STUDENT LEARNING ANALYSIS

2023 TEACHING INTERNSHIP SEMESTER – TROY, MICHIGAN

Abstract
For this report I will be investigating student learning and growth over the
course of a unit that I am teaching during my student teaching internship.
This unit will focus on their third unit of writing, Unit 3, Informational
Writing. Students will learn about How To books and writing to teach others.

Samantha Smolinski

Oakland University School of Education and Human Services

Teacher Development and Educational Studies

Ruth C. Wass Elementary School, Troy, MI

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Student Learning Analysis Report

Introduction
Overview: For this report I will be investigating student learning and growth over the
course of a unit that I am teaching during my student teaching internship. This unit
will focus on their third unit of writing, Unit 3, Informational Writing. Students will
learn about How To books and writing to teach others. There are 3 major bends in
this unit where students practice using all the writing tools they’ve learned about,
and then learn something new and big to use in a new story. Some of these bends
in the unit will include Step by Step Writing, Using Mentor Texts for Inspiration, and
Revising Old Stories with Readers in Mind. I will assess their writing growth weekly
during the unit by having students make their own 3+ page books and checking
those to inform myself about what the next lessons need.
Context: I am conducting this report based on a Kindergarten classroom at Wass
Elementary School, in Troy, Michigan. The Troy School District’s Wass Elementary
School has a total enrollment of 406 students, with a minority enrollment of 42%,
and a student to teacher ratio of 16, according to usnews.com. The school uses
Lucy Calkins Curriculum for literacy instruction such as reading, writing, and
phonological skills.
Classroom: In my classroom I have one student who does not do writing with us in
the general education classroom as a part of his IEP plan, and one student who will
be in another country for 5 out of the 6 weeks this unit needs. That leaves me with
20 students that I will be conducting this learning analysis on over the course of
about 6 weeks of writing. According to state standards, out of my 20 students,
65% of my students are showing grade level skills, with a remaining 35% of
students on the verge of grade level skill sets or below it.
Instructional Implications: I have a few special cases in my classroom that I would
consider instructional implications, but I feel confident in how to teach to them
throughout this unit. For example, of the 35% that are on the verge of needing
extra support, 5 students already are getting it through literacy intervention groups,
which will continue for this unit. I have 3 learners who are also testing at or above
average grade level standards but once a week work with language and speech
specialists. I have to think how each and every one of my Kindergarteners have
unique learning characteristics to consider as I give my lessons and take assessments
of the learning I’m seeing from them.
PLANNING FOR ASSESSMENT
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Learning Goal #1 Students will be able to write informational stories that teach and contain all the
important details from their checklists (rubrics).

Relevant Standards W.K.2. Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to compose
informative/explanatory texts in which they name what they are writing about and
supply some information about the topic.
Appropriateness This unit will help students continue to practice all of the writing knowledge they
gained from units 1 and 2, and further engage them by teaching them how to
write informational books to help other readers and writers learn. This unit gives
them the ability to go back and edit some of their old stories using an updated
checklist. The checklist they used all year to write narrative stories will get more
new steps to follow that help inform readers in making How-To books.

Learning Goal #2 Students will show growth in informational writing, and within this unit be using
the 4 concepts of writing a sentence that they have already learned and will keep
practicing (see clip of sentence structure concepts listed in Assessment 1)

Relevant Standards W.K.2. Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to compose
informative/explanatory texts in which they name what they are writing about and
supply some information about the topic.
Appropriateness The books they make right now are 3 pages long with a title page, so in total they
should be at least 4 pages. With this new unit students will also learn how to add
more details to their pages, and with that how they can add 5 th or even 6th pages
to their books if they have multiple detailed steps to get to. This will get them
ready for unit 4 and putting all these steps into one bigger writing piece that
contains all of this information.
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ASSESSMENT OVERVIEW PLAN

Learning Assessment Types of Assessment Time of
administering
Goals Details
1&2 Diagnostic (Pictured in details 4 days:
column) Rotate small
Using these concepts groups for 30
of building sentences minutes each
which students have day
practiced I’ll be
analyzing their work
on final books from
unit 2 with small
groups who need Throughout the final week of unit 2 I
more practice on went through and took out all the
certain concepts students’ books from their writer’s
workshop folders, transferring them
to take home envelopes for them to
show off to their parents.

