Liana St. Amand TTE319 December 15, 2013 Instructional Design Phase One: Collecting Data for the Instructional Design Field Notes for First Home Engagement When I first walked up to the door of my case study, Victoria s home, her mom, Arianna, was already standing at the door ready to greet Naya and I. She called to Victoria, and she also came to greet us. Victoria led us to the living room, and Arianna asked us if we would like anything to drink. We all sat down on the couch. I began the interaction by pulling out the story backpack. The one that I had brought was about grandparents. I chose this backpack, because I already knew that Victoria is very close to her grandparents. They were especially excited about the book, My Tata s Guitar, because it is bilingual. Victoria s tata only speaks Spanish, and she understands English, so Victoria told me that she was excited to be able to read the story with him. After discussing the backpack for a few minutes longer, we turned our attention to the camera. I showed Victoria how to use it, and asked her to take pictures of the different things that are really important in her life. I then used that to begin talking about some of the things that she may take pictures of. She told me that she might take some of her cousin. Arianna explained to us that Victoria and her cousin, were born at very close times, and are extremely close. They spend a lot of time together. She also explained that since they are both in kindergarten, Victoria s cousin helped her during the first couple weeks of school, when she was feeling sad, by cheering her up on the playground at lunch.
This conversation led into a more extensive conversation about their family. I already knew that Victoria had a brother and a sister, but I learned that her brother is in a second grade class at another school, in a program called choices. Her mom also explained to me that she has a very large family, and is actually a fraternal twin. Twins run in their family, and Victoria was actually a twin before birth, but unfortunately her twin was miscarried. Much of Arianna s family is scattered around the US, but there are still quite a few of them who live in Arizona. Victoria spends most of her time with her dad s parents, which are the ones who she spends the most time with. Victoria s grandmother works in the cafeteria at school, but is currently on medical leave. I then asked them about how language affects their life. Arianna explained to me that she does not fluently speak Spanish. She knows some from classes, her family, but does not use it very often. She explained to me that Victoria s dad s parents both speak Spanish. Victoria s nana can speak English and Spanish and her tata only speaks Spanish. She also explained that while Victoria does not really speak a lot of Spanish, her tata and her somehow find a way to communicate, and she thinks that Victoria knows more Spanish than she lets on. I then asked about some of the things that Victoria enjoys doing at home. Victoria grew very quiet so her mom prompted her with some ideas. She mentioned that Victoria loves to draw, at which a big smile grew on Victoria s face. I mentioned that I had noticed that she was an excellent artist from seeing all her work in school. Then Arianna said that they also enjoy watching detective shows together. This brought up the conversation that her mom is getting her associates in criminal justice at Phoenix University, and plans to eventually get her bachelor s degree. She talked about how it is difficult to balance working with school, and taking care of the
kids, but somehow it all works out. The family all does homework together at the kitchen table, but Victoria does not like having her parents help her. Instead she gets her older sister to help. After this it seemed like it was about time to leave, so I asked them when she would like to schedule another interaction. We decided to set in for the following Thursday, before the family went to see Disney on Ice. I gave Victoria a big hug, and then we all said our goodbyes. Reflection for First Engagement I ended up learning a lot from my home visit. I was a little bit worried that Spanish was not as present in Victoria s life as I had originally believed, but from the home visit I learned that it is a big influence. Victoria is learning to speak Spanish at her grandparents house. Her tata is a very important influence in her life and she is extremely close to him. In order to communicate with him, Victoria has had to learn some Spanish. I found their relationship to be very inspiring, because it shows that people can be extremely close despite language barriers, and there are ways to communicate with people, by teaching each other and using gestures. It also made me realize that even if I have students who do not speak the same language as me, I can still develop a connection with them and find ways to communicate with them. When Arianna explained to me that Victoria does not like when she helps her with her homework, so when the family sits down to do homework, Victoria s sister helps her. This made me realize that Victoria may benefit from working more with her peers. If she is having challenges with something, maybe I can try having the class work in pairs so that Victoria can learn from her classmates, and then I can help scaffold off of want she learns from her peers. I also thought that it was extremely helpful to learn that Arianna is furthering her education at Phoenix University. This helped me to gain insight in their extremely busy schedule, and I was able to understand some of the stresses that Arianna must go through in order to finish all her
