In-Depth Analysis & Literacy Plan Looking back through the data I have collected throughout the semester,

I am able to understand better Sarahs strengths and areas that are still developing. Once I know these, I can figure out where to go from there. In a class of twenty or so, I will have to be extra organized to keep everyone straight so that I can plan whole class instruction. For now, I have figured out some ways that I can continue to help Sarah personally. In this part of the website, I will talk about what I have learned about Sarah as a student and decide what else I would do if I could continue to work with her. Strengths I thought I was good at seeing the positives in life, but I realize I still have some work to do, especially in the classroom. I feel like I am always looking for what I can do to help a student that I forget to praise them for what they are already doing. One quote I read says, So often, children dont even realize they have done remarkable things in their writing. We must help them see this and then make room for celebration (Ray, 2004, p. 138). I know how important it is for teachers to celebrate with their students, and it kills me to think that I was so caught up trying to help them learn that I was forgetting to show them that I do recognize their hard work. That was always important for me as a student, so I know I have to do it for my own students. I am not saying that I only see the negatives or areas still needing improvement, but I would like make more of a conscious effort to be better at it. Progress is more important than a letter grade anyway. Having a caring teacher that notices the students progress can help make a difference and boost their confidence. This is something I wanted to do for Sarah, so I hope that I have been able to see her progress and show that I notice. Looking back at my time with her, I have seen many of her strengths and improvements.

Most of our time together was spent on writing because I was at the field placement during their writing time. This allowed me to see many of her strengths and improvements in writing. I saw a lot of progress in attempted spelling and writing throughout the semester. At first, she did not have many labels, but by the end she was adding them on her own and stretching out words by herself. I noticed during conferences and the Gentry Spelling Analysis that she did not need much prompting to stretch out the word and listen for sounds. She learned to do that on her own and was therefore able to add more letters to the words she was trying to write. She began to add more details to her work as well. At first, her details were names used from the paper, but then she started to add more on her own. The names from the list and looking at the words on the wall during letter identification can be seen as copying but it can also be seen as using her resources. I think Sarah did a good job of using resources to get started. From this, she could use this background knowledge to help her when she was doing similar tasks on her own. When I asked her to write for a writing sample, she wrote the names of her friends. The whole names were not there, but she knew some of the letters. Sarahs writing continues to improve, but it was great to see that she is already getting better. I did not have as many opportunities to focus on reading with her as I would have liked, but, from what we did, I noticed some of her strengths in reading. The Concepts of Print assessment allowed me to see that she does know quite a bit about book handling and the idea of reading at the beginning of the year. She came to school, or learned quickly, that print is read left to right and top to bottom. She also knows the difference between a letter and a word, as well as the difference between capital and lowercase letters. These are all great starts to understanding reading. Towards the end of the semester, I noticed that she was using visual picture clues to help make meaning of the sentences she was reading during the reading conference and the

Running Record. In both of these, she also caught on to the sentence pattern and used that for almost all of the other pages in the book. I even tried to ask a comprehension question at the end of the Running Record to see if she knew what the little girl was planning the whole time and she knew that it was to scare the parents. I was really impressed with all of Sarahs reading strengths and accomplishments throughout the semester even though we did not have as much time to work on them as we did with writing. Some of the other strengths that I saw cannot be categorized as either reading or writing but instead could be seen as strengths overall in literacy. She seemed to take advice on what we had talked about and made it her own for later conferences throughout the year. She did this in both reading and writing, and this shows improvement and understanding. For instance, we talked about sticking to the topic at the beginning of the semester, and, towards the end, she was past that and trying out sentences. I also noticed that she was making connections during lessons and while she was working. While working on the No-Excuse Words, she connected the word see in the writing section to it in the reading part. She also made connections to her home life to what the class was talking about every now and then. I think this is important to note because she is working with her schema to either adapt or add new information. Sarah also improved by knowing most of her No-Excuse Words as well as upper and lowercase letters towards the end of the semester. I would say this is important to both reading and writing because she was using them in both areas. She even helped out another student every once in a while which told me that she was becoming more confident as the semester progressed. I do not know if improvements like these happened because I helped spend time with her or because she was picking up more from the teacher during whole class time. Either way, it was great to see her improve.