While I do this, I am going to be

checking out their writing to review
the way my classes final books
turned out and see what all their
different other books throughout
the unit looked like. I set to the side
any books that over this week can be
revised to fit their checklists in small
groups. We do this in green pen
instead of black, specifically only
when editing once a unit. This helps
the students who may need it truly
see the importance in all that we
have learned this unit, as well as it is
informing me of my students
understanding and helps me guide
my teaching going into Unit 3.
Learning Assessment Types of Assessment Time of Details
administering
Goals
1&2 Formative For this assessment 30 minutes of Halfway through the unit students
they will use a poster writing time will have learned new concepts of
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that lists what print to use in their informational

students should have writing and continued to practice
in their writing so far the things they learned previously.
and they should be Together we will brainstorm a list of
writing How To make the most important concepts we’ve
a smiley face book to learned so far, which I will write
practice these down for them in order to very
concepts of specifically model how I want them
informational writing to show off their careful writing skills
while they write down these
different things to do in their own
writing.

After I explain and model what

writers need to do, I’ll explain to
them how they’ll do it in the same
way, using their learned writing skills
that they had just told me so much
about. I will give them the blank
copy which they will each
individually write these things writers
do at their tables. I will guide
students to use our writers wall
charts as they work, have them
continue thinking about my
example, and reinforce the ideas
listed as students do this writing.

Learning Assessment Types of Assessment Time of Details

administering
Goals
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1&2 Summative Writing our final 1 week Students will have 3 days to start
How To books: and complete their final how to
containing a title 20 minutes of books for this unit. Then, they will
page, dedication solid writing have 1 day of editing using our
page, detailed steps and editing for checklists for unit 3 informational
about a how to topic 4 days where writing shown in the first learning
that informs, and each day is goal, and our to do list for how to
after the final step a spent working books that teach. They will have 4
sentence at the end on the final days total for actually working on
to wrap up what the book, writing their books and editing them
book was about. celebrating using our writing resources. On the
I will check the their skills on fifth day of this week of writer’s
students entire the fifth day of workshop students will color in their
writing portfolios that week pictures, review everything we’ve
from this unit which learned so far, and spend writers
we keep stored in workshop celebrating all that they’ve
their writers’ folders. I learned in this unit by going around
specifically am the room partner reading their
looking to see that books.
students have
grasped the
difference between
writing narrative
stories, unit 2, and
what goes into
putting together
informational how to
books that are meant
to teach the readers
something specific. I
will use the check
lists they use to
assess their work.
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Appendix Page // Data and Analysis

SPRING 2023 KINDERGARTEN WRITING

APPENDIX A Unit 3 diagnostic assessment #1

January 2023 Whole Group Assessment Data

Kindergarteners Do Self-Reflections of their writing after a unit celebration to help them plan for
writing a new type of book (Unit 3, informational)

APPENDIX B Unit 3 formative assessment #2

Below are writing pieces and scores for 3 different levels I found my learners falling into, the
following points are distributed using the sheets they were using and have been learning with
this unit, as well as one extra point for the use of proper mechanics of writing practiced in the
previous units (what a sentence has → assessment 1) – February 2023
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- LLI Groups for literacy intervention (2/4 points or less earned while assessing)
- Average grade level writing and follows basic how to writing concepts but not showing
signs of any growth and/or change in their writing pieces (3/4 or more points)
- Above average grade level results with 4/4 or more points earned while assessing.
-
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APPENDIX C Unit 3 summative assessment #3

Unit 3 Informational Writing End of Unit Data

Analysis of 20 Kindergarten Writing Pieces - March 2023
Final How To Books After Edits Using the Unit 3 Checklist

Unit 3 Informational Writing End of

Unit Informational Writing Checklist

(used to do final assessment)

1 point can be earned
for the 8 different concepts shown
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Student’s Final How to Book (graded) for a

Reference of the Class Average Score
Background: March 2023 Kindergarten Writing
While many of the students scores reflected
100% accuracy from their check lists, it was
apparent that what was not on the check list but
had been learned previously wasn’t being used.
Without the checklist for sentence structure
being much of a focus, data showed the
students struggled to truly piece together the
two units to make these final books.
This tells me I will need to review these points
before we move into Unit 4 after spring break.

Student Learning Analysis

January-March 2023
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To begin my reflection on this Student Learning Analysis that I conducted over the
course of a kindergarten writing unit, I will say that while gathering data and charting it for
my initial diagnostic assessment, meant to gather learning from unit two, I saw an upward
trend in students writing growth for Kindergarten narrative writing samples and the score
that went with them. As I look at my analysis for student learning in unit 3, I see that my
data follows similar patterns of an upward trend in students writing growth and abilities to
put together informational writing pieces over this unit. However I did notice in my classes
final samples there was a pretty decent decline in students showing use of previously
learned and previously used concepts from unit 2, which at the end of unit 2 they showed
they were progressing in.

