Paige Hemry

ENG 315WI
Tues at 11AM

Part 1: Kidwatching Description and Reflection

Throughout the course of the semester, I will be observing Makenna within Ms. Auker’s

first grade classroom. Makenna appears to be a bright, bubbly, intelligent student and I cannot

wait to see the impact I am able to have on her writing abilities over the course of the next few

weeks.

Understanding How Language & Literacy Develop

The focal student that I believed would be the most beneficial to observe throughout

the course of the semester is Makenna. Makenna is a bright, social butterfly who talks

frequently of her mother, father, family dog, and younger sister. In fact, when discussing her

family to another classmate during writing time, Makenna mentioned that she is the one who

takes care of her younger sibling because her mother is ‘lazy’.

Outside of school, Makenna has expressed her interest in Disney as well as Disney

movies. For a recent personal narrative, Makenna chose to write of a time that her family took

a trip to Florida to Disney World in which she was able to spend the majority of her time

fawning over the beautiful Disney Princesses. When asked what she enjoys doing, Makenna

expressed that she enjoys going to school and playing with her friend Alexis.

Makenna possess the ability to interact and open up to those around her with ease. She

gets pleasure out of speaking to other individuals and recalling past experiences. Thus, I think

this strength is one that is important to draw upon in regard to Makenna’s writing. Makenna

simply needs to learn how to translate her verbal story telling abilities onto a piece of paper.
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While Makenna currently does this, she more often than not neglects to include vital details or

places details in the improper order, making the story confusing to readers.

Interacting with Children

From my perspective, Makenna and I have positive, productive interactions. The

moment I walk into the room, Makenna greets me with a hug and begins to tell me about the

special she just came from prior to entering the classroom. Prior to spending the majority of my

time with Makenna, she would often request that I work alongside her and assist her with her

writing.

While Makenna does get distracted rather easily, she also learns through verbalizing her

thoughts. When Makenna is having a difficult time processing her ideas or where to go with her

writing, a few guiding questions allow her to refocus and end up back on track. In regard to the

writing process, Makenna does well when she spends her time getting her ideas down on paper

and then returning to her work to reread it, conference about it, and edit it thoroughly.

The majority of students remain an open book. Thus, getting to know students on a

deep level simply involves asking the right questions. Personally, I thrive on asking questions

regarding what children like, think, and feel in regard to a specific topic. However, in regard to

learning, I do feel as though it is vital to ask the student what they need from me when they are

struggling. More often than not, the student knows where they are struggling and what

assistance will allow them to be the most successful based upon previous experiences. I

sincerely believe that you can learn a lot about students simply by asking about their past

experiences in regard to teachers, learning, education, and their personal lives.

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Observing or Documenting Children’s Knowledge

Makenna understands that written language involves punctuation, correct spelling, and

clarity of sentence structure. It is evident that language development is taking place because

Makenna works hard to sound out words that she is unfamiliar with and has been able to

transform her ability to ignore punctuation all together, to asking which punctuation remains

appropriate for a particular sentence. Thus, it is apparent that Makenna has become aware of

her weaknesses in regard to writing and is striving to improve them.

Overall, Makenna uses less oral language within a whole group or instruction time and

appears more comfortable and confident when she is one on one with another person or at her

table within a small group of four to five individuals. Based on my interactions with her, it

appears as though Makenna enjoys working with others rather than alone as she is consistently

interrupting other’s work time to talk about her own work. When it comes to engaging in

conversation, she is always the one to initiate. When it comes to new situations and settings,

Makenna is able to adjust quite well and asks questions when she is unsure of anything in

particular. Makenna is the most successful in performing her writing when she is away from any

form of distractions, such as other distracted, talkative students. More often than not,

Makenna struggles the most when starting her writing as she often asks, “what should I write

about?”

