ST - Part e Planning Commentary

Early Childhood
Task 1: Planning Commentary
TASK 1: PLANNING COMMENTARY

Respond to the prompts below (no more than 9 single-spaced pages, including prompts) by typing your responses within the
brackets. Do not delete or alter the prompts. Pages exceeding the maximum will not be scored.
1. Central Focus
a. Describe the central focus and purpose of the content you will teach in the learning
segment.
[The purpose of the learning segment is for every student, including the struggling reader and
advanced learner, to gain the ability to read words they were not able to identify prior to the
lesson. Students will participate in hands-on activities that will allow students to make
connections with their life experiences and allow them to use some of their senses to learn. The
central focus is to ensure that students are able to identify a word, say the beginning, middle,
and ending sounds of the word, create the words using the same rime, and understand how the
words fit into a word family.]
b. Describe how the standards and learning objectives for your learning segment support
childrens
active and multimodal learning

language and literacy development in an interdisciplinary context
[Active and multimodal learning: Throughout the lesson, students will be interacting with their
partners. They will talk through an idea or concept together, come up with an idea, and share it
with the class. Learning experiences 1 and 2 will allow students to work with word family
houses. They will pick four words with the same rime and add it to their house making a word
family. Students will recognize that the words have the same rime meaning they are in the same
family. Learning experience 3 will allow students to use their senses to make a better
connection and have a better understanding of word families. They will hear the words being
used, see the way the words are spelled, see the same rime being used continuously, and
create the letters using Play-Doh. I am asking students to interact with the lesson in a variety of
experiences. They will work with the onset, rime, and be asked to identify the phoneme sounds.
They will produce work that will allow them to make a connection to real-life experiences.
Students will be actively talking with fellow peers, writing/ labeling the onset and rime in different
colors, skethcing pictures, and molding Play-Doh letters.
Language and literacy development in an interdisciplinary context: During all three learning
segments students will hear the vocabulary being used multiple times. I plan on continuously
saying the words so students are able to make connections and understand the words
meaning. Throughout the learning experiences, students will be asked to speak, read, write, and
create the words and rimes we will be working with. Students will hear the words and the
individual letter sounds that make up the word, be asked to read and identify the words they
would like to work with on the assignments, identify and write the onset and rime of the words,
and create the words using Play-Doh. Students will be asked to repeat the words to decide if the
words rhyme or not. ]
c. Explain how your plans build on each other to support childrens language and literacy
development through active and multimodal learning.
[Learning experiences 1 and 2 will introduce students to two new rimes they have never worked
with before. They will identify the onset and rime, create new words that have the same rime,
learn about word families, and rhyme the words. Students will see the word, hear how the word
is pronounced, and begin to recognize the onset and rime of the words. Students will create
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word family houses to help them connect that the word family words belong together. Students
will write the onset on the line and then they will sketch a picture to help them remember. These
pictures will help students remember the word better because they have made a personal
connection to the word with their drawings. Learning experience 3 will allow students the
opportunity to work with the words from the previous learning experiences. Before the activity,
there will be a review of the words. During the activity, students will be asked to read the word,
write the word, in orange crayon they will write the onset, in black crayon they will write the rime,
and then students will create each letter of the word in Play-Doh. Students will see the onset
and rime in two different colors, so it will help them be able to identify the two parts of the word.
Students will be creating the words out of Play-Doh because it is a interactive method that will
help them make connections.]
d. Describe how the physical environment in which you are teaching supports the active
and multimodal nature of childrens learning. (If, in your view, the physical environment
in which you are teaching does not adequately support the active and multimodal nature
of childrens learning, please describe the changes you would make.)
[The physical environment is ideal for students. There are many resources for students to
access in order to support their learning. A classroom library is in the back half of the room.
Students are able to select books from this library for reading. At each of the students tables,
there is a book basket of books. When students get done with work early, they are asked to
read a book silently to themselves until the next direction or subject starts. Each student has his
or her own book basket. In these book baskets, students have five books, which are leveled
according to their reading ability. These baskets also have the students writing journal for free
writing. During reading time, students are asked to write a story and create pictures. One of the
bulletin boards in the class is a devoted ABC wall. Common words students ask to spell or
special words are added to the word wall. When a student needs to know how to spell a word,
they are referred to the ABC wall. In the front of the room, an alphabet poster is hung on the
wall. The poster clearly displays both the uppercase and lowercase version of a letter. Another
poster that benefits students is a poster detailing students on how to make each of the alphabet
letters. Students often forget and need a reminder. They are able to look at the poster and see
the correct way to write it. Throughout the day students are often encouraged to talk to their
partners throughout a lesson. Students are able to answer the question with a partner before
discussing it with the whole class.]
2. Knowledge of Children to Inform Teaching
For each of the prompts below (2ac), describe what you know about the children in your
class/group with respect to the central focus of the learning segment.
Consider the variety of learners in your class/group who may require different
strategies/support (e.g., children with IEPs or 504 plans, English language learners, children
at different points in the developmental continuum, struggling readers, children who are
underperforming or those with gaps in academic knowledge, and/or gifted children).
a. Childrens developmentWhat do you know about their
social and emotional development

