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Something I found challenging in my placement was teaching students who were very low in reading, but their parents didn't want a psych ed or any interventions. (grade 3).

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Something that I found challenging during my last placement was teaching Wilson. Although as I got more comfortable with the lessons, I became more familiar with it.

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Encouraging interest in reading - Mackenzie

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Encouraging interest in reading - Mackenzie

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Kindergarten is mainly interest based learning. So to encourage reading, I took something that they were interested in and found books about it. For example, the students found a bee and were very interested in it. I found books and laid them around the room, and the kids went to them immediately. We then started to talk about how to ask questions about the things that they were seeing in the books to start to develop beginning literacy behaviours

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A challenge I had when teaching grade 5 language specifically making inferences was reaching a wide variety of needs including students at kindergarten, grade 1, grade 3, and grade 5 levels as well as ESL students.

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During my second block, there was a child who is ESL. She moved from China in August to live here full time with her family. I did an informative report writing unit with the grade 6's and she did so fabulous! She got a level 4- on her final report writing. The only challenge I faced during this was she only had ESL support once a week for 20 minutes. It was difficult to communicate and instruct with her fully... However, another student in the class spoke Chinese and he was able to translate and sit with her and I during one on one group sessions to re explain concepts. This was fabulous! This experience showed me that there is always a way to utilize many students strengths.

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I was in Kindergarten for my most recent placement and I got the opportunity to teach letters and letter sounds for Wilson Fundations. Specifically, I got to conduct "reading groups" where I worked with small groups and used whiteboards, as well as different games/puzzles to assist the tiers in working on letters to match where they are and what they need. My most memorable moment of working through Wilson was getting to do Mesmer assessments with each student. I loved getting to work one-on-one with them to not only find out what they know, but to help them build some confidence in their abilities with letters.

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Whole group language instruction is beneficial for students in building confidence! Allowing students to participate in a thumbs up/ thumbs down activity can be beneficial in observing student's understanding and confidence in the topic. This was done when teaching punctuation in kindergarten-- creating a sentence and asking students if the punctuation mark at the end of the sentence is correct (thumbs up) or incorrect (thumbs down)!

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I had a lot of ESL students in my placement, therefore communicating with them was a challenge. I got to teach them the basics through actions corresponding with words. The children loved this song and it helped them learn the sound the letter makes.

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Learn The ABC Phonic Song with APPLE as Your First Lesson-ABC Songs, ABCD, Nursery Rhymes, Baby Song

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A challenge that I found when teaching language and literacy during my last placement in a Grade 6 classroom was finding topics that were of interest to all learners in the classroom. I noticed particularly during their CASI assessment that many students who typically excel in language were getting low grades on their reading comprehension as they were uninterested about the story they were given or did not have many connections to make to the text as it was not relevant to them.

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I taught my grade 6 placement class opinion writing using the OREO method. This was a memorable experience as the students were highly engaged in the writing process and using this method contributed to providing the students with a positive experience to remember in literacy.

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Teaching Opinion Writing Using the OREO Method

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Teaching Opinion Writing Using the OREO Method

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In my practicum experience, we wrote Christmas stories. The children had to pick out of a bag their setting, 3 characters they needed to include in their story, the scenario (problem), and then come up with a solution. It made the Grade 4s excited about what they would get while also giving them structure with their writing, which I find they need!

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I taught a unit on descriptive writing with my grade 1 students and a lesson that worked really well to introduce the unit was a "mystery bag" activity. In paper bags I placed different items (candles, tree leaves, socks, etc.) and the students had to feel, listen, or smell the contents and tell me words that they would use to describe them. This prompted them to share adjectives and really amazing descriptive words without even realizing it!

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I had the opportunity to conduct small group tier 2 interventions of Wilson Fundations. I worked with grade 2/3's and saw them once everyday following the provided Wilson tier 2 curriculum. This was challenging because the students in the groups would often showcase differing capabilities and I would have to alter the Wilson curriculum. Though it was challenging, it was a great experience to learn about Wilson and how tier 2 intervention is conducted in the schools.

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We created black out poetry using a page from a class book we read (The Wild Robot). This was a fun activity that let students creatively engage with the text. Davis Ciccone

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Something that I found interesting was watching my placement teacher used videos to teach phonics as she was nervous that her accent was affecting students learning.

