A Reader Case Study Presented to

Lota Largavista, PhD

Course Instructor

University of St. La Salle

Bacolod City

In Partial Fulfillment

Of the Requirements of the Subject

Remedial Instruction in English

Aredonia, Irish Joy A.

Panes, Caroline Y.

March 7, 2018
 English Language Learner (Student’s Profile)

Name of Student: Emmanuel Jude O. Navarro

Age: 13 years old
Grade & Section: Grade 7- Eagle
English Teacher: Ms. Perla Rojo
Previous School: Montevista Elementary School
Address: St. Jude St. Brgy. Villamonte, Bacolod City.
Name of Mother: Riza Navarro
Name of Father: Romel Navarro
Language used at home: Hiligaynon
Favorite Subject/s: Science, English and Filipino
Subjects he find difficult: Math
Week 1 (January 30, 2018)-Friday

In January 30, 2018 we went to Luis Hervias National High School and selected a student
who needs remediation with the guidance of the Head of English Department there. She assigned
us to Ms. Rojo an English teacher of Grade 7 section Eagle. After Ms. Rojo reads our letter she
was the one who took our participant. We interviewed the child and we have gathered
information about him. His name is Emmanuel Jude O. Navarro an enthusiastic, 13-year old boy
currently enrolled in seventh grade section Eagle at Luis Hervias National High School, Bacolod
City. He lives with both of his parents, Riza and Romel Navarro in St. Jude Street, Brgy.
Villamonte, Bacolod City together with his 3 siblings. According to Emmanuel both his parents
work outside the home. Hiligaynon is Emmanuel’s first language and also Hiligaynon is the
language that they are using at home. He has several friends and Emmanuel seems to have close
and positive friendships with his friends.
Outside of school, Emmanuel enjoys basketball and riding a bicycle together with his
friends and classmates, helping his family at home and playing with his younger siblings.
Emmanuel reports that he likes to play and read book sometimes. According to him his favourite
subjects are Science, English and Filipino. In fact, when he was elementary at Montevista
Elementary School in Brgy. Villamonte he was ranked seven in their section. If Emmanuel could
be granted three wishes they would be: to have money so his mom and dad can have a new
house, to become a doctor when he grows up so that he could help his parents in sending his
younger siblings in school. When interviewing Emmanuel, his closeness with his family really
showed through. He speaks frequently and warmly about his family and shows special interest
and kindness toward his siblings.
For us Emmanuel is a dedicated student and that he considered our case study conducted
to him as serious. We can feel his excitement whenever we would visit to his school and would
ask him that if it is his free time he would gladly said yes and he will be the one to look for a
venue where we can sit comfortably and talked about the activities. Our impressions of
Emmanuel are that he is a well-loved child from a supportive family who want him to do well in
school. He also wants to do well and is interested in learning. He is a cheerful, kind and polite
child.

Week 2 (February 7, 2018)-Wednesday

In week 2, Emmanuel has attended every observation sessions that we have conducted
even if it is in class or face to face observation. Actually, Ms. Perla Rojo his English teacher told
us that Emmanuel performs well in her class and he also got an average grade from Ms. Rojo
although sometimes he got shy performing or reciting in front of his classmates. We cannot
record a video of how Emmanuel behaves in the class because his English teacher Ms. Rojo
doesn’t give permission to us. Emmanuel shows excellent focus and tries his best for all the
activities that we had given to him. He willingly tries all the activities that we presented to him
and gives them good effort. Emmanuel is a polite and inquisitive student and an engaged student
during tutoring. He asks questions which are related to the activities and is very seldom off task.
 Even when the activity is difficult, Emmanuel is persistent in his work and effort. He
shows interest in learning new things through asking questions when he doesn’t understand the
instructions or some words and trying to apply what he learned in the previous sessions.
According to his English teacher, Ms. Perla Rojo, the child is an average student when it comes
to academics but there are still areas needing remediation. Since we don’t have any idea on how
the child perform in reading, writing, and in vocabulary, we have decided to conduct a reading
exercise to know what areas needed remediation in our participant.
We let Emmanuel read a short paragraph that we have searched in the internet and we
have noticed that there are some mispronounced words that Emmanuel committed. Like for
example the word “excellent” he pronounced it as “exscilint”, the word “Canadyan” instead of
“Canadian”, “ferly” instead of “fairly”, “every” instead of ‘very” and last is “desirible” instead of
“desirable”. As we can see, Emmanuel has really a problem in reading the word that has a vowel
sound. We have also noticed that while Emmanuel read the paragraph, he didn’t pause when
there is a comma and didn’t stop when there is a period so we corrected him and we let him
understand the role of comma and period in a sentence or paragraph. After the reading session,
we have conducted a spelling to test Emmanuel’s ability to spell words correctly and these are
the words that we have taken in the paragraph: reasons, excellent, receive, great, service, fairly,
elevated, continue, desirable and motivated. Out of 10 Emmanuel got 7 and these are the words
that he spelled incorrect: recieve, disirable and mutivated. For the spelling, as we can see that
Emmanuel really struggles on what should be the correct vowel to use in every words.

