Proposition 1-Teachers are committed to students and their learning.

Mini-unit: Phonemic and Phonological Awareness in the preschool classroom. Rationale: This mini-unit, supporting phonemic and phonological awareness in the preschool classroom, ties directly into proposition 1 of the NBPTS. Through the creation and implementation of this unit the teacher showed she was, dedicated to making knowledge accessible to all students. Furthermore, the varied activities and strategies (phonemic and phonological in nature) allowed for individual learning styles to be supported showing that an understanding how students learn and develop was taken into account. All activities, developmentally appropriate to preschool, supported these important pre-reading skills but also expanded learning across the content areas using multi-modal activities.

Reflection: Thematic teaching is often a way of life in a preschool classroom. In my case I rely on the creation of such units to teach the baseline skills that my children need to learn in order to become successful life-long learners. Often with young children, as with many children, motivation is the key. It was exciting to take a familiar and well-loved childrens book and create a week of learning surrounding that book. As research as shown us children learn best by doing and through play. These two facts were taken into account as the unit was developed and implemented. Art, dramatic play, literacy stations, music and movement were all taken into account to make sure that each child was learning through his or her strength and preferred modality. The children were all working and supported at their own individual level. Some of the children were reading words and stories while others struggled to find, match or trace the first letter in their name. All students had access and exposure to the same activities and adult support. I feel, being a preschool special education teacher, I am already required to teach to the varying level of my kids through their IEP goals and objectives as well as meeting the needs of my typically developing kids. I found this unit to be to fun and challenging at the same time. My initial vision was to do the broad theme of Alphabet Books. But in doing more in-depth thinking (and going back to my kindergarten years) I decided to focus the theme around one book, Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom, and add on the alphabet activities from there. This choice lead to clearer thinking and it was easier to plan. The rereading of the same book, each day for a week, seemed to add a level of comfort for all students. Each student participated in some way, by the end of the week, during the shared reading group. I hope to add Smart Board Activities next year. Currently I use the Smart Board about once a week, as a large group activity, but am not yet comfortable enough to have the kids use it as a center with limited adult assistance as we (the adults) are busy working with groups or in centers. I also want more time to research and/or create smart board activities which will enhance this mini-unit. Overall, I am pleased with the outcome of this mini-unit and am anxious to try this again next year using on-going knowledge gained through my UNE courses.