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A challenge I had was in a grade 5 class. I had several students on IEPs and had to accommodate their learning. I found that many resources for their reading level were not mature enough for them. I tried to create activities that catered to their interests but also at their reading level.

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I taught a lesson on figurative language (gr 4/5) where I had students identify different figurative language & devices within different text samples. I had some worksheets that involved song lyrics (popular songs that my students enjoyed) and students had to identify and explain the figurative device. One of my students who typically struggles with language fully understood the lesson and did not require 1 on 1 support to complete the worksheets. She yelled out, "OMG Ms.Herter I get it! This is SO easy." I learned that by incorporating student interests, concepts may become easier for students to understand.

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The school I did my placement at was at a school where low german was 95% of the student populations first language. I had two students in my class who spoke no english at all and majority of the class didn't speak strong english. It was very challenging when teaching them language as they were very behind in their reading and writing due to their language barrier and their inconsistency of being at school. (The students were mexican mennonites who migrated to and from mexico for months at a time throughout the school year so their schooling is very inconsistent). There is no translator available online for low german so I wasn't able to use any online tools to help translate what I was saying to them or what they were saying to me. It was a challenging experience but one of my best teaching experiences ever.

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During my most recent grade 6 placement, I had a homeroom class with 25 students, 17 of which had IEPs. Additionally, 4 students were English Language Learners. I was responsible for all of the Language planning & teaching. Therefore, when creating content/assignments, I had to make multiple copies with varying modifications and accommodations. This was new to me, as I had a grade 1 placement in block 1, and there were no identified IEPs. I found it challenging to understand HOW to differentiate for each child accurately, ensuring that the activity is not too easy, but also not too difficult. I also learned a lot about how to differentiate for ELL students and their needs in the classroom. For instance, vocabulary that is easily understood by myself may be a concept that my student has never heard of.

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Narratives - Literacy Teaching Experience

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Narratives - Literacy Teaching Experience

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I had the great experience of planning and teaching a narrative unit. I was amazed by how excited students were to write their own stories. Some students demonstrated a great amount of creativity and individuality when drafting, editing, and finalizing their stories. Something I noticed was that many students struggled with generating their own ideas, and would tend to rewrite stories or movies that had already been created. I wondered and explored different ways I could spark and promote creativity in writing. Additionally, for students with accommodations, I wrestled with how to allow their own ideas to show through when I was either scribing or assisting them with their planners. I had a habit of feeding them different ideas to give them examples, but they would often use these as their own ideas in their writing process. This presented challenges when fairly assessing their work. Therefore, I hope to explore new ways and strategies that spark creative ideas in students and how I can assist students with low reading and writing skills in subject areas like literacy to make it fair and equitable.

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In my grade two practicum, we started letter writing. Once we went through the components of a letter and how to format a letter correctly, students were tasked with writing a holiday card to someone in their family. Students did really well with writing their letters, but my most memorable moment was when some students came up with the idea to write ‘get well soon’ cards to a student in the class who was away for surgery. My students were engaged and excited for the task, and everyone ended up writing a ‘get well soon’ card to the student who was away. This was a really rewarding experience to see my students succeed academically while also demonstrating sympathy and compassion.

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Although I absolutely adored my placement class and loved teaching them, something I found challenging was finding ways to teach grade 4 curriculum to the learners in my class best. To explain, 17 of 26 students were at the "well below level" in their accidence testing, therefore it was difficult having them read or write grade 4 tasks when they were lower. As well, the class was busy and struggled with behaviour, therefore resources like text-to-speech technology were used inappropriately which posed further challenges.

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I was in a grade 5 class. For our science unit on the human body, I integrated a persuasive writing piece, where they had to write about why an organ needed to stay in the body. I found that some students got very invested in the writing process of planning, drafting, revising, and a good copy, while others wanted to rush through. I broke up the process for them, assigning a part for different periods to ensure that they could keep on track. For the students that had difficulty with writing- it was important that they had the resources to help them, whether it was one on one help or a computer.

