Feild Evidence Report #5

Lindsey Payne

RICA Domain 3: Fluency

RICA Competency 9: Fluency: Instruction and Assessment

Grade Level: First Grade

            Mrs. T teaches fluency through tape assisted reading (B 3 on pg. 70). She has been scaffolding this activity since the first week of school. During “center rotations” on the first two weeks of school, small groups of students would listen to a tape recording and try to read along with the story. During the third week, students were instructed to point to each word as the person on the recording read them. Recently, the students have been told to read aloud with the tape as they point to each word being read. The tape is designed to allow students to read aloud at a moderate pace. At this point in the year, students are able to read aloud with the tape as they look at the text. Through this fluency activity, students learn how to improve accuracy, rate and prosody. As time goes on, Mrs. T changes the books on tape to more challenging and longer books.  

Field Evidence Report 4

Lindsey Payne

RICA Domain 1: Planning, Organizing, and Managing Reading Instruction

RICA Competency 1: Planning, Organizing and Managing Reading Instruction

Grade Level: First grade

            One important element of teaching students reading skills is differentiated instruction. In my clinical practice class, the range of readers is vast. Most of the students in the lowest reading level are English learners. Out of thirty students, there are nine English learners. In previous years, Mrs. T has had less than five ELs in her class. This year she decided to differentiate instruction for her English learners and special needs students by adding materials with more visuals. The picture below shows a chart in her classroom with pictures of words that begin with the corresponding blending sound. Mrs. T often refers to the chart when students are trying to sound out words. After assessing some of the English learners myself, I found that they often have problems with blending. Competency one of the RICA talks about the development of foundational skills. Students cannot learn how to read words without the foundational skill of blending. Competency one also stresses the importance of differentiated instruction. One way the teacher accommodates the English learners in the class is that she uses flash cards with picture cues during the lowest reading group. This helps the English learners get used to repeatedly seeing the word and understanding it’s meaning. I have also included a picture of the set of flash cards at the end of this posting. Through the additional visual aids, Mrs. T has differentiated instruction and promoted foundational skills.