ELL Case Study:
Frimmy Goldberger is a First Grade student in an English speaking school in Jerusalem. Her American parents moved to Israel after they met and got married ten years ago. Frimmy is the oldest child in her family and she has two younger siblings. She is a bright, curious, and lively child who loves to learn and says reading is her favorite subject. Frimmy’s parents chose to send her to a Hebrew/Yiddish speaking preschool for the past four years. They believed that she would pick up the English language from home. Being that they converse with each other only in English, Frimmy’s parents thought that she would be a fluent English speaker in no time. They planned to teach her English reading and writing at home and were hopeful that she would grow up fluent in both Hebrew and English this way. However, they were disappointed to find out that without support from a school system, it would be almost impossible for their daughter to become a fluent English language speaker, reader, and writer. After some deliberation, they decided to make the switch from sending Frimmy to a mostly Hebrew speaking school, to an English speaking school in the neighborhood. They’re very thankful that they made the switch at the right time. Frimmy started elementary school this year, entering first grade and they are already seeing progress.
Up until this year, Frimmy conversed with her teachers, friends, neighbors, and siblings in a Yiddish splattered with Hebrew words and phrases. Although her parents spoke English to her, she would answer back mostly in Yiddish because she was just more fluent in that language. Now that she’s being exposed much more to the English language in school, Frimmy is starting to speak English at home. Her parents are thrilled about this change and they’re hoping to see a difference in her English reading and writing as well.
Observing Frimmy in and out of the classroom throughout the year has been a real learning experience. As an ELL, Frimmy faced many struggles and she’s still facing hardships along the way. Most students in this school have attended English speaking schools all the way from nursery and are perfectly fluent in the language. Frimmy’s classmates are continuing the English language curriculum all the way from nursery age, while Frimmy is starting to learn everything now. This situation is sometimes very difficult for her, however, with the right tools she’s really moving forward. The school is very supportive of Frimmy’s needs, and the classroom teacher is wonderful. The teacher has an assistant in the room who provides the extra attention and one-on-one focus that is so important for Frimmy.
During subjects like math and social studies, Frimmy has a chance to shine. These subjects involve very little of reading and writing and therefore Frimmy follows along with the class very well. Understanding the English language has never really been an issue for Frimmy because she grew up hearing her parents speak English all the time. She can understand almost all words the teacher uses during these subjects and gets stuck only sometimes when there is a higher vocabulary word. At the beginning of the school year, Frimmy was a reluctant participant. She was nervous about speaking English in public because she had just started talking the language. But as the year moved on, she became more and more confident and started participating a lot more in math and social studies lessons. She gained a lot from the fact that most academic vocabulary words were introduced to all students for the first time and she was able to catch on as a normal student. It is a pleasure to watch Frimmy during these lessons. She is a really involved learner and her language is advancing to be almost perfect and grammatically correct when she joins discussions. During these subjects, her teachers can see that she’ll really get far with the right instruction geared toward her ELL needs.
The English Language subjects like reading, writing, and phonics are a lot more difficult for Frimmy. She is being exposed to English in a school setting for the first time and this means that while her classmates are learning how to read and write full sentences, she is still up to learning the basic alphabet. Frimmy’s parents hired her a tutor outside the school to help her learn more and catch up slowly. Her teachers are also very supportive and try to guide her as much as possible with the extra supports and scaffolds. But with all this, Frimmy is still very frustrated with English reading and writing. She is used to being the perfect student who is successful in all academic areas. She finds it very challenging to be so behind with the classwork. Talking to Frimmy about this, I was amazed at how expressive she is. She explained her difficulties very clearly and said she hopes to be a perfect student by the end of the year. Her motivation and strong will are evident in the progress she has made. Frimmy is a diligent student despite her frustration. With the positive support system from home and school, Frimmy is determined to succeed as an English language learner. Participating in English reading and writing classes is very challenging for Frimmy. She is not a completely fluent reader yet and her writing skills are also at a beginner’s level. When her teacher does class read-alouds, Frimmy can follow along while the teacher does the reading, but when the class reads along she has trouble following along. At the beginning of the year, Frimmy was also very nervous that the teacher will ask her questions about the story like she asks all other students and she won’t know the answer. During a discussion, the teacher calmed her and told her that she won’t call on her until she’s a fluent reader and it’s clear that she follows along with the text. For now, the teacher’s assistant works with Frimmy on reviewing the read-aloud after every session and this way she can participate well in the follow-up lessons. Additionally, Frimmy’s tutor works to target the core problem which is her overall reading fluency. The tutor is teaching Frimmy phonics from the ground up to help her achieve fluency in both reading and writing. Frimmy’s parents say that based on her running records she has made great progress in using meaning, syntax, and visual cues to help her read fluently. Her progress can also be seen during class read-alouds. Frimmy is growing more confident and I’m observing how she’s slowly joining in the choral reading with the class more and more. Group reading is still a struggle for Frimmy. She is not confident enough to read out loud on her own because she is not yet on the level of her peers. Her teachers and classmates are sensitive to her needs and they don’t force her to read aloud while giving her a chance to volunteer if she wants to. She is in the class’s lowest level reading group, and her command of vocabulary is growing closer to the fit the group level every day. As she is progressing in reading fluency her comprehension is improving as well. Frimmy can now read a book on her level and retell the story with the setting, characters, events, problem, and resolution.
