Laura Junker

17 December 2013

TTE 319, Iddings

Instructional Design

Phase I: Collecting Data for the Instructional Design

Literacy is the most prevalent content area in my placement classroom. My class is

comprised entirely of English language learners. Thus, literacy is encompassed in every

aspect of the school day. The children check-out new library books every week and get to

keep them in their desks for when they finish independent work or centers before the

allotted time is up. There are guided reading groups every day, along with shared reading

every day as well. Each guided reading group will meet with the teacher twice a week.

Two of the groups have a large number of students who attend reading lab twice a week as

well. Along with guided reading is shared reading, which looks a little different than what

we have learned throughout this course. The shared reading that happens in my placement

class is when two students are paired together and they take turns reading, switching off at

every page. At the end of each page the students are supposed to ask each other questions

about the text. Once they finish the story, the children return to their desks to complete a

worksheet that has reading comprehension questions on it; then the teacher goes over the

questions with the entire class. These questions address the genre, the characters, main

events, the reasoning of main events, and how potential problems were solved or could

have been solved. This is the only time the class reads the same story because they have

different stories for each guided reading group. Reading the same story and analyzing it

together creates a classroom community for the students to share ideas and questions

about the text. This is very important for a structured English immersion class because

often time school is the only place for them to practice speaking English. It is vital for

children to maintain their native language while learning a second language in order to be

successful in both languages. Therefore, it is important to create a language rich

environment that involves reading, writing, speaking, and listening—not just reading and

writing.

Jenny is my case study child that I focused on this semester. She is an enthusiastic

students who loves to “play school” any chance she gets. She enjoys reading books about

animals, and she enjoys writing stories about her family and pets. When I asked Jenny why

we read stories she responded, “To become better readers and to learn.” Jenny recognizes

that literacy can be used as a way to tell stories and to communicate. Children are

encouraged to write in their journals whenever they finish an assignment early; however,

formal writings always have a predetermined, assigned prompt. The prompt usually refers

to the time of year or about other things the class is learning about. In my class, each

student’s reading is assessed using the DAP and DIBELS assessments, and their writing is

assessed using a ten-point rubric that is more focused on the fundamentals of writings (i.e.

punctuation, capitalization, number of sentences, etc.) rather than the actual content.

Literacy is a very heavy theme in my class and I have seen great progress in the students’

reading and writing throughout the semester.

Phase II: Analysis

Throughout the semester I have collected various forms of documentation about

Jenny’s reading and writing progress. The speaker icon below is a recording of a fluency I

did with Jenny on November 4th, 2013. I have copied the passage she was reading in order

to follow along with the recording.

Passage: Basketball

[Many people like the game of basketball.Players need basketball nets and a court to play.There are two nets on a court.There are five players on a team.Two teams play each other.Players also need a large ball.The ball is orange or brown.Players try to put the ball in the other team’s net.Sometimes they run with the ball.Sometimes they catch the ball.If they put the ball in the net when they are close to it,they get two points.If they are far from the net, they get three points.The team with the most points wins.Would you like to play basketball? ]

As documented in the recording above, Jenny has great fluency when reading and tends to

read rather quickly. However, I did not record Jenny’s retell of the story. This is something

she tends to have difficulty with. She seems to be more concerned with reading quickly

and being the first one to finish that she has a difficult time remembering and

comprehending what she reads. I noticed this early on in the semester, so before doing

fluencies with Jenny, I would use simple reminding language to remind her to read

thoroughly, not just fast. In the beginning I would tell her that the main goal is for her to

read accurately and to remember what she reads. Toward the end of the semester, I would

ask her, “What are the main goals for fluencies?” She would respond by saying, “To read a

lot and remember it.” Jenny’s retells are still pretty short, however, I see vast

improvements in her reading comprehension from the beginning of the semester up until

now.

Please double click the sound icon below to listen to the recording.

