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Developmentally-Appropriate Instruction
Ashley LeGrand
Regent University

In partial fulfillment of UED 495 Field Experience ePortfolio, Fall 2015

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Introduction
When giving developmentally-appropriate instruction to students, a teacher must
consider what is appropriate for the learning levels in the classroom which must include
the Standards of Learning. A teacher must also consider the culture and the diversity of
the classroom, and how the culture in the classroom affects the learning environment.
Culture is a major factor to developmentally appropriate instruction, because knowing
how to create a comfortable, learning environment for the students will maintain
participation, create teacher-to-student relationships, engagement, and assessment to prior
knowledge by making content relevant to students.
Rationale for Selection of Artifacts
For my first artifact, I decided to choose a developmentally-appropriate lesson
plan for Reading in small group. Our learning target this week in Reading was for the
students to be able to depict and understand the meaning and purpose of a main idea and
supporting details. Depicting a main idea and supporting details is appropriate to the age
group, because its developmentally appropriate in Virginias Standards of Learning. A
lot of the students in my class are visual and tactile learners, so I brought in a bag that had
random objects in the bag to depict the supporting details. The students had to determine
the topic, and they had to make state a main idea statement.
For my second artifact, I chose to do a tactile, hands-on graphic organizer that
involved sorting and depicting one main idea, supporting details, and irrelevant details.
Because the students in the classroom had very different learning styles and were on very
different learning levels, I wanted to do a tactile activity for the main idea and supporting

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details. I also knew that some students would need more challenging sorts for the graphic
organizer, so I had another sort that was more challenging. I chose non-fiction
information in the main idea and supporting detail sort that would be of interest to the
students. In the previous week, we had hurricane Joaquin hit off the coast of Virginia, and
the students loved talking about the weather. I made sure that the main idea and
supporting details had information about the different places and weather in various parts
of world.
Finally, the majority of the students in the classroom were African American. A
couple were Hispanic, and a couple were Caucasian. Ethnicity has an impact on the
learning style and relating the material to the content. This is true, because different
cultures have different traditions, values, and linguistics. These things can impact the
success of learning in the classroom. It is the teachers job to figure out the best way to
instruct appropriately and developmentally by scaffolding different types of learning
activities which use Virginias Standards of Learning as the foundation. I evaluated the
culture in my classroom, and noticed that tactile lessons were more effective rather than
verbal communication. I tried to differentiate my instruction to meet the needs of all
learners.
Reflection on Theory and Practice
While studying at Regent University, I have learned how to affectively
and creatively take common core standards and make instruction relatable according to
the students interests and diversity within the classroom. Using the Virginias
Learning Standards is what partially made my lessons developmentally-appropriate. The

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other key component to determining what is developmentally-appropriate was knowing

the population of students in the classroom. I have learned how to successfully create a
diversity report, and determine the learning styles and the learning levels. After
determining the learning styles, the learning levels, and the ethnicities within the
classroom, communication is the key component to making instruction developmentallyappropriate.
According to Culturally Responsive Teaching, communication is
multidimensional. This means that communication can be verbal, non-verbal, tactile,
grammatical, formal, informal, direct, indirect, demonstrative, and symbolic. Geneva Gay
writes, Teachers have the power to shape the future, if they communicate with their
students, but those who cannot communicate are powerless (Gay, 2010, p. 78).
Communication is influential and irretrievable; affective communication determines
whether the instructor can captivate the minds of young students through engagement.
Proper communication helps the teacher properly and clearly demonstrate what needs to
be taught to the students and how the students learn the content.
However, all of these things mean nothing if the teacher does not see a culturally
diverse classroom as an asset (Gay, 2010). The instructor needs to create a community in
the classroom. Getting to know the students by building relationships with the students,
valuing their culture, respecting the students, understanding their background, and
interests will create an environment that is comfortable for the students to contribute, feel
valued, respected, cared for, and loved (Gunning, 2013).

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References
Gay, G. (2010). Culturally responsive teaching.(Second ed.) New York, NY: Teachers
College Press.
Gunning, T. (2013). 13 Creating and Managing a Literacy Program. In Creating literacy
instruction for all students (Eighth ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson
Education.