intervention teachers, is split up into four sections

throughout the school year. In the previous session, Andres was having difficulty reading to the

teacher and was not improving his skills. For the current session, Andres was placed with
STUDENT CASE STUDY

familiar teacher and improvements have been seen in his confidence, reading and writing skills.

Because Andres is so easily overwhelmed, it is important to teach and model strategies to help

him when he is stuck on a word instead of giving up or shutting down. This is most beneficial

one on one.

In addition, more partner work has been incorporated during writing time. Typically,

students are allowed to choose their own partners, but certain students are encouraged to pair up.

Through observation, it seems that this has been very beneficial to Andres to see which students

he feels more confident with and those that really help support his learning.

Future and Goals

Andres is a fast learner and does very well when feeling successful. With the

continuation of these resources and support, Andres is expected to be nearly meeting or meeting

the standards in all content areas at the end of first grade.