Jenny also excels in writing. She does not have difficulty coming up with ideas to

write about, not does she struggle with organizing her thoughts. She sometimes feels

limited to the graphic organizers because the graphic organizers we use require a topic

sentence and three supporting ideas. In the past, Jenny has asked me if she is “allowed” to

write more. I always respond with, “Of course! You can write as much as you want.” There

is a large emphasis put on the grammatical accuracy of student writing in my placement

class, but I want t make sure that the students do not feel confined or limited because of the

minimum expectations that are presented. Jenny is able to use a dictionary and thesaurus

to edit her “sloppy copies” and she also used time-order words appropriately and often.

Below you will see various work samples from Jenny’s writing.

As shown in the documented photos above, Jenny is able to create stories with various

topics; she can organize her thoughts, and is also able to create illustrations to match her

story. However, something I notice about Jenny’s writings, and the class as a whole, is that

their writing is starting to sound robotic. They use the same paragraph starters and time-

order words in all of their writing that sometimes it does not sound like it is entirely their

thoughts. My goal is to help scaffold and facilitate Jenny and her peers to write their own

thoughts without feeling obligated to use the teacher’s examples or the examples posted

throughout the classroom. The students are always given a specific prompt to write about

such as “Pretend you are a black cat on Halloween, what would you do?”, “Write a letter to

an alien about how to do something.”, or “How to carve a pumpkin.” Some of the prompts

give the students some freedom to use their imagination to create a story, but some of the

prompts are limiting and there are only a few different things the children can write about.

However, the students do have individual journals where they are free to write or draw

anything they want to, if they have extra time to do so. Overall, I think the classroom

environment creates a lot of literacy opportunity, but I do think that the children would

enjoy reading and writing more if the topics assigned and stories chosen related more

personally to their own lives and stories.

Phase III: Creating a Plan of Action

Jenny has much strength in the area of literacy, but there is always room for

improvement. Jenny excels at reading accurately and fluently. She often self-corrects if she

misreads something, which is a huge step for English language learners because often times

they cannot differentiate whether or not something “sounds right.” She often uses the

“chunking” strategy for words she is unsure of as well as context clues. She also does a

wonderful job of using the illustrations to make predictions about what the story might be

about, and to decode what is happening throughout the story. However, Jenny often has

difficulty remembering what she reads and comprehending the details of stories. In

addition, Jenny is working on these specific consonant blends with the school speech

pathologist: ch, sh, dr, and tr. This is the goal I chose to focus on when creating the book

and conducting the guided reading lesson. I chose this specific area of improvement

because I know she is working on these sounds when she goes to speech twice a week and

it is not something that is usually addressed in our general education classroom. After

choosing this as the focal point of the guided reading lesson, I created the following lesson

plan:

Setting a PurposeDescribe the student’s assets and needs in relation to your language arts focus.

Jenny does a wonderful job of “sounding out” words that she is unsure of, and breaking up large words into smaller sections in order to decipher it. However, recognizing that certain letters work together to make consonant blends is something that Jenny needs more opportunities to practice with.

Describe and support possible instructional goals for the student.

Jenny will be able to read words with the consonant blend ch. Although there are three other consonant blends the speech teacher is focusing on, I do not want the text to be overwhelming with all of them, so I am just choosing one.

Creating Learning ActivitiesDescribe the instructional activity procedures you will use to meet your specific learning goals for the student.

Jenny and I will work together to create a book using the pictures she took and her own ideas. When writing the book I will use words that use the ch sound throughout the story. I will listen to Jenny read the story and if she is unsure of how to say a word I will guide her by asking her to choose one of the class’ “Top 10 Strategies!” to decode to word. These strategies are posted on a wall in the classroom making it easily accessible for all children to see.

Explain how you believe that the learning activities will be effective in helping students meet the learning goals. How might you take into consideration student’s responses to your learning activity?

I think these learning activities will be effective because the text will directly relate to Jenny’s interests and personal life. Children are always far more interested in topics and texts when they directly relate to their lives. By combining Jenny’s favorite things into a story that also addressed her speech needs, she will be more likely to show enthusiasm about the text and want to read it. If the learning activities do not go well then I will take note of what went wrong, and why I think it went differently than I anticipated. I am also brainstorming different ways to help Jenny be successful without simply telling her how to say every word she mispronounces. At the end of the lesson I will ask Jenny her opinion and take her feedback into consideration for next time.

