Baseline Data

Baseline Data

Data was taken over ten days during small groups phonics instruction.  Whole group instruction was completed by the special educator and the class was then split into two groups to work on specific skills in  with the special educator and instructional assistant, respectively. In the small group, Ian's additional adult support (personal assistant) was with him at all times to assist with fine motor tasks.  Data was taken by the special educator and the additional adult support to maintain data reliability.  The data was gathered around three of the skills where Ian has made the least progress this school year; beginning sounds, ending sounds, and rhyming.

Beginning Sounds 

Alphabet Sounds Teaching Tubs were used to provide a hands-on introduction for letters and their sounds.  Each tub included 6 miniature objects that shared the same beginning sounds, making it easier to reinforce the letter- sound connection.  

We played a quick 10 minute game with the alphabet tubs and addressed the following objectives;

• recognition of letter-sound correspondence
• isolation and identification of beginning sounds in words
• recognition of objects whose names have the same beginning sounds
• identification of upper and lowercase letters
• increase vocabulary

The game consisted of sorting objects from a brown paper bag by their beginning sound. Each day, Ian was asked to sort 10 objects by two sounds.  Below is the data, taken over 10 days:

Ian required an average of three verbal cues, ranging from 2-5 cues.  Verbal cues  consisted of the teacher over emphasizing the beginning sound, such as, "B-b-b all starts with what sound?". Ian needed an average of 7 physical prompts to complete the task, ranging from 5-10 physical prompts.  He also needed assistance opening the bag, grasping certain objects, moving and manipulating the tubs.  On average, Ian was about 23% accurate, ranging between 0-40% accuracy. 

Ending Sounds

These sorting mats were used for Ian to practice ending sounds.  He simply chose an activity mat, then found 3 illustrated tiles that featured words with that ending sound.  These mats were used during small group instruction and addressed the following objectives:

• identification of ending sounds
• identification of sound and spelling patterns. 

Ian was also asked to sort 10 cards by two ending sounds.   Below is data taken over ten consecutive days:

Ian required slightly more verbal cues for ending sounds, an average of 6.9 verbal cues, ranging from 6-9 cues.  Because there was less fine motor skills required for this task, Ian required less physical prompts, with only an average of 4.7, ranging from 3-6 prompts.   Ian was less accurate on this skill, with an average of 6 percent accuracy, ranging from 0-10 percent accuracy. 

Rhyming

These Rhyming Magnetic Sound Sort  Boards were used to build phonemic awareness, identify words by ending sounds, and match words by sound. Kids match a sock with a clock, a block and a rock, etc.  Two starter magnets were placed at the top of the board, then Ian could add magnets to the columns below to sort words that share the same rhyming sound.   

Ian required an average of 5.7 physical prompts, ranging from 4-7 prompts.  Over the 10 days, he was about 27% accurate, ranging from 20-40 % accuracy.

Analysis

The aforementioned skills are not mastered yet for Ian with an average accuracy of 18.6%.  The materials the students are currently using may not be the best for Ian given the number of physical prompts he requires.  An assistive technology assessment was completed and it was found that  in order for Ian to make progress on his IEP objectives and to increase his functional independence, he required access to an authoring program with a talking word processor, enlarged keyboard with color coded keys, adapted track ball mouse, and voice amplification system.