Student Learning Impact Assignment

McKenna Ciner
Fall 2019
Saginaw Valley State University
 Student Learning Impact Assignment

General Information

School: Lottie M. Schmidt Elementary

Grade: Kindergarten
Subject: English Language Arts
Topic: Sight Words

Pre-Assessment

For the pre-assessment I chose to create a small quiz. Students would see if they could identify
the sight words by reading them. The goal in our classroom is to have a variety of sight word
lessons/activities to teach student to “read sight words in a snap”.

The assessment is located on the end of the document. It is labeled pre-assessment photo. It is a
checklist for each student’s name and if they have a check that means that the student can read
the word.

The pre-assessment shows that only one student knew both words. He is a student that has an
IEP and receives special education services. His main focus in class is to work on social skills,
due to the fact he is a fluent reader. We are also working on slowing him down and helping with
processing and comprehension strategies. This is why some of my lessons are built with a lot of
thinking and group work; to help him in the areas he needs support. The other students were not
considered fluent, so I know I have created lessons that will help them to memorize the sight
words in a fun and engaging way.

Lesson Planning

Based on my assessment, it was clear that we needed to work on our knowledge of these sight
words. I created a group of lessons that would help all of my students. My lessons include a
variety of activities that support students cognitive, physical, and socio-emotional needs. I
created lessons that reach students auditory, visual, kinesthetic, and tactile learning needs.

The five lessons are as follows:

1. Sight word Cut and Color Activity
2. Sight Word Red Book Reading
3. Play Dough Word Mapping
4. Sight Word Scavenger Hunt
5. Sight Word Journal

The full lesson plans are listed below with additional resources.
Post Assessment
I used the same assessment for the post assessment as I did for the pre-assessment. I used it
because it was a familiar assessment that student have seen before, and it was a quick way to
assess if students had met the objective. The raw data on the post assessment is in a picture
below that is properly labeled.

Two students missed the word “has” and two students missed the word “you”. One of the
students missed both of the words (as shown in the raw assessment data). The student that
missed both of the words has been showing dramatic academic decline and my host teacher and
school administration are taking the necessary steps to get him intervention support. This is a
normal trend we have seen in every aspect of his work in the classroom. The other two students
came out and rushed through testing- they really did not look at the word that I was asking about,
so I took the data as it was shown, but I did retest them another day and the got the words
correct. Based on this evidence, I would say that my students met the objectives/goals that I set.
My students were able to identify the sight words within 3 seconds (We call this in a “snap” in
the classroom).

Final Reflection

Comparison of teaching practices

If there is one thing that I learned in my methods courses that I knew I needed to implement here
is that students can learn through play! My students are young kindergarteners and they are
expected to do so much with their young minds. I felt it was necessary for me to find fun and
engaging lessons that unleashed their playful side in addition to activating their minds. My
students loved the play-doh lesson the best. Even my students who are often side tracked and
wandering around the room were incredible focused on the task at hand and they were excited to
show me their play-doh “work”. Children were asking to use these mats every week with sight
words and they seemed to really grasp the letter knowledge of the words by using hands on
materials to create the words. In addition to this, I know they are young minds, so I had to keep
assessment authentic. I built my assessments into questions that I asked my students and
sometimes I would get looks like “obviously I know this Ms. Ciner”, which was okay- because
some of my students have major “test” anxiety- so I knew I had to make my assessments
authentic in their natural learning environment.

Evaluating Teaching Practices

Things that I would consider to be my strengths:
- Incorporating play into learning
- Authentic forms of assessment
- Engaging students in time frames that they can handle
- Using a lot of formative assessment as we went along in our lessons

I have seen these strengths throughout each of my lessons during this project. I tried to
incorporate play into my lessons and I evaluated my students in an authentic way (as explained
above). I also made sure that my lessons were long enough for me to work on the material, but
short enough for my students to handle and really focus. I was able to read the room well during
each of my lessons. At times my students needed a “wiggle break” and we got up and shook our
wiggles before we focused back into our lesson again. This seemed to be very effective. I also
used little formative assessments like hands on your head, tell your shoulder partner the
directions, etc. to make sure that my students knew the expectations during work time for every
lesson.

