Case Study: Elizabeth, Year 7, Reading difficulty
Elizabeth was in year 7 when I first met her, and had been receiving support for a reading difficulty for all her school life.  She was overweight, had an un-kept appearance, bad BO, and was shunned by her peers.  In her peers eyes she was so 'special' she was almost an 'untouchable'.   She was socially isolated, shy and introverted.

She presented with a reading problem.  She couldn't read very well.  Her test scores put her three years behind her age peers. She couldn't read aloud without making a huge number of false predictions (sensible miscues mainly) which she would try to correct, but poorly. This made her reading quite appalling to listen to.  Adding to, or causing her problem was her parents' anxiety about her reading and their continuance of daily reading aloud at home.  Elizabeth was, of course, very anxious about her reading too, and desperately wanted to improve. She was reading 'special' books which were 'high interest and low reading age'.  They were not the cause of the oral difficulty as the language in them was quite natural.

I quickly realised that her poor performance as an oral reader had to change or stop because it was damaging her self concept and her progress.  However, her habits were so entrenched that she found it impossible to change.  I explored her understanding about what she was expecting of herself as a reader, and was able to debunk some of her beliefs.  The major problem was her embarrassment at making mistakes when she read orally.  I tried to convince her that it was normal to make 'mistakes', that everyone did it but found ways to avoid showing others.

I began to devise ways to get her reading silently, and taught her how to solve any problems she came across by using the context and 'guessing', or reading past unknown words, leaving them out or returning to 'guess' them when she had more information.  We did short silent readings and followed with retellings, we tried reading instructions for various tasks, and I soon began to realise that she was understanding far more during silent reading than anyone suspected.  Considering her age (12 years) and facing High School in 12 months time I decided that she had to somehow begin reading more suitable literature, and she had to do it silently. 

I advised her parents to stop hearing her read daily but to facilitate her silent novel reading by putting a lamp in her room and encouraging her to go there to read.  I stopped her going to special classes for Reading (which was really tuition in phonics and spelling). Her classroom teacher cooperated in a plan to 'normalise' her which meant that she received no special assistance and was treated like every other student.   The librarian offered to keep an eye on her book selection and to guide her into suitable books for a girl of her age. 

I worked on her first novel with her, reading to her at first, and then getting her to finish the page silently.  Then we read chapters in turn, discussing what was happening in the stories and setting up predictions about what might be going to happen next.  Within a few weeks she had finished two novels and was visibly brighter.  A month later she was consuming novels at a rapid rate on her own, and her teacher had highlighted her progress to the class.  Within six months she had read more novels than anyone else in her class that year, and amazed everyone by reading the most challenging books and discussing them at length.  Her BO has vanished (her mother had seen to this), and her peers were no longer actively shunning her.  Elizabeth had come out of her shell, so to speak, was a library monitor, and had begun to interact more normally with her peers. 

The next year she enrolled at a High School in a different district which allowed her to get a completely new start away from her old peers, without any stigma from her 'special' past.  At this point I lost contact with the family but I was happy with her progress up to that point and I'm confident that she would continue to improve.

Case study - David,  Year 6, Writing
I recently worked with a 12 year old boy who we will call David.  He was in year six at an elementary school in a depressed public housing suburb.  I worked directly with David, with his class teacher, school support staff, and his parents.   He could not read or write, and it took more than a year to get him to even attempt to write on his own, despite good progress with his reading. He was an extremely reluctant writer even though he had developed to the point of being able to write (copy) so that others could read it.  He would not write in the classroom or when other children were present, and his progress was extremely limited because of his fear of failure and his belief that he had to be absolutely accurate at all times.  Despite the efforts of his teachers and parents to encourage him to try, and to structure opportunities for him to be successful, little progress was made.  David was acutely aware of the differences between himself and other children, and this manifested itself in extremely violent behavior whenever he felt threatened by a learning situation at home or in class.  In lessons which he considered 'safe' (such as copying) he would work quite well and usually not disrupt other students.  (I am not an advocate of copying, but there were lessons where this happened!)

Case study: Susan, Year 2, Reading
My seven year old daughter was proud of the new novel she had brought home from school and wanted to read it to me.  When I saw that it was "Charlotte's Web" I thought that it was too hard for her but she was so motivated to show it off, so I listened and watched. 

I was a Uni student at the time and remember being horrified at what was happening.   It seemed that what she was saying had little to do with what was written on the page.  It was vaguely similar, but full of miscues.   She took each sentence and rearranged it in her own words, swapping whole phrases around and sometimes running one sentence into another with a suitable joining word inserted for convenience.  It sounded great!  But it was frightening to watch! 

Because she was so proud of her ability to 'read' this book (which her teacher had just read to the class) I didn't want to let her know of my concerns so I just accepted it and told her how I was pleased that she was reading such an interesting book (or something like that).  I then checked on her understanding of the story and of course she knew the whole book in every detail. The next day I asked my university lecturer  what to do about my daughter's reading 'problem'.  He suggested that I continue to monitor her understanding of the story and this is what I did. 