Oral Language Summary Profile Using SOLOM

TRAITS SCORE

Understands most of what is

A. Comprehension 3 said at slower-than-normal
speed with repetitions.

Usually hesitant: often forced

B. Fluency 2 into silence by language
limitations.

Student frequently uses wrong

C. Vocabulary 3 words: conversation somewhat
limited because of inadequate
vocabulary.

Pronunciation problems
D. Pronunciation 3 necessitate concentration on
the part of the listener and
occasionally lead to
misunderstanding.
 Makes frequent errors of
E. Grammar 3 grammar and word order that
occasionally obscure meaning.

TOTAL SCORE: 14/25

(14+1) X 4.0= 18
Phase II (12-18) Emmanuel got 18

Reporting the SOLOM Results

The assessment we conducted on Emmanuel was a SOLOM. The SOLOM is a rating scale that
assessors can use to assess students’ command of oral language on the basis of what they
observe. The assessor matches a student’s language performance in five areas –comprehension,
fluency, vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar – to descriptions on a five-point scale for each.
The SOLOM is sufficiently generic to be applicable to other languages besides English. The
SOLOM is not commercially published. It was originally developed by the San Jose Area
Bilingual Consortium and has undergone revisions with leadership from the Bilingual Education
Office of the California Department of Education. It is within the public domain and can be
copied, modified, or adapted to meet local needs.
We have observed Emmanuel in their class. Some activities that Ms. Rojo discussed and
gave to them is sequencing in which it refers to the identification of the components of a story —
the beginning, middle, and end — and also to the ability to retell the events within a given text in
the order in which they occurred. Another activity is Story Mapping wherein Ms. Rojo gave a
copy of the story to her students “The Ant Hunter by Joy A. Lopez. She gave worksheet to her
students and they will fill in the Characters, Setting, problem, 3 main events and the resolution.
Overall Emmanuel’s oral skills are somewhat good. He answered some question quite
fluently, there was a few times when we noticed him searching and asking us for the right word
to say and even asked us to assist him. On the comprehension section of the SOLOM, We
assigned Emmanuel a three. When we asked him questions he seemed to understand what we
were saying for the most part. There were a few questions that he seemed confused about and we
had to clarify or translate it to Hiligaynon to be able for him to understand it. Like for example,
in week 3 we let him read the story “Alice in Wonderland” and the question is “Who was in the
middle of the field and what did she ask Alice?” Emmanuel asked us if it okay to translate the
question into Hiligaynon because he doesn’t understand fully the question.

On the fluency section, we assigned Emmanuel a two. For us Emmanuel’s overall

fluency somehow hindered him to participate fully in academic activities because he thinks that
his answer is wrong. For the student’s vocabulary, we assigned him a 3, if the teacher will used
unfamiliar English as an instruction to Emmanuel, he will find it difficult to understand because
of an inadequate vocabulary. On the pronunciation section, we assigned Emmanuel a three. His
words were clearly English but he still had a more Hiligaynon accent. And lastly, on the
grammar section, we assigned Emmanuel a three. He tended to mix up verb tenses when he was
explaining or retelling a story to us, which caused us to really have to pay attention to his speech
to understand his meaning.

