Week 14 - Harris (Initial)

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Jones,

Over the course of the school year thus far, Michael has shown definite improvement in regards to his literacy abilities. Michael's skills continue to improve, however, he seems to be struggling with recognizing connections between a few particular letters of the alphabet, and the sounds that they represent. The difficulty that he is experiencing poses a challenge for him when it comes to sounding out words when reading, and 'stretching words' in order to write them. Michael is not the only student in our class who is struggling with this. In order to combat this, I plan to engage in differentiating instruction, which involves responding to the variance among learners to ensure effective support for learning occurs in classrooms. This means, I will be implementing a number of different strategies during lessons and activities in order to cater to the different interests, and learning styles and rates of all students.

If I continue to provide generalized instruction to all students, I feel it would prove very counter-productive and overwhelming for students who require a bit more support. I recognize that, in order for Michael and the rest of the students in our class to be successful in regards to the various components of literacy, it is necessary for me to modify my teaching style. In order to best accomplish this, students will be put into groups with other students with a similar skill-set. This way, when students are working in groups, I will be able to provide each group of students with specific instruction that will benefit them the most based on the skills they are working to improve. Hopefully, this will also help to alleviate some of the intimidation that some students are currently experiencing while working in a group with students they are not yet fully compatible with. Also, I would also like to place more emphasis on individualized instruction. While students are working in their groups or pairs, I plan to provide one-on-one assistance to the individual students who I feel could benefit from it. This will allow me to assist students in improving individual skills to help them become more successful in regards to their overall literacy. Also, in order to further support Michael and the other students will similar skill-sets, I think it could be very beneficial to reintroduce less-complex texts until the desired skills are acquired. This way, reading will prove less daunting and overwhelming, and it will enable Michael to more easily recognize and identify the connection between letters and their sounds.

I am excited about implementing differentiated instruction in the classroom, and I am very hopeful that it will greatly benefit Michael, and the rest of the students in our class. If you have any questions or further suggestions, please contact me.

Thank you,

Holly Harris