Brittney Recht

TLS 357
Benchmark

Child #1

Yesenia has made major progress in multiple domains of development throughout the

year. Through a variety of assessment methods, I have been able to track Yesenia’s growth over

the past four months. The domains I heavily focused on were mathematics, English language

arts and social emotional development. Mathematics is one of Yesenia’s strongest academic

areas. At the beginning of the semester, Yesenia was able to fluently count to 120 and higher by

1’s. As the year progressed, she learned more efficient counting strategies. A main focus was

learning how to count by 5’s and 10’s. Through observations, anecdotal notes, and work

samples I was able to gain information on her counting abilities. Yesenia is now able to count to

120 by 1’s, 5’s and 10’s. Since Yesenia is very fluent with counting she is beginning to work on

harder word problems. At the beginning of the year she was able to add and subtract numbers

within 10, now she is able to add and subtract with larger numbers.

Yesenia is making great strides in English language arts as well. She is becoming more

and more fluent with reading every single day. At the beginning of the year she was breaking

down each word sound by sound while reading. Now, she has built up her knowledge of

vocabulary, sight words, and grammar rules. For example when reading the word pet she would

break up the word into the three sounds “p/e/t” then blend them together to get pet. But now

she is able to identify this word and many other CVC words automatically. Therefore she is

reading a lot more fluently than she was at the beginning of the semester. Yesenia is flying

through the first grade decodable books in our classroom. She constantly needs a more
challenging level book. She is currently on level 65 out of 100. To track Yesenia’s progress with

reading, the main method of assessment I used was observations and anecdotal notes. I would

listen to Yesenia read and note her strengths and areas to work on. Yesenia is also progressing

in her writing. At the beginning of the year, she used her knowledge of letter sounds for

inventive spelling. She was able to spell CVC words easily. Now, she knows more spelling rules,

such as “sneaky e” and “vowel flexing” and is becoming more accurate with her spelling.

Yesenia’s work samples were a great source of information to gage where she is in her writing

abilities.

Yesenia has always been a very social child. She loves interacting with her classmates

and participating in lessons. But, sometimes she is a little too social during class time therefore

we have to redirect her focus back to learning. She also tends to blurt out answers and doesn’t

raise her hand to wait for her turn. These are two things that we have been working on

throughout the year. She is becoming more self-aware and is able to self-monitor herself more.

Although Yesenia has areas to work on socially, she also has many strengths. Some of her major

strengths are her leadership abilities and compassion. She is always taking charge and helping

her peers. She is a very caring child and tries to befriend each and every student. Yesenia is an

amazing role model in our classroom.

Child #2

Veronica is continuing to make major strides in her learning every day. Mathematically,

Veronica is becoming more fluent with her numbers. At the beginning of the year she was able

to count to 100 but she needed to look at a number chart as a reference. Now, Veronica can
count to 100 without a number chart. At the start of the semester, Veronica also needed a

number chart to reference when writing her numbers. Through constant practice and daily

activities, Veronica is now able to write the numbers 0-20 without any visual reference. Since

Veronica can write the numbers 0-20, she is now able to represent her work and answers more

accurately on paper. Veronica has also improved her addition and subtraction skills. She can

already fluently add and subtract numbers within 10. I have gathered all of this information from

analyzing Veronica’s work samples and teacher-designed assessments.

In English language arts, Veronica is constantly progressing. When the school year first

started, Veronica was in a kindergarten only classroom. About a month into the year, Veronica

was placed in my first grade-kindergarten combination classroom. When Veronica was first

placed in my classroom, she was able to identify only some letter names and sounds. Now,

Veronica is able to identify all the letter names and sounds of both uppercase and lowercase

letters. I think Veronica has grown tremendously in this area due to constant exposure and

modeling from the first graders. Since Veronica is fluent with her letter names and sounds she is

beginning to work on segmenting and blending CVC words. The main method of assessment I

used to gain this information on Veronica was curriculum-designed assessments. These

assessments were used to collect data for the classroom teacher and other school faculty.

Another method I used was observations and anecdotal notes. While Veronica participated in

activities on letter names and sounds I would observe her and write down what I noticed. Overall,

Veronica has made great progress since being placed in our classroom.

The biggest growth I see in Veronica is her social emotional development. Veronica is

currently on an Individualized Education Plan to help her with her social emotional development.
She struggles with interacting with the other students in the classroom. At the beginning of the

year she hadn’t formed many relationships because tended to stay in her own bubble and did

not interact or socialize with the other students. But, she has really come out of her shell and has

begun forming relationships with her classmates. She is beginning to understand how friendships

work. Veronica also struggles with expressing her emotions in an appropriate manner. At the

begging of the semester she would throw tantrums if she did not get her way or if she was told

what to do. These tantrums were happening very often, but now these tantrums are extremely

rare. She has been able to monitor her emotions and find appropriate ways to express how she

is feeling.