Case study: Brian Third Grade, Spelling. Brian was given the Spelling CBM test. See attached. From the mistakes he made we chose to focus on; Focus on silent ‘e’ at end of words. 1.Brian has been working on these in his Words to Learn Log. Explaining the tricky part has helped. Brian is still not able to recognize most of these without teacher support. 2.I have also used letter boxes on words that end in `e’, supplying the extra box helped. Focus on endings such as ‘ed’ and ‘ing’. 1.Brian has been working in peer pairs using “Making Words” by providing ‘ed’ and ‘ing’ as possibilities to add to the ends of lots of words he is starting to understand. We have been working on this strategy for 4 weeks. Focus on double vowel combinations such as ‘ee’ in ‘greet’ or ‘agree’ or ‘oo’ in ‘goose’. 1.I started Brian on individually writing short sentences that use as many double vowel combinations as he can come up with. He has recorded these words in his individual spelling dictionary. 2.I have used a modified CLOZE method. I give him words with the double vowels left blank he has to fill them in. Focus on double consonant combinations such as ‘pp’ in ‘stopped’ or ‘mopped’. 1.Brian has become better at self corrected spelling tests. He is not able to recognize his mistakes. I have been focusing during workshop conferences on doubling the consonant at a syllable juncture. Repetition is not working with Brian. 2.Tried using flash cards, Brian not responding well.

CBM Case Study #2: Brian Mr. Collins has been monitoring the spelling fluency of his entire third-grade class using weekly Spelling CBM probes. Mr. Collins has been scoring the probes by calculating correct letter sequences and then graphing student scores on individual student graphs. At the end of 8 weeks, Mr. Collins used the Tukey method to draw a trend-line for Brian’s Spelling CBM graph. Here is Brian’s graph. Brian’s Spelling CBM Graph Brian’s trend-line is flatter than his goal line. What should Mr. Collins do? Mr. Collins needs to make a change to Brian’s spelling instruction. The point of the instructional change has been marked with a dotted vertical line. To decide which instructional changes might benefit Brian, Mr. Collins decides to analyze Brian’s last Spelling CBM probe to find his strengths and weaknesses as a speller.

Third Grade, spelling and written expression Cassidy was given the Spelling CBM test. See attached. She scored an 84/104 on her spelling test. From the mistakes she made we chose to focus on; Focus on vowel combinations, “ai, ia, and “a” for “e”. Cassidy responded well to closed word sorts Focus on “e” on end of words. Cassidy responded well to letter boxes. Focus on “ie” at the end of the word. Cassidy responded well to using a Magna Doodle to practice these words. Focus on silent letters. Cassidy has been working on these in her Words to Learn Log. Explaining the tricky part has helped. Focus on “ou” combinations in the middle of words. We have just used flash cards and drilling in peer pairs for this. Focus on exceptions to the rules. Cassidy responded well to Have-a-Go Notes Focus on providing more exposures to the words. Cassidy has been encouraged to increase her reading goal.

Weeks of Instruction Correct Letter Sequences

Cassidy was given the Written Expression test. She was given a prompt from DPI website. She made a 13/15. From the mistakes she made we chose to focus on; 1. Focus on punctuation; student used too many periods and no quotation marks. 2. Focus on transition words; student didn’t use any transition words although it flowed well. 3. Focus on word choice; word use repetitive.

Weeks of Instruction Scores for Written Expression