Report Evidence #5 RICA Domain #4 Competency 10

TC NAME: Sahra Camberos
RICA Domain: Vocabulary, Academic Language, and Background Knowledge
RICA Competency: Vocabulary, Academic Language, and Background Knowledge 1.A, 2.A.C
Grade Level: Kindergarten

INSTRUCTION: In my kindergarten class we are working primarily with sight words in our reading groups, however the readers the students use vary upon ability levels. For instance, right now my cooperating teacher is working with four different reading levels within her class. For her below basic readers, she has books with only pictures and she asks them questions about what is going on in the pictures. The students at basic reading level are beginning with sight word readers. These readers only show one word, the sight word. It is highly based on picture comprehension. For these students these vocabulary words are unknown words that they will begin to learn the meaning in order to move on to reading fluently. The advanced reading students have some knowledge of the meaning behind sight words (therefore they are acquainted with these words) and letter sounds that allow them to move on to a different reader that works on them sounding out words they do not know. Lastly the proficient students have readers with a more challenging reader since they understand the meaning behind basic vocabulary words, making those words established. Established words are word students know well and immediately understand their meaning. 
INSTRUCTIONAL SETTING:

At the front of the classroom the teacher has the alphabet letters lining the top of the wall, this is a visual aid students can use to see the letters they are sounding out. She also plays a song entitled, "Who Let the A Out," by Dr. Jean in order to have students learn the sounds begin the letters. This is a song that they practice each day. It is a fun upbeat song teaching students the letter sounds while interacting with hand motions. She also has a big reader with sight words that they utilize as a class to practice the sight word of the week. 

Report Evidence #4: RICA Domain #3 /Competency 9

TC Name: Sahra Camberos
RICA Domain: Fluency
RICA Competency: Fluency: Instruction and Assessment 5.A.3, 6.C.2
Grade Level: Kindergarten

Since this is a kindergarten class and we are still only on month two of school, the class is still working on letter recognition and concepts about print. However they have been getting tested on the high frequency sight words they will be expected to know by the end of the year. I have been pulling students out to see which (if any) sight words they know. Then for homework each week they are expected to work on becoming familiar with a sight word. For instance this week their sight word is "green." The students parents are expected to help their child learn the sight words provided on the homework calendar each week. Another way that the sight word homework is connected to reading fluency is that each child takes home a phonic book that allows them to work on reading, mostly sight words. Each book is individualized to the student's academic reading level. Therefore those who are beginning readers get a beginning reader book while other students get a bit more challenging phonics reader.
By learning these sight words students can learn to read and also help struggling readers by allowing them to identify sight words. All these sight words are one-syllable words, so that they can be easily recognized.
INSTRUCTIONAL SETTING:
My cooperating teacher does not have any visuals displaying sight words around the classroom. She does have the alphabet shown in the front of the classroom which could help with kindergarten students trying to remember how to write a letter from a sight word they forgot how to spell.

Report Evidence #3 RICA Domain #1/ Competency 1

TC Name: Sahra Camberos

RICA Domain: Planning, Organizing and Managing Reading Instruction Based on Ongoing Assessment

RICA Competency: Planning, Organizing and Managing Reading Instruction D.1, E.1

Grade Level: Kindergarten

                This isn’t a lesson but this is one tool that my cooperating teacher uses to make sure that students are reading outside the classroom under the supervision of parents/guardians. Our students are still at the beginning stages of recognizing sight words and letter recognition; therefore at this stage most students will be read to instead of actually doing the reading on their own. The teacher enrolled the students in a reading program entitled, “Book-It.” This is a program that gives children a free pizza from Pizza Hut for every 10 books they read.

                While this is a great incentive for children, my teacher requires that every two weeks 10 books be read to the students and kept track of in the reading log, which the teacher collects. This gives parents a role in their students learning to read because the reading log requires a parent signature.  For this reading log the teacher does not care which books are read for the first couple of months but as time goes by she increases the standard of what the kindergarteners should be reading. She also does not count pages; she’s more interested in the books they read instead of reading to a number page.

