Pedagogical Observation

The majority of my experience with the first teacher performance expectation in relation to early and childhood literacy comes from module fourteen and my experience at East Oakland Leadership Academy (from here on out referred to as E.O.L.A.). Since I work at a middle school and teach math, my subject specific pedagogical skills are strongest in a sixth grade math classroom. However, as a candidate for a multiple subject credential my specific pedagogical skills in teaching literacy are flourishing as I read and engage in different elementary teaching strategies. One aspect of an elementary classroom, specifically a Kindergarten/First grade classroom that sticks out is the thought that goes into every detail and area of the room. For example,
These labels can be seen in some fashion throughout elementary school classrooms because they promote vocabulary and concepts about print. The second aspect of an elementary classroom that stands out is the repetition of songs and rhymes. This is not a specific pedagogical skill that is practiced much in middle school classrooms, yet could be incorporated more since music can be used as a powerful teaching tool. The importance of repetition comes to play with memorizing sight words and learning how to read.

Repetition allows candidates to “make language (vocabulary, conventions, and knowledge of language) comprehensible to students”, which is the second benchmark underneath the first teacher performance task. Before reading Donald Bear’s text Words Their Way: Word Study for Phonics, Vocabulary, and Spelling Instruction, I had no idea that a pacing and sequence guide for learning the names and sounds of the alphabet existed. This pacing and sequence guide is the first step of making language comprehensible to students because the guide breaks down the basics of word study into three sections: early, middle and late letter
Many if not all of the tasks my scholars interact with require them to collaborate and discuss the math being introduced or practiced. Since many teaching strategies in relation to English Language Arts is somewhat foreign to me, I was blown away by the concept of reciprocal teaching. According to the YouTube video “Summarization 6 Reciprocal Teaching Pt 1”, reciprocal teaching “is a process that students engage in to help them improve their comprehension of difficult texts” . This process breaks down into four stages: predicting, clarifying, questioning, and summarizing. From the video I watched, I saw students leading small group reciprocal teaching circles by going through the four stages mentioned above. Watching a student volunteer themselves to lead this circle and then asking whole group questions was beautiful. I use the word beautiful because the questions being asked were thoughtful and allowed students to access and comprehend the text further. Another beautiful aspect of the circle was that the majority of the students were using sentence frames to share their ideas. For example, during the predicting stage all of the