Areas of improvement:
- Finding more engaging lessons
- Working on different strategies to help students that needed extra friendly reminders
- Classroom callbacks
- New forms of summative assessment
- Working with students who need extra support

I listed the first bullet because I believe that the center lesson (cut and rainbow color) could have
been a more engaging lesson. I love that it is a part of our center rotation, and the students knew
the expectations- but if it were my classroom I would try to incorporate more play into the center
and maybe make a game or activity of some sort using the sight word. I also know that some
students in this classroom need extra friendly reminders during our lessons and we do not have a
behavior policy or expectation list in the classroom. It was not something that the teacher set at
the beginning of the year. The teacher also did not set a class callback. In my future classroom I
would have the school wide PBIS strategies implemented in my room, as well as a callback.
Callbacks have proven to work effectively in classrooms when teacher’s need to gain control or
the focus of the students. I also would like to change how I did my post assessment. I know that
some of my students froze because they thought it was a “test”. I do not want my students to
have anxiety when it comes to tests, so in the future I would find a more authentic way to deliver
the post assessment to my students. I also am aware that one of my students did not show growth
on the pretest to the post-test. Some of this is due to test anxiety, but some of this is due to his
learning deficiencies that are starting to be addressed by administration. I am interested in seeing
what support he will be getting from MTSS to additional support that may be administered as
directed by his future IEP meeting. This is where I believe that the team approach is crucial in
his success. I would work with the MTSS coordinator to see what progress he is making there
(and how to implement it in the general education classroom) and I would take all suggestions
and recommendations made by the IEP team.

Overall, this project was an eye opening experience to show how a teacher has to make choices
and tailor her instruction at every minute of every day as an educator. It shed light on the
multitasking job teachers have in making sure that every student reaches the goals, and making
sure that teachers help facilitate learning in meaningful ways. Going forward into my career as
an educator, I am better equipped with the necessary knowledge and decision making processes
that go into making it a purposeful and exciting learning environment for every student.
Lesson Plans

Lesson One- Sight Word Cut and Color Activity

Common Core State Standards:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.K.1.B
Use frequently occurring nouns and verbs.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.K.3.C
Read common high-frequency words by sight
(e.g., the, of, to, you, she, my, is, are, do, does).

Instruction Methods

Objectives
- Students will be able to write the sight word has and you.
- Students will be able to put the letters in the correct order to create the words has and
you.

Materials
- Cut and color activity page
- three crayons per student
- glue stick
- child scissors

Handouts
- Handouts/photos of the activity are at the end of this assignment. The resources are
properly labeled.

Lesson Overview
- This is a weekly activity that the students do for the sight words of the week. The
students do it during center rotation.
- Students work to cut out the three activities and put them into a small book.
- The first activity is a rainbow trace of the sight word. Students use three different
crayon colors to trace the sight word.
- The second activity is a cut and paste. Students cut out the letters and put them in the
correct order to create the sight word.
- The third activity is to write the word three times. There are examples above the lines
and students can trace again before writing the cord on the line.
- Once students are done with the activity, they bring it to the teacher and the teacher
asks students to arm tap the word.
Differentiation & Higher Level Thinking/Prompting Questions

Higher level thinking Questions:

- How did you know what letter went first in the word?
- How did you write your letters?
- Can you arm tap the word for me?

Differentiation:
- For students who struggle with fine motor skills the teacher highlights the lines to cut
on the activity sheet.
- For some of the students in the class that need extra support, the teacher can write the
word out for them to trace instead of them writing themselves.
- For students that finish early, they can create a sight word sketch and sentence on the
back of their work. This is normal for students to do when they finish.
Assessment Methods

Students will be evaluated based on a checklist scale. When they complete all of the items on
the checklist, their assignment is considered complete and gets graded accordingly. Students
will finish all of their work, even if it takes some students longer to finish than others. The
teacher will provide the time for them to finish the assignment.

