edTPA Elementary

Literacy Portfolio –
Task 1, 2, & 3
Susannah Sine
 TASK 1: LITERACY CONTEXT FOR LEARNING INFORMATION
1.
Elementary school: __X___
Middle school: _____
Other (please describe): _____
2.
City: _____
Suburb: _X____
Town: _____
Rural: _____
3
[Within the classroom setting, we have a classroom aide who helps with classroom
management and helps lead small groups during the math and language/reading centers. In
addition to this, one student leaves classroom right after lunch on Thursdays to attend speech
therapy. This will affect my teaching because this student will not be present for instructional
time on Thursday afternoons and will need extra assistance on Fridays. The classroom aide
also affects my teaching because during our math and literacy centers, she leads a center so
when I am lesson planning, I have to plan lessons for my center and her center. Students also
have specials every day for 45 minutes, and guidance every other Thursday afternoon. This
affects my teaching because that will be 45 minutes of afternoon instruction that I will be missing
out on. This means that for those Thursdays, I will have to split my morning instruction to make
sure I have time for both morning and afternoon lessons. This school’s population is 510 and
serves Pre-K through 2d grade. 77.5% of the students are White, 7.8% of the students are
African American, 7.1% of students are Hispanic or Latino, 6.7% of the students are Multiracial,
and 1.0% of students are Asian or Pacific Islander. 50% of the students come from
economically disadvantaged households.]
4.
[The county has provided a curriculum for reading and language. The county also requires that
each teacher use the state standards for each lesson, in coordinace with the provided
curriculum standards. The school has Kindergarten set up so that three teachers are on a team
who try to teach similar lessons so that all students are receiving the same instruction. The
county requires teachers to provide running records of each individual student to show
progression of reading, this goes along directly with the curriculum provided. Specifically in
Kindergarten, the county curriculum focuses on phonics, reading comprehension, and sentence
punctuation.]

About the Class Featured in this Learning Segment

1.

[Roughly, 2 and a half hours are devoted to literacy instruction in the classroom. This is
broken down into 45 minutes of whole group literacy instruction and an hour and 15 minutes
of literacy instruction focused learning centers. Within the whole group literacy instruction,
students are participating on the classroom carpet, where we focus on sight words that have
already been taught and the three sight words of the week. We also focus on the alphabet
and the corresponding sounds during whole group literacy instruction. This is also where the
 TASK 1: PLANNING COMMENTARY

1. Central Focus
a.

[The central focus for this lesson segment is letter sound recognition to aid in reading
comprehension and writing composition. I am teaching this content because at this time in the
school year, the curriculum is focusing on letter sound recognition to help get the kindergarten
class ready to be able to read in first grade. It is important for students to understand letter
sound recognition to aid them in reading and writing because this will be the foundation of
literacy. The essential literacy strategy will be using their letter sound knowledge to figure out
unknown words within a text. Students must be able to have letter sound recognition in order to
be able to figure out unknown words when they are trying to read. For the following lesson
segments, the students will be learning the related skills to the essential literacy strategy and
central focus so that they will be able to use the essential literacy strategy throughout their
entire education.]
b.

