Case Study on Orlando 

Orlando is a seven year old first grader.  Orlando is an active child and enjoys group activities and likes to sing and draw.  The main focus on Orlando is his comprehension skills.  He is unable to answer comprehensions questions like main idea or main characters when reading independently.  The end of the year was getting near and the teacher has a concern about his progress.  The teacher consulted her concern with a reading specialist and several strategies and goals were developed for Orlando.  The possible strategies that were put in place are graphic organizer, repeated reading, and comprehension strategies.  

Comprehension Strategies:

Readers stimulate what they currently understand or misunderstand about the topic and use this knowledge before, during, and after reading to clarify misconceptions and understand the text. The tips for implementations are predicting, summarizing, retelling, rereading, and questioning. 

 Predicting:

The students can make predictions based upon the story title, pictures on the cover of the book, or having a past experience with the titles or pictures.  Example from the book reading they used Cookie’s Week (ward, 1997, 2004) by Wednesday, the children will be predicting a new disaster the next day.  The book ends by saying, “tomorrow is Sunday. Maybe cookie will rest.”  The student would predict if Cookie is going to do a disaster or really rest?  These strategies would help Orlando by having self to text it would make him feel more comfortable on comprehending the text.

  

Graphic Organizers:

Graphic organizers are simple diagrams used to assist student at any grade level, in organizing and recalling elements from stories they have listened to or read.  Graphic organizer pertain to who, what, where, when, and why of the story or a sequence of events, using the key words such as first, next, and last.  Retell the story markers beginning, middle, and end.

Here are some examples of Graphic organizers:

 I used this one with my students to help them understand the sequences of the story. The first group used the story Humpty Dumpty and the second group used the story Jack and Jill.  

 This organizer could be used to show Orlando the beginning, middle and end of the story it makes it more fun.  

 

 

Graphic organizer for Orlando:

I’m going to use The Goldilocks and the Three Bears and Three little Dinosaurs and show the work by using a Venn diagram. 

I came up with this Venn diagram to help Orlando with his comprehension skills.  The purpose of this graphic organizer is to break down the information into smaller segments. It will help Orlando to concentrate on one feature of the story at a time.

                                          

 

A story map is a strategy that uses a graphic organizer to help students learn the elements of a book or story. By identifying story characters, plot, setting, problem and solution, students read carefully to learn the details. www.readingrockets.org/strategies/story_maps

 

Story Map on Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs


 

Story Map on Goldilocks and the Three Bears

Summarizing:

The student would give the main points of the text they are reading.  Based on the reading as we read a text, we keep a summary in our heads, which helps us understand the rest of the story and discuss the whole story at the end.  (page139) the students are asked the “who” or “what” and are able to give main points.   This strategy would help Orlando because he would stop after every period and understand what he read.  He would look for the “what” and “who” in each sentence and put it together as a final summary.

Retelling:  

A retelling in a story is pointing out the characters, settings, problem, event and the solution of the story.  This could be a different way of retelling the story.  This would help Orlando make a better understanding of the story.

Rereading:

The student could reread the story again to make a better understanding.  This strategy works best for Orlando because he would revisit what he read before and is able to make better sense.

 

 

Questioning:

The student should question before, during and after reading the story.  If Orlando uses this strategy it could give him an open mind when going through the text.

                                      

Repeated Reading:  Repeated reading of familiar text is a strategy to increase reading fluency.  A fluent reader has developed automatic word recognition skills, which allows the reader to spend more of his or her energy on comprehension and less on decoding (Levy, Coleman, & Alsman, 2002). 

The video that I watched was reenacting a story.  The teacher had the children act out the story by having them wear a jacket, vest, scarf and allowing one child to hold and flip the pages of the book.  This activity would help out Orlando because he would see the story come out to life and be part of the story. 

References

Fountas, I.C., & Pinell, G.S., (2001). Literacy Beginnings: A Prekindergarten Handbook.

Interactive Read Aloud Pre-K / ELA / Comprehension video

 

www.readingrockets.org/strategies/story_maps