cognitive and physical development
language development for communication
[Social and emotional development: The students in my class are very well adjusted children.
They come from supportive homes. The parents of the students in my classroom frequently
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volunteer in the school or the classroom. They email my cooperating teacher about their childs
behavior, academic progress, and any questions or concerns about what their child is learning
in school. They help their child complete small homework assignments nightly and make sure
their child reads for at least 20 minutes every night. Based on observations of students in the
classroom and outside during recess, each student has a friend or group of friends they play
and work with. All students interact with each other extremely well. My cooperating teacher has
expressed multiple times that they all get along great. There have been no problems with
bullying or students not adjusting to the classroom procedure, rules, or the social aspect of
making friends. I often hear from the students about play dates arranged outside of the
classroom with fellow friends in the classroom. Every student in the classroom shows the
appropriate feelings when a situation occurs. Since I have been at the school, I have not had to
deal with any over, or under, emotional outbreaks. Students are able to express their feelings to
both my cooperating teacher and me.
Cognitive and physical development: The students in my classroom are able to complete the
work I am asking of them. The lessons will be adapted to best suit the learning style and needs
of each student so they can learn best. Each one of the students in my classroom goes to gym
class and participates fully in the sport or game being played. We often do small brain break
activities in the classroom that asks students to stretch, jump around, and dance. All children
are actively engaged. No one in my class receives physical therapy or struggles with gross
motor or fine motor skills.
Language development for communication: All the students in my classroom use English as a
first language. They are not learning, or using, any other languages at home. There are no
students with a speech delay. ]
b. Personal, cultural, and community assetsWhat do you know about your childrens
everyday experiences, cultural and language backgrounds and practices, and
interests?
[Students come to school in the morning ready to learn. Students have very supportive parents
that encourage them to behave appropriately and expect them to do their best. They come to
school every morning well rested and fed. Students have access to books and technology at
home that helps them in their learning process. Every students first language is English. The
students are learning the Catholic faith. Daily pray and religion lessons are taught so students
are learning how to be respectful to each other as part of their faith. All students in my
classroom enjoy completing hands-on activities. They enjoy working with their friends on
activities and assignments. With this in mind, I try to vary whom students work with so they are
able to have positive experiences with everyone in the class. Students enjoy taking brain
breaks, which are small activities completed during transition times. They enjoy being active, yet
they are able to refocus on the learning immediately. Students interact with manipulatives daily
during reading and center time because that is how they explore, discover, and make
connections. That is why it was important to incorporate a creation portion during my learning
experiences.]
c. Prior learning and prerequisite skills related to language and literacy development
What can they do and what are they learning to do related to language and literacy
development? Cite evidence from your knowledge of this class/group of children.
[Students in my classroom are able to identify all uppercase and lowercase letters. They are
able to say and identify each of the alphabet letter sounds. Through the Phonemic Awareness
Training instruction, written by Michael Heggerty (cited above), students are able to identify the
beginning, middle, and initial sounds of words. Since the students are able to hear the phoneme
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sounds, I decided to work on words that students were not able to identify on the pre-test. Also
from the Phonemic Awareness Training instruction, students have practice using the hand
chop motion to identify the sounds. I have previously used this method of separating the
sounds in other classrooms therefore I know how beneficial it is. I extended the hand motions to
include a clap (which is seen on video) so students can squish the letter sounds together to
create a word. Not only does this benefit students in reading, but writing as well. Students have
no previous work experience with identifying the onset and rimes in reading or written work. I
extended the lesson into introducing the concept of word families. Students have worked with
identifying rhyming words at the beginning of the school year. Students have no previous
background lessons on the two (or third for advanced experience) rimes I have chosen.]
3. Supporting Childrens Development and Learning
Respond to prompts 3ac below. To support your justifications, refer to the plans and
materials you included as part of Planning Task 1. In addition, use principles from
research and/or developmental theory to support your justifications.
a. Justify how your planned learning experiences and materials align with your
understanding of the childrens development, prior learning, and personal, cultural, and
community assets (from prompts 2ac above). Be explicit about these connections and
support your justification with research/developmental theory.
[Students learn best when they are interacting with learning materials and engaging hands on in
the learning experience. Students are asked to complete a variety of activities that will allow
them to make connections to real life experiences. Students pay more attention and gain more
when they do not know how much learning is really taking place. Lev Vygotsky believed that the
best way to teach students is to increase the social interaction and playfulness of each student.
Having students work with Play-Doh is an unconventional method, but it will be more effective
then writing the word in pencil. Younger students need to interact with learning manipulatives to
further their learning. Playing with Play-Doh and creating word family houses allows students
to take a playful approach to their learning. Additionally, allowing students to interact and talk
with each other will help them process and learn from each other.
Howard Gardner believed that an individual needs multiple types of interaction to better
understand an idea or concept. Throughout my lesson students will work on verbal skills by
hearing the word and rime repeated often, see the word on the whiteboard or easel and on their
own papers, see both the onset and rime of each word written in different colors, write the word
on their own papers, and create the words with Play-Doh. Students will be able to use visual
skills to see how all the words on the whiteboard have the same ending letters (rime). They will
connect because they have the same rime and they belong to the same word family. Students
will work on interpersonal skills by communicating with fellow peers on the rug before
communicating with the entire class. The students will be able to discover the answer together
or discuss the confusion among themselves and possibly collaborate to figure out the answer.
Students will work on intrapersonal skills when they identify all the letter sounds and discover
the words on their own. They will work on these skills throughout the three-day learning
segments. When they come to the rime in a book, they will have the confidence to recognize
and read the word immediately. Students will use bodily-kinesthetic skills when they are using
the hand chop motions to separate the beginning, middle, and end of words. They will be able
to separate the phonemes than squish the word together to create and read a whole word.
Students will also hear how all the words in a word family rhyme, which is another way students,
will be able to remember the word family. Students have a variety of opportunities to process
what a vocabulary word means and have hands on experiences to further their understanding.

