Case Study
Juan's fourth-grade teacher has come to you for help. Juan is a native English speaker. While his parents are native Spanish speakers, they have always spoken English at home. Juan has never been in bilingual classes. His teacher's concern is that he has very little comprehension of what he reads. When he writes, his sentence structure is very simple and there is very little elaboration. Although he struggles with comprehension and composition, he is an accurate, fluent reader and a near-perfect speller. "I wish I could sprinkle his decoding and spelling skills on some of my other students," said the teacher.
Juan's math facts for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division are automatic. He is the class champion of game Around the World with Math Facts. However, Juan struggles with word problems.
Writing Sample:
The students were asked to write down a one-page summary of a library book. They were to include the characters, setting, problem, action, and outcome. They were also asked to evaluate the book.
Ghost Town Gold By Mark Strong
The book was good. It had lots of words. It took me two weeks to finish it. I liked the cowboy the best. He rode his horse alot. There was gold he wanted to get from under the mountain. It was hard to get to. Instead of a shovel he used dinamite. I think it would be fun to be a cowboy.
Questions:
Q1. What are Juan's strengths? What are his weaknesses?
Q2. What seems to be his underlying difficulty?
Q3. What activities will help improve Juan's comprehension and composition?
Q4. What will happen without intervention?