12/27/16

To Whom it May Concern:

I am writing on behalf of Allison Rainwater to recommend her for your teaching position.
As a middle school teacher myself, I can confirm that Allison has the patience, maturity,
and organization required to be an excellent educator for your school.

For the past three years, I have known Allison in the capacity of piano teacher to my
daughter. I was impressed with how well Allison was able to differentiate instruction for
the needs of my daughter, who was just beginning lessons. Allison always presents the
objectives of the lesson to my daughter and assesses them at the end. She checks for
understanding not only by the production of the chord, note, or song, but by having the
child verbally state what was accomplished during the session.

I see that Allison has high expectations for her students, as rigor is an important
component to her lessons. She requires the students to maintain a log of their practice
time and material covered. Allison is firm with her students with respect to practicing and
explicitly states there will be limited to no progress without the effort. In my experience,
this amount of rigor leads to high student achievement.

Not once has Allison canceled a lesson. She is always prompt, well organized, and
enthusiastic. She is extremely personable and shows interest in my daughter's other
extracurricular activities. Quite often she will stay for an extra half-hour to watch my
daughter ride her horse or to just chat. Listening to Allison teach I am very impressed by
her natural use, of practical and effective instructional strategies. I am certain that Allison
will carry over these skills to other areas of teaching.

Sincerely,

Katherine Halpine Siegelstein

kiffer_8@hotmail.com