[The essential literacy strategy is using letter sound knowledge to figure out an unknown word in
text. Related skills are applying knowledge of initial and ending sounds of CVC words, and
using 2-letter, 3-letter, and 4-letter rimes to figure out unknown words in text. Another related
skill is the composition of the initial sounds and ending sounds of CVC words, as well as 2-
letter, 3-letter, and 4-letter rimes. This is a related skill because reading words and writing words
are two separate skills that students need to be an effective learner. Some students are able to
read words using their letter sound knowledge but cannot compose the same words when given
orally, and vice versa. Both the understanding of identifying unknown words and composing the
unknown words are essential to the central focus. The read aloud which I have chosen for these
lessons is the unknown text that the students are using to apply the related skills to be able to
use the essential literacy strategy. The standard for Lesson 1, Day 1, are ELA.K. IV, where
students will demonstrate understanding of spoken words, syllables, and sounds. This directly
addresses the essential literacy strategy because students will be demonstrating understanding
of spoken words, syllables, and sounds when they are learning the related skills of initial sounds
to unknown words. This also address the learning objective because students will be identifying
the initial sounds within the unknown words. These unknown words are found within the read
aloud. The second part of the standard ELA.K. IV is isolate and pronounce the initial, medial
vowel, and final sounds in three phoneme words. My lesson for Lesson 1, Day 1, directly
addresses this standard because students will be pronouncing and identifying these parts of
CVC words. Lesson 1, Day 1, is about the introduction to the read aloud so that students are
able to perform the connections between unknown text and using their letter sound knowledge
to figure out the words within this text. Because this lesson is the introduction to the read aloud,
students are also going to be working on comprehension of literacy text, which addresses the
second standard for Lesson 1, Day 1 ELA.K.3 - With prompting and support, identify characters,
settings, and major events in a literary text. The students will show this comprehension by
 TASK 2: INSTRUCTION COMMENTARY
[The lessons that are shown in the video clips are from Lesson 3, Day 3. Clip 1, Lesson 3, runs
for a total time of 5 minutes and 20 seconds. Clip 2, Lesson 3, Day 3, runs for a total time of 5
minutes and 37 seconds. In Clip 1, Lesson 3, the video begins after I have modeled to the
whole class how to use letter sound knowledge to figure out unknown words in text by reading
the read aloud. In the clip, you will see me working at the teacher-led station with one of the
three groups (green group), with 6 students in the group. This particular teacher-led station
aligns with my essential literacy strategy because students are using their related skills of what
a rime is to figure out if the word is a silly word or a real word. In Clip 2, Lesson 3, the video
begins as we all meet back together on the carpet for whole class closure of the lesson and
stations to review what each student learned from each individual station.]

Promoting a Positive Learning Environment

a.

[Building mutual respect between myself and my students, having rapport with them, and
understanding what each one of my students need started on the first day I was in the
classroom and has been building since that day on. Based on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs,
after Physiological needs are met, the teacher needs to make sure that each student feels
safe within the classroom before they can achieve their highest potential (Carter, 2017).
Once they have achieved this, then the teacher and students can work on building those
stronger relationships to promote self-esteem and self-actualization (Carter, 2017). One of
the ways I show mutual respect for the students is in Clip 2, at time stamp 0:00 until time
stamp 0:15. During this time we all are meeting back on the carpet for closure of the lesson.
I remind the students to respect their friends when they are answering questions and when
they are talking, just like they show respect to me when I am talking. It is important to remind
the students to show respect to their peers when they are talking because their actions can
interfere with other students. By doing this, it helped to set the tone for the rest of the
closure time of the lesson. I also remind my students to be respectful of their friends while
someone else is talking during Clip 2, from time stamp 4:18 until time stamp 4:21. I also
remind students to listen while someone is reading their word in the teacher led station in
Clip 1, from time stamp 5:09 until time stamp 5:13. Another way I demonstrate positive
rapport with and among my students is in during Clip 2, beginning at time stamp 0:25 going
until time stamp 5:30. I am engaging my students in review of the lesson, where the
students are raising their hands to answer questions. During this time, I am engaging with
my students in a positive manner by calling on them by using their first names and giving
them the opportunity to share with the class what they learned from each station. I
demonstrate challenging students to be engaged in learning in Clip 2, at time stamp 5:25
until time stamp 5:36. During this time we were having closure of our lesson and students
were raising their hands to answer questions. The student in blue mentions that one student
shouted out the answer and didn’t have their hand raised like they did, and I praised them
for having their hand in the air to answer the question. I praised this student because they
were modeling to the rest of the class what they should be doing and helping the whole
class stay on task. This student is frequently not on task or modeling good behavior so when
this student was modeling good behavior, I rewarded it. This helped to challenge the
students to be engaged in learning because the students in this class want to be praised for
modeling good behavior and want to get called on to participate and contribute to the class
 TASK 3: LITERACY ASSESSMENT COMMENTARY