The end of the unit writing samples (final books in yellow) and checklist celebration,
used in each unit, is done pretty much the same way each time to inform both teachers and
students in what’s to come next, and it creates an adaptable outline for what each unit of
study for kindergarten writing may look like at a glance. In this case my unit 3 unit wrap up
informed me that while many of the students’ scores reflected decent scores and accuracy
across their How To check lists, it was apparent that what was not on the check list but had
been learned previously wasn’t being used. Without the checklist for sentence structure
being much of a focus, data showed the students struggled to truly piece together the two
units to make these final books. This tells me I will need to review these points before we
move into Unit 4 after spring break.

When looking through all of my data, I can use each appendix to see an overview of
what I was looking for while I assessed my class during this writing unit. Appendix A
informs me what students learned and were using from unit two, concepts important for
building sentences and other concepts of print. Appendix B shows students growth and
areas of weakness while in the middle of learning unit two, and at this point in the unit
there are still many areas that should need work, students are thinking hard about building
a new type of story and their processes are all over the place, but all of them are growing
within this genre of writing as you can see. In appendix C, you can see the class scores
across the whole group for unit 3, and an example of a writing sample that represents a
little over half of the class, which was my biggest take away from this learning analysis.

Adjusting Instruction

When going through the unit plan, I had a lot of adapting from the curriculum to
the reality of time that I had to teach it. I had to find a way to fit this 19 lesson unit into 6 or
so weeks of teaching. The unit falls from late January into March. This leaves us with 7-8
weeks to teach before factoring in snow days, mid-winter break, students gone for
vacation, and the fact that there was a different germ going around the room every week
and I had students missing all the time. I was able to adapt my lesson plans to make sure
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that even with these gaps in our short time to teach, all of the main teaching points were
able to be taught in one way or another for this to be a successful unit.

One way I planned for adjusting instruction was by sitting down during our prep
time and planning with the other kindergarten teachers in my school, we started by looking
at the whole unit, seeing what lessons could be grouped together in order to teach at a
pace that gave students as much time as possible to practice their writing skills when in
writers workshop. We were able to group together lessons that went together to save time,
for example lesson 11, Writers use lots of details and lesson 12, writers use comparisons to
show extra details. The reason we combined these two lessons was because we could use
students fund of knowledge about comparisons from cross cutting other subjects and other
favorite poems and books. We were doing our week of “In Like a Lion, Out Like a Lamb”
poem and books in school, so easily enough we used that to show a comparison taking
place in a piece of writing, modeled it and then explained how to give lots of detail and why
it’s so important and modeled some more in about 12 minutes, then left the mentor text up
for them to see and help put their detailed thoughts onto the page.

In the future, I would take the first day of a unit and use it to review important topics
previously learned by students in prior units that are being used in this unit. The lessons
being taught and when they are being taught are only slightly interchangeable once
planned by the kindergarten teaching team, and it makes sense because there is so much to
fit in, so I was not able to recap unit 2s learnings within unit 3s introduction as much as I
had wanted to, we pretty much jumped right into it and then lesson 2 was more recapping
using all that writers have learned in how to books. This unit we agreed to have lesson 2
just moved up before we start teaching!

With that said, I started unit 3 by drawing on student’s funds of knowledge and
using concepts that were learned in unit two, writing stories for readers, to show them the
new informational writing unit, my very first book was titled “How to make a sentence.”
The book went on to be useful, it was built by my students and me to engage them in
writing a how to book. To start this unit I asked students to tell me what to do, and
modeled each step as we did it. “First you say the sentence, then you point to where it will
go, last you write it by repeating those steps. You can repeat them as many times as you
need!” This was the outcome of the first book we wrote, me building the how to story and
them giving me the details. I then went on to explain that this book would be super
informational to anyone who didn’t know how to write a sentence. Then explained how
they would now be writing books that helped other people learn things that we
kindergarteners already know how to do. This book was referred back to throughout the
unit, and was helpful at times, but the intended point of the lesson was that students
should see the connection between their past unit and current new unit being introduced.

