These artifacts are from being a reading teacher in a Title I school.

Context: While working as a Literacy Specialist at Cove Creek School in Watauga County, I developed the following artifacts. As a reading teacher in a Title I school, it is my job to assess every first grader at the beginning of the year in effort to determine which students qualify for additional early one-on-one intervention. Because of my experience and knowledge gained form taking such classes as Reading Assessment and Correction, I know that early intervention is critical to ensure student success. Giving struggling readers additional one-on-one support helps them to progress at a continuous rate, therefore helping them not to get as far behind as they would if they only received reading instruction in the classroom. Also, the early intervention program Watauga County reading programs use is the Early Steps Program developed by Dr. Darrell Morris. Therefore, there is consistency and overlap between what I was taught and what I practice as a literacy specialist. I use the Early Reading Screening Inventory (ERSI) to assess each first graders upper and lower case alphabet recognition and production, basal/decodable/sight word recognition, echo reading, which helps assess student concept of word knowledge, and finally a spelling test to assess student development (motor skills) and word recognition. I then in turn take the scores from the ERSI and factor in other components such as student ranking and teacher input to determine if first graders qualify for Early Steps intervention. I am including in my artifacts, the Early Steps screening letter that notifies each parent that their child is being assessed, for what purpose, and a sample of an ERSI assessment. I am also including as an artifact, an Early Steps brochure that I send home with each letter placement notification that explains to parents why their child was selected to receive early intervention services and give some background information on the development of the Early Steps Program. As part of my role as Literacy Specialist in a Title I school, it is my responsibility to facilitate and supervise the Early Steps program at Cove Creek. We use paid tutors and classroom assistants who have been trained in Early Steps techniques to work with our first grade intervention program. I paired each tutor and student based on strengths and best matches and then gave tutors a summary, identifying specific areas, to target when beginning work with students. This summary was based on the data gathered from the ERSI assessment.

As part of my artifacts I am also including a write-up I did in assessing a kindergartner who was being considered for retention. I used my knowledge as a Literacy Specialist gained from my practice and classes such as Reading Assessment and Correction to modify the ERSI assessment and the Kindergarten assessment, in an attempt to gain accurate and specific information in making the decision about retention.

Early Steps Artifacts

Early Steps brochure

Early Steps Screening Letter

Scanned Copy of ERSI

· ERSI Cover Sheet 1 and 2

· Spelling (1 and 2)

· Alphabet Production

Early Steps beginning of the year information for tutors

Kindergarten Assessment Write Up

Modified Assessment for end-of –year-kindergartener

· kindergarten assessment

· ERSI spelling

· ERSI alphabet production

Also, part of my role of Literacy Specialist in a Title I school is developing programs that help parents support their child’s learning at home and asking other teachers to become involved in such programs that support parents. In Title I school-wide programs, all teachers in the school are considered Title I teachers, and every child is considered a Title I student, therefore all teachers should be involved in such programs. Another component of being part of a school-wide program is to not only offer support sessions for parents, but also provide flexible access hours to meetings/library and programs. I am including as artifacts letters that show attempt to involve the community by sending a parent survey and a spreadsheet designed to tally the results of the parent survey. In addition, I developed a teacher participation checklist to solicit their involvement in literacy themes and parent support and a parent letter that show collaboration with the community and Appalachian State University in attempt to create a product by writing treasured family stories.

Community Involvement Artifacts

Library Extended Hours Survey	Writing Project with ASU
Library Extended Hours Survey (Spreadsheet)	Teacher Participation Survey

Collaborative Small Group Instruction Units for Fifth Grade

Additionally, I am including artifacts that demonstrate my collaboration with classroom teachers in attempt to raise student achievement and foster a love of literature in a supportive and nurturing environment. The following units were designed with fifth grade teachers for different purposes. The vocabulary sequence was developed as part of an integrated teacher directed reading unit. I used my knowledge of vocabulary instruction in collaboration with this teacher to develop the unit around the novel, The Sign of the Beaver.

Vocabulary	Colonialism Concept Map	Tableau
Antonyms 1 and 2	Middle Colonies Concept Map	Word Map
Etymologies

The next sets of artifacts are small group reading units that I developed in collaboration with the other fifth grade teacher. I firmly believe that the way to raise reading test scores and help children love reading is to meet students on their instructional level. The fifth grade teacher and I designed three small group lessons based on the three different levels of students in her classroom. Many of the activities I drew on to design these units, I learned in my classes while getting my Masters in Reading Instruction.