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Something that I thought helped me during my placement was co teaching with our grade partners within our school. Before entering my placement, my associate teacher was often co teaching with the other grade 3 teacher and they had an amazing system going that I thought worked very well. When I first began teaching during this placement, I was nervous to take on teaching the two classes at once, but I began to work up the courage to do so which I think really benefited me as I could really feel my personal growth throughout this placement. It was challenging at first taking on teaching about 40 students at once and having multiple teachers in the room, but I think I learned a lot from taking that on and challenging myself to do something I was nervous about at first.

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Something I enjoyed in placement was the language unit I taught on descriptive writing. We did this based on gingerbread, we started this unit with brainstorming, students used each of their senses to describe the gingerbread. Students then completed a rough copy independently, where they selected descriptive words from the brainstorming to describe each of their senses. Their rough copies were edited and they completed a good copy. At the end of this unit, before Christmas, students families could come in to build a gingerbread house together. Students and families really enjoyed working together on this and reading their child's gingerbread writing.

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During my placement in a Grade 5 classroom, I noticed that writing was a challenge for many students. Most were working below grade level, and two MLL students needed extra support with spelling, sounding out words, and organizing their ideas. It was hard to balance helping everyone, especially with so many students needing one-on-one attention.

Although it was difficult, I found it rewarding to see small steps of progress, like a student sounding out a word they couldn’t before or completing a sentence with more confidence. It reminded me how important it is to focus on individual needs and growth in the classroom.

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My placement took place in a grade 4 classroom. In language, students were learning about descriptive writing, and the classic hamburger paragraph writing. Students practiced writing descriptive paragraphs based on a few prompts on the board for a few lessons. Although the prompts seemed fun and interesting to me, I found this wasn't always enough to maintain students' motivation and engagement. Something that worked was adding an extra element to the writing - such as making it a challenge, making it persuasive, or adding visual elements. An example we did was writing a descriptive paragraph about a made up character and drawing a picture to go along with it. Students would swap paragraphs but not pictures, and then try to draw the character based on the descriptions the other student wrote. They would then compare the drawings they made to see if they were similar which means the paragraph was properly descriptive.

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For my discussion post, I’m reflecting on teaching the OREO method for persuasive writing in my Grade 6 classroom. This experience was memorable because it helped my students become more engaged and confident in the writing process. I used a graphic organizer to break down the task into clear steps: Opinion, Reason, Example, and Opinion Restated. This structure made it easy for students to organize their thoughts and develop stronger arguments.

The students really embraced the method, as it simplified what could have been a complex writing task. Even students who usually struggle with writing were able to express their opinions more clearly. The graphic organizer acted as a helpful guide, and students were excited to work on their drafts, refining their ideas with each step.

Overall, using the OREO method made the writing process more approachable and enjoyable for my students, and they showed noticeable growth in their persuasive writing skills. It was a rewarding experience to see them engage with the task and produce thoughtful, well-structured pieces.

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A positive experience from my last placement is teaching the OREO method for persuasive writing to my Grade 6 students. I used a graphic organizer to help them easily construct a 5-paragraph writing piece, which would have otherwise felt daunting. By breaking the task into clear steps—Opinion, Reason, Example, and Opinion Restated—I was able to guide students through a structured process that made persuasive writing feel more approachable. The graphic organizer helped them organize their thoughts and created a roadmap for their writing, which not only helped them stay focused but also gave them confidence to express their opinions in a clear, logical way.

To make the lesson even more engaging, I incorporated actual OREOs into the activity. The students enjoyed the connection between the treat and the writing strategy, and it became something they will never forget!

The excitement and the positive feedback from the students reinforced how much the OREO method helped them succeed. They were motivated to write and genuinely engaged with the process, knowing they had a clear structure to follow. By the end of a series of lessons, not only did they produce well-structured persuasive essays, but they also gained confidence in their writing skills. This experience highlighted the value of using engaging strategies and clear frameworks to make complex tasks more accessible and enjoyable for students.

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In my practicum, I had 11 IEPs in my class, and I found differentiation to be a very challenging and time-demanding task, especially at the beginning of my placement. I often found myself creating lessons with activities designed at various levels to make them appropriate for all learners. I also used a program called Screencastify to pre-record lessons so that students would not feel overwhelmed and could learn at their own pace.