KATHRYN WARNER
Professional Teaching Portfolio
Hello!
My name is Kathryn Warner and I am currently seeking an elementary teaching position for the 2024-2025 school year.
I moved to Santa Barbara two years ago. Since then, I taught one year of 6th grade at Santa Barbara Community Academy and one year of 5th grade at Monte Vista Elementary. Before that, I taught kindergarten in the Austin, TX area for 18 years. Each year, I have had extremely diverse classrooms--in terms of cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds, language proficiency, learning styles, learning disabilities and social-emotional needs. I've worked hard to adapt my teaching methods to meet the needs of all my students and am proud to say that, despite the challenges, my students were able to shine both academically and socially.
I invite you to explore this portfolio, which further highlights my experience and qualifications. I hope it conveys how much I love teaching and how much my students mean to me. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions!
Philosophy of Education
All children deserve to feel safe, welcomed and loved in their classroom–despite race, ethnicity, language, gender or socioeconomic background. We should appreciate the things we have in common and celebrate the things that make us unique.
Children learn best when constructing their own knowledge through inquiry-driven, hands-on activities and investigations. As a teacher, I challenge my students with a variety of meaningful learning experiences that relate what they discover in the classroom to what they already know.
As a teacher, I am never done learning. I am reflective, continually evaluating my instruction and the results in order to make changes as needed. I will continue to educate myself on the latest research-based practices and also work to identify and eliminate my own personal biases.
READING
Reading has always been a magical time in my classroom. You'll find kids snuggled up with pillows and stuffed animals--completely engrossed in a book, laughing or talking with a friend about what they've read. Reading opens so many doors for children and is the key to all other learning. I hope to instill a love for reading in my students that will stay with them for the rest of their lives!
My primary literacy instruction includes:
A strong foundation of phonological awareness that encourages children to hear and manipulate the sounds in words. Activities include rhyming, songs, poems, and explicit activities in which children blend, segment and isolate phonemes.
Systematic and sequential phonics instruction based on the SCIENCE OF READING that teaches children the relationship between letters, sounds and words.
Ongoing assessments to drive instruction and meet children where they are.
Flexible strategy groups and individual reading conferences to help children practice their skills and deepen comprehension.
Interactive read alouds in which students develop higher-level comprehension skills including predicting, making connections and inferencing.
Access to books with diverse characters in which students can see themselves and learn about others.
Integration of reading and writing into math, science and social studies.
KINDER WRITING
We write in our classroom every day. It's amazing to watch children grow as writers--from their very first scribbles and random strings of letters to creative stories with phonetic spelling, SPACES and punctuation! We use the writing process to write personal narratives, informational texts, persuasive texts and poems.
KINDER MATH
Christina Tondevold, one of my favorite math experts, says “Number sense can’t be taught, it’s caught.” So providing children with engaging, hands-on opportunities to explore, count, compare, estimate, think and talk about numbers is essential! We also place a strong emphasis on problem-solving that connects math to the real world. Children are encouraged to solve problems in ways that make sense to them and share their thinking with others.
Activities include:
Number Talks
Choral Counting
Counting Collections
Three-Act Tasks
SCIENCE
Science in our classroom is hands-on, inquiry-based, connected to real life--with a strong emphasis on vocabulary and writing. It is also messy, loud and FUN!
INTERACTIVE SCIENCE WORD WALLS
Over the past few years, I have been lucky enough to work with Dr. Julie Jackson, from Texas State University, on creating Interactive Science Word Walls in my classroom. Interactive Science Word Walls are giant, student-created graphic organizers that help students develop a deep understanding of key vocabulary. They are made with my kids in the context of hands-on, inquiry-based science activities. Vocabulary is introduced as children are having concrete experiences that they can connect all those words to. Students can then access this vocabulary as they have conversations and write about science concepts.
ADVENTURES in SIXTH GRADE
After having taught Pre-K and Kindergarten for 18 years (with one brief stop in 3rd grade), this past year, I was given the opportunity to teach 6th grade. One day, I was teaching students how to add numbers through 10 and the next I was teaching students how to represent and analyze quantitative relationships between dependent and independent variables. And, most of the students were taller than me! It was the biggest challenge of my teaching career--the learning curve was HUGE. There were definitely some tough days, but I never gave up. I worked with my colleagues, instructional coach and administration and spent hours reading about strategies and best practices. I grew to love the curriculum, but mostly, I grew to love the kids--their resilience and determination, their independence and their sense of humor. It was an amazing experience that I will never forget and it made me a better teacher!
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Taught a diverse class of students, working closely with the special education teacher, interventionists and counselors to make sure all students had access to grade-level material.
Worked with my 6th grade teammate to create skills-based math groups based on formative assessments. Provided extensive intervention to students performing below grade-level and enrichment to those performing at or above grade-level.
Created a class of readers! Took students who were rarely reading books independently to students who were completing 2-3 books per month by tracking reading through Accelerated Reader, offering prizes and incentives for finishing books, creating book clubs, introducing new books through First Chapter Friday, and creating a culture of reading in our classroom.
Led students to an average 85% Student Growth Percentile as measured by the March 2023 STAR Reading Assessment.
Served on the districtwide ELA Adoption Committee. Field tested the new curriculum in our classroom.
Created a culturally responsive and inclusive classroom built on students’ interests, cultures, backgrounds and home experiences; made sure classroom materials, especially literature, were representative of diverse cultures so that students could make personal connections to what they were learning.
Incorporated Social Emotional Learning and character lessons daily to build a strong classroom community based on mutual respect and responsibility. Worked to build the stamina, resilience and self-confidence of students.