Fostering Children’s Self Evaluation

Without even having to be asked, Makenna is consistently setting goals for herself when

writing. Makenna will say things such as, “I am going to write an entire page” as she begins a
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writing task. As previously mentioned as well, Makenna is aware that she needs to begin

considering her use of punctuation more intentionally as she writes. While she didn’t openly

express that it was an area she needed to work on, she lacked a significant amount of

punctuation on within her personal narrative and has since been asking questions of and using

punctuation within her writing after meeting with Ms. Auker.

Engaging in Self Evaluation

I feel as though I am facilitating learning each time that I work alongside Makenna.

Rather than simply answering her questions such as, “how do I spell people?” I guide her

towards producing a solution herself or pose questions to assist her in answering her own

question. However, I would say that trying to have Makenna sound out all unknown words

herself is not going as well as I have anticipated as she continues to ask how to spell words

initially without attempting to sound it out herself first.

I feel as though my beliefs about language and literacy may influence my interactions

with Makenna simply because I feel as though it should be done the specific way in which I was

taught it, because that is the only way that I know.

Overall, this Kidwatching perspective has influenced the way I work with all of the

students within the classroom as I have to attempt to limit my interactions with other students

who are not Makenna. This is challenging as the majority of the students want me to work with

them as well.

Using Evaluation to Inform Instruction

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Moving forward, I would like to have more discussion with Makenna about the

reasoning why writing is occurring. Meaning, I would like to get her to consider the purpose

behind her writing as well as who the audience is that she is attempting to address. I also would

like Makenna to work towards asking herself the questions that I ask her when assisting her

with punctuation within her head. For instance, when she asks me what punctuation to use, I

simply ask, “Are you asking a question? Are you excited? Or are you stating something?” She

then immediately is able to process which form of punctuation is appropriate for that sentence.
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Part 2: Conference Reflective Report

After observing first-grader Makenna throughout the course of the semester, I cannot

help but feel as though I have a firm grasp on her strengths and weaknesses as a writer as well

as who Makenna is as an individual. Recently, within my last interaction with Makenna, I was

able to conference with her and examine her work on a deeper, more complex level.

Context

Since I have entered Ms. Auker’s first grade class, I have witnessed Makenna write a

personal narrative, a thank-you letter, writing of her choice from her writer’s notebook, and a

field trip summary from the Ziibiwig Center. Initially, Makenna struggled with the correct use of

punctuation. While she now is able to comprehend the importance of punctuation, she still

continues to ask which punctuation is appropriate. Furthermore, Makenna has a rather difficult

time with spelling as well as reading words when reading and writing. While she works towards

sounding our words, she often misses a sound or gives up after a single attempt.

Conference

To initiate the conference on Makenna’s writing of choice from her writer’s notebook, I

simply asked Makenna to explain what she wrote about within her notebook. Makenna

responded by stating, “School. I wrote about what I like about school.” I then continued on to

ask Makenna what she noticed about what she wrote. She then stated, “The way I wrote it is

neat and there’s a lot of sentences.” Without being prompted, Makenna then reread her

written work in front of me. After she concluded what she had written thus far, she expressed,

“I think I need more detail.” As Makenna continued adding on to her writing, I observed and
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utilized positive reinforcement to make her feel confident about correctly using punctuation or

spelling out a word. Initially, I thought this conference would consist of me as an instructor

analyzing her work, but it resulted in me working alongside Makenna as she constructed her

writing and properly guiding her and offering support where she needed it. When Makenna

struggled with punctuation, I would ask, “is it a sentence, a question, or are you excited?”

Furthermore, when she remained unsure of spelling and sounding it out alone was

unsuccessful, I would slowly break down the word sound by sound and guide her to the correct

letter that correlated with that sound.

Reflection

Overall, I feel as though my positive relationship with Makenna allowed this conference

to be an impactful interaction. While I realize grammar and spelling are two concepts that are

going to take time to master, I feel as though throughout my teachable moments with

Makenna, some vital skills were retained. However, there were instances in which Makenna did

not sound out a particular word and instead confidently wrote down the word and

simultaneously incorrectly spelled the word. While this brought me discomfort, the majority of

the words that she confidently and inaccurately spelled were errors that I found to be

developmentally appropriate considering her age and the difficulty or complexity of the word.