Contextual Conditions, Materials, and ResourcesDescribe the contextual conditions you will put in place (e.g. arrangement of the learning place, instructional materials and resources) for your instructional goals to be accomplished.

I am hoping to have this guided reading lesson during center time. I will do it during a time when Jenny is not with her guided reading book, and I will let it take the place of one of her centers for that week. We will most likely read the story at a table at the back of the classroom because my mentor teacher will be using the guided reading table for other groups. The only supplies I will need is the book itself which will have Jenny’s pictures in it, her personal illustrations, and text I wrote using ideas she gives me. I hope this is not a distraction for the other children doing center time throughout the classroom.

How might you adapt/modify the methods or instructional materials to make the content relevant and accessible to your student?

The materials will be relevant to Jenny because she and I will create the book together. She is choosing the pictures she wants in the book, she will be drawing illustration on each page, as well as creating a title and title page; thus making her one of the authors and the sole illustrator of the book. Jenny took pictures of her family, her pets, and her favorite things to do such as dressing up and playing with her favorite stuffed animals. I want Jenny to feel a sense of accomplishment and ownership in this book, and she is very excited to create it with me.

Describe how the contextual conditions, materials, and resources may be effective in helping students meet the learning goals.

I think the conditions will be beneficial because it will be in the classroom environment while her peers are also concentrating on their work, hopefully resulting in her concentrating on reading. I am confident that the story will be extremely advantageous because they rarely have class time to read books that are of interest to them. I am curious to see how, or if, she reacts differently to reading this story as opposed to a “normal” guided reading lesson.

Phase IV: Implementation

Jenny and I began creating her book during our third home interaction. We did this

with Marci, my home interaction partner, and Jenny’s brother, Michael. First, we took out

their pictures. I gave Jenny all of her pictures and Michael all of his, and we told them to

choose their ten favorite pictures that they wanted in the book; this was because they both

took over twenty photos and we thought that a ten page book was a good length. We told

them that if they had more pictures they really wanted to add then we would find a place

for them, but both of them only wanted nine to ten pictures in total. We asked each of them

to design their cover page, and as they were doing this we organized their thoughts and

photos. We also had them choose a title for their books so that they had a theme to create

their story around. We asked each of them what picture they wanted to be on page one of

their book, they each chose a photo and Marci and I wrote the corresponding page numbers

on the back of each picture. This was because we wanted to make sure we did not mix up

the photos when putting their books together. For example, the picture that Jenny wanted

on page one had a small number one written on the back, and the same for the rest of the

photos for each of their books. Once they would choose a picture, we would pose the

questions, “What do you want to say about this photo?” We would then write down their

ideas about each photo on a separate sheet of paper. As we were writing down their ideas,

they were drawing or painting illustrations on each page. They were very specific about

what they wanted us to say, how they wanted us to position the pictures on each page, etc.

Marci and I wished we had more time during this visit because at the end we were rushing

to have the children finish their illustrations because they were leaving soon to go to their

grandma’s house in Marana. They finished their pages and we thanked them for having us

over. We wished them a fun time at their grandma’s house, and told them that we will

create their books and we will read them together in class.

The guided reading lesson did not go as I planned. The book we created was too simple

of a text for Jenny, and I found it very difficult to incorporate specific consonant blends in

the story, while trying to keep Jenny’s sense of ownership in the story. She read it fairly

quickly. She did stumble on the word “beautiful” however she self-corrected and read it

correctly the second time she tried. I wish I thought more about the consonant blends that

Jenny is working on the speech resource teacher, and specific techniques she uses with

Jenny.. Last, I wish I had more time for the lesson. I only had the option of doing it during

recess so we only had fifteen minutes. I felt bad taking up the entire recess time so I did not

go as in depth as I should have. This would be a great thing to do with a whole class. Jenny

absolutely loved creating this book, so I think it would be a great thing to do with either

individual children or the class as a whole; taking into consideration vocabulary words and

grammar goals for each unit.