Case Study in Reading Disability: An Emergent Literacy Perspective

Hammill Institute on Disabilities

Case Study in Reading Disability: An Emergent Literacy PerspectiveAuthor(s): Laura KlenkSource: Learning Disability Quarterly, Vol. 17, No. 1 (Winter, 1994), pp. 33-56Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1511104 .

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CASE STUDY IN READING DISABILITY: AN EMERGENT LITERACY PERSPECTIVE

Laura Klenk

Abstract. This case study chronicles the development of reading and writing in an eight-year-old student identified as learning disabled. The study is rooted in the forms of multiple theoretical perspectives of literacy, including cognitive science, sociohistorical, and developmental (emergent literacy). The central focus is on the changes in the forms of reading and writing the student employed over the course of one school year, and on changes in her understanding of herself as a reader and writer. Additional information is noted regarding growth in phonemic awareness, acquisition of sight words and conventional spellings, and comprehension and interpretation of stories. The secondary focus of the study is on the search for appropriate assistance to be offered while engaging the child in personally meaningful reading and writing tasks.

This article presents a microgenetic study of the emergence of literacy in an eight-year-old student identified as learning disabled. The paper is organized into the following sections: a review of the theoretical foundations of the study; relevant personal information and school history of the subject of the study; methods of data collection and analysis; and summary of findings, emphasizing changes in the student's understanding of herself as a reader and writer, and the forms of reading and writing she employed as her understanding changed. The article con- cludes with a discussion of the limitations of the study and implications for research and practice.

THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS The information gathered for this case study

was examined through the multiple theoretical lenses of cognitive science, sociohistorical, and developmental perspectives on literacy. The past decade of research in cognitive psychology has led to a broad definition of literacy that includes the complex reasoning and problem-solving that accompanies reading and writing (cf. Schallert, 1991). This perspective considers literacy beyond the performative level (which is usually as- sociated with school tasks such as decoding and handwriting) to include the functional level of lit-

eracy for interpersonal communication, the in- formational level for exchanging knowledge, and the epistemic level for creative and evalua- tive uses of literacy (Wells, Chang, & Maher, in press).

From a sociohistorical perspective, literacy learning is embedded in social contexts, and is influenced by the learner's prior experience and knowledge, the relationship between the novice (learner) and the expert (teacher), the relationships among learners in a classroom, and the mediation of self-regulated, intentional learning through mechanics such as scaffolding, boot- strapping, and proleptic instruction within the learner's "zone of proximal development" (Diaz, Neal, & Williams, 1990; Litowitz, in press; Newman, Griffin, & Cole, 1989; Palincsar, 1986; Palincsar & Klenk, 1990; Stone, in press).

The developmental perspective informing this study is based on research in early literacy acquisition, commonly called emergent literacy. Emergent literacy refers to a modern perspective of "literacy development and learning prior

LAURA KLENK, M.A., is a doctoral candidate in Educational Studies, University of Michigan.

Volume 17, Winter 1994 33



to formal school instruction" (Teale, 1987, p. 45). The term "emergent literacy" was first used by Marie Clay in her early research on young children's explorations of the perceptual features of print (Dyson, 1982; Strickland, 1990; Teale & Sulzby, 1986). In its broadest sense, emergent literacy is described as an "enlarged and en- riched conception of early childhood literacy development" (Teale, 1988, p. 177). What is known today as emergent literacy theory sprouted in part from well-documented case studies of literacy development in young children (cf. Bissex, 1980; Dyson, 1982, 1984; Ferreiro, 1986; Taylor, 1983). From these descriptive longitudinal studies, educational researchers have learned much about young children's acquisition of print literacy prior to formal schooling and instruction.

Research in the development of spelling has contributed a great deal to emergent literacy theory (Gentry, 1987; Henderson & Beers, 1980; Read, 1986; Temple, Nathan, Burris, & Tem- ple, 1988). These studies describe the steady and rather predictable spelling development of most children. The influence of whole language theory can also be seen in emergent literacy, as the conception of literacy has been enlarged by the shift from a nearly exclusive focus on letter and word recognition to the inclusion of oral language, story and listening comprehension, error patterns in early attempts to read and write, and the social and cultural contexts for literacy learning (Mason & Allen, 1986).

Emergent literacy is also complementary to a sociohistoric perspective in other ways. First, the teacher's assumption that all children are capable of reading and writing "their own way" offers a proleptic challenge to students. By asking, "What are you going to read (or write) about today?", "How will your story begin?", or "What will you write about next?", the teacher ex- presses confidence that the child can and will read (or write).

Second, in emergent literacy the teacher-student and student-student relationships are central: children are generally expected to work together, helping each other in many of the same ways that the teacher helps them. As a result, reading selections and writing topics are often based on the children's own knowledge and interests, including ongoing classroom projects.

Third, children's emergent reading and writing

are considered valid literacy activities-a storybook reenacted from illustrations constitutes a complete reading and a line of scribble may con- vey an entire story. The communicative nature of reading and writing is maintained no matter what forms of reading and writing a student em- ploys.

While not all emergent literacy theorists agree on the role of the teacher or adult in literacy acquisition, they do agree that young children's attempts to read and write are genuine literacy activities, regardless of the form used. Emergent literacy is particularly unique in that literacy acquisition is considered from the child's perspective, rather than from adult standards (Sulzby, 1986).

The case study presented here is unique to the learning disabilities literature from a methodolog- ical standpoint. Inquiry in reading disabilities and special education has been dominated by experi- mental research influenced by medical and psychoeducational models of learning (Wixson & Lipson, 1991), models that basically limited the definition of literacy to decoding and handwriting. The study is unique theoretically as well, since research in emergent literacy has not considered children for whom literacy acquisition appears to be delayed and/or impaired, and because the student in this case had three years of schooling, including one year of formal reading instruction, before the case study began.

INTRODUCING KATRICE The subject of this study is Katrice (pseudo-

nym), a young African-American student. Ka- trice was a month shy of her eighth birthday when I began observations for the case study. She had repeated kindergarten and was enrolled as a second-grade student in a self-contained learning disabilities classroom. Katrice had spent her first-grade year in this class as well, during which time I had observed her as part of a larger study of literacy instruction and learning in special education settings.1

From a traditional psychoeducational model of learning disability, Katrice's profile would seem to fit a "typical" case of learning disability. Her teachers had noted characteristics such as poor visual and auditory memory, immature social development, and school achievement that seemed inconsistent with her perceived ability level. At age eight, she was unable to demonstrate con-

34 Learning Disability Quarterly



ventional literacy knowledge such as accurate letter recognition, letter-sound associations, or a basic sight word vocabulary.

From an emergent literacy perspective, Ka- trice may be considered a "unique case" as she was older than typical subjects in emergent literacy research. Unlike younger children with similar levels of print awareness, Katrice was aware that there was a "right" (conventional) way to read and write. The discrepancy between her awareness of print conventions and her own ability caused her to be more resistant than younger children to participate in literacy tasks, as shall be documented in detail in this article. Personal History

Personal information about Katrice was ob- tained from school records and interviews with her mother and teachers. Katrice was one of twins born to a single mother, who reported a normal, full-term pregnancy and delivery. Ka- trice weighed almost 52 pounds at birth. Her twin died three days after birth; no cause of death was given. As a toddler, Katrice was treated with blood transfusions for sickle cell anemia, and she suffered from frequently recur- ring inner ear infections. Despite these health problems, her mother reported that developmental milestones were acquired within average time frames.

Katrice lives with her mother and a 15-year- old sister in a federally subsidized housing project 25 miles southwest of Detroit. Her mother is employed part-time as a patient care assistant in two nursing homes, and her sister attends se- nior high school. School History

Katrice attended kindergarten for two years at a regional child development center. Based on my review of school records and conversations with one of Katrice's kindergarten teachers, her kindergarten experience can be described as emphasizing academic more than social achievement, though both elements were included in the stated goals. Her attendance during the first year was marred by a 25% absence rate, attrib- uted mainly to asthma attacks.

In October of her second year in kindergarten, Katrice was referred by her teacher to the Multi- disciplinary Evaluation Team for assessment. In her referral, the teacher checked 21 of 32 characteristics "which interfere with the ability to profit from the learning environment." Katrice

was easily distracted, impulsive, aggressive, and had confusion with directional space, difficulty reproducing letters and numbers, poor retention of learned material, and difficulty with language comprehension.