Within the short amount of time I spent alongside Makenna, I saw a variety of improvement in

regard to both her spelling and punctuation process and execution.

Evaluation & Extension

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Rather than entering this conference and evaluating the way in which I performed

afterwards, I read through these best practices beforehand and attempted to structure my

conference by utilizing these best practices. Thus, I started my conference with open-ended

questions, modeled behavior I wanted my student to perform, kept appropriate expectations,

supported independence, and helped my student reflect on her work. However, reflecting back

upon my conference, I have come to realize that I should have one specific strategy in mind to

teach my student as an effort to encourage growth and development rather than attempt to

‘fix’ a piece of writing. Additionally, within the future, I intend on setting a specific time frame

for this one-on-one conference as time as the ability to rather quickly slip by throughout these

in depth interactions.
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To: Parents & Guardians of Miss. Melissa

From: Miss. Paige Hemry
Date: April 10th, 2018
RE: Assessment of First Grade Personal Narrative

Introduction

Throughout the course of two weeks, students within Ms. Auker’s first grade classroom

worked on drafting, revising, and rereading a personal narrative based on the topic of their

choosing. Throughout this writing process, students were encouraged to present an attention-

getting introduction to readers as well as utilizing punctuation and capitalization accordingly.

The students were required to conference with Ms. Auker at least once prior to receiving the

materials necessary for the final draft.

Description of Findings

Melissa decided to write about her family’s trip to Disney World in a piece entitled,

“When I went to Disney World.” Throughout the length of this personal narrative, detailed

illustrations correspond with the text. This narrative begins with an explanation of when this

adventure occurred and concluded with the mention of what a good time it was at Disney

World.

Interpretation

Overall, it is rather easy to comprehend Melissa’s story from beginning to end. Melissa

excels in her ability to utilize capitalization when appropriate such as at the beginning of the

sentence or when she is saying ‘I’. However, it is apparent throughout the story that Melissa

only demonstrates proper use of punctuation about half of the time. Thus, I believe that
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punctuation could be an area of work that may be beneficial to readdress with this particular

student. However, I do believe Melissa demonstrates her knowledge and abilities on this type

of genre quite well as she uses a lead, transitions, an ending, and organization. Furthermore,

Melissa’s spelling is developmentally appropriate for that of a first grader. For instance, when

spelling the word breakfast, Melissa wrote ‘drecfis’. While she may have mixed up the letter B

with the letter D, it is apparent that she utilizing the technique of sounding out the unfamiliar

vocabulary word. Within the beginning stages of writing this personal narrative, I had the

opportunity to conference with Melissa. Throughout the early stages of her writing, Melissa

was unsure what to write about and continuously asked for ideas. However, once this topic

came to mind, her paper filled effortlessly. However, as she reread her work aloud, she was

unsure of some of what she had written down. Thus, there were several moments in which the

two of us had to recall what she was trying to say and rewrite those words. Furthermore, after

Melissa completed her first draft, she had to go back and rework the sequencing of events as

not all of them made logical sense in the order in which they were written within her story.

Next Steps for Learning

Based upon the examination of Melissa’s more recent work since this personal

narrative, I would recommend that Melissa take her time when writing her final draft as this

handwriting is rather difficult to read. Melissa now is able to ask herself what punctuation is

required based upon the previous sentence and is able to reread and revise her work with ease.

Moving forward, I feel as though Melissa simply needs to continue to ask these questions to

herself and take time when sounding out words, syllable by syllable.
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Reference List

Calkins, Lucy. (2014). Writing Pathways: Performance Assessments and Learning Progressions,
Grades K-8. Teachers College Reading and Writing Project.
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