BACKGOUND CHECK!

Here's some background info to get you more acquainted with me and my teaching style:


I am 24 years old and currently attend the University of South Alabama.


I am a senior and will graduate in May, 2012.

I will be graduating with a bachelor's degree and become certified in K-6 Collaborative Special/Regular Education.

I hope to be employed by MCPSS and would love the opportunity to work in the public school setting. 

I have two brothers (one older, one younger) and my mother and father will become grandparents in January. My oldest brother will be having his first child and this is a very exciting event for us all! My youngest brother attends the University of Southern Mississippi and I will be getting married to my fiance May 19th.


I played soccer for the Women's University of South Alabama Soccer Team in 2005 and dedicated the rest of my schooling career to completing my education and working year round.


I graduated Murphy High School in 2005.


I had the opportunity to participate in a dual certification program and am happy to say that it has strongly influenced where I would like to be in the next 5 to 10 years. I have had a wonderful experience up to my current student teaching and can not wait to begin teaching in the special education department of a school. I will be certified in both regular and special education, but I feel very passionate about teaching in the special education setting, and will be on the lookout for great opportunities!


I am dedicated, loyal, hardworking, and persistent in my efforts to achieve high standards. I believe everyone has the right to learn and be successful and as teachers it is our job to figure out how to help our students achieve this.


NO one has the right to tell someone else that they can NOT learn.

My Philosophy of Teaching Reading and Writing

My viewpoint on teaching reading and writing encompasses this:


Reading

Teaching with the brain in mind is a potent idea that, if carried out properly, can result in a successful learning environment rich with literacy experiences. 

It takes an explicitly planned structure, consisting of previously stated key elements such as cuing, phonemic awareness, phonological awareness, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension to dictate a learner’s ability to problem solve with letters. With true, undeniable comprehension as the main goal, students should also learn that reading is about the “goosebumps, giggles, and tears” they will experience as they journey through new stories. 

When reading success is accomplished in an environment where content ties in with old and new knowledge, anything can be explored, learned, and applied. Luck will not have a place in the classroom where “best-practice” is implemented by a “highly effective reading teacher”. 

All students can learn to access the world and should be provided the opportunity at any level and at every one's expense.

Writing

I believe reading and writing go hand in hand. Once a reader is able to access the world through reading, their own personal thoughts on subjects, content, and ideas can be relayed to others through writing. Writing does not come easily and naturally to all and must be taught to students in a way that gives them appropriate structure to follow, but allows them to express ideas creatively. 

I do not believe in telling students exactly what to write, and how to write it, word for word, because there will be a time in every child's life where he/she must be able to write their own ideas fluently in a way that others can easily understand. I believe every reader should be the author of his/her own ideas and that is how I plan to teach using the 6 traits of writing, or the most current programs implemented by the school system. I see the importance in using writing prompts, organizers, character development, tone development, memoir writing, and fiction/non-fiction writing. Also, I love the fact that writing can be incorporated into every subject, which only reinforces newly learned concepts while giving students the opportunity to synthesize and make connections to old concepts.

Writing should be taught and practiced throughout a growing reader's career. This is what I plan to do in my own classroom.
   

More On: How I Will Teach Reading

To view an in depth document describing how I will teach reading, using research based methods, click this.

Assessment and Intervention

These pictures demonstrate my ability to assess a student's reading comprehension level.

Assessment 1:

QRI Assessment 1

QRI Assessment 1

QRI Assessment 1

After implementing the QRI and totaling her score on comprehension, I realized that the student was reading instructionally on a Second grade reading level. This passage was an expository one. Giving this assessment helped me to evaluate her current reading level, and come up with a plan for intervention 1 to implement for the next couple of weeks. I tutored the student weekly in the mornings using different materials to address some of the issues she was having with reading (fluency, blending/segmenting, main idea of passages/stories). After working with the student, I felt as though she had progressed and decided to implement another assessment using some different leveled passages.


Assessment 2:

Level 3 Passage and ?'s

Level 3 Passage and ?'s

After implementing the second Assessment I discovered that the student was reading somewhere between a Level 3 and Level 4. This told me that some of the intervention strategies were helping, but I knew from experience that something else was holding her back from achieving her full potential. I came up with a new plan for intervention 2 that addressed more of the features that were keeping her from this (fluency, vocabulary, comprehension strategies).

Assessment 3

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After implementing the second plan for intervention, I noticed some small improvements, but it seemed the student's overall success had plateaued. Some of the interventions did work, but I kept getting low levels of comprehension after reading any text that I put in front of her. Her vocabulary improved and thus so did automacy when reading. Her fluency also improved, however, her speech impediment still caused confusion and possibly resulted in an inability to process the meaning of some words/sentences. I gave her this final assessment showing that she was able to read words but her comprehension was inconsistent. My summary of intervention assessments can be viewed in Google Doc's with a detailed description of how the Assessment and Intervention process proceeded and ended.

Shared Reading Lesson: Five Little Pumpkins

I did a shared reading lesson recently with my fifth graders and it went great! I read the classic poem "Five Little Pumpkins" to them, we practiced it together, and then they read it to me.

Reading: Fluency- We focused on using appropriate intonation and using clues from the text to figure out how to read the poem. 
For example, one of the things I pointed out was punctuation and its importance when knowing whether to increase or decrease intonation. The kids and I went over question marks and how our voice intonation rises at the end of the question. I let the boys and girls compete when reading the poem aloud. They focused on intonation for punctuation marks, how the letters are spelled (all caps) and onomatopoeia's.

