Cole is a 6-year-old kindergartener who likes to play baseball, swim, and kick the can. An initial assessment found that Cole could identify letters and sounds but struggled with concepts of print like punctuation. Over the course of lessons focusing on fluency, writing, and using strategies like rereading and word work, Cole made significant improvements in sight word recognition, writing formation and conventions, and using reading strategies independently. He progressed from a beginning instructional reading level to an ending level and showed growth in spacing, punctuation and capitalization in his writing.

1. Melissa Lehman & ColeKindergarten Spring 2009Case Study

2. Cole is six years old (Kindergarten).Has two younger siblings; Likes to play baseball, swim, kick the canConsiders himself a good reader and writerCole says, “Reading is when you read words and sound them out.”Does not know that reading tells us storiesMy thoughts: visual readerMeet Cole

3. Initial Assessment54/54 – Letter Identification

4. Can identify letters and sounds

5. 13-17 Concepts About Print

6. Difficulty with punctuationInitial AssessmentCole scored 23/40

7. “bed” for “did”Initial Assessment19 words in approx. 10 minutes

8. Began writing sentences

9. I felt rushed – probably not very accurate.Initial AssessmentCole identified all sounds he heard in words.

10. Cole’s writing is scrunched together.

11. Does not capitalize beginning of sentence

12. PunctuationOngoing AssessmentBeginning Instructional at B

13. Most of lessons at D

14. Ending Instructional at ELesson 1Fluency writing - words were too easy

15. Journal Writing – Did not relate this to familiar reading.

16. Introduction of New BookLesson 3Cole’s first attempt at rereading.

17. Commented on text

18. Reading for meaningLesson 3

19. Lesson 5Word Walk

20. Unfamiliar Words

21. Did not use strategies