Reflection on Case Study Experience
Before this experience I knew very little about teaching reading. In fact, when people asked me what grades I want to teach I would say older grades because I do not want to teach students how to read. Of course, looking back now, I realize that reading is in everything. It is a fundamental knowledge and skill set that forms a basis of higher-level learning. Working with XXXX and learning more about the assessment and intervention process has given me a whole new perspective on the importance of teaching reading and has provided me with a base of skills to develop as a reading teacher.
I have learned that there are many different elements of reading. We used many different assessments throughout the case study process including ones on phonemic awareness, phonics, spelling, fluency, and comprehension. I learned that reading can be broken down into these many parts. This means that it is important to find out which area of reading a student needs more development in to be able to help them. Interventions should be targeted to the specific area a student needs more instruction in. Reading books over and over again with no clear goal or focus may give the student practice with reading but will not yield as much progress.
This case study process has also provided me with great experience in writing instructional objectives based on a particular student. After administering the assessments to XXXX I had to see which areas she was proficient in and where she was still developing. From there I targeted a specific skill to focus on in intervention lessons. As the lessons progressed I came up with different ways to teach the same skill, but I also focused on trying to meet the objective I set for myself, teaching XXXX to effectively use a decoding strategy.
If I could do this whole process over again I would have a better idea about what to look for throughout assessments. I administered all of the assessments to XXXX but was really unsure about what the results meant and what I should focus on in interventions. It wasn’t until I put together my case study presentation that I realized how all of my data fit together and how to move forward. Hindsight, I could’ve come up with more intervention activities to reinforce the results in the presentation.