Case Studies

Introduction to Assessment and Case Studies

A high level of literacy is the most critical educational goal and hope for society to grow, adapt and change. Reading is fundamental to communication — to “commune” or “hold in common” ideas, information, processes as well as dreams, vision and wisdom.

Such an important function is a huge responsibility for schools. It ultimately is a decision-making process in which educators must diagnose and determine how best to reach the students so that they can read connected print fluently and with understanding. No one in the school system accomplishes this goal but a teacher — not the principal, not the superintendent, not the school board, not the state department of education, nor the U.S. Department of Education. If the educational system is functioning correctly, it is in the classroom in which students learn to read with skill, meaning, engagement and pleasure with support in the home and community for many opportunities to apply and enjoy literacy.

There is no one way to teach reading. However, we know that the effective teaching of reading depends first and foremost on capable teachers who can understand where each student is performing and the strategies they will use to advance the youngster’s capacities.

The Nature of Diagnosis

Learning to read is a skill and ability. There are sequential strategies to proficiency with any skill or ability, and reading is no exception. As diagnostic teachers work with students, they ask themselves: What is inhibiting fluent reading with comprehension? Is the student having difficulty recognizing the words – the decoding and processing of print, or understanding the content – the meaning, or both?

The Classroom Reading Inventory (CRI) was designed to help the teacher address this diagnosis as quickly and accurately as possible, especially under the demands of managing the classroom and investing time to advancing quality instruction. The following case studies using the CRI are based on a range of typical reading disorders that a classroom teacher can encounter.

Complex Causation

One of the most important underpinnings of diagnosis is that there are multiple causes and factors affecting someone’s inability to achieve and sustain reading capacities. There simply is no such thing as single causation.

For example, a boy or girl primarily may have missed one of the critical reading skills necessary for learning to read. When this is the case, the child requires targeted and strategic reading coaching in a specific skill area or areas. This would suggest a typical academic or teaching problem, a high level of absenteeism, or even distractibility issues.

At the same time, the teacher might observe that this young person has become reticent, anxious or hostile with the stress of reading less well for a period of time compared to classroom peers or the expectations of adults. Over time, an emotional issue may have developed as a result of the child’s response to his or her reading skills lag.

Even when there is a successful remediation of skills, this student might also come to associate reading with anxious feelings or shame on a long-term basis. Although such youngsters may gain the skills so they can read, they now associate reading with unpleasant emotions. They avoid gaining fluency and automaticity that comes only from both instructional and personal reading on a wide basis.

This is further illustrated with students who have learning disabilities who have not had the specialized instructional interventions required for their person-specific cognitive development.

These students’ brain-based physical need for more intensive, multi-sensory and experienced-based instruction may have accompanying psychological needs. Research shows that most elementary students do not persevere in later grades in academic subjects in which they believe they are not capable. They tend to drop the areas of study in which they do not easily succeed. In this worst-case scenario, students who internalize their disappointment and act out the self concept that they are “not good in reading” because they have a learning disability are, in actuality, not held back by physiology, but by psychological issues.

The classroom teacher is in the front line of the war against illiteracy. The teacher’s desire to teach each child and help each child maximize their potential are the critical components in the success of the child.

Case Study Model

The authors of the Classroom Reading Inventory have used this reading diagnostic tool in more than 6,000 supervised individual case studies, research investigations and court proceedings over a period of nearly 40 years.

Dr. Warren Wheelock alone has conducted nearly 3,000 individual full scale diagnostic assessments addressing reading capacity and related cognitive and emotional levels of development that include the CRI.

Each case study is based on actual data obtained through testing procedures like those used by an individual classroom teacher, reading specialist or educational psychometrist or psychologist.

However, personal and non-essential information to the diagnosis has been altered to protect personal identities and related confidential information. All names used are pseudonyms and other personal characteristics also have been changed.

The case studies available for your access on this website present all of the CRI scores and interpretation. Other case study information, such as I.Q. scores and other psychological assessment, will be referenced.

Both adults and children with disabilities have protection under Law 504, which is known as “Other Health Impaired” http://4.17.143.133/index.cfm. Relevant diagnoses fit within the categories described below.

As we discussed earlier, there are several categories of disability that are covered in the legislation. These specific diagnoses can be clustered together in five areas of similar need for specific educational accommodation.

The five accommodation categories are:

  1. Students with specific cognitive or academic difficulties
  2. Students with social or behavioral problems
  3. Students with general delays in cognitive and social functioning
  4. Students with physical or sensory challenges
  5. Students with advanced cognitive development

These categories were created to cover most of the types of accommodation that a student might need to have in a classroom setting and, of course, a number of specific diagnoses fit under each one of the accommodation categories.

CRI Case Study Diagnostic Categories

The CRI case studies are organized to demonstrate primarily academic, cognitive (advanced and delayed) and emotional/social barriers to reading.

However, the case study categories are not designed to suggest that there is only one cause of any reading disability as we emphasized in the Complex Causation section. As you will see, each child is hampered by an array of issues that must each be addressed so that all barriers to learning are removed.

You will find that each case study contains the background information that will help the professional understand the social and psychological issues faced by the child, as well as their CRI test results. Each case study is summarized and contains recommendations for teachers and other professionals for school-based interventions. Information to be shared with parents is also given, where appropriate, so that the daily effort made by the classroom teacher may be enhanced by the parents and thus permeate the child’s life, both at school and at home.

Please click on the intervention category and age/grade level of the case study in which you are interested and get started.

Academic and Reading Skills Development

Cognitive Development and Dyslexia

Emotional/Social Development