Professional Portfolio

Kirstin Barboza
May 4, 2016
EDRL 443 - 1001

Part I: Professional Goals

At the beginning of the semester my professional goals were to: 1. Collect
resources and information of different texts and how they can correlate to my lessons on
different subjects. As well as knowing how to assign the correct grade level text to each
student/tuttee. And 2. Be able to effectively understand assessments and their results to
guide lesson plans and further instruction with my student/tutee. After a very long
semester, I definitely feel like I have made significant progress with these goals. I have
acquired a lot of resources from my own searches and in classes that have helped me
learn how to better help my students in the future.
After doing some research, I have found a ton of resources that help with grade
leveled text. I also now know that most schools have their own system set up for
determining a students reading level and then have leveled text to go along with it. At my
practicum school they use the AR (Accelerated Reader) program, the students are able to
pick what level book they want to read and then take comprehension tests on the books.
The teachers are also able to track their progress and what leveled books they are doing.
So being able to find correct grade leveled text for my students/tutee was an easy goal for
me to fulfill, as so many resources exist for this. I think the best way to show this in my
portfolio is in the resources section, as I was only able to use three or four different books
with my tutee.
The second goal that I had about being able to use assessments to guide
instruction, I think can be shown better through all of my sessions with Armando. I was
able to look at his progress and decide if I should move forward in the next session, or
continue working with a topic. There were some things that he struggled with and that
was evident to me because I was working so closely with him. I think this will be harder

for me to keep track of in a whole class, but this is a goal I will continue to develop as a
teacher. Deciding what strategies to use during reading, or what words to work on during
word study took me a lot of time in the books. I was constantly looking back into the
Tompkins and Words Their Way books to see what I could do next or what strategy I
could alter to better suit his needs. I think he was able to understand a majority of the
strategies and apply them during our sessions. But the word study area was where I really
was focused on how he was doing and what areas he needed to work on more or if I
could move onto the next word pattern. The words their way assessment and book
definitely came in handy for this one, because I was able to follow along a plan of each
stage and the beginning middle and end. This is also something I have learned that will
be easy for me in schools, as long as I am correctly assessing my students.
All in all, I am proud of the progress that I have made with my professional goals
this semester. I have definitely learned a lot in both my practicum two class and our
literacy class. I also know that these are things that will definitely help me as a future
teacher very soon. Lastly, I have learned that I have a lot more resources available to me
than I could have ever thought possible. I am no longer nervous to start teaching, because
I know that I will have the resources and support I need to be successful.

Part II: Tutor/Tutee Reading

When it came to reading, I had a lot of good strategies that Armando and I got to
go over. By far the one that worked best and had Armando the most engaged was the
Directed Reading Thinking Activity. We did this for the first three reading sessions with
our book Ricky Ricottas Mighty Robot. In our first session with this strategy, I had
Armando pay attention to the photos in the book, and really look into the context clues.
At first his predictions were a little off, but the more we practiced this strategy, the better
he got at making predictions. He would spend a little more time on every page we read,
and I know it was because he was trying to make those inferences by re-looking at the
pictures and words on each page.
Another one that worked well with Armando was a KWL chart. What helped
make this strategy work was that I did it with him on the IPad. He really liked technology
so I tried to incorporate the iPad into as many things as I could. We only used this
strategy once, but I could tell that he liked being able to reflect back to what he learned.
One strategy that could have gone better was our Anticipation chart. I dont think that I
did a good job of explaining the activity to him and it was a little hard for us to do on the
IPad. We also didnt get to finish that book until the last session, so I didnt have time to
complete the after reading anticipation chart. If I could go back and do that one again, I
think I would do it on a specific chapter rather than the entire book. I also think I would
have chosen shorter books, so that we could have read more together.
I believe these strategies are great for students to use while reading, and they
definitely helped Armando. Many educators have used these three different strategies and
I definitely plan to use them in my classroom. They worked well with Armando and I
think that they could be easily incorporated into almost any lesson.

Directed Reading Teaching Activity

CCSS: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.2.7 - Use information gained from the illustrations
and words in a print or digital text to demonstrate understanding of its characters, setting,
or plot.
Rationale: Readers will make thoughtful predictions or guesses about what will
happen or what theyll learn from the book their reading. These predictions are based on
what the student already knows and what they have already read (Tompkins, 2014,
Pg.259).

KWL Chart
CCSS: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.2.10 - By the end of year, read and comprehend
informational texts, including history/social studies, science, and technical texts, in the
grades 2-3 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end
of the range.
Rationale: Teachers use K-W-L charts during thematic units to activate students
background knowledge about a topic and to scaffold them as they ask questions and
organize the infomration their learning (Tompkins, 2014, Pg.446).

Anticipation Chart
CCSS: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.2.1 - Ask and answer such questions as who, what,
where, when, why, and how to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text.
Rationale: Teachers use anticipation guides (Head & Readence, 1986), before they read
nonfiction books and content-area textbooks in particular. Teachers prepare a list of topics
to discuss; some are true, others are incorrect, others are based on common
misconceptions. Students discuss the statements and decide of they disagree with them
(Tompkins, p. 432).

