Your name: Gabrielle Dito

strategies: Yes
School: Sewell Elementary
District: Tucson Unified
Grade: 3rd
Program: SEI
Subject: English
2017
Bilingual: Not really

Trained in SEI/SIOP/Sheltered
Where trained: TUSD workshops
# of Students: 3
# of ELLs: 3
Their home countries: Mexico, Zambia,
Marshall Islands
Date of Observation: November 1st
Day of Week: Tuesday
Time: 10:00-10:30

I observed during the third grade students daily pullout that occurs
before their break. Two students from my class were present, and one
student from the other third grade class. The room was colorful and bright; it
was divided into quadrants. Each quadrant seemed to be used for a separate
purpose, one had a rug but the other three had tables. There were many
posters on the wall. The majority of them dealt with English, and English
language speaking. They had parts of speech, vowel sounds, basic
vocabulary and more. The language objectives were clearly stated, and I
recognized them because we also have a copy hanging in our classroom.
They stated:
Reading: I will show understanding of phonemic awareness by telling
the difference between long and short vowel sounds in orally stated
single-syllable words (e.g. bit-bite etc.)
I will show understanding of decoding by: Reading regularly spelled
two-syllable words and compound words including consonant blends,
consonant/vowel digraphs (th, sh, ck) and diphthongs (ea, ie, ee) and r
controlled vowels. Reading high frequency words.

I will show understanding of reading comprehension by comparing and

contrasting two characters within a fictional text.
Grammar:
I will show understanding of grammar by:
Choosing a simple present tense verb to complete declarative,
negative, and interrogative sentences (subjectverb agreement)
Using subjective pronouns with instructional support.
Selecting adjectives to complete given sentences (i.e quantity
concept/size/shape/color).
There were also listening and speaking, as well as writing objectives posted.
The teacher is actually the mom of one of the students in my class.
She is Latina, around 35- 40, and speaks in a kind manner. The students
were visibly excited to be in this pullout, and they gathered around a
horseshoe table, although it was clear they often reside in different parts of
the room. The lesson was a review of some vocabulary they had learned the
other day through reading a book together. The three students were very
diverse. One female and two males, none of them had the same first
language. Since two of them were from my class, I knew that their first
languages were Spanish and Swahili, but I had never met the boy from the
other class, whos first language was Marshallese, a language I had not her
of before. He and the girl from my class are emergent, while the boy from my
class is intermediate. The girl was dressed in bright colors with a bow in her
hair, with her hair clearly done by her mother, which she always is, and she

clearly adored the ELL teacher and was happy to be there. The boy from the
Marshall Islands was quiet and small in stature, with a rat-tail hairstyle and
a generally disheveled appearance. The other boy was dressed plainly and
simply, as he always is.
The instruction was all in English, with occasional Spanish keywords
thrown in. The teacher is not fluent in Spanish, but is definitely
conversational and does not know either of the boys language. They began
by reviewing six words that were writing largely in different colors on a
paper: Ugly, beautiful, patient, garden, vegetable, sincerely. They read
them chorally and reviewed their meaning. Then using the paper, they put
the words into different colored sentences. The colors were not correlated to
the answer, but they helped to differentiate the sentences.
Then, they reviewed declarative and exclamatory sentences, choral
reading different sentences and putting either an exclamation point, question
mark, or period at the end. Each student completed one by themselves, and
then they moved on to the next student. They did this eight times. The
students definitely seem eager to participate, and I would say that there is
an 85% participation rate. I say this because the girl from my class would
often play with the markers, or the papers, or her hair instead of listening.
She would be eager to shout out and participate, but frequently did not
understand what was going on.
I saw this teacher use many strategies in the classroom. She had the
objectives displayed, she modeled the academic behavior. We reviewed

vocabulary from last weekend, and put them in sentences to further cement
the concept. I often heard her linking students background Tellerson , she
would say tell me, have you ever seen a garden?, or Issa, what is your
favorite vegetable? Do you like them? This way the students were able to
connect their background with the vocabulary. Her speech time was very
slow, and he wait time was impeccable. She waited what almost felt like
excruciatingly long for the students to answer, but they always did and 90%
of the time, they were right. She was always complimenting them, and her
visuals were very simple but effective. I could not believe the difference
differentiating with colors made.
Before long, the lesson was over and the students went back to class. I
feel as though this is not enough to build their English skills, as it only
happens for 30 minutes every day. Especially with my emergent student,
who barely gets the opportunity to practice English in a totally safe location.
Although I believe it is helpful for some crucial skills, it reinforced the idea
that I need to be incorporating SEI strategies into my mainstream classroom.