ELL Information

names have been changed

ELL Case Study 4-Information

*Maria is a 9-year-old 3^rd grader whose first language is Spanish.  She moved to the United States from Mexico as a toddler.  She has one sister (age 16) and one brother (age 13) who are still living in Mexico.  Maria is average height, slightly pudgy, with brown straight shoulder length hair, and brown eyes.  She projects a shy image but she is very eager to be accommodating and helpful.

Maria lives in a house with her parents, her grandmother, an aunt, and several other relatives in Riverview.  There are a total of 12 people in her household, this also includes other children.  At home she speaks Spanish with her family.  Her father speaks a little English while her mother’s English is limited to simple words and phrases.  Maria acts as a translator for her parents when out in public as needed.  Her father works for a company building houses while her mother works days at Wendy’s fast food restaurant.  Her grandmother does not work and is home all day.  Maria’s favorite books are The Diary of a Wimpy Kid series.  She also enjoys the Junie B. Jones series and Cat in the Hat books.

Maria has been in the U.S. school system since kindergarten.  She was pulled out for separate ESOL instruction previously but not currently.  Her family moves around frequently and she has been to many different schools.  She has been able to attend her current school, Boyette Springs Elementary, for the entire year.  She often does not do homework nor has papers signed.  She has told her teachers that she wasn’t able to do her homework because she was busy cooking dinner with her mother.  Her teachers have seen great improvement with her reading skills within the past school year.  Her teachers also agree that they would like to see more of an improvement in her writing skills as it tends to be very basic and without any elaboration.

Problems and Perspectives

Maria has made big gains this school year in her reading abilities.  Her teachers are very impressed with the strides she has made and also emphasized the fact that she was in the class all year.  Maria has stated she has been to many schools because her family moves a lot.  This movement has been detrimental to her success in the past.  She is a bright girl and this past year shows what she is capable of when she is able to stay in a stable learning environment.

School work is not a major emphasis at home either.  An example of this is the fact that homework is not done and papers are not signed when sent home.  Another reason for lack of emphasis is that the family has moved around frequently.  Maria has not ever been anywhere long enough to know what is expected.  Also, different routines have been expected at each school she has attended.  She may have learned to ignore them instead of trying to adapt to them.  Either way, bringing work home and having it signed should help to emphasize the school works importance and, with hope, it may get her family interested in what she is doing at school.   If Maria does not see any personal need to combine her school and home lives it could greatly affect her future academics.  This will really begin to show as she reaches higher grades where much of the work is done at home.