Teacher Quality Standard III — Evidence #3

One of my strengths is creating engaging lessons that target needed skills. This evidence will be a video of a lesson that demonstrate this strength.

This video is a warm-up activity targeting medial vowel sound identification. Three weeks before this video was taken, this student was unable to hear or identify the sound in the middle of Consonant-Vowel-Consonant (CVC) words. We worked on “stretching the words out” and listening to see what the stretched out sound is. The lesson he is doing is an activity that I developed to practice letter/sound identification. I typically use it for vowel practice, but it can be used for beginning or middle sound identification, as well. As you will see in the video, the student has chosen a Lego vehicle from my collection. The vowels are placed on the table in front of him in alphabetical order. He identifies the sound in the middle by “stretching out” the word, then parks the vehicle in front of the correct letter. This student is still struggling with identifying the short “e” sound, so I do not use any CVC words with “e” in the middle until he is better able to identify that sound. The purpose of this lesson is practice, not instruction.

How Does This Demonstrate Proficiency of the Standard?

• I ask the student to tell me what the objective is and clarify any misunderstandings before the lesson begins. (element G)
• I have developed a lesson that can be used to practice phonemic awareness at the appropriate level for this students. (element A)
• This is an informal assessment of what students are retaining, as well as a way to practice skills needed for reading. (element H)
• I gave this student a tool so that he could complete this activity. As I mentioned above, this student could not identify the vowel, either by name or able to separate it from the consonants, three weeks before this video was recorded. For example, when I asked him to tell me what was in the middle of “mat”, he would repeat the word correctly but would tell me that the middle sound was /t/ because that was the last sound he heard. When I asked him to say it slower, he drew out the “m” (mmmmm) and still said the sound was /t/. We worked twice a week in fifteen minute sessions to learn the names and corresponding sounds of the vowels, as well as “stretching out” the words, and he made significant improvement. (element B)