Katrice was evaluated by a team consisting of a school psychologist, a speech/language pathologist, a teacher consultant, and a social worker. The team reported a severe discrepancy between Katrice's achievement and her intellec- tual ability, which was within the normal range (full scale IQ of 94 on the WPPSI). Based on this discrepancy, the team recommended that Ka- trice receive special services for a specific learning disability and speech-language impairment. She was consequently assigned full-time to a self-contained learning disabilities classroom for first grade.

Reading instruction in this special education class was typical of instruction observed in remedial and special education classes throughout the nation (Allington, 1983; Haynes & Jenkins, 1976-1978; McGill-Franzen & Allington, 1990). That is, students worked independently on seat- work, which consisted of skill sheets for phonics, handwriting, sight words, and so on. The students also received 20 to 30 minutes of instruction per day in small group sessions, working from preprimers or primers, and daily instruction from a district-mandated phonics curriculum (Explode the Code, Hall & Price, 1976-1978). Handwriting instruction included copying class- dictated "Morning News" from the chalkboard, in addition to worksheets for practicing individual letter formation.

Katrice was first observed as a participant in the Early Literacy Research Project (see Palinc- sar & Klenk, 1990, 1992) during first grade. A major goal of this project was to foster self-regulated, intentional learning among children in self- contained special education classrooms. The researchers presented biweekly literature-based reading and writing activities, in which Katrice participated with enthusiasm. She became ab- sorbed in the stories she heard, and she aggres- sively sought to capture and maintain attention from the researchers with unsolicited questions and comments. Katrice especially relished opportunities to share emergent storybook reenactments, or retellings, with her classmates from the stage of the "Reader's Chair." These story reenactments were based on illustrations and on




Katrice's memory of the story, rather than a reading of the actual text.

Opportunities for emergent writing were met less enthusiastically by Katrice. When she was first invited to write a story "her own way" (i.e., using simple invented spellings), she refused, instead copying text from environmental print on the chalkboard, in textbooks, and on posters. The notion of generating original text was novel, not only for Katrice but for her classmates as well. The children met our invitations to write with hesitation, tears of frustration, and outright refusals (see Palincsar & Klenk, 1990). With individual assistance, Katrice made occasional attempts to sound out words, but the task of matching letters to sounds was laborious since she did not possess stable letter recognition and only limited letter-sound associations. In order to locate a letter she wanted to print, Katrice had to look at the alphabet chart along the wall, point to the first letter, and proceed through the chart until she came to the desired letter. She often lost her place in this process, ending the sequence on a letter other than the one for which she was looking. Even when she located the appropriate letter, Katrice was not always able to accurately reproduce the form on paper.

On one memorable occasion, with assistance from a teacher, Katrice produced the following string of letters in response to a story: IYAPCYM, which she read as, "I want [to be] a policewoman." I Y A PC YM.

This invented spelling revealed that, with highly structured assistance, Katrice could segment some consonant sounds and vowel names, and could use one letter to represent a syllable. The effort required for this task was taxing, and on most occasions she resorted to copying from books, wall charts, posters, and other environmental print. Unlike her enthusiastic anticipation of storybook retellings from the "Reader's Chair," Katrice was reluctant to share her own writing from the "Author's Chair."

As time went on, Katrice's behavior during our sessions became increasingly inconsistent. She began to withdraw both mentally and physi- cally from activities. She refused offers of assistance with reading and writing, she slid her desk farther and farther away from the group, and she carried on conversations with imaginary friends. I began to wonder how useful emergent

literacy theory could be for understanding a child with a peculiar history of development. A major component of this study has been my own experience of "learning how to learn" about reading disability from an emergent literacy perspective. In the following section, I discuss the methods of data collection and analysis that I employed, highlighting some of the frustrations and tensions that arose.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS Initial Assessment

Katrice and I began working together in late September of her second-grade year. We met twice a week for 40-50 minutes. All sessions were audiotaped for later transcription. During our initial sessions, I was anxious to assess Ka- trice's knowledge of print concepts, her ability to blend and segment phonemes, and the stability of this knowledge. Katrice correctly named only 28 of 52 letters on Clay's (1979) letter recognition task. She recognized three common sight words on Clay's word reading task, and was able to conventionally spell only one word on Clay's word writing task.

On the Concepts about Print test, Katrice demonstrated an understanding of directionality of text and was able to distinguish letters and words, but she was unable to follow word by word (pointing) as I read the text. Further, Ka- trice was not able to answer questions requiring metalinguistic knowledge such as identifying cap- ital letters and punctuation marks. For instance, she identified a period as "a dot," and said that its purpose was "an equals minus."

With regard to phonemic awareness, Katrice was able to isolate some initial consonant sounds when asked to identify the first sound in a list of words. She was not able to isolate final or me- dial consonant sounds, nor was she able to blend a short series of sounds into a word. Katrice fared no better when given the opportunity to segment the sounds of words in writing on Clay's dictation test; she made only 5 of 37 correct letter-sound correspondences on this test.

Most troubling to me was the finding that Ka- trice demonstrated little awareness of print from her environment. For example, she did not rec- ognize the names of her mother, sister, teacher, or even her own last name. Given a list of her classmates, she recognized only one name, despite having spent the previous school year with




nearly all the same children, whose names had been posted on charts and desktops in the classroom.

Despite the information I acquired from these assessment procedures, I remained uncertain about Katrice's actual competencies with regard to reading and writing. Reading and writing were

truly aversive tasks for Katrice; hence, eliciting these behaviors from her required persistent ca-

joling. I was reluctant to place demands on her for reading and writing, fearing that she would become frustrated and end the project. In addition, Katrice understood that she was perform- ing a favor for me-"I be helping you with your homework," she explained. This understanding put us on different terms than in a typical teacher-pupil relationship, and Katrice set out to test the limits I would place on her behavior dur-

ing our sessions. She stalled by sharing gossip about her classmates and neighbors, by perform- ing rap sequences and popular tunes, by asking to get drinks or use the bathroom, or by returning to her class for a different pencil or eraser.

Unwittingly, I followed Clay's (1979) sugges- tion to "roam around the known" during the early sessions. Hoping to observe Katrice re- spond to print that was personally meaningful, I tried to identify topics of interest to her. For example, Katrice often sang "The Wheels on the Bus," a familiar kindergarten song, into the mi- crophone when I turned on the tape recorder. Thinking that she might attempt to read from familiar text, I printed a "Wheels on the Bus" songbook for Katrice, which she illustrated. When I asked her to read from this book, Ka- trice sang the song, relying on her illustrations to remember the verse. I then asked her to point to the text as she sang, but she did not demonstrate a consistent speech-to-print match. In- stead, she would slide a finger quickly under each line of words, often coming to the end of the text before she was finished singing. Some- times she would start over at the beginning of the page and try to "get it right," but other times she would simply turn the page. She quickly tired of reading from this book, particularly when asked to point to the words.

After several weeks of uncomfortable "roam- ing" through environmental and classroom- related print, I decided to routinize our sessions, and thus began to alternate reading and writing activities. I planned activities to vary the type of

text (narrative or expository text, basal or trade book, familiar or unfamiliar stories). I brought pens, stationery, markers, notebooks, and novelty pencils to entice Katrice into writing letters and stories. Although she continued to stall at the start of each session with light conversation, Katrice eventually began to take charge, ending these conversations with comments like, "We better get to work now," or an impatient, "Come on, let's get started."

In emergent literacy fashion, I invited Katrice to read or write "her own way" (Sulzby, 1985). I explained that it did not have to be like "grown-up" reading or writing. Also, to prevent fatigue and to sustain Katrice's interest, I often suggested we take turns reading from books. Maintaining her sense of partnership in this work, Katrice negotiated each task, defining and controlling the "turns" we took.

One day I brought two books about "Harry, the Dirty Dog." Before I could ask Katrice to choose the one she wanted to read, she seized the initiative and announced with a grin, "I'll be the teacher. You want to read it to me?" I suggested instead that we take turns-she would read one page, then I would read a page. Ka- trice acquiesced; she turned to the first page and read from the illustrations, then directed me to take my turn. She continued turning the pages, but after my second turn she monopolized the reading. As she turned each page, she glanced at the illustration to see if it was familiar. When she realized that she "knew" the page she said, "Oh, I'll read this one."

