Student-Teacher Focuses On Phonics

by Maya McFadden

Jennifer Ryalls and Knapp inside the school’s resource classroom Tuesday.

East Rock School fourth graders Damian and Ashley looked up at their classroom’s whiteboard and saw the words “tugging” and “jumper” — as they worked through a lesson about which words need a double consonant before adding suffixes, and why.

The duo did so along with their three other classmates Tuesday morning with the help of a visual checklist provided by student-teacher Erin Knapp and veteran resource teacher Jennifer Ryalls.

Ryalls has been mentoring Knapp, who is one of over a dozen Yale Teaching Fellows taking part this school year in the university’s new partnership with New Haven Public Schools (NHPS), Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU), and New Haven Promise.

The special-education classroom work on display Tuesday showed students sounding words out and learning to read and spell through a focus on phonics. It also demonstrated how Knapp is learning to become a teacher both with the help of Ryalls and through her own direct experience with students.

The Yale Teaching Fellowship program is in its inaugural year of training aspiring educators in NHPS shortage areas of math, science, and special education. The fellows get their student-teaching experience in a city school while paired with a mentor, learning the ropes on the ground with New Haven students. At the same time, the fellows are also pursuing a master’s degree at SCSU for their teaching certification.

In class on Tuesday, Ashley looked through the checklist’s doubling rules before adding the “-ing” suffix to the word “tug.”

First she checked if the base word had one syllable. She clapped her hands together while saying aloud “tug,” confirming it did have one syllable. Then she said the word out loud again a few more times to check if it has a short vowel. She recalled learning that a short vowel makes a quick sound while a long vowel takes its time to sound like the letter’s name.

Ashley put a check next to that rule after confirming that “tug” has a short vowel. For the final two rules, she looked to see if the word ended with one consonant and at the suffix to see if it started with a vowel.

Those earned Ashley two more checks on her checklist, making it so the word “tug” met all the conditions to double the final consonant before adding the suffix to make the word “tugging.”

Damien followed along with the same checklist, but for the word “jump” and the suffix “-er.” As he went through his checklist he excitedly checked off that the word met the conditions for three of the four rules. When he next checked if the base word ended with a single consonant, he paused. He repeated aloud a reminder of the vowels “a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y.”

When he noticed the word “jump” ends with two consonants, he placed an “x” on the final and fourth condition. So when Damien went on to spell “jump” with the “-er” suffix, he didn’t double the final consonant, spelling the word on his worksheet as “jumper.”

Tuesday’s lesson used Orton-Gillingham’s multi-sensory approach to the class’s phonics lesson.

The fellowship program uses a “gradual release” model for its fellows, who mid-yera took on two practicum courses at their home schools. Knapp led Tuesday’s class on her own while Ryalls informally observed

After recent lessons focused on phonemic sounds, Knapp pushed her class of five to learn a new spelling rule.

Ryalls worked with Knapp to adjust Tuesday’s lessons to include more visual checklists for their fourth-grade group. After showing the students the conditions when to double a consonant and then working through examples with them, Knapp encouraged them to do it on their own. The teaching duo referred to this model as “I do” then “we do” then “you do.”

Typically, Knapp said, she would’ve shown the students how to do the task and then done examples with them then saved the “you do” part for next class. But, on Tuesday, she said students took to the new lesson quickly.

Knapp noted that having the students practice individually helped her to gather data on where they’re at with mastering the lesson. That in turn helps her prepare for their next lesson the following day.

“She’s definitely got it in her,” Ryalls said of Knapp Tuesday.

Knapp credited Ryalls for giving her a learning space to make mistakes and learn from them along the way.

Knapp said that she has learned from Ryalls just how important it is in special-education classrooms to collect and use data to support students. “It’s the foundation for everything we do,” Ryalls said. She said that data helps teachers explain students’ needs during Planning and Placement Team (PPT) meetings.

Knapp noted that Ryalls has helped her to learn to always keep a calm demeanor in classrooms.

Ryalls said that much of her mentorship for Knapp has been motivated by her own experience in teaching students. She’s been an educator for the past 13 years, 11 of those at East Rock.

At the start of the year, Knapp said she had no idea how to teach phonics.

Before Tuesday’s lesson on the doubling rule, Knapp reviewed the class’s previous work on suffixes and phonemes.

Students used their hands to clap out syllables and finger taps to track phonemes.

Students like Mahogany helped to refresh her classmates on previous lessons like the “magic e” rule.

“I learned a lot in my classes,” Knapp said. “But this classroom part is the most important part of the program. This is the reason I’ll succeed.”