Case Study

Jill Szymkiewicz
Fall 2017
ETE 443.01
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Table of Contents

Introduction 2-3

General Information 4-5

Background Information 4-6

Observations 7-9

Assessment Data 10-13

Results of Assessment Measures 14-16

Instructional Recommendations 17-19

Communication Plan 20-21

Reflection 22-23

Appendix 24-38
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Introduction
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1. Introduction

The purpose of this case study is to provide students the opportunity to take an

in-depth look at the components of a child’s learning. This study in particular focuses

on assessment. The assessment results will be incorporated into a study on the child’s

developmental domain abilities. The two instruments used were the AGS Expressive

Vocabulary Test and the Next Step Guided Reading Assessment. Included in this study

is general information and background information on the child, observation notes and

materials that were obtained while assessing the child, the assessment data, the results

from the assessments, instructional recommendations, and a communication plan.

There is also a reflection on the process of giving these assessments and the process

in general.
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General Information & Background Information

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2. General Information:

Child’s name: C

Birthdate: July 27, 2011

Gender: Male

Educational Placement: general education kindergarten

Language spoken at home: English

Ethnicity/Race: Caucasian

3. Background Information:

Prenatal and birth history: C’s mother had a normal pregnancy. There was

some high blood pressure before his birth. He was born at thirty-nine weeks into the

pregnancy at a very healthy seven pounds three ounces and twenty and a half inches

long.

Developmental milestones: C has always met his developmental milestones.

His only concern was related to gross motor development, but there was not a delay.

He had a difficult time learning to walk forward down the stairs. This was contributed to

him being small.

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Medical history/concerns: C has a lot of allergies. He has grown out of most of

his food allergies, but he is a very picky eater because of it. He still has environmental

allergies.

Agency involvement: C does not have any special needs that would require

agency involvement.

Family information: C lives with his mother, father, and three-year-old brother.

His mother has been diagnosed with depression and anxiety. She was not on any

medication during the pregnancy or nursing.

Educational experiences in parents: Both parents have graduated from a

university with a bachelor’s degree.

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Observations
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4. Observations:

October 9, 2017

12:15 pm

C’s house- before testing

 Running around the house playing with brother

 Lots of speaking

 Wants to talk instead of brother

 Playing on the floor in front of the television that is not playing anything

 Asks other people to watch him play

 Playing with Legos and looking at Halloween costume

 Can pick up and put together small blocks without help

 Does not want to share but wants brother to play with him

 Bigger vocabulary than when we last saw him

 Talks about what happened in school last week

 Went outside to ride his bike with his aunt

October 9, 2017

1:00 pm

C’s house- during testing (taken right after testing)

 Excited to show how smart he is

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 A little shy to answer

 Knew more answers than he thought he would

 Answered very quietly

 Took long pauses

 If prompted answered right away

 Wanted to do more work when we were done

October 9, 2017

2:00 pm

C’s house- after testing (getting ready to leave for lunch)

 Wanted to keep playing when his mom told him to get dressed

 Refused to dress himself

 Kicking and hitting his aunt when she tried to dress him

 Trying to run away

 Saying he wants his milk and Batman toys to bring with

 Younger brother is ready to go and is trying to get C to get lunch with him

 Got carried into the car mostly dressed, kicking and screaming

 Mom thinks he is getting sick and he does not usually act like this
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Assessment Data
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5. Assessment Data:

C is proficient in all of the developmental domains: gross motor, fine motor,

receptive language communication, expressive communication, cognitive skills, self-

help skills, and social skills. All of the skills from previous years have also been

achieved. Through various days spent with C over the past few years, it is known that

C can achieve all of the skills that are appropriate for his age. By interviewing his

mother, she did not understand his behavior during the observations that were listed

above. She believed that he was getting sick, which explains the difficulty in expressive

communication and self-help skills.

C goes to the park with his family multiple times each week and plays outside

during recess in school. This helps build his gross motor skills over time. He has been

evaluated at school and is proficient in running on his toes, walking on a straight line,

hopping over a two-meter distance, and skipping on alternate feet. He is able to jump

rope, but gets it caught under his feet frequently. He does not own skates and the

school does not test them on being able to skate, so it is unknown if he is able to skate.

