Ashley Carroll May 17, 2006 Comprehensive Exam 1 Dr. Trathen

My Classroom

I teach first grade at a small elementary school in Winston-Salem. I am coming to the end of my second year teaching, and find myself so excited for next year. At my school I have 15 children in my class. Within my room I teach a variety of learners: eight Hispanics, five African Americas, one Asian and one white child. My school overall will soon be 70% Hispanic, which means there is quite the need for bilingual teachers and assistants. In my classroom I currently have created a 90 minute block of time that is used solely for

Language Arts Instruction.

Assessment

Assessment to me is one of the most essential pieces to the teaching puzzle. Assessing my students allows me to see where they are, where they are going, and how I need to help them along the way. In my room I use several different assessment tools to gain all the information I need. At the beginning of the year I like to use bits and pieces of the Early Reading

Screening Instrument (ERSI) to see what skills my students have brought with them to first grade. I like to use the word awareness assessment, because this allows me to see if the student has a concept of print. I also complete the alphabet knowledge assessment on my students as well, because this is going to show me where I am going to need to start my letter knowledge lessons with my class. We will also do a spelling assessment which helps me get a feel for the students’ future success in a guided spelling group. Aside from using the ERSI, I also use some of the materials from the state sanctioned K-2 assessment kit. I do not like to use all the materials at the beginning of the year because I know that I am going to have to revisit these materials at the end of the quarter and every quarter thereafter. I also choose not to use some of the materials in the kit of the start of the year, because the assessments that come from the ERSI are much more efficient assessments than the ones in the NC K-2 assessment kit. Nonetheless, I do like to use the high frequency word lists in the K-2 kit because they show me a snapshot of the student’s word knowledge. Another assessment that I find very helpful is the phonemic awareness assessment that North Carolina has recently put into place. This assessment has really helped me get a good idea of a student’s phonemic awareness abilities. A student’s phonemic awareness can often predict their reading ability, so seeing these scores can often allow me to predict where certain students fit into my guided reading groups. I also complete running records on my students at the start of year to see the level at which they can read. This information is extremely important to me because it, in combination with a student’s letter knowledge, concept of print, and other assessments, help me place students in their guided reading groups.

As the year continues, I formally assess students at the end of each quarter. For my students who are below grade level, I assess them with a running record, check their high frequency words, book print awareness

(concept of print), phonemic awareness, and letter identification. I like to have ample information on these students because they are already low and I want to ensure that they get the specified instruction that they need. As for my students who are one grade level I assess them on all the above mentioned items at the beginning and end of the year. For the second and third quarter I simply complete running records on these students to find their instructional level and I also check their high frequency words, because that is something that they, individually, like to know.

Throughout the year I do a great deal of informal assessment to see where my students are day to day. A large portion of this informal assessment occurs during my guided reading groups. I will often do quick running records on students to see how they are doing, and what strategies they may or may not be using at that particular time. These informal assessments also give me information on whether or not I need to move students into different reading groups. If a student is independent in the group they are currently in, then after that informal assessment I know that I need to move them to a group where they are on their instructional level.

As far as spelling assessments go, I mentioned earlier that I do a spelling assessment at the beginning of the year. This assessment is to help me initially group my students, then I will continue to give a spelling assessment at the end of each quarter to make sure that students are in their correct instructional group. I informally asses my students’ spelling abilities each Friday to ensure they are where they need to be. If the word lists are too easy or too difficult, then I will shift the groups accordingly. Materials

There are many things that a first grade teacher needs to have in his/her classroom, and the most important thing would certainly have to be a wide variety of books. Within this large collection of books, there needs to be big books for shared reading, leveled readers for guided, independent reading, and take home reading, as well as books the teacher can use to connect with various subjects.

It is essential in K-1 and even K-2 classrooms to have Big Books as resources. In first grade I use these books to help build concepts of print with my students at the start of the year. From time to time I also use these books in guided reading, so that all the students in the group can see the book while we are picture walking. Big Books can also be used in a classroom library center as well. Students like to use these books on their own to practice reading to themselves and others.

