Standard Two: Knowledge of Human Development The teacher understands how children learn and develop and can provide learning opportunities that support their intellectual, social, and personal development.
Words Their Way Leveled Spelling Lists
As a teacher knows, students learn and develop in all different ways and it is our job to make sure we foster those needs. At the beginning of the fourth grade year, students took a spelling test that showed their strengths and weaknesses in spelling. This allowed us teachers to adapt spelling lists for our students based upon their levels in spelling. We used a program called, Words Their Way. Students were either given List A or List B. One list had a higher level of difficulty that the other. Being able to level students demonstrates an understanding on individual students' learning abilities and needs. Using these leveled spelling tests has shown growth and improvement in the students spelling.
Communication Inquiry Chart
At the beginning of every unit, as a class we do a read aloud that introduces us to the focuses of our unit. For our Communication Unit, we read our read aloud that consisted of how people communicated and the progression of communication throughout the years. For example, how the telephone was invented by Alexander Graham Bell. First, I read the story aloud, that I created with pictures to go with each section of the story. This was on day one. As I read the story, I stuck the pictures to a chart so students could continue to see the story. I put them in order of the reading. On Day 2, I first had students pair share a summary of the story using the pictures, then I handed out pieces of papers to some students that had words typed on them from the story. These words were key terms in our story that I wanted students to grasp. For those students who had received a piece of paper, they were to discuss with students where they might go based upon the pictures and summary of the story they had just done. Next, I read the story aloud and as students heard their word, they were to place it under or around the picture it went with. After, we then had a discussion of those key words as a whole group and made arrangements of words if necessary. This activity showed that students need a variety of ways to learn. Partner discussion, movement, visuals, listening, reciting and summarizing, and whole group discussion was all used in this lesson to support learning opportunities for students.