Mastering+the+Challenge+of+Reading

==Jerrod is a twelve-year-old seventh grader enrolled in a large middle school. He experienced a great deal of success during his elementary school years. His parents report that Jerrod could recite the alphabet by age three and seemed to relish his time playing rhyming games. He experienced little difficulty learning that speech sounds correspond to letters and letter combinations.==

==A review of his records indicates that Jerrod’s word decoding and reading comprehension were at grade level in elementary school. Jerrod took great pleasure in going to the library every week with his grandparents to pick out books to read.==

==Currently, however, Jerrod is struggling with the reading demands placed upon him. Ms. Xavier, his English teacher, states that Jerrod’s grades for the current nine weeks are not up to her expectations. He is receiving low Cs and high Ds in her unit on American Poets. Most of the activities require Jerrod to write his interpretations of various poems. Ms. Johnson, Jerrod’s science teacher, reports that he is experiencing a great deal of difficulty understanding the seventh grade Earth Science textbook. She says that Jerrod sounds like a great reader because he can sound out and re-blend even the lengthiest and most difficult of science terms. Yet she believes that he comprehends very little of the important information that he reads. Jerrod seems to understand more if material presented in the text is preceded by a classroom discussion or combined with experiments or other hands-on experiences. Mr. Rockford, Jerrod’s World History teacher, reports a similar situation in his class. Jerrod reads his history text fluently, but he doesn’t seem to understand and remember the big picture when tested on it later.==

==Jerrod’s mother and grandparents are beginning to worry because Jerrod looks frustrated when his homework requires him to do a lot of independent reading. Recently, he said, “I don’t know why I can’t answer the questions or write the report because I read every word!”==

Adapted from All Kinds of Minds (n.d.). Resources, Case Studies, Mastering the Challenges of Reading, Jerrod – 8th grade. Retrieved from June 21, 2008 http://allkindsofminds.org/CategoryAll.aspx?section#CaseStudy