Part 1: Data Collection Assignment

The pre and post-assessment data samples were based around the Kindergarten reading (Phonics)

SOL K.3, where students discriminate between sentences, words, and syllables; recognize

similarities between beginning and ending sounds; orally produce words with the same

beginning or ending sounds; identify pictures or objects with the same beginning or ending

sound; and participate in sorting pictures or objects that share the same beginning or ending

sound. For this particular section, my students recognized similarities between the beginning of

words, orally produced words with the same beginning sound, and identified and sorted pictures

with the same beginning sound.

In total, my classroom was made up of sixteen students. These activities and assessments were

done over the course of four weeks total, and each letter and sound recognition was assessed and

reassessed during the time period of 10/25 through 11/15/2022. The chosen letters to assess

included consonant K, short vowel E, consonant Y, and consonant Z and its’ beginning sound.

Prior to learning a new word, students were pre-assessed through out of order alphabet

flashcards. In this case, students were shown a word and were asked to say the word out loud to

the teacher. If they were unaware of the word or spoke it incorrectly, this was noted on the

scoresheet. The scoresheet that was used for the students is shown on page two, along with the

alphabet flashcards. The pre and post assessment log, in general, is used to test my students on

the number of letters they understood out of twenty-six total letters in the alphabet. However, for

this assignment, I wanted to highlight data from only four letters from what the students were

learning.
For my data assessment, I chose to assess students’ knowledge and growth of consonant K, short

letter E, consonant Y, and consonant Z’s beginning sounds. While assessing my six students on

these specific beginning sounds, I noted that most of my students struggled with the letter Y. In

general, since my students have not had previous or little exposure to certain letter sounds, I am

not surprised that some of these letters were missed on the pre-assessment. For one of my

students that missed the letter Y in both the pre and post-assessment, I believe it is due to a

number of absences, as well as a Spanish and English language barrier being present. For the

letter K, all of my students assessed understood the letter K during their pre-assessment. Student

3 was the only outlier in this data collection, and this was most likely due to lack of exposure.

For the letter E, students 2 and 4 could not recognize and verbalize the letter E during the

preassessment. For the letter Z, students 2, 3, and 4 could not identify the beginning sound

during the preassessment.

Part 2: Activities to Improve Student Growth

When collaborating with my cooperating teacher and our Kindergarten team in general, it was

agreed upon that completing beginning sound picture sorts and activities would be the most

effective independent (with teacher assistance) activities would benefit students the most. During

each activity, I took down specific student observational data that lead me to understand who

understood the concept and who did not. I had pre-made each data sheet in order to take

observational data in real time. In each activity scenario, I used Chesapeake’s means of taking

down informal grades by using S for ‘satisfactory’, P for ‘progressing’, N for ‘needs

improvement’, and U for ‘unsatisfactory’. For my one student who is still learning English from

the very beginning, I have noted that she is in the U category due to her only understanding
 Spanish. Up until the date of collection, there has not been progression with her letter sound

recognition that I could collect and record. Below are my informal observations that were taken

during the time of the activity.

Activity 1: Consonant K Beginning Sound Picture Sort (10/25)

Since these particular activities are mainly teacher lead, I made sure to incorporate student input

and participation into this portion of the lesson. To go along with our phonics lesson, the sort
began with me putting the blank sort onto the document camera. Then, with the help of the

students, I asked probing questions such as, “What do you see in this picture?”, “What sound do

you hear at the beginning of this word?”. I made sure to listen to students when completing this

portion in order to get a general understanding of student comprehension. To differentiate

student learning during this portion, I allowed students to come up to the board in order to reach

kinesthetic learners. During this portion, visual and auditorial learners also benefited from

viewing the picture being placed into the correct category. For the letter K, I noticed that many

students got “C” and “K” confused due to the beginning sound. To remediate, I had students

skywrite and say “K (kuh) spells K” aloud, and continued through the lesson. To reach my

English language learners, I found that translating the pictures to their language assisted slightly.

The recognition was there, but that further connection only helped some of my ELL students. In

regard to my six particular students, I noticed that Student 3 needed some redirection, but was

trying her best to answer each question.

Activity 2: Short Vowel E Beginning Sound – Interactive Starfall Activity (10/31)

During this, I pulled up Starfall’s interactive short E vowel sound activity in order for students to

come up to the board and interact with the learning module. While students interacted with the

module, I was able to ask students comprehension questions such as, “What do you see in this

picture?”, “What sound do you hear at the beginning of this word?”, and other comprehension

questions. To reach kinesthetic, auditorial, and visual students, the module aided in many ways.