assignments as well as work and take care of her family. I have a lot of respect for her, and her ability to juggle everything in her life. One of the biggest themes that kept coming up throughout the entire interaction was the importance of family. Victoria is so close to her family, and spends so much time with her extended family. Her cousins are her best friends, and she spends almost as much time with them as she does her siblings. They all depend on each other and look to each other for support. I found the relationship that their family has to one another to be so heart warming. Most of my extended family lived in Massachusetts and New Hampshire while I was growing up in Arizona, so I never was able to spend much time with my cousin, aunts, uncles, and one set of my grandparents. I hope that when I eventually have my own family, I will be allow to be in an area that is close to my parents and brother, so that my children will be able to spend a lot of time with them. Field Notes for Second Home Engagement On the second home interaction I went by myself. I felt a lot more comfortable about going to the home after such a successful previous interaction. When I walked up to the door I was greeted by Victoria and Arianna. They welcomed me into the home, and Victoria and I walked into the living room. I started by asking her if she had taken pictures with the camera over the past week. She explained that she had not done this yet, but would try to do it soon. I then asked about how she has liked the backpack. She told me that she loved it and had fun reading the books. At this point Arianna walked in and heard us talking about the backpack. She told me that Victoria had read the books several times each, and had especially loved My Tata s Guitar. Arianna told me that Victoria had brought it over to her grandparents and read My Tata s
Guitar with her tata. They had been able to read it in English for Victoria to understand and then in Spanish for her tata to understand. Arianna explained that although Victoria cannot fully speak Spanish she is able to communicate best in Spanish when she is with her tata. They have such a special bond that they find a way to communicate. I then asked a little bit more about Arianna s language experience. She explained to me that she knows some Spanish from the Latino portion of her family, but most of the Spanish that she knows came from learning it in high school. I mentioned that I had heard Victoria speaking some Spanish words with her friends, such as, Hola, chica. Arianna said that Victoria does do this sometimes with her family members and friends, but she never says much more than that in Spanish to anyone besides her grandparents. After this I took out the book that I had made about myself to share with Victoria. I began at the beginning and read each page. After I read the page, Victoria looked at the pictures and asked me questions about the pictures. She also looked for me in all of the pictures and asked if it was me in some of the pictures. After we read through the entire book, I explained to her that I would make a book for her using the pictures that she takes with the camera. I also asked her if she had a preference to the colors that I used in the book, and she told me that she wanted rainbow colors. I explained to her that it was really important that she bring me that pictures as soon as possible, so that I would have enough time to work on her book. When we finished discussing the book, I asked Victoria what she had done today. She looked up at her mom, and Arianna prompted her by mentioning that they had a parent-teacher conference with Mrs. P. At this Arianna became extremely emotional, and told me that Mrs. P had mentioned that she wanted to retain Victoria for next year. Arianna felt as if Mrs. P had already given up on Victoria, and was extremely worried and disheartened. She mentioned to me that she felt as if she should stop working on her associate s degree, because she felt as if she
was failing Victoria because she is so busy. I told her not to feel this way, and I told her that I would talk to my professors to get advice. She also explained to me that she was extremely worried about what it would do to Victoria s self-esteem. Victoria is so close to her cousin, who is also in kindergarten. Arianna told me that she was nervous that if her cousin moves up to first grade and Victoria is stuck in kindergarten, that Victoria will be extremely upset and that it will make her feel poorly about herself. We talked about this for a while longer, and I told Victoria that she is a wonderful student and that I love her very much. We then transitioned into talking about their plans for that night. Victoria explained to me that their family was going to Disney on Ice. Arianna told me that no matter how many times she explains to Victoria that they will only be watching the princesses skate, she still keeps saying that she is going to get to skate with them. At that point, Victoria started expressing that fact that she was very hungry. I realized that it was starting to get late, so I wish them a goodnight. They walked me to the door, and we said our farewells. Reflection for Second Home Engagement This home visit was a very emotional one due to the talk about the conference, and ended up getting a little bit off of topic from my original plan. Fortunately I had read the book before we started talking about other things. I believe that sharing my book with Victoria and Arianna, made it easier for them to open up to me, and even though our discussion was off topic, I feel like it was very valuable. I learned that Arianna truly cares about the success of her daughter and puts a lot of pressure on herself for Victoria s academic success. This home visit, also helped us to establish a stronger bond, because I felt as if Arianna could come to me to express her concerns and receive a little bit of comfort. I hope that my presence helps to keep the whole