1. Analyzing Student Learning

a.
[The learning objectives I chose to assess, and measure student success are: All students will
be able to identify initial sounds of given words. Students in the blue group will be able to
identify initial and ending sounds in given words. Students in the green group will be able to
identify initial sounds, ending sounds, and words that end with 2-letter rimes. A pre-assessment
was given in Lesson 1, to determine students background knowledge. This pre-assessment
helped me group students into one of three groups, based on their prior academic knowledge.
In lessons 1, 2, and 3, students practiced and applied the essential literacy strategy to achieve
lesson objectives. The pre and post assessment contained the same words and letters of the
alphabet.]
b.
Student Objective 1 Objective 2 Objective 3 Total
Orange 1 Pre 0 0 - 0
group Post 3 3 - 5
2 Pre 0 1 - 1
Post 2 4 - 5
3 Pre 0 0 - 0
Post 3 3 - 6
4 (A) Pre 0 0 - 0
Post 2 2 - 4
5 Pre 0 1 - 1
Post 4 3 - 7
6 Pre 1 1 - 2
Post 4 4 - 7
7 Pre 2 2 - 3
Post 4 4 - 8
Blue group 8 Pre 2 0 0 2
Post 4 2 1 7
9 Pre 2 3 0 5
Post 3 4 2 9
10 Pre 3 2 0 5
Post 4 4 3 11
11 Pre 2 2 0 4
Post 3 3 2 8
12 (B) Pre 1 1 0 2
Post 3 3 2 8
13 Pre 2 2 0 4
Post 4 3 3 10
Green 14 Pre 3 4 2 9
group Post 4 4 3 11
15 Pre 2 2 0 4
Post 3 3 2 8
16 Pre 2 2 0 4
Post 3 3 3 9
 17 Pre 3 2 0 5
Post 4 3 2 9
18 Pre 3 3 1 7
Post 4 4 3 11
19 Pre 3 4 2 9
Post 4 4 4 12
20 (C) Pre 3 3 2 8
Post 4 4 4 12
Points Possible for 4 4 - 8
orange group
Points Possible 4 4 4 12
Pre-Assessment Statistics for Blue and Green Group
1 2 3 Total Score
Mean 2.38 2.3 0.53 5.21
Average 59.5% 57.5% 13.3% 43.42%
Post-Assessment Statistics for Blue and Green Group
1 2 3 Total Score
Mean 3.62 3.38 2.62 9.62
Median 4.00 3.00 3.00 10.00
Average 90.5% 84.5% 65.5% 80.17%
Total Average 31% 27% 52.2% 36.75%
Growth

Pre-Assessment Statistics for Orange Group

1 2 3 Total Score
Mean 0.42 0.71 - 1
Average 10.5% 17.8% - 12.5%

Post-Assessment Statistics for Orange Group

1 2 3 Total Score
Mean 3.14 3.29 - 3.21
Median 3.00 3.00 - 6.00
Average 78.5% 82.3% - 80.4%
Total Average 68% 64.5% - 67.9%
Growth

[The chart above shows data that was collected from the pre and post assessments in the
learning segment, from lessons 1 and 3. Each student was given a number for identification
purposes. Included within the chart shows data for each student, pre assessment and post
assessment. The first row within each student’s block shows the data taken from the pre
assessment given before lesson 1, and the second row shows the data from the post
assessment given after lesson 3. The columns are color coded by objective. For the blue
and green groups, they were able to earn a total of 12 points, and the orange group was
able to earn a total of 8 points. The orange column represents the first part of the learning
objective (identifying initial sounds). The yellow column represents the second part of the