Contextual Factors Sample Paper
Examining Contextual Factors in
Literacy Development
NOTE to 320 students: Dr. Petty removed some of the sentences/words from the following paper so as not to in any way make it possible for someone to identify this child.
NOTE (again): This is SINGLE spaced ... your work must be DOUBLE spaced (per syllabus).
For
this assignment, I shadowed a student named Gary*.
Our activities included reading a basal reader story and answering the
accompanying questions, and exploring an interactive computer version of the I
Spy books. Gary is ten years
old, and has a disability known as (withheld
for privacy).
In talking with his teacher, I found out that this disability falls under
the “Other Health Impairment” category of the Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act. (Three
sentence description here of learning factors related to Gary's
disability.)
Learning to read was very
difficult for Gary because he continuously forgot the general phonics rules and
some sight words.
Speaking
Gary is a very friendly child who is uninhibited about striking up a conversation. When talking to me, he was very outgoing, and told me what he was going to dress up as for Halloween. Gary’s speech has a slight speech impediment. It is difficult for him to form all the sounds of the letters with his lips, as his mouth does not close exactly the way a typical child’s would. I found out that he has received speech therapy services since he began elementary school. As a result, his articulation problems do not appear to have affected his ability to orally communicate. I found his expressive language skills to be very close to that of a non-disabled student. He chose words that were in the common vernacular of a typically developing ten year old. Interestingly, I do not think that Gary’s disability has had too much of an effect on his speech. He maintained eye contact, and followed the flow of the conversation. While working, he made relevant comments and asked appropriate questions.
One of the goals in Gary’s Individualized Education Plan is that he will strengthen his listening comprehension skills. I did not observe him have any difficulty following oral directions. Nor did he have a hard time following my additions to our oral conversation. I was told, however, that Gary has trouble paying attention when a story is being read aloud to him. I have noticed this in my past field experiences with this class. One of the objectives designed to help him build this skill is to allow him to use the I Spy computer game. This is basically the same as the book version, where children have a list of things to search for hidden in a picture. The computer version is great for Gary because when he clicks on the text, the words are read aloud as a whole, and he can also click on individual words and hear them individually. When he finds an item in the picture and clicks on it, that word is highlighted in the text. This reinforced his connection of written words and the meaning behind them. Gary selected the same words a few times when he had forgotten what they were.
Probably the most difficult task for Gary that I observed was writing. His fine motor skills are not his strongest area, and his eye-hand coordination is moderately affected by his disability. As noted from examining his writing sample, Gary’s handwriting is legible, but not neat. He begins sentences with capital letters and ends them with punctuation (not always the correct punctuation). He sometimes writes capital letters when he should use lowercase letters. Because he has not yet mastered print writing, his teachers have no plans to introduce cursive writing to him. He self-corrects, and is very diligent and slow about his writing. He presses down very firmly with his pencil, which makes his writing dark, and hard to erase. The five sentence writing sample took Gary about fifteen minutes to complete.
Before reading the basal story, there was a list of five or six new words that Gary had to learn to recognize. One of the word identification techniques used by his teacher is the use of “magic beans.” This also helps the students remember how to spell words. A bean is placed under each letter, one at a time, and that letter is identified along with its sound. When all the beans are read together, the word is read. Gary used the beans on each of the new vocabulary words. He learned to spell them correctly because his teacher put them on a sight word ring, and he repeated it several times while I was there. He not only identified the word, but he spelled it orally and used some of them in sentences. He had used the word ring for about two days before he read the basal story, and was able to spell the words correctly when he used them to answer the questions at the end of the story. Gary has been exposed to a lot of literature. He has a strong desire to please and to get good grades, and so he has learned to spell many words in attempt to accomplish this. He also asks about words he does not know how to spell. For the most part, he seems to understand the basics of phonics. From talking to his teachers, I learned that it had taken a long time to accomplish the use of phonics with Gary. Unfortunately, his disability caused him to periodically have setbacks that had to be overcome.
Gary
and I read the basal story in what his teacher refers to as a “popcorn
read.” This means that each person takes turns reading aloud, and at
any time at the end of a sentence can say “popcorn” to indicate that it is
the next person’s turn. Gary was
able to follow along while I read, and pick up immediately when I said
“popcorn” without having to ask where I had left off.
He read voluntarily, and used his sight word recognition skills for most
of the text. On a couple words that
he was unfamiliar with, he used the initial sound of the word and context clues
to guess what it was. For example,
one sentence told about a girl who was walking through the park.
Gary did not immediately recognize the word “park.”
Instead, he saw the initial letter was p, and knew it was a place through
which the girl could walk. He
quickly called, “parking lot” to finish the sentence, and we had to use the
magic beans to discover what the word actually was.
He read aloud fairly fluently. He
knew to pause at the end of each sentence, but did not make his voice go up at
the end of a question. He was able
to identify the title of the story without any help, but could not identify the
author, though he knew what an author was when I asked him.
Overall,
Gary’s literacy skills are below grade-level, but not severely.
His teacher thinks that now that Gary is equipped with phonics and basic
word recognition strategies, he will make quicker progress.
It is difficult to teach Gary because everything he learns must be
continually reviewed so that he does not lose the information.
Despite his disability, however, Gary considers himself a successful
reader, and that is by far, the most important thing.
Walter, W. (1992). I spy: a book of picture riddles. New York: Scholastic Books.
11/02/04 02:02:22 PM