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For all learners, I will gradually release responsibility of the learning to the students. I will model
and explain the lesson, have the students work on an example, and then the students will take
over the learning independently. I will build upon the previous taught knowledge of all the
students and extend the knowledge, or schema, like Jean Piaget suggested. Working with what
students already know and understand will help them succeed in the learning experience.]
b. Describe and justify how you plan to support the varied learning needs of all the
children in your class/group, including individuals with specific learning needs.
strategies/support (e.g., children with IEPs or 504 plans, English language learners,
children at different points in the developmental continuum, struggling readers, and/or
gifted children).
[The entire class works best when they are interacting with learning resources and
manipulatives. In learning experience 1 and 2, students will create word family houses to
better understand how word families are similar. They will be asked to identify the onset and
rime and write the correct letters. When the word houses are completed, students will see how
each word has the same rime and understand how they all are related. In learning experience 3,
they will be creating the words using Play-Doh. Students enjoy creating the words in this
unconventional way. For the struggling reader (Focus Child 1) in the classroom, I will be working
one-on-one with the student. I will provide a model of what the student will be expected to do so
the student better understands what is expected. I will introduce vocabulary words one at a
time. When I feel the student has mastered and has practiced the concept, I will introduce
additional information. We will start small and increase the knowledge as we continue on. I will
ask the student to identify the letters in the word, ask the student to sound out the individual
phonemes, have the student show me the onset and then the rime, ask the student to explain
the meaning, or definition, and finally ask the student to explain the concept of the word family.
The advanced learner (Focus Child 2) will be working with rimes the student was not able to
identify on the pre-test. I am allowing the advanced learner to work with a partner during the
second learning experience because I do not want the student to feel stressed coming up with
words alone. I will model the activities for the student but then allow the student to work
independently. Once the work is complete, I will ask the student to explain the vocabulary words
in the students own words. I will ask the student to explain the work that was completed and
why it was done that way. I will answer any questions the student may have and allow the
student to make connections that best assist the student to remember the word. While working
on the word family houses, students will make the connection that the words belong in the
same word family but also they will be asked to use their hand choppers to break up the letter
sounds while they are working. They will see the onset written in pencil and the rime written in
black typed letters so they can connect that it is one entire word but the words are broken up
into different parts.]
c. Describe common developmental approximations1 or misunderstandings that pertain to
the learning experiences you are planning for the children and how you plan to address
them.
[One possible misunderstanding I believe students may struggle with is when I refer to the rime
of a word and how word family words are rhyming words. I plan to use the word rime until
students understand that it is referring to the end of a word. Towards the end of the lesson, or
1
For example, common beginning or transitional language errors or other attempts to use skills or processes just beyond a
childs current level/capability.