Throughout the study, Katrice was actively involved in deciding the level at which she would participate. For example, she negotiated the number of pages she would read on her own, or the amount of print she would write. Her deci- sions seemed largely dependent on her confidence with the text at hand. With less familiar text, she was likely to negotiate for as few pages as I would permit; with more familiar text, she was willing to read (or reenact) beyond what she had originally negotiated.

In addition to the difficulties I encountered in my attempts to elicit reading and writing from Katrice, another tension arose from my own conflicting goals for this case study. On one hand, I viewed our sessions as opportunities for instruction. As a teacher, I felt obligated to give Katrice as much assistance as necessary, since




reading and writing tasks were particularly difficult for her. On the other hand, as a novice researcher, I was determined to observe her efforts at reading and writing without interfering. Thus, I gave only tentative feedback during the first few weeks. Katrice sensed my uncertainty, tested me severely when I asked her to read or write, and finally demanded assistance ("Just tell me!") when tasks became too frustrating for her. My struggle to discern appropriate levels of scaffolding for Katrice plagued me throughout the study. Data Analysis: General Themes

I transcribed all audiotapes of our sessions and coded transcripts for evidence of eight themes:

1. the forms of reading and writing employed by Katrice, according to Sulzby's (1986) emergent reading and writing classification scheme, and spelling development as described by Temple et al. (1988);

2. Katrice's understanding of herself as a reader and writer;

3. use of phonemic awareness (decoding and encoding) in reading and writing;

4. construction of story (comprehension and interpretation);

5. acquisition of sight words in reading and writing;

6. development of the researcher-subject relationship;

7. efficacy of an emergent literacy perspective for understanding literacy acquisition in an older, preconventional child;

8. dilemmas I encountered in my attempts to elicit reading and writing from Katrice.

I have already discussed some of the dilemmas encountered in the early weeks of the study, and to some extent the nature of my relationship with Katrice. The central focus of the following section on data analysis is on the forms of reading and writing Katrice employed, and her understanding of herself as a reader and writer (the first two general themes). Evidence of phonemic awareness, acquisition of sight words, and her comprehension and interpretation of stories is woven into these discussions when pertinent. Analysis of Emergent Reading

The process of becoming a conventional reader and writer does not occur in discrete developmental stages (Harste, Woodward, & Burke, 1984). Sulzby (1986) identified 14 different forms of emergent reading, or storybook reenactments, which young children have been

observed to perform. In Sulzby's storybook reading task, the child's reenactment of a story is described with regard to three aspects: (a) features of written language (presence or absence of de- contextualization, dialogue carriers, sequencing conventions, speech-to-print match); (b) intonation (oral or written); and (c) reading strategies (looking at or pointing to print or illustrations, pointing to text, use of letter/sound cues). Viewed as a reenactment, the task allows for consideration of preconventional reading behaviors. Although not offering a stage-development theory, Sulzby claimed that children move in fairly predictable patterns towards conventional reading (Sulzby, 1985).

During a story reenactment, the observer notes in writing the child's book-handling behaviors (directionality, whether or not the child seems to track the print visually or by pointing), intonation (oral or written-like), and features of written (decontextualized) speech. The form of reading exhibited by Katrice varied according to the type of text from which she read (e.g., familiar trade books, preprimers, unfamiliar trade books). I have described the variations in her reading according to these text types in the Summary of Findings. Analysis of Emergent Writing

I have analyzed Katrice's writing according to the developmental spelling stages described by Temple, Nathan, Burris, and Temple (1988), and Sulzby's (1986) classification of emergent writing forms. According to Temple et al., early spelling attempts may be described as prephonemic (strings of random letters that do not represent speech sounds); early phonemic (the use of some letters to represent speech sounds, such as M for mom, or P for up); letter name spelling (letters of the alphabet are used to represent phonemes, as in MAK for make, or YT for white); transitional spelling (features of conventional spelling are employed, but may be over- generalized, as in LAIN for lane, RECKRD for record); and correct, or conventional spelling (applies basic spelling rules and exceptions to rules).

In addition to recognizing spelling patterns similar to those just mentioned, Sulzby's classification scheme describes writing forms other than spelling that are commonly used by young children. Examples include types of scribble (wavy, cursive-like), pseudo-letter forms, copying




from environmental print, and drawing. As with Sulzby's emergent reading scheme, these writing forms do not occur in a linear developmental progression; rather, it is common to see young children shift from one form of writing to another, often depending on the task at hand. Other factors influencing a child's form of spelling include phoneme segmentation ability and confusions in letter names, pronunciation, and articulation (James, 1988). The discussion of Katrice's writing is structured around several of the obstacles she faced as she attempted to compose original text.

Katrice met requests for writing with deep resistance. Some of this resistance can be explained by the mechanical and cognitive difficulties Katrice experienced when writing-her unstable knowledge of letter names and shapes, her inability to match letters and sounds, and the physical difficulty of reproducing letter shapes.

Three larger issues also permeated our relationship, making writing elicitation a painful pro- cedure for both of us. First, Katrice and I did not have a shared definition, or understanding, of writing. Second, we did not have a shared purpose for writing, beyond Katrice's agreement to help me with my work. The third issue was my own uncertainty over how best to support Ka- trice in her attempts to write. The discussion of Katrice's writing development is organized around these three closely intertwined issues.

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS Emergent Reading Observations

Preprimers. Katrice was always eager to read from her preprimers. In late September she read, nearly verbatim, a story her class had prac- ticed from a Level 1 preprimer. She tried pointing to each word in the preprimer as she read, but her word pointing did not always match the print. Because Katrice was reading from memory of the text rather than from recognition of sight words, she was unable to correct the mis- match without returning to the beginning of the page and starting over, and this was not always successful.

In addition to reading familiar stories from her preprimers, Katrice chose to read ahead. Al- though her readings of these unfamiliar stories contained little, if any, of the actual text, all readings from the preprimers shared a consistent intonation, marked by the staccato, word-by-word

reading that is so familiar to first-grade teachers. She appeared to have a certain confidence about reading from the preprimers, no doubt due to the frequency with which these stories were repeated in her classroom reading groups.

While it is impossible to capture intonation in a printed transcript, the following selection illus- trates Katrice's use of short, patterned phrases, indicating her clear understanding of how reading from the preprimer should sound. (Actual text is shown in italics; instances that might be recognition of sight words are in boldface.)

Transcript 1. Reenactment of an unfamiliar preprimer selection. Katrice's Reenactment 1. "I can not drive.

You can drive. I will try to drive."

2. I can see the, I mean, I will not, I could, I can do this for I you.

3. I can not ride the bike. The bike is too big for me.

4. I can not ride. I will not get on. The will do you I will do that.

5. The bus, I mean, I can see the, a truck, on red truck.

6. I see the, I can get do I can get on the red truck. I can do this.

7. I can not do it. I will try to, I can do it and I can do it, I'm dyin'!

Actual Text I am not happy. I do not like this. I will get off here.

I will look around. I will find what I like to do. I will do what I like to do.

I see a bicycle. I see what I like to do. I can get on this bicycle. I can not help you. Ride off to find what you like. I will find what I like to do.

I see a big, red truck.

I see what I like to do. I can get on this red truck. I can do what I like here.

I am not happy. I will find what I like to do. I will do what I like to do.

In this emergent reading, Katrice studied the illustrations as she turned to each new page, relying on the pictures to recall the text. Then her glance shifted to the print, but she did not track the text with her fingers. She seemed to identify several sight words (I, not, will, to, see, do), though not consistently.

In early December, I noted for the first time that Katrice attempted to use phonetic knowledge (initial consonants) to decode words in the preprimer. Such attempts required strenuous effort on her part, and she was able to maintain




this level of effort only briefly. These reenactments were accompanied by pointing with her finger to each word-when Katrice did not point, she soon lost her place and the reenactment became a storytelling based on illustrations.

By the end of January, Katrice was trying to decode entire preprimer stories from sight words and occasional phonetic cues. More of her miscues were semantically correct rather than the seemingly random guesses that had marked earlier reenactments. In addition, she tried more consistently to correct miscues. Despite this progress, her memory for basic sight words was still not stable, and she continued to fall back on her memory of sentence patterns.

Preprimers seemed to provide the "safest" text for Katrice; it was here that she began taking risks with decoding strategies, using both phonetic cues and sight words. However, these stories generally did not evoke discussions or offer opportunities for assessing comprehension beyond the literal level. Because reading entails much more than accurate word calling, I also requested that Katrice read from trade books that were familiar from her teacher's daily read-aloud sessions, and unfamiliar books that I introduced to her. Her encounters with one of these books are documented next.