 The student traces the word three times in three colors

 The student correctly places the letters in order to create the sight word
 The student writes the word three times on the last page with little to no teacher
assistance
 The student writes their name on their work
 The student can arm tap the word to the teacher when turning in the assignment (quick
formative assessment)
Lesson Reflection

This lesson is built into something that we do during our center rotations. I chose to do it
whole group because it was an easy transition of the expectations to begin the week. This
lesson also helps support me in showing those students who struggle with this basic activity,
so I can easily identify and help them. This is a self-guided activity, but it is one that students
do every week with their sight words. Out of the 25 students, 20 of them made it through the
checklist no problem. Three students needed to go back and fix their letter placement on the
part of the work where you glue the letters of the sight word. Two students needed friendly
reminders and did not finish their work within the time given. They had to go to the private
island and try and refocus there. The students needed a lot of teacher prompting. The students
also arm tapped the word for me (arm tapping is an easy assessment tool that we use
throughout the week to help students learn and memorize their sight words). 10 of the students
were able to arm tap the word without teacher direction or help of any kind, so I know that we
have a lot of growth and improvement to be made still. I was still on track to do my next
lesson in reinforcing sight word knowledge.

*Important to note that we worked on the sight word HAS for this activity*
Lesson Two
Topic: Sight Word Red Book Reading
Common Core State Standards:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.10
Actively engage in group reading activities with purpose and understanding.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.K.1.B
Use frequently occurring nouns and verbs.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.K.3.C
Read common high-frequency words by sight
(e.g., the, of, to, you, she, my, is, are, do, does).

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.K.4
Read emergent-reader texts with purpose and understanding.
Instruction Methods

Objectives
- Students will be able to use reading strategies to decode words in text
- Students will be able to identify the sight word you in text

Materials
- Sight word Red Book “you”

Handouts
- N/A

Lesson Overview
- The teacher will gather students at the carpet. Once they are all seated quietly
(following classroom expectations), the teacher will introduce the book to the students.
- The teacher will ask students if they can identify the sight word on the book. The
teacher will call on a student to answer.
- The teacher will model reading one page to the students. She will model different
strategies such as identifying sight words, looking at the picture, and stretching
unknown words in text. After modeling how to read a page from this book, the teacher
will call on students to read the other pages in the book.
- During the reading the teacher will ask guiding questions that follow the text.
- Once the guided reading is finished, the teacher will allow students to pair with their
“shoulder partner”, grab a book, and practice reading the text. Students should always
 be pointing to the words on the text (specifically starting at the first letter in each word
to help with the sound).
- After partner reading, the students will take their books to “buddy reading”. This is a
program that pairs kindergarten students with fifth grade students. The kindergarten
students will read their red book to the fifth grade students. Fifth grade is there for
support, following the different word decoding strategies to help kindergarteners.

Differentiation & Higher Level Thinking/Prompting Questions

Differentiation
- This lesson offers built in differentiation techniques such as guided reading, partner
reading, and big buddy reading
- If necessary, the teacher can also pull a small group to read the story together

Higher Level Thinking

- Can you tell me what strategy you used to figure out this sentence?
- How do you know this sentence says ______?
- Can you tell me what happened in this book?

Assessment Methods

This activity is something that the teacher does in class every week, but the thumbs up/thumbs
down will be used throughout the reading time and the direction time to make sure students
have a clear grasp of the directions they are given, and the text that they are reading.

Students will be assessed by a checklist.

 The student actively listened during teacher guided reading
 The student was on task during partner reading
 The student was on task and an active participant during big buddy reading

Lesson Reflection
Today was a day that was filled with reading! The students were excited to read the plethora of
books that we had prepared for them today. I started by explaining that I would call a quiet
friend that is following all the rules to read the pages. I explained that a student will read and
then the whole class will repeat the reading. I asked for two thumbs up if you knew the rules
and were ready to be a STELLAR reader! Everyone in class put their thumbs up and we
began. I chose students to read and used the questions like “what strategy did you use to read
this sentence?” as students read and listened. After we read it as a class, the students found
their “shoulder partner” and they took turns reading the red book. Once they felt they were red
book experts- we went to big buddies and they read to their fifth grade buddy. All of the
students who were in attendance followed all of the checklist guidelines, so they were
proficient in their expectations for that day.
There were four students absent originally on this day- So our Teacher Cadet took a small
group into the hall and had them read the book. They then partner read the book to each other
as I listened (when they had free time).

