First Grade Reflection Paper

First graders arrive to school filled with enthusiasm and eagerness to learn. First grade is a year of tremendous growth and many changes. Throughout first grade, students continuously learn more about life, school, friends, and content. In order to be effective, teachers must have an understanding of content knowledge, standards, developmentally appropriate practices, culturally relevant pedagogy, and research-based approaches. In this paper, I will demonstrate my knowledge of how first graders develop and apply literacy strategies and rationalize how I will apply this knowledge to plan an efficient instructional unit that teaches first graders how to explain the major difference between texts that tell stories and texts that give information. In kindergarten, students learned to recognize common types of texts. For first grade, students should be able to explain major differences between texts that tell stories and texts that give information. The concepts addressed in the standard that students will need in order to comprehend my unit include fiction, …show more content…
While all students are different, knowing these stages is helpful when considering or developing materials for different types of readers. (Pacific Resources for Education and Learning, 2012) Because I will be teaching my unit toward the beginning of the first grade year, I will focus on both the emergent and early/developing stages of literacy development. Literacy instruction in these stages should incorporate listening to stories and informational texts read aloud, pausing to define unfamiliar words, and discussing the book upon completion of the reading. (The Literacy Bug , 2014) I will use my knowledge of these stages to determine how to assist students in making text-to-text connections. I will also apply this knowledge by using engaging, meaningful, and well-written texts in my