Interpreting Evidence and Making Claims:

What Did My Students Learn? What Did I Learn?

Assessment Analysis
(Note: this form is optional)
Your Name: Katherine Smith
Grade Level: Kindergarten

School: Cornell Elementary

List the CCSS that represent your broad goals for

your unit:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.K.1.D
Recognize and name all upper- and
lowercase letters of the alphabet.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.K.2.E
Add or substitute individual sounds
(phonemes) in simple, one-syllable words
to make new words.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.K.3.D
Distinguish between similarly spelled
words by identifying the sounds of the
letters that differ.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.K.3.A
Demonstrate basic knowledge of one-toone letter-sound correspondences by
producing the primary sound or many of
the most frequent sounds for each
consonant.

What did you learn from your pre-assessments

about what your students knew and were able to
do in relation to your target area prior to your unit?
What range of knowledge or skills did your group
represent?
Based on the evidence I had before my Lead
Teach experience and what I know now, I can see
that my students have made a large amount of
progress in their letter recognition and letter sound
awareness. Before I began my unit on phonemic
awareness only 60% of my students were on track
towards meeting the kindergarten literacy
standards. These standards required them to
know most of the letters and letter sounds. After I
finished my post-assessment I now can see that
the vast majority knows all of their letter sounds,
and only 5% of my students still do not know my
focus letters /m/ /a/ and /t/.

Describe the progress the students made toward the CCSS and the data that supports your claims.
Provide examples for students who are on track, those who exceeded what you expect at your grade
level, and those who need support in getting on track.
The Common Core Standards I chose relate to students understanding of all upper and lowercase
letters of the alphabet, substituting individual sounds, and distinguishing the sounds that letters make.
60% of my students were on track towards meeting these goals, 30% were exceeding the goals, and
10% were not meeting the goals which included recognizing and naming upper and lowercase letters of
the alphabet and many of the sounds. My mentor and I checked in with all of the students last week
before conferences and only one student was not able to identify all of the letters. This told us that only
5% of our students are not meeting the common core standards that I chose to use for my unit. Most
students now know all of the sounds of the letters, however my common core standards only did not
require their knowledge of all of the sounds.
List the unit objectives for your unit, describe the progress made, and evidence that supports your
claims for the students who are on track, those who exceeded what you expect at your grade level,
and those who need support in getting on track (e.g., ongoing assessment, summative assessment):

Objective 1-Students will be able to identify the letters /t/ /a/ and /m/ and their sounds.
I did an assessment with my students at the end of my unit that required them to cut out pictures
and place them in columns under the letters /t/ /a/ or /m/ based on their first sound (tiger, apple,
mouse etc). Only one of my students gave incorrect responses for this assessment, which told
me that almost all of my students were able to not only identify the letters I was looking for, but
they were also able to connect the letters to the correct sound.

Objective 2-Students will be able to make connections between the letter sounds of /t/ /a/
and /m/ with words that contain those sounds.
I also did an activity that required students to brainstorm items to bring on a trip or to the market
that begin with the sounds that the letters /t/ /a/ and /m/ make. Some students were able to
sound out multiple words for each letter to bring on their trip, while others only drew one picture.
19/20 of my students were able to accurately represent an item that begins with each of those
sounds, and some went above and beyond by brainstorming multiple.

Objective 3-After hearing various letter sounds students will be able to identify a letter match
and vise-versa.
In the activity I did where students were required to fish for letters, I was able to see which
students could find and identify letters based on their sounds. I would call out a sound and their
job would be to fish for the letter. Not only did they recognize letters they were all able to
produce at least some of the letter sounds, which was really exciting. Some students could
recognize more than others, but this was towards the beginning of my unit. It gave me a good
idea of what to do next for specific students.

