Artifact 4

Essential: Understanding students' background knowledge, skills, and interests before implementing instruction

Student Work Samples - Literacy

When teaching students of various skill levels, knowledge, and interests it is important to provide them with many opportunities to learn and demonstrate progress. This artifact consists of various resources I used in practicums with a Kindergarten, 2nd grade, and 3rd grade student in one-on-one Literacy tutoring. These resources can be easily accommodated for 4K learners, using the essential of background information to guide planning and instruction in a learning setting.

Work Sample #1

Interest Inventories

While working with children individually, and especially for the first time, it is important to understand their feelings about the learning topic. These pictures display resources I used for literature instruction with a 2nd grader (Student A), 3rd grader (Student B), and Kindergartner (Student C). This way, just as in the book "What to Do With a Problem," children can face their challenges without fear and find that learning can be fun when it is suited towards their interests. By teaching using this student-centered approach, the children were more engaged and looked forward to tutoring.

Hover over the picture and click on the arrows to navigate.

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Work Sample #2

Reading Books That Use Students' Names

When tutoring a Kindergarten student, I found it difficult to engage him in the learning process. I discovered this resource online and noticed that it was very effective since the child could personally relate to and recognize their name in the book. They were very interested in finding out what activity they would do on each page of the book. Afterwards, we talked about more activities that they like to do at home. By making the content relatable, the student came out of their comfort zone in verbal interactions and expressed more enthusiasm when reading aloud. This would be a great resource to use in a 4K classroom as there is much focus on using the children' s names to develop letter knowledge.

Work Sample #3

Writing New Site Words From Memory and Writing Original Stories Using a Prompt

This artifact contains pictures of student work before and after reading books. In the first two pictures, a Kindergartner (Student C) wrote down site words after reading a book. In the last two pictures, a 3rd grader (Student B) wrote down words he knew about Superheros and used them to write his own story. I have found that when it come to reluctant writers, they have more fun when they are given options for writing utensils (colorful/thermodynamic pencils, markers, colored pencils, crayons, etc.).

Student C (K)

"is, at, to, on, no, a, the, and, am, for"

Student C (K)

"the, I, am, now, at, am, as, was, has"

Student B (3rd)

"my superhero is fast."

#1: "fast"

#2: "snog" (strong)

#3: "samrt" (smart)

Student B (3rd)

"my superhero is cool and fast and srog" (strong). and happy.

Creative Activity Ideas to Develop Literacy with Struggling Learners:

Creating a personal book
Reading books of various styles, subjects, lengths, and reading levels
Assessing students based on their reading levels, having a clear goal for teaching and assessing
Writing answers, verbalizing opinions, referring to pictures and text, applying text to real life/personal situations
Engaging in physical activity while learning
Enriching fluency and vocabulary growth with site words
Doing Interactive Read-Alouds and listening to Read-Alouds from celebrities (Storyline Online)
Involving the family in discussions about learner growth, encouraging interaction in learning at home
Developing a rewards system to support a goal (praise, stickers, pizza party)

Reflection with InTASC Standards:

An essential to my teaching practice is understanding a child's background knowledge, skills, and interests before beginning instruction, no matter the subject or grade level. Below are the InTASC Standards that support this practice:

Standard #6: Assessment. The teacher understands and uses multiple methods of assessment to engage learners in their own growth, to monitor learner progress, and to guide the teacher’s and learner’s decision making.

Standard #7: Planning for Instruction. The teacher plans instruction that supports every student in meeting rigorous learning goals by drawing upon knowledge of content areas, curriculum, cross-disciplinary skills, and pedagogy, as well as knowledge of learners and the community context.

I believe that children should be taught with their background knowledge and skill set as a guide. Teachers can use subjects a child is more proficient in to support learning in subjects they may struggle with. For example, one student I worked with in the past loved physical activity but struggled with writing, so I combined the two into an activity called Vowel Voyage (Fit4Kids). In the activity the student did various exercises such as running, skipping, and hopping down a hallway to collect vowel cards. Once they collected all of the cards, they sorted them with consonants to make as many words as they could in the time given, and wrote them down. Another strategy is that teachers can learn about the interests and familial background of those they teach, supporting the child's engagement and interest in activities. Some examples of activity ideas were listed above. Further, by using multiple methods of assessment, students have the chance to demonstrate their learning more accurately and frequently. Since I worked with students in a practicum setting, I did informal formative assessments such as reading a passage of a text out loud and writing a new story. These essentials to teaching can guide my approach to learning in any classroom setting, including what would have been my 4K placement for ICB.

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