school experience somewhat positive for the family. While I do believe that there were some positives from the experience, it also put me in a somewhat uncomfortable situation. I did not know what was within my rights to say, and I did not have all the words to comfort them. It was definitely not something that I was expecting from this second visit. While Victoria is not a true ELL, she is exposed to another language on a regular basis. She is so close with her grandparents, despite the language barrier between her and her tata. I have heard many stories about people who are not close to their grandparents because they cannot communicate in the same language. Victoria and her tata are very lucky, because they have found ways to make sense of each other. Also, the way that Arianna explained it, I believe that Victoria understands and speaks more Spanish than she leads on. My beliefs extend from her being able to speak Spanish with her tata, since she is so comfortable with him. Victoria also lets Spanish into her conversations when she is having fun with her friends and family. I hope to learn even more during the final interaction with my family. Field Notes of Third Home Engagement For my third home visit, I planned to have a guided reading lesson with Victoria. When I got to my home visit I was slightly early. I knocked on the door, and Victoria s dad greeted me. He told me that Victoria and her mom would be out very shortly, and invited me to make myself comfortable in the living room. Shortly after taking a seat, Victoria walked into the living room. I got up and gave her a hug. We then sat down, and I told her that I had brought the book I made for her. I explained to her that I had made her an I Spy book, and I needed her to tell me what she spied in all the pictures that she had taken. We went through every page, and she explained
to me what each picture was. I wrote her answer at the bottom of each page. Halfway through the book, Victoria s mom, Arianna, walked into the living room and joined us on the couch. Arianna sat quietly while Victoria told me what she saw in the pictures. Once we finished writing down what she saw in the pictures, I turned the book back to the first page of the book. We both signed our names as the author of the book. Victoria wrote her letters too big so they did not fit on one line, so she continued the rest of the letters under the already written letters. After we were finished adding her words into the book, it was time to begin the guided reading book. She started by reading the words, I spy with my little eyes. She was able to read the words, I, my, little, and eyes. She sounded out with and my, with the help of Arianna and I. It took a while to get through this first phrase so then she did not want to keep going when we finally got down to her words. She could not remember what she had said earlier, and tried sounding the words out again. By the time we had finished the first page she did not want to continue. In order to make her a little less frustrated, I decided to not force her to read all twenty pages of the book, so we agreed that her mom would read a page, then I would read a page, and finally she would read a page. This ended up working out much better, once she realized that she would not have to struggle through all the pages she seemed to relax. After a few pages, she started to get used to the, I spy with my little eyes pattern and was able to point to each word while she read them, without having to stop to sound the words out. Although she was able to read the words in the repetitive pattern, I noticed that when she saw the words, with and my, in the words that we had written, she had to try to sound them out again. After we finished the lesson, we started talking about all the growth that Victoria had shown that semester. Arianna explained to me that they had bought her an electronic device to help her practice her letters. Victoria went and grabbed it for me to see, and I watched her play a
letter game on it. When she finished the game she grabbed some number flashcards that went from 1 to 20. He and her mom sat on the floor while I watched, and Victoria took the numbers and put them into order. When they got them into the correct order, Victoria put them all back into a bag and came to sit next to me. I told them that I had to get going, but that I had a present for her first. I gave them the book that Rebecca had given us to give as thanks. Victoria got a huge grin on her face, and wrapped her arms around the book. Arianna then gave me a picture of Victoria, and had her sign it. After this we said our goodbyes and I made my way to the car. Reflection for Third Home Engagement Overall I thought that the home visit went extremely well. Our last home visit had been a difficult one, with a lot of emotions coming out, so it was nice to have a more happy tone to this visit. It was a good opportunity to tell her mom that on her recent letter and sound recognition assessment she had shown growth from our last home visit. This was something that they had been working on a lot at home, so it was able to give them some encouragement that what they were doing at home was helping her. Although the overall home visit went really well, I felt that the lesson fell a little short of Victoria s needs. I had hoped that Victoria would be able to read the book to about 95% accuracy, since guided reading books should be at about that level for a student. Unfortunately the book ended up being much more difficult for her than I had thought. Even though she had come up with the descriptions of the pictures, she was not able to recall these words when she went to read them again. Also the vocabulary that she used was much higher than her reading level. In order to stay true to what she said, I was unable to edit the words to make it easier for her to sound out. Although there was some difficulty reading the text, and the lesson did not go