Part III: Tutor/Tutee Writing

After the first writing assessment, I learned that Armando needed a lot of work
with the formatting of paragraphs and writing complete sentences. Therefore I wanted to
take the writing process really slow with him. We started with a bubble map for
brainstorming; he was very creative and could come up with a lot of different ideas. The
next session we looked at our brainstorm and picked out our three favorite ideas. We then
took those three reasons and expanded on them. For this I introduced to him the
hamburger strategy. Which has become one of my favorite strategies for writing.
Armando is a very visual learner, so this was perfect for him. Although the strategy
helped him understand how paragraphs should be written. He still had some difficulties
with writing the paragraphs. He struggled with adding details, and describing the
different ideas that he came up with.
Therefore, we spent a lot of time going over his rough draft. If I could go back, I
would definitely spend less time on drafting, because the descriptions and details could
have been added during revising. Regardless, he was able to produce a final draft, which
was much better than the writing I received for his original assessment. I also dont
believe I can say any of the strategies didnt work, because I think they all helped him
learn how to be a better writer. But I would have loved to go more in depth on editing and
revising. As he wasnt able to fully grasp the two concepts in the short amount of time
that we had to go over them.
These strategies are considered best practice, because they are what worked best
for my tutee. Like previously mentions, he is a very visual learner, so the bubble map and
the hamburger strategy worked very well for him. They also are things that I will be
incorporating into my classroom once becoming a teacher.

Bubble Map Brainstorming

CCSS: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.3.5 - With guidance and support from peers and
adults, develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, and editing.
(Editing for conventions should demonstrate command of Language standards 1-3 up to
and including grade 3 here.)
Rationale: Writers begin tentatively talking, reading, brainstorming- to see what
they know and in what direction they want to go. Prewriting (is) as crucial to writers as
a warm-up is to athletes (Tompkins, 2014, Pg. 48)

Hamburger Strategy
CCSS: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.2.5 - With guidance and support from adults and
peers, focus on a topic and strengthen writing as needed by revising and editing.
Rationale: Some teachers use a standardized format during the first draft stage of
writing. The hamburger strategy utilizes a template that resembles a hamburger with
this strategy students minds are open to look at the more technical aspects of their
writing (Orange County Public Schools, 2009)

Part IV: Tutor/Tutee Word Study

I was able to use a plethora of different strategies for word study. I used open
sorts, closed sorts, word hunts, spelling-meaning sorts, and morphemic analysis
worksheets. These were all really great strategies and they all seemed to work well for
Armando. I was a little worried for the open sort, because there was a specific way I
wanted him to sort it but at the same time I wanted to see what he would figure out on his
own. But it ended up working out very well. I was able to do the sort with him on my
Ipad, and then we both explained to each other the way we sorted it and why. In the end
he said he liked my way better, and then changed his sort. Armando also liked the word
hunt a lot because it let him look through our book again, and he got to find words that he
had already seen.
If I could go back I think that I would spend more time on the reasoning behind
each word sort. I dont think I did a very good job of explaining to him the rules behind
each sort and word pattern that we did. Which could be why his spelling didnt increase
too much. But regardless, he improved, and I know he was able to pick up some of the
different patterns that I was teaching him. I think this is also something that didnt work
for our sessions. Since I didnt know how to better explain to him the rules or all the
exceptions to the rules confused him. I think when teaching my students in the future I
will explain to them the rules when doing any sorts. That way it will help them remember
it better. This semester I have learned a lot of catchy word study phrases in my practicum
class, so I definitely think those will have.
Many teachers use these strategies, and I actually found most of them in the
Words Their Way textbook. Therefore I would say they are considered best practice, and
like I said, I myself will continue to use them in my classroom in the future.

Teacher Directed Closed Sort

CCSS: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.2.3 - Know and apply grade-level phonics and word
analysis skills in decoding words.
Rationale: The highest level of support and explicit instruction is offered in teacherdirected closed sorts (Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, Johnston, 2012, Pg. 59).

Word Hunt
CCSS: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.2.3 - Know and apply grade-level phonics and word
analysis skills in decoding words.
Rationale: Students do not automatically see the relationship between spelling words
and reading words, Word hunts help them make this important connection (Bear,
Invernizzi, Templeton, Johnston, 2012, Pg. 65).

Part VI: Works Cited

Cooter, R. B., Flynt, E. S., & Cooter, K. S. (2013). The Flynt/Cooter Comprehensive
reading Inventory-2: Assessment of K-2 reading skills in English and Spanish.
Pearson Education.
Johnston, F. R., Bear, D. R., Invernizzi, M., & Bear, D. R. (2012). Words Their Way:
Word Study for Phonics Vocabulary, and Spelling Instruction. Upper Saddle
River, NJ: Pearson Merrill Prentice Hall.
Learning A-Z. (n.d.). Reading A-Z. Retrieved from https://www.readinga-z.com/
Reading to Kids Books by Grade Level. (2016). Retrieved from
http://readingtokids.org/Books/BooksGrade.php
Tancock, S. M. (1994, October). A literacy lesson framework for children with reading
problems. The Reading Teacher.
WETA Public Broadcasting. (2015). Helping Struggling Readers. Retrieved from
http://www.readingrockets.org/helping
Winchester-Seeto, T., Mackaway, J., Coulson, D., & Harvey, M. (2010). 'But how do we
assess it?' An analysis of assessment strategies for learning through participation
(LTP). Retrieved from http://www.apjce.org/files/APJCE_11_3_67_91.pdf