Leveled readers are essential in any reading program if you are truly providing differentiated instruction for your learners. In my classroom there are three places where I use leveled readers: guided reading, Silent Sustained

Reading (SSR), and take home reading. For guided reading I have small amount of leveled readers to teach from within my class, however at my school we have built and are still adding more resources to our Book Room.

This room is place that houses leveled reading materials for the whole school.

It is here that I gather most of my leveled materials from for guided reading.

As I mentioned I also use leveled readers for SSR. During this time students are reading on their own, and also at a level where they are independent, so it is important that the books are carefully graded and displayed as such so students know where to select their books. In my classroom in particular my students have book baskets with their names on them. Inside this basket there is a collection of books that are leveled according to that student’s independent reading ability. During SSR students go to their basket and select a few books to read. These baskets are also used for take home readers as well, because as I mentioned they are leveled for each child to meet their independent level.

Teachers also need to have a wide variety of books on a wide variety of subjects in a classroom library. My students use this library after they complete an assignment or during center time. Students also take their books there and read during SSR time as well. I also use the library to keep my books in order.

If I am going to be teaching a unit on shapes, then I can go to the math basket and see what books I may have that can connect to shapes. In my class I have my library arranged by theme, or topic. I have two long bookshelves that are low to the ground and very child friendly. On these shelves are a variety of colored baskets each with a label. On the label you will find a picture and a word, such as a picture of a fish with the word beside it. If you look inside the basket you will find a variety of books on fish, and inside the front cover there is a colored label to match the one on the basket. Having this label on the front of the basket and inside the book allows my students to find the subject they want to read about, and replace it to its proper home when they are done. Within my library there are over 20 different topics that children can choose from, and I try to continue expanding these topics as the years go on. I truly believe that if a teacher can provide his/her students with the books they like to read, then they will be more inclined to read.

There are other materials that are integral in a first grade classroom.

For starters you need to have some sort of word box. This word box would contain resources for students who were still working with beginning consonants all the way up to syllable work. Personally I use my box during guided reading, but I also use it during spelling as well.

Within my classroom there are also a variety of smaller, often less recognized materials that I use on a day to day basis, such as the word wall, magnetic letters, sentence strips and pocket charts. For my students the word wall serves as a giant dictionary. Students know that they can look up on the wall and find common words and their spellings. From the beginning of the year, we are constantly adding words to wall, and as students learn the spellings of these words, we take them down to reduce clutter. Magnetic letters are also important, because they give some of my struggling students a chance to trace and feel the letters. Sometimes simply being able to do these things will help those students with writing and remembering words. Some of my most frequently used materials are sentence strips and pocket charts. I like to use sentence strips for my struggling readers and writers. They will dictate and help me write a sentence of their own. Then we will cut up the sentence and the student will arrange it so that it is in order and then read the sentence back to me, using their finger to track the print. Pocket charts are also great materials to have because they allow you to do activities like the cut up sentence in front of a large group.

In my classroom I also have five Leap-Pads that my students use in the listening center. These Leap-Pads give my students the opportunity to hear fluent reading and practice various literacy skills at the same time. I also have the freedom to assign my students certain books to use in the Leap-Pad listening center if I want them to work on a specific skill. For my students they love to work on the Leap-Pads because it seems like a game. At the same time

I enjoy letting them use the consoles because I know that they are learning something during their time at the listening center.

Continuing with technology, it is also important to include computer programs or websites in your materials list. For me personally I like to let my students work on www.starfall.com. This website provides leveled books, games, and activities for students of all ages and abilities. So when students are at the computer center I can trust in the fact that they are doing something fun and educational.

Instruction

After assessing students and gathering all the appropriate materials, it is time to sit down and plan how to teach the students in your classroom. As far as reading instruction goes, in my classroom I use, both small and whole group daily. My students are in small groups for guided reading and these small groups are based around a combination of ability as well as need. During this small group time, I work with my students on both fluency and comprehension. We practice with the fluency piece when students read familiar texts at the beginning of each lesson. With the repeated readings, students get more familiar with words and these words become automatic.

