Running head: I AS A LEARNER

I As A Learner: Project Description and Narrative Reflection

Reina Claus

CIL 621
IAAL: PROJECT DESCRIPTION AND NARRATIVE REFLECTION 1

I As A Learner: Project Description and Narrative Reflection

The overall goal of my I As A Learner project was to create a space where I can plan, store,

organize and understand appropriate lessons and assessments for students. Being a brand new teacher

I constantly feel like I am not prepared, teaching lessons without fully understanding the purpose of

them, or really knowing if my students are absorbing the knowledge I am trying to convey to them. This

project allowed me to focus on different aspects of reading, dig deeper and understand the purpose of

each and how to effectively assess these different aspects.

My first goal was to develop a virtual binder or electronic portfolio of lesson plans and

assessments with detailed procedural instructions and the standard covered; in addition, I wanted to

include resources about reading, comprehension, fluency, phonics and vocabulary. I feel that this goal

was attainable and would benefit my teaching and understanding of not only the different lessons and

potential assessments that can be given but also helped me to understand the specific standards I am

teaching. I created five lessons, one focusing on fluency, one on phonics, two on vocabulary, and one

on comprehension. These five lessons were taught in my fifth grade class successfully. Students

especially enjoyed the fluency lesson, they get to play a game where they dont even realize they are

practicing and mastering a fluency standard. They also really enjoyed the cootie catcher vocabulary

lesson. This lesson allowed them to make a cootie catcher focused on the weekly vocabulary words as

well as coming up with synonyms, correct sentences and images associated with the words.

Assessments included both formative and summative, some informal and some formal. My

students especially love the Wheel Decide assessment (Wheel Decide, 2017); they enjoy watching the

wheel spin and fall on their names, they do not even realize that I am formatively assessing them as we

go. Both of the vocabulary assessments I included were successfully presented to my class as well.
IAAL: PROJECT DESCRIPTION AND NARRATIVE REFLECTION 2

The PearDeck assessment was a quick and fun way for me to assess each student's knowledge of the

weekly vocabulary words through an electronic avenue (PearDeck, n.d.). As well as the vocabulary

Bingo, students think this is a game and want to win, but at the same time I am able to informally

formatively assessing their knowledge and understanding of the weekly vocabulary words. We often

play vocabulary Bingo on Fridays before taking our weekly reading assessment.

My second goal was to better understand and learn how to assess English Language Learners.

I currently have one student in my fifth grade class who moved to the United States two years ago from

Romania. Prior to moving to the United States she had absolutely no schooling or civilized living. She

was moved to my fifth grade class from third grade the same week I took over this class. She has had a

full year in second grade and a year and a half of third grade. Trying to learn how to best accommodate

her in my class has been one of my biggest struggles so I wanted to dedicate my second goal to learn

how to better prepare and assess her and other English Language Learners I might meet in my

classroom in the future.

For this goal, I organized ten mini lessons and ten assessments that I can use to help my English

Language Learning students to master certain basics of reading and writing. The mini lessons were

focused on fluency, comprehension, vowels and vocabulary. The first fluency lesson and corresponding

assessment gives students the opportunity to read a leveled passage, with an adult counting the number

of words correctly read in one minute. For this student, it was recommended I start her off at a 0.8

grade level, her current reading level is a 1.3, starting off at a 0.8 allows her to successfully get through

the passage. The goal is for the student to read through the same passage at least once a day to

practice their fluency and word knowledge. The assessment at the end of the week consists of the

student reading the passage to an adult, with their correctly pronounced words in one minute being
IAAL: PROJECT DESCRIPTION AND NARRATIVE REFLECTION 3

recorded; students are to also work through the comprehension questions that are associated with the

passage. Another similar lesson that includes fluency but is mostly focused on comprehension is the

lesson from ReadWorks (ReadWorks, 2015). This lesson consists of students reading leveled passages

and answering a variety of comprehension questions to show their understanding of the text. Similarly, a

comprehension assessment can look like the Flocabulary assessment I included (Flocabulary, 2016).

This assessment requires English Language Learning students to watch and listen to a video on a topic

followed by a short quiz that asks specific comprehension questions related to the video. To

accommodate those students who are unable to read the comprehension questions, a teacher can read

the questions aloud after the video. I also included a number of short and long vowel mini lessons,

games and assessments because my student struggles with these short and long vowel sounds when

trying to decode words. Lessons require students to match up short vowel words with images as well

as locating long vowel words in various reading passages. Short vowel assessments a short vowel

game, where students match up images with nearly completed three letter short vowel words and

record their answers on a recording sheet. Another assessment that my student did quite well on was

the short vowel assessment which requires English Language Learning students to write in the three

letter short vowel word that is depicted in the image. During this assessment I noticed that my student

quickly knew most of these, however she struggled with the images of a cop and a cot, I believe she

is not familiar with these things from her home country and thus was not sure how to complete the

words. I also noticed that she often mixed up the short vowels sounds e, i and u during the final

assessment page in this activity.

A recurring theme in my research on how to effectively reach English Language learners was to
IAAL: PROJECT DESCRIPTION AND NARRATIVE REFLECTION 4

make it visual (Gonzalez, 2014); providing supporting images can help an ELL student better

understand and make connections between what they know about the image and the written word.

Another recurring suggestion was to encourage small student-led groups, having English Language

Learning students work with their peers can increase their engagement and help them better understand

from a peers perspective (Gonzalez, 2014). A number of the mini lessons I included in my goal

evidence included students working in groups or with partners on games or activities. I find that when I

put my ELL student in a group setting she often falls behind because her peers are so many grade levels

ahead of her; however there are occassions, like in fluency games, where she does better with her peers

then with me.

Overall, working through these goals and compiling the lessons and assessments has helped me

understand the curriculum and how to assess the curriculum in an organized way. I do not know if I will

create an electronic portfolio to store all of my future lessons and assessments but doing so helped me

think about the importance of the different characteristics of reading and writing and how to focus on

each one through a mini lesson or assessment. Studying and then creating different lessons and

assessments for fluency, comprehension, vocabulary and phonics helped me immensely in understanding

which each one is and how to teach and assess it. I truly believe that this I as a Leaner project has

helped me work towards becoming a better prepared teacher and thus a better teacher.
IAAL: PROJECT DESCRIPTION AND NARRATIVE REFLECTION 5

References

Flocabulary. (2016). When I Read. Retrieved from https://www.flocabulary.com/unit/1-when-i-read/

Gonzalez, Jennifer. (December 11, 2014). 12 Ways to Support ESL Students in

the Mainstream Classroom. Cult of Pedagogy. Retrieved from

https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/supporting-esl-students-mainstream-classroom/

Peardeck.com. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://app.peardeck.com/home/

ReadWorks. (2015). A Day for Fishing. Retrieved from

http://www.readworks.org/passages/day-fishing

Wheel Decide. (2017). Retrieved from http://wheeldecide.com/