Week 3 (February 12, 2018)-Monday

During week 3 we let Emmanuel read the story “The Centipede” and we record his
reading with a supported video document. Emmanuel mispronounced lots of words and because
of that, we gave a spelling exercise to him and his score was five over ten. The mispelled words
are: beating he spelled it as beeting; swelled he spelled it as sweld; tramped he spelled it as
trumpt; fiercely he spelled it as fairsly; outraged he spelled it as outrange. However the words
that he spelled correctly are: shotgun; gliding; barrel; whispered and accused. We also note how
he reads that he didn’t pause when there is a comma and stop when there is a period. We
believed that Emmanuel knows already the role of comma and period because in the first reading
session we told him already that there is no problem of his reading except of how he pause and
stop when there is comma and period in a sentence and we explain it to him well. We thought
Emmanuel is just pressured because while he was reading we video him for the purpose of
documentation and that is the reason why Emmanuel read it fast without considering the comma
and period.
We found out that Emmanuel’s largest area of need for Instruction in phonics is in the
vowel digraphs, especially in producing the correct vowel pattern for spelling. Emmanuel did not
always read to the end of the word and frequently dropped endings (most notably –ed ending
which indicates past tense and endings following an apostrophe) this would indicate that he is
sometimes guessing based on the initial word pattern. He made similar errors on the word lists
such as reading "sight'" instead of "sighted". He has also difficulty on reading that has the vowel
sound of /e/, like for example “chest” he reads it as chist, felt he reads it as “filt” and “keen” he
reads it as “ken”. Another problem of producing of vowel sound /a/, like for example the word
“hate” he pronounced it as “heat”, and words end with –ed like surprised, dropped and stopped,
when he was reading he didn’t emphasize reading the–ed, he reads it as surprise, drop and stop.

Week 4 (February 20, 2018)-Tuesday

During fourth week, we let Emmanuel read the story “Alice in Wonderland”. Emmanuel
read at a good rate but has the problem to read it fluently especially those who have a vowel
sound. His speed decreased as the passages became more difficult but he remained within the
targets for his age and grade. He showed some prosody when reading but often his reading was a
little flat in tone but he is trying his best to read it with expression. We let Emmanuel read the
story loud so that we can note his mispronounced words and punctuations on how he delivers it
correctly. For the “Alice in Wonderland” we prepared questions so that we can test how
Emmanuel understand what he is reading and comprehend them, we also required Emmanuel to
retell Alice in Wonderland after his reading. For some questions, Emmanuel told us that if it is
okay that if we can translate some questions into Hiligaynon so that he can answer it. For the
retelling of the story, Emmanuel has the difficulty of reciting it orally and as a future teacher, we
have to consider it. What we did was we let Emmanuel wrote his answers in a paper and after
that he will read his answers loudly. Emmanuel answers the questions correctly and
comprehensively. Like for example, “Who was in the middle of the field and what did she ask
Alice?” His answer was, “The Queen of Hearts, Have you ever played croquet”.
We think that Emmanuel understands the question but has the difficulty of connecting the
sentences because he doesn’t have deeper understanding about conjunctions or the one that
connects the words or sentences. For the retelling of the story “Alice in Wonderland” he retells it
well, he took the important events that happened in the story and because we let him wrote his
answers we saw his construction of his sentences. Like for example, “And alice walk she saw the
queen play a croquet and said the queen” when we look back to the rules of grammar, the noun
must come first before the verb it should be “and the Queen said”. Another is the capitalization
of Alice; it should capitalize because it is a proper noun.

Week 5 (February 27, 2018) Tuesday

During fifth week we collected the writing sample of Emmanuel. We will use his
activities from their English class which is Story Map where their teacher assigned them the
story and the students will identify story characters, plot, setting, problem and solution. We will
also use the activities that we have conducted to him. We prepared stories and questions for
Emmanuel. This activity will test Emmanuel’s writing on how he constructs sentences, how he
used punctuations and capitalizations.