Areas of Growth While I noticed many of Sarahs strengths and accomplishments, I also saw some areas that are still growing and could use continued attention. As for reading, I think she could polish up the one-to-one coordination while she reads. I have noticed during the reading conference and the Running Record that she sometimes adds words to the sentence. The sentence was I see the window and she said I see the window open for one of the Running Record books. She might be looking at the picture too much and not looking at how many words are actually in the sentence. Also, I have noticed that she either sees the first part of a word and says a similar word or she does not even match her word to the parts of the word written. Either way, what she says does not match all sound parts of what is written. For example, the word was see and she said sit when looking at the No-Excuse assessment. She noticed the s but did not finish looking at the rest of the word. For just writing improvement, I would say that she could still work on writing full sentences. There is always room for improvement and I think these are the next steps to help Sarahs reading and writing. In general, I think there are some other things Sarah can still work on that will help both reading and writing. I noticed during the Concepts of Print assessment that she did not recognize any other punctuation besides the period. She still forgets it when she is writing sometimes, too. I have not noticed much punctuation instruction during class. I did hear them read a book that focused on the exclamation mark, but that was it. I only say this could be an area of growth because it could be a possible next topic to introduce. Once she knows what they are and what they mean, she might be able to read and write them more often. Similar topics that can be focused on next are comprehension, inferring, and more No-Excuse words. The other thing I would like to see her continue to improve upon is her confidence. I do think that it has improved,

but I still think there is room for her to feel more like a reader and writer. When we did the writing sample for my other class, listed in the work samples on my website, I asked her to be a writer and she just wrote a few words she felt she could write correctly. I had to prompt her for more. Maybe I could have given a better prompt, but I wish she could have felt comfortable writing more. This was my goal, to help her feel more confident, and I think she did show improvement, but I hope she can continue feel better about herself as a reader and writer. I think that all of these areas of growth can be helped with the right kind of teacher support. Next Steps for Instruction If I could, I would love to stay and continue to work with Sarah. It would be really neat to see a whole years worth of improvement. I guess I will have to wait until I have my own class for that, though. It was still cool to see how much Sarah has already improved in just a semester. I only have a few more days left at field, so I can still work with her a little more. This next section is what I can do with her for these last few days or what I would do if I was the teacher and could continue to work with her for the rest of the year. Methods of Teaching. In order to help Sarah with the one-to-one correlation, I could choose to do many different things. If other students are struggling with the same thing, I could make this a whole class focus. During shared reading, I would use a pointer to follow along with the words. The students could take a turn while the rest of us read even. If it was just Sarah, I would continue to work with her during conferences as well as send her home with familiar books that she could read with her family. I would want her to focus on following along with a finger. We could take turns reading and following along until she can do both on her own. Another area to work on is to make sure the rest of the word matches what she is thinking. When working with just Sarah, I could ask something like, Does that look right? or

Lets run our finger under the word slowly and see what parts we notice (Johnson & Keier, 2010, p. 58). I need to remember prompts like these to better support Sarah. I would want to focus on teaching graphophonics like this with a whole to part method (Parkes, 2000, p. 31). We would read together and notice words that have familiar sound parts. As a class, we could even look at rhyming words or words with similar beginnings to focus on familiar sounds found in multiple words. There are many ways to focus on word parts, so I would definitely want to work more on this with Sarah. I noted some other areas that could be introduced next, but, personally, I would not want to introduce them as separate lessons. I would want to make note of what they are doing during shared reading or read alouds. For instance, while doing a read aloud, I would want to ask questions about what they think might happen next. I could point out that they are inferring, but I would not want to make a huge deal out of it as a whole lesson. We could also add more high frequency words or at least point out more familiar words. I want to expose the class, including Sarah, to more familiar words that they could use on their own when reading or writing. There are many ways to introduce new topics, but I would want to include them in other activities. The last thing I would really want to continue to focus on would be her confidence. Some ideas that could help include rereading familiar books as well as better prompts or reinforcements from me. Reading easy books over and over again would help her build confidence as well as vocabulary because she is getting better at that book. I could even send the book home so she could read with her parents. Reading the same book builds fluency and allows her to get closer to reading it on her own (Johnson & Keier, 2010, p. 207-208). I could also be better at helping her build confidence by what I say. I forget sometimes to just point out what she is doing well (Johnson & Keier, 2010). This is very important to helping her build confidence

and continue to do what she is doing. It is my job to always work to help her learn as well as feel proud of herself as a learner. Additional Assessments or Information. If I could keep working with Sarah, there are some additional assessments and information I would want in order to learn more about her. I only did a few reading conferences, so I would like to do more in order to have a better idea of her progress. I would also have liked to do a different or get another writing sample. I would have wanted to do better at the one I got if I could do it over. However, because I cannot redo it, I would want to get another one and try to get a better representation of how she writes. I also wish I could do an ending literacy inventory to see how or if her views of reading or writing have changed. I cannot go back to change some of these things, but I could use this reflection to remind myself in the future what I can do to get better information about my students. I need to do a lot of work to understand my students so that I can better support them and be the teacher they need. I hope that everything I have learned from this audit trail will do just that.