Term

Spring 2024

Capstone

Capstone Project

Degree Name

MAT

Facilitator(s)

Trish Harvey

Content Expert

Grace Raymond

Abstract

This paper is the documentation of an educational coach’s journey to find the most effective small group instructional practices for teaching phonemic awareness and phonics to kindergarten and first grade students. The need to share this research led to the development of four professional development sessions for effective instruction of phonemic awareness and phonics instruction specifically created for teachers of kindergarten and first grade students. The Capstone project began by answering the question, How do kindergarten-first grade teachers use best practices in phonemic awareness and phonics to develop effective small group reading instruction that will increase students reading proficiency? The research led to four topics that teachers must understand in order to provide effective instruction. These topics are: Response to Intervention, using and understanding reading assessment data, best practices in teaching phonemic awareness and best practices in teaching phonics. This project includes: a narrative of the writer’s journey through the Capstone project, a review of associated literature, the four sessions of professional development complete with slides and an instructional guide, and an explanation of the framework used to create the professional development.

Project Type

Curriculum

Keywords

Curriculum, Staff Development, Teachers/ Teaching

dc_type

text

dc_publisher

DigitalCommons@Hamline

dc_format

application/pdf

dc_source

School of Education Student Capstone Projects

Included in

Education Commons

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