Additional observations about these students relevant to literacy learning:

Some of the students like to get their work done quickly, especially when it comes to giving responses to
questions I may pose. For some students this is fine, but with others it has started to cause problems.
They will blurt out answers without thinking about the question and in turn end up giving me an incorrect
response, when I know that if they really thought about it they could be correct. I will have to be cautious
about how I give instructions and ask questions, and may have to ask students to think in their heads for
a while before giving a response.
Given the evidence of student learning, what recommendations do you have regarding instructional
adaptations or differentiation of instruction to help students in your class progress? On what evidence do
you base these recommendations?
I began splitting students into small groups for literacy centers randomly, but after a few days I began to
notice that even within the groups of 4-5 students some would be exceeding expectations while others
were struggling. I sat down with my mentor teacher and split students into groups based on their
understanding, as we were planning we wanted to make it very clear that these groups could change
day by day. This was a very useful way to differentiate instruction; I was able to pose different questions
to different groups and altered activities to meet their individual needs.
What recommendations do you have for next steps in literacy learning for the students in your class?
What do you need to keep in mind for future planning to ensure continued growth for all learners?
Most of my students are ready to now start combining sounds and begin reading. We have book boxes
for each student with books chosen based on their reading level. Some are able to sound out words on
their own, while others need peer or teacher assistance. These book boxes change every week as they
progress, and they are a great way to constantly move forward. I need to be sure to continue to tie in
combining letter sounds into activities and lessons throughout the year to keep everyone progressing.

STEP 2: Next, consider what else happened during your unit and develop some hunches
as to why it happened. Write 2-3 paragraphs in which you describe and explain what you
learned about your students literacy practices that were not in your objectives. What are
alternative ways to interpret one or more of your students learning processes and products? How
do you explain this learning? Consider how the learning that took place might relate to what you
taught, or what learners taught each other, or to the resources used, or learners prior knowledge
and experiences, or other factors you discovered as you engaged in Inquiry One to learn about
your internship context.
I wanted my focus to be mainly on the letters /t/ /a/ and /m/ throughout the whole unit, however
most of my students did not need that much time to recognize these letters. I quickly discovered
that I needed to broaden the letters we were discussing for many of my activities. I still catered
some of my activities to these three letters (especially assessments), however I needed to extend
lessons on most days. I think this happened because my students came in with lots of prior
knowledge about the alphabet, letters on their own, and the sounds that they make. Each week in
our curriculum we have a focus letter, and many of the activities are solely about that letter. I like
this idea, however I think it can be expanded a bit. In my own classroom, I might make one center
each day about the focus letter rather than 3 of the 4 centers, that way students are getting other
practice in as well to meet their needs.
STEP 3: Finally, consider what these events might mean and implications for your
practice. Think about the instructional context in which you are learning to teach literacy and
how that may have influenced your teaching experiences and opportunities for professional
learning during Guided Lead Teaching. Jot down notes about the following:
To stick with the curriculum, the kindergarten classes at my school have a focus letter
each and every week. Students repeat activities but essentially change the letter the activity is
focusing on as the weeks go on. My mentor teacher stresses instruction on one letter the whole
week long, and I think sometimes this strategy deters students from reaching their full potential.
Most of our students dont need repetitive examples of the focus letters at this point, however that
may change as we get to more vowels. In the future I would like to structure my literacy
curriculum a bit differently if at all possible. I understand the importance on focusing on individual
letters, but I dont think it needs to be taken to this level. One way I could further instruction for
focus letters could be to combine the letter with a different word-ending sound each day
throughout the week.
One challenge I ran into was meeting the needs of diverse learners. I think this is
something I was planning on running into, and I am glad that I worked on solving the problem by
splitting students into groups based on their understanding. I was not surprised at all to see the
excitement and engagement my students displayed as I gave them activities that did not revolve
around worksheets. They eagerly grasped onto concepts throughout the interactive and hands on
lessons. This was very exciting to see, however after getting some real world experience on
teaching a unit I now understand why teachers sometimes do rely on worksheets. I had a hard
time gathering assessment information during my more hands on and interactive lessons, while
my more formal worksheets and assessments told me what the students learned in a more
concrete way. It will be my job to continue my own growth in gathering assessment information
during these interactive lessons.