Standards 2, 3, and 5 are outlined here as well as distributed among the pages for easier viewing. This is a description of the standards and the artifacts I feel best exemplify my experience.
Standard 2: Curriculum and Instruction
Candidates use instructional approaches, materials, and an integrated, comprehensive, balanced curriculum to support student learning in reading and writing.
2.1: Use foundational knowledge to design or implement an integrated, comprehensive, and balanced curriculum.
The assignment that best demonstrate this standard are the literacy plan developed for READ 680, coaching. The presentation for this plan can be viewed from the dashboard under an individual tab. In this assignment, a plan for literacy for an entire district was designed. The students are exposed to a balanced literacy diet to intervene and correct reading difficulties.
2.2: Use appropriate and varied instructional approaches, including those that develop word recognition, language comprehension, strategic knowledge, and reading–writing connections.
An assignment that formulated my knowledge for instructional design were the assignments associated with Read 620, word study. It was this class that I realized that students perform at different levels for different skills and it was possible to design instruction that incorporated all these variants while addressing the students’ needs. Below is an example assignment:
2.3: Use a wide range of texts (e.g., narrative, expository, and poetry) from traditional print, digital, and online resources.
Read 560, writing, gave me that opportunity to widen my exposure to traditional, print, digital and online resources for writing. During this course I composed a personal narrative based on a mentor text. I chose “There was an old lady who swallowed a fly”. This was a favorite of my son when he was little. I have used the text in my classes to discuss repetition and figurative language. During this course, I brought my draft into the classroom and shared it with my students as I was working on it. I used my draft to model editing. Then the students had to choose a mentor text to use for their own creation. These students had never written like this before. My personal narrative can be found at Storybird.com . The book has this cover:
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Open in new tab Standard 3: Assessment and Evaluation
Candidates use a variety of assessment tools and practices to plan and evaluate effective reading and writing instruction.
3.1: Understand types of assessments and their purposes, strengths, and limitations.
3.2: Select, develop, administer, and interpret assessments, both traditional print and electronic, for specific purposes.
3.3: Use assessment information to plan and evaluate instruction.
3.4: Communicate assessment results and implications to a variety of audiences.
There were a number of courses that prepared me for administering assessments, interpreting results, and then designing instruction based on that data. The literacy profile uploaded to the dashboard is a culminating project to demonstrate knowledge of this standard. The Gunning text used in Read 670 is one of the most powerful tools I have encountered during my professional growth as an educator. This text throughly explained assessments, how to interpret results and then how to design instruction based on those results. My instructors were a dynamic team in both these classes and provide rigorous work that stretched me. As a result, I feel very confident in my abilities to administer and interpret assessments.
Standard 5: Literate Environment
Candidates create a literate environment that fosters reading and writing by integrating foundational knowledge, instructional practices, approaches and methods, curriculum materials, and the appropriate use of assessments.
5.1: Design the physical environment to optimize students’ use of traditional print, digital, and online resources in reading and writing instruction.
My experience in the Read 520 helped me to become cognizant of the environment in my classroom from literary lens. I found that I began to use student created anchor charts to help the students their thinking. My instruction was enhanced more with illustrations for clarification and students were encourage to share the connections they made to characters, to the text, or connecting the text to another text.
5.2: Design a social environment that is low risk and includes choice, motivation, and scaffolded support to optimize students’ opportunities for learning to read and write.
In providing this safe environment, I have become aware of my own fears in instruction. Until I interacted with the Read 560 class, I was petrified to attempt to teach writing. I stayed away from formal writing instruction for years. My anxiety was alleviated by the instructor’s constant support. As we moved through the writing process, I realized that I can just do the same for my students. We began to complete writing projects in the class as I completed them for the course. Now, the students are excited when it’s Wednesday, that is our Writing Workshop day.
5.3: Use routines to support reading and writing instruction (e.g., time allocation, transitions from one activity to another; discussions, and peer feedback).
5.4: Use a variety of classroom configurations (i.e., whole class, small group, and individual) to differentiate instruction.
For these two standards as well as for many others, the Read 650 strengthened my ability to understand instructional design, apply current research strategies or techniques and become aware of the true components of literacy. I also relied heavily on Read 550 to gather a tool kit of strategies and techniques to implement in my classroom to enhance the students’ literacy experience.