Familiar trade books. During our initial sessions, I chose or asked Katrice to choose familiar trade books from her classroom library. She especially enjoyed such stories as Amelia Bedelia (Parish, 1963), the Clifford stories by Norman Bridwell, and Are You My Mother by P. D. Eastman (1960). Katrice reenacted these stories enthusiastically, and, in Sulzby's term, "similar to the original text." Her eyes remained focused on illustrations rather than the print, and she never pointed to the print. When I asked Katrice to read less familiar books about the same charac- ters, her response was just as enthusiastic, but her reading was closer to "describing the action" from illustrations than a "similar to the original text" rendition.

By January, Katrice had become disenchanted with reading these stories "her own way." The incident recorded in the following transcript marked a turning point in our work, as we confronted head-on the legitimacy of "kid reading." Katrice had negotiated with me to read every other page of the story, Clifford's Kitten (Brid-

well, 1984). Bracketed phrases indicate that Ka- trice said the words in unison with me; sight words recognized by Katrice are indicated by bold print.

Transcript 2. Reenactment of a familiar trade book-in "grown-up" reading.

1. L: My turn? K: Go.

2. L: I'm Emily Elizabeth. This is my dog Clifford. He is the only pet I [have ever had]. Go ahead.

K: Where I go? 3. L: Next page.

K: Hi! My name is, I only have one Clifford. (Katrice's voice lowers) Am I doing it right?

4. L: Mmhmm. K: Tell me the truth. I done heard you said "you

doing this right" and it been wr-r-ron-n-ng. I'm a bad little girl.

5. L: When I tell you you're doing it right, it's because you're doing it your own way. And that's how I want you to do it.

K: It's wrong. 6. L: You mean it's not grown up?

K: It ain't grown up. 7. L: Oh, ok. Do you want to do it grown up?

K: Yep. 8. L: OK. (continues reading; K joins in on sight

words and where she recalls verbatim text). Except

K: one little 9. L: time

K: time for 10. L: last

K: last 11. L: year

K: year. A Clifford 12. L: kitten

K: kitten 13. L: came

K: came to our house. I let 14. L: think

K: think he is pretty 15. L: lost.

K: lost.

Katrice's question, "Am I doing it right?", demonstrates her concern for wanting to read the "right way," to read like other people her age and grownups. Although our "joint" reading was slow and labored, Katrice recognized a sufficient number of sight words to realize some competence in this attempt to read conventionally. Her miscues were semantically and syntacti- cally acceptable, but she did not attempt phonetic decoding. From this point on, Katrice was rarely willing to do "kid reading."

Until now, my involvement in these sessions had been limited to taking notes on Katrice's




reenactments. Now, it became our habit to read these trade books interactively. Katrice followed along as I read, and I paused, when appropriate, to give her opportunities to fill in sight words and verbatim phrases from memory on her own. Perhaps because these books were already familiar to Katrice, she rarely paused to comment on the content. Thus, I deliberately chose unfamiliar storybooks in hopes of sparking some discussion of text.

Unfamiliar trade books. Even before Ka- trice became disenchanted with "kid reading" from familiar story books, her confidence about reading dissipated when I asked her, in mid-Oc- tober, to read an unfamiliar trade book. The book I chose, The Lonely Doll (Wright, 1957), told the story of Edith, a doll, who lived alone and wished for friends. One day Mr. Bear and Little Bear arrive at her house, then move in to be Edith's companions. Little Bear leads Edith into several adventures, one of which ends in near catastrophe. Edith fears that her own behavior will cause the Bears to move out of the house, leaving her alone again.

I chose this story for several reasons. First, there was minimal text, and the story was illustrated with full-page, detailed photographs that provided a basis other than text from which Ka- trice could reenact the story. I also hoped that the photographs would appeal visually to Ka- trice's feminine interests: a "dress-up" scene with fancy clothing, jewelry, hairstyling, and make-up. Second, I felt that the themes of loneli- ness and friendship in the story might lead Ka- trice to talk about her own experiences, acquaintances, and feelings, discussions that might lead to opportunities for writing. Third, I suspected that the scene in which Edith and Little Bear are spanked by Mr. Bear would present sufficient controversy to prompt a critical discussion of the text. Finally, I hoped Katrice would benefit from learning the rich and uncommon vocabulary used in the story.

Katrice's initial response to my request for her to read the story was part compliance, part protest: "I will look at it but I won't read. I can't." She explored the glossy front cover, turned the book over, and began naming individual letters from the back cover. She opened the book to a middle page, examined the text and commented, "These some hard words." Then she bargained with me: "I read this one [page],

that's all." In the photograph on this page, the doll was posed in front of a mirrored dressing table, styling her hair. Katrice "read": "Clifford was a, she liked to do her hair and she liked to do ballet. She was sad. The end."

Following this brief reenactment, I prompted Katrice to "go ahead and finish" the story. She stalled: "It got too many letters." I tried to scaffold the task: "Read it your own way. Read it like you read the Clifford books." Katrice re- turned to the middle of the book and once again described what she saw in the photographs. A transcript of this reading is provided below.

Transcript 3. First reenactment of an unfamiliar trade book. Katrice's Reenactment 1. She did her hair.

2. Actually she cut her hair.

3. Then she put on some shoes.

4. Then she put on her hat and gloves.

5. The bear put on her lipstick and then they wrote something on the mirror with lipstick.

6. And then before they left they put on another dress and the girl was sleep.

7. Bear gave her a whuppin'.

8. The girl started crying.

Actual Text "Oh, let's," agreed Edith, "but first I must do something about my hair." She tried making it into a knot. That looked very grownup. Then came high-heeled shoes- and a ruffled petticoat- and a hat with roses and ribbons. He grabbed the lipstick and scrawled all across the mirror-"Mr. Bear is just a silly old thing!"

So on went the lipstick! But in the mirror Edith saw Mr. Bear watching!

"I may be a silly," Mr. Bear answered, "but I know when a naughty little girl needs a spanking." Little Bear couldn't watch. He was afraid his turn was next. He was right.

In the first two lines of the transcript, Katrice was actively composing the story as she revised her interpretation of the photograph. When her reenactment was finished, she remarked that this was a sad story. She was especially distressed that Edith, the doll, had no mother. She won- dered out loud how the doll could have learned to talk without a mother, or why a mother would have let such a young child leave home. Trying to come to grips with this puzzle, she speculated that the doll might be older than she looked.




Katrice continued to reenact this story over the next seven months, each time forming new opinions and revising her explanations for the episodes she found distressing or unclear. After several readings of the story, Katrice was still bothered by the "missing mother." Finally, I asked her if the story was true or make-believe. Katrice was taken aback by this question, as if she had not yet considered the possibility that the story was fictional. She continued to bring up the topic of the missing mother after subse- quent reenactments, but she would also stop to remind herself that the story was "only make-believe."

Once Katrice had reconciled her feelings about the mother, she focused on the spanking of the doll and the little bear by Mr. Bear. Her voice sounded angry as she chastised Mr. Bear for hitting the children. She studied the illustrations for clues to show that the spanking was un- justified, and she decided that the doll should evict Mr. Bear from her house.

Katrice's final reading of The Lonely Doll occurred in late May. This time she read five pages independently, using her knowledge of sight words and phonetics to decode some words, fill- ing in the remainder from context, memory, or with assistance from me. She was also able to reconcile her anger toward Mr. Bear by deciding that his spanking could not have hurt the children since he had so much fur on his paws.

I introduced Katrice to several other trade books throughout the year, and she frequently brought books she had checked out of the school library. Two books became her favorites, Matthew and Tilly (Jones, 1991) and The Tiger Who Wore White Gloves (Brooks, 1974). Katrice's reenactments of these books followed much the same pattern as for The Lonely Doll. Her initial reenactments were based solely on illustrations, but after hearing me read the stories, she gradually added portions of the actual text to her reenactments. Eventually, she attended to sight words and attempted some phonetic decoding. However, no other story provoked Ka- trice to discussion and questioning like the doll book.

Summary of emergent readings. In sociohistorical terms, the evidence presented here suggests that Katrice's engagement in reading was scaffolded by her familiarity with the text, her knowledge of some print conventions, and

assistance from an expert reader. Her reenactments of preprimer stories ranged from being similar to the original text, to verbatim retellings when the story was one that Katrice had prac- ticed frequently in her class. Katrice attended to the print in these stories, identifying sight words and experimenting with phonetic decoding. The competence she experienced in reading these stories, I contend, encouraged her to reenact the unfamiliar stories in her preprimers.

