Fin’s Wilson Journey contined…
Wilson Success Story
It is now May, and time for our final WRS practicum observation. Fin and Kate have completed 64 lessons and are in the introduction phase of substep 4.2. Fin independently used his Student Notebook, tapping, marking, scooping, pointing to the text, and using all Wilson tools when needed. He also read 59 words out of 59 words in 1 minute. This mixed group of words from 1.3 to 4.1 included one to three-syllable actual and nonsense phonetically accurate words. Needless to say, the observation was excellent! He did experience some difficulty reading the 15 4.2 nonsense words. These are two-syllable words comprised of closed and vowel-consonant-e syllables. Kate reported that he was on the verge of a shutdown during this part of the lesson plan, but he could rally because he trusted her and the process even when it was hard. She credits his resilience to the fact that he had seen so much growth in himself.
Fin’s cursive handwriting showed even more growth. He had learned more letters, so his written work was more consistent. He is now marking all of his multi-syllabic words correctly and experiencing no reversals because b’s and d’s in cursive are different.
In addition, his Step 3 post-test results were stellar. Fin only missed one nonsense word from the wordlist reading and one word from the spelling test, but his fluency, comprehension, and other subtest measures were 100%. The End of Step dictation pages were beautifully done correctly in cursive.
Kate also submitted Fin’s post-test results for the practicum. She used different versions of the same tests used for the pre-test. Here are the final test results from Kate’s report.
“Finnly has worked hard this year to improve his handwriting legibility, reading fluency, and spelling. His decoding is becoming reliably accurate, and he no longer requires help reading passages for schoolwork or standardized tests. He is building stamina by reading independently chapter-book-length texts. He is beginning to write independently without the aid of dictation software. Spelling remains a weakness, though he can now phonetically spell most multisyllabic words, a skill he lacked at the beginning of WRS instruction. Decoding nonsense words remains difficult, though he's gaining mastery of them (the educational psychologist who performed his psychoeducational evaluation at age 8 said he would never progress in this area. His growth here is impressive.)
Finnly's word attack skills increased dramatically, from the 5th percentile to the 13th on the WIST and from the 5th percentile to the 21st on the KTEA. His spelling also showed exponential improvement, jumping from the 3rd percentile to the 6th on the WIST. Though he's still not within average limits, he is showing progress. Spelling is likely to remain a source of difficulty. His reading comprehension and reading fluency show significant progress, jumping from the 19th to 39th percentile on the WIST and the 12th to 53rd percentile on the KTEA. Finnly is now reading at grade level or close to it. His oral fluency and silent reading fluency have also grown significantly. While he continues to need prompting to read, he no longer avoids reading aloud in public or puts it off during school time.”
The inspiring news is that Kate and Fin will proceed through Wilson Step 12. She wants to do her Level 2 practicum with Fin, covering Steps 7-12. Fin will be reading above-grade-level text soon because he understands and is successfully using his skills to unlock the code of the English language. Recently, Kate sent me the great news: "Fin is reading The Secret Garden for school 100% independently and loving it! A dream come true!”. This is indeed proof of the Wilson pudding!!!
You’ll find his pre- and post-WIST scores and spelling post-tests for easy reference and to show his dramatic growth.