Language Arts: grammar- After that, we re-focused our lesson on nouns which had been introduced earlier that week. We circled all of the nouns and pronouns and then talked about the common nouns. We came up with a list of nouns that could replace the ones in the original poem and then I gave them their assignment: The students were responsible for re-writing the poem and replacing the common nouns with different nouns that they wanted to use.
The requirements were that the poem had to make sense mechanically, structurally, and grammatically. I gave them permission to use their creativity to their advantage. For some students, I included a graphic organizer that included the main format of the poem and blank areas where I expected them to replace nouns. The students were busy the entire reading block.

When they got their rough draft finished, they brought it to me, I helped them edit and revise it, and then they began a final draft on the Final Draft form I provided. When they wrote their final draft, the students went back and erased their new nouns and replaced them with pictures representing each noun.
I took their final products and put them on a bulletin board outside of the classroom.
When they walk by, the students practice reading other student's poems and figuring out what the replacement nouns were! 
I had very few management issues, the students were busy, and enjoyed using their imaginations. Here are some pictures of the bulletin board and their final poems:

Fifth grade rebus poems: Five Little Pumpkins re-write replacing common nouns.

Students used creativity to replace nouns with pictures.

Students of all abilities were engaged and successful.

Students wrote how they wanted others to read it! (OUT)

I have attached the lesson plan in University of South Alabama format. It includes the final draft form.
Shared Reading fifth grade lesson plan


Here is the power point I created to go along with it:
Power Point Pres for Five Little Pumpkins


*Feel free to use these resources and the idea if you like it! I chose this text because it could be read on a K-6 level, but the assignment can be simplified or added to, to make it more challenging.


Created by:
Dillon Rogers

Read Aloud and Reading Block: A Plump and Perky Turkey

This read aloud was also integrated into the reading block that I taught. Here is the power point presentation for SUMMARIZING that I created. It is meant to be edited during whole group instruction, guided practice.

Summarizing PPT

Here is the read aloud lesson plan and my reflection.
Read Aloud Lesson Plan


Also, I have included the reading block plan- here
This is my reflection:

I did a read aloud on November 3rd with my 5th grade class and it went pretty well. I read "A Plump and Perky Turkey" by Teresa Bateman and the main focal points were making connections, key vocabulary, and summarizing.

The students really enjoyed the story and making connections. They had been well versed in the different types of connections. They knew the type of connections they were making and were able to relay that to me verbally. We reviewed vocabulary after the story and meanings of words through synonyms.

Story Map Organizer

The students used a story map to help organize details of the story and wrote a paragraph that included the main idea and three supporting details.


Overall, the lesson went great and the students were eager to pick up the book and read through it again. This lesson was a level 4.2 book but all of the students- high,low, and in between- were able to comprehend the important features of the story. The lower students did have another opportunity to re-read the story and refresh their memory on key concepts to make sure they understood these or ask me any questions regarding those concepts.

Here is an example of a cute bulletin board that could go with this lesson:

 

Writing Lesson: How To Survive the Fifth Grade

I taught my students the writing process and reinforced writing a short paragraph with main idea and three supporting details, through a read aloud.

The National Geographic Kids book I read to introduce the prompt was called "How To Survive Anything" by Rachel Buchholz, illustrated by Chris Philpot. All though I only read a few chapters from the book, every one in it is interesting, funny, engaging, and informative. That is why I picked this book for my lesson. I wanted to convey informative writing~with a twist~ to my students. I wanted them to judge/discuss how the author put the book together and wrote each topic and whether or not it was helpful to the reader. The students really enjoyed the stories and when I told them they would be writing their own "How To", they were very excited.


The prompt was "How To Survive the Fifth Grade" and the audience was 4th graders. Each group of 2/3 students (which I prearranged) received a topic to write their paragraph on. We began by looking at the meaning of brainstorming and sharing ideas in whole group. I wrote down the student's topic ideas. The ideas had to be something that they wanted the 4th graders to know about, so they would be better prepared for 5th grade situations. After I had enough topics written on the SMART board, I allowed each group of students to pick a number out of a bucket. The number corresponded to a topic on the board and that was the topic they had to write about.


We looked at the meaning of drafting in the writing process, and I handed out graphic organizers to each student. I walked them through filling out their graphic organizers- based on their topic- as a whole group. I walked around and monitored progress. Once most students had finished, I told them what they were going to do for the paragraphs.


I taught them about revising and editing and finally the meaning of publishing their work. I gave them instructions on how they would revise and edit each others paragraphs and then I let them get started. As they worked, I monitored group progress and gave feedback. I helped students with cooperative work, editing, and revising. The students really enjoyed being able to "speak" to the 4th graders through their writing. As a teachable moment, I stopped to discuss the importance and meaning of tone, and how we can hear an author's tone when we read their writing. Also, we discussed the importance of giving relevant information, so that it could truly be helpful for a 4th grader to read one day.


This became a domino affect on my students and they became more and more enthusiastic about their paragraphs, once they realized that real students would actually be reading their work. This is an example of what I got, in response to the teachable moment during this lesson:

Overall, the lesson went great! It went so well, that I am planning on expanding their paragraphs into a 5 paragraph paper. I will use the same process and create a graphic organizer for this as well. I am looking into ways to take what they have written and convert it digitally into a story book. I will add post to this once I find out what exactly I will be using. So far, this is the best lesson I have taught!


What a great thing to see- all of my students eagerly collaborating in an effort to create something that they are excited for and know about! 

Here is my writing lesson plan , rubric , and here is the writing lesson ppt that goes along with it.