Writing is by far the most challenging area for Frimmy. Learning to write the ABCs and learning to write words, sentences, and paragraphs in such a short time are very difficult. When Frimmy entered First Grade, her friends were learning how to write sentences and paragraphs while she was introduced to the alphabet by her tutor outside of the classroom and practicing with the assistant in the classroom. Her teacher expects a lot from her because the goal is that she reaches the class level by the end of the year. Frimmy is proving to be a very quick learner. She mastered writing the alphabet very quickly and is slowly moving on to words and sentences. However, her writing is still not on grade level. She is showing nice progress and hopes it won’t be much longer until she can write like a first grader. Benefiting Frimmy’s writing skills is her exceptional expressive personality. Though her writing is still unclear and far from perfect, she always finds a unique way to express herself and make herself be understood. Her slow pace of writing though can become very frustrating and she sometimes asks is she can just write in Hebrew because that’s much easier for her. The teacher encourages to write in Hebrew as well, but she also says Frimmy must continue practicing her English writing as much as possible.
The spelling program has been modified for Frimmy allowing her to follow along with the class at her own pace. While the class five words with one spelling pattern every week, Frimmy is responsible for only three out of the five words. Usually, the teacher introduces four simple words and one more difficult vocabulary word. Frimmy focuses only on the simple words with the goal of understanding the concept of spelling patterns to help her spell more words in the future.
SOLOM Results:
Based my observations described above, Frimmy rated at level 4 in all five areas on the SOLOM rubric including comprehension, fluency, vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar. This placed her in Phase four of English language acquisition with a total score of 20. Her strengths and weaknesses in the five traits are seen very clearly in the SOLOM matrix. For comprehension, Frimmy falls under the category of understanding nearly everything at a normal speech, although occasional repetition may be necessary. Frimmy’s fluency is well described as her speech in conversation and classroom discussions is generally fluent, with occasional lapses while she searches for the correct manner of expression. In vocabulary she occasionally uses inappropriate terms and sometimes must rephrase ideas because of lexical inadequacies and her pronunciation is always intelligible, though one can notice a definite accent and occasional inappropriate patterns. Frimmy will occasionally make grammatical and/or word-order mistakes which do not obscure meaning.
On the NYS Limited English Proficient Rubrics, Frimmy is on the intermediate level for listening and speaking while only at the beginning level for reading and writing. This highlights the gap between Frimmy’s listening and speaking skills and her reading and writing skills. I believe her proficiency in listening and speaking helps her advance in her reading and writing as well. The fact that she understands others and can express herself verbally boosts her confidence and helps learn more in less time.
Overall, Frimmy is functioning very well in English in both academic and social contexts. Credit goes to her confidence, determination, and willingness to push herself as far as possible in order to master the English language in all areas. The support of the school administration and teacher’s cooperation also deserve much credit. The teacher also motivates Frimmy by integrating the Hebrew language and culture in the classroom. Frimmy can choose from a wide array of Hebrew books when she is not studying English. She has a chance to express herself in the language she is proficient in when she is not focusing on English. This boosts her confidence even more helping her take even bigger steps in advancing in English. Frimmy’s level on the SOLOM rubric does hinder her academic performance to some extent. She still struggles when a more difficult passage is read to the class and needs the extra assistance to fully comprehend the text. Frimmy is progressing at a steady rate thanks to the support she gets both at home and in school. When she learns phonics, reading and writing with a variety of activities and individual attention, she can make even greater progress.
In social settings, Frimmy has never faced a single struggle. She integrated beautifully and caught on to the social norms and language very quickly. A social butterfly, Frimmy is beloved by her classmates and they are all kind to her during class when she sometimes does struggle. Her Hebrew accent is not an issue at all because living in Israel all students are exposed to the accent every day. Frimmy’s accent is also very slight because she hears her parents speaking unaccented English all the time. Frimmy’s grammatical errors are also infrequent, as noted on the SOLOM rubric, and this also benefits her ease in expressing herself between her friends. Her grammatical errors are sometimes caused by her translating Hebrew into English but she is learning to focus on correct grammar usage instead of translation. Her parents encourage her to bring English-speaking friends home so that she has even more opportunity to practice the language in social settings. She is now communicating with her parents and teachers only in English to help her advance even further.
I have learned a lot from my experience with observing Frimmy Goldberger. The way her parents and teachers put so much effort into finding the right tools to help Frimmy as an ELL is impressive. They focus on all areas equally, including both social and academic factors. They monitored her progress with formal and informal assessments to help them plan further instruction. This experience has taught me a lot about working with bilingual students. Now I understand the importance of constantly using effective assessments. Without the right assessing tools, it’s impossible to monitor progress and provide effective instruction. Assessments are important for all students, but I think that for ELLs it’s even more important because of the many aspects involved and different areas that they must constantly advance in. One component that I think would be very effective if added to Frimmy’s curriculum is technology. Technology could keep Frimmy motivated all the time and she can also monitor her own progress with the right tools. I think Frimmy would greatly benefit from technology being integrated into her curriculum and her teachers are currently considering it.
Student Work:
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