1. Brittany Beaumont
Instructional Strategies
Teacher Keys
Performance Standard 3

2. Flexible Grouping
Brittany conducts small group instruction in each
subject area every day. These groups are formed
based on student needs. Ongoing formal and
informal assessment provides Brittany with insight
to the strengths, weaknesses, and learning modalities
of each student. This information is used to make
decisions about how best to group students, what
skills will be targeted, and what instructional
strategies will be most effective. Group composition
changes on a weekly basis and from subject to
subject.

3. Flexible Grouping
Continued

4. Enrichment for All
Brittany provides opportunities for enrichment to all
students multiple times throughout each week. She
integrates activities and resources into her instruction
that encourage students to stretch their thinking
about the Common Core Standards and apply higher
level thinking skills. All students participate in this
challenging learning, regardless of their skill
level. In this way, both high and low
performing students have opportunities to
maximize their learning.
Students engage with
a rigorous text and
respond to text-based
questions.

5. Enrichment for All
Continued
Students solving math
“brain teaser” problems
Students using deductive
reasoning skills

6. Standards Display
Brittany has created a set of posters that display
each of the Common Core standards and the related
essential questions and enduring understandings.
Posting these helps to focus instruction, and they
are referred to throughout each lesson. These are
used by all of the 1st grade teachers at SPARK as
well as teachers at 7 other APS schools whose
teachers Brittany has worked with to model
standards-based planning and instruction.
Posters

7. STEM Instruction
As planning for the 2013/14 school year got under
way, Brittany proposed to her 1st grade team that
they plan for monthly STEM instruction. Her
teammates were quick to get on board with the idea,
and Brittany led the way for planning activities and
collecting needed materials. 1st grade students love
our STEM weeks and have been applying crosscurricular knowledge to real world scenarios.
Check out our
STEM projects!

8. STEM Instruction
Continued

9. Intervention Strategies
Brittany applies intervention strategies that target the
needs of struggling learners in all subject areas. She
meets with students in small groups or 1-on-1 on a
daily basis to apply interventions with fidelity. Data
is collected on the effectiveness of these intervention
strategies. This data is used to measure student
growth, make changes to the intervention plan as
appropriate, and/or adjust learning goals.
A student with that has
difficulty organizing their writing
uses a graphic organizer
to plan their
reading response

10. Intervention Strategies
Continued
A student works on a Words Their Way activity.
Assessment data showed that this particular student was
having difficulty with phonics skills such as identifying
onsets and rimes, and phoneme segmentation and blending.
Analyzing the data led to Words Their Way being selected
as an appropriate intervention for the student. Followup
formative assessments have shown that the student has
made great improvements with the program.
A student that has demonstrated
difficulty with segmenting and
blending phonemes uses sound boxes
to develop their phonemic awareness
skills.

11. Anchor Charts
Brittany displays anchor charts throughout her
classroom to showcase learning in all subject areas.
These anchor charts are often created with the
students and serve as important instructional aids
that are frequently referenced by students.

12. Anchor Charts
Continued

13. Book Room
Brittany has been responsible for creating and
maintaining SPARK’s Common Core book room. The
collection features leveled texts for each grade level to
incorporate literacy standards into instruction across
the curriculum. Brittany was responsible for setting
up the physical space, working with each grade team
to select texts, ordering and communicating with the
vendor, working with the PTO to designate and
raise funds, and spending time each week to
maintain the organization and accessibility of
the collection for all SPARK teachers.

14. Book Room
Continued

15. Word Walls
Brittany maintains content specific word walls that
display current vocabulary. These word walls include
terms, definitions, and key pictures. Word walls aid
students in developing their schema of new content,
making connections to previously learned concepts,
and encouraging students to utilize academic language.

16. Timely Intervention and Enrichment
Brittany frequently uses a grid like the one on the
next page during instruction. Each students’ name
is in a box. While teaching, Ms. Beaumont can make
quick notes about students responses or
performance on tasks. Collecting this informal data
on the spot allows her to make immediate decisions
about student grouping and assignments for
independent work sections of that day’s lesson.
This also allows for immediate interventions to
occur when needed.

17. Timely Intervention and Enrichment
Continued

18. Feedback
Written feedback is
provided on students’ inprogress work. This graphic
organizer was completed in
the previous day’s lesson
and was used to determine
what concepts to emphasize
in the follow-up lesson and
the level of support and/or
challenge activities that
would be accommodated for.

19. Feedback
Continued
Brittany engages students in
conferences to discuss their
growth and develop a plan to
maximize learning. Providing
detailed feedback is an
instructional strategy that
helps students to increase
learning.

