Terranova-Inquiry 2 Part A

1.     Describe your target area for guided lead teaching.

My target area for my guided lead teaching will be: acquisition, use and assessment of foundational skills. This includes print concepts, phonological awareness, phonics and word recognition (rhyming) and fluency. I will be focusing mainly on phonological awareness.

2.     Approximately how much time per day is allotted for your instruction in this area?

Literacy receives at least one hour and 20 minutes per day currently in our classroom. This includes writing, reading, poetry and word work. Literacy concepts are also integrated into our science and social studies lessons (approximately 20 minutes).

3.     Which Common Core State Standard(s) will you work toward?

I will work toward the following CCSS standards:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.K.2 Demonstrate understanding of spoken words, syllables, and sounds (phonemes).

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.K.2a Recognize and produce rhyming words.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.K.2b Count, pronounce, blend, and segment syllables in spoken words.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.K.2c Blend and segment onsets and rimes of single-syllable spoken words.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.K.2d Isolate and pronounce the initial, medial vowel, and final sounds (phonemes) in three-phoneme (consonant-vowel-consonant, or CVC) words.1 (This does not include CVCs ending with /l/, /r/, or /x/.)

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.K.2e Add or substitute individual sounds (phonemes) in simple, one-syllable words to make new words.

4.     How will teaching in this target area provide opportunities for students to learn important content and/or skills that relate to their lives?  In what ways does this learning include learning literacy, learning about literacy, and/or learning through literacy?

Teaching in this target area will provide opportunities for students to learn about important content/skills that relate to their lives by introducing strategies for decoding words. This will help students to learn about literacy and ways to become a better reader and writer. When students are able to successfully blend, segment, substitute and rhyme, they have a skill set that will provide them with multiple ways to figure out unknown words they are writing or reading. Understanding and using these foundational skills is very important as it serves as a base in which to be built off of in the later grades. Knowledge of these concepts affects future literacy learning and experiences.

5.     What types of classroom talk take place within this target area? To what extent is the talk teacher-led, student-led, or focused on higher-level thinking? What norms for interaction would you like to build within your classroom as you teach in this target area (e.g., see ideas in Chapter 6 of Strategies that Work, the Berne & Clark 2008 article, or draw from some of the readings done in TE 402 on classroom talk)?

We have not done much with the foundational skills just yet. We are mainly focused on learning letters/letter sounds. We are also learning new vocabulary and working on comprehension.

The talk that we have done so far has been in the form of “think-pair-share”, where the teacher initiates by posing a question, the students think for a minute, turn and share their thoughts with a partner, then share with the whole class what their partner has said. We have done this during “Making Meaning” lessons (which are comprehension-based) in regards to a read aloud and also during writing instruction. Some norms for interaction I would like to build within my classroom include the role of the participant in a discussion as both a listener and a speaker. I would also need to model/explain how discussions work. One way I could do this is by using an anchor chart students can refer back to, such as the “desirable and undesirable behaviors in discussion” one that is mentioned in Berne & Clark (2008, p.76).

6.     Which ‘core practice’ do you want to work on developing/improving as you teach in this target area (refer to document “Resources for Developing Core Practices”)? How will focusing on this core practice contribute to your own professional learning?

For my core practice I would like to focus on developing/improving thinking aloud, specifically making mistakes known and asking questions so that I am modeling how good readers think about a text. This will contribute to my professional learning because it will gradually become more automatic for me to think aloud as teacher of young children. Right now, I am focusing a lot on what my lesson objectives are and hope that I can eventually do more thinking aloud while reading aloud to model these important processes for my students.

7.     What resources within the community, neighborhood, school district, school or classroom do you have to work with in this target area?

As resources I have my mentor teacher, collaborating kindergarten teacher and her intern, the public library, our current kindergarten curriculum (Houghton-Mifflin), “Making Meaning” comprehension program and MAISA writing units.

8.     What additional resources do you need to obtain?

I will need to obtain resources from the Common Core State Standards, TE 802 course texts and possibly lesson ideas from TE 401 texts and books/websites on teaching phonological awareness.

9.     How will you pre-assess your students in your target area?

I will pre-assess students by documenting my observations during the time when my target area is being taught. I will record these observations in the form of anecdotal records. I will also collect writing samples as well. I may also pose related questions to students and record their responses in order to see what kind of prior knowledge they hold on these topics. I am also already pre-assessing letter recognition and letter-sound knowledge through a program called “Reading Racers”. However, most students are only at the letter recognition stage.

10.   What else will you need to find out about all students in your class to help you develop lesson plans for your Guided Lead Teaching?

I also need to know how my students view themselves as readers and how they perceive literacy learning in general. I want to pay extra close attention to what types of literacy lessons and activities seem to engage my students the most, and what (if any) adaptations I need to make during my planning in order to support all students in my classroom.

11.   What else do you need/want to learn about the ‘core practice’ to support your planning and teaching?

I would like to learn if there is such thing as “too much” or “too little” of incorporating this practice and when the right time is to incorporate it. I would also like to learn if certain genres or types of texts better lend themselves to the implementation of this core practice.

12.   What concerns, if any, do you have about planning and teaching your unit?

My biggest concern is still balancing between my own ideas for teaching and the school’s set curriculum. I am also worried that my students may find it difficult to transition to a new teaching style/method than that of my MT’s, which has so far become the routine in our classroom.