exactly as planned, I do believe that the process was effective. Two of the objectives that I had for Victoria were met in this lesson. She was able to recognize the repetition in the text, and when she did not know a word referred back to the pictures to help her out. These are two valuable strategies for reading that go beyond just sounding out words. I believe that this process helped Victoria to extend her knowledge of reading, even if it was not the perfect guided reading lesson. Overall I found my home visit experience to be very valuable. I feel that over the past semester I have really bonded with Victoria and her mom. This experience has helped me to become a better teacher to Victoria. I hope that next semester I will learn even more and continue to grow as a teacher. Student s Book
Phase Two: Analysis At the beginning of the semester, Victoria was unable to write her name. Now she writes whole sentences and is able to create illustrations to go along with her writing. When Victoria writes, she sounds out each letter of the words that she does not know and writes them down on the paper. She also uses sight words that she is familiar with. Victoria has worked very hard to learn all of her letter sounds, and this has become one of her strengths. A contributing factor of her success in learning her letter sounds was her family helping her to practice them. Now that Victoria has gained this skill as strength, more emphasis should be put on scaffolding her learning. We can do this by focusing more on other areas of literacy development. Victoria is also still being challenged by blending letter sounds together to read the word. It may help her to divide the letters up into groups to form small blends, that she can then blend together further. The students write and read every day in the classroom. Although they are encouraged to write and read, they rarely have the freedom to choose what they want to write or read about. Victoria may benefit from having more freedom to get creative with her writing, and to be able to choose her own books to read. When I had Victoria read the book that we had created together, I noticed that it was too difficult for her read by herself. I believe that it would be helpful if Victoria had access to more books that she could read by herself. Her frustration in reading the book held her back from trying. She may be able to become more confident in her reading abilities if she has more books to read that are at an appropriate level, and therefore help prevent her from getting too frustrated with reading.
Phase Three: Creating a Plan of Action Current Strengths of Victoria As of 12/4, Victoria can recognize 14 sight words. These words are: a, I, if, like is, the, zoo, she, for, he, little, did, to, and up. Victoria recently made it into the ABC club. This means that she can identify all her uppercase and lowercase letters, and sounds. Victoria creates beautiful, descriptive drawings to go along with her writing. Current Needs of Victoria Victoria is still working on blending her sounds when she is trying to read words. After Victoria sounds out a word, she is unable to recognize the same word on another part of a page, and must sound it out again. Recommendations for Advancement of Skills At the time that I was creating the lesson plan for Victoria, some of the strengths were still needs. For example, Victoria was still learning her letters and sounds, and could only recognize a few sight words. Due to this, my lesson plan was more geared to giving her more strategies to figure out words that she could not sound out. The strategies I wanted her to get from this lesson were to look for repetitive text and use illustrations to help derive meaning from the text. My hope was that if she got stuck on sounding out a word, these strategies may be able to help her. Guided Reading Lesson Plan for Student s Photo Book
Theme/content area: Guided Reading, ELA Date: November 7, 2013 Age group: kindergarten Estimated time needed: 20 minutes Objective: The student will be able to finish the I spy phrase based off of the photos that she took. The student will be able to connect the photos to the text. The student will be able to recognize repetitive text. Connection to Standards: AZ ELA Common Core Standard Reading Standards for Literature Kindergarten: Integration of Knowledge and Ideas K.RL.7: With prompting and support, describe the relationship between illustrations and the story in which they appear. Type of Lesson: individual Materials: student s photo book, permanent marker Lesson Sequence: Introduction/Anticipatory Set: We will begin this lesson by going through the premade book. Each page of the book will have the phrase, I spy with my little eyes at the top of the book, and one picture that the student had taken on a camera glued underneath it. I will have the student tell me what they spy in the photo. I will then write whatever the student says underneath the photo. The student and I will do this for all 20 pages of the book.