Thankfully I didn't intervene and soon she was reading another less challenging novel quite accurately.  Her reading just developed so well during this period that I have thanked my lucky stars ever since that I didn't put her off or dent her confidence by intervening in any way.  Doing nothing was best!  Susan was in control of her own learning!

Case study: Sammy, Year 4, learning difficulties
Sammy was a nine year old boy, and had just changed schools.  He told his mother that he liked his new teacher.  When asked why, he replied that he hadn't been embarrassed once all day!  We investigated this and found that although his previous teacher was capable, conscientious and concerned about him, she used teaching methods within her classroom which drew attention to his difficulties.  This caused him anxiety and loss of self esteem.  He withdraw from all  learning and social situations, and his reading and writing deteriorated to such an extent that both his parents and teacher were really concerned.  In his new classroom the teacher understood how to structure learning so that all students trusted her and felt secure.  He was able to become a normal class member without any undue attention.  He began to join in, to take risks, and to work normally in all lessons.  He began writing, which had previously been a real problem, because his teacher recognised the effort which went into it, and valued his efforts.  Because his attempts were acknowledged he remained involved in the process of learning, regained his skills and confidence, and his social development returned to normal.

Case study: Nigel, Reception class, reluctant writer
Nigel was five years old, had been at school for three months.  He was a bright child with excellent language skills.  He was in an exceptionally warm, caring class, where most of the class were beginning to write.  Typically they would draw a picture and then write a sentence or two about it, using alphabet charts to help their own invented spelling. But he just refused to try.  When pressed he became quite agitated and almost violent.  His teacher and I planned to try something to get him started, so when the other children were out of the room we sat him down with pencil and paper and asked him to write his daily story.  He became quite angry and said that he couldn't write, leapt from his chair, and tried to leave the room.  We insisted that he could write, gave him an alphabet chart, and demanded that he try.  He gave in after a few more attempts to avoid the task and copied letters randomly all over the page, and  drew a picture.  He was obviously pleased with what he'd done, so he 'read' us his story and we responded appreciatively. His attempt was 'published' on a display board which all the children used.  After this he continued to write, became familiar with the letter shapes, and three weeks later he had begun to write 'words' made up of letters in a line, from left to right. We hadn't actually 'taught' him anything but we had started him off and got him involved.  He was soon really enthusiastic about writing.  Most importantly, he was learning about writing through being a writer, and became responsible for his own progress. 

Case study: Narelle, year 7, reluctant writer
Narelle was 12 years old, in year seven, and her teacher was concerned that her creative writing was not progressing.  She was a member of a group of girls who were all very keen and capable writers, and although she sat with them she wrote very little, wasted her time, and had begun to distract them from their work.  I began to work with her away from the group to allow her to explore what she was doing, and the only way I could get her to write at all was to guarantee that she could put her stories in the rubbish bin after she had read them to me.  Under these rules she began to write.  Retrieving them from the bin later I could see that her written ideas and her language usage were excellent - but she threw those stories away for three weeks before she trusted me to see one.  Her main concern was that she believed that she was a poor student because she couldn't produce a perfect piece of writing on her first draft.  She quickly learned to take control of editing her own work and proved to be an excellent speller if given a couple of tries at a word. When she understood that she was as capable as her peers she settled down to work normally.

Case Study: Graham, year 7, spelling difficulty
Graham was a very willing student.  He was in year seven but his spelling was consistently poor and he was very anxious about it.   I went over his last few stories and made a record of the more common words he was having trouble with.  We looked these over together and devised a plan to work on about five words each week.  He spent time learning them in class and for homework..  At the end of each week he was tested on them.  At first he wasn't very good at this, so we worked on the methods he used to remember them and he improved immensely.  However, despite his success on the weekly tests he still misspelled these words in his written work!  One example is the word 'because'.   In a test he could spell it, but in his stories he spelled it in several different ways.  He wrote beacuse, becase, becouse, becuase, becaus.  Later, when I pointed this out to him and asked him how to spell 'because' he got it right every time.   After six months of frustration I discovered another method of teaching him called 'Old Way-New Way'.  This worked and he learned to control the spelling of most key words in his writing after that.  Click here to see more on 'Old Way- New Way'.   Despite Graham's long standing spelling problem he was still motivated to work on it until he found a way to overcome it. 