All of the students were caught up and ready for the next lesson. The next lesson puts the two
words together in a fun and hands on way.
Lesson Three
Topic: Sight Play Dough Word Mapping
Common Core State Standards:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.K.1.B
Use frequently occurring nouns and verbs.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.K.3.C
Read common high-frequency words by sight
(e.g., the, of, to, you, she, my, is, are, do, does).

Instruction Methods

Objectives
- Students will use a hands on method of learning to create the sight words has and you.
- Students will be able to spell and read the sight words has and you fluently.

Materials
- Sight word play dough activity maps
- Play dough

Handouts
- Handouts of the playdough mats are at the end of this assignment. The resources are
properly labeled.

Lesson Overview
- The teacher will introduce a playdough mat to the students when the students are
seated at the carpet. The teacher will model for the students how to use the playdough
to create a word, along with the other things that they can do on the mat.
- Once the teacher has clearly explained the directions, students will have the
opportunity to go back to their table and work on their play dough activity.
- During the play/exploration time, the teacher will guide students to focus and identify
which sight word they are working on.

Differentiation & Higher Level Thinking/Prompting Questions

Differentiation:
- The teacher can pull a small group of those students are struggling with the sight words
of the week. This can be a time for guided practice.
- The teacher can also opt to work one on one with students.
- Some students who go through the play dough activity quickly can finish the other
parts on the mat such as tracing and writing the words with expo markers.
- Students can also flip the mat over to the blank side to see if they can create the letters
without the playdough mat helping them.
Higher Level Thinking
- Can you tell me how you are creating and modeling your sight words?
- What would happen if you could not see the outline of the letters? Can you challenge
yourself to create the sight words this way?
- Where do you see these words in books? When do you use these words at home?

Assessment Methods

Students will be assessed on the following items

 Did the student follow classroom and lesson expectations
 Did the student actively participate in the activity

In addition (and in an authentic way) the teacher will be going around during play time, and
assessing where each student is at in their knowledge of the sight words. The student will
receive a check on the checklist if they can tell the teacher what the sight words of the week
(what they are working on their mat with) are. This will be used to evaluate students that are
meeting standards, and those that are going to need a bit more help to reach the goal of
becoming fluent in these sight words.
Lesson Reflection
One of the main reasons that I created this lesson for my students is because play is
developmentally appropriate at this age. Students can learn through play. There is so much
curriculum for the students to learn at such a young age, so if I can mix play with learning in a
special way for my students, I want to be able to do that.

I have to say that as I am reflecting, I think this was my favorite lesson of the week. The
students thought that it was the coolest lesson ever, and they were amazed when I brought out
the play doh that matched their team colors. They were so deep into their work with the play
doh that there was just a calm about the room. I also took it as a huge win because even my
students that struggle daily to sit down and complete tasks were thinking and creating at such
an attentive level. I felt bad when we had to clean up. Even my lowest reader was telling me
the sight words with such ease as I walked by and tested the students on their knowledge.

All of the students that were there could tell me what the two words were, so they all passed
their formative assessment for that day. Some students took a bit longer to respond, so we are
still looking for that “in a snap” recall. I knew that my next steps would be for them to identify
words in print, use them in writing, and to make learning fun and interactive as much as I
could.
Lesson Four
Topic: Sight Word Scavenger Hunt
Common Core State Standards:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.K.1.B
Use frequently occurring nouns and verbs.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.K.3.C
Read common high-frequency words by sight
(e.g., the, of, to, you, she, my, is, are, do, does).