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when I feel confident students understand, I will explain word family words have the same rime
and they are rhyme words. When I refer to rhyming words I will always say rhyming words,
never just the word rhyme. For students who struggling with the same word but different
meanings, I will ask them to identify what each word means to help them better understand. For
example, I will ask students to point to the six words and show me the rime. For rhyming words,
I will ask them to say two words and tell me what they hear and if they rhyme. The more
students work with words, the better they understand.]
4. Supporting Childrens Vocabulary Development
Respond to prompts 4ac below by referring to childrens range of vocabulary development
related to the learning segmentWhat do they know, what are they struggling with,
and/or what is new to them?
a. Identify the key vocabulary2 (i.e., developmentally appropriate sounds, words,
phrases, sentences, and paragraphs) essential for children to use during the learning
segment.
[The key vocabulary I will be presenting to the students are: onset, rime, word family, and
rhyming words. Students have mastered identifying letter sounds so I will not need to review this
before my learning experiences.]
b. Identify the learning experience that provides children with opportunities to develop,
practice, and/or use the key vocabulary identified in prompt 4a. (Identify the plan
day/number.)
[Through Learning Experiences 1 and 2, students will be asked to identify the onset of four
words by writing the letter(s) on the line in their word house. In whole group instruction, students
will also be asked to identify the onset and rime of every word we create and discuss. We will
also discuss what a word family is and what qualities lead to a word being in the same family.
Students will work with partners on the rug to rhyme all the words created during the instruction.
Students will be asked to say the words out loud so they can hear the rhyming quality of the
word. While working on rhyming the words with partners, students discuss more works that
rhyme with the word family to further their understanding of rhyming words. If not said out loud,
they may not hear the ending sounds correctly. I have chosen to ask students to make word
family houses so they can better understand that the words being talked about in both learning
experiences belong to the same word family. Through Learning Experience 3, students will be
asked to identify the onset and rime of the word family words talked about in learning
experiences 1 and 2. Students will need to correctly write in crayon the onset and the word.
Students will also need to correctly identify which words to pick to correlate with what they need
to create and build on the worksheet.]
c. Describe how you plan to support the children (during and/or prior to the learning
experience) to develop and use the key vocabulary identified in prompt 4a.
[During the learning experiences, I will frequently mention and review the vocabulary words I
would like students to learn. I will use the words continuously so students are able to have
ample opportunities to process what the meaning of that word is. I will ask students to identify
and label the words as much as possible so they are able to grasp the idea and concept being
presented. I will also allow students time to discuss the vocabulary words with their peers, or
Developmentally appropriate sounds, words, phrases, sentences, and paragraphs that you want children to use or create to
engage in the learning experience.