20. Math Talk
Brittany leads students in math talk activities
throughout the week. This involves...
✤Students verbalizing their mathematical reasoning
✤Students use mathematical vocabulary
✤Students propose multiple solutions or ways of
solving a problem
✤Students analyze and critique the solutions and
shared thought processes of their peers
Brittany created these
card rings for students
to support math talk
strategies. She makes
these cards available to
all teachers for free on
her blog.

21. ✤Students
Math Talk
Continued
engage in math talk activities throughout
the week.
✤Brittany models math talk strategies and provides
students with feedback about their math talk usage.
Brittany frequently
refers to the math talk
sentence talkers on
this poster displayed in
her classroom. These
sentence starters help
to support young
learners as they engage
in math talk.

22. Math Centers
Students participate in math centers 4-5 times a
week. Throughout the week, students rotate to
different center stations. Each station offers 3-4
activities that let them practice skills that are
currently being taught, as well as reinforce
previously learned concepts. While students are
working independently or in small groups at each
center station, Brittany pulls individuals or small
groups for differentiated math instruction (below,
on, and beyond)

23. Math Centers
Continued

24. Literacy Centers
Students participate in literacy centers every day.
Throughout the week, students rotate to 10 different
centers. Each center is meant to reinforce reading,
writing, listening, and speaking skills. While
students are working independently or in small
groups at each center, Brittany pulls small groups
for differentiated reading instruction.
Word Work
Centerpracticing
sight words
Art & Literacy
Center- retelling
stories with
handmade puppets

25. Literacy Centers
Continued
Writing Center- Planning
narratives with a graphic organizer
Poetry Center - Looking for
sound and spelling patterns
Nonfiction News CenterReading articles and
answering text-based
questions

26. Literacy Centers
Continued
Shared reading with
BIG books

27. Guided Reading
Brittany conducts 3-4 guided reading groups each
day. These differentiated groups provide students
the chance to engage in reading instruction that
targets their individual needs. Brittany typically
utilizes leveled books from SPARK’s Common Core
book room.

28. Daily Analogies
Brittany has created a set of posters that display
analogies. A new poster is shared with students
each day. Students work to identify the missing
element, then provide a rationale/support for their
response. This daily higher-level thinking practice
helps students to build important analogical skills.

29. Math Problem Solving
Brittany integrates problem solving into her math
curriculum throughout the week. Students learn
how to identify key information in a problem,
determine unknowns, select strategies, and justify
their work.

30. Daily Five
Brittany incorporates elements of Daily Five into her
literacy instruction every day.
✤Read to self
✤Read to others
✤Listen to reading
✤Work on writing
✤Word Work

31. Literacy Packs
Brittany created take-home literacy packs for her
class. Every student takes home a new pack each
week. The packs contain two children’s texts
(typically one fiction selection and one
informational selection) and follow-up activities for
families to complete together. These packs are
optional enrichment that are meant to foster
families’ interaction with reading and writing at
home. Students and parents love
bringing home new packs each week!

32. Writers Workshop
Brittany engages her students in Writer’s Workshop
sessions throughout the week. Students work
through the writing process - drafting, revising,
editing, publishing - receiving feedback and relevant
support at each stage. This instructional practice
leads to students becoming driven writers who are
trained to attend to the quality of their writing.
Lesson on
editing
Excited to
share published
work

33. Writers Workshop
Continued
Reading a class
published book
Shared
Writing
Digital
Publishing

34. Teacher Leadership
✤Brittany
serves on Spark’s SILT team. The team
works together to identify and support the use of
instructional strategies that will help our school to
achieve goals laid out in the Continuous
Improvement Plan.
✤Brittany
has been involved in leading
district-wide instructional strategy
training sessions. Most recently, she led
a session in August 2013 for kindergarten
teachers on the topic of integrating
Common Core literacy instruction with
Georgia Performance Standards for
Social Studies.

35. Teacher Leadership
Continued
✤Providing
modeling and mentorship for teachers
that are new to APS.
(Brittany meets with these teachers to determine their needs, then models
appropriate strategies and shares relevant resources. The mentoring relationship
is continued through debriefing sessions, follow-up email correspondences, and
future site visits.
Grateful
Mentees

36. ✤Brittany
Teacher Leadership
Continued
creates instructional materials that are
shared with other teachers across the world. She
maintains a blog (http://www.peachy-teaching.com) that she uses
as a platform to share instructional strategies,
lessonideas and resources with other teachers, and
many of the materials that she creates are available
for free on her Teachers Pay Teachers website (http://
www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Brittany-Beaumont)