Instruction Methods
Objectives
- Students will be able to identify sight words in print
- Students will be able to identify and match sight words
- Students will work together to complete tasks
Materials
- Scavenger hunt master sheet
- Sight word Cards (in 5 colors for 5 different teams)
- Grade level books with sight words in them
- Clip board for each team
Handouts
- Handouts for the scavenger hunt can be found at the end of this assignment. The
resources are properly labeled.
Lesson Overview
- The teacher will gather students at the carpet. When the students are seated and ready,
the teacher will explain the directions clearly.
- Each Team will have a clipboard. The clipboard contains __ sight words.
- Around the room there are the same sight words on a cutout that looks like ___
- Each team (the COLOR row you are sitting with) must work together to find and
identify the sight words around the room.
- Each team must stick together at all times, it cannot be that just one person is doing all
of the work and the rest are just sitting and watching. Each team can assign one person
to be the clipboard holder.
- Once the team has found all of the sight words, the team will come back and match
them to their scavenger hunt page. When they are matched, the team will show the
teacher and read the sight words to the teacher. (this is when the teacher can have a
checklist and those students who have struggled this week will be given a chance to
identify the week’s sight words)
- (If time allows) the teacher will then give the team a book, as a team, they have to find
your sight words in the book. When the team finds a sight word, they will put it on a
tally sheet.
- Once everyone is finished, the teacher will call all students back to the carpet to discuss
the activity.
Differentiation & Higher Level Thinking/Prompting Questions

Differentiation:
- The teacher can pair higher level learners with those who need extra support
- The teacher can help guide a group who is struggling
- The teacher can opt to take the book part out of the lesson if time/learning capacities do
not permit
- The teacher can create smaller or larger groups depending on the classroom
expectations

Higher level thinking:

During a debrief after the scavenger hunt, the teacher can use questions such as these to guide
the discussion.
- What was the hardest part of this activity?
- How do you think your group did when it came to working together?
- What was your favorite part of the activity?
- What would you recommend to make this even better?
- Did you think it was easy to work as a team?
- Can you describe and tell me about what you did today?

Assessment Methods

I will be assessing students based on this checklist:

 The student followed classroom and activity expectations
 The student actively played a role in their scavenger hunt group (able to work
collaboratively in a small group)
 The student was able to identify the two sight words (has and you) if they were not
able to do so during the last lesson
 The student was a participant in the group discussion
Lesson Reflection

This was a fun lesson for the students! The best way that I could describe this lesson was
“organized chaos”. Once I carefully explained the expectations for this activity the students
were prepared. It got LOUD as they scattered around the room. There were many friendly
reminders given for them to stay with their group. Once they found eight of their sight word
stars, they came to me and read them out loud. At first I tried to get them to choral read the
words, but as the groups came up to me I found that it was easier for me to pull from their star
pile and pop quiz the students. I could differentiate the words based on who I knew needed a
bit more help learning the words by sight.
Once I checked their sight word knowledge, I gave them a book to find sight words in as a
group. They were to make tallies of all the sight words that they find. I had leveled books for
groups that could handle more sight words, and other books for students that needed more
support. There is a picture of the leveled books in the attachments. At the end of the
assignment we had a class discussion about how the activity went. We talked about what was
hard, what was fun, and how they had to work as a team to complete a task.
 Based on my checklist above, all students passed the lesson for the day. The last lesson was to
check and see if students could use their knowledge of sight words in their kindergarten
journal.

Lesson Five
Topic: Sight Word Journal
Common Core State Standards:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.K.2
Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and
spelling when writing.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.K.2.A
Capitalize the first word in a sentence
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.K.2.B
Recognize and name end punctuation.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.K.2.D
Spell simple words phonetically, drawing on knowledge of sound-letter relationships.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.K.5
With guidance and support from adults, respond to questions and suggestions from
peers and add details to strengthen writing as needed.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.K.1.B
Use frequently occurring nouns and verbs.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.K.3.C
Read common high-frequency words by sight
(e.g., the, of, to, you, she, my, is, are, do, does).