Case study: Sally, Year 2 class, reluctant learner
Sally, at six and a half years old, was a destroyer.  A large girl, she disrupted the class continually, and physically and verbally bullied the other children.  Sally had been at school for 18 months but had not begun to read or write meaningfully.  I worked with her, her peers, her parents and her teacher, and for some weeks she maintained her stance of un-involvement.  She was a very strong-willed child.  When reading she pretended to read, but wouldn't (couldn't) follow the print.   For Writing, she copied words from around the room every day.  She knew something was wrong and she wasn't going to let anyone find out she couldn't read or write so her defences were up!  After a while she tasted a little success with the selection of more appropriate books to read, learning where to look to follow the printed words on the page, and acceptance by her parents of her efforts to write (with appropriate rewarding feedback).  Soon she learned to identify individual words and follow print in the right direction on the page.  She began to take some risks with attempting new words in her stories.  Her behaviour slowly moderated as she became more involved in the literacy learning process, achieved some success, and began to see herself as a contributing member of the class.  The growth in her reading and writing confidence was matched by an outstanding improvement in her interpersonal behaviour in the classroom, in the yard, and some improvement at home.

I know that this sounds really easy and simple, but it wasn't.  Her teacher was tempted to try more direct behaviour modification methods in the beginning when she was slow to respond, but she made her succeed in little ways and small changes began, and these signs helped us trust that our course was correct. We had to believe that she wanted to learn despite her daily behaviour which seemed to say the opposite.

Then there are children like Michael who are the victims of school systems and what purports to be teaching 'excellence', who are driven to extreme behaviours to avoid complete humiliation.  Unfortunately, there are many cases like Michael's.

Case study: Michael, Special Class, learning disability
Michael was a well behaved boy who had a always been in Special Classes for part of the day, and in a normal class most afternoons. However at the beginning of this year the school administration decided to place him in a normal year seven class permanently, as part of his transition out of Special Education classes, "to get him ready for High School".  He was several years behind his age peers in all literacy areas, but he could read and write and he had always been keen to work and learn in the two years that I had worked with him.  

Michael's new teacher had a reputation for his commitment to excellence, had very high standards of discipline and work, but was very inflexible.  Michael was immediately exposed as totally incapable of doing any of the work at the standard required in this class.  He changed completely: he abused his teacher and continually disrupted the class, (behaviour which we had never seen before).  Away from the classroom Michael was his old self: willing and eager to learn. Unfortunately, his teacher was unwilling to change or adapt Michael's programme in any way and so the behaviour problems remained.  Michael was shared around amongst various teachers to give his class some relief.  Because this also gave Michael some relief, and the other teachers were more understanding and allowed him to work on more appropriate tasks, he worked well in their rooms, but never settled down in his home class.  Senior staff saw the problem as being Michael's poor behaviour and refused to do anything constructive about his placement.   His growth in learning for that year was negligible and it was difficult to watch him suffer because of his exacting teacher.

Case study: Jack, Year 3, learning avoidance
Jack had just begun year three and his teacher was mildly concerned because he didn't seem to retain knowledge or understand what was being taught. He seemed quite slow at times - although at times he worked diligently and produced similar work to all the other children.  Some of his books appeared to reflect normal work. He had one close friend.

Upon closer examination of Jack I discovered that he couldn't yet read or write!  He had avoided detection by copying everything, letter by letter (or really shape by shape), very quickly and accurately!  His bookwork looked quite neat and normal.  He had a fantastic memory and memorised the stories in his reading books but he hadn't yet sorted out the sounds or the names of the alphabet!  Jack wanted to learn but had chosen to hide his problems when he found that he was having difficulty.  All his energies went into his charade.  It was more important for him to appear to be successful (or normal) than to alert anyone to his problems. 

There are a lot of Jacks in classrooms who are hiding their inabilities behind very passive behaviours.  Unless they are discovered and helped in the first few years of school their problems compound and get progressively worse.

Case study: Shaun, Year 2, not a risk-taker!
Shaun was bouncing with confidence when I met him at the supermarket with his mum.  At seven years old he was the man of the house (!) and he had an opinion on everything.  This was not the same boy I had seen in the classroom that morning!  The Shaun I saw trying to write was insecure, cautious in the extreme, and extremely reluctant to attempt any new word unless he knew it was 'right'.  All this despite a most caring teacher and a writing programme which valued and rewarded everyone's' attempts.  Every other child in that room was writing profusely.  Shaun cried a lot when asked to read too.  After many battles we (mother and teachers) finally convinced him that he could read, but writing still remained a problem.  Despite all our efforts to get him to take risks and experiment with new words he would insist on writing the same story every day. Then, when we overcame that - every word he wrote had to be checked before he put it in his story.  This placed us in a dilemma because he couldn't yet spell very well - and we wanted to encourage him to keep on trying.  If we said a word was nearly right he wouldn't write it; if we said it was OK, he wanted to know precisely whether it was correct or not!  Finally the breakthrough came when we decided to lie to him and tell him everything was correct!!!!  Soon he was involved as a normal learner and writer (and his spelling improved too).

Somewhere in Shaun's past he had learned that he couldn't read or write perfectly, and he was a perfectionist by nature.  His confidence on those tasks was almost zero.  This was in stark contrast to his out of school personality which was naturally confident.