Katrice's familiarity with favorite trade books supported her efforts to reenact these stories ini- tially as similar to the original text, eventually in- corporating some portions verbatim. Katrice's understanding of reading changed over time, in part due to her identification with peers and teachers, and in part due to her practice of strategic reading skills in her instructional text. She became dissatisfied with reading "her own way," and demanded a greater level of assistance to help her read conventionally.

Katrice was challenged by the unfamiliar text and complex stories in some trade books. The trade books did not support her to read strategi- cally as easily as the preprimers, but they did compel her to search for meaningful and acceptable interpretations of stories. As Katrice gained familiarity with these stories from hearing them read by me, her own reenactments grew increasingly similar to the original text. Eventually, she became attentive to the print in these books, and by the end of the school year she followed the text word for word, relying on her memory for the text, decoding from sight words and, less often, from phonetic cues. Thus, different types of text may well serve different purposes in the acquisition of literacy for children who are not learning to read with ease. Emergent Writing Observations

Lack of shared definitions. Our lack of a shared definition of writing surfaced on two levels-the meaning of writing and the outward manifestation of writing. First, we did not have a shared agreement on the meaning of writing. To Katrice, writing was a school activity defined by the tasks she was required to complete each day (copying the Morning News from the chalkboard and practicing letter formation on handwriting worksheets). At the end of her first-grade year, Katrice and her classmates were inter- viewed about their awareness of writing. Some of the interview questions and her responses are




shown in Transcript 4.

Transcript 4. Writing awareness interview, 5-90: Q: How would you tell someone what writing is?

A: "I would sit down and show them." Prompt: What would you show them? A: "I would show them how to write."

Q: What kinds of writing do you do in school? A: "Write letters and stuff." Prompt: Do you write letters to people, or the letters of the alphabet? A: "Letters to people and the alphabet."

Q: What kinds of writing do you do at home? A: "I write love letters, I write valentine letters, draw, and that's all."

Q: What does a good writer do? A: "Know how to write and stuff to read and stuff."

Q: How does one become a good writer? A: "People help 'em how to read."

Q: Do you know any good writers? A: "Yeah, my sister, my mom, my aunt, my cousin, my Dad, my godfather, my brothers, my cousin, an-n-n-d not me."

Katrice did not seem to understand that writing has a communicative or self-expressive intent (her "love letters" and "valentine letters" were actually rows of hearts); nor did she distinguish writing as a separate process from reading or drawing. I hoped that Katrice would learn about writing beyond the performative level by writing stories about herself, familiar people, places, events or topics of interest. The primary result of this discrepancy between our definitions of writing was Katrice's strong and unwavering resistance to requests for writing because I did not allow her to copy text. One day, after I had re- moved every book, worksheet, and paper in our work area, Katrice copied the manufacturer's name from a cafeteria appliance stored in the room, then smugly announced, "You can't either move this one!"

The second level of unmatched definition con- cerned the outward manifestation of writing- the forms of writing Katrice and I used, and the labels we attached to these forms. Prior to the case study, Katrice had been introduced in her classroom to invented spelling as a way of "kid writing," to be used when the conventional, or correct, spelling of a word was unknown. She had already produced simple invented spellings with assistance, so I assumed that she considered this a valid means of writing and that she viewed herself as capable of using simple invented spellings to write. The following incident

in late September led me to rethink this assumption, however.

I asked Katrice to write a story. She protested, saying she could not write. I reminded her that it did not have to be like grown-up writing, that she could write however she wanted. Katrice wrote her name at the top of her paper, then crossed it out. She started over, but soon became frustrated and scratched out the second attempt at her signature. I reminded Katrice once again that her story did not have to be like grown-up writing. She responded, "I like grown- up writing," and tried to connect the letters as if in cursive print. She was displeased with this attempt and crossed it out.

Sulzby (1990) suggested that kindergarten and grade-one teachers model various forms of writing (scribble, drawing, experimentation with letters, invented spelling, etc.) for students to help them understand that "writing their own way" will be accepted by the teacher. I had been reluctant to introduce preconventional forms other than invented spelling to Katrice because they seemed inappropriate for her age, and because she had already produced simple (early phonemic) invented spellings with assistance the previous year. However, I conceded that Katrice's physical difficulties with letter formation war- ranted a different approach. I told Katrice that there were lots of ways that kids could write, and I demonstrated examples of wave-like scribbles, pseudo-letter forms, cursive-like scribble, and drawing.

Katrice watched this brief demonstration and responded, "Oh, I forgot," then filled her notebook paper with wave-like scribbles (see Figure 1). Katrice worked diligently at this writing, changing direction often (some rows look like w's, some like m's), and attempting to form cursive-like loops. An X in the left margin marks a line in which Katrice was especially pleased with her effort-"Ooh, I almost got it," she remarked.

Katrice became even more confused when she asked me to read her story. I was unable to "read" the story back to her-she had not vocal- ized during the writing and I was not certain that she had a story in mind as she wrote. I explained that grown-ups cannot always read kid writing, but since it was her writing, she could read it. Katrice seemed genuinely bewildered at my in- competence, but she rendered the following




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c1--6 XgY--(9444)2 G -

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you get some water? Thank you.

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\ -o/Lc^^ L t R- t -/

A^L^, L^t^- ^'t1 -'Lr---- ^1,--'- ^"'

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Figure 1. Katrice's story, 9-28. "Can you see me? I can see you. I will help you. Thank you for helping. Come over and eat dinner with us. I will pay you. And I'm proud that you got me over. Please on your way will you get some water? Thank you."




reenactment (see Transcript 5), albeit with some reluctance.

Transcript 5. Reenactment of Katrice's first story.

"Can you see me? I can see you. I will help you. Thank you for helping. Come over and eat dinner with us. I will pay you. And I'm proud that you got me over. Please on your way will you get some water? Thank you." The opening lines of this reenactment were

similar to the following lines from a story in her Level 1 preprimer: "Here I am. Come find me. I can see you. You can run here" (All Through the Town, Silver Burdett & Ginn, 1989). Not only did Katrice rely on her memory of another story to compose her own story, she reenacted this story with the same stacatto-like intonation that marked her reading from preprimer. stories.

Several weeks passed after this episode before Katrice felt confident enough to write again. She continued to use scribble writing on occasion throughout the year, even after she began to write with invented spellings, but generally to taunt me ("You can't even read it," she would tease). These "scribble writings" changed over time, too. In the writing sample from February, shown in Figure 2, Katrice incorporated conventional letter forms.

What Katrice found salient in the physical act of writing, it seemed, was not so much the form, but the degree of effort needed to produce a

written piece. "Grown-up" writing, to Katrice, was fluid, smooth, and fast-just like adult cursive writing. Had she not been confronted with the dilemma of reading her own "grown-up" writing, Katrice might have persisted with this notion of writing indefinitely. In later sessions she referred to her scribble writing as "little kid's" writing.

Invented spelling, with all the challenges it presented Katrice, did not match her notion of grown-up writing. Writing with invented spelling caused so much distress for her that she seemed fearful of rejection. In response to my prompts for writing, she would refuse, then challenge me: "You gonna get mad at me, ain't you?" or "You don't like me." Still, she distinguished invented spelling from "little kid's" writing. I continued to refer to it as "writing your own way," but Katrice did not find a label for this process until late in the school year when she realized that she could ask for help with spelling.

Our individual understandings of writing and what it means to write complicated for me the process of developing appropriate scaffolds for Katrice, and it increased her resistance to writing. In addition, our lack of a shared understanding of the purpose of writing heightened this resistance.

Lack of shared purpose for writing. From an emergent literacy perspective, original compositions provide a functional base from which children eventually learn that they can preserve and share personal communications through writing, and from which they can learn


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yy^^^1^^^-5^ 6 ^ C - ?^(^^y-^t V -* f IX f --

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Figure 2. Scribble writing from February, not translated.

L



print conventions such as punctuation, the ne- cessity of spacing words, dialogue markers, and spelling. Younger emergent writers, especially those in classroom environments that promote emergent literacy activities, are often observed to write spontaneously in the context of the- matic play or class projects.