Following familiar reading, my students and I always take a few minutes to review all the strategies that good readers use when they get to a word they don’t know. In my class I have these strategies on a star, so students can visually arrange them in their minds. As far as comprehension is concerned, we retell the new book that we have read in that guided reading session at the end of the lesson. Students have a copy of a hand, printed on cardstock, which is used as an organizer to help them retell a story. On this hand, they have a space for the character, setting, events, author’s purpose, title, and connection. This organizer helps them, because after some time has passed, they no longer need the organizer, they can simply use their hands.

In whole group, I take the opportunity to do Teacher Directed Reading which often includes some shared reading as well. Normally this whole group reading is linked to a unit we are studying, or the topics we are working with in science or social studies. While I have my students for whole group reading instruction we do a lot of predicting and checking. For my students it gives them a chance to develop strategies as readers and use their prior knowledge.

Also throughout teacher directed reading I like to do think alouds, because this is a great opportunity to model for my students what good readers do when they are reading. KWL charts are also another good tool to incorporate during instruction because they help both the teacher and the student keep information organized. During this whole group time I may also do a wide variety of phonemic awareness activities that target new skills or poetry.

The other types of instruction I use are read aloud and SSR. In the afternoons, I do read aloud for my students, and this typically comes from a chapter book. Right now for example, we are reading Charlotte’s Web. By doing this read aloud for my students I am modeling for them what a fluent reader is as well as what they sound like. By choosing a chapter book, I am also showing my students another purpose for reading. I want them to know that one day, if they continue to practice reading, they too will be able to read books like Charlotte’s Web.

When SSR time comes to the room, students are able to read on their own. During this time, my children are able to practice their fluency skills, by reading books that are on their independent level. When I pull them up to conference with me, I also work with them on comprehension skills by asking them to tell me about the book they are reading.

As far as developing fluency with word recognition, this practice will occur as I mentioned earlier during familiar reading in our guided reading block. Students will also practice word recognition skills during our spelling block. Each week, the students in my class get a sheet of words in a chart form. They must cut these words out, and sort them according to the specific rule for their spelling group. Throughout the week, students use these words for sorting, playing concentration, bingo, and word relay races. With the extended reading, writing, saying, and seeing of these words, they become more familiar to students, and eventually become sight words.

Meeting Instructional Needs of Diverse Learners

When walking into a first grade classroom, it is almost always obvious that there are a variety of ability levels in a classroom. In my classroom I have

15 students who often times, each need their own instructional plan. In order to teach these children where they are, I need to make sure that I have a strong and accurate assessment plan in place before I even get started. After completing assessments then I will place students into flexible groups that are based around those students needs for a particular skill and their ability. This is true for both reading and spelling groups.

I also use whole group instruction to introduce a topic to my entire class.

I may start the lesson there, and after the introduction, move students into smaller groups where I can differentiate the instruction further to meet their needs.

There are also other times when I need to group my class into pairs so that they can play games or work collaboratively on an assignment. In order to do this I like to pair students according to ability levels; for example an average worker with a below average worker, or a average worker with an above average worker. Pairing students in this manner provides a scaffolding element that allows the two to get their work done, and build each other’s self esteem. I would try to stay away from pairing a below average student with an above average student because it would frustrate both students. As far as support for struggling learners, there are many ways that I would try to boost their confidence and ability levels. For starters at my school we have Small Group Instruction (SGI) where a specialist in the school comes and takes a small group of students out of my room and works with them on a specific set of skills for about 40 minutes three times a week. This helps students a lot because they enjoy going with that person and they get individualized instruction in a very small group which normally consists of no more than four children at a time.

At my school I would like to start some sort of program where we partner with an older class in the school to get something like a peer tutoring started. I think for these struggling students, it would make a world of difference if they had someone besides the teacher telling them that they can do the work.