Above Grade Level The Butterfly (to be used in conjunction with web-based study of the book).

The Butterfly (PowerPoint)

Monique Character Map	Descriptive Language
Servine Character Map	Vocabulary
Poem for Two Voices Activity	Etymologies
Double Diary Entry (p. 1-19)	I Am Poem
Double Diary Entry (p.20)	Holocaust Concept Map
Foreshadowing	Link to Web-based unit

On Grade Level Pink and Say

Say Character Map	Descriptive Language	Etymologies
Sweet Moe Moe Bay Character Map	Pink and Say Questions	Predict-o-gram
Pink Character Map	Double Diary Entry 1	Dialect
I am Poem	Double Dairy Entry 2	Research
Civil War Concept Map	Vocabulary	Friendly Letter

Below Grade Level

The Memory Coat

Grisha Character Map	Vocabulary
Rachel Character Map	Descriptive Language (p.9)
Tableau	Descriptive Language (p.15)
Etymologies	Descriptive Language (p. 20)
Description/Illustration (p.4)	Descriptive Language (p. 22)
Illustrator’s Impact	Russian Words to Know
Predict-o-Gram	Ellis Island Concept Map
I Am Poem

Standard A: Instructional Expertise

All of the artifacts listed above demonstrate my instructional expertise in applying, theoretical, philosophical, and research bases for educational practice with a range of students. Specific artifacts above show instructional expertise in working with kindergarteners through fifth grade and I could apply and adapt my strategies to meet the needs of sixth through twelfth graders as well. These above artifacts, exhibit my understanding and creating instruction based on student’s developmental and diverse needs, while integrating literacy across the curriculum.

Standard B: Knowledge of Learners

When assessing a near end of the year kindergartener using components of the kindergarten assessment and of the ERSI, I demonstrated my knowledge of the nature of the learner based on his developmental process and the reading process, took the data from the assessment, and created a summation based on these components. By administering the ERSI to all first graders at the beginning of the school year, I show how I modify my instruction to support the beginning reader with one-on-one instruction. In addition, with my collaboration on the small group instruction lesson plans, the fifth grade teacher and I collaboratively planned the historical fiction units to meet the needs of three very distinct instructional reading levels in her classroom. One of the students in the fifth grade class is Russian and I selected a book for the lower group with Russian words in effort to have the student who is Russian (who in the highest group), serve as a “resident expert” in Russian when working with Russian words in the text. The small group literature units exhibit my abilities as a teacher as well as my willingness to collaborate with other teachers, to modify instruction, to foster student learning and love of literature, while creating a welcoming classroom environment where all students can be successful.

Standard C: Research

The Early Steps program is designed around reading research that says if you intervene early with readers who are struggling, and support them as they begin to read and target specific skills that will help with their print processing capabilities, that “fledgling readers” are more likely to increase at a steady rate of progression, as opposed to falling further and further behind due to the achievement gap. The samples I provided show my knowledge and understanding of the progression of reading skills, especially print processing skills and selection of students for the Early Steps program based on data from the ERSI. The samples provided demonstrate implementation and facilitation of an early reading intervention program, based on current and historical educational research.

Standard D: Content Knowledge

All of these artifacts developed as and a part of being a literacy specialist in a Title I school demonstrate my depth and breadth of knowledge of reading instruction. Based on my studies as a reading graduate student, I was able to take reading research and current practices and trends related to the teaching of reading, and apply strategies directly to the teaching of reading and the facilitation of reading programs.

Standard E: Professional Development and Leadership

The artifacts for community out reach in effort to get parents involved with supporting their child’s reading development include parent surveys and letters and teacher surveys. These show that I use input from both educators and parents to exhibit the school-home-community connection. For example, parent extended library hours survey, and ASU Memoir writing partnership are two artifacts that are included. As a supervisor/ facilitator of the community outreach activities, I provide leadership in working with parents to strengthen the school, home and community connections. Through collaborative literature units, I planned with teachers to support them in addressing reading problems in their classrooms.