Child Study

This case study is on a 1st grade Hispanic student named Natalia (pseudonym). She began at Washington for the first time this school-year. Natalia lives at home with her mother, grandmother, and father. She is the only girl, with a twin brother and two older brothers. Natalia is 7 years old and enjoys attending school. Spanish is her primary language and spoken at home most of the time. She is the tallest girl in the class. She loves Disney princesses, and made a beautiful princess on Halloween. She likes to draw, and every day she creates cool drawings and pictures to show me. She told me that her favorite thing to do outside was to play on the swings. Natalia is usually quiet during class time. She doesn’t have any recognizable friendships with anyone in the class, but while I observed her on the playground it was clear that she rather play with boys, than to play with girls. She also does not like dark colors, bright colors are her favorite. Her mother adorns her hair with the brightest of colors every day, and she takes great pleasure in showing them to me every morning.

Natalia is a very interesting young girl, however when it comes to the lessons I see a lot of struggle. The teacher has noticed little improvement in her literacy development. She has stated that she spoke to Natalia’s parents about her low literacy in English. Her parents were immediately dismissive and said that their family spoke English very well. “This may play a major part of her very low reading abilities”, says the CT. When she talks sometimes you really have to listen to what she is saying. When she gets excited about something, she will start talking really fast, and her accent makes her words hard to understand. She has difficulty finishing assignments, and it is hard to keep her engaged. The student does not have an IEP, neither is she in the ESL program, however she gets assistance from the basic skills teacher during math. According to the CT, she is no better in math than she...