Professional Practice
Standard 5: Assess, provide feedback & report on student learning

Photographs of work samples of Kindergarten students learning to sound out words using knowledge of letter-sound correspondence and digraphs.

​

The role of timely and constructive feedback aligned with overarching goals in sustaining student’s engagement and motivation in their learning process cannot be overemphasised, as highlighted by NESA (2019). I, therefore, incorporated plenty of opportunities to assess students’ skills and progress towards competency in reading and writing, using their developing phonics knowledge and the Multilit program for Kindergarten. This was one activity in a lesson focused on spelling words accurately with the sound of the digraph ‘ay’. This activity was a formative assessment of students’ learning and my teaching which also recognised students’ abilities and skills and highlighted areas requiring more support or consolidation. Students practised sounding out the word ‘day’ using their sound boxes to demonstrate their understanding of digraph ‘ay’ and transferring this knowledge of the sound /ay/ to other words using the same diagraphs. It allowed students to understand the purpose of using diagraphs to develop a procedure to sound out words and also allowed me to assess whether they were incorporating diagraph sounds and were able to transfer them to sound out other words.

When one student was unable to comprehend the concept of diagraphs and essentially could not, spell or write letters in the right boxes, timely and constructive feedback supported the student to reflect on her understanding of the sounds and their contribution in writing words correctly. Initially, she was appreciated for correct letter-sound correspondence for the letter ‘d’, however prompting questions encouraged her to think about the meaning of diagraph and their use in spelling out the words. Once she was on the right track, she was provided with more examples to practice further with feedback provided.

Students who demonstrated competency in understanding the idea of the digraph and its use to spell words accurately were also appreciated with positive reinforcement to maintain their motivation in their learning. Activities that allow for instant feedback are pivotal for students to achieve a higher level of understanding and teachers to alter and modify their practice in the right direction.