Project Overview

The Extended Case Studies in Reading project is sponsored by Georgia's Reading First initiative, but we believe that it has value for all teachers of literacy in the primary grades. From a database of hundreds of children, in a variety of schools, communities, and programs, we have chosen to develop a few into multi-year cases that represent interesting and instructive profiles.

The Importance of Developmental Patterns

Most case studies present "snapshots" of a single moment in a child's reading development. Even though data may give something of a child's history, it is often hard to discern a meaningful trajectory – that is, to get a sense of where the child has been and is headed. These extended cases solve this problem by offering a series of snapshots over an interval as long as four years. The cases begin with the 2004-05 school year and already include fall results for 2005-06. If a child was a kindergartner in 2004-05, it will eventually be possible to track his or her progress over a full four-year period, through the end of grade three. Children who were older when the project began will have less extensive cases – potentially one, two, or three years in length. Even if a child's data represent only one year, however, the developmental patterns across that year can be very useful.

Case Directory and Home Pages

A Case Directory lists all available cases by grade.  For each case, the teacher can access both a home page (Student Records) and suggestions about how to examine the case (Overview and Guide).  The child's home page is linked both to available oral reading samples and to achievement pages for available years. 

You will notice four conspicuous rectangles on the home page.  These are placeholders for pictures of the child, which, for security reasons and by agreement with parents, will not be posted for two years.  We believe that a visual referent will eventually be useful in coming to know a child. (You may wish to view a mock-up of what the home page of a four-year case will eventually look like.)

Achievement Pages

For each year that a child participates in the project, achievement data are gathered onto a single, convenient page.  These data include assessment results (both group and individual), school demographics, classroom organization, teacher background and commentary, and materials and interventions in use.

Assessment Instruments

Achievement is gauged by a number of indicators.  In both fall and spring of kindergarten and in fall of first grade, children take the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT-III).  Beginning in grade one, they take Georgia’s Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests (CRCT) in late spring.  First, second, and third graders also take the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS) in the spring. All of the children are given the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills screening battery (DIBELS).  The battery is, for these children, limited to five subtests, which vary by grade.  Each subtest is designed to provide a quick indicator of achievement in a particular domain.  The screening is done three times per year and predictive benchmarks are used to place a child’s performance at one of three levels of risk (low, moderate, or high). 

It can be extremely useful to track a student across time in terms of risk level.  For example, a DIBELS result may document that a child’s risk in a particular area has risen or fallen across the course of a year.  The table below shows which measures are given, when they are given, and what they assess.  (The letters B, M, and E denote the beginning, middle, and end of the year.)  It is crucial to note that DIBELS subtests assess not only accuracy but speed (hence, the wide use of the term fluency).  The rationale is that these abilities must become automatic so that a child can devote full attention to comprehension.

Each child is also given the Spelling screen from the Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening (PALS) assessment system.  This instrument uses spelling to arrive at conclusions about specific decoding skills.  Thus, if the DIBELS NWF subtest indicates that a child is at risk in the area of phonics, the PALS Spelling test can provide specifics about where deficits may lie.

Oral Reading Samples

Beginning at midyear in grade one, we have collected oral reading samples of about a minute each.  A child is asked to read one of the DIBELS progress monitoring passages, and an audio recording is made.  From the child’s home page, a teacher can proceed from sample to sample across time by clicking on the letters B, M, or E.  The text of the passage simultaneously appears.  

Note that these samples were not used in determining the child’s DIBELS results.  They were gathered to provide an idea of the child’s oral reading development, and the administration did not strictly follow the DIBELS routine. (For example, the assessor sometimes allowed extra time for the child to contend with a troublesome word in order to get an idea of how the child tended to approach decoding.)

Note also that the same passage was used to gather all of the child's oral samples at a particular grade level. The readability of the passages used is calibrated to be toward the end of that grade level. For example, the passage, "My Friend is from Korea," represents high second-grade text. Only by keeping the passage constant can we observe changes in fluency that take place over the course of a year.

For grades one, two, and three, an exemplary case is included.  It provides a frame of reference so that a teacher can contrast the profile of a struggling reader with that of a normally developing one.  Oral reading samples offer especially compelling contrasts.  At grade one, the exemplary case is Debbie; at grade two, Nacole; at grade three, Sharon.

Go to Case Directory