Modeling: I will model for the student that she should point to each word as she reads it. This will help me be able to follow along with her and accurately understand what she is trying to read. I will also be able to see if she skips a word, or if she becomes stuck. Guided Practice: After we have added all of her words into the book, we will close the book and turn to the cover. I will ask her to begin reading the title. I will look for the strategies that she uses to read unfamiliar words, and aid her when it is completely necessary. I will be looking to see if she is able to use the photos to help aid her in discovering what the text says, and look to see if she can recognize repetitive text. Closure: After we have finished the book, I will ask her what she noticed about the book. We will talk more about the photos in the book. Assessment: I will assess the student by creating a running record. I will watch to see what words she is able to identify. I will also watch for the strategy that she uses in figuring out what words she is reading. Phase Four: Implementation I conducted this lesson at the third home visit. I had originally planned to have her do the first part of adding her words to the text at the second home visit, but I did not receive the pictures back until after the visit. When we started the lesson I explained to her that I had made her an I Spy book, and I needed her to tell me what she spied in all the pictures that she had taken. We went through every page, and she explained to me what each picture was. I wrote her answer at the bottom of each page. Halfway through the book, Victoria s mom, Arianna, walked into the living room and joined us on the couch. Arianna sat quietly while Victoria told me what she saw in the pictures. Once we finished writing down what she saw in the pictures, I turned the book back to the first page of the book. We both signed our names as the author of the book.
Victoria wrote her letters too big so they did not fit on one line, so she continued the rest of the letters under the already written letters. After we were finished adding her words into the book, it was time to begin the guided reading book. She started by reading the words, I spy with my little eyes. She was able to read the words, I, my, little, and eyes. She sounded out with and my, with the help of Arianna and I. It took a while to get through this first phrase so then she did not want to keep going when we finally got down to her words. She could not remember what she had said earlier, and tried sounding the words out again. By the time we had finished the first page she did not want to continue. In order to make her a little less frustrated, I decided to not force her to read all twenty pages of the book, so we agreed that her mom would read a page, then I would read a page, and finally she would read a page. This ended up working out much better, once she realized that she would not have to struggle through all the pages she seemed to relax. After a few pages, she started to get used to the, I spy with my little eyes pattern and was able to point to each word while she read them, without having to stop to sound the words out. Although she was able to read the words in the repetitive pattern, I noticed that when she saw the words, with and my, in the words that we had written, she had to try to sound them out again. Recommendations Since Victoria has continued to grow since our lesson plan, I would tweak them from the ones I would have originally given her after completing this lesson. Now my main focus would be working on blending words together after sounding the words out. She does a wonderful job sounding out each letter, especially when she is writing, but still is challenged when she has to blend all the sounds together to figure out the word. I would also give her some more strategies
to figure out words that are not phonemic, and therefore are too difficult to sound out. For example, I would start telling her rules for what the -sh sound normally makes. Finally I would recommend to the family that they spend a lot of time reading with Victoria. This will allow her to start recognizing words, as well as extend her vocabulary. They should also make sure that they are pointing to each word as they read to her, and allow her to look at the words and the pictures.