ARTIFACT #13: LEARNER BACKGROUND

(excerpt from Literacy Learner Case Study)

Artifact 13 demonstrates knowledge of the target students personal history/background that

provide insight on factors which may be profoundly affecting the target students path to
literacy: 1) He comes from a family/community located in low-income housing and qualifies for
free/reduced school meals. This indicates significantly limited finances that may curtail acquisition of
educational materials (e.g. books, school supplies for homework, enrichment opportunities). 2) He
has been hearing impaired since birth, and has a history of either not wearing his hearing aides
and/or waiting for hearing aides to be repaired. This indicates there are likely to be letter sounds he
simply cannot hear. 3) He lives with caregivers who are English Language Learners. This indicates
it is likely academic vocabulary is limited in the home.

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II. Home and Family

Ben is being raised by his biological mother. There has been no mention of

involvement of biological father. A baby brother was born last year. Mom works as counter-

help at a plate-lunch food venue located close to home, often at night. She also sometimes

attends classes at night. She lives with and turns to extended family for assistance with

childcare. The family lives in low-income housing within walking distance of Bens school. Comment [Office1]: Low-income community.

Ben usually walks to-and-from school in the company of his uncle or grandfather. It

regularly happens that no one comes to pick Ben up, and he is brought to the office to wait

for pick-up. There is a high-level of inconsistency with communication folder to-and-from

school (e.g. following through on homework, returning field trip forms, attending parent-

teacher conferences). However, when teacher makes direct requests via phone calls / text

messages, mom has been responsive in following-through with those specific requests. Mom

tries to stick to English when she speaks to Ben, but the extended family tends to speak more

Ilocano than English when at home. Comment [Office2]: Caregivers are ELL and tend to speak
their original language when at home.
 As a toddler, Ben was diagnosed to have hearing loss in both ears. He was provided Comment [Office3]: Hearing loss in both ears.

with hearing aids, however past teachers shared that he would refuse to wear the hearing

aids and would often break them. His cooperation improved during his Kindergarten year,

with implementation of structured behavior expectations.

IV. School Literacy History

There are three factors in Bens case that indicate he probably entered preschool with

less knowledge of vocabulary and phonemes than typical peers of his age-group. These

factors are 1) coming from a low-income home, 2) being an English Language Learner (ELL),

and 3) having bi-lateral hearing loss. Comment [Office4]: Effect on knowledge of vocabulary
and phonemes.

A study by Hart and Risley (2003) measured the number of words spoken to children in

three different income brackets. They concluded that by the time children reach the age of

three-years, those in taciturn low-income families had heard about 30-million less words than

those in upper-level income.

Based on assessment by school-level ELL program, Ben is at NEP level 10 (entering).

Though he converses in English easily at school with teachers and peers, at home mom is the

only family who speaks consistently in English with him. Students who are ELL typically

struggle with phonemes because not all sounds in English are represented in their native

language (Irujo, 2007). As many of Bens extended family do not speak English at home, Ben

has limited models for hearing the sounds of the English language. Comment [Office5]: Family does not speak English at
home.

Despite a year in preschool, by end of Kindergarten Ben was only able to identify 1/26

letters by sound. This significant delay in making sound-symbol correlation was attributed by

teachers and speech pathologists to his hearing loss and his opposition to wearing hearing
aides till the age of five. A study by Asker-Arnason, Wass, Gustafsson, & Sahlen adds a

slightly different viewpoint, namely that delays in developing letter/word recognition in

children with hearing aids (as compared to children of typical hearing and children with

cochlear implants) occur because those with hearing aids try to rely on phonological

strategies to a greater extent and thus not develop reading skills (2015). Those with more Comment [Office6]: Ramifications of being hearing
impaired w/hearing aides vs profound hearing loss.

profound hearing loss (the cochlear group) were thought to turn to orthographic cues earlier

when learning to decode. Orthographic cues, being visually based, avoid the compromised

audio route and provide a quicker path to fluency. This idea appears to make sense when

applied to Ben. Being moderately hearing impaired, he can hear some sounds so continues

to struggle to discriminate between sounds---for certain sounds this effort may eventually

prove fruitless, but for all sounds this effort takes considerable space in his working memory

and thus impedes the development of fluency (Asker-Arnason, et al. 2015).

This combination of low-income, ELL and hearing impairment places Ben in A Perfect Storm

of literacy challenges! Start-of-year testing for the current school year (first-grade) show that

Ben could identify 9/26 letters by name, 1/26 letters by sound, and was at reading level 1 of

the Rigby Reading Diagnostics Kit. He is in an RTI group with 3 other students, all of whom are

included on the grade-levels watch-and-monitor list and will receive some mid-cycle

assessment at least every 2-weeks. At the time of writing this part of the case study, RTI

cycles are scheduled for 6 weeks and Bens group is in middle of their first RTI-cycle. One of

the supports they are receiving during RTI sessions is direct reading instruction using a

resource called Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" (Englemann, Haddox, &

Bruner, 1983).