In contrast, Katrice had little, if any, intrinsic motivation for composing original stories and messages, especially given the physical and cognitive pressures she faced in writing. Thus, she defined writing as a set of school-related tasks that involved handwriting practice and copying from the chalkboard. Katrice and her classmates were rewarded for timely, neat completion of these tasks, and task completion seemed to be Katrice's sole purpose for writing in school. Al- though she and her classmates had several opportunities each week to write in response to literature selections, or to compose their own stories, these activities were generated either by the research team or by the teacher with assistance from the research team. Thus, opportunities for extended writing were seen as "extra" work, not part of the daily routine. Having teachers and classmates as an audience was not a compelling incentive for Katrice to write. In addition, her sessions with me were rather con- trived and thus not conducive to spontaneous engagement with writing.

In mid-October, two weeks after she wrote the story shown in Figure 1, I prompted Katrice to write a story her own way. She informed me, "I can't even read it [kid writing]," and no amount of coaxing could persuade her to write that day. As I probed for writing opportunities that might capture Katrice's interest, I began leaving notes for her on the days I did not come to her school, or when she was absent. I ended these notes with invitations for her to write back, but this ploy was unsuccessful. However, Katrice enjoyed getting personal mail and, since she had mentioned letter writing in the interview referred to earlier, I focused on this genre as an opportunity to engage her in writing.

Just as I was ready to end a session in late September, I mentioned to Katrice that I was going to visit her mother later in the day. On the spur of the moment, I asked Katrice if she would like to write a message that I could deliver. She declined the invitation, and I did not pressure her by asking a second time. Instead, I an-

nounced that our time was up. But Katrice was either not ready to leave or was intrigued by the notion of writing to her mother so she suggested a compromise: "I can draw something." Using my notebook as a straight-edge, Katrice began drawing a series of parallel, horizontal lines across a blank sheet of paper. She then drew dotted lines between each of the solid lines to look like primary penmanship paper, and began, on her own, to compose a message to her mother: "I [will] see you when I get home." She wrote "i s" for I see, then gave up in frustration. I encouraged her to "write your own way," and Katrice finished the message with cursive-like scribbles.

I continued prompting Katrice for story topics, and in late October she responded to an invitation to write her own storybook. The topic she chose was her upcoming birthday party. For nearly one hour, she virtually slaved over this composition (see Figure 3) which says, "I will go to Red Lobster and I will eat some ice cream and my friend will come too with me and my cousin will come to Red Lobster." Katrice was able to read this story from her own writing but relied primarily on her memory for the text rather than sight-word or phonetic cues. Several days later, when presented with a copy of her story printed on the computer, she was not able to read it. She became agitated after scanning the page and refused to read, complaining, "I don't see no 'red'-I can't even read it." Clearly, at this point, she was still not able to read conventionally.

Katrice's tolerance for writing with invented spelling varied from one session to the next. Many days she refused to write at all, but she was enticed by props such as stationery, markers, novelty pens and pencils, and stamps to write letters to her family and acquaintances. Over time, her invented spellings became more complex-she began to hear and include vowels, and included middle and ending consonant sounds. She also began to incorporate conventions such as spacing between words, and she experimented with punctuation; in addition, her memory for conventional spellings was becoming stable. Her D'Nealian manuscript became more consistent, she remembered letter forms, and she relied less on lined paper for letter formation. (Her progress towards conventional writing is depicted in the letters reproduced in




Figures 3 - 5, which are discussed in detail in the following section.)

Personal correspondence held sufficient purpose for Katrice to allow sustained opportunities for her to experiment with many aspects of print. Had I insisted on story or journal writing- two common emergent literacy tasks-it is doubtful that Katrice would have become as involved in writing.

From a sociohistorical perspective, it is important that the teacher preserve the integrity of the task to be learned. Letter writing, from this perspective, should not be reduced to isolated skills such as learning metalinguistic labels (return ad- dress, greeting, closing, signature, etc.); rather, the child should experience letter writing in total- ity, with the purpose of sending a message to someone else. Thus, in this model of learning, the job of the teacher (or expert) becomes one of providing whatever assistance is necessary to help the student (or novice) complete the task within the student's zone, or range, of development. The relationship between expert and novice is an important component of the learning process, as are shared definitions of the task. In the following section I describe some of the tensions I experienced while assisting Katrice, due in part to our lack of shared definitions and purposes for writing.

The search for appropriate scaffolding. Litowitz (in press) suggested that a shared definition of task between the novice and the expert enhances the expert's ability to develop appropriate assistance, or scaffolding, which in turn may reduce the novice's resistance to the task. Younger children are generally more receptive to the notion of reading and writing "your own way" than was Katrice. For these children, emergent literacy activities are easily scaffolded according to the level of assistance they need. Examples of scaffolding include: allowing the child to write his or her "own way"; holding the child's thoughts in mind as the child thinks about the spelling of individual words; helping the child identify sounds and the corresponding letters-at the beginning, middle, and/or end of words; prompting for additional information; and rereading portions of the story when the child is unable to recall the text from memory and cannot read his or her own writing.

When we first began working together, Ka- trice was not responsive to most of these offers

of assistance. For one thing, she simply did not want to read and write her "own way"-she wanted to do "grown-up" reading and writing. For another, I was cautious about offering direct assistance because I had not resolved my own conflicting research-versus-teaching goals. Also, Katrice was accustomed to receiving assistance that was much different from scaffolding that left room for her own creativity. Her classroom writing activities were guided by the use of lined paper, by tracing or copying text generated by someone else, and by the use of duplicated worksheets that contained straightforward, simple directions for completion. These activities provided complete templates with clear beginning and ending boundaries. Katrice knew when she had finished a task, and she understood the nature of the evaluation her work would un- dergo.

In contrast, emergent writing activities had no boundaries-it was left to Katrice to decide the beginning and ending points of a story, letter, or book reenactment. Such activities created uncertainty for her, and she was unwilling to take the risks required by this uncertainty. As mentioned, she seemed to fear being rejected by me if she did something "wrong."

My first concession to Katrice, as described above, was to demonstrate prephonemic forms of writing to her. I was not convinced that "scribble writing" was appropriate for an 8-year-old, but given her resistance to invented spelling, I capitulated. Fortunately, my concern was short- lived, and Katrice decided to try invented spelling when she realized that neither she nor I could read her "kid writing." A more difficult de- cision for me centered on the type and amount of assistance to provide Katrice as she attempted to invent spellings. The transcript below is from the episode in which Katrice composed the message I delivered to her mother. It reveals my awkward attempts to scaffold this emergent writing task.

Transcript 6. Assistance with invented spelling-October.

1. K: "I see" (writes 'I'). "How do you write, no, see?"

L: "/S-s-s/." 2. K: "S?"

L: "Umhmm." 3. K: "N?" (asking if this is what she should write

next) L: "Seeee." (urging her to listen for the second




sound in 'see') 4. K: "I did. I just spelled the last time. C, is it?

Ceeee, B?" L: "Do you hear a/b/?"

5. K: "D?" L: "What word are you saying? I see,..."

6. K: "You. Is that see (or 'c')?" L: "I see." (pointing to the words she has already

written) 7. K: "You. How do you spell 'you'?"

L: "/j/ you /j/." 8. K: "Oh, a's'?"

L: "You. /j/ /j/. What makes a /j/ sound/?" 9. K: "I don't know."

L: "/j/ like in yellow." 10. K: "/j/ yellow. I don't know how to write. I can't

do it in grown-up." L: "Well you can do it in kid writing and I can tell

her what it says." 11. K: (orally composes) "I see you when I get home

from school."

This attempt to compose a letter to her mother required sustained attention and great effort on Katrice's part. The transcript reveals some of the difficulties I encountered in trying to assist her. First, I incorrectly assumed that she would try to write more than one sound per word. Therefore, I misjudged when Katrice was finished writing one word and ready to go on to the next as in the third exchange, where I prompted Katrice to listen for the vowel sound at the end of the word, "see," not realizing that she had already gone on to the next word, "you." As a result, Katrice misunderstood my prompt to mean that she had not used the correct letter to spell "see." She asked if it was a "c" (as opposed to the "s"). Then she reverted to the alphabet sequence: C - B - D, randomly guessing to get the letter for which she thought I was prompting her.

A second example of misunderstanding occurred in the ninth exchange. Here, I tried to help Katrice associate the first letter in "yes" with the first letter in "yellow," mistakenly as- suming that she was familiar with the spelling of color words. A third misunderstanding occurred in the tenth exchange, when Katrice told me that she could not write in "grown-up." Once again I assured her that she could write her own way, not realizing that invented spelling was not Katrice's "own way." This time she took my re- mark to mean that I would not give her any more help; so she simply gave up on invented spelling and composed the remainder of her message in cursive-like scribbles.

