Katie A.

Lucky-Heard
Student Case Study/Tutoring

A Brief Intervention: Working with T.M.

Background
T.M is a 9 year old third grade student at the school. This is her first year attending public
school, she was previously educated at private catholic school from pre-kindergarten through
second grade. T.M has had an unstable home life and inconsistent instruction. She has lived with
her mother, grandmother, and an aunt. The aunt has provided the most stable home life for and is
still involved in her education when possible but T.M. currently lives with her mother. Two years
ago T.M. was involved in a violent shooting with her mother and her mothers boyfriend. She
was able to recover fully and has not suffered many complications.
A month ago, she was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of the
shooting. For the most part T.M. appears to be a normal third grader. However within the first
few weeks of school, T.M. was identified by the schools RtI process as being substantially
behind in reading and mathematics. T.M. has not been identified as having any existing learning
disorders. T.M. was placed in a reading group with the schools interventionist to address her
fluency and decoding weaknesses in order to improve her comprehension. This paper will review
an intervention implemented for T.M. in February and March of 2015, in addition to her reading
intervention and guided reading curriculum. The intervention was provided in the form of free
tutoring during the school day in addition to her regular instruction and reading intevention.
Pre-Assessments and Findings

T.M. was assessed prior to the intervention using the STEP Literacy Assessment Series.
T.M. successfully complete a step 3 in this assessment but was unable to pass the STEP 4
assessment, in this instance she was given the yellow series. The assessment consisted of a
reading record (with a fluency component), Comprehensive Conversation, and Developmental
Spelling Assessment. The scores she received in each section were then chunked into a
composite score that determined her reading level. On the reading record, T.M. had several
visual miscues, and totaled 7 errors total with 1 self-correct. It took her 2 minutes and 46 seconds
to read the passage which consisted of 75 words and was written on a level E. T.M. was only
able to answer 2 out of 6 comprehension questions accurately during the comprehension
conversation ( a who and a why question).
She struggled to recall specific details and was not able to go back in the story to find
answers, even after use of 2 additional prompts. Her developmental spelling proved to be quite
strong in the initial assessment, she was able to spell 14 out of 15 words correctly. The word she
spelled incorrectly was rent, she replaced the short e sound with an I, she had no difficulty
identifying initial blend and final blend sounds. Overall T.M. did not master STEP 3 because of
the numbers of errors she made during her reading record, her reading rate which was a 12
seconds below target, and her inability to comprehend elements of a story.
Intervention
As a result of T.M.s pre-assessment, the teacher decided to target T.M.s decoding,
fluency, and comprehension skills through explicit intervention. The intervention implemented
lasted 4 weeks and ended the last week of March. The teacher met with T.M. daily for 20 minute
sessions during her elective period. The intention of the intervention was to move T.M. at least 1
STEP level in 4 weeks by improving her reading fluency which seemed to be the key lever

blocking her comprehension. The intervention consisted of several integrated strategies and
formats to maximize the transfer of information. The strategies implemented included explicitly
reviewing single vowel sounds, first in isolation and then in CVC words. This was taught using
flash cards provided by the interventionists. After mastering chunking the teacher moved to
chunking, T.M. showed improvement in her ability to break apart words but still required more
practice at the end of the intervention. After reviewing decoding and fluency skills T.M. and the
teacher practiced fluency by reading a passage daily.
The teacher began with 1st grade leveled passages and worked up to second grade before
retesting T.M. During fluency practice T.M. practiced chunking through decoding unfamiliar
words. Vocabulary comprehension was taught using picturing, due to T.M.s reading deficiencies.
For example, associating the word butterfly with a picture of a butterfly or election with a picture
of people voting or President Obama. Passages were repeated once every 3 days until mastered.
At the end of the passage the teacher and T.M. performed comprehension conversations that
mirrored questions posed on the STEP assessment.
Post Assessment
On post assessment, T.M.s scores showed improvement. She was able to master both the
STEP 4 and STEP 5. This time T.M. was given the purple series of the STEP assessment for tests
4 and 5. On the STEP 4 post-assessment, T.M. made 2 errors during the reading record and was
able to self-correct once, both errors were visual. Her reading time was 1 minute and 53 seconds.
During the comprehension conversation (comprised of who, when, what, how, and why
questions) T.M. was able to answer 5 out of 6 questions accurately. On the developmental
spelling assessment, T.M. was able to spell 14 out of 14 words correctly. With these scores T.M.
was able to pass STEP 4 because she had less than 8 errors, completed the reading record in less

than 2 minutes and 35 seconds, made no spelling errors, and answered 5 comprehension
questions correctly. On the STEP 5 assessment T.M. made 6 errors (5 visual miscues) and 2 had
2 self-corrections. During the comprehension conversation (consisting of why, what, and how
questions) she answered 6 out of 6 questions accurately. During the developmental spelling
assessment she was able to spell 14 out of 14 words correctly. She was able to pass the STEP 5
assessment because she had fewer than 15 errors, finished the reading record with the targeted
time, correctly spelled all of the developmentally appropriate words, and correctly answered all
of the comprehension questions.
Implications and Conclusion
T.M. has been participating in a group reading intervention since September and as a
result has seen dramatic growth in her standardized reading scores. Her regular intervention takes
place in a group setting, but for the purpose of this assessment it was supplemented with
individual tutoring sessions. The focused time spent on developing her decoding skills, her
metacognition about her reading, and her ability to articulate answers to comprehension
questions seems to have significantly improved her performance on the STEP assessment tools.
Moving forward, continued focus should be placed on her fluency.
There is room for improvement in her accuracy, fluency, and comprehension. The
consistent instruction T.M. receives in the morning has helped lay the foundation she needed to
develop third grade reading skills. Adding individual guided reading time to this sped up her
progress, but the methodology and pacing being implemented by the interventionist made this
possible by reviewing basic reading skills that she realized the student was missing in the
beginning of the year. This is a testament to the need for strategic and consistent interventions,
but also to the impact that small learning groups can have on a student. T.M received 100

minutes of individual intervention, in addition to normal guided reading, and reading

intervention, and as a result grew more than any of the other students in her intervention group.
This case study also shows how important fundamental reading skills like decoding and fluency
are to later comprehension. Although T.M. has no learning disabilities, she enrolled several years
below grade level because she had not received proper instruction. Fortunately she is continuing
to make substantial progress and will likely be on grade level by the beginning of next year if she
continues her current growth curve.