Standards and Skills

In my personal case I believe the three main ELA Standards listed for First Grade I would be able to adequately teach using just my prior knowledge. I have been around a first grade teacher almost my entire life, and I have gained classroom experience through my own teachers and my internships in classrooms. To teach first graders text features, it only requires that you are able to teach simple skills and to be able to explain each feature. Asking and answering questions is a basic skill and can be taught easily but also be a type of trial and error; the students need to know that there is "no stupid questions" and I believe I can establish that. The use of digital tools to "produce and publish writing" may be a little more difficult simply because as a teacher of first graders, there may be some slower learning students who have not reached the ability to produce pieces of writing as they are still learning basics such as sentence structure and punctuation.

In the CPALMS Educator Toolkit I would use the Lesson Plans provided in my classroom. This lesson plan feature gives teachers ideas and guiding tools necessary to make a successful teaching lesson. CPALMS gives lesson plans for almost every subject, including English and Language Arts and Mathematics. I would use this is my classroom as a foundation of each of my lesson plans so that I am successful in teaching my students but also gives me the ability to add my own creativity or theme.

During the newsletter assignment I learned more features of word including how to add images and place them in a certain spot and how to make them move forward or backwards over text. I also learned how to choose colors that work well together and how to make it be visually appealing. Additionally, I chose to add a theme and keep it throughout the newsletter in able to gage the readers. Next time, I will choose a darker contrast so that it is better from a reading standpoint. I can use these skills in the future when I am actually making letters to send home to my students' parents and I will be able to fully gage their understanding of what they are reading and get the important information across in an efficient manner.