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partners at the rug or at their own table. Allowing the students to discuss with their friends
causes them to make connections so they are better able to comprehend.]
5. Monitoring Childrens Learning
In response to the prompts below, refer to the assessments you will submit as part of the
materials for Planning Task 1.
a. Describe how your planned formal and informal assessments provide direct evidence to
monitor childrens multimodal learning throughout the learning segment.
[I have planned formal assessments in the form of a pre-test and post-test. For the pre-test, I
chose to use the Z-test (citied at the end of all Part B Learning Experiences and Part D
Assessment of Task 1) so I could better understand the reading ability and the needs of each
student. There are a variety of learners in my classroom so I wanted the instruction to benefit
both the struggling and advanced students. I also wanted each student to learn a new word
family so when they come across that word in text, they are able to know immediately what the
word is. The learning experiences I created were based off of the pre-test results because I
chose words the students did not know. My goal was for every child to learn a new word family
and rime. At the end of the three-day learning experience, I planned a second formal
assessment, a post-test. I created a post-test based off of the words that will be used in my
learning experiences. Students will be asked to read 12 words, 6 of these words will be words
covered in the learning experiences. Out of the 6, 3 of the words will be -ail words and 3 of the
words will be -ay words. Everyone student will be tested the following day after the third
learning experience.
As for informal assessment, I will look over each of the worksheets the students are asked to
complete throughout the course of the three-day learning experiences to make sure they have
followed the directions and completed the work correctly. If I see any mistakes or hear students
confusing the vocabulary during the discussion portions of the lesson, I will address the
confusion at the end of the learning experience. I believe the clarification will be beneficial for all
the students, not just the students who were confused. A review of the vocabulary will be done
frequently throughout the lessons so students are hearing the words being used and how they
should refer to them as well. By completing this review of vocabulary words, I will be able to
informal assess whether the students are understanding the lesson.]
b. Explain how your design or adaptation of planned assessments allows children with
specific needs to demonstrate their learning.
strategies/support (e.g., all children along the continuum of development, including
children with IEPs or 504 plans, English language learners, struggling readers, and/or
gifted children).
[My lessons are centered around the pre-test which was given to students before the learning
experiences. I chose those word families because a majority of students missed the rime on the
Z-test. I want students to have the ability to identify words with the same rime. My goal was to
create a lesson that benefitted all students including the struggling reader and advanced
learner. For the struggling reader (Focus Child 1) in my classroom, I will work with this student
independently on Day 1 and Day 3 to make sure the student is understanding the vocabulary
terms and completing the work so connections can be made. I will model the lesson for the
student, offer my teaching support yet I want the student to work independently so a connection
can be created and the material is learned one step at a time. Once I know the student has
mastered one area, the student will gradually begin to do the work independently. Through the
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lesson, I will assess whether this student is learning by asking questions or asking the student
to correctly identify the vocabulary word while working. For the advanced learner (Focus Child
2) in the classroom, the student will participate in the first lesson because the student was not
able to identify the rime on the pre-test. The student will receive a review of the second word
family during whole class instruction, which will allow the student to master the word family. A
third word family the student did not know will be introduced during a small group lesson. The
student will be given the rime and will be asked to come up with words that fit into the word
family. I want the advanced learner to come up with the words because this will help the student
remember and make a connection to what is being taught. The student will be permitted to work
independently but I will assess the students knowledge throughout in order to track progress.
The entire class will learn about a new rime, and set of word family words, they did not
previously know, which will help them progress towards becoming a better readers and writers.]

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Early Childhood

Task 1: Planning Commentary

TASK 1: PLANNING COMMENTARY

active and multimodal learning

social and emotional development

Copyright 2015 Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University.

childs current level/capability.

Copyright 2015 Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University.

engage in the learning experience.

Copyright 2015 Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University.

Copyright 2015 Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University.

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