Perhaps out of frustration over our different definitions of writing, Katrice found ways to manage writing tasks on her own. She drew lines on unlined paper, and she demanded help with spelling. The portions of transcript recorded below are taken from the writing of her birthday story in late October (see Figure 3). In the first section, I tried to scaffold the activity by prompting Katrice to listen for the sounds in words. Earlier, I had prompted her for ideas about the details she could include in this story.

Transcript 7. Invented spelling of birthday story. Part A.

1. K: "I, (pauses to write), will, how do you spell will? W,"

L: "That's right." 2. K: (sings as she adds two l's to the w for will, then

reads) "I will?" (K. is confused because the two l's look like t's). "I know what it is, it's an 1 and an 1, right?"

L: "That's just the line in the paper." 3. K: (continues composing) "go to the" (pauses to

draw more lines on the paper) "cause look, I will go to Red Lobster" (points to show that all the words won't fit on one line). "Is Red Lob- ster a long, is long?"

L: It's a pretty long word and it's two words, 'Red' and 'Lobster'."

4. K: "I will go, how do you spell 'go'?" L: "What do you hear?" K: "/g/ /g/ /g/. " L: "What makes that sound?" K: "B?" L: "/g//g/." K: "D? G?" L: "I hear a g. Is there anything else in 'go'?"

5. K: (sings) "I will go /t/, S?" L: "/t/, to." K: "To, that's right." (writes a t)

In the first exchange of Part A, Katrice took the initiative on a word she knew how to spell, at least as a letter name-"I." In the fourth exchange, I did not automatically correct her when she made an incorrect letter-sound match, pre- ferring to give her another chance to listen and think about the sound. I continued prompting her to listen for the sounds in words, though she sometimes ignored these prompts. In Part B of the transcript, Katrice became impatient when my assistance was not helpful.

Transcript 7. Part B. 1. K: "Lobster."

L: "/1//1/ /1/." 2. K: "L-1-l-l-lobster."

L: "Starts just like Laura." 3. K: "Red, red, lobster."




~~\r Q

_ S Cs. /Lt.\).. j

-L '- X -- S. 1^

Figure 3. Katrice's birthday story. I will go to Red Lobster and I will eat some ice cream and my friend will come with me and my cousin will come to Red Lobster.




L: "/I/ /1/, starts just like my name, L-l-laura." 4. K: "Just give me one hint."

L: "Little, say little, and lonely, and lovely." 5. K: (pounds her fist on the table) "Write it down on

my back!" (I trace an '1' on her back) L: "Or like this." (I trace an '1' in the palm of her

hand). "What is that called?" 6. K: "T?"

L: "No, a T, you put a cross on it. Without that [cross] what is it called?"

7. K: (no response) L: "An L."

8. K: "L?" L: "'L' makes the /I/ sound. Lobster."

In this set of exchanges, I tried to help Katrice match the sound // with the letter "1" by giving her a set of words with the same sound. I thought she might remember "little" as a sight word, and "lonely" from her book about the lonely doll. These examples only served to con- fuse Katrice even more, however, and she demanded that I show her the correct letter. Be- cause I had worked hard to keep her from copying print, I refused to simply write the letter with pencil and paper. Instead, I traced letters on her back, in the palm of her hand, on the table, and in the air, rather than writing them on her paper. This seemed an appropriate compromise and one that Katrice usually enjoyed.

Composing her own text with invented spelling remained an arduous task for Katrice for many months. She had difficulty isolating and identifying letter-sound relationships. Even when she knew which letter represented the sound she heard, Katrice could not consistently retrieve from memory the shape of the letter. She nearly always resorted to reciting the alphabet sequence until she came to the letter she wanted, or she asked for help.

Over time, I grew more comfortable with providing assistance, though I tried to be certain that Katrice was given a fair chance to solve problems on her own first. Another adjustment I made was to compromise about unlined paper. Some emergent literacy theorists promote using unlined paper for writers who are not yet skilled at producing letter shapes, as the lines can be both confining and confusing. Similarly, I was anxious for Katrice to stop worrying about fitting the letters exactly on the lines and to concen- trate instead on composing text. However, I realized that she relied on the lines for her memory of some letter shapes. Requiring her to write on unlined paper, therefore, added another layer

of frustration to her writing attempts. I bought her a wide-ruled notebook which she enjoyed because it was the same type I used. Eventually, she grew accustomed to writing on unlined paper, as can be seen in Figure 4. Katrice was writing a letter to one of my colleagues who was interested in our work, and the transcript of this session indicates some changes I made in sup- porting her as she wrote.

Transcript 8. Letter to Catherine. 1. K: (orally plans a sentence) "My name is Ka-

trice and we do reading. My, i," L: "/m//m/"

2. K: "M?" L: "Umhmm. M."

3. K: "Oh, like, it's like a w?" L: "Mmhmm, but it's upside down."

4. K: (searches for an 'm' in her writing so she can copy it)

L: "Here, here's an 'm'." (pointing out an 'm' that she has already written)

5. K: "Oh, I see what you mean. (Writes 'm,' then reads) My,"

L: "My, when you say that /ai/ sound. . ." 6. K: "I? My- i-i."

L: "It sounds like 'I' but it's really a 'y', just like you made in 'you.' When it comes at the end it makes a /ai/, my. When it comes at the beginning it makes /j/ like in 'you'."

7. K: (adds 'i') "My, i, i?" L: "It's fine just the way it is."

In the first two exchanges, the assistance I gave was more forthcoming than in the previous transcripts. When Katrice identified the vowel sound at the end of the first word, "my," I called her attention to the initial consonant sound and did not hesitate to confirm her guess that it was an "m." Further, when she was confused about the formation of the letter, I offered a verbal clue (upside down "w") and pointed out an "m" she had already written, instead of waiting for her to find it herself. This type of assistance helped move the writing task along. I realized that my explanation of initial and ending "y" sounds was less helpful to Katrice, and I did not press her to use the conventional spelling.

Improvements in Katrice's approach to writing are documented in Transcript 8 as well as in my approach to scaffolding the task. In this transcript, she orally planned complete sentences




Vy to See Sot5 aL

uAA LY u

yoLk dd

rrnm?A

Figure 4. February, to one of Laura's colleagues. I will like to see you. My name is Katrice. I do reading. What is your name? What do you do at school? Will you write to me?

before beginning to write, as in exchange 1. Previously, she had plunged into writing without such planning, which confused the process for both of us. Another sign of growth is seen in exchange 4, where Katrice was able to go back into her text to search for a letter she had already used rather than going through the entire retrieval process, and without relying exclusively on my help. Her ability to use this strategy when her memory of letter forms failed was evidence to me that composing original text was becoming less intimidating to Katrice.

The final transcript examined here was produced in late April. During this session, Katrice wrote a letter to one of the school secretaries (see Figure 5). Once again, change is apparent both in Katrice's knowledge of writing and spelling and in the assistance she received from me.

Transcript 9. Writing thank-you letter, April 30. 1. L: (prompting Katrice to go on to a new

sentence). What else can you think of? K: Letting us use the room?

2. L: Yeah. K: Thank you for lettin' us use your room.

And that's be all. Thank you, thank you, how you spell 'thank?'

3. L:/th//th/T- h. K: T, h (writes t, h).

4. L: Thank ... (emphasis on/k/). K: K (writes 'k').

5. L: Umhmm. Like in Katrice and candy. Thank you. You know how to write 'you,' I think.

K: Yeah! (Writes 'y-o-u'). 6. L: Thank you for ...


T- u.' L ?i.1~e



K: For. Oops. (undecipherable comment). 7. L: You know how to write that one, too.

K: For, I already wrote it! 8. L: Where?

K: Right there. (copies 'for') Thank you for lettin' us...

9. L: Letting. // /1/ Like Laura K: I don't know how to spell it!

10. L: L. K. Oh (writes '1').

11. L: Letting. (emphasis on /t/) K: T? (writes 't').

12. L: Letting. (emphasis on /n/) K: N (writes 'n').

13. L: Umhmm. Letting. Do you hear any more? (emphasis on /g/)

K: Do you? 14. L: Umhmm

K: G? (writes 'g') 15. L: Umhmm. Letting us

K: S? S, u. 16. L: Letting us, us is u-s.