Since C is in school and his mother is a teacher, he works on his fine motor skills

multiple times each day. After reviewing samples of his work, it is known that all of his

fine motor skills are at or above age level. His mother did not want his work samples

included here because his name is written multiple times on the papers. He is able to

cut out simple shapes, copy triangles, trace diamonds, copy his first name, print

numerals one to five, color within the lines, grasp a pencil correctly, dominantly uses his

right hand, pastes and glues appropriately, and uses classroom tools appropriately. He
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goes beyond some of these skills. He can write his first name on his own and print

numerals up to ten.

C meets all previous receptive language skills and the skill for his age,

demonstrates preacademic skills. He can follow directions appropriately when in the

classroom and at home. His expressive communication is proficient, depending on who

he is communicating with. If he is speaking with his younger brother who is three years

old, he can tend to act younger. His grammar is building up to adult style grammar. He

is still working on subject-verb agreements and irregular past tense verbs, but that is

normal for his age. He takes turns in conversation, but struggles sometimes depending

on who he is talking to. Sometimes he talks over the other person or waits a long time

to answer them. He can give and receive information, communicate well with family

and friends, and can retell stories from picture books. He is naturally shy, so he does

not like communicating with strangers.

C’s teacher and parents say that his cognitive skills are above age level. The

assessment results also agree with this statement. Following the chart, he can name

some letters and numerals, rote count to ten, sort objects by single characteristics such

as color or size, use concepts of time such as tomorrow and yesterday, knows his daily

schedule, can ignore distractions in short amount of times, and can talk about events in

relation to time and the future. He can name almost all of his letters and can recognize

them written on paper. He can also count to twenty.

His self-help skills are proficient and he has been working to teach his skills to his

younger brother. He can dress himself completely, tie his shoes, brush his teeth, and

knows how to cross the street safely. He does have days when he refuses to dress
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himself, but they are not frequent and he is capable. He has tie shoes, but does not tie

them every time he wears them because it takes him a few minutes.

Finally, his social skills are proficient and are displayed mostly around his family

and friends from school. He is shy by nature, so he tends to be calm and quiet when he

speaks. He has chosen a few friends at school and plays table games with them. He

occasionally plays competitive games during gym class time, but it is not frequent. He

knows how to play fairly with other children in cooperative play.

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Results of Assessment Measures

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6. Results of Assessment Measures

The two instruments used were the AGS Expressive Vocabulary Test and the

Next Step Guided Reading Assessment. The Expressive Vocabulary Test focuses on

labeling and synonyms. The Next Step Guided Reading Assessment focuses on

reading, comprehension, and word knowledge such as spelling. All of the assessment

forms and answer sheets are included in the appendix at the end of the document.

Beginning with the Expressive Vocabulary Test, C had a standard score of 110.

Breaking this score down, his total raw score was 70, a confidence interval using 90%

of 100 to 119, 75th percentile, and test-age equivalent of 7.1 years. All of the scoring

came from the corresponding charts in the assessment manual. The recording form is

also the scoring form. The number of incorrect items in the labeling section 1-38 was 0.

There were 17 items for him to label and he answered them all correctly. Since his

chronological age is six years, three months, he skipped to the synonym section

beginning at age 5-6. In items 39-72, he answered 6 items incorrectly. The items that

he was unsure of received no response. He did not reach the ceiling of 5 consecutive

incorrect items, so he moved onto the next section. In items 73-108, he answered 9

items incorrectly. He reached his ceiling of 5 consecutive incorrect items at number 85,

so that was his final item. This item reached into the age 15-18 section. In total, he had

15 incorrect items. The last number administered, 85, minus the total number of

incorrect items, 15, was 70. This is how his raw score was calculated. In summary, C

is 0.8 years above his testing age and is above average in his expressive vocabulary.

The results of the Next Step Guided Reading Assessment came from the word

knowledge inventory, the running record, and the listening comprehension assessment.
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His word knowledge inventory score was 0/5, corresponding to a spelling stage of “P”.

His running record had a total score of 6 in comprehension with other scores broken

down as well. His listening comprehension assessment had a score of 5/5. The break-

down of these scores are in the following paragraphs. C spelled 5 words for his world

knowledge inventory assessment. He correctly spelled the initial and final consonants

in every word, leading to early-phonetic proficiency. The short vowel in each word were

either missing or incorrect in every word. Since he had more than 2 errors in the

phonetic category, his spelling stage is in the phonetic level. This level corresponds to

the features with which the student first made two errors.

