A Child’s Education Observation Report

Tiger is presented with challenges particularly in the area of reading where he struggles to read and his reading falls behind the class. He has poor vocabulary and finds it difficult to grasp phonics instructions. It is also a challenge for him to copy words from the chalkboard. Nevertheless, he demonstrates proficient math skills and excels in sports.

Tiger managed to keep up with his math work and participates in oral activities, except those which involve reading. Assessment from the IEP team indicates that Tiger has a superior IQ of 125 based on the WISC-IV; however, as a third grader, his reading ability is at about first grade level in general which lags behind his peers. He is especially weak in word recognition. The score of his arithmetic test further suggests that he performs slightly above his grade level. The overall evaluation shows that other than difficulties in the area of reading, Tiger seems to demonstrate superior intelligence and is able to function at his grade level for math. These match the diagnostic criteria of Specific Learning Disorder in DSM-5 which highlights the constant struggles learning key academic skills that affect individuals who possess typical intellectual functioning to perform below average for age (American Psychiatric Association, 2013) – which leads the IEP team to decide that Tiger has a learning disability.

Strengths and Weaknesses

The child displayed strength in areas of math and sports, wherein he enjoys and is able to keep up with. He gives the impression of a student who tries hard but reading appears to be his major weakness. Tiger is lagging behind in reading and has very limited vocabulary. Phonics is another domain he struggles to understand. He tends to skip phonics assignments and avoid reading in the class. He also has problems copying from the chalkboard.

Recommendations

Tiger’s intervention plan will be targeted on his areas of need: academic, emotional challenges and behavioral challenges.

Academic

Academic intervention for Tiger will mainly focus on two major elements of reading: phonics and vocabulary. The Orton-Gillingham approach which involves multisensory reading instructions is found to be an effective remedial teaching method in improving student’s reading and spelling (Lim & Oei, 2015; Ring, Avrit, & Black, 2017). This approach will be incorporated as part of his IEP to improve his reading abilities. The integration of visual, auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic courses in learning helps provide link with the verbal information – “auditory and visual feedback for sounds as well as kinesthetic/tactile input of letter formation” (Alexander & Slinger-Constant, 2004; Ritchey & Goeke, 2006, as cited in Lim & Oei, 2015, pp. 376). Furthermore, Oakland, Black, Stanford, Nussbaum, and Balise (1998) highlights the constant drill, practice and repetition as essential features of the multisensory method to promote reading which might be built on the basis of repeated exposure. Tiger will also be introduced to the word webs strategy to improve his vocabulary. Word webs is a graphic organizer that help students construct vocabulary and increase understanding through associating words with important concepts (Lerner & Johns, 2015). A study by Sabbatino (2004) among students with learning disabilities found graphic organizer to be helpful in understanding reading materials and improve comprehension.

Emotional challenges

Tiger’s school experience is unhappy and he dislikes going to school. He might develop a sense of poor self-concept and low self-esteem as a result from the stress and frustration through continual failure mastering reading tasks in school. Intervention plan to target these emotional challenges hence emphasized on providing an environment that allows Tiger to be successful. Deshler and his colleagues (2009) found that students develop low self-esteem and self-confidence from the lack of success. Teachers can create a success environment using the errorless learning techniques and through the restructuring of tasks.

Errorless learning is designed to eliminate or reduce inaccurate responses as the child gains mastery over the task (Mueller, Palkovic, & Maynard, 2007). Fading is one of the common strategies in errorless learning where teacher provides students with lots of prompting at the beginning of the task and slowly reduces the help until the student is able to complete it independently (Johns, 2004, as cited in Lerner & Johns, 2015). It is important to acknowledge and recognize his accomplishments which helps increase his feeling of competence and self-worth acquired through the mastery of skills.

Academic tasks can also be restructured to allow choices for Tiger so it appears less intimidating and more fun for him as this allows a sense of power and control. Instead of asking him to copy word by word from the board, perhaps allow him to jot down the information in the form of picture or mind map. Teachers can also design activities on handout sheets that consists of all the necessary information. Strout (2005) indicated that building choices in classrooms improve on-task behavior and task completion. The use of assistive technology such as recorded textbooks or text-to-speech programs further allows Tiger to compensate his difficulties in reading problem-based math questions.

Behavioral challenges

It is noticed that Tiger exhibits certain avoidance behaviors such that he skips phonics assignments where he struggles with and refuses to attend school. Similarly, he remains quiet when it comes to reading in the class; while he is able to provide responses in other oral activities. It is thus important to evaluate his behavior through a functional behavioral assessment to find out the trigger the manifestation of Tiger’s avoidance behavior as well as possible factors contributing to such behavior before developing a suitable behavior intervention plan for him. It seems that Tiger had been avoiding himself from tasks related to reading, therefore teacher can focus on restructure the task to allow Tiger to complete the task such as breaking reading tasks into simpler and more workable chunks or provide extra time as necessary.

Strategies to change

Tiger’s avoidance behavior focus to increase positive behavior (Tiger participating in tasks) through reinforcement. The Premack principle for reinforcement will be used to develop his behavioral intervention plan. Hosie, Gentile, and Carroll (1974) explained Premack principle as a reinforcement principle that use more preferred behavior to reinforce less preferred behavior. One example will be using what he enjoys the most which is basketball as a reinforcer to motivate him to read (non-preferred activity). Study by Geiger (1996) found play to be an effective and cheap reinforcer of learning. Thus, basketball will be used as a reinforcer for Tiger where he will be allowed to get extra 10 minutes of play time whenever he completes or attempts any reading task.

Progress Monitoring

The recommendations for Tiger’s area of need will be included in his IEP. Annual measurable goals will be used to monitor his progress. Tiger’s academic progress will be measured based on his reading test results. It is expected that he will be able to improve his phonological ability by achieving a 10% increase in the number of alphabetic phonics that he can recognized as compared to his baseline. His vocabulary will determined by the number of new words he is able to remember at the end of the school year. Whereas his progress in the emotional and behavioral areas will be monitored through observations and measured through his participation in tasks related to reading. Teachers will have to note down the number of attempts Tiger try to participate in reading tasks and whether he handed in any of his phonics assignments. Furthermore, it is also important to note whether the reinforcer and accommodation in terms of assistive technology and restructuring of task works.