Finally within my class I have started adding a lot of the Early Steps components into my struggling guided reading group. For these students the additional structure and skills that I have built in for them have helped them a great deal.

Language Arts

In my classroom Language Arts is mostly addressed when I am working with the whole group, or at least that is where I teach it and then modifications are made in the smaller groups. In my classroom I teach author’s craft mainly through the use of author’s studies. I find that it is easiest and it makes the most sense to my students when they can look at one author and compare all of his/her works. As they get involved in author studies, they begin to assess the how characters are created, why the author wrote a particular book, and then most importantly it gives them a purpose for reading.

When looking at ways the incorporate to genres into language arts, I do this by connecting it to the content areas that I teach. I also do different units during the first half of the year that focus specifically on the various genres, so as the year moves on we can discuss what genre a book is after we have read it.

Poetry is another area that I integrate into my content areas. I enjoy using poetry in my room because it helps my students develop their phonemic awareness skills, in turn helping them to become better readers. If I am taking a week in my room to work on the various digraphs, their sounds, and the way they are written, then I will try to find a poem that illustrates these concepts so that my students can read this poem on their own and practice that sound. My students have their own poetry journals where they keep copies of the poems we have read in the classroom. They illustrate these poems and then glue them into a composition notebook that they get to take home at the end of the year.

In my classroom I have a word study block and during this time we do word study combined with spelling. For me, these two are directly connected.

My students are assessed and grouped according to where they fall along the developmental spelling continuum. Their spelling words are based upon the pattern that they are working on that week. For example, I may have some students that are in word families and their focus for the week is comparing _at and _an words. So their word study would focus on _at and _an words and their spelling words would be connected to that as well.

Responses to Reading and Literature

In the end it is important that we as teachers give our students a chance to talk and reflect during the day. We need to ensure that our students are interested in what they are learning about and at the same time that they truly understand the concepts they are working with. The responses that I currently use in my class include: readers response logs, student work from KidPix computer program, student created Venn diagrams, story maps, making and illustrating connections, making predictions, creating alternate endings, and reader’s theater.

As far as discussion is concerned I always start every language art activity and classroom lesson with an Essential Question, which is designed to get my students talking about something that is connected to the lesson for that day. So as one may conclude each lesson begins with some type of discussion and usually ends with one as well. We also have some times during the day when I just give them a question during whole group, where they simply need to turn and talk to their neighbor. After a few minutes then the talk time is over and one of the students from the small group will report to the large group.

Writing is in most cases connected to the language arts activities in my room. For example after we read a book in a whole group lesson, students may simply be asked to go complete a reader’s response log where they simply describe how they felt after the reading the story. Once students are finished with the assignment, we come back together and share our work.

Overall whenever we connect writing to reading I like to offer students the chance to go work on their assignment and then come back and share. I feel like the sharing part is the most important, because it shows students that their work is important and there is always an audience for the things that we do.

In Summary

When looking at the overall program I have put into place within my classroom I have to say that I am very pleased with what I see going on.

Ideally I would have a 120 minute block for language arts, and during this time

I would include: guided reading, whole group shared reading, as well as spelling, word study and writing. At this point I am pushing hard to get all of the above mentioned topics in during my 90 minute block. So looking ahead to next year, I am trying to see how I can flex my schedule to allowing me that

120 minute block.

Instruction wise, I am happy with what I am doing in my classroom. My students are grouped according to where they are developmentally, and these groups remain flexible throughout the year. I also feel like I give my students the opportunity to grow beyond their original intended bounds as the year rolls on.

Looking to the future I would like to get a “buddy” class for my students.

Preferably these students would be older children from my school that had a vested interest in helping my children learn how to read. I would also like to continue building my leveled book library as well.

In the end, enrolling in this Master’s Program has really been an excellent way for me to start my career as a teacher because it has given me all the reassurance and guidance that one would ever need to be a successful reading teacher.