Student Profile

Name: Olivia
Pronouns: she/her
Grade Level: 3rd Grade
Background: Olivia is a highly motivated and cooperative student who enjoys learning, particularly hands-on activities and science. However, she has consistently demonstrated significant challenges with reading since late 1st grade. Her teachers observe that she reads slowly and often mispronounces words, especially multi-syllabic ones. She frequently rereads sentences to gain meaning, which further slows her pace. Olivia expresses frustration during independent reading tasks, often stating, “I can’t read this fast enough.” Her parents are concerned about reading development and her declining confidence in school. 

Initial Assessment Data

• Universal Screener (Fall): Olivia scored in the 8th percentile for oral reading fluency (ORF) and 15th percentile for reading comprehension for her grade level, indicating substantial deficits.
• Previous Year’s State Assessment (ELA): Olivia did not meet grade-level expectations in reading.
• Classroom Performance: Struggles with decoding new words in texts at grade level. Comprehension is low when reading independently; requires read-alouds or significant scaffolding to understand grade-level texts. Olivia avoids reading aloud in class.
• Diagnostic Assessment (Woodcock-Johnson IV Tests of Achievement – Reading Cluster): Revealed specific weaknesses in:
  • Basic Reading Skills (Word Attack, Letter-Word Identification) – particularly with vowel teams, consonant blends, and decoding multi-syllabic words.
  • Reading Fluency (Oral Reading) – slow rate, frequent errors (substitutions, omissions).
  • Reading Comprehension (Passage Comprehension) – difficulty identifying main idea, recalling details, and making inferences.

Reading Difficulties

Olivia’s primary reading difficulties stem from underlying needs in phonics and phonological awareness, which directly impact her decoding skills and, subsequently, her reading fluency. Her slower and inaccurate decoding prevents her from reading at a rate that supports comprehension. This leads to Olivia’s  decreased reading motivation.

Skills Identified for Intervention

1. Phonics: Inconsistent application of phonics rules, particularly with complex vowel patterns (e.g., ou, ea, igh), diphthongs, and common affixes. Difficulty breaking down multi-syllabic words.
2. Phonological Awareness: Weakness in phoneme segmentation and blending, especially with longer words.
3. Reading Fluency: Significantly below grade-level norms in words correct per minute (WCPM) and accuracy.
4. Reading Comprehension: Difficulty with explicit recall of information and inferential thinking when reading independently.

Tier 3 Intervention Plan

Goal: By the end of 12 weeks, Olivia will increase her oral reading fluency to 85 WCPM (from 50 WCPM) with 95% accuracy on grade-level passages and demonstrate 70% accuracy on reading comprehension questions (main idea, key details) on weekly probes.

Intervention Strategy

• Name of Intervention: Structured Literacy for Fluency and Comprehension (SLFC) – An intensive, explicit, systematic, and cumulative approach focusing on foundational reading skills.
• Frequency: 5 sessions per week.
• Duration: 40 minutes per session.
• Group Size: Individual (one-on-one with the reading specialist).
• Materials:
• Phonological Awareness: Elkonin boxes, manipulatives for blending/segmenting.
• Phonics: High-quality, decodable texts aligned with phonics instruction, word lists, flashcards for common patterns.
• Fluency: Repeated reading passages (fiction and non-fiction), reader’s theater scripts, word-per-minute timers.
• Comprehension: Graphic organizers, comprehension strategy cards (e.g., visualizing, questioning), short informational and narrative texts.

Key Instructional Components

1. Phonological Awareness & Phonics (15 minutes):

• Daily focus on advanced phonological awareness skills (e.g., segmenting multi-syllabic words, manipulating phonemes).
• Explicit instruction of specific phonics patterns (e.g., vowel teams, common prefixes/suffixes) using a structured literacy scope and sequence. Practice blending and decoding words containing these patterns.

1. Fluency Building (15 minutes):

• Repeated Reading: Olivia reads a short, decodable passage aloud multiple times (typically 3-4 times) with corrective feedback and modeling from the specialist, aiming for increased speed and accuracy.
• Phrase-Cued Reading: Passages marked with slashes to encourage fluent phrasing and intonation.
• High-Frequency Word Practice: Targeted practice with irregular high-frequency words.

1. Comprehension Strategies (10 minutes):

• Explicit instruction and practice of comprehension strategies (e.g., identifying main idea, summarizing, asking questions, making predictions) using graphic organizers.
• Discussion of texts, relating content to Olivia’s background knowledge and the real world
• Progress Monitoring: Weekly fluency probes to monitor progress
• Oral Reading Fluency (ORF): 1-minute timed reading of grade-level passages (different passages each week), scored on WCPM and accuracy.
• Reading Comprehension: 5 multiple-choice or short-answer questions related to the weekly ORF passage, scored on accuracy.
• Charting: Data will be charted weekly to visualize progress and determine responsiveness to the intervention.
• Formative Assessments: Ongoing anecdotal notes regarding Olivia’s decoding strategies, engagement during repeated readings, and ability to apply comprehension strategies
• Intervention Personnel (part of the collaborative team)
• Reading Specialist (certified and trained in structured literacy/dyslexia interventions).
• Regular collaboration between the reading specialist and Olivia’s classroom teacher to ensure consistency and facilitate transfer of skills. is essential.

Implementation and Progress Monitoring

Weeks 1-4: Focus on Foundational Phonics and Fluency Basics

• Observation: Olivia struggled initially with decoding complex vowel teams but showed improvement with consistent, explicit instruction. Repeated reading practice was slow for Olivia, but accuracy gradually increased.
  • Data:
    • ORF (WCPM): Improved from 50 to 65 WCPM (accuracy 88%).
    • Comprehension Accuracy: Improved from 30% to 45%.

Weeks 5-8: Focus on Multi-Syllabic Words and Fluency Strategies

• Observation: Olivia began to apply strategies for breaking down longer words. Her reading rate showed more noticeable gains as decoding became less of an effort. She started self-correcting more frequently.
  • Data:
    • ORF (WCPM): Reached 75 WCPM (accuracy 92%).
    • Comprehension Accuracy: Reached 60%.

Weeks 9-12: Application and Comprehension Deepening

• Observation: Olivia’s confidence in reading increased significantly. She was more willing to read aloud and actively participated in comprehension discussions. She still needed prompts for inferential questions but could independently identify main ideas and key details.
  • Data:
    • ORF (WCPM): Reached 90 WCPM (accuracy 96%). (Goal Met for Fluency!)
    • Comprehension Accuracy: Reached 72%.