Shahlo Mamedova

by Sue Wood

Session Time: 05/12/2026 9:00 am | Phase: Reflect and Recommit | Session Length: 0:40

Goals

By May 12, I will create a Professional Development presentation that will illustrate my knowledge of the Science of Reading. My presentation will focus on a specific age group and specific reading skill. The presentation will be developed as a tool to be used with other educational professionals.
Stage: Target Goal

Goal Information

Date: March 4, 2026

Attainment Scale:
Starting Point:

Solidify goal for developing a Power Point Presentation around the Science of Reading

Midpoint:

Meeting on March 23 rd –
 choose age range
 choose a reading skill to focus on
 prepare rough draft of the presentation
 search for literature to support the topic

Target Goal:

Meeting on May 12 th –
 Complete the assignment before this date
 Present your work to Dr. Wood

Results: Shahlo shared her presentation with Dr. Wood. The presentation was thorough and engaging.and revealed deep knowledge of the process of phoneme blending.

Notes

Coach Log Note 1:

Shahlo Mamedova and I met on Tuesday, May 12, for our last coaching meeting. We are in the Reflect and Recommit phase of the Vector model.

Shahlo’s goal was to prepare a presentation that could serve as professional development for teachers who are not familiar with the science of reading, specifically the idea of phoneme blending. Shahlo shared her presentation with me at this meeting. When used with teachers, this will be a 45-60 minute presentation and the audience wll be teachers of English who are not native speakers, specifically focusing on kindergarten teachers.

Shahlo begins her presentation with a question that will engage the participants and lead them to want to know more: “When you are starting to teach reading, what do you notice that seems to be most difficult for children?” She will ask them to talk with their table partners and as they do, she will walk around the room and hopefully will hear that students have difficulty with blending. She then references this throughout the presentation.

The presentation continues with the definitions of phonemes, phoneme blending as well as considering the research behind the necessity of teaching sounds and blending. At one point, she pauses and shows short videos of teachers actually teaching phonemes and blending. A powerful slide is the one in which she shows the progression of blending, from compound words to specific phoneme sounds.

The presentation ends with Shahlo sharing physical multi-sensory resources that teachers can use to teach phoneme blending. She stated that she will actually have the resources gathered together in a container that they will share and use at the end of the presentation.

Shahlo had initially made this presentation to take with her as she leaves the US and goes back to Turkmenistan, and she shared that because the curriculum there is so lecture/text-book based, they are not used to having resources like manipulatives. So, even the act of teaching them to put the physical resources into a container for use in the future will be a positive piece of this professional development.

Since we began this goal, Shahlo has had wonderful news in that she may get to remain in the US and be a lecturer for KU, but everything depends on whether she can obtain a visa. Should she get to remain in the US, she still feels as though developing this presentation has been extremely valuable. She did not have any of this knowledge prior to this course and now feels as though when she is lecturing to potential undergraduate students who are going to be elementary teachers, she will have knowledge of reading that she did not have in the past.

Shahlo and I agreed that this has been a wonderful experience, valuable for both of us! We determined that if she gets to stay in the US, we will arrange a time to have lunch!