Running head: Developmentally Appropriate Instruction Teaching Competency p.

Developmentally Appropriate Instruction

Shavonta Wilkerson

Regent University

In partial fulfillment of UED 495 e-Portfolio, Fall 2019

Developmentally Appropriate Instruction p. 2

Introduction

Developmentally appropriate instruction competency promotes teachers specialize skills

of targeting instruction to meet children needs across developmental stages. Teachers whom

consider their students developmental state will champion their students’ ability to succeed and

push their students to excel. Given this frame of thought, this thesis will serve two purposes.

First, this paper will highlight my practical experience in delivering developmentally appropriate

instruction during my student teaching internship. Secondly, this thesis will demonstrate my

knowledge of developmental stages with the support of evidence-based research.

Rationale for Selection of Artifacts

I feel that it is relevant to present an artifact from my kindergarten experience to support

this competency. I was given the opportunity to spearhead the Kindergarten SOL K.1, which

calls for students to read, write, and represent numbers from one to twenty and for students to

accurately count the total of a given set of twenty or fewer. I decided to establish the connection

between quantity and an activity they were all probably familiar with—grocery shopping. I

comprised a list of twenty-four grocery items. I divided those items among ten grocery lists

where each list contained four different items. The next column on the list featured the quantity

of that item they were to collect. I scattered the bins throughout the room to give the effect of

going down different aisles. With a partner, students were given a brown paper bag with a list

inside. They were tasked with going around the room in search of the items on their list. The

objective of this activity was for the students to verbally count their items and write the number

in the third column on their list. Once students collected all their items, they worked with their

partner to glue the four different items on the back of the brown paper bags in straight columns.

To close this activity, a few groups were called upon to present and count their items.
Developmentally Appropriate Instruction p. 3

The second artifact I wish to present is a picture of my kindergarteners making the

numbers one to twenty using pipe cleaners. Not only did this activity promote cognitive

functioning by requiring them to think of the correct form of each number but this activity

exercise their fine motor skills as they only had a two-inch pipe cleaner to the form the number.

Each student was given a strip of construction paper. As a reference, they were instructed to

write the numbers from one to twenty at the top of their paper. By bending and folding a two-

inch pipe cleaner, they were able to form the shape of the numbers. Finally, each student taped

the number down to the paper.

Reflections on Theory and Practice

Tailoring academic, emotional, social, and physical content to suit students’

developmental stages is amongst one of the best practice teachers can deploy. However, prior to

my kindergarten student teaching experience, I had not considered the developmental stages of

children beyond the textbooks used within my courses. Kindergarten offers a wonderful

opportunity to develop an understanding into developmental stages. In kindergarten, one

witnesses executive functioning at its immature level. Dr. Philip David Zalazo (2015) describes

executive functions as skills essential to the intentional action needed to accomplish a goal.

Executive function involves three skills: cognitive flexibility, working memory, and inhibitory

control (Zalazo, 2015). As teachers, these factors have important implications when dealing with

a diverse body of students. Of the three aforementioned skills, working memory has been

mentioned the most during my student teaching experience. For the context of his study, Zalazo

(2015) characterized working memory as “… keeping information in the mind and,…,

manipulating it in some way.” Though this sounds much like neuroscience, considering working

memory has a practical place in education. For example, consider the act of reading which by
Developmentally Appropriate Instruction p. 4

the definition of working memory, requires one to take in information, i.e. the words on the page,

and manipulate this information, i.e. decoding and ultimately reading the word. H. Lee Swanson

and Rollanda O’Connor (2009) conducted a study that sought to examine whether working

memory, accompanied with fluency practice, played a role in reading comprehension of

dysfluent readers. By way of several models, results contrasted the notion that poor reading

stems from poor decoding skills. The results from one model indicated that working memory

tempered fluency, text comprehension, and word identification (Swanson and O’Connor, 2009).

When expounding on developmental growth, one would be remised if Jean Piaget name

was not mentioned. However, I would like to consider Vygotsky theory of cognitive

development. Vygotsky advocates for using prior knowledge to make sense of new information.

Given the diverse cultures that children are reared in prior to coming to school, it is beneficial for

teachers to aid students in tapping into their consortium of prior knowledge in order to establish

connections to new material presented in school (Gredler & Claytor-Sheilds, 2007, 45).

Vygotsky theories promotes the notion of “mediated structures”, which is centered on the

significance that when an outside stimulus is introduced into a situation and is successful in

aiding the individual in forming new connections within the situation, then the cognitive process

changes and this new stimulus acts as an mediator—connecting what the individual already

knew to the knowledge they are trying to acquire (Gredler & Claytor-Sheilds, 2007, 51). Thus

serve the purpose of interactive activities based on what students already know, such was the

attempt of the grocery store and counting activity. This is the nature of providing differential

content and promoting a student-centered classroom for which students can relate.
Developmentally Appropriate Instruction p. 5

References

Gredler, Margaret E. & Carolyn Claytor-Shields. (2007). Vygotsky’s legacy: a foundation of

research and practice.

Swanson, Lee H. & Rollanda O’Connor. (2009). The role of working memory and fluency

practice on the reading comprehension of students who are dysfluent readers. Journal of

Learning Disabilities, 42(6), 548-575.

Zelazo, Philip David. (2015). Executive function: reflection, iterative, reprocessing, complexity,

and the developing brain. Developmental Review, (38) 55-68.