Instruction Methods

Objectives
- The students will be able to spell their sight words
- The students will be able to use their sight words in a sentence
- The students will write their sentences using the five star sentence approach
- The students will be able to sketch and label a small moment sight word picture

Materials
Writing YouTube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJfuXj2TRBU
- Sound mats
- Sentence spacers
- 5 star sentence anchor chart
 - Kindergarten journals

Handouts
N/A

Lesson Overview
- The teacher will call the students to the carpet. Once the students are ready to learn, the
teacher will explain that they are going to do a journal this morning using their sight
words. This journal includes the sight word “has”. The teacher will refer to the learning
targets that were set earlier in the week.
- The teacher will play the writing workshop video. This is familiar to students.
- After the video plays, the teacher will recall the steps of writing a small moment (think,
picture, say, sketch, label)
- The teacher will model how to do this on the board. She will show the sentence that the
students are using. This students will fill in the sentence “my table has _____.”
- The teacher will refer to the five star sentence anchor chart when writing the sentence.
- After modeling, the teacher will tell students that if they finish, they can do a challenge
and write more sentences about their picture.
- The teacher will give students the opportunity to do a shoulder partner share- telling
other students what their sentence will say. “My table has ___.”
- Once rules are gone through, the teacher will release students to get a word space stick
and a sound mat.
- The teacher will be walking around the room for observation.

Differentiation & Higher Level Thinking/Prompting Questions

Differentiation
- Students have the opportunity to challenge themselves with their labeling, their word
choice, and the amount of sentences they write.
- During writing, the teacher may go around and create boxes and lines for students to
more easily write their sentence and draw their picture.

Higher Level Thinking

- I wonder what your thanksgiving is like?
- Does this sentence include all of the five stars for a five star sentence?
- How can you make your sentence a five star sentence?
- Do you see your sight word? How else can you use the sight words in your sentences?
Assessment Methods
Students will be assessed based on a checklist Students will receive full credit for their
assignment if:
 They Capitalize the first letter in the sentence.
 They use proper punctuation.
 The sentence makes sense.
 The other letters are lowercase.
 There is a finger space between each word.
 Show that they are trying to spell words phonetically (stretch out your words).
 They include proper use of the sight word “has”.
 There is a sketch on the paper.
 They have attempted to label at least two things on their sketch.
(Students that receive full credit get a star on the page when I come around to write the date).

Lesson Reflection
This was the last lesson that I was teaching on the sight words of the week. After carefully
reviewing where my students needed the most help- I decided to only focus on one sight word.
The students seemed to grasp the word “you” quicker than the word “has” so we worked on a
journal that included the word has. This lesson was meant for students to practice their word
stretching, as well as being able to identify their sight words in a sentence and write them
down.

This was a long lesson for my students to sit through, but I was proud of the work that they got
done and their focus throughout the lesson. They loved the song that I used in the beginning
and some of them even sang along! They were attentive listeners throughout my example, and
they were focused once they started writing. I have included some writing examples below to
show how students did on the work.

If a student completed a five star sentence and met all of the checklist criteria, they received a
star on their work. If they did not get it at first, I sent the student back with clues on how to fix
his/her work. All of my students except for one finished the assignment on time. The one
student had to finish the work at the private island table with me during free choice time. She
has a hard time focusing on everything that she does in the classroom, and it is an issue that
the teachers and her parents are working towards.
Resources
This section includes all of the attachments from the pre-test, lesson planning, and posttests.

Pre-test attachments

1) This is the pre-assessment I used. I asked students if they could identify this word. If they
could not identify it within three seconds, they were not considered fluent, and did not
receive a check mark on the list.

2) This is the results page of the pre-assessment.

Lesson Plan Attachments

1. Student work from lesson 3. The student had practiced the word on the mat and then
challenged herself to make it without the mat.

2. Play-doh mat from lesson 3.

3. Sight word stars from lesson 4. These were hung around the room and the student had to
go on a scavenger hunt to collect them.
4. Work from lesson 5. This is an example of the five star work I was looking for.

5. Team scavenger hunt lists. They were color coordinated according to each team color.

6. Students working on the Play-doh mat.

7. Student working on Play-doh mat.

8. Students working on play-doh mat activity.

9. Five star sentence anchor chart from lesson 5.

10. Sight word activity from lesson one.

11. Students working on sight word lesson activity.

12. Leveled books for students to find sight words.

13. Sight word mat for lesson 3.

14. Post test results.