Lebanon Valley College orn cape ane Annville, Pennsyvania 7003-1400 717-867-6100 + 1-866-LVC-440M wow lveeds Recommendation for Hannah N. Booth It is my pleasure to write this letter of reference for Miss Hannah Booth. | have known Hannah {as a professor and as her student teaching supervisor. Hannah has a real passion for teaching and gives her best every day to the students in her care. Hannah completed 16 weeks of student teaching both in a fourth and fifth grade learning support setting and in a first-grade regular education classroom. In her first eight-week student teaching placement, an upper elementary learning support classroom, at Northside Elementary School in Palmyra, Pennsylvania, Hannah was differentiating and adapting various curriculums to meet the academic and behavioral needs of her students. She adapted curriculums such as Making Connections, Go Math! and Phonics for Reading for 15 students. Hannah worked collaboratively with her cooperating teacher to plan out weeks or units in advance in order to provide a path for her instruction. She demonstrated a lot of initiative in both her placements. Hannah always put the students first and looked for ways she could help them become more verbal and develop friendly peer relationships. She focused on varied levels of questioning in order to take her students past the lowest level of thinking and learning. In every lesson she implemented active participation techniques such as; thumbs up-thumbs down, think-pair-share, and a “I'm ready/ Still thinking” signal. Hannah started each day by greeting and talking with individual students as a “check-in” procedure. Her students always knew what to expect and looked forward to the “class challenge” behavior management system that she created in order to proactively address off-task behavior. Hannah's first day in the classroom she established rules and expectations, so her students understood what she expected from them. Hannah was very adept at preparing targeted assessments based on the instruction given and prepared lessons to meet the topics assessed on the pre-made curricular tests. She gained experience collecting data and graphing student progress and behavior to later relay that information on to parents. Hannah was always trying new and fun ways to engage and motivate her students and provide them with hands-on learning experiences. Hannah consistently integrated technology and used academic oriented videos to gain students’ attention and provide repeated practice to ensure mastery. Hannah regularly utilized her special education coursework training to incorporate whole class and individual behavior incentives and proactive supports as well. She planned individual and small group daily lessons on reading comprehension skills, spelling, writing, math, and social skills, while student teaching in this setting. Hannah was a very reflective student teacher; she debriefed at the end of each day with her cooperating teacher and noted activities and learning opportunities that were particularly successful. Hannah also kept a personal observationnotebook where she would record learning preferences and personal interests for each student so she could address these in daily lessons. Hannah's last 8 weeks of her student teaching semester was spent in a first grade classroom at Jonestown Elementary School in the Northern Lebanon School District. Again, she taught all elementary subject areas. Her daily and unit planning always focused on engaging and motivating her students to want to practice their spelling strategies, their daily writing lessons and their math facts. Hannah created and implemented engaging and fun math centers after noticing that her first graders needed more differentiation and practice than was provided with the curricular math lessons. Hannah was an excellent planner, both short term and long-term planning, She provided her first graders with authentic, PA Common Core aligned lessons using curriculums adopted by the district. Again, Hannah had an amazing working relationship with her cooperating teacher. She attended all in-service opportunities as well as daily collaborative meetings with other teachers to discuss upcoming events or lessons. Teachers indicated that they learned as much from Hannah as she learned from them! Hannah built a positive relationst in this school with not only her students, their parents, but with her cooperating teacher, the faculty at large, paraprofessionals and the administration. Hannah cared so much for her students that she even made a home visit to one struggling family that was going through a rough time. She and her cooperating teacher took them dinner and spent time with the student and his siblings giving the mother time to relax. Miss Hannah Booth has a promising future as either a Prek-Grade 4 elementary teacher or a special education teacher. She possesses an excellent work ethic and was easy to supervise. | have supervised student teachers for 30 years and I can honestly say that Hannah was one of rict. my very best!! She will be an asset to any school Sincerely, Linda L. Summers Chair, Education Department(ret.) Lebanon Valley College