Learning Log Ch. 1 & 2

Diagnostic teaching, then, is the process of using assessment and instruction at the same time to establish the instructional conditions that enhance learning.

As a elementary education teacher, I am always adapting and revising lessons as I am teaching to keep up with the individual needs of my students. I once taught a lesson to a kindergarten class where I had the students making clocks out of paper plates. I had put dotted numbers on two of my students plates because I did not feel that they would be able to keep up with the lesson and create their clocks successfully. The lesson was going well and we had put the numbers 12, 3, 6, and 9 on the clocks. As soon as I turned around to explain to the students where to put the number 1, I knew that I was in trouble. I had the students try to put the numbers 1 and 2 on their clocks, but after that, I wrapped up the lesson and we moved onto something else. My assessment had told me that the students were no longer able to continue. I did repeat the lesson the follow day, but now every student had dotted numbers on their clocks!!

The diagnostic teacher is an active problem solver. She is much more than a test giver. She is first and foremost a teacher.

I found this statement to be very refreshing. In my opinion, teachers of every grade level are natural problem solvers. I think that it is part of what lead me to teaching and more importantly, literacy instruction. I want to be able to help struggling readers to become the best readers they can be. This is at its basic level, identifying a problem and solving it.
This statement also resonated with me because at this time in education, we have more standardized testing than ever before. Sometimes we may forget that we are teachers because we have to get our students ready for state test number 3 for the year. We have to make sure that they do well on these tests or we may be held personally accountable. This type of distraction can lead us to forget that our first job is to teach.


The synthetic phonics approach begins by teaching the sounds of letters. These sounds are then blended to form words, and finally rules for the different sound combinations are given.

Even with the limited knowledge about reading and literacy instruction I have, I feel that a balanced literacy approach is the best way to teach. This would include phonics as well as site word instruction. My mother, who is a nurse, admitted to me the other day that when she comes across a big word that she does not know, she skips it. She does not know the different sounds of the letters and how to sound out words so she has no way of figuring them out. She learned how to read and write through the whole language approach so she was never taught phonics. Basically, if she can't memorize a word and its spelling, she will never know what the word is. This has lead her to believe that she is neither a good reader nor a good writer. When she first told me this, I thought, how could you not know the sounds of the letters? I then thought about my 4 year old son, that is learning his letters and the sounds that they make. He is being taught everything one step at a time. There are no human instincts to tell us the sounds that letters make. It all must be taught. This is why phonics instruction plays a huge part in my literacy instruction. So every one of my students will be able to sound out "big words" and feel success as readers and writers.


Although problem readers try hard, they do not meet the standard created by other rapid learners in the classroom. Over time, problem readers change their perceptions of the context and view literacy events as experiences to avoid because their efforts do not result in positive evaluations by their teachers.

In class the first day, Professor Warham said something that really hit home with me. She said that if you were not reading at grade level by grade 4, statistics show that you never will. You may learn to cope but you will never catch up and you may even end up shutting down. Well, I have a brother who in grade 8, was reading at a 2nd grade level. This was information given to my mother by a private tutoring school, that then charged my mother $10,000 for a year of intense tutoring that was said to have brought my brother up to grade level. Now he is in tenth grade and his teachers are asking him why he bothers coming to school at all. Obviously, he is still struggling as a reader and now they are forcing him to take the blame for shutting down and not trying anymore. Who would want to do something everyday that you were not good at? No one would put themselves through that kind of torture and humiliation. I feel that the school is the one that let him down and not the other way around. I don't know if my brother will ever be able to be a proficient reader but I know at his age, he probably doesn't care to. I just hope that he doesn't come to regret that later on in life...


In portfolios, individual differences are highlighted by changing the context to one of accepting uniqueness rather than evaluating sameness.

Wow, does this say it all. As elementary school teachers, we are almost trained to create a uniform group of learners so that teaching can be more managable. We want to be able to categorize every student so that we can fit them into the nice little box that they belong in. Well, this will not be my mission in life. I want to be a diagnostic teacher that allows each students individual strength to shine through instead of punishing those that can not live up to the standard of others. I want to have portfolios of students work all around my classroom as well as around the school. I want to showcase my students differences and create a classroom environment where being unique is where its at!