This was not the lesson though, however, the teaching point planned for that day
was to teach writers to study the type of writing they intend to make “today I want to teach
you that just like there are different kinds of animals, books, colors, and so on, there are
different kinds of writing too. Before a writer starts writing, they think “What kind of book
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am I making...?” The lesson then went on to show students the different types of writing,
narratives and informational books, “My Soccer Game” and “How To Play Soccer” both used
to compare writing styles. This was an important lesson, but I think that going back and
taking 1 day to focus on transferring knowledge from unit two into unit 3, the use of
sentence structure and the importance of readable writing, would have been beneficial to
the rest of the unit. This will be something I will do when we come back after spring break,
before beginning unit 4 I will recap unit 2, and 3, and have the students give me concepts
that are very important for writers to remember. I will write them down and model them on
large chart paper to keep up in writer workshop and use throughout unit 4.

This could even be used as assessment #1, a diagnostic assessment that informs the
teacher of what my students still need to keep practicing throughout the new unit. I think
that it would make a great initial assessment because it is something quick you can do each
unit and hang up around writers’ workshop for students to refer back to easily. It’s also a
smart assessment tool to me because at the end of the unit when you go back and add to
your list, it shows students how much they have grown and learned as writers, which is the
point of the celebration at the end! Then as the teacher you can gather data from the chart
to incorporate into the next unit of study in writing, and so on into the next. It would be a
quick and helpful way to begin a new unit of writing for kindergarteners and incorporate
engagement using the students’ funds of knowledge.

Student Growth

Overall student growth was seen throughout this kindergarten unit of writing
informational pieces. In kindergarten, writing is one of the most challenging and frustrating
parts of learning, that they have to do every day, so to see that almost all of my students
had at least 3 or more completed books, not counting their final unit 3 books, and showed
growth in their books. Almost all students showed book 1 starting with a How To title and
had steps in order that were for the reader to learn from “first you, then you, last you”. Then
their book 2 showed bolded words used, students learned about bolding important words
and went back in their current story to bold only a word or two that were super important
to the step being done. The third book showed longer stories and labels that teach as well
as everything else they were learning. Then they added tips and warnings to their pages in
the book 3 they had.

Like I had said this was true for almost all of my students, because some of my
students did not show this growth throughout the unit, while still showing they were able
to do it, most of the checkpoints, at the end of the unit in their final books. These students
scored below average due to many different reasons, some of them being that they just did
not really want to write, sometimes the writings too hard to do and students decide the
pictures are good enough, which then I have to pull them during a free time or quiet time
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to get some of their work done, but I try not to do this for longer than 10 minutes so that
they can get some play time in, and are not distracted writing (they need the playtime in
kindergarten). Although, this leaves me with less writing from them and less learning
overall shown at the end of their final books. I have 2 students who chose not to write due
to behavior actions, at times during the unit they would write using crayons and have to
redo the piece, one of them broke his pencils instead of writing that day, and other things
that they do because writing is simply just not what they want to be doing. Eventually
though, it does get done one way or another and I’m always there to support them.

One of my students is very young for kindergarten, her writing (displayed in purple in
appendix B) showed about 5 words per page at the end, and that took all of her effort in
writers’ workshop and in small group during quiet time. From what I am seeing she would
be scoring above average in pre K education and is learning for her young age at an
average rate but struggling to keep up with the kindergarten pace. With support we are still
seeing growth though, especially throughout the year, so even with this student scoring
below 4 points I encouraged the good work and applauded the books to her.

Concluding Remarks

This analysis helped me understand the learning needs of my students at a greater

depth than I had before when it came to writers’ workshop, and other units of literacy study
that often get linked together because they often fall back to back and instruction depends
on the cross cutting of subjects like reading, writing, and phonics. The analyzing of data in
writers workshop helped me see into all of my students different learning styles while I
closely analyzed their individual work pieces and came up with new ideas to help them
learn. There were adjustments that had to be made, and of course lessons that did not go
as planned, but the overall outcome was something I was proud of my students for
achieving the learning goals for both 1 and 2 in my analysis.

I learned that next unit it would be beneficial for my students to have a day where
we connect all the things we have learned and bring them into the new unit with us, which
my kindergarten team agreed with and we planned for that lesson to come before they
start writing their first books in the newest unit, and we will refer back to it in my classroom
as much as the students need! In my future as an educator I have learned from this analysis
that the importance of checking students works they’ve done throughout the unit and
actually taking time to analyze areas of growth and areas of weakness is a crucial step and it
goes beyond curriculum and statewide tests. The analysis I conducted heled me specifically
because the data gathered is going to help in reaching my goals as an educator and helping
my students reach their academic goals.
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