Studying an individual student provided me with the opportunity to identify specific problems that the particular student have concerning difficulties in reading. By focusing on a specific student rather than a group, finer details of the problem are studied, identified and possible strategies for the solution implemented. In the case study, I was able to identify specifically that the struggling reader speaks Polish at home and English at school. This makes the student have difficulty reading English language which he studies as a second language. The student struggles to read because he has difficulty understanding phonics and phonemic awareness. Focusing on this one particular child allowed me to understand every detail of the background of the child, the language he speaks at home as well as interacting with his parents. This close interaction with the child as well as the parents helped me get deeper into understanding the main problem. Without having focused on an individual child, I would not have had the opportunity to understand that the child speaks a different language at home and only speaks English at school. Studying an individual child, therefore, helped in focusing deeper into the child, which provides an opportunity to understand the main problem.
Understanding the problem of the child struggling to read has changed the way I deal with problems that children face. In my future practice as a teacher, I will focus on a child by child study and get deeper into understanding their problem. It made me understand that children have different learning needs and abilities and therefore should not be generalized into groups. Also, it helped me understand that children who study and speak English as a second language are more likely to have problems understanding the phonic and phonemic awareness. As a result, such children will require special attention so that they can be helped to improve their reading abilities.
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The project assisted me to find new strategies to implement so that children with reading problems can be assisted. Having focused on every finer detail of the child including home background, it became easy for me to come up with new strategies that I could implement to help such children. Having known that the child speaks Polish at home and only studies English as a second language, reaching out to the family could be the first step in solving the problem. Reaching out to the family will require some special accommodations such as translator who will help the child translate materials from home language to English. Another strategy that the project helped me discover is the need to encourage good literacy at home. This can be done by sending materials and books to children at home so that they can do practice even after school hours. This will help them improve their reading skills. Therefore, the whole project accorded me the opportunity to identify certain best strategies that can help children with a reading problem to improve. These strategies will be useful in my future profession as a teacher, and I will apply them to help the struggling readers to improve their reading abilities.
Gaining a deeper understanding of an individual child helps in identifying students learning needs. Each child requires s different learning from another child and by focusing on the understanding of the individual child can help form instructions that are targeted towards those learning needs. Every teaching instruction should aim at improving the learning of the child by solving a particular learning problem that the child has. Hence, focusing on the individual child helps bring in understanding what exactly does the child needs and then from there, teaching instructions will be targeted towards that specific learning need. This will help improve teaching by coming up with the right instructions that are targeted towards the students learning needs. As a result, such teaching strategy will help the children overcome the particular learning problem that they have. For example, in this case, instructions will be targeted towards the learning need which is reading problem. As the teacher makes instructions, they will be directed towards meeting the learning needs of the children. This will help the children improve their reading skills and abilities. Studying and understanding an individual child is therefore useful in helping the teacher come up with instructions that are specifically targeted towards the identified learning need of the child.
The case study helped understand that not all children have the same learning abilities and not all have the same problem in learning. Each child has own learning need and problems that are different from others. While some children have reading problems because they study English as a second language, other have writing and spelling problem. As a result, I understood that children should not be grouped as one, but each child should be identified by individual need and given a different instruction that is aimed at solving that specific problem. This calls for the need of the teachers to use differentiated instructions that are aimed at helping each and every child learn. It also requires the use of different teaching styles which should be used interchangeably while explaining concepts. This will ensure that all children have the opportunity to grasp the concept being taught. While other children are slow learners, others learn faster, and therefore different teaching strategies must be used to accommodate all the categories of children and ensure that at the end of the lesson, all different categories of children have learned something.
This has changed my thinking and understanding of the need to use differentiated instructions while teaching children. Differentiated instructions may involve teaching the children the same material to all the students using a variety of instructional strategies ( Aftab, 2016 ). It may also involve delivering lesson at varying levels of difficulty based on the ability and learning needs of each student. Lessons can be designed based on the learning styles of students, grouping the learners based on their interests or continually adjust and assess lesson content to meet the needs of individual student needs. This will be useful in ensuring that each category of children is not left behind during learning. Differentiated instructions will ensure that each student is engaged in learning and that there is a room for all children to learn and understand the concept. One major advantage of differentiated instruction is that learners are given more options on how they can learn the same material, and each option will benefit the learner based on the learning need and ability of that particular learner ( Tomlinson & Imbeau , 2014). It is thus the best option to use rather than grouping learners as one because all children are different and have different learning needs and abilities.
My coursework at Touro College equipped me with relevant skills and abilities that are useful in studying and understanding the learning needs of the children. The concepts on the need to understand the children individually rather than as a group equipped me with the necessary knowledge to understand that a teacher needs to study each child individually so that they can identify the learning need and the problem each student has before coming up with appropriate strategies to help that student improve. The coursework also provided me with research skills that enabled me to conduct a research on the individual child so that I could understand the root course of the reading problem. At the end of the research, I learned that the child is studying English as a second language and that the reason why he struggles to understand phonics and phonemic awareness. The techniques acquired in the writing helped me understand how to write my case study in a way that could be understood by the reader. As a result of the course, I can effectively conduct a case study on the children and identify a specific problem that the particular student has before identifying possible solutions.
After conducting this case study, I would consider doing a few things differently so that I can improve in certain areas. First, I would define my subject of study. A case study focuses on a single individual or event. I would be appropriate to define the subject of the study and then find the specific details and description of the subject affected. This would make the case study more comprehensive. Also, I would use a combination of both prospective and retrospective research. While I will be conducting a fresh research by finding a child to study, it would also be important to consider how the same issues have applied in the past. Here, I will focus on how learning English as a second language in the past has affected the reading abilities of learners. This would provide a great and broader analysis of the problem by not only relying on the current problem but also analyzing how the same problem has affected children in the past. This will enhance the formation of new strategies to solve the problem.
References
Aftab, J. (2016). Teachers’ beliefs about differentiated instructions in mixed ability classrooms: A case of time limitation. Journal of Education and Educational Development , 2 (2), 94-114.
Tomlinson, C. A., & Imbeau, M. B. (2014). A Differentiated Approach to the Common Core: How do I help a broad range of learners succeed with a challenging curriculum? ASCD.