INSTRUCTIONAL SETTING: The teacher has a library that is used by the children daily if they finish their center work early. They also have comfy rugs and big pillows that they can lay on when sitting in the library corner. This gives the library a homey feeling encouraging them to finish their center work faster so they can spend time in the library. 

Report Evidence #2 RICA Domain #5/ Competency 13

TC Name: Sahra Camberos
RICA Domain: Comprehension
RICA Competency: Comprehension: Instruction and Assessment-Before Children Read, While Children Read, After Children Read
Grade Level: Kindergarten

For this lesson my cooperating teacher began to teach the class about comprehension through stories. The teacher began by holding up the book "The Gingerbread Man," and asking some introductory questions before diving into the story. For example she asked what the class thought the gingerbread man was doing? She waited for the children to think and then respond to her question. Most students answered that he was running away. She also asked "why do you think he's running?" Here she is getting them thinking about what the story could be about and helping them make inferences from the cover of the book about what the story will be about. While she reads the story, she reinforces what happened before in the story, what is currently going on in the story and asking what students will think will happen next in the story. this is an example of right there (literal) questions and think and search questions.This is helpful for EL's and lower ability students because they are constantly hearing the main point s in the story emphasized.
             Once the teacher has finished reading, she takes out her felt board and spreads out felt characters related to the story on the floor. She then uses her Popsicle name sticks to call students up one at a time to put the story in order using the felt characters. For instance, she asks, "what happened first in the story?" When the child picks up a certain felt piece she asks them why they picked that one and the student explains their reasoning. This continues until all the felt pieces are up on the board; this is an example of the children retelling the story orally, since they are not yet able to write well. This is known as a probed retell.
 INSTRUCTIONAL SETTING: 
For this activity the book of the Gingerbread Man was closed and there were no visual cues or signals as to what came at the beginning, middle or end of the story. However, as students put up felt pieces of the story on the board it helped other students recall what came next in the story through a visual.

Report Evidence #1 RICA Domain 2/ Competency 4

TC Name: Sahra Camberos
RICA Domain: Word Analysis
RICA Competency: Concepts about Print, Letter Recognition and the Alphabetic Principle 2.B.4
Grade Level: Kindergarten

INSTRUCTION:

 I observed my teacher educating her class about the importance of letter recognition. For the first three weeks of school my cooperating teacher has been doing a "letter of the day." This particular day the class focused on the letter D. The teacher first reads the class a book entitled, "My D Book." That provides visual representation of various items that young children can recognize that begin with the letter D. As she would pronounce a word that started with D, she would make sure she would clearly say the sound that D makes.

When she was done reading the book she asked the class if they could think of any words that started with D? She would then make the "duh" sound that D makes a couple of times so that the children could hear. She called on a few students to get their responses and if they responded with a word that did not start with D, she would tell them what letter it did start with and compare the sounds the letters made.

 Then using the "elmo" projector, the teacher would model what the children were expected to do on the D letter worksheet. This worksheet helps the children practice writing uppercase D's. There are 3 different size uppercase D's on the worksheet. The largest letter D's the teacher has the students go over in 3 crayons for each letter; this allows for more practice. The medium sized D's, the teacher demonstrated that the students had to fill in pencil. Then she modeled that the students would trace over the dotted small uppercase D's and in the bottom portion the students would write the uppercase D's free-hand.

The teacher would then pass out the worksheets and have the students go back to their desks to start working on them. As they would finish the teacher and myself would come around to check that the letter D's looked correct and that none were written way outside the lines or not touching the bottom/top of the line. If they had some letter D's that were not correct the students would fix them and then receive a star at the top of their paper.

INSTRUCTIONAL SETTING:

I observed that this classroom that there were many instances for visual support. For example, the teacher leaves the elmo projector on with her modeled worksheet visible for the students to reference to. She also has laminated ABC's, that border the front top wall of her room. She also has a letter tree right next the board that contains the letter the students are focusing on for the day, "D," along with a few pictures of words that begin with D; for instance, "dish," "dog," "doll."