The column charts above show a comparison of the six LD students learning goals pre and post assessments.  Note these students’ perfect scores on LG2.  I chose to give a whole group lesson in the gathering area to observe if they would do better with this kind of learning.  I had 100% participation and I saw the difference with the students wanting to be a part of the class while asking more questions and being talkative.  This was good to note as I now know that they want to communicate and not sit there and probably need help with the lack of confidence to speak out.

            My main concern in my classroom is my six undocumented learning disabilities students.  In the last six weeks, sixteen out of my twenty four students leave the classroom for enrichment, three times a week for a total of four hours.  So I am left with my six LDs and two other students that came from different schools and in my opinion and could be seen the various graphs, if they were tested would be in that enrichment class also.  These four hours are used to get my LDs caught up in areas which I see that they need help such as, phonics, context clues, making inferences, drawing conclusions, multiplication etc. The two higher students (DP and KN) are usually put on computers on sites such as BrainPop to keep them focused, on task and challenged.

            One major difference I have seen when these six students are together is that they become more talkative, act silly and are a delight to work with as I think their true personalities are shown and they become different students than when they are being taught with the whole class; being in a smaller class will definitely be a benefit to them.

            The comparison column charts (set 2) will show their definite struggles but also show their improvement in their post-assessments.  These six students comprise of four boys (a set of twin) and two girls.  The paternal twin boys AM and BM are very different, the smaller one is more focused and listens as the chart will show, so he is a better student than his twin brother who is very playful and has to be reminded several times a day to stay on task.  JD is also a twin but his twin sister is in another third grade class.  Within the last month or so JD had show tremendous improvement in class work and I have observed him more playful at recess which is a good sign as he is becoming more open even in whole group lessons.  JL was a great surprise to me because he is a very tall boy, witty, and polite but his thinking of real life situations does not quite connect in the classroom. 

            For my two girls, SW has short attention span and I have to constantly watch her and remind her to get back on task.  I am trying to come up with a plan to keep her on task; probably to have her come to me for 20 extra points (going behavioral system) when she completes an assignment.  AH is a sweet girl but always has a story to tell and boy can she tell a story.  I have fallen on a plan, whenever she comes with a story, I would say can you tell me at recess?  That seems to work as she can take up half a lesson to tell a story.  The column chart will show that she had a fantastic score of 103 in her spelling post-assessment; I just about had a heart attack when I graded her test.  AH’s high scores and all the other students as a matter of fact can be attributed to the rigorous spelling activities (mentioned earlier) that the students enjoy so much and show much enthusiasm when spelling activities are announced. 

            All in all, since the enrichment students have been leaving the classroom, there has been much improvement with my LDs as I get to pinpoint their weaknesses and create activities and objectives that would improve these weaknesses. I am extremely pleased with their progress over the last two learning goals.

            I discussed the fact that these students are more active when they are in small groups with my host teacher and she promised that after I leave she will continue the small groups them.

LG 1– The student will recognize plot, setting, and characters within text, and compare and contrast these elements between texts.

            Based on the high/low scores of my LD students on the pre-assessment of LG1, JL could have received a higher score had he completed his assignment.  Even though enough time was given for all students to complete the assignment and specifically told to turn in only when assignment was completed; he did not following directions.  From analyzing AHs score, there seem like a lack of comprehension on how to complete each question.  When giving an assignment as such again, I must always give a written example of how the questions should be answered.

            For the post-assessment, I did give an example of how I want the students to approach the events of the story; what happened first, then what happened next and so on.  AH was definitely paying attention as I was explaining and earned a C for her efforts. 

            As I read JDs story events I see that he could not follow the chronological order of the story and was a little confused.  In order for him to improve in this area I would have him read short stories and retell in order, by making follow a pattern such as, “In the beginning, next and then finally.”

LG 2– The student interprets information from illustrations, diagrams, charts, graphs, and graphic organizers.

I did not give a written pre-assessment instead; I chose to give a whole group lesson in the gathering area.  Below is the Venn diagram that was completed on the teaching easel from the lesson.

                  In analyzing JDs work I can tell there was comprehension on his part that the outsider could not see unless he or she saw the excerpt in the book.  In the excerpt in the students’ text even though “The Singing Marvel” was about a mocking bird, they put a picture of a dog to show that the mocking bird can also copy the bark of a dog.  Using the graphic in the book makes me believe that JD is a visual learner as he is trying to draw conclusions and understanding from the graphics.

            The first error to hit me when I graded AHs paper was that the “The Singing Marvel” was fiction.  This was a previously taught (fiction/non-fiction) lesson that I had to clarify as “The Singing Marvel” was indeed non-fiction.

LG 3– The student identifies the meaning of common idioms and figurative phrases and incorporates them into oral and written language.

            It is obvious from the attempt at idioms that AH did not know what an idiom was.   AM got it but did not complete the assignment by writing what the idiom meant.   We did many activities on the promethean board by going to websites such as BrainPop and FunBrain.  It was fantastic to see all students passing this learning goal as the lowest overall score was 70%.

LG 4– The student reads literary and informational texts and incorporates new words into oral and written language.

The pre-assessment told me that we have to practice and put more emphasis into learning our words and meanings as not one of my LD students met my expectation of 70% and over.  .AH looks as though she made the assignment difficult and maybe got confused by drawing lines to the answers as erasure marks could be seen on the paper.

             LG 4 proved to be my most improved scores between the pre and post-assessments.  This was AHs highest score of all the LGs.  This can be attributed to the many activities we did with our words this week.  We played sparkle, hang mouse, word searches and more.  This made me think that these students need repetition to make the material stick.

LG 5– The student distinguishes fact from opinion.

            After the brief explanation of fact and opinion it seems as though AH did not quite understand the concept as she missed every single question.  When I approached her to clarify and to find out what was the problem she said that she was hungry as she was late for school and mom did not have time to give her breakfast.  This could have contributed to why she was not focused on this particular pre-assessment.  She did meet my goal as she scored 70% on the post-assessment.

            After I had such promising scores on the previous LG which I suspected was the scores was great because of repetition, I went ahead and administer small activities focusing on fact and opinion such as computer quizzes and reading short stories and pulling out the facts and opinions.  The entire class did great on this LG.

Explanation of Importance of High/Low Scores

            It is important to understand both learning proficiencies because when a teacher looks at a student with low scores she can pinpoint the misunderstanding and adjust future lessons so as not to cause this to recur again.  Many time in clarifying a specific objective the rest of the class get a more concrete explanation as sometimes students just kinda, sorta get it but needs a little more explanation for the ‘aha’ moment.

            Additionally, teachers can even ask a student with a high score to explain to the class the answer.  A students’ explanation of a problem many times can clarify a position from the students’ point of view.