One of the ways would be that of a drag and drop. Students listen to the letter that is said, look

for the capital and lowercase letter, and drag it to the correct placement. During this activity,

some of my students needed some redirection. In general, most of my students gave an agree

sign when asked if they would drag and drop the capital and lowercase into the students’ chosen

place. Below is a screenshot from the interactive activity that my students participated in. For

students 2 and 4, I noted that both of them struggled with E at the beginning of our activity, but

by the end, they seemed to have grasped the concept easier. I also taught my class the “E / eddy /

eh” kinesthetic learning movement, where the students place one pointer finger on their palm and

make an ‘eddy’ swirling effect on the palm of their hands.

Activity 3: Consonant Y Beginning Sound – (Interactive YouTube video (“Interactive

Learning - The Letter Y”) – (11/1)

For activity 3, I led the students through an interactive learning video in which students held up a

classroom pointer and pointed to the correct answer. I had the students sound out the word in

order to ensure that they understood what was being shown and how they were supposed to say

the word. The interactive activity helped students through visual ques and auditorial ques.

During the video, I paused to listen and mark down who understood the concept and who was

still struggling with sounding out the letter Y. Knowing that my students are interested in games,

I wanted to allow my students to be able to expand their knowledge with this type of activity.

Some of my students struggled with this activity, as they had to be corrected on what “Y” sounds

like: “Yee” instead of “Yuh.”

Activity 4: Consonant Z – Matching Activity (11/14)

For this activity, the students participated in a matching activity. During the activity, I ensured

that I asked probing questions such as, “What do you see in this picture?”, “What sound do you
hear at the beginning of this word?”, as I pointed to each picture on the document camera. To

incorporate student participation in the activity, I allowed students to come up and draw with

their finger (on the document camera) to the objects that began with the letter Z. Once the

student had done so, I asked the rest of the class if they agreed or disagreed with their classmate.

If they agreed, I asked the students, “Why do you agree with this student?”, and had them answer

from there. Then, I had the student draw a line across to ‘help’ the zebra find the other letter Z

words. Doing so allowed students to feel more included in the lesson and get kinesthetic, visual,

and auditorial learning opportunities.

 Part 3: Pre and Post-Assessment Description with Graphs

For my post-assessment, I used the same data collection sheet and noted each specific letter

sound that students had already been exposed to, that being K, E, Y, and Z. For my post-

assessment, I listened to the student and had him or her view the alphabet sort card. After asking

what the student thought the letter sounded like, I wrote down whether they knew the letter

sound or not. From gathering my data, it can be shown that most of my students improved and

understood each letter and its’ beginning sound. Those students received a 100 percent if the

word was recognized and expressed orally. If students did not improve, I simply marked the

post-assessment data with a zero percent due to the black and white nature of this assessment.

This same concept and procedure mirrored the pre-assessment since it was done on the same

scoresheet. (Both the scoresheet and alphabet flashcards are located on page 2).
When looking at the pre-assessment data, I noticed that there were some gaps in student learning.

Some strengths that I noticed from the data were that most of the six students understood the

letter K and its’ beginning sound. I also noticed that over half of the students knew the letter E

and its’ beginning sound. As far as the gaps go, I took note that many students struggled with the

letter Y and its’ beginning sound. From the pre-assessment, I was able to gather data that allowed
 me to better coach the students to what they could achieve. When taking observational and

auditorial data in my notebook, I realized that I needed to scaffold students and differentiate to

the lesson to their needs. For example, the standard of learning explains that students will learn

how to sort objects based on their beginning sounds. Each of my activities included a learning

scenario that allowed students to sort objects and hear those sounds for themselves. Each activity

that I chose was based around observational data and student centered interests.

In regard to the post-assessment, I noticed that there was a lot of improvement throughout the

given data sets. I was not surprised to see that the beginning letter sound K had all 100%

accuracy, but I was surprised to see that every student improved and grew in their letter sound

knowledge of the letter E. I think that modeling and practicing “E, eddy, -eh” really helped the

students with remembering that first sound. I was impressed that four out of six students

understood the beginning sound Y, as it was a struggle for a lot of students. This growth can be

seen clearly in the Comparison Data tables above. In the future, I would remediate by having a

specific daily review of that letter Y sound in order to further improve student comprehension

across the board. In my class currently, we review sounds every morning, however, I would try

and make more real world or tangible connections for the students who are still struggling. This

goes for every letter that there was an area for growth, as well. For the letter Z, I was impressed

to see that all but one student improved on their letter sound knowledge. The students seemed to

pick this letter up pretty quickly due to the way it looks and sounds. In the future, I may also

remediate by using mirrors for students to view their mouths as they create those sounds in order

to further student growth and understanding.