Identification+of+the+Participant+&+Context

==== The student I chose to work with for my case study is a 13-year old male, who is in the 6th grade at Jackson Heights Middle School who has Specific Learning Disabilities. He has been retained twice, which means that he should be in 8th grade. At Jackson Heights, the school uses support facilitation for students with special needs. Support facilitation is where a student is mainstreamed into the general education classroom but receives support from an Exceptional Education teacher. Mrs. Perkins and I go into the student’s Language Arts, Math, and Geography classes two to four times a week depending on which subject it is. The student received a Level 1 on FCAT for Reading and Math last year, which is not a passing score. This indicates that he needs extra assistance in both subjects for him to be successful. He is currently in an Intensive Reading and Language class as well as an Intensive Math class. According to his Diagnostic Assessment of Reading (DAR), he can read 45 words per minute on 6th grade level, but he should be reading 90-120 wpm according to what is expected for 6th graders. His Lexile level from the Florida Assessment for Instruction in Reading (FAIR) was a 505, which is considered high risk for his grade level. ==== ==== Regardless of the student’s low reading level, he remains confident and strives to succeed. He puts forth his best effort and never complains about the repetitive activities he has to do. Another strength would be his readiness to learn. He has a positive outlook on learning and wants all of the help he can get. His weaknesses include reading with expression, fluency, word recognition, and comprehension. While reading, he struggles with decoding simple words. However, as far as comprehension, the student usually does well when answering questions from his 4th grade textbook but when it comes to reading a grade level text, he has a difficult time comprehending the material. ====