Case study: Tom, aged 8 years with dyslexic difficulties

Tom, who is in Y3 (P4), was referred to a specialist teacher(1) as he was struggling in the classroom even when provided with a support programme (based on ‘sat pin’). He found it difficult to construct CVC words and it was suspected that a major part of his difficulties involved Working Memory. Tom also had problems with long term memory, in particular recalling sight words.

It was decided to use the Dyslexia Portfolio for a more detailed assessment and this was administered in conjunction with GL Assessment’s British Picture Vocabulary Scale (2nd Edition) as this assessment of receptive vocabulary is used by the school on a regular basis.

Tom’s summary of results is given below.

 

The difference between general ability and achievement in the sub-tests can clearly be seen, resulting in a Dyslexia Index of C. Tom’s specialist teacher says:

‘At this index level I would recommend a 1:1 specialist support programme. I find using the general ability score to judge the depth of the problem very useful. Although his general ability was ‘lower average’ (standardised score 88) most of the other results showed ‘well below average’ (standardised score usually 69). Tom did not show particular ‘strengths’ which I would usually design a support programme around – in order to support weaker areas. However, I did have some further information to use. This was because of the 1:1 nature of the Portfolio assessment – and the habit I have of always taking notes – so we are not just looking at the result of a test but how the student tackles it and the type of strategies or errors made.’

Tom’s teacher noticed during the assessment a possible visual discrimination problem, for instance: he read ‘q’ for ‘y’ in the ‘reading speed’ task; when tackling non-words he read ‘fab’ instead of ‘fap’; during the single word reading test he sounded out ‘dress’ as ‘b’ ‘r’ ‘s’ ‘s’.

Regarding phonological awareness Tom was unable to delete phonemes, and the task just seemed to confuse him, for instance, when asked to delete ‘flat’ from ‘flatpack’ he said ‘flatclack’ indicating there might also be a problem with verbal memory.

A weakness in working memory (temporarily storing and manipulating information) was picked up during non-word reading. Tom could say the sounds for the letters but then said a word which contained only a few of the correct letters e.g. ‘pig’ instead of ‘pake’. He also found it extremely difficult to say digits backwards, while digits forwards was successful only with a maximum of three digits, by analogy indicating he might only be able to ‘hold’ three letters at a time.

There was also over emphasis of sounding out as a reading strategy, which might have linked to the ‘sat pin’ remedial approach. Occasionally, however, he would ‘chunk’ words e.g. reading ‘ch’ ‘in’ then blending to form ‘chin’. It was also notable that he had an extremely low sight word store.

When performing the spelling task Tom could identify and write down some correct graphemes, however, when he had the additional burden of trying to write fast, compose and spell (free writing task) he reverted to writing down mostly random letters with no spaces in between.

Further Assessment

As the Dyslexia Portfolio indicated that the student had not broken the alphabetic code regarding matching sounds to letters it was decided to use the Active Literacy Kit Placement Test (Dyslexia Action) which highlighted the following difficulties:

  • Letter confusion (shapes)
  • Difficulty matching sounds to letters
  • Knowledge of alphabet (e.g. vowels, letter names)

Teaching Programme

Looking at the assessments the following key areas were identified to target in a ‘going back to the basics’ teaching programme:

  • Memory (auditory and visual, to include sequential memory)
  • Developing a sight word store
  • Securing phoneme-grapheme correspondence
  • Alphabetic knowledge

CD Roms

Initially CD ROMs were used to extend auditory and visual memory:

  • Eye Track (Semerc)
  • Click Hear One (Semerc)

‘Eye Track’ primarily enhances visual discrimination/memory and is based on an escaped criminal theme. Discriminating the orientation of keys to unlock the cell was a useful practise for b/d type difficulties. Visual/auditory memory was trained using the car park activity where the student had to remember the order that the vehicles had parked (an auditory clue was provided as the vehicles made different sounds).

‘Click Hear One’ concentrates on auditory memory and discrimination and supports phase 1 of letters and sounds. However, the activities are also suitable for older children and boys – as the themes are ‘vehicles’, ‘musical instruments’ and ‘treasure island’. All of the activities are very well structured with auditory help when needed, allowing Tom to increase his independence and confidence. Using the programme he learnt to discriminate between similar sounds and repeat a sequence (e.g. when different musical instruments played in turn).

I introduced a further CD ROM into my teaching program ‘Nessy tales’ (Net Educational Systems). This provides talking books on CD ROM accompanied by paper-based books. The aim was to use the ‘paired reading’ approach to increase Tom’s enjoyment of reading by supporting his endeavours. This approach encouraged him to read words ‘by sight’ instead of using the ‘sounding out strategy’ which wasn’t working for him at that time.

2) Active Literacy Kit (7hours of lessons)

The Active Literacy Kit is designed to aid fluency by using timed tasks. There is also much over learning and progression is undertaken in small steps. To secure the basics the following exercises were used:

  • Alphabet recital
  • No name Alphabet Card Sequence (picture cards with numbers on them to aid sequencing of the alphabet)
  • Picture-Sound Alphabet Sequence (student encouraged to listen to initial sound in word and reproduce it e.g. apple ‘a’, bat ‘b’)
  • Matching Lower Case Letters to No Name Alphabet Cards (wooden letters helped highlight orientation difficulties)
  • Counting in Twos (2-26 with Number Card, then number counters, finally saying the sequence without any aids)

Tom enjoyed the activities, particularly as he could see the gains he was making.

Evaluation of Teaching Programme

Nessy Tales:

At the beginning of the program Tom could read 12 of the words from the story fluently (any that he self-corrected were not counted as fluent). At the end of the program he had increased this to 20 words. This was a significant gain as he generally found it very difficult to recall high frequency words.

The Active Literacy Kit:

The Active Literacy Placement test completed at the end of the programme, showed:

  • Significantly better alphabet recital
  • Phonically correct sounds for 19 letters (presented in random order) compared with 11 beforehand.
  • Reciting 2s up to 32 before making a mistake, previously up to 12.
  • Alphabet was being used as a support strategy (when asked to write letters he said them in order)
  • Writing letters in order 23 written correctly (including orientation), 4 done correctly previously.
  • Sequencing and orientating lower case alphabet all in correct order, 5 incorrectly orientated. Beforehand only could do 5 correctly before giving up.

  • Spelling single words 3 correct, beforehand none

Finally

The specialist teacher comments

‘I hope by providing this case study it will encourage you to use the Dyslexia Portfolio as a starting point to devise an individualised teaching programme. Concentrate on identifying strengths and weaknesses and make notes as you perform the assessment to see strategies the student is using. It is also important to tackle the basics first and take small steps in order to increase the student’s confidence rather than using a ‘scatter gun’ approach.’

 

Footnotes:

(1) Julie Yaxley holds Approved Teacher Status (ATS) from the British Dyslexia Association