SCORE BASED ON STUDENT’S PERFORMANCE

Student Written Language Observation Matrix
(SWLOM)

TRAITS SCORE

A. Fluency Writes short sentences with

2 limited sentence structure.

Somewhat sequenced to
B. Organization 3 substantially sequenced.

Basic word order problems,

C. Grammar 2 uses only present tense form.
 Limited vocabulary relies on
D. Vocabulary 2 1st language for translation.

Chooses form to suit purpose

E. Genre 3 but limited in choice of forms.

F. Sentence Variety 2 Uses one or two sentence

patterns.

TOTAL SCORE: 14/24

(14+1) x 4.0 = 18
Phase III: Score 16-19 = Limited English Proficient

The assessment of the story mapping and reading comprehension, which was conducted as
possible, shows that the students in in Phase III (Limited English Proficient). According to the
rated matrix, Emmanuel scored 2 in Fluency, 3 in Organization, 2 in Grammar, 2 in Vocabulary,
3 in Genre, and 2 in Sentence Variety with total points of 15.

Reflection on SWLOM

When we first approached Emmanuel, the child who participated in this assessment, we
thought that this child really needs remediation in English because he speaks frequently and he
doesn’t even participate in the class discussion. We found out, that this child is somehow an
average student after collecting a writing sample and asking him a few questions. He speaks
Hiligaynon at home and at school, so he does not feel confident to speak in English if he doesn’t
have to. This factor made us come to the assumption that he did not know English very well, but
it was not the case. Although he is not fluent in English, he understands almost everything that is
communicated verbally, as long as the speaker talks in at a “normal” speed and there is not a lot
of background noise or conversation. He also is able to communicate verbally in English, and
although correct grammar and verb tense is not concise, Emmanuel is able to pronounce the
English words he knows clearly and has enough of a vocabulary to verbally communicate his
main ideas.

This experience has enlightened us to keep an open mind and approach each student with
a non-judgmental frame of mind. This way of thinking will better equip us to meet the students
where they are and not where I think they should be.
Conclusions

We believe his reading will improve with explicit instruction in two primary areas:
comprehension strategies and academic vocabulary. As outlined above, Emmanuel needs to have
the invisible made visible. He needs to learn the discrete skills of proficient readers such as
predicting, questioning, seeking clarification, and summarizing as well as learning when to use
them. He also needs to learn how different texts are organized and the role of transition words
and - other structures which guide comprehension. Emmanuel also needs a great deal of
vocabulary instruction and extra support to access the curriculum in the content areas. This
vocabulary instruction needs to focus on academic language and expressing ideas in an academic
way. This would include learning to take a position and provide supporting arguments, explain
narratives in terms of setting, characters, problem and solution, summarizing text effectively, and
comparing and contrasting to things or situations. Ideally, this instruction would be one-on-one,
or in as small a group as possible, so that Emmanuel can participate. Developing Emmanuel’s
comprehension, vocabulary, and expressive language functions are all areas that will take time
and persistence in order to see results.
Though Emmanuel has some minor phonics holes as outlined above, we believe this
should not be the focus of his instruction. He reads with acceptable accuracy and fluency.
However, Emmanuel does need to work on developing spelling skills so that he can “show what
he knows” more effectively. He struggles to write words with the appropriate vowel patterns
frequently and I think his problems with spelling make it difficult for him to communicate
effectively through writing. This certainly needs to be addressed as he will be required to write
more and more as he advances through the grades. Any opportunity to forge a reading/writing
connection in his subject areas should be taken. We think that Emmanuel would benefit from a
mentor (a college graduate or college student) who could act as a resource and guide for how to
be a successful student, help with homework, provide enrichment and help him continue to see
school as a place that is both important and a place where he can eventually excel. Emmanuel’s
strengths such as his positive attitude and persistence in hard work can take him far.
References:
https://sites.google.com/site/languageassessmenthandbook/home/-solom-assessment-
81345572-state-requirements-and-policies-for-assessing-english-language-learners-cela
http://docushare.everett.k12.wa.us/docushare/dsweb/Get/Document-
43286/Guidelines%20for%20SOLOM.pdf
cirt.gcu.edu/research/developmentresources/tutorials/researchdesigns