The Learning Academy is a private elementary school that provides students (grades second to sixth) the opportunity to learn techniques, by way of the Orton-Gillingham (OG) Approach, that will better assist them through their lifelong journey with their reading disability. Dyslexia is very hard to diagnose, but many of the students at this school are assumed to have this reading hindrance. Reading difficulties begin to arise and become recognizable in the first grade, which is why this outstanding school does not start until grade two.

Classroom Observation

I arrived at The Learning Academy a little before 7:50am. When I entered the classroom I noticed that the students were doing something different. Mrs. William said, “As you know, I have Mrs. Spencer’s students on Wednesday mornings because she has hall duty. I get tired of doing the same things and the students are too hyper. I decided last week to allow them to watch ‘The Magic School Bus’ videos while we wait. It keeps the quiet and calm.” The students remained in the classroom Mrs. Spencer came to get her students shortly after 8:00am, the time in which the school day begins.

Once the room cleared, Mrs. William’s students started OG instruction and I immediately pulled Hannah, my case study student. Mrs. William informed me that Hannah had been absent on Monday and Tuesday and today would be her first day back since then. Hannah came to the back table with droopy eyes so I said, “I will try to keep things fun today because I can tell that you do not feel well. Do you have a sore throat?” Hannah then proceeded to tell me all about her stomach bug that started affecting her Monday on the way to school. After about five minutes of a full explanation, Hannah and I dove straight into her intervention.

After I worked with Hannah, Mrs. William had my peer and I work on the hallway bulletin board. We took down the old and started the new. The old bulletin contained pictures and written explanations by the students of their last field trip to Wonder Works. We then hung the purple background and sunglasses boarder. We then came up with “Look at the Memories” for the title, and we cut out each individual letter using a machine in the teacher work room. We hung up the letters, and then Mrs. William told us that we would finish it next week when the students had the chance to write down their favorite memory.

The making of the bulletin board took over thirty minutes, and when we went back into the classroom Mrs. William had us taking turns teaching OG. I had the chance to give students three nonsense words. I wrote one of them on the Smart Board and then changed various parts of the word at different times. For example, one word was “thrunt” so changed it to “shrunt” and then to “shruned.” Each time I wrote the new word the students chorally read the word together. For the next two words, I only read it and the students wrote it down on their individual whiteboards. By the time both my partner and I took our turns and Mrs. William took hers, my day at The Learning Academy came to an end.

Classroom Reflection

My days at The Learning Academy are coming to an end this semester. I am trying to draw in as much information from my wonderful mentor as I can. I love being able to see the new things she is implementing both with her students and Mrs. Spencer’s. ‘The Magic School Bus’ videos are my favorite! Over the last year, I have noticed that teachers mainly use Brain Pop videos to help teach, introduce, or wrap up lessons. However, I think that the “old time” videos do an excellent job at explaining various concepts as well. I remember watching not only ‘The Magic School Bus,’ but also, ‘Bill Nye the Science Guy,’ and ‘Reading Rainbow.’ I may be biased because I grew up on these videos, but I think they are more enjoyable to watch than the short Brain Pop videos being widely implemented today. I told myself I long time ago that I would always show my old time favorites in my classroom- they explain content in great detail and their enjoyable for kids of all ages. Brain Pop is a great resource, but we cannot solely rely on this one resource.

Making bulletin boards is one of my favorite things to do. It is what I used to imagine being a teacher was about- just hanging out with kids, making bulletin boards, and doing arts and crafts. In high school, I was involved in a child development program. With this program, my teacher taught us how to do various things in the classroom- one being how to effectively and efficiently make a bulletin board. I am so glad I was taught how to do this because it is not a part of the curriculum in college. Making the bulletin board took long enough knowing how to do tricks to make it go faster; I can only imagine making one not ever doing it before. I love the idea Mrs. William had- thanks for the memories. However, after looking at the sunglasses boarder, I decided to change it to “Look at the memories.” Mrs. William did not seem to mind. That is one of the benefits of having another person help out in the classroom- you can bounce ideas at one another and you can pull thoughts that had never occurred to you before.

Giving the students nonsense words honestly made me nervous. I was afraid that I was going to say them wrong and, thus, look like a fool in front of the students. I was glad that the students were able to read the changed words because I had to think about how they sounded. As mentioned in the latter weeks, I was never given this opportunity as a child. To this day, I mispronounce words; they give me a headache, but reading nonsense words is even worse. I do not know all of the rules and being at The Learning Academy has just brought out the lack of awareness. However, I am grateful the experience and have become aware of how to implement these strategies in my own classroom- a child does not have to have dyslexia in order to benefit from this kind of instruction. Had I been instructed in this manner, I may have been a better reader.

Case Study Observations

Around 8:30am, I pulled Hannah from OG instruction and began my final assessment.

I collected three data points, and I explained each one in full detail in order to make sure that Hannah understood the expectations. The first activity I gave Hannah was a blending activity: I said individual sounds, then Hannah wrote the letter on the paper, and she said them together at the end (reading the whole word). For example, I would say the sounds, ‘b, o, y.’ Hannah would then say, “boy.” I did this eight times and Hannah got all except two correct. These two, however, contained sounds that various blends that Hannah has not been taught yet. The next activity required Hannah to do the same kind of the thing, but with chunking. For example, I said, “cr…ack,” and Hannah wrote, “crack.” Hannah received three of the five correct. The final assessment I gave Hannah was a substitution activity. For example, I said, “Write the first word, cave. Now change the ‘v’ sound to a ‘g.’” Hannah received all four correct. For all of the assessments, I only looked for the correct spelling on the skills that we have previously gone over (i.e. blends and diagraphs).

After we worked on the blending skills, I gave Hannah three book options for us to read. She could not decide between two of them so I read both. One of the books was, “Tops and Bottoms” written by, Janet Stevens; the second book, “Rocket Writes a Story” was written by, Tad Hills. I read “Tops and Bottoms” in a read aloud fashion- asking questions along the way and having Hannah read some parts along with me (choral reading). “Rocket Writes a Story” had various words that is on or below her expected Lexile level. For example, some of the words were wood, log, into, nest, book, down, etc. Hannah got all of the words correct (sixteen in total) except for one- she said ‘of’ instead of ‘on.’  

During OG instruction, I noticed that for ‘wind’ Hannah wrote ‘whind.’ I quietly went over to her and bent down and said, “We worked on this,” and I compared the ‘w’ sound to the ‘wh’ sound. After this brief review Hannah wrote down the correct spelling.

Case Study Reflection

Coming into Mrs. William’s classroom this morning, I knew that it was crucial for me to collect at least one more data point before giving her the spelling inventory again. My last time seeing Hannah is next Wednesday and I will be giving her the original spelling inventory from the second week. I needed some more data collections in order to build a strong portfolio during my final exam meeting. I have not worked with Hannah for the past two weeks due to various reasons. My supervising professor informed me, before today, that I should give Hannah the spelling inventory that way I can compare her growth in the time that I have worked with her. However, I wanted to do this final planned blending activity in order to have solid tangible evidence.

The only concern I have with Hannah is that she may not remember the earliest strategies we have worked on. For example, Hannah wrote, “crach” instead of “crack” on one of the blending activities. This is concerning because I know that I must administer the summative next week- the final week in which I will work with Hannah. If she performs poorly on this assessment, I do not want it to reflect back on me in the same manner. I want to see Hannah improve from the beginning to the end.

With next week being the last time, I am going to give Hannah her favorite candy, peppermint patties. I got the information from the interest inventory conducted the first time I saw her. I want to show her my appreciation for her hard work and willingness to work with me. I cannot wait to see her performance next week!