K: U, oh, so you 'sposed to write u and then s.

17. L: Yes, and leave a space so she knows it's a new word.

K: (has difficulty with 'u') Like that? 18. L: No, like in y-o-u

K: Y, o, u, that how you (it is possible that Katrice confused the letter 'u' with the word 'you').

19. L: The last one. Just the u, u-s for us. Those little words are hard, aren't they? (prompting for next word) Use,

K: U, just write the whole thing, use? (writes 'you')

20. L: Umhmm. Use (emphasis on /s/). K: S. Your, your how you spell,

21. L: /j//j/. K: You got to write some, man.

22. L: It's just like 'you' with an r on the end. Where is 'you'?

K: Should I write another 'you'? 23. L: Umhmm Your your/r//r/rrr

K: How you spell 'r'? 24. L: rrrr

K: So, like do I put a dot? 25. L: Umhmm, a period. rrrrr

K: That's what I want, R. 26. L: R is like this one, and this one. (points to

other r's in the text) K: That?

27. L: Umhmm. Good, and now we can go to room, oo.

K: O? 28. L: Two o's. Room.

K: M? 29. L: Ummhmm

K: Messed up. (erases) That's all? I'm done?

As in previous sessions, I assisted Katrice with letter formation and spelling, and by holding her thoughts in mind as she worked from one word to the next. As in Transcript 8, she planned a complete sentence (exchange 2); her memory for some sight words was more stable-she was able to go back to a word she had already spelled when it reoccurred in her text (exchanges 7 and 22). Katrice demonstrated additional conventional knowledge as she inserted punctuation-the period in exchange 24, and question marks, as seen in Figure 5. She also seemed to be more aware of vowel sounds ("wos" for was, "nis" for nice, the "o" in room, and "gven" for giving).

As a result of our previous experiences together and Katrice's increased competence, I was able to provide more appropriate assistance during this writing session, and with less tension-I jumped in with help to keep the composition moving along rather than allowing Katrice to become totally frustrated. For example, I told her how to spell the /th/ sound in thank and the /oo/ sound in room. I explained that "your" was spelled just like "you" but with an "r" at the end. Similarly, when she floundered with letter formation, I pointed out examples she had already written ("r" in exchange 26). She understood that my repetition of a word, with emphasis on a particular sound, had replaced the more explicit prompt, "What else do you hear?" She now expected that words would have more than one sound, and did not move on to the next word before I stopped prompting for sounds.

Katrice still displayed some frustration with this writing task, as in exchange 9 when she demanded more explicit help, and in exchange 21 when she reminded me that she was doing all the work, and requested more active participa- tion on my part. An impressive change that cannot be registered in a written transcript is the ease with which our exchanges occurred during this session. The composition of this note moved along smoothly, and there was far less




tension and emotion in our conversation than in previous sessions. Summary of Emergent Writing

Within the genre of letter writing, Katrice's tolerance for composing text increased over time. Her knowledge of print conventions grew as well. By the end of the school year, her memory for letter forms had improved-she recognized 43 of 52 letters, compared with 28 in Septem- ber. Further, she formed most letters correctly

and with greater ease. She recognized 15 sight words on the Clay test (as well as others not included on that test), and was beginning to space words. Her invented spellings progressed from early phonemic to transitional. She read her own writing as if from a preprimer: pointing word by word, relying heavily on her memory of the text and sight words and, less frequently, attempted to use phonetic cues to decode.

As I became more familiar with Katrice's

J ti c j Thj YAtf,or

!cLCS

YCur

hpe m h )6 kLL ")o u I

nni f gve4V rn e Lo, Pe

zRt'/^

Figure 5. Late April, to a school secretary. Dear Miss Wagonner, Happy May Day. You was nice for giving me some candies. Thank you for letting us use your room. Love, Katrice.


cLco n n a r%

i - j ot.,.

WoSi

n '( ), fc4



strengths and difficulties, and as we constructed a shared understanding of routines, tasks, and writing, I was better able to tailor the assistance I offered her. Most important, perhaps, was my gradual unlearning of a traditional teacher role and my adaptation to a partnership model of instruction. I was aided in this endeavor by Ka- trice, who never failed to inform me when my assistance was insufficient, or when it exceeded the bounds of helpfulness.

CONCLUSION Limitations

Since the primary tool of case-study research is the researcher, a number of human faults can jeopardize the research (Merriam, 1990). For one, my analysis of the reading and writing transcripts is filled with speculation and uncertainty. Second, I have not analyzed other sources of data that might confirm or disconfirm the con- clusions I have drawn, including videotaped opportunities Katrice had for reading and writing in her classroom. Additional information from her special education teacher, speech therapist, and principal might strengthen the analysis, too, as these professionals noted and kept me informed of Katrice's progress throughout the year.

Third, the relationship between the development of reading and writing is an important component of current theories of literacy development. This issue deserves explicit treatment in future analysis of this case study, given the particular difficulties Katrice faced in both reading and writing. The transcripts should be examined for evidence of how these difficulties influenced the reading-writing relationship. Implications for Research and Practice

Research and instruction for children with learning disabilities, particularly in literacy, can and should be broadened to include the multiple levels of literacy recognized in the cognitive literature. Viewed from a social-historical perspective, emergent literacy theory offers a useful framework from which to study youngsters who are not learning to read and write with ease. Emergent literacy is based on a theory of literacy acquisition-a theory that supports current rede- finitions of reading as an interactive process. Re- search in emergent literacy has shown that children do not progress from "reading readiness" to conventional literacy by formal instruction, in- dependent of development and experience. Nor

is progress towards conventional literacy incre- mental, as measured by criterion-referenced skill subtests that are commonly used to determine placement for reading instruction (Sulzby & Teale, 1991).

This perspective allows for greater variation in the range of "legitimate" literacy behaviors. thereby expanding what may be considered "normal" development. By viewing children like Katrice from an emergent literacy perspective, it is possible that we will identify more "normality" than "disability" in their literacy development. Given that a regular education teacher might ac- commodate their needs within an emergent literacy framework, it may become more difficult to justify special education placement for children with mild disabilities.

In any case, teachers and researchers must be sensitive to children's own sense of what it means to be a reader and writer. No matter how I tried to reassure Katrice that she could write and read "her own way," she remained uncon- vinced that her emergent attempts were legitimate reading and writing. For Katrice, reading from the pictures was simply "Wr-r-r-on-n-ng." She wanted to read like a grown-up. And any enterprise as demanding as invented spelling was simply not "kid writing." To Katrice, invented spelling was thoroughly "grown-up."

In accord with the sociohistorical foundations of this study, teachers must be prepared to offer different levels of support for children such as Katrice than for younger emergent readers and writers. Children with severe articulation problems need a different type of support when they are trying to invent spellings than children with normal language and speech development. Building the self-confidence needed to take risks in emergent reading and writing tasks requires greater effort for children who realize that they have fallen far behind their age-mates in reading and writing. Still other youngsters may have acquired a rote-like memory for a large corpus of sight words, yet retain unstable concepts of letters and words and limited ability to manipulate phonemes. These children can be highly resistant to invented spelling and, therefore, will need more intricate forms of assistance than other children.

As I continue to work with children in primary special education settings, I am becoming more convinced that young children do not simply




need to "break the code" in order to learn to read and write. Children, especially those with

learning disabilities, need opportunities to create their own codes. I am hopeful that case studies of literacy acquisition in special education will become more accepted-and expected-as a mode of inquiry (Johnston, 1985), and that such research will lead to greater finesse in the study of children with learning disabilities and in the assistance they receive in creating their own lit-

eracy codes.

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FOOTNOTES 'The case study reported in this article is part of a larger project entitled, Transforming the Learning Disabled into Self-Regulated Learners: The Devel- opment and Implementation of an Early Sustain- able Literacy Curriculum, funded by the Office of Special Education Programs (H023C90076-90). In- vestigators: A. S. Palincsar, C. S. Englert, T. Raphael, and J. Gavelek.

The author is indebted to Harry Boyce, Shannon Gates, and Sharon Whitmore, Holmes Elementary School, Ypsilanti, MI, for their cooperation; and to Dr. Annemarie S. Palincsar for her gracious support and assistance.

Requests for reprints should be addressed to: Laura Klenk, Educational Studies, 1360 School of Educa- tion, University of Michigan, 610 East University, Ann Arbor. MI 48109.




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Case Study in Reading Disability: An Emergent Literacy Perspective