C had 1 error is his running record of a level A book. This was 1 incorrect word

out of 28 total words in the book, leading to an accuracy rate of 96%. The strategy that

he used to help him was picture clues. He was not self-monitoring. This led to a

fluency score of 1, or word-by-word reading with no expression. He received a retelling

score of 3, or retells important story elements of characters and problem. He answered

all 3 comprehension questions correctly. His retelling score of 3 combined with his

question score of 3 led to a total comprehension score of 6. Using these scores, level A

texts are at an instructional level for him. His level was brought down due to his low

fluency score.

The listening comprehension assessment began with listening to a short passage

related to a concept that he selected based on his interests. He answered all 5

questions correctly by circling the picture that answered the question that was read to

him.
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Instructional Recommendations
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7. Instructional Recommendations

C is developing at or above his age range is all domains. Even so, he would

benefit from working toward a few goals to further his development. By including his

interests in these goals, he will be more likely to work toward achieving them. Three

goals that would create opportunities for growth are sharing with his brother four times a

day, reading one book each day with expression, and tying his shoes each morning.

These goals work to improve his receptive language skills, social skills, cognitive skills,

and self-help skills.

C increasing his sharing with his brother to four times a day will help his receptive

language skills and his social skills. When the two of them play together, C tends to

take over the conversation and lead the game. Allowing him multiple opportunities to

learn cooperative play and practice conversation turns will help him take those skills into

other environments. Four sharing times a day on average will still allow him to play by

himself enough during the day.

Reading one book each day with expression will help improve his cognitive skills.

Since he is above his age range in his cognitive abilities, this is a goal that he can work

on to further his abilities. He does enjoy reading and he can select books that he is

interested in. A low point in one of his assessments was reading with expression, so

this goal will help to improve his fluency.

Although C is capable of tying his own shoes, he does not practice very

frequently. The family is usually in a rush out the door, so someone else ties them for

him or he just slips them on. By providing him the opportunity to tie them each day, he
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will learn to decrease the time it takes him to tie his shoes. Instead of taking him three

to five minutes, he will be able to tie them in about a minute. This is a self-help skill that

will help him get himself ready in the morning without help from his parents. He will also

be able to help tie his brother’s shoes when he needs help.

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Communication Plan
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8. Communication Plan

The plan is to communicate the information from the assessment instruments

and developmental domain study with the parents, teacher, and child. It is important

that everyone is aware of the same information so that there are not any gaps or

confusion. C can also be a big asset is improving his learning because he will

understand why he is working on certain tasks. He can also suggest ideas that he

believes he can achieve.

The parents and teacher will be provided a written report discussing the findings

from the assessments. There will also be a conference for both the parents and the

teacher to answer any questions and make any clarifications. The “Instructional

Recommendations” section in this case study is a good report for the parents to receive.

It provides an understanding that C is at or above his age range in domains. There are

also goals for him to work on to further his development. Since the parents are so

involved in his development, the goals are all geared toward learning at home. All of

these goals can improve his development is the school setting as well.

C will also be present at the conference. Since all of the information is not

important for C to hear, he can be provided with a game or play materials for the second

half of the conference. He will be at the table for the first half so that he can hear how

well he is doing. He will also hear how he can improve developmentally in words that

he can understand. It is important that the first half is explained in terms that C can

understand so that he feels valued and like he can offer his own ideas as well. The

second half of the conference will focus on questions and clarifications that the parents

and teacher have for each other.

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Reflection
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9. Reflection

Overall, creating this case study was a very rewarding process. I think that it

helped that I knew C because I could fill in his development from my perspective. I

have known him for over two years, so I have seen him grow over time. His mother is

an early childhood teacher, so she knew what I was doing and was able to help be with

whatever I needed. She offered a lot of detail in his birth history, but did not have a lot

of information on his development because it has always been normal.

The process of giving the assessments to C was the most difficult part of the

process. The Expressive Vocabulary Test was very simple to learn how to administer

and score. It was very quick as well. The Next Step Guided Reading Assessment

contained a lot of materials and took a few hours to understand how to administer it. It

was very simple to score because the scoring was built into the assessment materials.

It did not take a long time to administer, but C was getting tired because it had so many

elements to it.

The most important concept that I learned during this experience was how

connected development is. When assessing a child, one has to know the background

of the child to be able to interpret the results. Knowing the developmental history if the

child helped to create a larger picture with the assessment instruments intertwined. It is

also important to take into account the needs and abilities of the child when selecting

assessment instruments.
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Appendix
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10. Appendix
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